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Author: crossaffliction Contributors this month include crossaffliction, dronon, Fred, GreenReaper, Higgs Raccoon, Kakurady, mwalimu, Rakuen Growlithe, RingtailedFox, Patch Packrat, Poetigress and Sonious. By the way, this is the third year anniversary of Newsbytes. read more Find the full article here: flayrah – furry food for thought Creative Commons: Full post may be available under a […]

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A boy’s journey through the landscape of World War II France and his own mind…

Imagination is the Only Escape

Fair warning, I know next to nothing about video games! So any fact errors on my part here are purely a result of lack of knowledge on my end. So on to an ignorant review of a thoughtful and controversial video game, Luc Bernard’s Imagination Is The Only Escape.

Indie game Braid, and its for-an-Indie crazy commercial success, opened a door for thoughtful, contemplative games. That there was a door there at all is a recent phenomenon, any sort of wide-scale distribution for non-corporate games stems from the XBox Live Marketplace, 2008. Imagination Is The Only Escape (IOE) has been quietly controversial and, sadly, a nonstarter just as long, waiting for years until there was a marketplace ready to tackle its subject matter: foxes. Wait, I meant a child’s look at the Holocaust.

IOE follows Samuel, a young Jewish child in France, during the occupation of that country by Nazi Germany. Samuel’s mother helps him escape from Paris, giving him the address of a priest who can help him, but she is killed as she helps him escape.

At some point, Samuel’s experience of the world deviates from a grim reality, as he retreats into his imagination to escape from the horror around him, so without the game in front of me, it’s hard to guess what’s real reality and what’s Samuel’s reality. The talking fox character, Renard, is probably in Samuel’s head, and where allegory and France meet and separate is anybody’s guess. Renard’s promise to Samuel is that if the boy can restore peace to the forest, the fox will bring his mother back to life. The game wanders between reality and fantasy, using the immersive nature of video games to give players the feeling of being in this real life horror story, of the experience of being a child (or any ordinary person) in World War II. Previous entries into this time period only gave the experience of shooting Nazis, so this “personal level” story is new.

Playwise, the designer suggests it’s something like The Walking Dead, experiential rather than any sort of traditional shooter. The very few images of the game suggest a side-to-side interactive puzzle, where Samuel and Renard work together to navigate the surreal world of Sam’s imagination. The art is cartoony, with the vibe of an independent comic. Samuel is wide-eyed, awkward, and messy. Renard is a believable little guy, very serious–”he looked vaguely pissed off. But then, foxes generally do.” (The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing).

Designer Bernard carefully tries to keep IOE out of the “educational” gamespace, because educational games have a well-earned reputation for being dull and unplayably bad. It’s more about awareness and opening a conversation. Almost as important for Bernard is the idea of video games as a legitimate form of media, able to take on challenging topics and periods in a serious, thoughtful way. He’s a long way from his financial goal on Indiegogo, but maybe the time is right for this more long-term goal.

Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.

New Projects

Complete list of projects for 10/7/13 here.

Over the Rainbow: A Sketchbook (Art. Ends: 10/23/2013)
A corgie-tastic sketchbook by Karen Krajenbrink.

Zoo Animal Art Project (Art. Ends: 12/1/2013)
Building a portfolio of detailed and warm animals, one illo and one zoo trip at a time. (So I’m normally against “fund my travel!” IGGs, but if Loryska is this talented at age 16, we owe it to the future of the fandom to give her all our money. Besides, it’s on Kickstarter.)

The Warden and the Wolf King (Books/Print. Ends: 10/30/2013)
Slightly “Jim Henson’s ‘Labyrinth’” YA fantasy novel, with toothy wolf people and anthro lizards. (Well into stretch goals at day 5. Apparently The Wingfeather Saga has quite a fan base!)

Rosie the Reindeer (Children’s Products. Ends: 11/3/2013)
Cute Christmas story, a girl-power version of “Rudolph” with some awful cute reindeer!

PokePinups (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 10/20/2013)
PokeMon meets fandom pin-up girls in this tee line by Barefists. More on Tumblr. Or just go to his shop. (Storm and Pikachu’s cute, but I’m not sure my life’s complete without Poison Ivy on a Venusaur.)

Panda Coat (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 10/23/2013)
Way past goal! An absurd panda coat from the Griz Coat Company. (Yes, they have a wolf coat.)

Henna Wolf Shirt (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 11/29/2013)
Single-product, low-goal IGG for a stylized red-and-white Indian wolf design tee.

Last Unicorn (Comics/Graphic Novels. Ends: 10/31/2013)
The sad, sad, ever-so-sad story of a depressed unicorn.

Feral: The Next Fight (Comics/Graphic Novels. Ends: 11/29/2013)
Second graphic novel of “Feral,” stories from the furry underground fighting circuit. (Great action manga style. And strong perks in this camapign! I’m tempted by the walk-on role.)

End of the Road (Film/Animation/Theater. Ends: 11/9/2013)
A desperate bid to make a decent werewolf movie. Can such a thing be done?

EGOIST: Bright Clothes for Bright People (…Just For Fun. Ends: 11/1/2013)
Brilliant and luminous art tees with a Japanese vibe (nice tiger in there, if you can spot him, but it’s like finding Waldo with sharp claws.)

Enter the Moon (…Meh. Ends: 11/18/2013)
Another “oversharing instead of elevator pitch” werewolf novel. Why with the fluff intros? Nice cover though…

Beast’s Fury (…Coming Soon?. Not yet launched)
A second wave of crowdfunding for the Beast’s Fury fighting game?

submitted by VentKazemaru
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A fox (and probably a child’s) view of the Holocaust: Imagination Is The Only Escape

Fair warning, I know next to nothing about video games! So any fact errors on my part here are purely a result of lack of knowledge on my end. So on to an ignorant review of a thoughtful and controversial video game, Luc Bernard’s Imagination Is The Only Escape.

And then a bunch of other stuff.

First a bit of housekeeping: In order to make this blog a little more useful for the furry news aggregators that use it–currently Flayrah, The Furry News Network, and Jade’s Den–I’m going to split up the “reviews and new projects” from the huge list of ALL projects, and toss each kind of post into its own category. This shouldn’t affect most readers, but if anyone uses RSS to get updates, this change may cause problems. This will be the last post in the “all-in-one” format, and I’ll repost it again in the broken-up format under the new categories. Thanks, all!

Imagination Is The Only Escape

Indie game Braid, and its for-an-Indie crazy commercial success, opened a door for thoughtful, contemplative games. That there was a door there at all is a recent phenomenon, any sort of wide-scale distribution for non-corporate games stems from the XBox Live Marketplace, 2008. Imagination Is The Only Escape (IOE) has been quietly controversial and, sadly, a nonstarter just as long, waiting for years until there was a marketplace ready to tackle its subject matter: foxes. Wait, I meant a child’s look at the Holocaust.

IOE follows Samuel, a young Jewish child in France, during the occupation of that country by Nazi Germany. Samuel’s mother helps him escape from Paris, giving him the address of a priest who can help him, but she is killed as she helps him escape.

At some point, Samuel’s experience of the world deviates from a grim reality, as he retreats into his imagination to escape from the horror around him, so without the game in front of me, it’s hard to guess what’s real reality and what’s Samuel’s reality. The talking fox character, Renard, is probably in Samuel’s head, and where allegory and France meet and separate is anybody’s guess. Renard’s promise to Samuel is that if the boy can restore peace to the forest, the fox will bring his mother back to life. The game wanders between reality and fantasy, using the immersive nature of video games to give players the feeling of being in this real life horror story, of the experience of being a child (or any ordinary person) in World War II. Previous entries into this time period only gave the experience of shooting Nazis, so this “personal level” story is new.

Playwise, the designer suggests it’s something like The Walking Dead, experiential rather than any sort of traditional shooter. The very few images of the game suggest a side-to-side interactive puzzle, where Samuel and Renard work together to navigate the surreal world of Sam’s imagination. The art is cartoony, with the vibe of an independent comic. Samuel is wide-eyed, awkward, and messy. Renard is a believable little guy, very serious–”he looked vaguely pissed off. But then, foxes generally do.” (The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing).

Designer Bernard carefully tries to keep IOE out of the “educational” gamespace, because educational games have a well-earned reputation for being dull and unplayably bad. It’s more about awareness and opening a conversation. Almost as important for Bernard is the idea of video games as a legitimate form of media, able to take on challenging topics and periods in a serious, thoughtful way.  He’s a long way from his financial goal on Indiegogo, but maybe the time is right for this more long-term goal.

Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.

New Projects

Over the Rainbow: A Sketchbook (Art. Ends: 10/23/2013)
A corgie-tastic sketchbook by Karen Krajenbrink.

Zoo Animal Art Project (Art. Ends: 12/1/2013)
Building a portfolio of detailed and warm animals, one illo and one zoo trip at a time. (So I’m normally against “fund my travel!” IGGs, but if Loryska is this talented at age 16, we owe it to the future of the fandom to give her all our money. Besides, it’s on Kickstarter.)

The Warden and the Wolf King (Books/Print. Ends: 10/30/2013)
Slightly “Jim Henson’s ‘Labyrinth’” YA fantasy novel, with toothy wolf people and anthro lizards. (Well into stretch goals at day 5. Apparently The Wingfeather Saga has quite a fan base!)

Rosie the Reindeer (Children’s Products. Ends: 11/3/2013)
Cute Christmas story, a girl-power version of “Rudolph” with some awful cute reindeer!

PokePinups (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 10/20/2013)
PokeMon meets fandom pin-up girls in this tee line by Barefists. More on Tumblr. Or just go to his shop. (Storm and Pikachu’s cute, but I’m not sure my life’s complete without Poison Ivy on a Venusaur.)

Panda Coat (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 10/23/2013)
Way past goal! An absurd panda coat from the Griz Coat Company. (Yes, they have a wolf coat.)

Henna Wolf Shirt (Clothing/Costumes. Ends: 11/29/2013)
Single-product, low-goal IGG for a stylized red-and-white Indian wolf design tee.

Last Unicorn (Comics/Graphic Novels. Ends: 10/31/2013)
The sad, sad, ever-so-sad story of a depressed unicorn.

Feral: The Next Fight (Comics/Graphic Novels. Ends: 11/29/2013)
Second graphic novel of “Feral,” stories from the furry underground fighting circuit. (Great action manga style. And strong perks in this camapign! I’m tempted by the walk-on role.)

End of the Road (Film/Animation/Theater. Ends: 11/9/2013)
A desperate bid to make a decent werewolf movie. Can such a thing be done?

EGOIST: Bright Clothes for Bright People (…Just For Fun. Ends: 11/1/2013)
Brilliant and luminous art tees with a Japanese vibe (nice tiger in there, if you can spot him, but it’s like finding Waldo with sharp claws.)

Enter the Moon (…Meh. Ends: 11/18/2013)
Another “oversharing instead of elevator pitch” werewolf novel. Why with the fluff intros? Nice cover though…

Beast’s Fury (…Coming Soon?. Not yet launched)
A second wave of crowdfunding for the Beast’s Fury fighting game?

 

Art

Savage Divination: A Bestial Tarot (Ends: 10/13/2013)
Ambitious full tarot deck loaded with animal imagery by Leptailurus

Audio

Wingboner’s Debut Album (Ends: 10/28/2013)
Crowdfunding for professional studio release of MLP metal band Wingboner’s debut album

Come Find Me: The Journey to Abbey Road (Ends: 11/7/2013)
Foxamoore‘s new album, now well past its goal to record at the Beatle’s “Abbey Road” studio!
Additional stretch goals to get art by Alectorfencer, professional production, more studio time, and a full orchestra!

Children’s Products

Rabbit Ninja (Ends: 10/19/2013)
A children’s book about great things: rabbits and ninjas. Oh, and life as a 3rd grader.

The Dragon and the Princess (Ends: 10/26/2013)
A children’s book combining basic numeric literacy with elegant and graceful line-art dragons
More on The Brothers Uber‘s website

Jack and the Cornstalk (Ends: 10/26/2013)
Children’s book with Claymation-esque chickens spoofing “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
Why is Yoda in the publicity shots? Mysterious he is.

Billy Brown’s Audio Adventures (Ends: 10/27/2013)
Children’s audio dramas featuring an amiable and pretty darn cute anthro bear
Seriously, the bear is pretty cute.

The Anteater That Didn’t (Ends: 11/3/2013)
In the spirit of “The Little Prince” and “The Giving Tree,” a delicately French story of anteaters and tea.

Clothing/Costumes

Hats and Hoodies by Mermade (Ends: 10/16/2013)
Hats, hoodies, and accessories by Mermade. Check out Her gallery on FA for custom and recent work!

Comics/Graphic Novels

The Swashbuckling Adventures of Captain Kitty (Ends: 10/19/2013)
Mostly anthro, mostly pirates, and mostly rhyming comic weirdness on the high seas
More on CaptainKittyWorld. Arrr!

Peter Is the Wolf: Living in the Doghouse (Ends: 11/24/2013)
Web-to-Print of the Peter Is the Wolf webcomic series, manga-style, sometimes NSFW, cute and sexy werewolves.

Events

F3 Con Remixed (Ends: 11/10/2013)
Fundraising for Missouri’s F3 furry con, with an 80s theme this year.

Film/Animation/Theater

Dogg Park: It’s a Ruff life (Ends: 10/9/2013)
A “scripted reality show” about talking dogs at the dog park.
This may be intentionally bad? If you like pain and humiliation, watch the video. Just watch the video anyway. The jokes just write themselves, and clearly did.

Bronies: The Movie (Ends: 10/10/2013)
A short comedy film (and possibly a webseries) about a young man “coming out” to his co-workers and girlfriend as a brony.
The video’s not bad, this may be funnier than it initially sounds!

Long-Term Parking (Ends: 10/20/2013)
A bounty hunter who dies and gets mixed up with a dog on his way to heaven. Heavenly comedy ensues.
Read the opening vignet, it’s cute!

Dawgtown (Ends: 10/20/2013)
Animated film, a pit bull’s journey in the underground dog fighting world
The stills and clips are pretty high quality, I’m reminded of “Felidae.” No way to get a DVD though (sad face).

Tabletop Games

Attack to the Pantry (Ends: 10/13/2013)
Old School Warner Bros cartoon style card game: Scoundrel animals raiding Grandma’s pantry for whatever they can carry away!
Page is mostly in, or originally in, Italian, but the sketchy concept art is fun and universal!

Pewter Ponies: Miniature Ponies for Tabletop Gaming (Ends: 10/17/2013)
At goal! At least 30 pony-style minatures for all your tabletop pony gaming needs!
Note: Tabletop pony miniatures is not “pony play.” Glad I corrected that.

Hockey Doggies (Ends: 10/17/2013)
A semi-educational board game putting huskies on the ice.
Sadly, from what our friends at the International Anthropomorphic Research Project tell us, anything at the intersection of “furries” and “sports” is doomed to failure…

Toys

March of the Art Dolls (Ends: 10/8/2013)
Ochoan‘s line of art dolls, a variety of expressive and wooly beasts

Dicke Katze and Friends Plush Cats (Ends: 10/9/2013)
Plush cats, very round and very startled.

Mini Plushie Ornaments (Ends: 10/18/2013)
Miniature plush versions of your variously anthro selves

Vicious Plush (Ends: 11/4/2013)
Angry plush monkeys, serrated stuffed kitties, and a blood-stained teddy bear. Good night, sleep tight!

Video Games

Imagination is the Only Escape (Ends: 10/17/2013)
A child creates an imaginary otherworld to escape the horrors of World War II, accompanied by a fox named Renard. An educational game for children.
Scary and beautiful Alice-in-Wonderlandy graphics and a dark story.

Unwritten: Echoes of Twilight (Ends: 10/28/2013)
Single-player, open world fantasy RPG with some nicely-done werewolves and bear-folk.
Now, I’m not sure the video gaming world is ready for werewolves AND bear-folk in the same game…

Web

PairofMares Productions (Ends: 10/13/2013)
Small fundraiser for materials for My Little Pony reviews podcast
This may be an “imagine the final product” project, since they’re hoping to get new artwork…still, it’s a cute little dream.

World of Pokemon (Ends: 10/28/2013)
Indiegogo relaunch of the rich and detailed “World of Pokemon” website project

Adult

Go Kemono (Ends: 10/19/2013)
Highly-produced real life fursuit/Kemono erotica in DVD and portfolio.
Apparently “straight” is an underrepresented kink : )

…Causes

The Last Pack (Ends: 10/15/2013): Awareness documentary about the 75 remaining “Lobo” Mexican wolves

…Meh

Wolf: A Book, a Dream, a Legacy! (Ends: 11/1/2013): *Sigh* The author overshares a story that LOTS of us dorks can relate to, but passion is not a business plan is not a product… But hey, werewolf novel.

…Coming Soon?

Terrene Odyssey (Not yet launched): The next evolution of the Terreria Tactics card game, coming soon to a Kickstarter near you!

…Just For Fun

God-Lights – Personal Interactive Lighting System (Ends: 10/16/2013): Hand-worn multicolored ravey blinky color-changing lights with customization apps. Let the oontz-oontz begin.

submitted by austron
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Author: rodney@In-Fur-Nation Trailers have begun to show up in the theaters for The Nut Job, a new animated GCI feature coming out this January. It’s based on a 2005 original animated short by director Peter Lepeniotis (Disney’s Dinosaur, Fantasia 2000) called Surly Squirrel (which you can still view on YouTube). The Nut Job tells the […]

Author: rodney@In-Fur-Nation Victoria Gannon is a self-taught artist who creates works under the name of Leptailurus. For a long time she has toyed with the idea of creating her very own Tarot deck, and now she has begun work on that very project. Savage Divination is its name, and it’s “a full 78-card tarot deck […]

submitted by LizardHex
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After a few years of internal delegation I've finally decided to join up with the sordid ranks of the furfolk. So yeah, that. Step one: totally done.

Step two, I want to make a fursona. No idea how or what I should go for, hoping a few of you fine internet traveled folk could chat and spitball some ideas, I don't know.

submitted by lil_buddha
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submitted by chaos386
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submitted by jimonboard
[link] [3 comments]

Its E..

submitted by PPW21
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submitted by Ruastin
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TigerTails Radio Season 7 Episode 47
TigerTails Radio Season 7 Episode 47 From: TigerTails Radio Views: 0 2 ratings Time: 02:02:06 More in Entertainment

If so tell me your experience or if you told anybody.

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This is my final article looking at the great animal films of Carroll Ballard. The other articles are on The Black Stallion (1979), Fly Away Home (1996) before, and Duma (2005).

It opened the way to an old—and very naïve—childhood fantasy of mine: to go off into the wilderness, and test myself against all the dangerous things lurking there. And to find that basic animal that I secretly hoped was hidden somewhere inside myself. I imagined, at that point, I’d become a new man, with a strength and courage I’d never known before.

 

Tyler is a nerdy biologist who has accepted an unusual task: spend 6 months, alone, in the Canadian arctic to observe the behaviour of local wolves. Never Cry Wolf follows Tyler from spring’s thaw to the first snowfalls of the coming winter. It’s a curious film: subtle, slow, and moving. It is also a masterpiece.

The story is of Tyler’s relationship with wolves. Over the course of six months, he starts as a detached scientific observer, and learns to embrace his inner wolf as time goes on. (The quote at the beginning of this article is from Tyler’s voiceover narration in the first few seconds of Never Cry Wolf.) This film is about the furry condition.

Never Cry Wolf was filmed and released in the early 1980s, years before furry coalesced into a discrete group. In the early days of furry, it was largely a cartoon animal fandom, based around pre-existing works of art such as Disney’s Robin Hood. Nowadays, furry still has plenty of fandom elements but is more about personal identity: we choose to think of ourselves as animal-people, and we spend time in a virtual world filled with our fellow animal-people.

Tyler is an animal person: he is, essentially, a wolf furry. Over the course of the film, he learns to think of himself as an instinctual animal, rather than a purely logical being. He even has an (imaginary) wolf physical form.

Tyler is expressing a personal connection with the animal world. He is exploring something that has been a part of human spirituality for at least dozens of millennia. We furries are merely the newest manifestation of this spiritual thread.

Tyler’s furriness starts to blossom when he is introduced to some concepts of Inuit totemism. Tyler doesn’t co-opt Inuit beliefs or tradition, rather he uses some ideas as a template to create his own, personal relationship with his inner wolf. He remains a scientist and a skeptic, but slowly sheds the protective baggage he carries with himself. (Metaphor alert: some of his baggage is actual, uh, baggage, and he even hides in his baggage from some wolves early on.)

Tyler begins his personal journey after being dumped, alone, in the wilderness along with supplies for his study. The Canadian arctic in early spring is harsh and deadly. In all of Carroll Ballard’s films, there is a sense of malevolence about the natural environment: the deserted island of The Black Stallion, the flight in flimsy ultralights in Fly Away Home, the South African wilderness in Duma. And so it is in Never Cry Wolf; faced with the likelihood of exposure in freezing temperatures, Tyler makes a series of bad decisions: he defrosts a beer, types out an angry letter (in triplicate) to his superiors, and rides out his first night huddled in an upturned canoe. It’s hard to tell if he is ignorant of death’s approach, or resigned to his fate.

Tyler is eventually bundled into shelter and temporary safety by a passing Inuit. Here he dreams of being devoured by wolves, a moment that signifies the birth of his inner animal. The dream is terrifying on first viewing, but over the length of the film it takes on a mythical quality as Tyler, wolf-person, grows.

Soon after Tyler awakens, we see the first evidence that he has changed. He falls through thin ice, and saves himself through a combination of intelligence and instinct. He dries himself, and his clothes, by a fire, and we can sense that his internal journey has begun. This scene is a key turning point in the film as well.

For starters, this is the first time we see Tyler naked. It’s initially played for tittilative laughs (as in: tee hee I can see his bum), but the scene stretches until his nudity is a comfortable, natural, default state. Tyler is shedding more of his uptight human baggage, and he starts to relax, to feel at home in the wilderness.

From this moment on the film becomes hazy, soft, and beautiful; Ballard’s direction encourages the viewer to share Tyler’s surrender to the natural world. This stands in obvious juxtaposition to the tone of the preceding part of the film which is rushed, full of unconvincing danger, and a bit hammy. It’s clear that Ballard wanted to spend as little time on the preamble as possible.

Soon, Tyler comes across a wolf pack and he starts his study. He tries to hide his presence from the wolves, and fails miserably against the wolf’s senses. He quickly abandons any attempt of subterfuge, and eventually negotiates a wolf-approved territory within observing distance.

His time observing the wolves is the heart of the film. There is little action and Tyler is alone for much of the time, save for a developing friendship with two Inuit. There are two parallel stories: Tyler’s growing relationship with the wolves, and Tyler’s growing relationship with his personal, inner wolf.

This long section of the film is, to put it mildly, remarkable. Respect grows between Tyler and the wolves, to the point that they are eventually able to vocally express their fellowship, the howling of the wolves mirrored in Tyler’s bassoon. And Tyler’s inner wolf becomes more real, gaining a physical form and a personality: strong, quiet, intelligent, and protective.

The film’s high point takes place on a hazy late-summer afternoon. Tyler has reached a peace with himself and with his environment by this point, and is dozing in the sun when a herd of caribou thunder past. He becomes wondrously lost in the stampede, as the wolves gather to corral the more vulnerable members of the caribou. It’s wordless, visceral, and complex.

The flow of Never Cry Wolf is that of the seasons. Tyler is vulnerable and naïve in the spring; learns and grows through the summer, before the contentment of autumn. His internal journey is reflected in the changing landscape and in the growth of the wolves’ family (no Ballard film would be complete without the odd cute baby animal scene). He starts as an observer and ends as a participant; his trimmed moustache grows into full beard; he begins with bureaucracy and ends in ecstatic nudity.

From a furry perspective, Never Cry Wolf is something very special. If you feel or imagine a connection with your furry species, especially if you’re a wolf, you should take the time to track down this film. (That advice does not include anyone who identifies as a mouse. It does not go well for mice in Never Cry Wolf.)

But even for non-furs, Never Cry Wolf is a great film. It’s the antidote to patronizing bullshit like Dances With Wolves or doco-lite snoozefests like March Of The Penguins. It’s thoughtful without being moralizing, complex without being complicated, and moving without being melodramatic. As the late Roger Ebert put it, Never Cry Wolf is a classic.

Final notes:
- There is a lot of male nudity and alcohol consumption in Never Cry Wolf. It’s unthinkable that such a film would get a PG rating in America today.
- Charles Martin Smith, who plays Tyler, went on to direct Air Bud, which is a live-action film about a dog that plays basketball. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Never Cry Wolf is available on iTunes.

This is the final of four articles on the films of Carroll Ballard. All four films are great. Choose your species:

• The Black Stallion (horse)
• Never Cry Wolf (wolf)
• Fly Away Home (goose)
• Duma (cheetah)