How to Train Your Dragon is Good?

Dreamworks has a tendency to do this. They make a CGI movie and release a trailer for it. The trailer is terrible. The movie ends up being a laugh riot. They really have to fire their trailer guys.

The first move that did this was Over The Hedge. The movie that had just preceded it was Shark Tale, which had a good trailer, and which was also bad. Tragically un-funny at times. So if that one had a good trailer and was bad, Over the Hedge has a bad trailer, so it must be ghastly.

But no! It wasn't! Over the Hedge was actually really funny! Madagascar's trailer made it look hilarious; it wasn't. Flushed Away had a bad trailer, and was good. The trailers for Bee Movie were pretty good and the movie, while not terrible, wasn't really describable as good. Kung Fu Panda? Totally crap trailer. Movie? Fan-freaking-tastic. Monsters Vs. Aliens made the movie look hilarious, and it turned out to be... humorous. And now How to Train Your Dragon. REALLY bad trailers, and the movie is, until Toy Story 3 comes out, the highest-rated film of the year!

What is going on over there?! They make a great film and just think "well, we've got this great film. Why bother with a trailer? Haha! We only need those to trick people into crap movies!" Cue the fat, cigar-smoking fat cats laughing in comfy chairs.

LUCKILY, this may end up being great for audiences. The relationship appears to be holding quite well, meaning that if a trailer makes a move look great, you can rest assured that the movie isn't the slightest bit worth watching.

Another Jessica Rabbit Wallpaper

It just seemed like a good idea. It was.

I'm putting the copy above as a way to move up in Google listings. Don't copy it. Use the links below to go directly to my Picasa feed. There you can download the full-resolution versions.

4:3 Screen Ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

16:10 Screen Ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

FIRST JESSICA RABBIT WALLPAPERS!!

OMGZ! I actually got something done!

I've been gone for quote awhile and haven't really had a chance to work on anything, but I'm feeling pretty good now that I've managed to poop out something.

This isn't what Jessica will eventually look like, because I'm still working on all of the details, which are REALLY hard to recreate in vectors. But since I had the outline done, I figured an artsy silhouette wallpaper was in order.

Much like the one I did for Betty Boop, I tried to distill the image of Jessica to its primary lines. Make it simple while still communicating that it was her. I wasn't able to do this with Red Hot Riding Hood, and it was basically Betty's head that let me do it with her (Snicker), but Jessica was easily communicated with the two things that most define her construct, her hair and boobs.

I added shoes and lips because I like adding lips to these silhouettes, not sure why, and the shoes just seemed to balance the image, with bits of red on both ends giving the image an enclosed look. Also, I think I may have a shoe fetish. I'm gonna' go feel up a strapless pump and see what happens.

Regardless, here they are, Jessica Rabbit Wallpaper #1

4:3 ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

16:10 ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

I also was going to a color invert on a black background, but instead of being so boring I whipped up a sparkly mess to convey her image. I used the same filter that I'm using to render her dress in the final image. Here, it's just for fun.

4:3 ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

16:10 ratio

From Cartoon Vixens Wallpapers

Teh Nu Hottnessz

I wrote in a post while back about how much I love pin-up art, but dislike much of the new pin-up work that's being done. Apparently, that only includes North America, because France alone is producing some very promising work.

As I mentioned in my previous article, much of the pin-up work being done today is for the sake of easy money in want amounts to facile pornography. Technically good, sometimes amazing, but totally lacking in artistic texture.

Worse still, the styles implemented by these artists are all vaguely similar, resulting in a homogeneous pile of hardly-distinguishable images. Much like Triplets of Belleville, which looked like nothing from America or Japan, the work by these French artists is a breath of fresh air.


From what I've seen, none of these guys comes close to Gil Elvgren or Hajime Sorayama, but they're all young and better than me, so I guess I shouldn't criticize too much. I hope that this kind of stuff makes its way to the US more.

French Illustrators Pin-Ups (BuzzFeed.com)

Plot Contrivances in UP.

I heart Pixar in a big way. They are consistent in ways that no studio has ever been. Each film is memorable. Each film is a huge financial success.

Their recent opus, UP, was really good, and has been nominated for a few awards, but isn't my favorite. I actually think I'd prefer watching the arguably inferior Cars.

How could I say such a thing? Simply, UP has more plot holes and contrivances than any previous Pixar film.

• They travel from a city that resembles Chicago to... South America, in a single night.


• Charles Muntz, after killing a giant thing with a shaving kit, discovering car-sized turtles and dinosaur-like things. After having done more than many countries, loses his reputation for supposedly lying about a large bird? What? If it had been a fucking T-Rex, I could understand, but a bird?! I guess a t-Rex wouldn't have made a good, cute side-kick.


• That reality was bent for the house on balloons is fine, but the fact that Carl regularly circumvents physics when holding the house down, dragging it along easily, holding Dug, Russell, and the bird up with nary but the traction in his boots. It just got silly. Since the rules don't apply, the threat of physics winning, and of us falling, isn't a real threat and the scenes lack danger.


• Why does Carl become nervous after Russell talks about Kevin? He hates the bird and is not yet aware that Muntz is insane. Yet, there he goes, acting all suspicious and giving Muntz reason, however little, to believe that the two actually ARE there to capture the bird.

I was also disappointed by the blatant attempts at lightening the tone of the movie through ridiculous elements. The voice of Alpha is the least intrusive, but the dog pilots firing their guns with a squeeky toy was just retarded. I think it reveals Docter to not be the director that Brad Bird is, who maintained a better and much more seamless balance of comedy and drama in The Incredibles and even in Ratatouille.

Betty Boop Film Class Part 9

Chess-Nuts is a light little ditty of a cartoon, notable for its use of live action, stop-motion, and animation. Not the first time Fleischer did it, but it is the first time with sound.



I love when the black king first throws a bomb like a bowling ball, and the camera tracks the ball as it rolls towards the white army. It's just so dynamic.

Again, Betty plays a very small role in the action. The bulk of it focuses on Bimbo because, I think, when most of these episodes were story-boarded, Bimbo was still going to be the star. Betty's rise to stardom apparently caught Fleischer off-guard and every episode in the Talkartoon series confirms this.

We're also seeing increased naughty jokes. Betty's dress goes up twice, the bed is visible in the room to which the king drags her, but the bed is disgusted with the king so it runs away. Even the mouse in the wall is apparently a polygamist.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly

I've uploaded a long commentary on the documentary Mickey Mouse Monopoly. It's basically an anti-Disney documentary that argues that Disney corp. holds too much power and perpetuates social problems.

In general, I disagree with everything it argues. The facts are facts, but its interpretation of them is highly selective and erroneous.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly (A Candle in the Dark)