Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas Links

Now with a Kaplan-grade Add On

Here on Christmas day, we link to a wee bit of commentary and news.

Richard Corliss regards The Illusionist.

Last week, Sylvain Chomet got an early — and Jacques Tati a very late — Christmas present. The New York Film Critics Circle, the nation's oldest organization of movie reviewers, chose "The Illusionist" as the best animated film of 2010. Every other critics' group had named "Toy Story 3" as the winner in that category, and the very notion of ignoring what many people consider the year's finest film, of any kind, seemed piquant at best, perverse at worst. I, for one, thought the New Yorkers who chose The Illusionist were nuts; and I'm not only a critic, I'm also a member. ...

Slash Film profiles Rango.

Paramount Pictures has released a new behind the scenes featurette for Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski’s computer animated feature film Rango. The new featurette, titled “Behind the Scenes: Natural Acting Experience”, takes a look at the techniques employed to (as Verbinski has explained) “capture and translate every aspect of Johnny Depp’s performance ...

Older news, but we link anyway:

Disney will be going forward with a bunch of Toy Story cartoon shorts. ...Darla K. Anderson, producer, confirmed that there are no plans for a Toy Story 4 at this point.

"(At this point." And what might that mean? That, say, a billion dollars in theater grosses could possibly make Pixar/Disney management rethink earlier positions that this is the last in the series?)

When it comes to the new, Jack Black "Gulliver," many critics seem to yearn for the Fleischers' version.

The one bright moment happens before the feature even starts, with a Blue Sky Studios cartoon entitled “Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up,” in which the rascally acorn-chasing character from the “Ice Age” films follows his ever-unobtainable meal to the earth’s core. ...

(As one effects artist who worked on it told me: "It's not good.")

And in news from the Middle Kingdom:

Details of China's first stereoscopic 3-D animation were announced today in Beijing. Budgeted at RMB120 million ($18 million), "Legend of a Rabbit" will be released on 3000 screens in July 2011. ...

Add On: For those who haven't yet noticed, we've added a feature to our beloved Blog. At the behest of Mark Mayerson, we've started to utilize Labels in some of our posts.

New posts with a label associated with it will be indicated by the addition of "Labels:" after the share buttons. There is also a side-bar widget under our links that list some of our more popular labels. Clicking a label will list all posts that have that label associated with it.

It was a bit of a chore to add this functionality and couldn't have been achieved without the kindness and expertise of Aratina Cage.

Hope you're having a fine Christmas holiday.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Its not good"

The short or the IA4 feature? Because of they mean the feature, its not even been screened to the studio yet, so how can they know?

Anonymous said...

Johnny Depp: "I think it just gives a bunch of adults the chance to run around and act silly"

AAAAAND drive up the budget with your multi-million dollar fees, to do something that the animators could have done without you anyway, while being paid far, far less.

But we're all glad you had a great time.

Steve Hulett said...

"Its not good"

The short or the IA4 feature? ...


Neither. The reference was to the Jack Black feature "Gulliver's Travels," to which the Scrat short is attached.

Sorry if that was unclear.

Anonymous said...

I’ll bet (the Fleischer) version didn’t have a character identified as “Butt-crack Man” in the cast credits.

It's also unlikely it had a character identified as "Paul Stanley from KISS".

Anonymous said...

Shows how still out of touch the ny film critics circle is. Illusionist is a mess of a cartoon--charmless, humourless, characterless, and frankly boring. Needed a director with a strong vision and some wit.

Anonymous said...

It's seems pretty clear that 'The Illusionist' is the film of choice for people who want to prove their superior taste. It's beautiful, and remote, and you can be sure you won't be surrounded by tasteless philistines if you admire it. It also gives one the chance to show off one's appreciation of old French cinema. It appears tailor-made to appeal to high-brow, fussy critics, and to frustrate those who want to feel some sense of engagement with the characters in a film.

Anonymous said...

Toy Story 4 is happening.

I think it's obvious at this point that Pixar no longer has the "director-driven" BS mantra holding them back anymore.

Floyd Norman said...

Time to shake off the pixie dust.

Business is business.

Anonymous said...

"Toy Story 4 is happening."

And you know this...how, exactly? Or is this just more fan/student speculation?

Anonymous said...

" 'The Illusionist' is the film of choice for people who want to prove their superior taste."

I guess that's why there are so many walk outs on this mess.

Anonymous said...

Cars 2, Monsters Inc 2, the rumored Incredibles 2, and not the rumored TS4....whats up Pixar?

Its funny, when you hit "shift" and press "4" on the keyboard, it makes a dollar sign. Thats cute.

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