This is the first time in my movie-counting life that I’ve seen over 50 movies by the middle of the year. As a general number, I picked 48 a year, to make sure I -at least- watched one film a week for my end of the year list.
There’s a LOT of bad and meh movies so far, but there’s also a decent Top10. Not unbelievable, but decent. It’s a working one that would do for a Dec.31 or Jan.01 publishing date. LOL
It’s been a while since I posted an animated short… especially from a French animation school, and chickens set in 1700 Versailles seemed like a no-brainer. It’s super cute and funny. Duh! It’s chickens! In Versailles! LOL
A short movie by:
Julien Hazebroucq
Emmanuelle Leleu
Morrigane Boyer
William Lorton
Ren Hsien Hsu
What’s more awesome than just animation? And origami? How about origami-animation? Japanese tissue manufacturer Nepia has a short commercial/PSA/short showcasing origami animals and some stop-motion.
Creative director: Jin Sato (佐藤仁)
Copyrighter: Ochi Kazuyoshi (越智一仁)
Producer: Takuo Ozawa (小澤卓男), Yasuhiro Kawasaki (川崎泰広)
Director: Arai Fuyu (新井風愉)
Production manager: Takasugi Makoto (高杉誠)
Stop-motion animation: Ohno Motoki (おーのもとき)
Camera: Chiyoe Sugita (杉田知洋江)
Camera assistant: Mahiro Shintani (新谷真博)
Lights: HIGASIX
Lights assistant: Tomoya Yoshimura (吉村知弥)
Art: Kiyomi Tokita (鴇田清美), Takanori Saito (斉藤貴教), Shizuka Masaki (正木静香)
Editor: Maho Inamoto (稲本真帆)
Music: Mituru Samejima (鮫島充)
Sound effects: Yoshiaki Tokunaga (徳永義明)
This is an eerily gorgeous claymation that I ran into yesterday. Best enjoyed in High Definition.
Alternate YouTube link here.
I also made a [nomination] list of all my favorite foreign things of the last decade. If I had included all movies, general suspects would have applied (eg. Children of Men, Dancer in the Dark), but still remains a very ME list. I hope you like the selection, and don’t hesitate in suggesting films to watch.
Happy new year, everyone!
Sorry for the lack of posts last month. To make up for it, here are five posts so you can catch up to my 2013 and to get you going this 2014.
What is this lady-boner that I got watching Frozen? I really liked The Princess and the Frog (despite Prince Naveen) and wasn’t much of a fan of Tangled (despite Mother Gothel)- Frozen, instead, achieves the perfect balance. And I love love love LOVE Elsa. AND I DIDN’T EVEN SEE the original audio, and I loved it.
Idina Menzel, though, wow. Vocal boner. I do kinda liked the Spanish latino version of the song, Libre Soy [1] performed by Carmen Sarahi, a little bit better in lyrics and meaning, but Menzel’s vocals take the song to unparalleled heights. Can’t wait to get to watch the original audio track.
Elsa… Elsa swings her hips when she walks! And she has a smirk! She feels and is in turmoil and doesn’t seek a man to fix her life. She wants to be left alone, but of course- all she needs is open up her heart to her sister! Of course I love it.
I ran into this clip of Chulpan Khamatova, which I thought was a Behind the Scene voice-over session for some animation, but turns out to be a music video with Khamatova (alongside Andrei Makarevich, Vyacheslav Butusov and Sergei Makovetsky) singing. Multi-talented, I tell you [1].
The song is called My Letin (Мы летим) — which translates to We Fly — and is a song included in the series Flying Animals (Летающие звери, Letayushtie Zveri), an animated charity series that aims to aid children with their treatments with the show’s profits. They don’t ask for money, they generate it by selling their products.
You can check them out on Facebook, VK, LiveJournal, Soundcloud, Twitter, Instagram, their official site at FlyAni.ru, and -of course- YouTube.
Oh, I’m getting kinda good at this, no?
I almost forgot checking out this new video that’s popped up, by Russian alt rock band Neschastny Sluchai (Несчастный Случай) — Khamatova ice-skated to one of their songs #12 — and their new music video for the song Suyeta Suyet (Суета Сует) which translates as something like Vanity of Vanities, perhaps?
The music video is in the style of Her Morning Elegance [1] or Leessang’s Turned of the TV [MV] or maybe Monsieur Perine’s Cou Cou [MV], and it was directed by Russian animator Sergey Merinov (Сергей Меринов) [YouTube].
The video stars Aleksey Kortnev (Алексей Кортнев), whom I just recently found out voiced Jack Skellington in the Russian dubbed version of The Nightmare Before Christmas; as well as -obviously- Chulpan Khamatova. ;P
This also gives me reason to talk about other Khamatova music video projects~ Apparently, the music video for Arbenina’s Idi Ko Mne [1] still hasn’t been released. Add to that: DDT’s Gde My Lyetim (Где мы летим) [MV], which apparently translated to something like Where We Fly. I’m still fuzzy on Russian grammar.
— Update Oct. 18th 2013 —
The music video for Idi Ko Mne is out. [1]
I was finally doing some room cleaning, and ran into this plastic bag that had a whole bunch of the tickets of movies I caught while living/staying in Van. The results? Of course, I spent over two hours trying to make out some of the fade tickets, arranged them and put them in order of attendance.
The first movie that I caught there was Hulk at what used to be Tinseltown Cinemark. The first two columns cover my first year of studies. My maximum number of movies a month was 9 flicks in January 2004 (Cold Mountain, Big Fish, Peter Pan, 21 Grams, Along Came Polly, Monster, Butterfly Effect, The Cooler and Ginger Snaps 2), April 2004 (Hellboy, The Delicate Art of Parking, Kill Bill, Connie and Carla, Home on the Range, The Punisher, Dogville (twice) and Man on Fire), followed by July 2006 (Devil Wears Prada, The Omen,The Lake House, The King, PotC 2, Lady in the Water, Strangers with Candy, and an unidentified movie that’s already faded) with 8 flicks.
