Have you watched this year's Disney holidays special?

It is now available to the international audience (after a few commercials) at Disney's website.

You can also read some behind the scenes and cameo appearances about this great special, but maybe it's best to watch it before reading to avoid spoilers. ;)

Got this via Twitter, by Dietrich Reisler

Besides being busy and not updating this blog for a while, there's always time to wish you a Merry Christmas. :)

I'll leave you here what I saw at Cartoon Brew today. It's an incredible Christmas short entirely made by animator Doug Compton over a 1955 Stan Freber song, called Nuttin' for Christmas:

Merry Christmas!

Browsing by Yafaray website I saw that user Alvaro Luna (Samo) has made available his presentation on Yafaray.

It's an amazing content, which tells not only about the program itself, but the concepts around a renderer. That's excellent for everyone who ever wondered what happens when you press F12. :D

I watched The Princess And The Frog this weekend.

I must say the visuals are stunning. The animation is as good as it gets, and the art direction is fabulous. I think the highlights are the animation of Charlotte, Louis and Dr. Facilier. Just brilliant.

About the story, I believe we should base our thoughts on the fact this is a typical "Disney princess movie". Thus, we really get what it is expected from this kind of movie: happy ending, victory of virtue, a defeated villain, etc.

Honestly I don't see that as a problem: it is a "contract" made between Disney and the public. The moviegoer knows, when entering the theater, that it's a "princess movie". Everyone knows that it will have a happy ending, but the question is how things happen in order to end like this. When deciding which movie they're gonna watch, the decision implies what the spectator wants to see: comedy, horror, action, sci-fi, princess-movie.

I believe it's more or less like the Twilight Saga. I didn't watch it because I'm really not interested in that particular contract. Nevertheless, I believe it delivers what it promises. If it didn't, it wouldn't cause this huge frenzy.

And that's why I think The Princess And The Frog is a great movie.

Inside this "princess movie" thing, Disney artists made some bold decisions. The most talked about is the choice for a black princess, and I really liked the approach to the death of a comic-relief character. So I think Disney succeeded in making a really good movie within the constraints.

I also liked the Brazilian dubbing. The highlight was the redneck family, which was hilariously adapted to Brazil. The only problem, IMHO, was the choice of dubbing the songs. I don't think it was cool to make Brazilian versions of New Orleans Jazz. I'll have to wait for the DVD to listen to the original version, since there are no subtitled copies on local theaters.

Nope. That's not a Kung Fu Panda and Big Buck Bunny mashup.

I found it pretty cool the way the director, Vincent, mixed pixilation and traditional animation. I also think the rithm and composition are great, although the characters lacked a bit of appeal, IMHO. If your Chinese skills are up to date go check their website. If you're only a padawan like me, you can ask Google for a little help.

Got this tip via @sarah_ottoni