Sebastian’s Voodoo is a film by Joaquin Baldwin of Pixel Nitrate about a voodoo doll that “must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.”
It’s a fantastically animated short with a surprising amount of emotion, and has won countless awards, so it’s definitely worth enjoying for a few minutes:
(Be sure to visit Pixel Nitrate if you’d like to view or download the movie in a number of different formats, including 720p high definition.)
Carlos Lascano’s A Short Love Story In Stop Motion is a beautiful example of what’s possible when a talented artist that has mastered a medium tells a story filled with emotion in just a few minutes.
Though it’s hard to believe, most of this is not CGI, as the characters are made of wire and wood, then covered in paper, the clothing is paper, and the indoor scenarios are all made with paper and cardboard.
Says Carlos,
I wanted to achieve an organic look, away from the perfection found in computer drawing, so I used only real objects and hand-drawing that were later composed in After Effects.
If you haven’t already seen it, then fire up Fandango, find a theater that’s playing it near you, and go see Juno.
It’s that good.
The story is about Juno MacGuff, a “confidently frank teenage girl who calls the shots with a nonchalant cool and an effortless attitude as she journeys through an emotional nine-month adventure into adulthood”.
Ellen Page plays Juno, and lights up the screen with what I can easily imagine will be a multiple-award-winning performance, Her witty, fast paced dialogue creates a lovable character that you can’t help but root for, and she manages to both control her life with a tough exterior and search for meaning within a growing interior at the same time.
Michael Cera plays Bleeker (the father) and continues his recent climb up Hollywood’s star ladder. He isn’t in the film as much as I would have expected, but the scenes that he is in are filled with a great dialogue that lends itself well to the high-school theme. Both Juno and Bleeker are a mix of confidence and confusion, and their growing and changing relationship mirrors the growing and chancing that Juno’s body is going through.
Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner play the role of the adopting parents, and each deliver a stellar performance that adds another element to the film. Bateman struggles to figure out what type of person he wants to become as Garner struggles to become the person that she knows she wants to be, and neither over-sells their role.
Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons play the role of Juno’s parents, and are supportive in a way that is both enviable and believable.
For a movie that manages to make you feel good, it does deal with a rather heavy issue, and also runs through the full range of emotions. There are moments of pure comedy, moments of great emotion and connection, moments of truth and moments of powerful silence, and each pulls you in a different direction. However, the plot never takes you down an expected path, and in the end, you’ll want to cheer for a film that manages to define what a coming-of-age tale should be.
I Am Legend felt like a good idea that no one knew what to do with.
There were a few shining stars:
Will Smith’s acting was superb, in a Tom Hanks on an island sort of way, and you really feel for him as he navigates the empty streets of New York with Sam, his devoted dog, and his slowly fading sanity as he tries his best to cure the zombied world around him.
The CGI work was also superb, and you will easily believe that New York was stripped bare and left to sit for a few years to give it that true, hasn’t seen humans in a while look and feel.
However, there were also a few disappointments:
The story was…less than superb. It starts out slow, which is fine, since Will is, after all, alone, except for his dog, so he doesn’t exactly have a lot to do. He spends his time driving around the emptied streets in abandoned sports cars, hunting for deer that now roam those streets, teeing off on the back of an aircraft carrier, and, when he has a few spare moments, trying to cure the zombie disease that has killed off the rest of the world. And hiding from darkness. This takes up most of his time, and most of the first half of the movie is spent setting this groundwork for the story that you think will come.
Unfortunately, the second half of the film doesn’t do much better. There are a few moments when the pace picks up, and you begin to feel as if something is actually going to happen, but they’re few and far between, and you’re soon lulled into a sedated state as you begin to simply watch Will live. Then, the end of the film arrives, and it comes so abruptly that you hardly have time to comprehend what’s going on. Just as quickly as it began, the lights flick back and on you’re left sitting in your chair with a strong feeling of “Meh.”
The story also suffers from the problem of “Well, isn’t that convenient.” Every time something needs to happen, it does, and every time you see a movie cliché building, it doesn’t fail to disappoint. I can only think of one twist that I didn’t see coming, but even that twist seemed forced and didn’t make much sense when you consider what was discussed during the preceding parts of the movie. The ending basically rounded out the whole film, as it managed to be both conveniently timed and cliché filled.
I Am Legend just feels like a film that relied on a lot of CGI and Will Smith to cover up a thin plot and poor, cliché details. It lacked the scare that it needed to be a good horror film, the emotion that it needed to be a good ‘man on an island’ film, and the twists and turns it needed to be a good action/adventure film. Instead, it forces its way through a butchering of Richard Matheson’s story, and avoids anything that could have made this a great film.
Armed with a camera, a face, and the information that is currently floating around the Photo-Blogo-Sphere, you will soon be shooting portraits like never before.
Hot on the heels of The Art of Portrait Photography, Epic Edits Weblog has put together a list of 16 Inspirational Portrait Photography Techniques.
With texture, exposure, lighting, posing, reflections, shadows, focus, [...]
“Unsubscribe Me” is an Amnesty International campaign against human rights abuse in the ‘war on terror’.
Instead of PGing the message to appeal to a wider audience, AI instead chose to show the real deal, and put a performance artist through the real interrogation techniques permitted by the CIA handbook.
The first of three films is called [...]
I Am Legend felt like a good idea that no one knew what to do with.
