animated

Despicable Me takes a different spin on the normal animated tale, following the villain of the movie instead of any sort of hero. In this case, the villain is Gru, a Bond-style, European-accented hunchback of a man. Gru finds himself unseated as the top villain by a new interloper, Vector.

Historically, DreamWorks’ films either hit it out of the park or strike out swinging. Home runs like Shrek and Madagascar are quickly duplicated and sequeled to death, and the failures like The Road to El Dorado and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron are swept under the rug, never to be heard from again.

In many ways, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog is a return to a formula that spelled success for the animation house in the past. Most notably, it’s a return to hand drawn animation for the studio, who had moved to strictly computer animation ever since 2004’s Home on the Range, a movie that was poorly received.

We'll admit it - Woody Harrelson has very little to do with this week's podcast, but when you find a picture of him looking like a madman, you can't pass it up.

I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic stories. Put all of humanity in jeopardy, usually by their own doing, and some great stories can be told. 9 carries on that tradition with a story that removes humanity from the equation altogether, simply killing them off as victims of their own devices.

One of the movie releases I’m looking forward to this year is a movie I’ve already seen in theaters. Something I’ve seen two or three times, actually. Disney is re-releasing Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to theaters for two weeks with a little bit of a twist - the movies will be in 3-D.

One of the things I was looking forward to with Pixar’s Up was the rumor that a trailer for Toy Story 3 would be attached to the film. Unfortunately, the trailer didn’t show up at my showing of Up (rumor is it’s only on digital screenings, according to Slashfilm).

I think we’ve all been waiting for the day when Pixar puts out a movie that doesn’t live up to the high standards of quality we’ve come to expect from the studio’s brand. Every great director has had his dud, and no studio has a perfect batting average. Cynics will have to keep waiting, however, because Up isn’t a dud for the studio.

We’re only a few days from the release of Pixar’s newest film, Up. Preliminary reviews are positive, which is always a good sign. Even if you don’t like the movie, you’re bound to meet a couple of characters you’ll like though. That’s because Pixar’s philosophy is to start with solid characters and build the story from there.

If Pixar’s newest release, Up, had nothing else going for it, you’d have to admit the movie is absolutely gorgeous. Fortunately, we know Pixar refuses to put something together that gets by on looks alone, so the movie is bound to be entertaining and full of delightful characters, as well as being absolutely gorgeous.