Mystery Men By Kinka Usher.

Mystery Men by Kinka Usher.

This movie is a combination of a lot of things that I like:

An underdog story, gaudy superheroes, creative sets/visuals/costumes, and some of the funniest actors of our era. Loosely based on Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot Comics, Mystery Men takes place in a world where not only are superheroes for reals, but there are way too many of them, putting some of the superheroes with the lamest powers on the Z-list.

The main thing I don't like about this film is the ending. Throughout the movie, none of the Mystery Men's powers work quite right. Then suddenly, at the end, everything just works for no good reason. That's lazy writing. What should have happened was the heroes should've figured out a way to turn their weaknesses into strengths. Instead, their powers just work out of the blue, "THE END."

Still, I really like the production value and this movie has some of my favorite fanboy jokes. Also, I find Mr. Furious relatable from time to time...

"The straight line is godless and immoral. The straight line is not a creative line, it is a duplicating line, an imitating line." - Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Out of all adaptations of the ballet and short story, this has gotta be my favorite version of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

I hope you like rodents! ^^

Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (later republished as The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation) by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

This is not just an "animation book". It's an amazing volume on visual storytelling, written by two of the key animators at Disney during the Golden age of American animation.

Apparently, the ancient Greeks had their own take on the werewolf legend.

On the slopes of Mount Lykaion, worshipers of Zeus-Lykaois (Zeus-the-Wolf) would conduct a ritual in his honor. A ritual that supposedly involved cannibalism and human sacrifice. Inspired by the well-known myth where King Lycaon kills his own son Nyctimus and tries to trick Zeus into eating his flesh only to be found out and transformed into a wolf, the ritual attendance would gather once every nine years in the dead of night and make their sacrifice consisting of a human volunteer and an animal. And after the deed was done, a portion of the volunteer's intestine would be mixed with the animal's entrails. The cult members would then each take a morsel of meat and whoever wound up eating the human flesh was transformed into a wolf.

The kicker is they would be stuck in their wolf form for nine years and the only way to be transformed back would be to abstain from eating human flesh that entire time. Not an easy task for a wolf.

The Neverending Story (German: Die unendliche Geschichte) by Michael Ende.

A magnificent book.