Animation

File Under: Delishamazingsome

/ Christopher Lee / Leave a comment

Written by: Christopher Lee

Okay, I totally made up that word. Some things are obvious, like the level of awe you will express when you view the video of this cake.

Tim Burton Cake

French artist of film, photo, and of course, confections, Alexandre Dubosc created this masterpiece of animated (animatable?) cake as a tribute to fellow artist, Tim Burton. Most impressively, if the theme of it weren’t enough, Dubosc created an animated ring around the cake depicting the Bat symbol from “Batman” and a pumpkin which could be taken as a reference to either “Nightmare Before Christmas” or “Sleepy Hollow”, of which I’ll choose the latter in my own perception because on top of the cake is a revolving, smiling “Jack Skellington” face.

I hesitate to even refer to it simply as “cake”. Cake brings to (my) mind some sloppily iced mess (though granted, always delicious) that I make. This goes beyond cake as we know it. We’ve all, by now, seen the elaborate culinary constructions that seem to have found a place on every blog and feed and tv channel we may peruse, but I have yet to see anything that has impressed me as much as this. For your mouth watering, viewing pleasure:

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"ParaNorman" is one of the summer movies you don't want to miss!

/ Christopher Lee / Leave a comment

Written by: Christopher Lee

The next few months are going to be crazy times in the theaters for geeks, nerds, dweebs and spaz’s, but let’s not let all the blockbusters take our focus away from some of the “smaller” films that might otherwise slip under the radar, like “ParaNorman” which comes out on August 17th, 2012 from Laika Entertainment, the studio that brought us “Coraline” and “The Corpse Bride”.

“ParaNorman” tells the tale of young Norman Babcock who is your stereotypical “Weird Kid” who gets put down by his family and picked on at school. The difference here lies in the odd ability young Norman has for communicating with the dead. 

This of course leads him to all sorts of issues that a kid his age shouldn’t have to deal with, but nothing like the sort of problem that’s coming when an evil witch spirit casts a spell to raise the dead and rule the world. Her plan might come to fruition if not for the heroic efforts of the reluctant little hero.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit. The plot is/seems a bit “done”, cliche’d, and contrived. It really seems like the studio just wanted to make another “creepy kid’s movie” and having run out of ideas and not wanting to deliberately rip off Edward Gorey, instead ripped off Peter Jackson. Really, this movie looks like the “Frighteners” for kids (and Hot Topic patrons). Not to mention all the obvious stereotypes. C’mon, haven’t we had enough of the “friend of the misfit hero is a dopey fat kid”? I’m sure that if it wasn’t that, it’d probably be a ginger. I mean, everyone knows the only hero dork in pop-culture who has a best friend that’s not an idiot, socially inept, or of obvious physical difference than the norm, is Spider-Man (I refer to Harry Osbourne if you didn’t get that), though, granted, as much as I love the new series, “Ultimate Spider-Man”s Miles Morales’ best friend is a chubby asian nerd…stereotype much? Okay, okay, that’s a different article all together.

All that being said, none of it means that I don’t want to see “ParaNorman”, mind you. It still looks fun, and I honestly think going into it with lower expectations will let me enjoy it a bit more than if I expected something great and new. Your thoughts?

-Chris

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