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Historical debates

Furry fans celebrate Zootopia's Oscar victory

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (11 votes)

Ritwell's Zootopia Oscar picture
Art by Ritwells - Click Image for link to tweet
One year ago, Zootopia, a story about anthropomorphic animals in a modern setting dealing with the issue of prejudices in society, hit theaters. It was the most highly anticipated film for furries in the last decade, some having even rented out theaters for personal furry gatherings. In the days following Flayrah had a reviewing bonanza in which multiple prominent article writers gave their own reviews of the piece.

Heck, the Fur Affinity banner changed to a Zootopia theme when the movie came out and hasn’t changed since.

But on February 27th, the love for the film was continued to be shown well beyond the borders of furry fandom, as the academy elected it to receive the Oscar for Best Animated feature. It beat out nominees Moana, My Life as a Zucchini, The Red Turtle, and the one that most had thought could take it away from Disney, Kubo and the Two Strings.

Obituary: Brian Bedford, voice of Disney's 'Robin Hood'

Your rating: None Average: 4.1 (8 votes)

Brian BedfordBrian Bedford, an English-born actor best known to furs as the voice of the titular character in Disney's Robin Hood, passed away January 13, 2016, due to cancer in Santa Barbera, California. He was 80.

Bedford was born in Morley, UK on February 16, 1935. Primarily a stage actor, known for his work on Broadway, he made his Broadway debut in 1959, in the play Five Finger Exercise, directed by John Gielgud. In 1971, he won a Tony Award for his role in The School for Wives. He would gain an additional six Tony nominations; the most recent coming for his last stage role, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. He also appeared in many TV and film roles, though his vocal role as the vulpine Robin Hood is his best known.

Bedford is survived by his husband, Tim MacDonald.

Review: 'All Creatures Big and Small' (2015)

Your rating: None Average: 3.9 (7 votes)

All Creatures Big and SmallBetter late then never, they always say, and that is never more true than with movies. For it does not matter how old a movie is; if it is good, and timeless, it won't be dated five years later.

So, one year after its worldwide premiere, I am reviewing All Creatures Big and Small, a movie that everybody forgot immediately after it came out. Apparently, nobody thought it was very good (which is probably what you heard). But let me tell you this: it is good, and if you give it a chance, you will see why I say this.

Trailer: 'Rock Dog'

Your rating: None Average: 3.2 (6 votes)

So, Disney goes out of there way to advertise the very anthropomorphic nature of next animated movie (you couldn't resist the awful fur pun, could you, Disney? It's okay, we know how it is.), and it turns out everyone and their Rock Dog has chosen to come out with similar movies within months of each other. Rock Dog, though a Chinese production with no American release date (it does have an October 1 Chinese release date), is meant to be the movie that breaks Chinese animation into America.

And it's every bit as anthropomorphic an animal world as Zootopia or Kung Fu Panda 3, and, at the very least, it looks much more promising than Legend of a Rabbit.

Trailer: Pixar's 'The Good Dinosaur'

Your rating: None Average: 3.4 (5 votes)

After all the recent 2016 movie trailers last month, we're going back to the present of 2015 with this month's movie trailers. Though a teaser was dropped last month, Pixar's first ever second movie of the year, The Good Dinosaur, has a brand new trailer. It neither confirms nor denies the possibility of migration.

FurryCon mark registration proceeds after initial denial

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (2 votes)

FurryCon mark Soron's application to register the FurryCon logo as a service mark is proceeding, but only after the addition of a disclaimer of exclusive use of the term "furry con".

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office declined to register the New York state furry convention's name as a mark in August 2013, after identifying the terms 'furry' and 'con' as "merely descriptive":

“Furry” refers to “fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics.” - “Con” is a “common abbreviation for convention”.

At that time, a "furry" was also cited by the examiner as:

someone who is part of a subculture interested in fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics

Various Wikipedia and WikiFur articles were used as references, as well as George Gurley's "Pleasures of the Fur" in Vanity Fair, the Anthrocon, Furry 4 Life, Furry Fandom Infocenter, Furry Connection North and Georgia Furs websites, and a con report on SoFurry.

New 'Chipmunks' TV series to debut in 2015

Your rating: None Average: 4.1 (8 votes)

Alvin and the Chipmunks 2015 seriesIt has been announced that a new television series of Alvin and the Chipmunks will debut in 2015. The series, originally called The Chipmunks and Chipettes and now titled ALVINNN!!! and The Chipmunks, has been in development since 2010.

The new series is being created by Ross Bagdasarian Jr. (son of original Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.) and his wife, Janice Karman. Produced by Bagdasarian Productions and French production studio Genao Productions, the series will consist of fifty-two eleven-minute episodes, and will feature the Chipmunks as CGI characters. This revival will be the first time the Chipmunks have been in a television program since Alvin and the Chipmunks in 1990.

Disney promises "odd couple" furry flick 'Zootopia' in 2016

Your rating: None Average: 4.4 (7 votes)

Zootopia (working title). A Disney animated movie about talking animals. How original!

Zootopia promo image

Amid Amidi reports on his Cartoon Brew website about Disney’s plans to produce a 2016 animated feature about a fox and rabbit “odd couple” in a world of talking animals. Let’s hope this gets farther than Silly Hillbillies on Mars. (Hey, Disney, whatever happened to that?)

Disney still has to go some in the odd couple teamups to beat Roger Rabbit & Eddie Valliant. Ah, but "The twist is that the entire film is set in a world in which humans never existed (a la Pixar’s Cars) and animals have built everything." How original! Hmmm -- Robin Hood? The Lion King?

This could be interesting, depending on whether Disney does anything with the predator-prey situation as in Bill Holbrook’s Kevin & Kell setting. It’s too early to tell.

Magic of friendship remains in 'My Little Pony: Equestria Girls'

Your rating: None Average: 3 (16 votes)

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Morbid curiosity is a wonderful thing. So, sure, let’s watch My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. I mean, look at this thing. Look at it. It’s got to be a train wreck, and train wrecks are worth looking at, except this is only a metaphorical train wreck, so there’s less guilt about staring at a horrific accident where someone might have died. Nobody died because of Equestria Girls. So that’s a plus.

Besides, what if it was actually, you know, decent? I mean, it’s an hour and a half commercial for slightly creepy dolls. But I’ve been wrong before. How do you know if it’s good if you don’t try it? It might be good.

Guess what? Might happened.

Review: 'Epic' is about as inspired as its title

Your rating: None Average: 3.6 (9 votes)

EpicThis should come as no surprise, but Roger Ebert was a personal hero of mine. The man lost his voice years ago, but he was still able to speak clearly as ever in his writing, especially the movie reviews that were his main job. He died earlier this year.

I was reminded of a line he occasionally used during Blue Sky StudiosEpic during a scene where the villain has captured the comedy relief sidekicks and is telling them stories of his son. One of them exclaims, “Your stories are boring and torturous!” As Ebert would point out (as he did for Jason X), the movie just reviewed itself. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Epic features some really wonderful animation, great special effects and what I’m sure would have been remarkable use of 3D technology if I’d bothered to watch the movie that way, but none of it really matters, because the story is, well, boring and torturous.