This Is the State of CGI!

Get ready to get your minds blown.....This has to be one of the best demos of high end CGI I have ever seen.

review: The Croods

Directed by     Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders 

Starring     Nicolas Cage    Emma Stone
        Ryan Reynolds    Catherine Keener
        Clark Duke    Cloris Leachman

Meet the Croods.  Three generations of cave dwellers at the dawn of time.  It would seem that they are the last of their "kind" as all their neighbors came to rather untimely end, each more gruesome end.

The Croods most likely will fall victim to just the same kind of even, that was until the daughter discovers a strange boy with an even stranger pet he calls fire.  

This strange boy is running from the end of the world and to prove his point the Croods'  cave is destroyed by  a massive rock slide.

Now they must travel to find a new cave all the while avoiding all forms of wild flora & fauna that would like nothing more that to have them for lunch.

The Croods is again a step up in animation.  There are several places in the film that all you can think "oh now they are just showing off!"  It really is that sumptuous.  I had to remind myself at times that what I was watching WAS animation.  It wasn't so much the main characters or even the story line which bears little resemblance to historical or archeological records, but the little things in an environment or passing moment that comes and goes with hardly a notice.  Blades of grass wave in the breeze as does hair on their heads.  Fire moves as though alive.  All the little subtleties that convince you that an environment is real.  From huge flocks of birds  to gargantuan explosion, everything blends into an environment that is both surreal and totally real at the same time.

The Croods had something for all ages, but to be honest, it is a movie for the young but for those of you that are sitting there watching, you will find the level of detail in the animation at times breath taking.  

I would give the film a 7 mainly because there was no effort to keep the timeline accurate.  But that will have to be my only bitch, it certain IS worth a watch....if you have kids...add it to your collection even.

The Incident at Tower 37 - a short clever cg film

Here is a short C-G film call "The Incident at Tower 37" written by Chris Perry. Anything I can tell you about the film gives something away. I can say that it is VERY well done and for a film with no spoken words, that is saying a great deal. There is a lot of movie packed into a time line just a hair short of 11 minutes.

Trailer: Planet 51

This one looks to be fun. A reversal on the alien first contact scenario. Here a totally clueless Human astronaut drops into the middle of a 1950s style alien suburbia who are utterly and completely xenophobic!

The film is CG animation with a great list of actors lending their talents to the voices. Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson is the hapless "alien" Chuck which should be ahhhh interesting.



Thanks to IO9

Strangely Lifelike CGI Woman interacts with your Mouse!

I have very little idea of exactly what is going on here, but if you want to see the extent of good CGI and I mean good, like in real time interaction with the outside world, click on the title or go here to see the head and shoulders of a woman. Ok, that in and of it self is not remarkable, but once she is on the screen, move your mouse cursor around on the screen.... Freaky huh?! I can see where something like this could be used to familiarize a new user with computer hardware or software....Microsoft's paperclip ain't got nuthin on this girl!

Code Guardian -homebrew CGI animation treat

What if WW2 was fought by giant robots? Well I want to thank Geekend and SFSignals for bringing this gem to my attention. a homebrew animator has cooked up C.O.D.E. Guardian, a 13-minute CG mini-movie that posits what World War II would have been like if the major powers had giant mecha robots at their disposal. The link that the title goes to is part 1 but the second part is available right on the same page on youtube. For a short, this is wildly entertaining and extremely well done. I would sit through a full lenght of this! Check it out!