Thursday, May 14, 2009

Links for Mid-May

Spring linkage ... with the dust whisked off.

Maybe everybody should start doing character teasers.

“There’s a shot where a little girl is in her room and the house goes by,” [Pixar] producer [Jonas Rivera] said of a seemingly simple reaction scene near the beginning of the film, in which a young girl is surprised by the flying house soaring past her bedroom. “She’s playing with her toys. She’s playing with her little plane. She gets up, and she looks [out the window] – under her bed is one of the new stars of ‘Toy Story 3’.”

(Rotten Tomatoes tabulates critics' reactions to Up. And the Nikster weighs in on the Cannes screening here.)

Amazingly, it isn't just J. Katzenberg who thinks that the future of cinema is 3-D. Other execs are getting in on the act:

"I really think we are at the tipping point where we'll have the ability to release a movie in 3-D only," said Disney Motion Pictures Group prexy Mark Zoradi.

I really don't have an opinion about whether, in the next year or three, my eyeballs will be seeing all 3-D all the time. I haven't given it a hell of a lot of thought, actually.

Wade Sampson presents a history of The Firehouse Five Plus Deux.

“The band never, repeat, never rehearsed! We never played any of our repertoire twice the same way. I insisted on a simple beat—tuba and bass drum on 1st and 3rd—snare, banjo and piano left hand accenting 2nd and 4th beats. Most of our work was for big dances playing jazz, waltzes, rumbas—you name it! Crazy textures, slide whistle, soprano sax duets, ‘duck call’ choruses, and harmonica solos. For concerts we upped the tempos. I guess you could call it all SIMPLICITY! Let ‘em hear the tune.” -- Ward Kimball

Ashton Kutcher takes time away from tweeting to jump into 'toonland:

Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst shingle is looking to turn the animated Web series "Blah Girls" into a TV property -- and has found an unusual launching pad for the show.

"Blah Girls" will debut on TV as a series of one-minute interstitials on the entertainment newsmag strip "The Insider" starting today ...

Moving further down the food chain, Complex.com interviews the Madtwinz (independent animators Mark and Mike Davis) about animation and comic book creation:

... Our career just naturally evolved into for us. We were always bouncing stories and characters back and forth to each other, since we were both in the womb.

Mike: It was never really like, “Yo, i want to do comics and animation.” I just knew that I liked the idea of being able to create stories and images that people could relate to. Stories and characters that me and dudes around my way could look at and be like “I feel that,” that was the most important part. To capture the detail and nuances from the culture we was raised in.

Since Penguins of Madagascar is a hit, why not make it two?

In just six weeks [The Penguins of Madagascar] is reaching nearly 13 million viewers age 2 to 11 a week, according to Nielsen Media Research. Among cartoons only “SpongeBob SquarePants” delivers stronger ratings for Nickelodeon.

Now the channel is adding “Kung Fu Panda: The Series,” a program built around the DreamWorks smash film from last June. The series, planned for a premiere early next year, will chronicle the further adventures of Po ...

Have a most excellent Friday and weekend.

4 comments:

g said...

So, its either slippers, a teddy bear, or a cheeto.

Anonymous said...

I'm still not convinced that a good reaction from Cannes will result in great box office for Up. Here's hoping it will, but I just don't feel the buzz amongst the regular folk.

Jimmy said...

I don't think 3D will explode anytime soon, just because of the damn glasses. Who wants to wear glasses at the cinema? And for people with glasses already, who the hell is dorkier than them (including me) wearing 2 pairs?

To argue it's the inevitable step of evolution is weak also. To start with silent stills, then movement, in black and white, then sound, then colors, now does it have to be 3D to complete the way human eyes work? I'd say not necessarily or all the paintings/photographs would be in 3D now.

Just for the money, everyone knows it.

Anonymous said...

I like the recurring 3D fad because it brings us the phenomenon of people who couldn't look cool if they were frozen in a glacier for 5000 years complaining that THE GLASSES might make them look dorky.

I love the way it makes people reveal themselves as vain, blind, self-deluded poseurs.

Yeah, right. It's the glasses that's the problem. Hysterical.

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