It has been a while since I have posted any thing by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, so I figured since they have a new track I was about due to feature them again. The song is called Easter and was posted at the end of March. As long as I am mentioning them again I thought I would throw a couple of old favorites on as well, so the 2nd track is 2012’s After Dark, the third is the visually silly Well Then, See You Again Tomorrow.
Joeri Christiaen’s amazing animation 850 meters was produced by Thuristar in coproduction with Lunanime, and it has been screening in festivals as well as airing on CANAL+ in France and Ketnet (VRT) and Ouftivi (RTBF) in Belgium. This particular version is in English, which I can follow a bit easier than the original language (French, obviously). It was made with the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund and Provinciebestuur Oost Vlaanderen. To my mind the really good news is that a spin-off TV series called My knight and Me is now in production, with 52 episodes, 12 minutes long each, given the green light. Enjoy, and if you are so inclined also check out the Making Of video to get a sense of who these people are and how they feel about the project.
Awesome Con in Washington D.C. this past weekend certainly lived up to its name, and its rep. They had a huge collection of actors, artists, and authors (and that only covered the first letter of the alphabet) doing their best to make the gathering memorable. Pretty much all of the guest actor/voice talent celebrities manned (personed?) a booth on the bottom level, off to the side of the hucksters area by the primary entrance, most of the time they were not doing a panel or presentation. Between those two groups were the artists, both Comics and Fine, with quite a few other visual disciplines mixed in. That last sentence gives you the idea, but not the scope, unless you expect there to be a hundred or more impressive illustrator/storytellers on the multiple-football-field sized area you are crossing to get to your next scheduled event.
They had some presentations I never expected, like Twisted Toonz, where a group of world class voice actors played out a famous movie as totally different characters than the ones in the original. This year the film was The Wrath of Kahn, and the voice of Wini The Pooh coming from the bridge of the Enterprise was one of the the least disconcerting aspects of that presentation. I can’t wait to see another show organized around the same principle, it was absolutely amazing and entertaining! Although the voice actor tasked with being Bill Cosby for one part of it kept looking out at the audience like he was trying to find an escape route.
There are a ton of Sci-Fi Parody Songs, often and mostly fan built; these are a few of my favorites from the Star Wars franchise. The first is Moves Like Jabba from Break Originals, the second is Star Wars Disney: Let it Flow from Box Step Productions, the third is Wrecking Maul from Randy Turnbow. Yes, they are silly, but that i part of the appeal.
The playing field is wide open; Bikini Warriors? Ghost In The Shell? All of the options are open, including Survive Said The Prophet: Ashes, Ashes. The track below is Radical Radio from their first full album All the World’s a Stage, doing the song The Guide of Rock. Check them out, and let me know what you think.
The short film Mechanical Creep is a mixture of live action and CGI put together by Darren Wallace, Matthew Parsons and Rebecca Knight. It was a second year student film project at the JMC Academy in South Melbourne, Australia, and won both Best Animation & Best Sound Design at the 2012 Martini Awards (the JMC Academies in house competition to pick out the best presentations from each year). It is more of a visual joke with a punch line than anything else, but I liked it, so I am sharing it here.