I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to this film. Mostly because the second Toy Story was a major disappointment for me. I hated it. Toy Story 3 is set to open in June of 2010 in 3-D, and the trailer looks surprisingly good.
I thought I would be taking a break from discussing this movie since I've been doing a lot of it lately. But, I couldn't pass up on sharing five minutes of the film. The billboards from ComingSoon are just a bonus.
Mandy Moore recently talked to Empire about voicing Rapunzel in the upcoming animated Disney film. Disney is set to release its 50th animated feature, Rapunzel sometime in December of 2010. The project is 3D animation but even though it's 3D animation, the images are designed to look like a traditional 2D film. The visual style is said to be based on Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting The Swing.
Kristin Chenoweth had been cast as the voice of Rapunzel but was replaced by Mandy Moore after the entire project was overhauled. Moore discusses Rapunzel's personality and her favorite Disney princess:
"She's sort of the quintessential sassy, feisty Disney heroine. She's quite modern, quite a curious girl as well," says Moore of the once-entowered princess. "She's just coming into her own and is anxious to figure out a way to see the world around her that she's been kept away from for so many years."
"I just feel honoured to be in such good company. Being a Disney Princess is kind of every girl's ultimate dream."
"I was always really fond of the Little Mermaid growing up, so I would probably have to go with Ariel."
Get your first look at what CGI Smurfs will look like. (Hint: awful) [The Movie Blog]
ABC releases a 2 minute sneak peek of FlashForward. [ComingSoon]
New photos of the Volturi from The Twilight Saga: New Moon are online. The photos include Michael Sheen as Aro and Dakota Fanning as Jane. [Empire]
The Fantastic Four franchise gets a reboot. [Film Junk]
How would Marvel reimagine Disney heroines? [Jeffrey Thomas's Portfolio via In Contention]
A handy user's guide to the Academy's new best picture voting rules. [Film School Rejects]
Get your first look at Amanda Seyfried in Chloe. Seyfried plays Chloe, an escort hired to seduce Julianne Moore's husband (Liam Neeson). The film is on the Toronto Film Festival lineup. [FirstShowing]
Rose McGowan says Red Sonja begins shooting in 2010. Don't hold your breath. [Get The Big Picture]
A behind-the-scenes featurette from The Princess and The Frog surfaced a few days ago at Cartoon Brew and it gives us a look at the villainous Doctor Facilier.
Facilier's supervising animator Bruce Smith (Bebe's Kids, The Proud Family) talks about the character and the influences voice actor Keith David has on the character. Keith David is a character actor who has appeared in Platoon and next month's Gamer and All About Steve. If you still can't place him, you'll recognize his voice immediately from cartoons, commercials, and even another animated Disney film, Hercules. And while Facilier may not become one of the most iconic Disney villains - because as MTV Movies points out "he’s male and the majority of great Disney villains have been villainesses," - he'll probably still be a very memorable one:
David describes voodoo magicman Facilier as "a schemer, a conjuror, and a sorcerer of sorts. He's a delicious bad guy, on that roster of wonderful Disney villains." A quick burst of song reveals that Facilier has "friends on the other side" [Empire]The Princess and the Frog opens in New York and Los Angeles on November 25, and goes into wide release on December 11 in North America.
Okay, we're one-fifth of the way through the list. It's been tough to narrow things down, and as usual, there weren't really any rules, and I tried to balance the characters as much as I could. Here's the next batch for you:
80 - Officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) Crash - To be honest I didn't really love Crash, but John Ryan was the one character who stood out from all the others. On one hand Ryan is loathsome and awful - he's a racist and he molests a woman, Christine (Thandie Newton), right in front of her husband. He's an easy character to hate. In a film with no real villain, he's the closest thing to one initially. As the film unfolds we watch Ryan care for his ailing father and save Christine from a burning car. He's detestable and admirable all at once.
Actor Matt Dillon spoke about the two sides of Officer Ryan in 2005:
"Well, I wanted to be very truthful to play this character. I recognized things that I felt to be true, totally, in this script, about human nature and I wanted to be honest about it. I mean, I wouldn't have gone into this project with any other agenda. I've never been one that's been that concerned with my character looking good… What I liked about the film was that it went deeper, explored the more personal nature of this cop, this racist cop, so we got to see the other side, the loving son who's frustrated with his life [and] the fact that his father's sick, terminally ill. And it doesn't make his actions acceptable, but it puts a human face on the character, which as an actor we always look for characters that are balanced in that way."Roger Ebert explains why Dillon is one of Crash's strengths:
For me, the strongest performance is by Matt Dillon, as the racist cop in anguish over his father. He makes an unnecessary traffic stop when he thinks he sees the black TV director and his light-skinned wife doing something they really shouldn't be doing at the same time they're driving. True enough, but he wouldn't have stopped a black couple or a white couple. He humiliates the woman with an invasive body search, while her husband is forced to stand by powerless, because the cops have the guns...
I always felt that Crash was a manipulative film with contrived characters, and I think Officer Ryan was written that way on the page. But the Officer Ryan that Matt Dillon brings to the screen isn't contrived. He feels real, like any of the characters we encounter in our own lives.
79 - Leopold Mountbatten (Hugh Jackman) Kate & Leopold - Like Christian before him, Leopold is one of the decade's few purely romantic leading male characters. He is a courteous English gentleman who time travels from 1876 New York to the present day, and it isn't at all surprising when Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) falls in love with the gallant third Duke of Albany. Leopold is in many ways the perfect man: he's uncommonly handsome, well-bred, brilliant (he is the inventor of the elevator), and he can ride a horse.
A less capable actor would probably have made the near-perfect Leopold irritating and insufferable, but Hugh Jackman gives Leopold a lot of passion. Where he could come off as lecturing, Jackman makes him honorable. Where he could seem tactless, Jackman makes him honest. He isn't being pretentious in this film - Leopold really believes what he says, and in an era where most of the romantic comedy heroes are either hiding something or downright lying, Leopold Mountbatten is pretty damn interesting.
78 - John & Jane Smith (Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie) Mr. & Mrs. Smith - While Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn't a particularly memorable film, it's the characters that I remember the most. There's a lot of chemistry between the two characters, and upon seeing the film it was very difficult for me to tell if I was watching Pitt and Jolie or Smith and Smith. I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Whatever it is, it's certainly a memorable thing. Both characters are cunning, and there's an amusing coolness to their cavalier way of dealing with potentially assassinating each other. The brilliance is in their paradoxes - are we dealing with characters in an old-school romantic comedy or a 21st century action movie? It's obviously both, and even though the film itself doesn't quite pull it off, Pitt and Jolie do it flawlessly: it's almost impossible to take your eyes off the pair of them.
77 - Arwen (Liv Tyler)
She, like her grandmother Galadriel, is wise and strong. She is a great warrior who saves Frodo's life ("If you want him, come and claim him!"), and at the same time chooses to live as a mortal because of her love for Aragorn. Instead of leaving Middle-earth and sailing to the Grey Havens like her father Elrond wants, she stays in Middle-earth, refusing to leave the man she loves, even if he may not return. These are extraordinary sacrifices. Arwen is also the reason Aragorn chooses to fight on and not despair - during hard times he thinks of her.
More on Arwen:
Of Arwen, Tolkien said she was the Evenstar (the Evening Star) of her people, the embodiment of the mystery and brilliance of the night with a star spangled sky above. Arwen is dark...and seems younger, although she equals Galadriel in wisdom. She is also half human, with the ability to be mortal or immortal, as she chooses.
As Tolkien writes, `the braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as one who has known many things that the years bring.'
A luminous being, then, who combined innocence and wisdom, who shone like the stars in the sky. Liv Tyler embodied all this, and also brought some vitality and athleticism to the role, when Jackson chose to give Arwen a more active part to play in the quest.
But it was not the dazzling physical beauty that was the most arresting thing...although they were of course beautiful in Tolkien's description. These elf women were older in elf years than the brotherhood of the ring - Arwen, indeed, far older than Aragorn, her beloved. But they did not age physically. The beauty that shines from them is the beauty of accumulated wisdom and compassion, something it is hard to render for a modern audience.
76 - Nemo (Alexander Gould)
Despite the close relationship between Nemo and his father Marlin, in an instance of childhood defiance directed at his overprotective father, Nemo is taken far away from his home on the Great Barrier Reef.
Andrew Stanton on Nemo:
Nemo's short fin — a deformity that does not slow him down one bit — became, says Stanton, "a metaphor for anything you worry is insufficient or hasn't formed yet in your child. Parents think their child's handicap is a reflection of the parent. They become obsessive and anxious over that, whether it is the child's ability to read or the way they walk. This movie says there is no perfect kid; there is no perfect father."
75 - Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) Star Wars Episode: I, II, & III - Very few things about the Star Wars prequels lived up to the original trilogy. The little I did like included Qui-Gon Jin, Queen Padmé Amidala in The Phantom Menace, and above all, Obi-Wan Kenobi. As Owen Gleiberman says: "The one figure in Revenge of the Sith who taps the true spirit of Star Wars is Ewan McGregor: With his beautiful light K, clipped delivery, he plays Alec Guinness' playfulness, making Obi-Wan a marvel of benevolent moxie."
For me, Obi-Wan is interesting because of his character's growth. Sure, other characters have an arc as well, but Obi-Wan is the only character where you can see genuine maturing. While Anakin Skywalker is a perpetual child, and Amidala is loyal until the end, Obi-Wan is the only one among them who feels like a real human being.
In The Phantom Menance Obi-Wan starts off as a Padawan who is fiercely loyal to his Master. But there is self-confidence in Obi-Wan that he will grow into later. He disagrees with his Master, Qui-Gon, who is convinced that Anakin can bring balance to the force and defeat the Sith. Obi-Wan is confident enough to voice his disagreement, but respectful enough to realize that his Master ought to have the final say. Despite Obi-Wan's doubts about Anakin he takes on the responsibility of training him.
By Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan's doubts about Anakin are proven correct. While characters around him like Padmé refuse to see Anakin for what he truly is until is too late, Obi-Wan has the wisdom to see his true nature from the beginning. The difference between a young Obi-Wan and older Obi-Wan is that the older man has the courage to attempt the unspeakable - kill his closest friend.
74 - Charlie's Angels (Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu) Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle- When I was 14 years old, Dylan Sanders, Natalie Cook, and Alex Munday were the coolest chicks the girls my age had ever seen. Sure, a character like Trinity from The Matrix was kick ass, but she's was too cold, distant, and self-serious for girls in their early teens. Sanders, Cook, and Munday were different from many previous tough girls. They had cute non-threatening boyfriends, drove fast cars, wore trendy outfits, and of course, could kick the crap out of people. They were campy and fun, and for once there was a movie with young women who could really be friends without hating each other.
By the time the inevitable Charlie's Angels sequel came around, I was nearly an adult and had moved on to other things. But now, nine years on from the first film, I will occasionally stop to watch the three Angels whenever I catch them.
The actress [Drew Barrymore] is meltingly cute, has crack comic timing, and can execute those Jackie Chan moves (she does some stunts herself) with startling fluency. But she also has a slight speech impediment and a trace of nerdy self-consciousness, and when she leaps into a battle you can see in her eyes that she's amazed—and thrilled!—to be playing a kung-fu superhero.
And Diaz, clearly the most vivacious performer of the trio, continues that goosing around with some energetic booty wiggling that'll have the audience hooting or cheering – depending on the, uh, viewer sophistication levels involved.
Lui...she has an icy glamour-girl veneer-- but she does throw off a measure of sadistic good cheer disguised as a leather-clad efficiency expert who threatens a group of nerdy software engineers with a collective spanking
73 - Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo) The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - Melquiades is one of those characters who will stay with me for the rest of my life. And though he is dead for much of the film it is his loyalty and his loneliness that hovers over everything.
One of the best descriptions of Melquiades Estrada:
The friendship happens between West Texas rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Mexican ranch hand named Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) who just shows up one day looking for work. The two men don’t ask many questions of each other — they’re not really the question-asking kind — yet over time they come to see that they are but two cowboys riding the remnants of a dissipating range, mirror images reflected across the unforgiving border that divides their two countries. “If I die over here,” Melquiades tells Pete in a moment of uncanny prescience, “I don’t want to be buried on this side, with all the fucking billboards.”
72 - Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) Good Night, and Good Luck. - The 
beauty of the film was that instead of it mimicking the traditional biopics Hollywood often cranks out, the audience simply gets a snapshot of Murrow's career and a piece of American history. What makes Edward R. Murrow so fascinating in the film is his professionalism and his commitment to the truth, even if it may destroy him and CBS, the network he's work so hard for. David Straithairn, though he has little resemblance to Murrow, moves exactly like him. It's very eerie, watching him sit in stone silence, cigarette in hand, as he gives an interview.
Men like him don't exist anymore in modern American journalism, so watching Strathairn's performance is really watching an era that will probably never exist again.
(Good Night, and Good Luck) could have been made in 1941. It could have been in the 1800’s, or 1941 with the Japanese-American internment camps … the fear of Indians, so we'd better take away their civil liberties and put them on a reservation. It could be Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, any place that is where fear has been used … and confusion and the oppression of news has been used. The light has shined on it by this film. I don't think it's any coincidence that it's coming out now. I think that it's just a wonderful confluence of timing, that George (Clooney) got it together to make this film. I imagine if (George W.) Bush hadn't gotten a second term, it wouldn't be quite as potent an illumination, but there's always going to be something going on apropos of this, on this issue. Especially today, where we are fearful, but I think we are more confused; we're more paralyzed by our confusion as to who's telling us what, and what do we believe, and where's the truth?
I mean, it's sort of relative now. One news network is really only speaking to those people who need to be re-affirmed of their particular ideology and another one is (supporting another) – so these tribal factions in our society are feeding off these wildly opposing founts of information. Murrow was not about that. Murrow was about information for all, for the good of all. It's not a film to polarize or proselytize or indict, it's just to examine and to maybe build a platform for debate about these issues, and the responsibility of the journalist to find what's most important. Sure, we need to find out what's going on as a result of (recent hurricanes), but to what extent? To the extent that it puts a smokescreen over the (Alito) confirmation hearing or Gonzalez vs. Oregon, a physicians right’s (case)? There are so many issues out there that Murrow would have targeted, because they were so important to our daily lives.
...Mr. Bernal, with his smoldering eyes and equine features, is the movie's heartthrob. Though the film does, by the end, view Ernesto as a quasi-holy figure, turning away from the corruptions of the world toward a higher purpose, he is also portrayed as a mischievous, eager boy. Early in the film, the travelers stop in the seaside town of Miramar to visit Ernesto's girlfriend, Chichina (Mía Maestro), whose wealthy parents clearly disapprove of him.... The scenes between Ernesto and Chichina have the delicious ache of late-adolescent longing, a feeling that suffuses the film even as it turns its attention to graver matters.
What a rough day. I've kept it together for a while now, but that Michael Jackson memorial just made me break down. I've dragged myself away from CNN long enough to find these incredible posters for Disney's A Christmas Carol from Awards Daily. The first one is one of the better posters I've seen all year. The film opens on November 6 and features captured performances from Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes, and Fionnula Flanagan.
There is a brand new featurette video below (via GeekTyrant) where John Lasseter, Andreas Deja, Ron Clements, Bruce Smith, and John Musker talk about Disney's return to traditional, hand drawn animation in the upcoming The Princess and the Frog.
There's been a lot of talk about Disney women lately. The Princess and the Frog opens later this year, there have been a few observations on Pixar's lack of women or girls as the central or headlining character in all of its ten films, and though Disney's traditional animation features a lot of women, many of them are princesses. I don't want to dive too deep into the debate, because so many have done it better anyway. Even though I take issue with some of Disney's handling of their characters, I still love their movies. My childhood would have been very different, and a lot less memorable without them and some of the other, non-Disney films I watched.
Anyway, all this princess stuff got me thinking and I went off on all sorts of tangents. Is it only Disney that does the princess thing? And if other animation studios do the same thing are they just following Disney's lead or is there an assumption that little girls will just love to see yet another woman with a crown on her head who lives for a marriage to a bland, two-dimensional prince? For the most part it seems the other studios either did the princess charade, or made the women marry princes, or they were women from fairy tales, or all of the above. This is probably why, as a kid, I couldn't tell the difference between an animated Disney movie and a non-Disney movie. Most of the women were princesses, so I just thought - Disney.
But this still didn't make me want to write a long analytical post. I just started wondering in a fight, which woman would most likely come out on top? The Disney princess or the non-Disney princess? I narrowed the fight down to six rounds because there are fewer non-Disney princesses to choose from. Naturally, a few Don Bluth characters made the list. Anyway, follow my random mind, and we'll see who wins. To warn you, this is spoiler heavy.
Round 1: Cinderella (Cinderella) vs. Akima (Titan A.E.) 
We start off with two women who aren't princesses. Of course, Cinderella ends up with a prince, so she becomes a princess. Akima is a futuristic pilot. Ultimately this might prove to be a cruel matchup. Akima would either shoot Cinderella with a laser and end her, or use her marital arts skills and beat Cinderella to a pulp. But, Cinderella wouldn't have to lift a finger to save herself because her Fairy Godmother would step in for her. The Godmother would turn Akima into a rodent or pumpkin and dispose of her until midnight.
Winner: Cinderella (Disney Princesses lead 1 - 0)
Round 2: Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) vs. Princess Odette (The Swan Princess)
I think both these women are among the worst role models for girls. In this showdown, both would have to rely on magic, rather than skill - because they have none whatsoever. Other than sing, there isn't much these women can do. Princess Aurora would rely on her fairies (again!) who do useless things like make people sing well, and fall asleep. Unless the moon was out, Princess Odette would be trapped in the form of a swan, and she would fly away before there was any danger.
Winner: Princess Odette (Tied at 1-1)
Round 3: Princess Ariel (The Little Mermaid) vs. Thumbelina (Thumbelina)
I paired these two together because both characters were voiced by Jodi Benson. This matchup isn't really fair. Princess Ariel, despite being one of Disney's biggest weaklings could easily destroy Thumbelina in a number of ways - stomping on her, tossing her into a fire, hacking her to pieces, etc. Too easy.
Winner: Princess Ariel (Disney Princesses lead 2-1)
Round 4: Belle (Beauty and the Beast) vs. Kayley (Quest for Camelot)
It's a shame Belle never learned to fight anyone (or learned how to summon fairies) because she's obviously smart, spunky, and brave because she signs up to live with the Beast in place of her father. While Kayley is no Mulan, she can hold her own, and she becomes a knight. So, sadly for Belle, Kayley would kick her ass.
Winner: Kayley (Tied at 2-2)
Round 5: Princess Pocahontas (Pocahontas) vs. Grand Duchess Anastasia (Anastasia)
I figured I'd pair up the real life princesses with each other. Pocahontas is brave (flinging yourself in front of a guy who's about to be killed is pretty damn brave), and she's almost unrealistically agile. But, Anastasia bitch slapped her boyfriend and destroyed an undead Rasputin. No contest.
Winner: Anastasia (Non-Disney princesses lead 3-2)
Round 6: Mulan (Mulan) vs. Tzipporah (The Prince of Egypt)
Both women can be found in ancient texts. One, in an ancient Chinese poem, the other in religious text. Both can hold their own in a fight. Tzipporah's skilled with a whip - even with both hands tied. Mulan, has the upper hand because she has had warrior training and is excellent with a sword. Sorry Tzipporah, but Mulan would annihilate you.
Winner: Mulan (Tied 3-3)
I wasn't expecting that outcome at all. I blame the fairies.
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