I love movie posters, I even have a frame in my office at home that I use to rotate posters that catch my eye (it currently is displaying one from Skyfall). Today, the Disney Parks Blog exclusively debuted the new poster for Saving Mr. Banks. I looked at the trailer just last week, but check out the poster: Continue reading
Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies, since I’ve always found them to be endlessly fascinating.
It’s been torture, having to wait until today to share this trailer with you. I’ll save my thoughts for after, so go ahead and watch:
My obsession with all things Disney should be well know by this point to anyone who regularly reads this blog. Continue reading
Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.
I’ve mentioned previously my love for Tangled. It has many things at appeal to me, specifically. It’s hilarious, has great music, a strong female protagonist (in my opinion… I know there’s some disagreement about that) and is gorgeously animated. The highlight of the film, musically, artistically and from the standpoint of character, comes as Rapunzel finally gets to see the “floating lights” that she has dreamed about her entire life. But for me there’s one particular moment that I can relate to above all things. Take a look, and read on for my favorite moment:
The Lone Ranger is most likely not what you expect, though it probably has at least one or two moments (or silver bullets) aimed at you. It’s not a devoted adaptation of the beloved TV show from the 50’s or the radio show from the 30’s. It’s not a “Disneyfied” (hate that word, it’s so condescending) version of a Western, aimed at kids. It’s not Pirates of the Caribbean on horseback, though your ability to enjoy The Lone Ranger might be related to your ability to enjoy that saga of movies. It’s not even a live-action adaptation of Rango. So what is it?
The Lone Ranger is a rip-roaring, funny, violent, subversive, political, Western action extravaganza. Continue reading
By this point it’s well known that all new Pixar films are accompanied in the theater by a Pixar short. Over the years, these shorts, ten of which have been nominated for Oscars, have become as much a part of the Pixar experience as the feature films. This year, Pixar attached a short entitled The Blue Umbrella to its release of Monsters University.
In some ways it’s difficult to review a film that only lasts six minutes. Continue reading
I’ve been watching the Rotten Tomatoes score for The Lone Ranger slowly climb from a rather horrific 17% today, and it’s gotten me thinking about critics and reviews and the movie review industry as a whole. In fact, I read a blurb from one review that stated, “Everyone wants this to be horrible,” and it makes me wonder how much film reviews in the industry are shaped both by what people expect from a movie, what they want to happen to the movie, and what they think people expect and want the reviews to say. So if you’ll excuse the rambling, unorganized and meta nature of this post, here are some of my thoughts. Continue reading
Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies, since I’ve always found them to be endlessly fascinating.
During my movie marathon a couple weeks ago, I saw a trailer for The Lone Ranger (out tomorrow) before my showing of Man of Steel. There’s nothing unusual about this, and I fully expected it, but what I didn’t expect was this unusual take on a trailer instead of something more typical. Take a look, and then read on for my thoughts:
Instead of a standard trailer we instead got a behind-the-scenes look at the film. Continue reading
With the recent release of Monsters University, many blogs and news sites have been ranking all of the pixar films, so I thought I would do the same with my favorites. There is some flexibility here, as films tend to move up and down depending on my mood, but the general trend doesn’t change. (You can also find my ranking of comic book superhero movies here.) Read on for my list and for a poll. Let me know what you think in the comments! Continue reading
Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies, since I’ve always found them to be endlessly fascinating.
Those of you who saw Monsters University were probably treated to this small teaser for the upcoming Disney Animation film, Frozen. Frozen is a retelling of “The Snow Queen,” a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. It features the voice talents of Kristen Bell (sloths!), Idina Menzel, Alan Tudyk and Jonathan Groff. It’s also a musical, with songs written by Robert Lopez (songwriter for Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon and the Scrubs musical episode) and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
The trailer is just a simple tease, though it does a lot to evoke the most popular characters from Tangled, Maximus the horse and Pascal the chameleon. It may not tell us much, but it sure is cute! Take a look: Continue reading
(This was movie #3 of my 4 movie marathon day.)
It seems like it would be easy to criticize Pixar for making so many sequels these days. Between Toy Story 3, the new Monsters University and the upcoming Finding Dory, it seems almost like they’ve forgotten how to make new, original films. Yet, where other companies would use a sequel as a way to cash in on previous success, Pixar instead gives us creative new stories that use a well known base to tell new, original stories, and never gives us just more of the same. (Even the generally poor Cars 2 dared to do something different.) The result with Toy Story 3 was a sorrowful and heartfelt look at aging and the passage of time which was nominated for Best Picture. And now, with Monsters University they’ve done it again, taking the characters we love and going back to tell a prequel, and giving us a funny new story that fits in with what we know yet stands completely on its own.
Monsters University, as the title suggests, is a college movie, equally Pixar’s version of Revenge of the Nerds as it is a Monsters, Inc. spinoff. Continue reading
The Love Pirate 
