In Theatres: "Meet The Robinsons" (Review)

What? An animated movie about time travel and NO cute fuzzy bears, lions,penguins, fishes ,rats?No burping and other gass-y gags?An animated movie which is awesome but not by PIXAR?
Obviously, such a movie cannot exist, right? WRONG!!!!!!


Meet The Robinsons was the most satisfying "DISNEY" movie since forever.Though its subject isnt really new, but it seems strangely fresh anyways!
It has a pretty complicated story line about time travel and a story set in the past present and the future.Such time lines are often very difficult to write for, but to the credit of the director and the story dept. they do so without making the ending be either obvious or contrived.
The story has heart, some cool villian animation a few really unexpected surprises, a spectacular and satisfying(which is just so rare in movies now days, animated or otherwise) ending, a fun soundtrack by the likes of Danny Elfman and Rufus Wainwright. What more can one ask for?


I liked it more than most rescent animated movies, even more than last years "Cars" which was my fav last year.
And the whole see it in "Disney Digital 3D" thing.I saw the movie in both formats. The normal and the 3D. And i have to say, 3D wins hands down.
The 3D really isnt used hear as a gimmick with things coming out at you every 33 seconds just cause they can. The 3D is used to just enhance the experience and used in a very natural way. Making the experience visually immersive. And it works amazingly well. Makes you wanna watch ALL movies like this (am sure thats gonna happen soon , in 2 years tops).


And if you dont have enough reasons to go see it already, the 3D version plays a 1953 Donald Duck and Chip&Dale short called "Working For Peanuts" in 3D!!
OMG, traditional 2D animation looks sooooo gorgeous with those damn 3D glasses.Amazing flat multiplane-ing happening. VERY VERY cool!


I am glad to see Disney Feature Animation returning to form.So dont let a couple of bad character designs , ugly posters and misleading trailers hold u back. GO ahead and Meet The Robinsons TODAY!

WDCC: "It's That DeVil Woman"

Am so behind with posting my newer sculptures.
Here is one i got way back in January.
Cruella De Vil , in bed, talking to the Baduns,discussing the previous nights Dognapping and hatching her villianous plan!

The detail in this sculpture is just INSANE!

And i thought my place was messy!

Disney/Pixar's "Ratatouille"-Animation Test

Thnx to You Tube...Enjoy this before the "Disney Police" get it off...

Am so floored by the timing on this guy, so damn good!!!

A Birthday Comes But Once A Year...THANKFULLY!

Its here! On time, as always. No, I don’t have a Peter Pan complex nor do I crave a sip from the Fountain of Youth or Eternal Life or what have you.

So what do I have against birthdays?
For me, a Birthday brings with it a lot of pressure. Any other day, one goes through life, questioning anything and everything (if u lucky enough), from the mundane to the philosophic to the physical to whatever ur twisted mind can think of.
But for whatever reason, the questions that haunt u on ur birthday just seem to be innumerous in quantity, insurmountable in scope and surely some of the toughest ones ever.

Like: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Who really loves me? Who doesnt? How will it all ends? Whom do I love? Can I love? WHAT is love? Am I afraid of death? What is life? How long before I am let down again? Can I trust them? Can I trust myslef? Why all this mediocrity? When will the excuses stop? What is this all about? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Will this scar heal? Do scars really heal? Am I making the right choices? Are there really any choices? How can I make a difference? Is she still with me? What do I hope to achieve by putting all this on my blog? Who the f*@# cares? Etc etc..you get the point!:-)

Needless to say, most of these questions are pretty stupid, unimportant etc but that again is not the point.Is it??lol
And the beauty of it all is that like most questions, these too don’t really have answers.
But on any other day, u r more willing to accept that reality and move ahead and try to make the best of it and learn to ask better questions and hence answer the previous...

BUT BUT BUT...on the "BIRTHDAY",one does not have that luxury.Do they??

Come Birthday and suddenly there seems to be this deathly(no pun intended) pressure to actually ANSWER those questions already! The usual simple minded explanations that you usually give yourslef and so readilly accept,just wont work Today!
And obviously one cant answer them any better than they coudl have yesterday,

And so, hence , thus, it’s frustrating, annoying and sometimes depressing!
A simple enough logic,aint it?

SO do I hate birthdays?? Not really.
Cause there r many beautiful things about birthdays.Like, today is also the day my lovely niece, Anahita came into this world 6 years ago. And sometimes looking at her smile, hearing her wish u happy birthday and say how much she loves u...u begin to realize that maybe therein lie all the answers that u might possibly need...and more.

And yes, today also marks the First Anniversary of this blog of mine. Thanks to all who have visited and continue to do so and comment and read etc etc. I appreciate it. And I apologies for the drop in posts. Will try to change that!

So, do I hate birthdays???

NO, but I am thankful that it’s just once a year! :-)

WDCC: "Jack's Back"

Finally, a sculpture from The Nightmare Before Christmas worthy of adding to my collection!
At 15 1/4", this sculpture by Patrick Romandy-Simmons is the tallest sculpture in the 15 year history of the Walt Disney Classics Collection.
At first sight many think the red to be blood, but those who know the film ,they will know ist the torn Santa costume as Jack is shot down and crash lands in a graveyard and decides to set things right!
:-)

The Line King Indeed

Wow...guess what i ran into on YouTube!God bless YouTube...
See the late but gr8, Al Hirchfeld make an enitire piece right in front of our eyes...the process and all..damn cool!
His hand is more steady at the age of 98 than mine was when i was 18! lol
Anywho...me is just busy with starting my new job at C.O.R.E.,...Houdini is quite the challenge to get used to...but cant wait to get animating...i have some amazingly juicy villain(sp?) scenes assigned to me! yay!
So, enjoy this little treat for now!:-)

My Pics From Niagra

Went to Niagra with a bunch of freinds yesterday! This is the first time i did the "Journey Behind The Falls" thingie, where u walk in a tunnel behind teh falls and all..it was quite the rush!(no pun intended).Will post a video clip soon.
Here r a few pics for now from the day and also the light illumination of the falls at night.:-)

Rockefeller Centre Lights Show

This was after the tree lighting...was really nice :-)

Festive NYC

I was in NYC last week...had the most amazing time ever.Saw shows on broadway(Les Miz and Marry Poppins),saw Enya and Sarah McLachlan in concert...spent a couple of days at the MET and MOMA...Treelighting etc etc.
Took some cool pics at all those events and of NYC getting ready for XMAS..but unfortunately lost a brand new 2GB Memory Card of my cam with ALL my pics...:-(
Depressing as it was, i have manged to salvage VERY few pics from the smaller chip i had...so here they are!

Original "Where The Wild Things Are" Tests

Oooh! I just found a link to this awesome clip on the Disney Blog.
Had heard about this , but never seen it.
I think in the 80's, post Tron, and pre Lasserter's departure from Disney,he and Glen Keane got together to do some tests for Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are".
This is long before the now scrapped Eric Goldberg take on the same for Universal.
Its very cool that someone put it up. The animation is pretty cool and so is the 3d camera. Though the shading /texturing is very dated. But i really like the way the 2d characters look and the way they move!

First Picture From My New Appt!

It was a gorgeous full moon night ...a few nights back ...ok,QUITE a few nigts back!(i just got my pics off my cam today).

So here is downtown Toronto on a full moon night as seen from my balchony!:-)

WDCC: "Celebration Of Springl"

Starring the Dewdrop Fairy from the Nutcracker Suite from the original Fanstasia(1940), comes "Celebration of Spring" by Kent Melton.
The Dewdrops are actual Swarovski Crystals!
I know,I know...it aint the time for anything "Spring" now , but the other piece in this series "Delicate Dance Of Winter" is VERY difficult to find...am working on it! :-)
This sculpture was fun taking pictures off. I need a tripod!

Alan Vs Randy & A Disney Princess Like We Have Never Seen Before?

Many fans of the traditional Disney Animated Musical features rejoiced at the news that Disney is finally getting into 2D Animation again with "The Frog Princess".
One of the many reasons for the excitement for people like me was that the key filmmaking team behind this project was gonnna be the same as "The Little Mermaid" which bought about the last "Golden Age" of Animation.
It just seemed right and poetic, if u will...That once again the Directing team of Ron Clements & John Musker along with the amazing composer, Alan Menken would bring about this re-birth of the Classic Disney Musical. Cause these storytellers and Alan's music played a very important part in the success of all those disney musicals Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty & The Beast etc.

However, the news just broke this week that the new Animation head honcho and disney, John Lasseter (of Pixar), has decided to replace Alan Menken with Randy Newman and give him his Musical debut Randy Newman is no stranger to Pixar, he has been a staple composer for most of their movies and specially all of John's movies (Both the Toy Storys,Bug's Life, Cars).

This sent many Alan Menken fans into a fit of anger (including myself) with people already predicting Frog Princess to be doomed and the saying how John L. is gonna turn Disney into Pixar 2!

But on further discussion with a friend in Animation (who was equally disappointed with the switch),it led to him doing some investigations.
Which in turn led to quite an interesting discovery which might explain this move.

It SEEMS, The Frog Princess could be Disney's first African American princess, in a New Orleans-ish setting with a Jazz soundtrack and not a very theatrical soundtrack!
And that might explain the preference of Randy Newman over Alan Menken.
I can honestly say, IF this is a fact...am actually excited by this decision and its about time Disney shook things up in this direction!

Coupled by the fact that Alan Menken is swamped with so many projects for Disney already , with bringing Little Mermaid and Sister Act On Broadway , writing songs and scoring the 2d/Live Action hybrid "Enchanted" etc etc..it just might just be the best thing to have happened!

Am happy again...for now! :-)

Of Posters,Trailers, Accidents & Appartments!

Here are posters for the 2 new movies coming from Disney/Pixar in 2007...both look so promising(the movies, not the posters)!

(Check out the cool new trailer for Meet The Robinsons by clicking on the poster)

And yes...i have not updated the blog since forever...with good reason though!
Was in a car accident 2 weeks or so ago...quite bad and traumatic..but everyone is alive & kicking , including myself...it coudl have been a LOT worse.
The gentleman at the other end was drunk and was handcuffed and arrested! Have a new found hatred for drunk drivers now! With a passion!

Anywho, moving on to better things..i found a great appt in Dtwn Toronto and have been busy with the moving in and settling in stuff. (It aint easy with an ailing back, thnx to all those who helped).

I have a great view of the city and the lake...will post some pics real soon! :-)

Books! Books!Books!

(Click on the respective covers for a flash preview of the books)

This aint really a review but rather a sales pitch! I JUST got these books in the mail, so havn't really read them... but my immediate reaction to them was so strong I just had to get on and tell every Art/Animation/Film fan to do themsleves a favour and run out and grab these 2 books.
They are absolutely exploding with art and that too amazing art.Not a millimetere of a page is wasted.I have my share of Art Of...books, but not even the best Disney ones can compare to these 2 Sony Animation Art Of books. And if you thought Pixar made the best Art books nowdays, these will seriously make u reconsider.
Besides the art, they have cool guides, stickers, notes, journals, posters and all that stuff much on the lines of the Disney Keepsakes and Disney Treasures books by Robert Tieman.

These books actually justify these average movies by honouring the amazing art that went into them.It really does not matter wether u liked the movies or not, or if u prefer 2d/3d....JUST get the damn books! You SO wont regret it!

from The Art & Making of Monster House

from The Art of Open Season

WDCC: "I'm Losing To A Rug"

Got this one a month or so back, but with the moving and all I did not get around to taking pictures until now.
This piece from "Aladdin" was realsed as a Numbered Limited Edition in 1997 and has the Genie stressing over loosing to Carpet which seems to be floating effortlessly at the other end of this amazingly well designed sclupture by Valerie Edwards (also an Imagineer).

"Nuit Blanche"2006

Last night I made a brief visit to Nuit Blanche.For those who do not know, its a very cool event that happens only for ONE night in the year in Toronto from dusk till dawn. Where not only all the museums and art galleries are open all night for FREE but the streets, monuments are converted to pieces of art by artists from all over the place.
Practically the whole city is on the streets with their umberellas, fall jackets and walking shoes with an amazingly festive energy in the air.There are food and refreshment kiosks all over the city and the artworks sometime quirky, sometime mesmerising but always surprising!
From a video of grazing sheep on the exterior of a planetarium to a very cool landscape swamped with fog to create a visual striaght out of a Tim Burtom film!
Here are a few pics from last night. Cant wait to be well prepared and make the most of the Nuit Blanche next year!

Some Cool Poster Art !

Soom real nice, dark ,moody ,poster art that i lliked over the last few weeks...!

In Theatres : "The Last Kiss" & "Scoop"(Review)

After weeks of a dry spell at the cinemas, things are finally begining to pick up.Movies that actually make u wanna go check them out, some bad , some good but atleats have your interest.
So after a couple of disspointments (Hollywoodland, The Black Dahlia), i saw a couple of movies back to back which i really liked....The Last Kiss & Woody Allen's latest Scoop. Also since both the movies kinda-sorta fall in the same genre, thought i'd do a semi-common review.

Both these movies boast of no fancy special effects or fantastical settings and dramatic twists & turns. Very simple, linear charchter driven plots and with intresting screenplays.
Though they differ in tone, TLK (The Last Kiss, not to be confused with the Lion movie) is a bit more on the serious/mature side and Scoop being ur typical Woody Allen nutty comedy caper (quite the contrast to his last last year's Match Point ).

What i liked about the TLK was, though it fits into the cliche : guy having perfect life has a mid-life crisis, panicks and takes some worng turns...its really well written and the charcters and their motives are quite belivable.
The supporting cast also have their own issues to deal with & do it well.Great performances by all the major characters.I really liked Tom Wilkinson as the father in a very small but important role.People dont always make the right choices, and there are consequences, and the movie does not have to have a perfect ending.It was slick and honest. Highly recommended!

Scoop on the other hand is just a breeze to watch! It aint gonna alter the course of your life, but it will be a fun 90 mins. i cant seem to get enough of Woody Allen's sense of humour.People say its the same stuff every time, but i think if it aint broke, dont fix it!
Its silly, and it KNOWS its silly and just goes all out. It hilarious to just see his expressions as he does those magic tricks at the begining of the movie. I dont think that was meant to be funny, but he just makes me smile! I throughly enjoyed it, ist totally his movie, Hugh Jackman & Scarlet Johansen though good are over-shadowed by Woody Allen's presence.See it to relax and see how a non- lowbrow movie can make you laugh just as much!

"The Little Mermaid" Re-Union at El Capitan

Part 1 of 5
Click HERE for rest

A couple of weeks back there was a re-union of some of the Cast & Crew of The Little Mermaid at the El Capitan, much like the one featured on the Aladdin Platinum Edition DVD.However this wont be on the forthcoming Little Mermaid DVD.
But we can still see it cuase someone put it up on You Tube in 5 parts.
Its features Glen Keane, Ron & John, Menken among others.Worth a watch for sure.
Cant wait for this (hopefully loaded) 2 disc DVD, its been looooong over due!:-)


Add the The Little Mermaid trailer to your site at www.LittleMermaidDVD.com