Weekly Movie Recommendations : 7th June 2008 - 13th June 2008

The Apartment(1960)

Genre - Romance/Comedy/Drama

Cast - Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray

Whats It About - A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.

Why To Watch It - Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" is a film which can produce some of the biggest laughs and at the same time... can bring many viewers to tears, Billy Wilder's quaint little tale about everyday people who get tangled up in love, jealousy and infidelity boasts a top-notch cast led by the trio of Lemmon, MacLaine and MacMurray who are tremendous.

Wilder brilliant depiction of the average American office as a place of brutality, coldness, and alienation conjure up Kafka and Marx. The director seduces the audience into what appears to be an unusually frank sex comedy, but turns the tables in displaying the consequences of the executive's cold indifference. Lemmon and MacLaine both give career performances and MacMurray is memorable as the blandly smiling snake.



Have a view of The Apartment right here -

New Animation Podcast : Ken Duncan Part Two

Animartion Podcast has released the Part Two,concluding conversation with Ken Duncan. In this second part of the interview, Ken talks about some of the his earlier films at Disney. Then the conversation focuses on his personal approaches to acting and his general workflow for animating productively.


Get the MP3 here
(25MB, 54:20 minutes)

Or get the enhanced version playable only with Quicktime, iTunes, or iPods.
(Includes chapter breaks, pictures and links in addition to the audio.)
(26.4MB, 54:20 minutes)

Animator's Survival Kit Cover Animation - Simply Amazing

Nothing to say just see it for yourself !

Blender Open Source Movie Released !!!

In a bid to push open source 3D modeling software Blender as a suitable environment for professional 3D animation, Blender has released the results of its second open movie project. The 10-minute animated short, Big Buck Bunny, was released free on the Internet last Friday. The movie is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license -- including all production files and the contents of the film's official web site. The project, which had been codenamed "Peach," follows up the successful "Orange" project which released the Elephant's Dream short in May 2006.


Big Buck Bunny (code-named Peach) is a short animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation. Like the foundation's previous film Elephants Dream, the film is made using free software. Work began in October, 2007 and the film was released in an April 10th, 2008 premiere in Amsterdam.

Quote from an article on FoxBusiness -
"The Big Buck Bunny movie project demonstrates that the barriers to entry in the 3D animation world can be lowered tremendously using on-demand computing platforms. Even though the Blender team did not have support of a big studio, they succeeded with the community support, an open source rendering software and an on-demand computing platform," said David Folk, Group Manager of Network.com Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "With a growing collection of applications, a host of new developer tools and worldwide availability, Network.com is attracting more developers and end-users to use, build and share new services for a wide range of industries."

Full Article

The short is the first project by the Blender foundation to be created by the Blender Institute, a division of the foundation set up specifically to facilitate the creation of open content films and games. The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, donations from the Blender community, pre-sales of the film's DVD and commercial sponsorship. Both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License.




Trailer of Big Buck Bunny

Movie Download options for the Big Buck Bunny Here.

Weekly Movie Recommendations : 31st May 2008 - 6th June 2008

GoodFellas(1990)

Genre - Biography/Crime/Drama

Cast - Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci

Whats It About - Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.

Why To Watch It - Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS is a wry, violent, and exhilarating film about the life of Henry Hill, an aspiring criminal who ends up in the FBI's witness protection program after testifying against his former partners. As a poor Irish-Italian growing up in 1950s New York City, Hill (Ray Liotta) rises through the ranks of his Brooklyn neighborhood's organized crime branch, and with money from the mob he begins living the good life, complete with a beautiful bride, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), a fancy house, and the best seats at the most exclusive restaurants.

Scorsese's film is a visual and sonic onslaught, featuring a brilliant pop-music soundtrack and stunning camera work--including the infamous Steadicam one-take that introduces the audience to the Copacabana's patrons. He uses the songs to infuse a breathtaking, invigorating rhythm into every scene. As the psychopathic Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci delivers an unforgettable performance that is alarming in its cold-blooded callousness, helping to cement GOODFELLAS' place as a classic portrait of life in the mob.

Enjoy the trailer right here right now -