This weekend is the fourth ever D23 Expo, the Disney Convention in Anaheim held every two years, and for the first time I’m going! I’ve been a charter member of D23 (the official Disney fan club) since it started, but I’ve never been able to make it to the Expo until now! I’m incredibly excited, and a little nervous, about all there is to see and do, and my goal is to share it all with you. I plan on tweeting as much as I can, so follow me @lovepirate77, and I may be cross-posting some of that to Tumblr so check me out there as well. I’ll also post nightly recaps of each day’s announcements and activities, with my reactions to any news, sightings, and the experience in general.
This year’s D23 Expo is shaping up to be the biggest yet, with some huge announcements and first looks in store. Continue reading
Disney/Pixar recently released the first full trailer for The Good Dinosaur, due out this November. It’s gone through a lot of changes since it was first announced, with an almost entirely new voice cast, a new writer, a new director, and a new composer. The film’s first teaser trailer just gave us a brief glimpse at the film’s premise, but the new full trailer gives us much more. Take a look and read on for my thoughts:
Ant-Man shouldn’t work. Just from a conceptual standpoint, a hero who can shrink and who hangs around with insects sounds a little goofy when compared to the exploits of the Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This isn’t Asgard or SHIELD and there’s no army of alien invaders or HYDRA soldiers with which to contend, so how could it ever feel as important or impactful as other recent Marvel films? Add in the drama over the loss of the film’s original writer/director (and strongest advocate) Edgar Wright, and the resulting film could have been an inconsequential mess, throwing a goofy idea together with a handful of jokes and some cheesy action just to be another cog (about a straight, white male, of course) in the Marvel/Disney machine. That Ant-Man succeeds at all is a testament to the creativity of Marvel’s storytelling and the strength of its cast, but more than that it’s perhaps Marvel’s most flat-out fun film to date.
Why do we think what we think and feel what we feel? What determines who we are and how we respond to life’s circumstances? How can the same memory be joyous sometimes and sad at others? Where do ideas come from? What happens to the things we’ve forgotten? Why does the jingle from that chewing gum commercial always get stuck in your head? Why are dreams so weird? Just what, exactly, is going on in people’s heads? These are some of the many questions Pixar’s latest film, Inside Out, sets out to explore. The result is one of the most charming, heartfelt, and poignant films the studio has ever created, as well as one of the most creative movies of all time. It will not only make you laugh and cry, but then it’ll make you stop and consider why you just laughed and cried.
The Love Pirate 