Anybody a fan of animation?
Any favorite movies, shows, animators?
Anything hot to keep an eye on?

To get things started, I'll just give you the top 5 upcoming animated films I'm most excited by:

#5 The Hither and Thither Tides - Everything Ivan Maximov touches is solid gold.
#4 The Overcoat - Yuriy Norshteyn interprets Gogol. This would be higher on my list, but for the fact that Norshteyn is such a recluse this may only come into existence as a partial postmortem workprint.
#3 Grass Roots - Gilbert Shelton's famous trio in claymation at last.
#2 Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson directs Henry Selick on a Roald Dahl work. This is going to be fantastic.
#1 The Illusionist - Sylvain Chomet working from a Jacques Tati script? Dear god. I just came in my pants. Twice.

I have no idea about whats comming up in animation nor what has recently been.

If anybody does know of any flims that blend cgi and life actors (example : Imortal (2004)),  i'd like to hear of them.

Immortal Ad Vitam was great. The only reason I watched it is because the superior video game developers, Quantic Dream, had a hand in its production. I was very glad I did.

There are a few good CGI-live action films like Immortal that I know of.
Casshern is an excellent reimagining/adaptation of the comic book and it features the work of Haruhiko Shono whose work I greatly admire. I had high hopes for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, although it failed to live up to them as much as I had hoped. It's not bad though.

Finally, I think they used this technique for The Polar Express, although I have to say I wasn't really a fan.I'm sorry but Tom Hanks has no place in a Chris Van Allsburg story.

Yep seen both Sky Cap and Polar. I'll have a look for Casshern. Thanks.


nobody gets point for mentioning tron.

The Triplets of Belleville Is a great film if you haven't seen it.  I happened to catch it on cable late one night and kept watching trying to figure out what the fuck it was.

There was another that was playing on Showtime recently, called "I married a Strange Person" by Bill Plympton.  After seeing this weirdness I really want to see more of his stuff.

If you're into anime at all, Ghost in The Shell and its sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence are really great, though they both have their slow parts, there's action and philosophy in there, too.  Both deal mostly with themes involving prosthetics and theseus paradox, though Innocence kind of comes at it from an opposite angle.

Zemeckis' most recent film, Beowulf, was also done with performance capture, the same as Polar Express. I haven't seen Polar Express, but according to the making of Beowulf thing I watched, the technology was vastly improved by the time they made Beowulf.

The film itself is fucking awesome, by the way. Well worth checking out.

The Triplets of Belleville Is a great film if you haven't seen it.  I happened to catch it on cable late one night and kept watching trying to figure out what the fuck it was.

I guess you can see why my #1 most anticipated film is what it is then, eh?

If you're into anime at all, Ghost in The Shell and its sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence are really great, though they both have their slow parts, there's action and philosophy in there, too.  Both deal mostly with themes involving prosthetics and theseus paradox, though Innocence kind of comes at it from an opposite angle.

This whole thread is about animation. But yeah Ghost in the Shell is pretty freaking sweet though. Have you seen the third movie, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society?

I hated The Triplets of Belleville. Never even made it through the whole thing. It was just ugly. The Django Reinhart bit at the beginning was pretty cool though.

And I'm not into a lot of anime (or Japanese animation if we're being cute here), but Ghost in the Shell was awesome. I never saw the sequels, though. Vampire Hunter D was cool too, or at least I thought so when I was 15 or so - I don't remember it much anymore. Akira goes without saying. (So why did I?)

My old room-mate used to watch those urotsukidoji or whatever they're called. I never really got the appeal of those.

It was just ugly.

Heck yeah. I really like ugliness in animation. There was a show a while ago called Ninku that featured a dog ugly main character. I loved it only for that reason. The plot was not great. FLCL and Dead Leaves had some moments of great ugliness as well.

Heck, you get right down to it and most of Matt Groening's work is pretty ugly. I prefer my ugliness more extreme, though.

Hentai. That's the word I was looking for, I think. Urotsokidoji's something else, maybe?

I'd look it up but I don't particularly care. Animated tentacle porn, anyway.

Have you all seen Grave Of The Fireflies?
If not then shut up about your animation anything because that movie will make you fucking weep.

Yeah, and I have both season of the show on divx.  The show is just as good as the movies, especially this stand-alone episode, which I think is one of the best episodes ever made, of anything, ever.

Edit:  whoops, apparently I linked ot an un-subbed episode.  Fixed now.  There's probably an english dub on there somewhere but I don't feel like looking for it.

But the movie based on the show is what I was talking about: Solid State Society. Only reason I ask is that I just found out about it last year so it seems all new and amazing to me.

Have you all seen Grave Of The Fireflies?
If not then shut up about your animation anything because that movie will make you fucking weep.

Best thing Takahata's done. It's brutal. But I think not as bad as Martin Rosen's adaptation of Plague Dogs. Both made me shed tears. I like animals better than humans anyway.

This thread finally got me to watch Persepolis tonight on my Xbox through Netflix streaming.  God damn, that was a really, really good movie.

My favorite scene is the one where she's rocking out to a bootleg Iron Maiden tape with a tennis racket guitar.

Man, I still have yet to see that. This is the third movie now that I've been blocked from seeing due to matters surrounding the same ex. We always make plans to see movies and then she's always busy and if I tell her "fuck it I'm going without her" then she'd be all "oh come on! Don't be a jerk! We'll go. Just give me a few days to make some time!" Bah.

Man, I still have yet to see that. This is the third movie now that I've been blocked from seeing due to matters surrounding the same ex. We always make plans to see movies and then she's always busy and if I tell her "fuck it I'm going without her" then she'd be all "oh come on! Don't be a jerk! We'll go. Just give me a few days to make some time!" Bah.

http://loaded-gun.com/index.php?topic=271.msg10024#msg10024

We were well beyond that point. We'd gone back to being friends and were now FBs.
Plus, why would she stop me from doing it on my own if she was interested in breaking it off? I repeatedly told her we could rent it later and I'd be happy to see it twice, but she wanted to be there. Are you saying I should have flaked on her?

Well, I really liked Persepolis when I saw it.

I probably should have just flaked on her. Ah well. I guess I'll have to DL it...

Anything to do with exes, even if you've gotten to the stage of being really good friends, even if you've gotten back to the FB stage, should be taken with a pinch of distrust. Exes play games.

When I get rich, I'm going to hire Siko & Krsna to just say really wise shit, as needed.

fuck that, pay them to post here.

somehow at least a dozen of my exes are now linked to me on FB. As I read about their daily life I am glad that for the most part they have nothing to do with mine

I'm just failing to see the parallels here.
How is my ex's demands that I wait for her to be ready to see a movie in any way like 13c's advice to bagman that he should make dates with and then flake on J post-breakup?
I mean I can see some sort of argument that my ex was trying to control me but I thought the idea wasn't for bagman to control J but to escape her. The flaking in that case is intended as an out where as in my case maybe it was a leash?
Anyway yeah I mean like I said I probably should have just gone to these movies regardless, but what the heck I'm naive and trusting. Whatever element of control there was in our post-dating relationship was pretty minor. In fact I barely noticed it except when it came to Persepolis. The other two movies were when we were actually dating...

When you're actually dating, that's fine. It happens.

But unless an ex ceases to be an ex and becomes a current again, she ought not to have any control over you, however minor. It's only a good idea to let anyone have any control over you if you receive some sort of benefit in return. Exes of any sort (ex-girlfriends, ex-bosses, ex-teachers, etc) are by definition no longer giving you benefit of any sort, so they ought not to have any control. And if they are giving you some sort of benefit (friends with benefits, for example), then they're not really an ex. They're just someone who's figured out how to get what they want without without letting you have any control over them.

go drinking with your mates instead, it's more fun than casual conversation with your former lay

go drinking with your mates instead, it's more fun than casual conversation with your former lay

unless you get her drunk and plow that ass.

if she's desperate enough she'll understand your need for male companionship and will suck your drunk cock in the car in a compassionate way

Obviously I've failed to explain the situation I had with this girl.