Wall-E by Pixar Animation Studios

Ok ok ok... I'm kinda geekin' out right now. Admittedly, I'm extremely biased when it comes to Pixar in general. But I am downright exploding with ... I dunno... SOMETHING about Wall-E. And I haven't even seen it yet.

In fact, emily tried to talk down my excitement a tad the other day, just on the off chance that I'm disappointed by the movie. What can I say, she's looking out for me :).

"Dan, I come here on the off chance that you posted a comic, and occasionally for videos. Not movie reviews for movies you haven't seen yet. Honestly. This blog jumped the shark back when you posted 'Rejected'."

Fine, fine. You want videos? I'll give ya videos. MORE WALL-E VIDEOS. These are more in the "Wall-E Meets" series of vignettes. Don't worry, not a spoiler in sight.

This last one has caused me to contemplate thievery on multiple occasions. I hear these things are wandering around the Disney theme parks, which happen to by right down the road from where I live. I could probably fit one in my car, right?

Lastly, check out Disney's website and wait for the intro to load up. Careful though, after the intro a trailer plays, so be prepared to hit the pause button if you're trying to save the movie for when you actually go see it.

GO SEE WALL-E.

More - Mark Osborne

Today's featured animation is "More" by Mark Osborne. This was released in 1998, and was the first short to be filmed in the IMAX format. As with most things I throw up here, it won a ton of awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award the year it was released.

Animation wise, we're looking at another Stop-Motion, or Claymation piece, with a little 2D thrown in for good measure. There's a good interview with Osborne about his process overe at AnimWatch.

Check out Mark Osborne's official site here. Enjoy!

More - Free videos are just a click away

Wall-E Vignettes

So emily and I just saw Kung Fu Panda last night, and I must say it was absolutely awesome. It was a good story, combined with great action sequences (although perhaps a bit of over use in the "slow motion to full speed to slow motion" department) and hilarious dialog from Mr. Jack Black. Not to mention the animation itself was superb. All around fantastic, and without question Dreamworks' best animated film to date.

That being said, my enthusiasm for Pixar's next offering can not be satiated that easily. June 27th I will assuredly be seated in a movie theater, waiting to watch a movie that has little to no dialog. A stark contradiction to the Dreamworks approach of throwing as many Hollywood stars as possible at everything they make. I think Jackie Chan had maybe two lines in Kung Fu Panda, and between Lucy Lui and Angelina Jolie there might have been a page of script.

Hopefully you've seen at least one or two articles / commercials about Wall-E. In the "viral" marketing department, Pixar has been releasing some vignettes of the cute little guy coming across objects from our world that he might not understand at first glance. For today's featured animation, I bring to you some brilliant animation by none other than Pixar Animation Studios.

Fun Fact: The sound designer that created the robot "voices" for Wall-E is Ben Burtt, the same guy who designed Chewbacca's voice, R2D2's blips, and that lightsaber noise, among other things. Enjoy!

Marvel on the Small Screen

Today's video has been around the nets for a while now, but once again I have to give credit to Mr. Calendine for reminding me that it exists. Thanks Ben.

I really don't know much about the origins of this video, other than Marvel Comics had it put together to try and sell some more comics with their three current movie franchise characters. And I must say, it's pretty fantastic. So sit back, relax, and enjoy some super hero CG that wasn't ruined by any Hollywood interference.