The 14th annual Golden Trailer Awards - which honor excellence in film marketing - were presented this weekend. Disney walked away the big winner of the affair – hosted by Rob Schneider and Aisha Tyler - with films like Iron Man 3, Wreck-It Ralph, Brave, Monsters University, and The Avengers all taking home awards. Have a look at the full list of winners after the jump.
Written by: Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird, Dan Scanlon
Voice Talent Cast: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi
Synopsis: The new college freshman Michael “Mike” Wazowski starts college with eager enthusiasm. Preparing for success and to stand out through hard work, Mike chooses to pledge for the Oozma Kappa fraternity, where he meets his polar opposite, James P. “Sulley” Sullivan. Through a rivalry in their chosen major of scaring, they end up fighting to be on top, while coming closer together as life-long friends.
(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories. Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony. Think you can do better? Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)
It’s here, the Big One. The Oscars are finally upon us, generating a frenzy of excitement and a torrent of ever-changing predictions in its path to the big stage on Sunday. This is the highly anticipated annual organized free-for-all when ideals shatter, frustrations bubble over, and sometimes (though not often) pleasant surprises challenge the odds. The final results could go any which way, and especially in such a quality-loaded year, it’s been a dizzying process trying to peg the sway of Academy Voters. Finally dashing aside unrealistically hopeful designs of one candidate over another, I’ve joined my Awards Circuit colleagues in settling on the probable winners, though not without putting up a fight for my preferred winners. In the spirit of the games, here are my “Win Will/Should Win” Oscar Selections: Read more on Oscar 2013 Will Win/Should Win Selections (Melkonian)…
On late Saturday night, the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) handed out their prizes for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing, awarding Les Misérables with their award for a live action film. This probably puts Les Misérables as the frontrunner for the Sound Mixing Oscar (if it wasn’t already), especially on the heels of last weekend’s victory with BAFTA in the same category. Meanwhile, they handed out their award for an animated film to Pixar’s Brave, who gained a lot of momentum this weekend taking both CAS and the ACE Eddie.
(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories. Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony. Think you can do better? Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)
2012 has been a great year for movie music, therefore it would be no surprise that the nominees for the International Film Music Awards would be pretty good. Lincoln and Life of Pi lead the nominated field with 4 nominations, including citations for their composers in Film Composer of the Year, John Williams and Mychael Danna, respectively. Cloud Atlas also managed 3 nominations including Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film, and Composition of the Year for Cloud Atlas Sextet. The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 9th IFMCA Awards on February 21, 2013. By now, everyone has seen a million of these posts, so I thought it’d be fun to add a little bit of commentary along with the categories, so check it out after the jump! Read more on International Film Music Award Nominations highlight ‘Cloud Atlas’ and ‘Life of Pi’…
Add another guild win to Argo‘s impressive tally, as the American Cinema Editors honored William Goldberg’s work on the film with the Best Edited Feature (Dramatic) prize. The 63rd annual ACE Eddie Awards, held last night, celebrate the best in editing for the year. Also picking up prizes for film editing were Silver Linings Playbook, Brave, and Searching For Sugar Man. Stephen Spielberg, Richard Marks and Larry Silk all received special honors at the ceremony. Check out the full list of winner after the jump! Read more on American Cinema Editors crown ‘Argo’, ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ and ‘Brave’…
I think if you asked the staff to guarantee one win on Oscar night, we might all unanimously agree on the visual effects team for Life of Pi being triumphant. Heck, we might have all agreed on that before nominations were even announced. Well it seems thee Visual Effects Society (VES) has confirmed what we already knew, as they handed out four prizes – including the most important: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Motion Picture – to Ang Lee’s film. To top things off, Lee was honored by the VES as he received the Society’s Visionary Award. Pixar’s Brave also received a boost from the VES. Check out the full list of winners after the jump.
Via Kris Tapley over at HitFix/In Contention, he took a look at the ballot for the Writers Guild of America upcoming awards and took note of several omissions that include Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Michael Haneke’s Amour. He counted fifteen in total.
Tarantino has never been a member of the WGA but has found success with his other films Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Tapley has explanations for many of the contenders that won’t be getting a boost from the WGA. I encourage you to take a look. The nominations for the Writers Guild Awards will be announced on January 3, the day Oscar ballots are due. The list of films DISQUALIFIED are listed below and after the jump. Read more on Writers Guild of America Disqualifies Several Films for their Awards!…
As one has come to expect lately, the Mouse House (Disney) and Pixar have racked up an impressive amount of nominations for the Annie Awards. Along with Paperman being in Best Animated Short, the Disney/Pixar contingent accounted for 3 of the 8 Best Animated Features lots with Brave, Wreck-It Ralph and Frankenweenie. Also in contention for the top spotare GKIDS The Rabbi’s Cat, Hotel Transylvania, ParaNorman, Rise of the Guardians, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits. Winners will be announced during the 40th Annual Annie Awards ceremony February 2 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Check out the list after the jump! Read more on Annie Awards nominations dominated by Disney/Pixar…
In true topsy-turvy form, where this summer’s Brave is a Pixar film with Disney sensibilities, Wreck-It Ralph is a Disney film in name only. From its intimate characterizations, right on down to its all-ages accessibility, everything about this wholly unique video game adventure feels so wonderfully Pixar-esque! This is due in large part to the innovative mind of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios’ chief creative officer, John Lasseter, who also serves as the film’s executive producer. Where many industry vets in Hollywood would shudder at the mere idea of setting an original story within a video game world (especially given the stigma surrounding video game adaptations), Lasseter carries onward and refurbishes the scorned genre with the very same “pixie dust” magic that turned films like Up and Toy Story intoinstant classics. Hiring Simpsons director Rich Moore to helm the project was a risky yet astute move by Lassetter, one that disproves any notion that Disney is reverting back to its soft and cuddly ways. If anything, it demonstrates how all-encompassing Disney has become, appealing to the masses from every trajectory. Calling Wreck-It Ralph the “greatest video game movie of all-time” almost seems too easy, but low and behold that’s exactly what it is. Never settling for mediocrity, Wreck-It Ralph is a triumph from its first level to its very last. Read more on Wreck-It Ralph (***½)…
As the awards season draws nearer, it becomes a fun game to be the first to spot the surprise Oscar nominees that no one else sees coming. In the case for Best Animated Feature Film, we’ve seen a few of this year’s frontrunners already (Brave, ParaNorman), with several more to come in the next few weeks/months (Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph). But Oscar handles this category the way I sometimes wish they would handle their Best Picture race, often finding diamonds in the rough, without any fear to go with lesser known/seen films – regardless of the spoken language in the film. Since the category’s inception back in 2001, there have been several animated films to receive a nomination that fit this description, including The Triplets of Belleville (2003), Persepolis (2007), The Illusionist (2010), and both Chico and Rita and A Cat in Paris from just last year.
After being left on the Lionsgate shelves for a fair amount of time, The Possession finally got its opportunity to play at the multiplex and won the final weekend at the box office, earning an estimated $17.2 million, wrapping up an interesting 2012 summer box office season. Outpacing the Prohibition-era crime drama Lawless, The Possession was the second consecutive teen-oriented horror film to not screen for critics, following last week’s virtually ignored The Apparition. However, unlike The Apparition, audiences were much interested in being possessed it seems. 2016: Obama’s America attempted to build on its big numbers last weekend on the back of the Republican National Convention, and this week also witnessed an opening of historic proportions. Believe me when I say, it is historic for all the wrong reasons.
The second half of the year is upon us. The race is about to heat up with big Oscar hopefuls coming down the pike. Our John Foote will be in attendance at the Toronto International Film Festival and many films will be unveiling themselves to critics alike. There is a very unclear yet still feasible shape to the race looking from ten thousand feet.
There are internet jitters building for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. With the trailers released and now the film being pushed up to September, it looks as though we may be in store for a master class in filmmaking. Phoenix also looks to be a lead contender for his first Oscar after delivering in his previous nominated works, Gladiator (2000) and Walk the Line (2005). Phoenix does have tough competition ahead of him including what looks to be a critical darling-type performance coming from John Hawkes in Ben Lewin’s The Sessions. Early word is very positive for the film and the turns by Hawkes along with co-stars Helen Hunt and William H. Macy. Since Hawkes’ initial nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone, he hasn’t shown any signs of letting up. He was arguably left off last year in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and will be seen later this year in Julia Dyer’s The Playroom and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. There seems to be a tremendous following and support for him in his current state. Speaking of Spielberg, we’re still awaiting some type of marketing material for his upcoming Lincoln biopic. No poster or trailer has been released with very few stills leaked online. One starts to think if it will even be ready in time.
Fans of Disney•Pixar feature films already know that the company likes to sprinkle hidden items into their new movies that are from their previous productions. Examples of such occurrences are seen during WALL•E’s explorations, when he uncovers a Mike Wazowski antenna ball (paying homage to Monsters, Inc.) and in Up, when we see the classic Luxo Jr. ball (as well as Lotso, would would later appear in Toy Story 3) in the girl’s bedroom as Carl Fredricksen’s house flies by her window.
The song remains the same for their latest film, Brave. Have a gander at a couple of the hidden gems you can look for next time you see the film after the jump…
It’s the first of the month. Not only that, it’s the first day of the second half of the year. Anybody else feel like that was fast? Yet, here we are.
It’s time to start getting serious, Oscar-wise. Not many things have come out, and not many films are looking like Best Picture nominees from the first half. Some will argue The Avengers with a $600 million dollar bank is in talks. Some think the little indie-film Moonrise Kingdom from Wes Anderson could be our “Little Miss Sunshine” of the year. In limited release, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild has opened and received one of the best word-of-mouth reviews of the year. Is that a contender for the big prize? I’d say it is.
I’m ready to start getting down and dirty with these predictions.
Brave, Pixar’s 13th release, successfully dominated the box office this weekend, bringing in $66.7 million, more than three times the amount of this week’s runner-up, Madagascar 3 ($20.2 mil). I don’t think any of us are surprised at this result, as all 13 Pixar films have debuted at number one. Yeah, even Cars 2. Pixar’s box office results remain pretty consistent with the quality of films that studio puts out. And while I wouldn’t rank Brave among the finest delivered by the company, it certainly remains a film worth seeing. Brave was respectfully dedicated to the late Steve Jobs, who created the animation studio. You can read Joseph’s review here.
Read the rest of the box office report after the jump…
This past Monday, I was privileged to be one of several press members who attended the Brave Press Conference at the Loews Hotel in Hollywood. My fellow journalists and I were given the full VIP treatment, complete with parting gift bags, some snacks, and several beverages to choose from. But most importantly, Disney™ provided us with the opportunity to speak to the wonderful cast and crew of Disney•Pixar’s new Brave. Each Brave contributor gave us deeper insight into the film’s complex narrative, some behind-the-scenes factoids, and plenty of laughs as well. It was an excellent day, and all who came brought such wonderful bouts of energy and enthusiasm that it was just a joy to take part in this event. Below, you will find two audio files from the press conference, as well as a video I was able to record of Director Mark Andrews and Producer Katherine Sarafian’s Q&A with the press. The readers who’ve already seen Brave will hopefully get more insight with these sets of interviews, but if you don’t mind a spoiler or two and haven’t watched Brave, by all means dig in… Read more on ‘Brave’ Press Conference!…
Madagascar 3 finally gets a worthy opponent for dominance of the family friendly market, and it could be the biggest one of the year:
Pixar’s Scottish adventure Brave swoops into theaters like the cool highland breeze of…okay, I’ll stop. Starring Kelly MacDonald as a young princess who defies an ancient family custom, Merida takes it upon herself to end the curse it brings to her kingdom. One could argue that Pixar is the most trusted brand in Hollywood today, so it’s almost never a question of if their latest film will be a hit, but to what degree. This is the first film from the studio to star a female heroine, and with that landmark comes the expected (but not meritless) question of how much that will hurt its box office prospects. It is true that animated films, historically, fare worse when they’re perceived as “girl” movies (it’s no coincidence that the two highest-grossing Disney musicals of the nineties were Aladdin and The Lion King). Then again, Merida is portrayed here as a Strong Female Character in the vein of Katniss Everdeen, and let’s not forget that The Hunger Games made a killing at the multiplex just a few months ago. I’m pretty sure this movie is going make a cool $57-62 million before the weekend is out. Read more on Weekend Openings (June 22-24)…
A film so proficient in technical scope and detail, it’s unfortunate to say that Disney•Pixar’s Brave doesn’t quite live up to the narrative standard set by its predecessors, most notably the Toy Story franchise and 2009′s Up. Both films raised the bar for animation storytelling, in-depth characterizations, and sequences that both jolted and awed. So, is it really a surprise why I left my screening somewhat disappointed when we have these two benchmarks in animated film-making to measure Brave against? Before I launch into my review, let me say this: Brave is not a bad film; in fact, the teleplay itself is quite original. It’s simply that there are too many rifts in the screenplay — both the dialogue spoken and the way in which the tale unfolds — to truly call it a bona fide success. I was also rather puzzled why our heroine, the first ever Disney•Pixar female protagonist, wasn’t more sympathetic and, dare I say, likeable. Read more on Brave (***)…
For those who worried that ‘Cars 2′ was the start of some sort of Pixar slump, you can rest easy, as ‘Brave’ is a return to form for the studio. That being said, this is definitely not on par with their creative heights (‘WALL-E’, the ‘Toy Story’ trilogy, etc), and contains a few flaws. At its core, ‘Brave’ is a somewhat standard Disney Princess fairy tale re-imagined through the Pixar filter. Simply told and rather old fashioned, this is something new and old at the same time. I can’t say that I was entranced by it like I’ve been by the company’s work in the past (I actually think it has more in common with ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ in a lot of ways than anything else), but their animation continues to be unparalleled. I’d argue that this may even be the best looking animated film to date. I’d preferred if it had been a bit more of a complete meal, as it were, but in terms of pure entertainment there’s not too much to complain about here. Featuring strong voice work, this does fill the Pixar tradition of having an appeal to not just children, but adults too. Young girls may be the top target here, but everyone should be able to have a good time. It’s not a classic, but it’s the best animated film of the year so far and the frontrunner for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. The film opens next week and you should expect a solid outing from Pixar.
One of the best parts of the trailers for Pixar’s Brave was the authentic Scottish music giving the trailer an epic feel. Well today, Pixar has announced the track listing for the score from Academy Award nominee Patrick Doyle (Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet). The soundtrack, to be released on June 19, will contain pieces of Doyle’s score and original songs from performers Julie Fowlis and Mumford & Sons. This movie looks to be our first front runner in both the score and original song categories at the Oscars. The full press release and track listing is available after the jump.
After Cars 2 failed to impress, Pixar has a lot riding on Brave and they’ve given it a prime showcase. Pixar has announced that Brave will permiere during the Los Angeles Film Fest on June 18 at the grand opening of the Dolby Theater. As you know Dolby recently bought the rights to the Hollywood and Highland Center, outfitting the the theater with the latest in 3D imaging technology, so the choice to screen the film there seems like a great fit. The full press release is available after the jump. In addition to that premiere news, Pixar also announced that this coming weekend AMC theaters will screen 4 of Pixar’s greatest hits, Up, WALL-E, Ratatouille, and Toy Story 3, for $6 each. You can find participating theaters at this link.
Just yesterday, Disney™ released a new clip from Disney/Pixar’s upcoming animated feature, Brave. As someone who has been anxiously awaiting the next great Pixar project, rest assured that this clip will have you salivating for that June 22nd, 2012 release date. The clip perfectly sums up the feel of Pixar’s forage into the world of Scottish lore: princesses who match brawn with brain and biting wit, imposing environments that greatly evoke its historical setting, and the perfect mixture of humor and drama amidst a Scottish kingdom’s slightly dysfunctional yet lovable family. I am stunned by the level of detail that went into each grain of animation in the film. If Merida’s flowing hair alone wows your eyesight, imagine what the end product will look like in 3D! Check out the clip below, and please share your thoughts on this sneak peek into next month’s Brave. Read more on New ‘Brave’ Clip: “Fergus Shares a Legend”…
2012 has been a great year for movie music, therefore it would be no surprise that the nominees for the International Film Music Awards would be pretty good. Lincoln and Life of Pi lead the nominated field with 4 nominations, including citations for their composers in Film Composer of the Year, John Williams and Mychael Danna, respectively. Cloud Atlas also managed 3 nominations including Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film, and Composition of the Year for Cloud Atlas Sextet. The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 9th IFMCA Awards on February 21, 2013. By now, everyone has seen a million of these posts, so I thought it’d be fun to add a little bit of commentary along with the categories, so check it out after the jump!
Add another guild win to Argo‘s impressive tally, as the American Cinema Editors honored William Goldberg’s work on the film with the Best Edited Feature (Dramatic) prize. The 63rd annual ACE Eddie Awards, held last night, celebrate the best in editing for the year. Also picking up prizes for film editing were Silver Linings Playbook, Brave, and Searching For Sugar Man. Stephen Spielberg, Richard Marks and Larry Silk all received special honors at the ceremony. Check out the full list of winner after the jump! 
Via Kris Tapley over at 
