Witness as a crack team of paratroopers investigate an icy base camp with a diabolical secret hidden deep within a sinister laboratory. There lying in wait are the most insidious and evil creations mankind has ever seen! Evil in the form of Nazi Dinosaurs! God save us all.

This snazzy little film was created by artist Alex Poutianinen in just five days and for just 20 bucks. Yeah, it shows but non the less it’s clever and funny.

The one part omitted from the film adaptation of The Watchmen is the subplot about the fictional comic book called Tales of the Black Freighter, which scenes appear throughout the Watchman issues. The story in the story is an allegory for the overall theme of the plot, but is more than able to stand on its own. So it’s no surprise that Warner Bros. is going to offer it as a stand-alone animated film to be released on DVD on March 24th. And from the looks of this trailer that premiered at MTV.com they are not changing much of the story, which is very good.

The Underwire has a short feature of artist Michael Sullivan’s short film “The Sex Life of Robots”, which you can watch above. Sullivan’s original idea for the stopmotion film was a war movie featuring armies of battling robots, but then he came up with a better idea on what to do with his legion of robots: make love and not war. Thus “The Sex Life of Robots” came into non-stop robot sex life.

Sullivan has worked as an animator, prop fabricator and lighting designer for over twenty years. His work has been featured in the Tribeca Film Festival, “Transformers” the television show, Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” video, a short animated EFX for “Star Trek V”, “The Big Bear in the Big Blue House” and “Joe’s Apartment.”

Clips of “The Sex Life of Robots” and an exhibition of some of Sullivan’s risqué robot sculptures are now on temporary display at Manhattan’s Museum of Sex.

A fine, fine meshup that brings two classics together – Full Metal Jacket and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Happy Holidays!

Through the years I’ve become a Metalica hater. Between the sell-out attitude, lack of musical integrity and the obvious overzealous greed for more money than anyone can need, I’ve not found a reason to like them in some time. That is until now.

I can man-up when I have to and this is one of those times. Above is one of the more creative music videos I have seen in quite some time – “All Nightmare Long” from their newest release Death Magnetic. The song itself hearkens back to when Metalica wasn’t Selloutica, with heavy string action, bombastic bass drums and lyrics that are dark and brooding. But what really wins me over is the video itself. With heavy inspiration coming from both the Cold War and the Zombie Apocalypse, and clever usage of throw-back filming techniques, “All Nightmare Long” is very effective and entertaining. I really don’t want to spoil the thing so I’ll just leave it at that.

Here’s the movie trailer for the upcoming stop motion animated film Coraline which is directed by Henry Selick (A Nightmare Before Christmas) and based on the book of the same name by Neil Gaiman (Sandman). The film is due out this coming February and looks creepytastic.

I’ll be attending the local Philadelphia geek fest Philcon this weekend, participating in some panel discussions. If you’re around stop on by and say yo. You can catch me at these panels:

Fri 8:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
DIGITAL TOOLS FOR ARTISTS (102)
[Panelists: D.E. Christman (mod), Alan Beck, Sally Wiener Grotta, John Picacio]
Technical stuff we love to use to creating our art.

Sat 2:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
SCARY PICTURES! WHAT IS THE ALLURE OF HORROR ART? (105)
[Panelists: D.E. Christman (mod), Joseph L. Bellofatto, Jr., Alan Beck, Diane Weinstein]
Why artists want to make horror art, and why people love it

Sat 3:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
WHY HORROR IS NOT DEAD (71)
[Panelists: Dina Leacock (mod), D.E. Christman, Sara Harvey, Jennifer Williams]
Despite the naysayers and the disappearance of the category in some bookstores, it’s still out there. Why?

Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza IV (Four) (1 hour)
THE BIG, BAD ZOMBIE PANEL (141)
[Panelists: D.E. Christman (mod), Tony Finan, Jennifer Williams, Matt Black]
BRAAAAAAAINS!

Sun 11:00 AM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
BEYOND ILLUSTRATION: ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO SELL ART. (106)
[Panelists: D.E. Christman (mod), Emily Kwait, Ruth Lampi, Heidi Hooper, Ray Ridenour]
Prints, T-shirts, Collectibles, Web Comics, Subscriptions, other ways to sell your images beyond book cover illustration

It’s Friday and I feel like rocking out, so here’s a video for arguably one of the greatest heavy metal songs ever – Sepultura’s Ratamahatta. It’s filled with stop motion craziness, Brazilian kettle drums and face-kicking Metal.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of The Star Wars Holiday Special! Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? Well shame on you. Just watch the above video and check out StarWarsHolidaySpecial.com to get yourself educated.

Happy Life Day to all my fellow Star Wars nerds!

Jim Reardon is a director and storyboard consultant best known for his work on The Simpsons. During his student years at the California Institute of the Arts he created possibly one of the greatest cult classic animated shorts – Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, in which Charlie Brown is on the run from the Peanuts Gang after the Great Pumpkin puts a bounty on his head.