Paper Airplane Love

     Last year, Disney came out with a new short, it's called "Paperman" and I saw it for the first time today and completely fell in love with it. It's a combination of Computer Generated Imaging and the hand-drawn line which is apparently new...? I thought they'd have tried the combination before transitioning into CGI only, but that's just me.
     The short is in black and white and it shows this young man in the 1950s who works at some corporate job filling out papers with a bunch of other men. When he meets a beautiful girl at the train station he thinks it's a one-time meeting: he'll never see her again. He's surprised when she appears in the window of the building across the street. He starts throwing paper airplanes, trying to get her attention but failing. Some of his reactions are so lifelike they're priceless to watch.
     Eventually the man runs out of paper and decides to go find her, but she's turned a corner out of sight. He finds the last airplane and throws it out of frustration, but the airplane (and I can just hear that little voice in my head) thinks "Oh no, buddy, you're not giving up on love." It goes and finds a bunch of the failed attempts and they push the young man along, keeping him sitting still when he tries to fight them. Then the one airplane finds the beautiful woman. It's fascinatingly adorable watching the airplanes bounce along on the wind because they look like the mops from the Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia, where Mickey enchants the mop to clean the floor.
     It's Disney, so of course there's a happy ending, but I strongly encourage you to watch through the credits. It's an amazing story of 'love conquers all' and an especially helpful reminder that sometimes you just have to wait, and sometimes fate needs to be shown that you're serious about it. So, now that I'm done fan-girl-ing about it; Enjoy!

Just a thought...
Stephie

A Compliment a Day...

     So today was not a good day; I planned to get up early, finish my homework, clean my apartment, maybe go to my parents' and play with my dog. None of that happened: I slept much later than I had hoped, managed to spend the entire day washing dishes, feeling all alone, and discovered that my roommate's boyfriend had left egg all over the lid to one of my pans. After an hour of scrubbing it is still not clean. To say the least I was not in a good mood.
     But then I checked my Facebook. I attend Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA and recently a student (at least I assume it was a student) started up a Facebook page called Pacific Lutheran Compliments where students may anonymously submit compliments to the administrator and they will appear on the page. I've been following it since its founding and it's been wonderful to see several of my friends complimented, and to just see how kind everyone is, but I was starting to feel left out when today a friend tagged me on a compliment. Needless to say my entire day turned around. It's wonderful how something so small could make my entire day better.

Just a thought...
Stephie

Movie Night!

     A few of my friends were lamenting the fact that I hadn't seen several of their favorite movies--Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Fight Club--so they all but blackmailed me into watching them.
     Star Wars was entertaining: a few of us got together and watched the more recent trilogy. I really enjoyed them, but there seemed to be a bit of disconnect between the original trilogy and the newer set. Not in the storyline, but in the technology that was used to create the story. The computer generated images seemed out of place: there was too much color and the style--shapes, patterns, blends and contrasts--was completely different from the original trilogy. Why wouldn't the artists look at the original concept art and work form there? It seemed like they watched the movies, but then, instead of continuing in the pattern already established, the artists branched out and introduced something completely new. In some places this worked, but when they went back to places where the first trilogy took place it looked completely out of place and as if they'd photo-shopped something in that wasn't supposed to be there.
     I'm interested to see what Disney does with the new trilogy. I hope they add more congruity and can bridge the first and second trilogies together.

Just a thought...
Stephie