DreamWorks has released its first teaser trailer for Turbo, an animated feature about a snail obsessed with speed. It is all over the Internet; ComingSoon.net has the teaser and a plot synopsis. Ryan Reynolds voices Turbo the snail; Samuel L. Jackson is Whiplash, another snail. The feature arrives on July 19, 2013; a TV animated series is to follow.

DreamWorks Animation may be able to anthropomorphize a snail, but even they can’t make him (shouldn’t it be “it”? [or “hir”?]) cute. At least they got the eyes on the stalks right, instead of putting them under the “feelers”.

Samuel L. Jackson is the voice of Whiplash the snail. Let’s see; Samuel L. Jackson has been the voice of Tendai, a falcon in Zambezia; Rumbo, a dog in Fluke … hmmm; I guess that all of his other voice work has been as humans, such as Frozone in The Incredibles. Well, I’m sure that more anthropomorphs loom in his future.

You know how you don’t judge a book by its cover? Well, in the same vein, you don’t judge a movie by its trailer. So, anyway, Rise of the Guardians went from winner to not even showing up on my Oscar guess list, while Wreck-it-Ralph pulled the opposite trick. On one hand, this is a disappointing year; on the other, it’s a fun year to predict, because nothing is certain.

Note: Obviously, this is a bit late and out of date, but I was unable to post this last month due to computer issues, and the opinion part of it is still mostly valid, so I’m submitting it late. If you’re reading this, the editors decided to let it in; if you’re not, well, uh, you’re not.

On the way to Rise of the Guardians, I noted that, between Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the two most important days in the Christian year were covered by members of the titular Guardians. I said I'd bet that Jesus would not be mentioned once during the course of the movie, despite this. My brother took me up on this bet.

My brother owes me a coke.

This movie is explicitly about believing in things we have no proof of (like, I don’t know, Jesus); the Guardians, we're told, are powerless unless the children of the world believe in them. Strangely, I don't remember ever believing in the Sandman, the Easter Bunny or even, yes, Santa Claus. Maybe I did; but I don’t remember it.

The closest I came to believing in any of the Guardians was the Tooth Fairy; I don’t remember actually believing, but I do remember being very disappointed upon finding a tooth that my parents hadn't yet discarded after trading for a quarter.

Speaking of disappointment, Rise of the Guardians was a letdown.

I did not vote for Bitter Lake, but I will for this 2’54” December 2012 video Christmas card! An intelligent film, designed for the limitations of fursuits, by Reeve, EZwolf, and Shay, with music by Fox Amoore. It is already on the UMA's 2012 Recommended Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series list.

The Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association, which administers the annual Ursa Major Awards, has updated the 2012 Anthropomorphic Reading List to include the titles recommended by furry fans through the beginning of December. This list is often used by fans to nominate in the next year's Awards.

There is less than one month to add your favorites of the year to the List. All fans are invited to recommend worthwhile anthropomorphic works in eleven categories (motion pictures, dramatic short films or broadcasts, novels, short fiction, other literary works, graphic stories, comic strips, magazines, published illustrations, websites, and games) first published during 2012, if they are not already on the list.

ASIFA Hollywood (part of the International Animated Film Society) announced the nominations for the 2012 Annie Awards this morning. These are the Oscars for animation, folks: Chosen and awarded by members of the animation industry, from writers and artists to animators and directors. As usual, there are a great selection of furry-oriented works among the nominees. This year the nominees for Best Animated Feature include Brave, Frankenweenie, Hotel Transylvania, ParaNorman, Rise of the Guardians, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, The Rabbi’s Cat, and Wreck-It Ralph. Interestingly, two of the “furriest” films of 2012, Madagascar 3 and Ice Age 4, were not nominated for Best Feature — though they were both nominated in other categories. Wreck-It Ralph seems to be the film to beat this year — though both it and Brave were nominated for 10 awards each, Brave was not nominated for Best Directing while Wreck-It Ralph was. For the television categories, furry-notable shows receiving multiple nominations included Adventure Time, Dragons: Riders of Berk, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, The Penguins of Madagascar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, T.U.F.F. Puppy, and Doc McStuffins. Once again, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was absent from all categories. What is up with that? Anyway, the Annie Awards will be presented in a gala presentation at UCLA’s Royce Hall on February 2nd of next year. The L.A.

It looks as if we’re finally getting some motion on the long-in-development film Ernest & Celestine. This 2D animated feature from France tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a middle-aged bear and a young mouse, and how they learn to realize their dreams and overcome bigotry by working together. Based on a series of books by Daniel Pennac, the film version is directed by Benjamin Renner (A Mouse’s Tale), Stephane Aubier, and Vincent Patar (A Town Called Panic), and produced by Studio Canal.  There’s a trailer up on YouTube, and according to Animation Magazine, it’s likely to come to North American shores in the fall of 2013.

image c. 2012 Studio Canal

The Honey Cooler, the noir film with a hard-boiled detective, furries, and Lucha Libre wrestlers, debuts on November 7 at the Hi-Dive in Denver, Colorado.

The film, covered previously on Flayrah, is described as a "lurid tale of animal-costumed sex and private dicks", and tells the tale of a "washed-up detective who gets hired to track down a missing executive and turns up all sorts of high weirdness".

Writer-director Ryan Demers will be in attendance at the premier, along with most of the cast and crew. Admission is free.

If Avatar could win the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture in 2009, then Furry fandom should LOVE Escape from Planet Earth. More blue aliens! Furry aliens! A plot that will remind you of Planet 51! Lots of 7-11! Originally scheduled for a 2010 release but now due out from the Weinstein Company and Rainmaker Entertainment in Vancouver on February 14, 2013.

Maybe. The Weinstein Company is being sued for $50,000,000 over this movie, and a judge has ordered an advance private screening of it. Watch the trailer while it’s available.

Andy Serkis is a well-known actor, both in front of the camera and… behind the animation, as one of the world’s most famous motion-capture models. You’ve seen the results of his work as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also in movies like King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Now Cartoon Brew has passed along the word the Mr. Serkis is looking to direct his own feature film — and wouldn’t you know it, he plans to do it using mo-cap! George Orwell’s famous allegorical fantasy Animal Farm has been filmed before of course, via traditional animation and also puppetry.  Now Mr. Serkis has bought the rights to the story and has it currently in development, hoping to direct the film himself. No word yet on a projected release date, but Mr. Serkis is currently working on a “proof of concept” short film to help him secure financing.

image c. 2012 Cartoon Brew

This is a close year, ladies and gentleman. This year we are going to have to wait until November to know which movie will take the crown for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, as compared to the last five years, where it was Pixar/Pixar/Pixar/Pixar/the movie that came out in the spring. You could call it by February each of those years and not look completely stupid. Not so, this year.

Delhi Safari is a new full-length CGI animated feature from India, directed by Nikhil Advani and animated by Krayon Pictures. It tells the story of a group of rainforest animals in India, who find their forest is being destroyed and paved over by human encroachment and construction. They take it upon themselves to travel to Delhi, with the intention of using a “bilingual” parrot (he speaks both human and non-human languages) to voice their complaints about the destruction of their home. The film has been picked up for international distribution by Fantastic Films, and it recently opened for a limited engagement in North America. Filmed in Hindi, the English version of the film features the voices of Jason Alexander, Cary Elwes, Christopher Lloyd, Jane Lynch, Vanessa Williams, and Brad Garrett. Watch the international trailer on YouTube, or visit the Delhi Safari Facebook page.

image c. 2012 Krayon Pictures

I watched Hotel Transylvania because I have a weakness for Gothic archetypes, not because I was expecting it to be any good. It is a movie not only starring Adam Sandler, but even produced by him. Well, I can say this is the best thing Adam Sandler has done in years, but that still does not matter much on the good to bad scale.

I did not watch this movie because I intended to review it for Flayrah; about halfway through the climax, in which the movie’s protagonist takes the form of a talking bat and sticks that way until the denouement, I realized furries might want to know that. I mean, yeah, werewolf in the trailers and TV spots and all, but if you decide to see this movie, see it for the cute talking vampire bats.

Not much else reason.

OneIndia Entertainment, “India’s #1 Language Portal”, reports that the long-delayed Hindi-language Koochie Koochie Hota Hai feature, supposedly completed in 2009 or 2010 but release-delayed (because of poor box-offices in India for Indian-made animated features) until December 10, 2012, has been postponed again until July 2013.

The feature, a CGI-animated funny-animal remake of the hugely popular 1998 Hindi live-action Bollywood feature Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, is an anthropomorphic sci-fi (time travel) romantic comedy-drama with lots of singing & dancing. See Flayrah's April story for more details, or watch the English-language trailer.

It is no secret that the most well-known concept of unicorns is from Europe, in the Middle Ages. In stories from that time period, the creature will be a walking snorting virgin detector with a... ehem... phallic symbol on its head. The horse with one horn will be for girls, and is always male.

Enter 1968: a peculiar book comes out, the likes of which the world had never seen before. The main character is a unicorn. And it is a mare. Female. And instead of having been created by God to detect "proper maidens", she is a semi-immortal creature with a different role in the world. The story centers on her search for her kind, while exploring the concepts of emotions, immortality, and the source of the latter.

In other words, this unicorn was completely different from the existing folklore.

So how did Peter Beagle's book, and the subsequent animated adaptation, change our view of unicorns? Give us your thoughts in the comments!