Melbourne Tram Crash

This morning two trams crashed in busy St Kilda Road. As the picture above shows there was considerable damage done and around 20 people have been injured. The cause of the crash is being investigated and I’m wondering whether it was caused by one of the tram drivers just going way too fast, as they have been known to do, or whether it was due to faulty brakes. Only time will tell and I hope that Yarra Trams doesn’t just sweep any investigation into this under the carpet.

Pixar Exhibition at ACMI

Yesterday we went to the Pixar 20 Years Of Animation exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image at Federation Square. Here is a few of the pictures that we took. Enjoy.

Here are some scans of some of the stuff we got from the Pixar Exhibition. The ticket has a nice stylized drawing of Mike and Sully from Monster’s Inc.The programme has Mike and Sully too.
This is an early drawing of Woody from Toy Story. Apparently Woody was originally going to be a ventriloquist’s dummy until one of the Pixar team suggested that a cowboy would work so much better. All this images were available as a postcard and as a print.
This is a story board of the short film “Knick Knack”.
An early concept sketch for Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.
A painting that was used for Ratatouille.

Modern computer animation no longer uses model sheets when designing a character or when instructing the animators how a character should look in a certain pose. Instead they use maquettes, which is a 3D model of the character that can be moved around in different positions to give the animators an idea of scale and how the character should look. Personally I prefer the old model sheets, but that’s just me.

I saw these maquettes at the Pixar 20 Years of Animation exhibition at ACMI at Federation Square in Melbourne.

Man of Steel Meets the Caped Crusader

On Monday I saw this picture in the Herald Sun and was shocked. Batman was shaking hands with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Why would the Dark Knight Detective be meeting with John Howard, especially since the PM is not the type of person that Batman would befriend. Anyone who has read Frank Miller’s excellent ‘Batman: Year 1′ story would know that after the Joker and Two Face that Batman’s major nemesis is corrupt and dishonest politicians. We also know that Mr Howard is perhaps the poster child for dishonest politicians, as he is the man who has told more lies than Pinocchio. (Oh wait, they weren’t lies, they were NON CORE PROMISES)

Also in his guise as billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman is one of the biggest employers in the comic book world. He is known as a fair and generous employer who pays his employees above award wages. I am sure that Mr Wayne would be shocked to know that he has shaken hands with the person who has been responsible for our Work Choices legislation, which enables employers like Mr Wayne to legally screw their workers. Sure Mr Howard assures us that with the removal of Unfair Dismissal Laws bosses cannot fire an employee for reasons of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion BUT, the legislation also states that a boss does not have to give a reason for sacking an employee. (Can anyone else see the contradiction?!) This legislation is more likely to be supported by Lex Luthor than Bruce Wayne.

Batman is also portrayed in the comic books as a lefty. Perhaps the only person who has not written Batman in this way is Frank Miller in his current run on the totally insane ‘All Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder’, where Batman is shown as being a perverted lunatic who kidnaps twelve year old boys, drives the Batmobile for days on end, runs over police and spouts the most hilariously bad dialogue ever. Perhaps the ‘Goddamn’ Batman would support Howard but every other version would be against Howard’s treatment of Aborigines and Muslims, as well as his undying love and support for President Bush. (I do know that Batman saved President Reagan’s life from KGBeast)

Perhaps Batman was in Sydney for APEC because the NSW Police had intelligence (ha ha) that the Joker was going to disrupt the proceedings. (Turns out that it was actually the jokers from The Chaser who did this!) I think that maybe Howard has hired the world’s greatest detective to try and find out the reason his popularity has slipped so much ever since Kevin Rudd became leader of the opposition? Perhaps Howard is just trying to get his photo taken with someone who is more popular than he is? (Mmm, I think even Osama bin Laden is more popular than Little Johnny!)

Also there have been reports in the media today that the government has leaked a report that Labor’s Kevin Rudd had a heart operation 10 years ago. WELL AT LEAST KEVIN RUDD HAS A HEART, WHICH IS SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE SAID FOR THE MEAN SPIRITED JOHN HOWARD!!!

Cartoon Collectibles – Celebrate Mickey 75 Years of Fun

A few years ago Australia Post and Disney got together to celebrate Mickey’s 75th birthday. These packs and stamps are very attractive and worthy of any Disney collection.

Ratatouille and Pixar Exhibition

Just a post to let everyone know that tomorrow I am going to see the new Pixar film Ratatouille. I have heard great reviews for this movie and it’s by Brad Bird so it should be brilliant. I promise that as soon as I have a chance I will post a review.

I am also going to ACMI at Federation Square for the Pixar exhibition and will post my thoughts on this outing. On a related note, I received an email from the person who organises the Kids Flicks at ACMI and they really liked my idea of showing Fleischer cartoons. I know that a few years ago they had a Betty Boop festival, so hopefully they can show some Popeye, Color Classics as well as Ms. Boop. I wonder if ACMI is alligned with ASIFA in the USA?

I also must say that I love the Ratatouille posters. They look like the classic French advertising posters of the 1950s, as well as looking a lot like the UPA type flat animation style of the 50s.