this sh**'s makin' me crazy | 3:16 PM >

Today's title is brought to you by Alanis' new album, Flavors of Entanglement. Long story short, if you're a long-time fan like me who catches hell for loving what this inexplicable woman does, you're like to enjoy this new disc. I should say double-disc, as the deluxe edition linked above comes with what amounts to a whole EP as a bonus disc. I wouldn't judge the album based on its first single, Underneath, as unlike Thank You and other first singles from her previous albums this one's the weakest track on the first disc. Overall I think her lyrics are tighter and musically this is the most she's evolved since the jump from Jagged Little Pill to Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie -- Straightjacket is a danceable techno track and one hell of a departure from her normal sound -- but she's done the relationship notes thing before. Four times. The musical explorations are great and I'd like to see more of that in the future (anyone for Alanis doing Trip-hop?), but less with the ex-boyfriends and more with the something else. Not that she doesn't get off a few nice insightful lines, although I won't spoil them for you here. Oh, and if you do buy the double-disc and, like me, rip it straight to your iPod for listening, just go ahead and delete the last track, On the Tequilla. I consider myself a huge fan of Alanis, but that song was a stretch even for me.

Still think she was the Best. God. EVAR. though.

I've just wrapped my second class at Animation Mentor. How'd I do? Well, have a gander at my Progress Reel and decide for yourself (in reverse chronological order, from newest shot back):

I'm feeling pretty good. My mentor's final words were positive and I think I'll be okay moving into Class 3, which is Intro to Acting. I'll finally be able to put all that theatre stuff I did so many years ago to some use.

<Geek> In case you're always the last to know, Adobe AIR 1.1 is out. New additions that excite me are multilingual support, and there are new examples programs and tutorials showing you how to localize your apps. Haven't upgraded to 1.1 myself yet but I'm still very much loving AIR development from Flash CS3.</Geek>

I've seen two movies lately that I loved enough to watch twice. The first was Speed Racer, and the second was Kung Fu Panda. The latter is easier to talk about in short, so let me go over it first.

Dreamworks has been very hit and miss for me ever since the studio went 3D. (I absolutely loved both Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado, and even Sinbad was quite entertaining.) For every Shrek they've put out a Shark's Tale, but for every Bee Movie they come up with an Over the Hedge. The first and second Shrek movies hit on a formula that worked too well for its own good, where animated films make a lot of external references and end in a song. (I've seen Shrek in English, Japanese, and Spanish at this point. There are other jokes made in the other two languages but nowhere near the number that are in the English version, and to get many of the ones in the English version you have to have lived in North America since the 80's.) Shark's Tale took that formula to a new level, and the film suffered for it -- despite the obvious bevy of talented people working on the film (hi Dimos ^_^), the overall product fell flat. Great animation and great technology are not enough to produce a great movie, although that's often overlooked as less-than-great movies sell big at the box office.

Anyway, I went into Kung Fu Panda hoping for an Over the Hedge while preparing myself to not be surprised by another Shark's Tale. My surprise went in the other direction: this movie is easily the best 3D film Dreamworks has made outside of Shrek 2, and has a lot of the same heart and humor from the studio's earlier 2D efforts.

First off, I should note that this is obviously a kid's movie. There are a few jokes in there for adults but the way the action is paced and the way the plot unfolds keeps things to an even ninety minutes -- just about when little Billy will start saying something about a bathroom run. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't excel on many levels. Technology-wise, they put depth of field blurring to amazing use. The main enemy, Tai Long, gets introduced through an extended kung-fu sequence that deftly uses focus pulls and a bunch of other real-world camera tricks to up the adrenaline level. The shaders throughout the film feel more realistic -- there's a scene in the beginning (after the excellent introductory dream sequence by James Baster Animation) here you see Po's room as he looks around. He has five wood-carved action figures on his windowsill, and they just look fantastic. KFP is also the first movie, I think, to employ the use of subsurface scattering on marble and jade; the pillars in the kung fu hall are incredible.

But technology is not enough -- where the new neat tricks end, there is a story with good flow and great character growth. Jack Black doesn't go too far over the edge (as he's wont to do), and the chemistry between his and Dustin Hoffman's characters is just brilliant. In fact, the only criticism I had about the movie was that it employs a montage to show the panda learning kung fu, so he (in effect) gets significantly stronger in about three minutes. On the other hand, he doesn't do a Goku-style power-up, and the leaves change from green to red, so it's forgivable. (Although the leaves outside the down don't change.) If you haven't seen Kung Fu Panda I highly recommend going to see it. I can't say it was better on the Imax, though -- on the regular screen it was crisp and gorgeous, but the Imax version didn't seem like it had higher-resolution textures so there are a number of areas that don't look as clean. On first viewing, though, I'm sure most won't notice and the sound was nicer on the Imax speakers.

I wanted to talk about Speed Racer for a moment but I think I'll leave that for another day. The short of it is that it was the most fantastic movie experience I've had in years, and that the rest of Da Interwebz are wrong. Make that WRONG. The way folks have badmouthed the movie is definitely a Capital Offense.

Oh, and I got my Canon XSI yesterday. The thing has more features, knobs, and menus than the tool God used to make the Earth; I am both suitably awed and confused. However, I'm having a blast with it: