Tag: Pixar

I have a soft spot for trailer mash-ups — the “Toy Story” and “Star Trek” one was genius, and there was that great hybrid of “Up” and “Inception” — and Jay West just sent me a link to this new one. There’s an awful lot of clever energy and nimble imagination at work in these. What’s the best one you’ve seen? If you come up with a Top 5 ranking (with links, please) we’ll give the coolest collection a guest post and byline here on Hero Complex. – Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED ‘Prometheus’: Ridley Scott returns to ‘Alien’ canvas Ridley Scott: ‘Magic comes  over the horizon’ ‘Prometheus’: The riddles of Ridley Scott Michael Fassbender on ‘Prometheus’ Ridley Scott seeks the ‘original DNA’ of ‘Alien’ Moebius: The last interview Ridley Scott: I came to science fiction by backdoor Rutger Hauer: Chris ...

It’s almost here — we’re just one week from the start of the 2012 Hero Complex Film Festival and with the franchise in its third year we’ve moved to a sweet new home (Regal Cinemas at LA Live, where in September we brought you a 30th anniversary screening of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with Steven Spielberg and surprise guest Harrison Ford) and expanded the program (four days now with more than a dozen guests, including three that haven’t been announced). To get a bead on the festival, peruse the photo gallery above — be sure to click the “CAPTIONS ON” option if you don’t see text across the bottom of each image – and you’ll get a snapshot description of all of eight of our separately ticketed screenings. The box here on the right leads to the ticketing page. And how about those fun images in the gallery? ...

2012 HERO COMPLEX FILM FESTIVAL Writer-director Andrew Stanton won his second Oscar with the evocative sci-fi tale ”Wall-E” and on May 20 at the Hero Complex Film Festival the filmmaker will return to familiar space to reconnect with the Pixar hit. Five years have passed since the cosmic comedy won over  moviegoers and critics alike and cemented the Hollywood stature of Stanton, who had previously taken home an Academy Award for “Finding Nemo,” regarded by many Pixar fans to be among the best – if not the best — of the company’s historic run of feature films. Stanton went on to direct “John Carter,” the huge fantasy film that got caught up in Disney cross-currents and became the most bruising Hollywood headline so far this year. Stanton will talk about his next step — could it be a return to Pixar? Fans who buy ...

Some of the top artists at Pixar Animation Studios have donated artwork and memorabilia to an EBay auction that will benefit victims of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. Organized to mark the one-year anniversary of the disaster, the auction is part of an international fundraising effort by Artists Help Japan. Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, the Tokyo-born art director of “Toy Story 3,” founded Artists Help Japan in 2011 in response to the destruction in northern Honshu. Artists and musicians have donated their talents to help raise over $240,000 to date. The online auction is one of a series of events taking place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris, New York and London. “Artists whom I know in various cities contacted me, asking to contribute,” Tsutsumi says. “What moved me even more than the money they raised was the idea that there ...

Gary Rydstrom is a wizard with sound. In the last three decades, he’s worked with James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Pixar, racking up seven Oscars and nine more nominations for his contributions to such films as “Titanic,” “Minority Report,” “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” and “Finding Nemo,” among others. Although the new film “The Secret World of Arrietty,” the latest production from Japan’s revered animation house Studio Ghibli, finds Rydstrom in the director’s chair for the second time, he’s sticking close to his field of expertise — he directed the actors as they recorded the audio portion of the English-language release of the film, which Disney is opening in the U.S. on Feb. 17. Hayao Miyazaki co-wrote the Japanese screenplay for the film, which is based on “The Borrowers,” Mary Norton’s 1952 children’s book about ...

All the gifts are finally unwrapped and the cinematic class of 2011 has finally been presented. There’s not much left to do now but watch as the clock counts down until 2012. It should be a quiet time to backtrack and catch up on all those movies that went unviewed opening weekend, but are now present on nearly every critics’ top 10 list. But the studios have kick-started the anticipation for the new year with a herd of new trailers for some of 2012′s biggest potential blockbusters — three in the last week alone. Holiday moviegoers (or anyone with a decent Internet connection) got their first peeks at “The Hobbit,” “Prometheus” and an extended look at “The Dark Knight Rises.” These trailers joined the already-released group, which includes “The Avengers” and “John Carter” and “The Hunger Games,” among others. So ...

Disney-Pixar has released the first full trailer to “Brave,” the company’s 13th feature film. And this one boasts a lot of firsts for Pixar’s canon: first fairy tale, first female protagonist, first period piece and first extensive use of Scottish accents. Also, in keeping with Pixar’s continued push toward ever more realistic computer-animated textures in its films, this one appears to have a definite loamier, earthier feel, with lots of moss and mist and magic. Kelly Macdonald of “Boardwalk Empire” fame provides the voice of Merida, the fiery, redheaded archer who defies the traditions of her Scottish Highlands-based clan and attempts to chart her own path in life, but winds up wreaking havoc when she unleashes an ancient curse. Julie Walters, Emma Thompson and most of the Scottish actors in Hollywood — Billy Connolly, Kevin McKidd, Robbie Coltrane and Craig ...

The Walt Disney Co. announced two new original Pixar feature films at D23 on Saturday, an untitled movie about dinosaurs directed by “Finding Nemo” screenwriter Bob Peterson due in 2013 and an untitled movie about the inner workings of the brain directed by “Up” and “Monsters Inc.” director Pete Docter due in 2014. Disney and Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter introduced the two new projects at the media company’s three-day fan event in Anaheim, in a demonstration that the animation studio best known lately for the sequels “Toy Story 3″ and “Cars 2″ is still committed to original stories. Peterson showed a single piece of concept art of a dinosaur walking in tall grass with what appeared to be a small child riding on it. The movie, he said, was about what would happen if “the asteroid missed the ...

“The Avengers,”  ”Brave” and “John Carter”  are coming to Anaheim this weekend. The three-day D23 Expo 2011 opens Friday with previews and promotions representing every corner of the Mouse’s universe but the brightest of all spotlights will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday when Walt Disney Studios begins a preview of upcoming film projects that will include movies from Disney proper as well as Pixar and, for the first time at the Expo, Marvel Studios. At the first Expo, back in September 2009, the same preview program in the Anaheim Convention Center’s arena included appearances by Johnny Depp, John Travolta, Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage, and you can expect a similar parade of famous faces this year as Disney looks to further establish the D23 event as its own in-house version of Comic-Con International’s Hall H — the place where Hollywood studios reach out to fans, bloggers and the media ...

Billy Crystal is getting schooled by Pixar — and he couldn’t be happier about returning to the “Monsters Inc.” universe and working again with fellow beastie John Goodman. “We’re having a blast together,” Crystal said Friday after a marathon recording session for “Monsters University,” which is planned for summer of 2013. “It’s really a great script, it’s really funny.” Crystal was on stage Friday night at a 20th anniversary screening of “City Slickers,” where he was joined on stage by surprise guest Daniel Stern for a sparkling night of humor and emotion — both spoke warmly of Jack Palance and Bruno Kirby, their “Slickers” costars who both died in 2006. I was the moderator on stage and I also asked Crystal about his return to the role of Michael “Mike” Wazowski, the lime-colored, one-eyed scene-stealer from “Monsters Inc.” “That’s why I’m a little hoarse. I spent five-and-a-half hours today for ...