A Gathering Of Links

As we move to March, we give you another cluster of linkage to Cartoon News you can review and discard, as you see fit.

The New York Times details the wonder of the New York International Children's Film Festival:

New York International Children’s Film Festival

One of the most intriguing features in the New York International Children’s Film Festival is all about Oz. But this place has no Dorothy, no wizard, no Emerald City. And it’s even farther from Kansas.

Here Oz is a virtual universe controlling everything from traffic signals to nuclear missile codes. Its sudden, fateful hacking by the Love Machine, a rogue artificial intelligence, forms the plot of “Summer Wars,” by the up-and-coming Japanese anime director Mamoru Hosoda ....

The Croods, in mid-stream story development at DreamWorks Animation, is filling its cast list.

Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds have reportedly signed to play caveman in the CG-animated comedy The Croods.

According to Variety, Cage will voice Crug, a patriarch of a Neanderthal family who cautiously leads his relatives to a new land after their home is destroyed.

Reynolds is to voice a progressive-thinking outsider who challenges Crug ....

Reuters asks John Lasseter various questions:

"Toy Story," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," "Ratatouille" "Wall-E" and now "Up" have all earned best screenplay Oscar nominations. What's the secret?

A: "I believe in research. Each movie at Pixar involves research with college professors or taking trips to learn as much as we can about a particular subject matter...I have met a lot of top chefs around the world during my travels. Each one of them has said "Ratatouille" is their favorite movie and the only movie that truly captures what they do. Auto Week called "Cars" the best car movie because the details were spot on."

A Yalie complains about the lack of dramatic animations:

There is not a single dramatic animated short up for an Academy Award this year. Not a single instance of animation defying the seemingly perpetual relegation of the medium to comedy — of animation that does not rely (at least in part) on slapstick humor to tell its story. Why?

Granted, I may be more insulted by this than most ...

Yes, I imagine you are.

Animated news, the next frontier (and Tiger Woods was just the beginning):

Animated news: blurring the line between fact and fiction?

Are CGI envisionings of a killer whale attack, Brown's alleged bullying and what goes on in the male brain the future of news?

First there was the animation of Tiger Woods's car crash, which went viral. Then came the video showing a perhaps exaggerated version of Gordon Brown's alleged bullying. Western journalists have been forced to take notice of animated news ...

And we can all rest easy, because the Big Mouse has worked out it's British theater chain problem:

Odeon/UCI cinemas has agreed to an eleventh-hour deal with Disney to show "Alice in Wonderland" in the circuit's U.K. theaters.

The agreement follows a separate deal with U.K. exhib Vue, ending a controversy that had threatened to squeeze Tim Burton's 3D pic out of the local theatrical market. The Odeon agreement was announced Thursday, as Disney prepared to stage the world premiere of "Alice" in front of Prince Charles at the circuit's flagship cinema on Leicester Square ...

Have a restful weekend.