A couple whose marriage was going on the rocks sought the advice of a marriage counsellor. The counsellor pleaded with them to patch up their quarrel, but they were adamant.

“So,” said the counsellor, “you know the consequences and you want to part. Remember this. You must divide your property equally.”

The wife flared up. “You mean the $4,000 I have saved up? I must give him half? My money?”

“Yes,” said the counsellor. “He gets $2,000. You get $2,000.”

“What about my furniture? I paid for that.”

“Same thing,” answered the counsellor. “Your husband gets the bedroom and the living room; you get the dining room and the kitchen.”

There was a challenging gleam in the wife’s eye. “What about our three children?”

That stumped him. Shrewdly he assayed the situation, then he came up with a Solomonic answer. “Go back and live together until your fourth
child is born. Then you take two children and your husband takes two.”

The wife shook her head. “No, I’m sure that wouldn’t work out. If I depended on him, I wouldn’t have the three I got.”

Well the much anticipated release of Dragonlance - Dragons of Autumn Twilight was On Jan 15th. I have finally had a chance to see it. Here is my review of the film (no spoilers).

Casting - The major members of the party are the only ones that I will be rating.

Michael Rosenbaum - Tanthalas ‘Tanis’ Half-Elven (voice) Rating - 3/5
Kiefer Sutherland - Raistlin Majere (voice) - Rating 5/5
Lucy Lawless - Goldmoon (voice) - Rating 4/5
Fred Tatasciore - Flint Fireforge / Fewmaster Toede (voice) Flint Rating 1/5 Fewmaster Rating 4/5
Michelle Trachtenberg - Tika (voice) - Rating 3/5
Rino Romano - Caramon Majere (voice) - Rating 0/5 WTF Someone had a brain fart here.
Jason Marsden - Tasslehoff Burrfoot (voice) - Rating 3/5
Neil Ross - Fizban The Fabulous (voice) - Rating 2/5
Marc Worden - Sturm Brightblade (voice) - Rating 2/5
Phil LaMarr - Riverwind / Gilthanas (voice) - Rating 3/5

The Good

Finally there is a release of a movie based on a book that kept so true to the story. The unfortunate thing with this movie is that the rest of the production did not live up to the potential of the story. Here are the reasons for the previous statement.

The Bad

1. Poor blend of 3D and traditional animation styles. This is a tricky method of producing a film and this one was just not done right. The stylized characters did not match the CG Draconians and Dragons in the film.
2. Awkward animation, very jerky and not fluid. With todays technology including motion-capture and photo realistic rendering It’s disappointing that a story with such potential ended up looking the way this production did. It looked like animation from the 80’s reminiscent of the original LOTR Cartoon.
3. Poor camera work and angles. This stems back to the poor blend of 2D and 3D animation techniques. With 3D techniques there is no limit to the work with the camera. Why this production did not make use of the available technology today is beyond me.
4. Poor selection of music for the score, not much else I can say about that.
5. Acting, with the list of actors in the movie I would have expected better voice acting. It seemed like the actors had no emotional bond with the characters. Very much like reading from a script and not living the part.

Overall I have to fail this movie considering the era of its release. If released in the 80’s this movie might have been acceptable but as an animator and artist myself I am extremely disappointed in the production quality of the film. I was hoping for so much more

Confession of a golfer

A nun was sitting with her Mother Superior chatting.”Mother Superior, I used some horrible language this week and feel absolutely terrible about it.” “When did you use this awful language?” asked the elder.

“Well, I was golfing and hit an incredible drive that was going to go 280 yards, but it struck a phone line over the fairway and straight down to the ground after only 100 yards.”

“And that”s when you swore?”

“No, Mother,” says the nun. After that, a squirrel ran out of the bushes and grabbed my ball in its mouth and began to run away.”

“And THAT”S when you swore?” asked the Mother Superior.

“Well, no,” says the nun. “You see, as the squirrel was running, an eagle came down out of the sky, grabbed the squirrel in his talons and began to fly away!”

“Is THAT when you swore?” asked the amazed elder nun.

“No. As the eagle carried the squirrel away in its claws, it flew near the green and the squirrel dropped my ball.”

“Did you swear THEN?” asked Mother Superior impatiently.

“No, because the ball fell on a big rock, bounced over the sand trap, rolled onto the green and stopped about six inches from the hole.”

The two nuns were silent for a moment.

Mother Superior sighed, “You missed the f*****g putt, didn’t you?”