Archive for the ‘fantasy’ category

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Happier Than An Antelope…

November 9, 2012

– – You’ve probably seen at least some of Geico’s “Happier Than” series in which we are shown people basking in the glee of improbable situations, such as Gallagher smashing watermelons at a farmers’ market and Christopher Columbus with a speedboat.  Two comfortably scruffy folksingers called Ronnie and Jimmy then appear to draw the parallel that people saving money on Geico insurance sure are happy, happier than say, a witch at a broom factory…

My fave in the series involves two anthropomorphic antelope standing in the savannah equipped with night vision goggles that easily enable the duo to see a lion lurking in the tall grass.  “Look who’s back…again!,” quips one antelope to the other.  “We can see you, Carl,” an antelope addresses the lion.  “Yeah, we can totally see you!,” confirms his companion.– So much for the stealth advantage!  “Have you thought about going vegan, Carl?,” they ask the apex predator, and laugh.  This could totally disrupt the food chain…and if the lion sleeps tonight, it will be with an empty belly!

 

Categories: absurdities, animals, anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, fantasy, furry, furry commercials, humor, television
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– – Vote!

November 6, 2012


– – Those of us who reside in the United States should remember to vote on November 6th, and preferably for the party which is science and education friendly…

Categories: absurdities, Brilliant but twisted, fantasy

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The Hawk of Achill…

October 23, 2012

– – I, for one, worry about extremely large whiskey-swilling birds of prey terrorizing the neighborhood; they might, for example, lower already-depressed property values, to say nothing of discouraging tourism.

We are introduced to such a creature in Jameson Whiskey’s third commercial in a series that celebrates the supposed exploits of the brand’s founder.  Now the “Hawk of Achill” is an enormous fowl with a habit of terrorizing the island’s inhabitants, and worse yet, stealing Jameson’s Irish whiskey!  It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Giant Roc, and appears like something which might have been celebrated in an episode of MonsterQuest.  We catch only glimpses of the hawk, but are told that it has carried off both the mason’s daughter and whiskey.  Now Jameson as portrayed will do just about anything to recover a barrel of his brew, so he stows away in one of his own barrels, and is carried off by the hawk to the great bird’s nest, where he encounters the comely lass who’s another victim of the bird’s thievery.   While we are not shown how Jameson accomplishes the feat, we next see the alcohol avenger back home at a feast for the townspeople where the hawk has been prepared like a gigantic Thanksgiving turkey!- -It’s bird and brew for everyone!  And hawk leftovers for the next several weeks, undoubtedly…

Thus be it ever to alcoholic avians!  The commercial has a rich atmospheric feel, and an appropriately haunting musical score of Danse Macabre…

Categories: animals, fantasy, feathered friends, furry commercials, television
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“Frankenweenie” is Coming!

September 13, 2012

– – Frankenweenie, a film directed by Tim Burton, is coming this October!  A remake of a 1984 short film by Burton, Frankenweenie is a 3D, black-and-white, stop motion-animated comedy horror film.  Like its 1984 predecessor, the film is both a parody of and an homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein as based on Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel.  

In the film, a young Victor Frankenstein deploys the power of science to bring his beloved dog, Sparky, back to life.  Unintended and sometimes monstruous consequences ensue.  Vocal talents include Martin Short, Winona Ryder, and Martin Landau.  The art has the look of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and should be well worth a look!

Categories: animals, fantasy, furry art, furry film classics, furry stories, movies

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The Great Emancipator, and More!

June 7, 2012

– – Before there was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was…Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter!  In one of the strangest, genre-blending movies since Cowboys & Aliens, the film to be released June 22nd will mix incidentals of the American Civil War era with the gothic.  Based on the 2010 novel of the same name and co-produced by Tim Burton, it seems that the mother of the 16th president was killed by a supernatural creature, which fuels Lincoln’s passion to crush vampires and their slave-owning helpers!  Lincoln therefore assumes a secret identity as a vampire hunter, brushing elbows during the story with a variety of historical notables, including in the book Edgar Allan Poe.

– –Ha, and you thought that history was a dead subject!- -Well, in a sense, part of it is, at least where the vampires are concerned.  The book has generally received favorable reviews, and been described as being an original vampire tale with heart, humor, and (–of course!) bite.  I’m encouraged by the fact that the vampires in the film will supposedly be presented as fierce, visceral, intense, and bloodthirsty rather than as the insipid pretty boys that they’ve recently morphed into elsewhere.  Lincoln will supposedly prove himself adept at wrestling and with an ax…and John Wilkes Booth wouldn’t have dared to take on this president in a fair fight!

Categories: absurdities, Brilliant but twisted, cool things, fantasy, movies, strange
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Mythic Mayhem!

March 29, 2012

— It’s not easy being a demigod; everyone expects great things out of you!  Pity poor Perseus; as if whipping the Kraken wasn’t enough in 2010’s Clash of the Titans, now he has to beat a whole host of other assorted monsters in Wrath of the Titans.  There will be a slew of them to boot in this special effects extravaganza, everything from a thirty-foot high Cyclops to a Minotaur to my personal fave, a Chimera…I just like things with multiple heads and incongruous parts that spew fire, that’s the way I roll!  Mighty Kronos himself enters the fray,  just dripping with lava…what more could a boy want?  Yes, I know, robots, zombies, mummies, aliens, and werewolves are extremely cool too, but you can’t have them all in the same movie and preserve artistic integrity.- -Besides, I’d die of too much happiness!

While most of the beasties are computer generated, the Minotaur is played by an actor in a latex suit who underwent four hours of makeup for each day on the set!   You’ll also see Perseus’ noble winged steed Pegasus, and the demonic Makhai, who attack like whirling dervishes.  

This isn’t Shakespeare, but it’s good guy fun…and what’s wrong with that?  Wrath of the Titans opens March 30th…and it’s a cornucopia of creatures!!!– -Woo-hoo!

Categories: animal oddities, animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, cool things, creature features, fantasy, furry, imaginary animals, movies
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Pepto Bismol’s “Turducken”

December 15, 2011

 – – A turducken by definition is a boned turkey stuffed with a boned duck that is itself stuffed with a small boned chicken which sometimes also contains a breadcrumb or sausage meat stuffing!   It is perhaps a commentary on western society that with starvation still rampant in the third world and even parts of the west, a way has been  found to combine and consume the flesh of three (perhaps four) animals simultaneously, but we’ll leave such musings to the philosophers…perhaps such could be considered at the next Republican debate, which might prove amusing…

Governor Perry:  “If one of them things comes near me, I’ll shoot it and eat it myself!”

…but for our purposes, we are left to consider what a mythical creature such as a turducken might actually look like, and Pepto Bismol has come to our rescue here in both gastric and  imaginative terms!  The Smoke & Mirrors design, animation and VFX studio created a vision of the turducken that combined the green-hued head, beak, and webbed feet of the mallard duck with the comb and wattle of a chicken and the wings and tail feather configuration of a turkey.  The body incorporates a gradation of the feathering of all three animals. 

We may see the fruits of these creative efforts in the latest Pepto Bismol commercial, where we are shown a flock(?) of the mighty turducken as they move in a great tide over the plains!  The creature might be a natural for an animated kiddie series…

Categories: animals, cool things, fantasy, feathered friends, furry commercials, imaginary animals, television
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Fox Guarding the Chicken House?

December 2, 2011

 – – People are forever saying don’t let the fox guard the chicken house, presuming that if such occurs we are going to eat our charges.  Not all foxes like to eat chicken, however, I myself greatly preferring pizza, cheese steaks, Chinese food, or even a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  The notion that mayhem will ensue when a fox guards a hen house is just another of those vicious stereotypes, and you know that we all are subject to them in some way, shape, or form…tell me about it!

What then usually happens when a fox guards a hen house? – -Well, we often wind up playing board games, usually simple ones as chickens are relatively mundane creatures not celebrated for their intellect.  I also find that I occasionally have to let the chickens win at the games lest they become unduly frustrated, and then I’ll have to listen to their knock-knock jokes, or something equally abhorrent!

…now you know, and perhaps one of you will be kind enough to send in a relief for me the next time that I’m called upon to guard a chicken house…it’s really no picnic!

Categories: absurdities, fantasy, feathered friends, furry
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Not the Usual Suspects…

October 29, 2011

 – – “Grimm…what a lovely name!,“  once remarked Morticia Addams.  In this new NBC series, a Grimm is a hunter of mythological creatures which only the hunters and their kind can perceive under the guise of normality as such beings walk among us.  Echoing such past shows as The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, Grimm has been described as “one part police procedural drama and one part supernatural slug fest,”  drawing story lines and characters from the sizable corpus of Grimm’s fairy tales, many of which are dark delights.

In the season premier, we meet a reformed Big Bad Wolf, who is not big, no longer bad, does Pilates, and attends church.  There are others of his werewolf kind, but they don’t hang out much; bad things happen, ‘ya see, when they get into packs.   Some werewolves continue to exist who still do bad things like kill and abduct, but even the one perp the story concerns is a mixed bag who wears nice sweaters, lives in a beautiful mountain house, makes pies, works for the government postal service(–what else?), and keeps a young girl captive in his basement. –But hey, as Clint Eastwood’s character emoted in Tightrope, “There’s a darkness inside us all.”


This isn’t The X-Files, but I enjoyed the opener, and hope for some Grimm times ahead.   Of furry interest is the reformed werewolf, who apparently in going to be a continuing character in the series, as is the toothy female pictured…

Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, creature features, fantasy, furry, television
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