A bunch of old hags out on the town.
Bag heads attack.
Summer movies CONTINUE as May ends!
Great! Another zombie movie.
Sex and the City – Set four years after the television show ended, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis are up to their old antics in New York City. Meanwhile Parker is getting ready for her marriage to Mr. Big.
A bunch of scarecrows kinda creep me out.
Many people probably remember the old Bonkers series that used to come on the Disney Afternoon, but I imagine many people forgot about the show Bonkers originated from called Raw Toonage. In a confusing series of events, somehow Disney developed these two shows at the same time, with the idea that Raw Toonage would show that Bonkers did have a career as a cartoon character before losing work and joining the police force in the real world.
Anyway, Raw Toonage was sort of Disney’s stab at what Warner Brothers had seemingly mastered with Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, in that they wanted to create a variety show of sorts. Each episode would have a bunch of different shorts with different main characters, and the episode would be hosted by another well known Disney character like Goofy, or even Tale Spin’s Don Karnage. The show wasn’t particularly memorable, or good even, but it had a few bright spots. I recalled this old short called “Badly Animated Man” and decided to look it up on Youtube, and sure enough, it was there. It’s a pretty good stab at the sorts of cartoons that were out around then.
Rambo – John Rambo is living alone on the Burmese border. When some missionaries ask for his help, he at first denies, but eventually gives in. When they are captured as war prisoners, he feels he must do something about it.
Cassandra’s Dream – Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are two brothers who get in over their heads when a wealthy relative asks for a favor that gets them involved in crime. Directed by Woody Allen.
The Air I Breathe – a unique movie based on the 4 emotional cornerstones of happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love. The 4 stories end up connecting. Starring Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Bacon, and Andy Garcia.
After nearly twenty years, another installment of the Indiana Jones series has been released into theaters. I have very vivid memories of seeing ads in the newspaper for Raiders of the Lost Ark and begging my Dad to take us. For some reason I just knew it was going to be awesome. Today, the ending of Raiders looks almost silly with clearly wax sculpture faces melting away under a dash of mystical light that would eventually cause Belloq’s head to explode, but back in the early 80’s to a seven year old it was scary as hell. Less than a decade later, I would eventually see two other installments which further cemented my love of The Man In The Hat.
Needless to say, I had high expectations from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Last night, I went to the theater to see what Spielberg and crew came up with. I went into the theater last night pumped-up and excited, and I left feeling the same exact way. I seriously left like a kid on Christmas Eve. Despite it’s sci-fi under pinning, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fits happily into the series and does not disappoint. This review is spoilerific, so if you haven’t seen it yet…well, you’ve been warned.
The first thing you need to get into your head is that there is indeed a large sci-fi element to KotCS. The line of reasoning was that since the film was taking place in the late 50’s, when the Red Scare was running rampant in America, science fiction films and rampaging aliens were the headlines at movie houses. I think it was a smart move to incorporate this angle into the series to give it a fresh take and to firmly plant it into its time period.
An old adventurer returns!
No competition again this week.
Everyone is afraid of Dr. Jones!!!
The Jones Family? Maybe? Go see it and find out.
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Harrison Ford returns after 19 years to reprise his role as famous archaeologist adventurer and overall badass, Indiana Jones. This time he battles the Soviets (one being Cate Blanchett) as they try to uncover ancient artifacts in order to take over the world. Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Shia LeBouf also stars.
“Good Breeding” is a senior thesis film by Smorgas Board regular, Alex Berry AKA “josephmcklay”. He shared the early pencil test version of it with us back in January, and has since gone on to finish it up. I think he did a bang up job on it, and thought I’d post it up here for everyone else to get a kick out of it. Congrats on a job well done, Alex!
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets – Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) returns with Diane Kruger and the gang trying to track down the diary of John Wilkes Booth in order to uncover a worldwide conspiracy. The Gates family ancestry comes into question. Ed Harris joins the cast as a rival to Gates.
Strange Wilderness - Steve Zahn and his crew work on a wilderness show that is failing miserably. They decide to go on a hunt for Bigfoot to boost their ratings. A Happy Madison production also starring Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Alan Covert, Kevin Heffernan, Jeff Garlin and the usual Sandler cronies.
Those are the 2 main releases this week but we also get Night Of The Living Dead SE, Letters From Iwo Jima SE, 24 Season 1 SE, Nip/Tuck Season 5, The Muppet Show Season 5, Square Pegs entire series, JAG Season 6, Gomer Pyle USMC Season 4, Penn & Teller: Bullshit Season 5, and Charles in Charge Season 3.
A buddy of mine sent this clip over to me the other day, and I really dug it. Its rendered to look like an Atari 2600 game with square-ish, simplistic characters running around playing paintball, but they are animated well and the short moves along at an entertaining pace. I followed Lovesport’s link to the rest of his (or their’s?) shorts. They’re all done in a similar manner, but I was surprised to see that these are done in 3D as in one short, “The Dogs”, the camera zooms in tight to reveal space and vollume on the characters. Enjoy!
Ah, the soft warm glow of monitors in the night. I kind of like being in the dark, and one of the best things about the Cintiq is that I’m finally able to draw with the lights out. I realized that I’ve been a little quiet here on the Shamooz’ lately, though thankfully John, Frank and Steve have been adding some great content over the last few weeks. Frank has been doing some great things with GFG#3 and has been sharing some awesome insight that I hope aspiring Flash animators are taking note of. Unlike me, he actually works in the biz, so listen to what the man has to say.
I’ve spent more time than I should have over the last few weeks giving some old Shamoozal characters a bit of a face lift. You’ve already seen Plum, and I’ve given you a taste or another one above. There’s one more left, and anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out who the other character is by this point. Anyway, we put a deadline on this next episode and I’m all about hitting it. Hell, we have to hit it because if we don’t things will start slipping into MGS4 territory, and we don’t want that now do we? I didn’t get as much time as I wanted to work today, but at least I spent a good chunk of the night hammering away at things. I’ll finally be able to move onto the meat and potatoes of this project after tonight. About damn time.
I mentioned it in the podcast, but this next episode is going to be a good one, and no, I’m not just saying that because it’s ours and I have to say that. When Frank went over the animatic with me two weeks ago I seriously gave it a few LOLs. He showed an updated version of it to me again last week and I was laughing at it again. I believe there was a quote from someone from Monty Python who said something along the lines of “If we laugh at our own jokes, then it’s good enough for us” and I can’t really help but feel that away about “The Last Copy.” When we wrap up with a short, I’m usually sick and tired of what I’m watching and question whether or not it’s really funny. With “Rated M” I thought we had some good material, but I wasn’t sure how the new direction would blow over. With “Tactical” I felt maybe there were more inside jokes than we should have had. With this, I feel like we really hit the nail on the head. There’s a great mix of everything that we learned, and when you throw in all the returning characters I think fans and n00bs alike will both be damn pleased. Who knows how I’ll feel once we’re finished with it, but for now, I’m pretty excited with what we’re going to have.
