http://www.imetthewalrus.com/

I was 14 in 1969 when John Lennon mysteriously appeared in Toronto. My world revolved around The Beatles and John was my hero.  I instinctively knew that I had to find him, and more importantly, talk with him.

So I skipped school and made my trek at 7:00 a.m. to a hotel I guessed he would stay in, went to the top floor, knocked on every door and woke a lot of disgruntled people. A cleaning lady asked, “Are you looking for the Beatle?” I said yes and she told me where he was. Kyoko, Yoko’s daughter was lying on the floor, colouring in front of a suite. I knew I’d found him, barged in, and made myself at home. John laughed at the spectacle, and let me stay.

Later on, with tape recorder in hand, I interviewed him and Yoko for about 40 minutes and talked about peace, The Beatles, John and Yoko music and teenage angst. I told him how I defended The Beatles to fans who were turning to other groups. I also told him how a butcher claimed that the Two Virgins album was pornography. He laughed and calmed me down. When I listed the hidden messages I found in the White Album he went out of his way to tell me that there is nothing magical about Beatles music and that he and the other Beatles are just regular guys. John gave me his copy of Life With the Lions and I left that encounter floating on air.

What happened that day was profound. I knew it then and I know it today. John was kind to a kid who loved The Beatles which led to an unparalleled and historic pop encounter.

- Jerry Levitan

I don't know how many people are covering this, and I honestly don't care, but today will be about Batman: Gotham Knight. 

Monday, it will be honestly a little late considering how much information about Dark Knight will be out by then and already is out, but I'll do something of a Batman week next week. Monday I'll tell you how I felt about Dark Knight, I've decided to make Hush it's own thing and I'll end the week by transitioning into Nightwing, my favorite DC hero. 

And on with the look at Gotham Knight.

Background: Batman: Gotham Knight is very similar to Animatrix, in that it is six short stories in the Batman universe animated by some of the top Japanese anime companies. It also employs some very good voice-acting talent. My favorite is Kevin Conroy reprising his role as Batman. You might remember Conroy from Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s. Honestly, if anyone were to voice Batman it should be Conroy he is the voice of Batman for me. 

In order the various episodes were written by Josh Olson, Greg Rucka, Jordan Goldberg, David S. Goyer, Brian Azzarello, and Alan Burnett. It's a pretty good line up of writers. 

Gotham Knight was released as a tie-in to Batman: Dark Knight, and was created by the producers of Dark Knight. 

Some other notable things include the actors Gary Dourdan as Crispus Allen and Ana Ortiz as Anna Ramirez. There are some other famous voice actors involved including Will Friedle, James Marsden, and Rob Paulsen. 

The Movie: 

The way that I'll be doing this is breaking it down into the six episodes and offering information and opinion on each. 

Have I Got a Story For You – Josh Olson

This one doesn't actually feature Batman so much as four kids ideas of what Batman really is. Three of the kids tell their compatriot that the reason they're late is because they watched Batman fight a criminal on the way over, each on their own and with differing results. One sees him as a shadowy, growling, red-eye thing. The other sees him as a living Bat-man, and the last sees Batman as a ridiculously powerful robot. 

The criminal in the fight looks the same in every battle for whatever reason. Eventually, the criminal and Batman manage to bring the fight to the kids and the last kid sees Batman as the actual guy in a suit. 

This episode is my least favorite of the six. In fact, I don't really like it at all. The animation style is one that I don't particularly enjoy. All the humans have this weird bug-eyed quality to their faces and their lips range from nonexistent to overly plump. It disturbs me. The biggest problem that I had was with the first and last Batman. I realize that the first three renderings of Batman are the children's faulty memories but the first one is just made all the more ugly by the artistic style of the whole thing. It's kind of like watching Lupin the Third. This is a bad thing for me because I hate the art style of Lupin the Third as much as I hate the voice acting and writing. Needless to say it's up there.

When the last kid sees the real Batman it's just disappointing. Batman is portrayed as fat, slow, and on the verge of an asthma attack. What?! It wasn't Batman at all, it was like the Comic Book Guy dressed as Batman with the voice of Kevin Conroy. It was depressing, to say the least.

The only problem I had with the story was the dialogue. The idea has been done before in comic and cartoon form with Batman, so it wasn't like following a bad plot. It's just that these kids are supposed to be be punk ghetto kids and the acting and dialogue seems so forced and stilted from them that it's like listening to suburban white kids pretending that they're hard. You'd think that the guy who wrote A History of Violence could do better but apparently not. The only decent acting came from Kevin Conroy and he only had maybe 3 lines in the whole episode. 

I tried finding a still from the first one but even the official website doesn't have one. I'd argue that they were embarrassed by the first episode.

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Crossfire – Greg Rucka

Again, Batman isn't really featured in this one for the first half of the story. He comes at the end again, but he's still just kind of there. 

Crossfire focuses on Crispus Allen and Anna Ramirez, two detectives who are ordered to take the criminal captured in the first episode to Arkham Asylum. Turns out the captured criminal is named Jacob Freely and is an expert in technology and explosives. 

Rucka uses Crispus as an out of towner who plays the mouthpiece against vigilantes and Ramirez is the girl from Gotham who respects what Batman is doing and the subsequent drop in crime because of him. The vignette shows Allen and Ramirez taking Freely to Arkham and leaving. For whatever reason Ramirez pulls their car over during their Batman argument and decides to set the record straight. 

They just so happen to have pulled into a lot where Sal Maroni and another gang leader, The Russian, have decided to duke it out in the streets. The cops come under fire and eventually Batman saves them and a sense of respect for Batman is begrudgingly formed by Crispus Allen. 

The style is much better in Crossfire than the first episode. Everything is darker, the colors are toned down, and a sense of pervading evil in everything fills the animation. It's also a much smoother and nicer piece to watch. The art alone gives this one three stars. 

However, the story and the dialogue take one away. Once again, despite Dourdan and Ortiz's best efforts, the dialogue feels stiff. Honestly, the best parts of this episode are when the characters are not talking and the visuals are carrying the story. I suppose, a couple of grunts here and there during the fight sequence counts as noises but it's not really dialogue. 

The Batman dialogue is the worst. I know that he's supposed to be cold and aloof but the way his dialogue seems to come in with little provocation or sense just takes away from it. 

Artistically this is a three or a four, but it's going to get a 2 because art can't always carry plot.

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Field Test – Jordan Goldberg

Goldberg's addition to Gotham Knight is more about his equipment than anything else. Lucius Fox develops an electromagnetic field that Batman can wear which will deflect bullets. At one point Bruce Wayne goes to a golf tournament and steals a PDA. Eventually, he also steals a boat owned by Maroni and happens to run into a boat owned by the Russian. 

Before I even get into the art I'm going to tackle the story. What is going on here? There are two different stories in one in this episode. The problem is that everything having to do with the golf tournament doesn't relate at all with the rest of the story, except, that Wayne uses some electromagnetic device to throw another golfer's club into a forest. Okay...

The only reason the second half relates is because Batman uses the device to deflect bullets from Maroni and the Russian's crews. He threatens the two gang leaders and tells them that their turf is split, one gets the docks and the other gets a part of the city. No real explanation for that one either. Anyway, one of the deflected bullets hits one of the Russian's henchmen and Batman takes the guy to the hospital. In the end he gives Fox the electromagnetic device back saying he won't be apart of killing anyone, even accidentally. 

Right.

The dialogue is better in this one leaps and bounds but the plot is off-kilter and there are huge holes. It really takes away from the story line.

The art is good in this one as well. The only problem I had with it was Bruce Wayne/Batman. For whatever reason, he is the only character drawn in that weird androgynous style that Japanese anime are known for. You know, the one where the guys look almost girlish like girls and their mannerisms and the way they walk, sit, and act are somewhat girlish? Yeah, that one. For another movie, fine but for Batman?! No. It's just not right. Hearing Conroy's voice come out of a character that looks like Wayne does in Field Test doesn't feel natural at all. It's like meeting a fat guy with a voice like he just inhaled helium, only the reverse. 

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

In Darkness Dwells – David S. Goyer

Now, I realize that I have not been giving much love to these episodes for the first half of the movie. Honestly, it's because the first three are not as good as the last three. I would recommend five of the six in a regular conversation. Episode 1 would never be recommended by me, but the other two are decent enough to deserve viewings but the quality of the art and the writing goes up immensely once you get to the latter half of the movie. 

Dwells actually features two of Batman's recurring enemies. He responds to a high profile kidnapping of a church leader,  Cardinal O'Fallon, who was taken during a service. Following the trail into the  sewers he later finds that the villain behind it and several other kidnappings is Killer Croc. While discussing the origins of Killer Croc with Gordon via radio, Croc attacks Batman. The two fight deeper into the sewers where Croc bites Batman and fear toxin from his saliva is transferred into Batman who begins to hallucinate. 

Eventually, he fights off Croc, who runs away, and takes an antidote to the fear toxin. Batman recovers and finds O'Fallon being sentenced to death by the Scarecrow and several members of his cult for helping homeless people. Of course, Batman kicks some ass and saves O'Fallon by blowing up the room using the already present methane gas.

The dialogue by Goyer makes this story an easy one to swallow and despite its brevity Dwells is a fun story to follow and the action sequences are well drawn.

Batman's costume and demeanor are more sinister in this one and the art while sepia toned follows the same kind of dark ideas as the second episode. It's easier to follow and feels almost reminiscent of the 1990s Batman cartoon. A plus in my book.

I give this one high marks for an improvement over the first three and for being genuinely good.

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Working Through Pain – Brian Azzarello

Azzarello story involves Batman wandering through sewers injured and having flashbacks to a time he spent in India. In the early scenes of the episode, a criminal shoots Batman in the stomach, Batman cauterizes the wound and tries to find the street surface through the pain. 

During his flashbacks Bruce Wayne comes to train under an Indian woman, Cassandra, who teaches him how to ignore pain. The plot switches regularly between the two. One showcases Batman dealing with his pain and trying to escape the sewers and the other has Bruce Wayne training to ignore pain and/or having philosophical discussions about pain and life. 

The art in this one is pretty good, and visually my favorite of the six. Bruce Wayne looks a little too lean but I can still accept Conroy's voice from this rendition of Wayne. I think that the Bat suit is the best rendered in this one as well. It's not as stylish or fancifully weird like some of the other episodes. 

I think that Azzarello being a comic writer had a better feel for Batman than some of the others and I definitely feel that he had a better handle on Bruce Wayne. The dialogue is smooth and flows well and Wayne's training sequence and discussions with Cassandra really bring the character some depth. 

Azzarello and Goyer's stories are my favorites of the three and thus get the highest marks.

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Deadshot – Alan Burnett

I'm going to say this right now, the art in Deadshot is great except for one thing, Batman's inhumanly giant chin. If the Wayne's chin from Deadshot were measured it would have six inches all its own. What the hell were they thinking with that ridiculous chin?

Otherwise, the art is great. Most everybody else looks relatively normal but the best part artistically about Deadshot are actually the nonhuman elements. The backgrounds, the moving vehicles, the fight scene on the train, even Deadshot's lunch with his employer. They are all amazingly drawn, painted, rendered. It is beautiful just for those things. 

The story is pretty cool as well. In the opening scenes it switches from Deadshot assassinating someone from a ferris wheel, to Wayne training in his home and discussing guns with Alfred. 

Later you find that there is a contract put out on Lt. Gordon's life with Deadshot being the supposed assassin to attempt it. Do you remember that PDA that Wayne stole in the third episode? Yeah? Well, that comes back in this episode, the last episode. Here it at least makes sense but there is no reason for it all the way in episode three. If you hadn't watched episode three you would still understand episode 6, except for Wayne's Jay Leno chin of course.

Anyway, Wayne gives Crispus Allen the PDA because it contains records of the owner, Ronald Marshall, hiring Deadshot in the past. 

Long story short, Batman stops Deadshot from killing Gordon, fights the man on a moving train and eventually arrests him and Ronald Marshall. Yay, the day is saved, again.

Burnett's dialogue and plot are the best written of the entire movie. Yes,  Goyer and Azzarello's scripts are good but Burnett really brings the action to the movie and keeps it flowing smoothly throughout. The dialogue isn't forced and you know what is happening and why. It is a well done bit of writing.

Solely based on Burnett's writing I would give this episode a 4 but that damn chin angers me to no end and for that I give it a 3. 

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Overall, I give the entire movie a three and I would recommend that you check it out. It's an interesting addition to the Batman universe and an enjoyable trip for those who like Batman. 

I did forget to mention that it's supposed to be set between the events of Batman Begins and Batman: Dark Knight. Honestly, it doesn't mean much but if you like things chronological than you might want to watch Gotham Knight before you watch Dark Knight.

Scyo.

Genius Party (2007) and Genius Party Beyond (2008 ) is an anthology of short animated films from Studio 4°C featuring some of the best directors. I'll be covering the films that I especially liked soon. In the meantime, enjoy the trailers :)

Official Website

Genius Party

"Genius Party" - Atsuko Fukushima
"Shanghai Dragon" - Shoji Kawamori
"Deathtic 4" - Shinji Kimura
"Doorbell"- Yuji Fukuyama
"Limit Cycle" - Hideki Futamura
"Happy Machine" - Masaaki Yuasa
"Baby Blue" - Shinichiro Watanabe

Genius Party Beyond

"Gala" - Mahiro Maeda
"Dimension Bomb" - Koji Morimoto
"Moondrive" - Kazuto Nakazawa
"'Wanwa' the Puppy" - Shinya Ohira
"Tojin Kit"- Tatsuyuki Tanaka

[dailymotion id=x505sz&related=0]

Born to a Japanese mother and an American father, Kelts was raised in the U.S. but spent several of his adult years living in Tokyo and Osaka and still has close friends and relatives there. He's in the perfect position to interpret the cultural cross-pollination taking place between the two countries.

His book focuses on Japan's influence on America in the modern era (from World War II onward), as seen in virtually every aspect of life, including films, books, food, TV, toys, games, cars, and of course animation. It's not that Japan has changed its style; rather, Americans have come to appreciate what was there all along. Kelts believes that after 9/11, Americans became hungry for the sincerity and lack of irony presented in Japanese cartoons.

Surprisingly, Kelts reports, the global popularity of Japanese animation hasn't made very many people in Japan wealthy. This is because the concepts of copyright and intellectual property were not widely understood there until recently. When animated films or TV shows come to America, the Japanese creators don't always realize they need to hold onto the rights in order to see a profit from all the off-shoot products. As a result, the distributors wind up with the lion's share of revenue.

Another interesting tidbit: according to Japanamerica, Americans are more than partly to blame for Japan's otaku culture. Several interviewees immersed in otaku lifestyle said the concept for cosplay (costumed interaction) originated with American Star Trek fans. Ahh, Trekkies: the ultimate nerds.

One complaint about the book: the section on "mature comics" doesn't dig deep enough. I wanted Kelts to provide more analysis on the topic of contradictions, because western people have a hard time reconciling what can appear to be a dichotomy within Japanese culture: the existence of violent and explicit manga in a society with an extremely low crime rate. The context is important, and I wanted to learn more about how and why Japan has integrated seemingly opposite attributes and allowed them both to thrive.

If Kelts writes an update to Japanamerica in the next decade, that would be a great topic to explore further.

Sarah S.

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Although I never have expectations for any of my Flash's turn-outs, I must say that I am a bit disappointed of it's score. I attribute it's downfall due to the Anti-Clock controversy. People think that it is meant to be against the Clock Crew.

Let me be the first to say that it absolutely is not against the Clock Crew. I'm just simply trying to make an entertaining story. (Clock Crew vs. Tank Men) Comments on what you think of the controversy would be welcome.

____________________
In other news, I'm back to playing Halo 3 again. In my opinion, it's multiplayer is simply unrivaled as far as gaming goes at this time.

I've also been playing a tad of Rock Band. I was playing it with Luis yesterday. (Luis on guitar, myself on vocals) We chose random, and got "Dead on Arrival" by Fall Out Boy. Although a terrible song, we still got 4 stars. Of course, I was singing on easy, so perhaps that doesn't count.

If you want to play Halo, Rock Band, or Call of Duty with me, my gamer tag is Unifoxx. Feel free to add me, just tell me that you've heard of me through my blog.

Also, I'm working on getting the rest of the site up. Please bear with me.

Yesterday we finished our second week of our annual summer camp for high school students. The camp was a great success and the work was outstanding. The students participated in Interior Design, Graphic Design, Photography and Animation.

I personally worked with the graphic design students. Two of them participated in the first week and were able to build upon their knowledge. Each student did different work and some did multiple pieces. One of the girls did a poster for the new Batman movie and used Adobe Illustrator to make it all vector. She had never used this program, but learned it quickly and her design turned out great. Another girl did a digital illustration of a Cadillac. She drew the car, scanned in the image and painted it using only Adobe Photoshop. She was very unfamiliar with this program, but by the end of the camp she was very proficient using the selection and painting tools, and it showed! The other girl made a calendar with her favorite bands on it. She did 13 different designs using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. Each design for the calendar was unique and she made solid layout and type decisions.

The teen camp experience was rewarding for everyone, especially the students. At the end of the last day they got to show their work and talk about it to everyone. I could tell they all had a great sense of accomplishment while they were showing their pieces to their family and friends, and faculty of the college. If these particular students wished to continue their knowledge in Graphic Design, I think they could all be very successful in the future.

-TACDC

  A Repressible Operon in the Absence of a Corepressor
(The Tryptophan (trp) Operon)

 A Repressible Operon in the Presence of a Corepressor
(The Tryptophan (trp) Operon)

An Inducible Operon in the Absence of an Inducer
(The Lactose Operon)

An Inducible Operon in the Presence of an Inducer
(The Lactose Operon)

 An Activator Protein in the Absence of an Inducer

 An Activator Protein in the Presence of an Inducer

 (references)

see also

Control-of-Gene-Expression-in-Eukaryotes

trp repressor

lac operon

 ~~~

  Translation of mRNA by tRNA 

 (reference )

 Try also

 Translation: RNA to protein, 3D animation with basic narration

~~~ 

Check it out & see what you make of it. Handy for creating animations for Bebo, MySpace pages etc...

Basically  my plan is to take the Daft Bodies Form and change it into a "Doodle animation" similar to the backflip animation.  This is quite an ambitious project as it will probably take a good hundred frames to do the main movements. Considering I do not  have flash, nor do I have the knowledge of how to work with the flash program... everything will have to be compiled by hand very carefully. Grr, at my lack of an expensive adobe program.

As a result you will see a lack of doodles and other art posts until this project is completed.  Hopefully I can work fast enough get it done within a week to two weeks.  I will still continue to work on side projects though. So never fret, you'll still get at least some dose of Jesse Talks Doodle/General art.

For now enjoy the video that I'll be modeling the animation after:

Please ignore the undies.  That's not the concept of this post. It's more for a visual on the movement of the human body and how it will translate into animation.

DNA structure

replication initiation

replication of the leading strand

replication of the lagging strand

bringing it all together

( reference ) 

~~~

Animation of the Lytic Life Cycle of a Bacteriophage

( reference )

~~~

Neatorama » Blog Archive » TV Dinner.

Simon Tofield has a new animation featuring his irresistible cat. My personal cat does the same lap thing while I’m on the computer. Previously at Neatorama: Cat Man Do and Let Me In! Tofield is an animator at Tandem Films, where I found out that Cat Man Do won the prize for Best Comedy at the British Animation Awards. -via Metafilter

Though I've read some comments complaining that the Crush-style is too busy, I disagree. Visually cacophonic, for sure, but in a totally sublime way. It takes skill to create such frenzy but still tell the story and lead the eye from visual to visual. If it was messy, nothing would read. To me it's a brilliant outburst. Torontonians - keep your eye out for the intersection of Yonge and Dundas. You'll see it when you see it.

I HIGHLY recommend going to the Crush site and watching the high-res version. Otherwise, you might as well be looking at Rembrandts with your sunglasses on. It takes a while to load, but good things come to those who wait. Click here to see "Man Sized Wreath" in its full coolness.

If you're the impatient, low-quality accepting type, then here's the YouTube version.

Via Feed

It's by PES.

*

Voici un site d'animations Flash qui devrait vous plaire. Il s'agit de Flashanimationwebsitedesign.

Certains d'entre vous le connaissent peut-être, mais je le trouve proprement hallucinant.

Vous y trouverez des objets, des logos, des créations proprement bluffantes!

N'hésitez pas à parcourir ce site, il devrait vous ravir! ;-)

Gorgeous Type, amazing music and a keenly moving visual language. and thats not all.

They do stuff that isn't so dark too...I just couldn't find it on youtube.

Getting to the point, however, the real reason I wrote this post today is this project Digital Kitchen did for Slash Magazine. Hilarious look into the world of the graphic designer and the delusions many of us suffer from. Very spot on and one of the reason I've fallen in love with this company.

Link zum container File (RSDF & CCF)
Password: fhwmi

Nite Fite began as an episode of animator Dan Meth's series for Channel Frederator, The Meth Minute, and has been reborn as a full-blown weekly series. Two dorky and combative radio hosts, Penalty and Lloyd (voiced by Meth and Mark Vitelli), take calls on hot button topics such as politics and the Bermuda Triangle. The first three episodes are only a minute and a half apiece, which is a shame, because this is the rare case of comedy in which the bits would be funnier if they went longer. Meth, Vitelli, and the rest of the creative team have chops. It'd be nice to see this potential taken to the next level.

As the series kicks off with a discussion of selling out (triggered by Penalty's dismay at the Who's contribution to CSI: Miami), Lloyd reveals that he's arranged for Nite Fite to be sponsored by Starburst. Penalty objects and debate ensues. So, basically, it's a fictional show within a real show, sponsored by the product that sponsors the real...look, it's a little on the meta side, but this is from the guy that brought you Internet People, after all. Bottom line is, it works, and it works because Nite Fite is a fun, well-executed concept you'd want to watch even if candy weren't telling you to do it.

Animated dork humor that goes down easy. Sweet tooth optional.

Isn't that neat? I got that little circle dot thing in between the WALL and the E in the title above. If it doesn't show up okay for you, let me know, because I'm very excited about it.

So, about WALL•E.  This movie was terrific.  Fantastic, even.  It's about a lonely guy at a boring job looking for love.  But unlike me, WALL•E is a robot in a dystopic future in which mankind has abandoned Earth, leaving him to clean it up.  Of course, there's a lot more to it than that; the poor little fella gets swept up into love and a greater cause.  Really, it's the typical bumbling-male-gets-the-hot-girl story that never happens in real life but is great to watch in a movie.

Okay, I need to add a disclaimer that my job isn't boring.  That was just a joke.

Anyway, one of the highest compliments I can pay to a computer-animated movie is that I forget that it's computer-animated.  I spent almost the entire movie forgetting it, here.  I'll tell you what—it's a great story with lovable characters and a good plot.  It's perfect for the whole family.  If you haven't seen it, drop whatever you're doing and GO NOW.  Unless you're on the bomb squad, in which case, put your work down gently.

Now, there's one thing that bothers me about sci-fi movies in general, and it crops up here, too.  It's that the demographics are all wrong.  In most American sci-fi movies, nearly everyone is white, with a few token black actors sprinkled onto the set to add realism.  Do we really think that Caucasians will make up the bulk of humanity a few hundred years from now?  The demographics show the opposite.  In fact, a well-thought-out sci-fi movie set here in the USA should have a mostly Hispanic cast, since that's the wave of the future.  We white folks are breeding ourselves out of existence.  Or, more accurately, unbreeding ourselves out of existence.  This is why we are stupid.

Disclaimer:  not all white people are stupid.

Fortunately, the failure to properly forecast demographics doesn't really detract from the movie—at least to us Americans.  However, one minor rough spot is a point in the movie in which a human character launches into a one-minute tirade.  Now, in 99% of movies, that wouldn't be a problem (the monologue is a little hokey, but not too bad).  However, up to that point in the movie, the longest line of dialogue had been about five seconds.  So it seems a little out of place and awkward.  Fortunately, it's soon over, and we get back to the anthropomorphic chirps, clicks, and hums to which we've grown accustomed.  Actually, this movie has convinced me that robots are in every way superior to humans.  I won't be too upset when they rise up against their soft and fleshy human masters and conquer the world.

Disclaimer:  I might be a little upset.

Now, the moment of truth has arrived.  How does the movie stack up? Here is my rating system:

• I would pay money to see it again ($$$$).
• I would see it again if someone gave me a free ticket ($$$).
• I wouldn’t see it again even if someone gave me a free ticket ($$).
• I wouldn’t see it again even if someone paid me to go ($).

WALL•E scores…

$$$$ (four dollars)

That's my first four-dollar-sign rating.  It is well deserved!

Hay historias que nunca pasan de moda, que no lo hacen porque lo que cuentan se disuelve agradablemente en los sesos de cualquiera. Ese es el caso de kung fu panda, o, si me lo permiten, la enésima versión, esta vez animada, de karate kid (1984). Y digo karate kid, pues para mí, que amanecí en los ochenta, fue la primera. La novedad, que tampoco lo es tanto, es que Daniel Larusso es ahora un panda gigante y Mr. Kesuke Miyagi un panda rojo.

Po es un panda gigante que trabaja como camarero en el restaurante de su padre Mr. Ping, una oca que presume de aderezar sus fideos con un ingrediente secreto. Sin embargo, Po está más por la labor de imaginarse siendo un maestro kung fu que de querer conocer el ingrediente secreto de los fideos de su padre. Por supuesto, sabe tanto kung fu como yo arameo. Pero su vida cambia cuando de la noche a la mañana es accidentalmente señalado por la tortuga Oogway como el elegido. Elegido para convertirse en un guerrero dragón y defender así a su pueblo de la ira del tigre Tai Lung, el más malo entre los malos. Para ello se somete a la tutela de Sifu, un panda rojo.

kung fu panda es sobre todo una película entretenida. Sobre todo, y nada más. El cine de animación ya no es lo que era, y si me preguntan a mí, es ahora mucho más entretenido cuando las cosas se hacen como se deben hacer. Así, la fórmula de kung fu panda funciona porque sus creadores no se complican la vida con marejadas y marejadillas. A veces es tan simple como contar una historia de forma ordenada. Si bien está de moda que el cine de animación flirtee con productos que sin disimular que buscan el reclamo de los más pequeños se emborrachan de sutiles referencias más maduras, kung fu panda se conforma con entretener a los primeros y devolver a los segundos a tiempos pasados.

De Jack Black se pueden decir muchas cosas, algunas buenas, algunas no tanto. Lo cierto es que su voz le viene como anillo al dedo a Po. Se tiende a pensar que cualquiera puede ser un actor de voz, de ahí que en España, por ejemplo, las películas de animación acaben siendo dobladas por humoristas e imitadores. Pues no, es fácil distinguir entre un buen actor de voz y un oportunista.

Una película entretenida llena de referencias al cine de kung fu, a kill bill (2003) y a la filososfía de los pitufos.

Para las deadhours de los que sueñan con golpear a los que se ríen de sus barrigas con ellas.

official site | imdb