Partly Cloudy: A Lonely Cloud Creates Hazardous Babies for His Stork-Partner

Partly Cloudy is a delightful animated short film by Pixar Animation Studios, which was named as one of 10 films to advance in the voting process for the “Animated Short Films” category for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.  The list is international, with movies representing production companies from Australia, France, America, Canada and other countries.

In Partly Cloudy, the storks get their babies from way up high in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life.  However, in this story there is a real dilemma.  Gus, a lonely and insecure gray cloud, is a master at creating “dangerous” babies: crocodiles, porcupines, rams and even much worse.  Gus’s beloved creations are truly works of art, but they’re more than a handful for his loyal delivery-stork partner, Peck.  As Gus’s creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck’s job gets harder and harder.  How on earth will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend’s fiery temperament?

Partly Cloudy: A Lonely Cloud Creates Hazardous Babies for His Stork-Partner

Please Share This:

John Mayer: Just Half of My Heart

Seven-time Grammy Award winning musician John Mayer’s new album Battle Studies was released on Tuesday.  And if Mayer has ever been successful at putting all of his pessimism about romance into a single album, then Battle Studies is the one.  “It’s one record about one thing,” Mayer said.  The underlying emotional tone that runs throughout the songs in the album is one of discomfort with close relationships and a relatively pervasive dark, dysphoric  mood.  Most of the songs in his album convey a sense of skepticism about love, lovers and anyone looking and passing judgment from the outside in.

Mayer was interviewed by Steven Daley this week in Details Magazine:

Daley wrote, “From the opening track, the U2-redolent Heartbreak Warfare, it’s clear that the musician who ingratiated his way into the nation’s heart with soft-serve hits like Your Body Is a Wonderland and Daughters has entered a new phase.  The record revives the spirit of that most maligned of 20th-century art forms, adult-oriented rock, channeling the likes of Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Dire Straits, and reflects how assured Mayer has become.  Battle Studies may well force some of his detractors to admit that the man they used to view as Dave Matthews’ cocky little nephew has grown up some.”

Mayer described his own thoughts about having to cope with his public face as a celebrity and with his detractors in the media, as opposed to Mayer the musician: “What do you think is stronger: a dozen press articles that say I’m this guy, or a record with 10 songs on it that you enjoy?  Which has greater staying power?  At the end of the day, all I owe the world in exchange for my dumb face being in their lives are the 10 songs every couple years that are hopefully of greater magnitude than somebody’s press story about me.”

John Mayer: Who Says (Battle Studies)

John Mayer: Heartbreak Warfare (Battle Studies), The Beacon Theatre, NYC

Please Share This:

Dreaming of Lucid Living: A Fascinating Performance/Animation Mash-Up

Dreaming of Lucid Living is a short film that’s a remarkable, beautiful performance/animation mash-up by the award-winning animator, designer and multi-media artist Miwa Matreyek. The film is a performance/installation piece constructed like a shadow puppet theater, integrating Matreyek’s solo live performance, nicely composed visuals and animation in a way that is both poetic and quite quirky.  It combines live performance with both pre-made animations  and semi-autonomous, rule based animations that appear to update based upon what a camera is viewing.  The film’s presentation of deceptively simple, deliciously playful illusions, a high-spirited sense of wonder, and creatively unexpected mixtures of live action and animation is just incredible.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this ever before.

Dreaming of Lucid Living: A Fascinating Performance/Animation Mash-Up

Please Share This:

Happy Thanksgiving: An Impish Alfred Hitchcock Carves Your Holiday Turkey!

Photography by:  John Rawlings, NYC (1956)

Pick a Hitchcock of opulence rather than corpulence,
just pleasingly plump, with a snug silhouette,
To embellish the board when the places are set.
For the ultimate test, more closely examine it.
The Hitchcock supreme has a wide streak of ham in it.
-Ogden Nash

Please Share This: