Chainsaw Maid - The World’s Most Graphically Violent Clamation

After watching the short claymation film Chainsaw Maid from The Digg Reel (subscribe here), I knew that I had to share it. Claymation has always had a place in my heart starting with Gumby and Penny (from Pee Wee’s Playhouse) and more recently with Knox toons, but this is quite different… and much more violent.

Enjoy the short film, but remember, I warned you.

Dany

JibJab is Back to Crack You Up with Time for Some Campaignin’

I think most of you remember the hillarious JibJabers from their amazingly funny hit from the 2004 election season: This Land! Well, they’re back for this year’s presidential election with Time for Some Campaignin’… JibJab never really went away, they’ve actually been making videos since 1999 way back in the dial-up days and before the dot-com bubble burst.

Thanks to Net@Nite (subscribe here)for interviewing those funny JibJab founders. Hopefully soon, those crafty JibJab guys will set up their videos as a podcast to make them even easier for people to watch and keep up to date on their latest funny videos.

Enjoy

Dany

As an added treat, here’s the This Land! video below, just in case you forgot what I was talking about.

Watch Why America Rules, England Sucks and See the Family Guy Crew Record an Episode from The Digg Reel

This first clip is fitting since we celebrated America’s independence earlier this month, from Break.com, America Rules England Sucks.

The second clip is a behind the scenes look at a Family Guy taping. It is very strange watching Seth McFarland switching from one voice to another having a conversation with himself, but the whole thing is hilarious.

Enjoy these two clips I found from watching episodes of The Digg Reel (subscribe here).

Dany

Pixar’s First Short Film from 1984: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B

After reviewing Pixar’s most recent success in Wall-E, it’s only fitting that I present the very first Pixar short titled: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. It’s hard to believe that Pixar’s origins go all the way back to 1984, since they burst onto the scene over a decade later with Toy Story. What’s also interesting is that along with presenting the short film, The Experience Project also chronicles the early history of Pixar.

Thanks to The Digg Reel (subscribe here) for highlighting this early work.

Enjoy

Dany

WALL-E Review

Before Wall-E came out, I thought the robot was a ripoff of Johnny 5 for kids too young to remember Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2. After seeing the movie though, I can admit that I was wrong… the good thing is that I am not usually this glad to be wrong about something. There were also some great nods to classic science fiction and technology fans, with callbacks to 2001: A Space Oddyssey and the classic Mac startup chime,

to just name a couple.

I consider myself a jaded New Yorker and that’s why I was so surprised to be emotionally knocked on my ass for many scenes in this film. I even teared up during some of the scenes between Wall·E and Eve (the slick white robot that resembles ASIMO), which was the most surprising thing for me. I was NOT expecting to be hit so hard by the love story and the ability of Pixar’s animators to imbue that much emotion into robots that say less than 5 words to one another.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film though was the first 40 or so minutes of the film on Earth, first with WALL·E alone and then with Eve. This was some of the best pantomime since Charlie Chaplain and what really moved me was the interaction between WALL·E and Eve reminded me of Chaplain’s City Lights. I liked the juxtaposition between Fred Willard’s live action scenes from the past and the animated humans who are now blubberous blobs of laziness and a shell of their ancestors, played to a tee with voicework from Jeff Garlin John Ratzenberger and Kathy Najimy.

This movie is a definate must see, even the silent animated short with a hungry bunny and an obnoxious magician was entertaining to watch and I know I’m going to be looking for this movie when it is finally released on dvd. Thanks to MoviePatron for the above pic.

Dany

Attempting to Break the Civil War Map

I know it is a gross oversimplification to say that the South votes Republican, while the North votes Democrat here in the US, but the New Yorker has an interesting video in their Naked Campaign series (subscribe here), called Map Quest, where they talk about which states Obama could win to get the magic number (270) in the electoral college, while also pointing out which states McCain could swoop in and take himself.

It’s quite interesting to watch, especially for a political junkie, like myself.

Dany

Sebastian’s Voodoo - 3D Animation

I love finding interesting short films, especially those made by enthusiasts. This short is called Sebastian’s Voodoo and was created by Joaquin Baldwin and scored by Nick Favola at the UCLA Animation Workshop. I found this video because of Boing Boing TV (subscribe here).

Watch as a brave voodoo doll tries to save its fellow voodoo dolls from harm. If you can, try and check out the high quality version to get a feel for some of the amazing detail work that went into this!

Enjoy a visually stunning 4 minutes created using Maya and After Effects.

Dany

The Onion Strikes Again

The Onion (subscribe here) reports on the newest, laziest and most slovenly solution to anyone’s fast food needs in their recent report: New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less.

If I didn’t think this was so likely to become a real product option, I’d find this funnier, but as it is, I’m a bit afraid that it isn’t too far from being a viable option sometime in the near future, especially after seeing the World of Warcraft South Park episode!

Enjoy what is, for now, a hilarious farce.

Dany

The Birds… Minus Those Pesky Birds Re-edit by Martijn Hendriks

In a similar vein to Garfield Minus Garfield, we have Martijn Hendriks taking the classic Hitchock film The Birds and digitally editing out all the birds that the movie is named for, frame by painstaking frame as part of an art project called Give Us Today Our Daily Terror which is slated for completion in 2008.

There are currently only 3 excerpts (1, 2, 3) available and some movie stills, but this is an interesting project that you should check out. I can’t wait to see what the final 2 hour movie will be like.

Enjoy

Dany

I would give credit to where I heard about this art project from, but for the life of me I can not remember which podcast mentioned it recently. If anybody knows, can you leave a comment or email me about it, I feel bad not attributing where I found out about this from.

Research Robots Powered By Gecko Knowhow

There were two videos released on CNET TV (get the CNET News podcast here) where Kara Tsuboi interview the researchers at Stanford, who have been studying how geckos are able to scale walls without falling (watch the video here) and have taken that and adapted a robot they call Stickybot (watch that video here).

Maybe some day the idea of seeing Spiderman scaling walls will not just appear in comics and movies, a person could go to a store and pick up a gecko inspired suit and could add this to their set of rock climbing equipment or something.

Thanks to Stanford for the above pic.

Dany

Pixeloo Shows What Cartoon Characters Would Look Like in the Flesh

After watching the latest Geekbrief.tv, I found out what Homer Simpson and Mario Mario would look like if they were real flesh and bone humans you could meet on the street from artist Pixeloo… warning, these pictures are awesome but creepy as hell!

Enjoy, if you can handle things getting WAY too real…

Dany