Posted on February 16, 2010 by Darren
Hmm… I knew there wasn’t good news on the horizon when Disney announced they were steamrolling ahead with their plan to truncate the cinematic run of Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland adaptation. Obviously driven by the home entertainment market (and the fact that parents would be look for distractions for the kids as the summer holidays approach), they want to release the DVD 12 weeks after the movie premieres, rather than the standard 17 weeks. As you can imagine, this has ticked off the cinemas who make more money the later into a film’s release you see it, so it looks like we may have a boycott – in the UK at least. 95% of 3D screens may not be showing it. Including Cineworld, the largest cinema in Dublin.
Through the looking glass but not necessarily on the big screen...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 3d, alice in wonderland, boycott, cinemas, cineworld, disney, DVD, film, home media, Movies, release, the future of cinema, tim burton | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 21, 2010 by Darren
Looks like Tim Burton is getting quite comfortable at Disney – apparently he plans to follow his 3D spectacular Alice in Wonderland with a reboot of the classic Sleeping Beauty. Don’t worry (or do worry, depending on your opinion of the director), he’s not going to be offering a straight-forward adaptation – that would be much too straightforward. Instead, Burton is going to rework the story from the perspective of the evil queen: Maleficent. It seems that revisiting classic stories from the villain’s perspective is Hollywood’s new business plan, and – being honest – I’m equally worried and excited about it. Which, at the very least, means it is in someway daring.
Evil or misunderstood? It is going be a Burton film after all...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alice in wonderland, animation, childhood, children, deconstruction, disney, fairy tales, maleficent, Movies, myths, sleeping beauty, snow white, tim burton | 4 Comments »
Posted on October 25, 2009 by Darren
Pixar, how I love you. If Up isn’t the film of the year so far, it’s pretty damn close. Don’t let the fact it’s a far more conventional film than Wall-E fool you – it is just as emotionally honest (it is odd how true to human feelings Pixar can be while running with more outlandish ideas). Pixar have always dealt with real experiences through metaphor – from the fear of middle-age in The Incredibles to the concerned single-parenthood of Finding Nemo – but this movie is particularly upfront about what it’s dealing with. That honesty is almost as endearing as the magical imagination which elevates the film like so many helium-filled balloons.
Almost a clear sky...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3d review, christopher plummer, disney, ed asner, film, Movie, pixar, up | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 8, 2009 by Darren
Yes, I can’t resist the urge to post every bit of awesome Pixar-related news that comes to my attention. This week it’s the potential payoff on the humongous (yes, I’ve been waiting to use that word a while now) Marvel-Disney deal that broke last week and sent ripples through the geeksphere. I was less-than-interested because I knew it would be years before we say any payoff (given the long Hollywood development cycle) and even more years before Disney got its hands on the movie rights to any ‘big hitters’ (as all the big franchises are tied up with other studios at the moment). There was the thought at the back of my mind that I dared not articulate, but it has happened: Pixar are apparently doing a comic book movie. An Ant-Man movie!
Wait, who?
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na, Antman!
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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: animated movies, animation, ant-man, antman, cgi, comic books, Comics, disney, disney-marvel deal, edgar wright, hank pym, marvel, marvel-disney deal, pixar, superhero, the avengers, the ultimates | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 31, 2009 by Darren
We live in the era of 3D and CGI. I remember back in they day there were worries and complaints by all the unions in Hollywood that the advent of perfect CGI would mean the end of actors in Hollywood – why pay Jim Carrey $20m a film when you can create a character for a fraction of that? Needless to say it hasn’t happened yet and I doubt it will. Hollywood and movies have always been the land of personalities. Get rid of those personalities and you have very little. It isn’t the antics of directors and writers that fuel the tabloid industry. So it’s logical that the part of the industry that has been most threatened by the marching on of science is the one where there is already minimal personality. I speak of course of the death of 2D animation. Although I hope I’m being premature – there have been two stories in the past 24 hours that indicated that old-fashioned non-live action films may not be quite dead.
Just a fraction less sophisticated than the animation Wes Anderson employs...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2D, 3d, animation, cartoons, cgi, conventional animation, disney, films, illustrated, Movies, pixar, rapunzel, the fantastic mister fox, the fantastic mr. fox, the frog princess, the princess and the frog, traditional animation, wes anderson | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 29, 2009 by Darren
It seems to have been a fairly average year at Comic Con – no big surprises (pleasant or otherwise), just solid confirmation of what us movie watchers had suspected all along. Contrary to what some suggested, apparently the Twilight fangirls didn’t ruin the experience for everyone. In fact, there were a whole host of fascinating insights on a whole slate of geek-interest projects. I don’t think anyone seems to have left particularly disappointed.
Fun with glow sticks...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2012, 3d, alice in wonderland, avatar, comic con, comiic con 09, disney, doctor who, fangirls, hot tub time machine, iron man 2, james cameron, johnny depp, sdcc, the hobbit, tim burton, titanic, tr0n, tr0n: legacy, tron, tron: legacy, twilight, twilight: new moon, twitter, zombieland | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 28, 2009 by Darren
How do Pixar continue to do it? Of the ten films they have produced so far, nearly all are considered animated classics (though I remain skeptical of A Bug’s Life). Somehow the company seems to have found a way to not only compress the whole spectrum of human emotion (though it has been suggested that they do better with loss and depression than triumph and love), and distill these precious elements into a technically marvelous computer-animated form. With Up seemingly continuing the trend, how can they continue to do it?
Carl knew it wouldn't all be plane sailing...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: animation, cgi, disney, finding nemo, pixar, the incredibles, up | 2 Comments »
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