My mistake...

• animation powers: on vacation

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends; I know we sure did. After waking up from my pumpkin pie induced coma, I realized I made the mistake in my last post of saying "mole" when I meant "possum." Ironically enough I had been getting a lot of hate mail from moles recently and now I know why.

To fix the problem and to appease the many moles whom I offended, I went back and edited the previous post. Replacing "mole" with "possum." I hang my head in shame.

Ginormous Possum

• animation powers: require pumpkin pie

So when last we left ginormous possum he had continued to redig his ginormous hole and when confronted he hissed at me. Critter Ridder to the rescue, except the omission of "works on possums" was not an oversight, as it didn't work on the possum....at all. Even pouring it directly on the possum did nothing but prompt more hissing.

What to do? Buy more crap to sprinkle out there in hopes of driving the monster away. I can't remember the name of this new stuff but it is no nonsense. Repels deer, beavers, lions, dinosaurs, salesman; so I was feeling pretty good about it.

Again I filled in the hole. I love doing that. Then I sprinkled a bunch of this new stuff out there eventhough the directions said to sprinkle a little. Ha! Screw that, I'm coating the flower bed baby. If the possum wants to get back to the hole he is gonna be knee deep in this junk. And for the first few days it seemed to work but then I looked out there and damnit...the hole is back. So.....

I poured a ridiculous amount in the freshly dug hole. When the beast returns and starts to resume digging....surprise!!! I am happy to say it has been a week and no activity. Either this stuff is actually working or ginormous possum is a ginormous rode kill somewhere around here. Regardless...yay...no more digging...

The Ant Bully Site

• animation powers: mightier than 100 ants
  

The official Ant Bully web site has launched!! The teaser trailer and film synopsis are up right now with more stuff to be added in the future. Why not go check it out? The Ant Bully Official Site

Chicken Little

• animation powers: taste like chicken

Just to throw this out there first off. I never read reviews before going to see movies. I like to go in a blank slate, without the opinions of movie critics rattling around in my head. That said I will check the ole rottentomatoes meter to see what the general consensus is: is it good or does it stink.

Could be a minor spoiler or two just so ya know.

Before going to see Chicken Little I was aware there was a lot of negativity towards the film. Some negativity may have been from the Pixar-Disney "do we need them or not" debate, while some could have stemmed from this movie being the first in a line of CG films that Disney put into production after deep sixing the 2D division. And don't rule out "hey its hip to hate Disney." Neverless I went into the film hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised, the movie was really cute. The story wasn't perfect but worked rather well with the main theme being Chicken Little wanting...needing the approval and support of his father; wanting to make him proud. The film had quite a lot of humor that worked and quite a lot that didn't. Actually the humor that didn't work all seemed to suffer from the same problem....."let's try to be cool and hip"....and unfortunately those moments just didn't do it.

The characters were a lot of fun with Fish out of Water probably being my favorite; something endearing about a fish walking around with a scuba helmet full of water. In general I felt the animation was well done, however there were moments when the animation was too chaotic. The animation on Buck Cluck, CL's dad, was consistently great throughout the film. There is a sequence with Buck and Chicken Little driving home which is one really long shot.....Buck Cluck's animation was just.....wow.

My biggest complaints: the pop songs. Not the song montages, although it seems like two of them occur almost back to back. No no those didn't bother me half as much as sequences when characters sang Spice Girls and Queen. Those bits, which would have worked had they been 10 secs, go on for such a long time that I felt uncomfortable watching them; sounds weird but true. Other complaint was the ending felt a little rushed. As the situation with aliens gets resolved I thought to myself at one point "why were the space ships there to begin with.......ooooo acorns.....well o-k" If you see it you will understand.

Bottom line: I liked the movie. I really don't know where all the hate is coming from regarding Chicken Little. It's not a perfect movie, it has its flaws, but it was also pretty fun which is all I really want out of any movie.

And I must point out that our teaser trailer for The Ant Bully is playing before Chicken Little. Woot! So be on the look out for that!