-
Thursday, June 25
The Academy Awards will be adopting a part of its past when the show airs March 7, 2010. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis has announced that the Best Picture category will double to include 10 nominations instead of the standard five.
The practice of nominating 10 movies ended in 1943, when Casablanca beat out 9 other movies to win Best Picture. At a press conference, Ganis explained the change:
After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of itsearlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of theyear. Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters torecognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show upin the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the racefor the top prize. I can't wait to see what thatlist of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.
Had the Oscars included 10 nominations last year, Slumdog Millionaire might have had some competition from The Dark Knight and Wall-E.
The nominations for the Academy Awards will take place February 2, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA.
Posted 6/25/2009 by Ryan
Related: Casablanca | Wall-E | The Dark Knight | Slumdog Millionaire
-
Friday, May 29
Pixar has released the first teaser trailer for Toy Story 3, due in June 2010.
Be sure to pay close attention when you see Up this weekend, as it was earlier reported that Pixar will unveil a look at a character from Toy Story 3 somewhere in the movie.
Below, you can see the trailer followed by a fun video that chronicles Pixar's tendency to introduce upcoming characters in its movies. (We find Wall-E's appearance in Toy Story particularly amazing.)
Posted 5/29/2009 by Rich Z
Related: Wall-E | Toy Story 3 | Up
-
Thursday, May 28
Up, the first Pixar film to be released in Disney Digital 3-D, may be thematically different than previous Pixar releases, but the creators are banking that the unique nature of Pixar's filmmaking process will help Up succeed.
In a recent interview, director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) said:
We have a system where people are selfless about giving up their own time, their own energy, their own comments.
Brad (Bird) will be off in the middle of directing something and we'll drag him in to watch this movie and he'll spew out all these great ideas that I get to use and then I'll do the same with whoever comes along next. Between that and the philosophy of "If you don't make mistakes, you're not taking enough risk." We're sort of expected to fail along the way. It's expected that we're going to falter and pull the emergency cord and get everybody on board to make this good.
In a separate interview, Docter admitted that not all Pixar films start out as winners:
At some point or another, every one of these (films) has sucked. That's the truth. And then you fix them.
Added producer Jonas Rivera:
We kind of treat every film like it's the first film we've ever done and the last film we'll ever do.... We kind of approach it like, whether or not people like this one as much as the last one or the first one or the third one, we don't know. We want to do the best we can every single time. So when you go see one of these, we go to bed at night knowing that's the best we can do. That's the best we got.
Up tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a grumpy man who ties balloons to his house and sails off for South America with an 8-year-old stowaway named Russell (Jordan Nagai).
Posted 5/28/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Ed Asner | The Incredibles | Monsters, Inc. | Wall-E
-
Tuesday, May 26
Pixar -- the Academy Award-winning digital animation studio behind such colossal hits as Toy Story, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E -- debuts Up this Friday, its first film presented in Disney Digital 3-D.
3-D films have not had a very impressive track record, but director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) hopes that subtler 3-D effects in Up will keep the audience engaged:
We tried to learn from all the films that had come before us and what makes it work. The things that were important to me as a director was not to distract people with 3D. You don't want to pop them out of the movie by going "ooga-booga." We basically said, "Okay, the screen is like a window and you can see into it but let's not bring too many things out." That adds a certain sense of depth and I think, for a lot of people, they feel more transported into that world. Hopefully, it's not distracting to the point of popping you out of the film and it's a more immersive experience.
Up tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a grumpy, retired balloon seller who ties balloons to his house and sails off for South America. Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer, accidentally stows away with Carl and the two opposites encounter thrills and adventures in the Venezuelan jungle.
Posted 5/26/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Ed Asner | The Incredibles | Toy Story | Monsters, Inc. | Ratatouille | Wall-E | Peter Docter | Jordan Nagai
-
Monday, February 23
After winning for Best Animated Feature Film, director Andrew Stanton was asked if the character development and depth of WALL-E was a sign of where animated movies were heading:
To be honest we were trying to go that deep with the first movie we made at Pixar. Toy Story was an attempt to just show that it's a movie and we just happen to be using animation as a medium to tell it. It's like saying because it's in black and white suddenly it means it has to be a cop movie or mystery. It's very odd. We have just been trying to make the most sophisticated film that we can with the very deep characters, and we assume that if it's well told then any age will understand it. So, that's been sort of the same attack on every film.
While Stanton already has an Oscar, he was no less pleased with the Oscar for WALL-E:
WALL-E really was the most unique personal film I could have made, and I really expected it to speak to a minority, not a majority, because I felt I had gotten away with that with Nemo. So, to get this kind of response, it just really gives you a lot of confidence to listen to that little voice inside you again the next time.
For more with Stanton, read our pre-Oscars interview.
Posted 2/23/2009 by Ryan
Related: Andrew Stanton | Wall-E
-
Sunday, February 22
Posted 2/22/2009 by reelz
Related: Kate Winslet | Simon Beaufoy | Danny Boyle | Sean Penn | Heath Ledger | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button | Wall-E | Penelope Cruz | Dustin Lance Black | The Duchess | Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Man on Wire | Slumdog Millionaire | Milk | The Reader | Departures | A.R. Rahman | Donald Burt | Anthony Mantle | Greg Cannom
-
4:58PM Hey, Ryan here live in the press room at the Academy Awards. The show has yet to officially start, with a half hour of red carpet interviews left before the show begins, plenty of time to get your Oscar Bingo Cards ready.
5:39 With the red carpet portion of the show done, it's time to see what Hugh Jackman can do as host of the Academy Awards. Plenty of jokes about his home country, and the usual host opening number. He might not be a comedian, but I can't imagine Billy Crystal pulling off the dancing so well.
5:43 Now that Jackman's obligatory Wolverine plug is over , it's time to see an Award, starting with Actress in a Supporting Role. And the award goes to...Penelope Cruz for Vicky Christina Barcelona.
5:52 Time to award the writers. Dustin Lance Black wins for Original Screenplay for Milk with an emotional and politically-minded speech. The Oscar for Adapted Screenplay is next, with Simon Beaufoy's script winning for Slumdog Millionaire, in what could be the first of many Slumdog Oscars.
6:05 The fairly new catagory of Best Animated Feature Film is next, with three whole movies nominated: WALL-E, Bolt and Kung Fu Panda. And the winner, no surprise to anyone, is...Bolt. I'm kidding! Of course, it's WALL-E.
6:10 An early favorite for best speech of the night goes to Japan's Kunio Kato, winner for Animated Short Film, who thanked a variety of people including "Mr. Roboto." Cue the band with STYX! No? Oh, ok. Well, anyway, great speech, Kunio.
6:24 With 10 nominations for Slumdog Millionaire and 13 for Benjamin Button, the running tally for the two most nominated movies stands as 1 for Slumdog to 2 for Button after Button wins for both Achievement in Art Direction and Makeup.
6:25 Twilight sighting! I couldn't tell what was happening when Robert Pattinson was on stage due to all the high-pitched screaming in the press room.
6:30 Emotions still run high backstage for Dustin Lance Black. "Harvey gave me his story and it saved my life," he said. The same could be said for Penelope Cruz, however, she continued where she left off at the end of her acceptance speech, speaking mostly in Spanish. If she had said "The library is green" I definitely would have understood it, but I'm pretty sure she didn't. Wait, she spoke in English! Cruz mentions that she wondered about the "tone" of Vicky Christina Barcelona, but "never doubted the genius of Woody Allen."
6:34 Make that 2 to 2! Slumdog wins another, this time for Cinematography.
Posted 2/22/2009 by Ryan
Related: Hugh Jackman | Simon Beaufoy | Wall-E | Penelope Cruz | Dustin Lance Black | Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Slumdog Millionaire | Milk
-
Tuesday, February 17
Pixar's 2008 release about a robot janitor left to tidy up a polluted earth was a hit with parents and kids, not to mention the critics. This Sunday, Wall-E is up for six Academy Awards -- Best Original Screenplay, Best Animated Feature, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.
What's it like to garner that many nominations for an animated movie? Wall-E's director and writer Andrew Stanton told us, along with details about how he managed to get some sleep the night before the Oscar nominations were announced. See our interview with Stanton.
Posted 2/17/2009 by reelz
Related: Andrew Stanton | Wall-E
-
Tuesday, November 18
Wall-E, Disney/Pixar's dazzling computer-animated tale of interstellar robot love, leads this week's crop of new DVD releases. Also debuting on DVD today: The estrogen-and-denim fest Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, starring America Ferrera and Blake Lively; Alex Gibney's documentary Gonzo, about late author Hunter S. Thompson; and Mister Lonely, the latest oddball offering from indie darling Harmony Korine.
Our DVD pick of the week is Ben Stiller's comedy hit Tropic Thunder, featuring Robert Downey Jr.'s unforgettable turn in blackface -- a performance recently touted by EW as a potential Best Supporting Actor Oscar contender. The Director's Cut features 14 additional minutes of unbridled hilarity, an alternate ending, and the superb Hearts of Darkness parody Rain of Madness.
We recommend the Blu-ray version, because, for reasons we can't quite fully explain, comedy is somehow funnier in HD.
Posted 11/18/2008 by reelz
Related: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 | Wall-E | Tropic Thunder
-
Monday, November 10
For cinephiles who haven't been hammered by the credit crunch, this year's holiday season could very well be the perfect time to upgrade the ol' home theater to high-def. With electronics manufacturers and retailers both feeling the pinch, consumers can expect deep discounts on a variety of Blu- ray players.
If you do decide to make the leap to Blu-ray, there's no better way to experience its all-around awesomeness than with a computer-animated flick. Because they aren't shot on film and thus never leave the digital realm, animated films can be transferred to Blu-ray with virtually no loss of quality.
The summer hit Kung Fu Panda arrived on Blu-ray yesterday, eschewing Hollywood's traditional Tuesday release schedule. Pick it up and experience what might have been the best animated flick of 2008, were it not for Wall-E and all of its "brilliance" and "poignancy." Whatever.
Posted 11/10/2008 by reelz
Related: Wall-E | Kung Fu Panda