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I love this charming, creative short video:

Created by Vancouver Film School student Sarah Jolley

[Hat tip to Electronic Cerebrectomy]

"Sumo Lake" - Greg Holfield

From the Sumo Lake website:

Sumo Lake is a rapid, animated re-telling of the story of the ballet "Swan Lake" using sumo wrestlers and a giant lizard in a leotard.

Sumo Lake from Panic Productions on Vimeo.

[Hat tip:  Thinking Animation Blog]

"Hop It" - Simon's Cat

The weather's been beautiful the last few days, daughter is home from college, and I'm not spending much time on the computer.  Here's a recent Simon's Cat:

 

Garuda by Alex Liddell

Older son showed us this video last week:

GARUDA from alexis liddell on Vimeo.

"Thought of You," a beautiful dance animation, and an addition to the blogroll

I haven't added to my blogroll for quite a while, and there are some wonderful blogs I need to include.  The first one that I'll mention, because I showed everyone here a number of posts from it this evening, is Thinking Animation Blog.  Thinking Animation Blog has posts about animation, the making of animation, interviews with animators, and wonderful animation videos that I often haven't seen anywhere else. 

One of my recent favorites is Thought of You, a beautiful dance animation by Ryan Woodward set to World Spins Madly On by The Weepies (go to the Thinking Animation post to see a video about the making of this short). 

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

 

Other favorite recent posts at Thinking Animation Blog:

• ShapeShifter
• Reloaded - Baskerville
• I'm a monster
• Meet Buck
• Innovative Lessons from Pixar
• Niggles and Narks
• Snickers Focus Group:  A creative and disturbing ad
• Trailer for Rio

Oxygen

Oxygen from Christopher Hendryx on Vimeo.

I hope he makes more of these!

[Hat tip to Kuriositas]

The Muppets: Pöpcørn

I'm always happy to see a new Muppets video.  I love the... no, shouldn't give anything away.

A link post (which includes Liza Minnelli)

I thought I'd get lots of blogging done this weekend.  You see, after all the busy-ness of the last few months (good busy, but some of the busiest I've ever been, just the same), I decided to take this weekend and schedule nothing. 

Nothing at all.

I decided that, besides laundry, dishes, and the every day stuff, I'd just do whatever I felt like.  What a bizarre concept.  I was sure that I'd get lots of blogging done, but I never really felt like blogging.  What did I feel like?

Sleeping.

I'd start reading a book, or downloading photos, and I'd get sleepy and go take another nap.  Along with sleeping well at night, I slept two to three hours during the day.  I haven't even finished any of the books I'm reading (Small Pools, Unseen Academicals, and Tales from Outer Suburbia). 

I almost didn't write this part of the post because it seems so... shameful to get so little done over a whole weekend.  However, catching up with the last two weeks' worth of Glee put me in a good mood this evening so I decided to confess anyway. 

Here are a few interesting things I ran across the last few weeks:

• The Masterworks Broadway blog has a post about the thirty-fifth anniversary of the opening of Chicago.  To go with the post, here's Liza Minnelli singing All That Jazz:

•  Notes of an Anesthesioboist has a beautifully thoughtful, though sad, post, A Spouse's Silent Sorrows:

...So often the beauty of compassion between partners is overlooked or forgotten, but when it exists the connection between the two can be felt by everyone in the room...

• At Wired - Meet the Last Generation of Typewriter Repairmen.

• A country landscape - A photo I'd like to hike in (among many of such) at Appalachian Treks.

• Mermaid at Daily Animation:  Beautiful, though sad.

• I love Wild Beasts and Dangerous Lunatics' review of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a Michael Caine/Steve Martin comedy which is one of my favorite movies.  However, there are spoilers so don't read if you don't want parts of the story given away.

• Robert Downey Jr.:  Biggest movie star on the planet -- Who'da thunk it? at Flick Filosopher:

If anyone had asked you, a decade ago, to predict who would be the biggest star of 2010, you might have said Jim Carrey. Or Tom Hanks. Or Tom Cruise. They headlined the biggest movies of 2000, after all...

Fly

I don't usually care for this kind of humor, but this one is well done, and...

 ... like Wile E Coyote, these two always come back.   This short is from a new project from Aardman Animation (for those of you who, like me, are Wallace and Gromit fans) to showcase their directors in short films.  Director Alan Short describes this short:  "This set up is the premise for a series of silly gags... it's done in the style of a homage to such animation greats as Tex Avery and Chuck Jones."

My favorite part is with the plants.

[Hat tip to Thinking Animation]

"Lightheaded" by Mike Dacko

We've watched this video over and over:

I haven't been able to find much on the creator, but the video has won a number of awards