%CategoryName% »

Despicable Me
Second trailer for this 3D animated comedy, and this time it's focusing on arch villain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) trying to break into the headquarters of a rival bad guy. This looks like fun and the bit with the shark had me howling. Check it out on July 9.

Sherlock Holmes
A second trailer for the new Holmes fllck with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role aided by Jude Law as Watson. Pretty sure this will have awesome written all over it. Plan a trip to Baker Street for Christmas day.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
There's some serious spectacle at work here. Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this adaptation of a video game I've never played, but I'm pretty sure that's not necessary. It seems tailor-made to be a summer blockbuster, which is good because it comes out on May 28.

Best Worst Movie
Speaking as someone who has watched and enjoyed some truly awful films in his time, this one really speaks to me. This documentary examines the phenomenon/train wreck that is Troll 2, a 1990 horror flick whose badness has become legendary. No release date yet and I suspect this will be hard to find in theaters.

How to Train Your Dragon
In this new animated comedy from Dreamworks, a viking teenager is trying to learn the ways of his people including hunting and killing those pesky dragons that are plaguing them. He soon learns, though, that everything his people know about dragons is wrong and sets out on his own path. Training begins on March 26.

New this week on AOL Moviefone:

• Splinterheads - A young slacker falls in love with a beautiful carnival worker.
  
• Invictus - Morgan Freeman stars as South African President Nelson Mandela who urges the captain of the national rugby team to strive for the World Cup for the sake of unifying their nation in the days following apartheid.
• Eichmann - Historical drama based on the confession of Adolf Eichmann.
• Mammoth - An intricately woven family drama starring Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal as a married couple whose lives begin to spin out of control.
• Shake Hands With the Devil - Based on true events surrounding a 1994 U.N. peacekeeping mission to Rwanda that failed to prevent the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans.
• Avatar - Second trailer for James Cameron's epic 3D science fiction extravaganza.
• Did You Hear About the Morgans - A couple on the verge of divorce can't escape each other after they witness a murder and must enter the witness relocation program.

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo are bringing sexy back -- and that image should make you ripe for nightmares tonight. If you doubt me, look to Variety, who reports that Dan Aykroyd, Anna Faris, and Justin Timberlake are set to go to Jellystone in Yogi Bear, which Eric Brevig is directing for Warner Bros.

Aykroyd will be voicing Yogi, and he really is the most obvious choice to play the picnic basket thief. He's funny, he sounds gruff, and if it was live-action it would be a very terrifying thing to see. So thank goodness this is being done as a CG / live-action hybrid.

Timberlake will be voicing Boo Boo. Yep. The man who wants to love your mother, put his d*ck in a box, and who will cry you a river will lend his vocal talents to playing Yogi's diminutive sidekick. In this update of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, expect Boo Boo to be a lot more of a smart aleck. (I was going to say "sassy," but I think that would be a far different Boo Boo.)

Though Faris has done voice work before, it sounds as though she might be one of the live action elements to this unholy hybrid. Variety says she's set to play a documentary filmmaker. Presumably she discovers the tourist robbing bears, and makes a film of them. Or she has to help them preserve Jellystone against evil developers. Either way, she'll have to talk to big rubbery CG bears, and it might be kind of weird. What would be even weirder is if one or both bears fell in love with her, so let's hope she falls into the arms of whoever plays Ranger Smith. Shooting is expected to start in New Zealand next month.

The fear many of us had when it was announced Jim Carrey would play Ebenezer Scrooge and other parts in Robert Zemeckis' adaptation of A Christmas Carol was that Carrey's clowning would turn the story into a goofy farce. This fear turns out to have been unfounded. If anything, the opposite is true: The film has no personality at all, not Carrey's or anyone else's.

Charles Dickens' holiday classic has already been adapted for movies and TV dozens of times, but Zemeckis noticed something peculiar: Somehow, none of the previous incarnations had managed to be in 3-D! He sought to rectify this oversight with that newfangled motion-capture technology he's been so excited about the last several years, where actors' movements are translated into animation. The Polar Express and Beowulf demonstrated that for as neat-o as the technology is for action scenes, characters' faces -- especially their eyes -- look dead and soulless. Some improvement has been made in that respect, but most of the people in A Christmas Carol still look like creepy robots.

Yahoo! has posted an incredibly cool video of George Clooney acting out his role as Mr. Fox in the freakin' adorable Fantastic Mr. Fox. The video shows cool side-by-side comparisons of Clooney acting out different scenes on a farm with costar Wallace Wolodarsky, who voices loopy sidekick Kylie, as well as just running around pretending to be Mr. Fox, down to rolling around on the ground and doing his super cool whistle.

This behind-the-scenes peek at Mr. Fox also offers mini-interviews with director Wes Anderson, producer Allison Abbate, and Bill Murray (Badger) about working with Clooney on the film. The funniest part shows an argument between Mr. Fox and Badger, which involves growling and swiping, split-screened against the actors themselves doing the voices in an office.

As Abbate notes, "There couldn't be a more perfect Mr. Fox, because he has the Cary Grant suave, debonair sparkle where he can talk his way out of any situation, which is so our Mr. Fox character. He's just got a great voice."

Clooney's got a rather full docket this season, with The Men Who Stare at Goats coming out this week, Fantastic Mr. Fox coming out at the end of November, and Up in the Air out on Christmas day.

Click through to see the video itself, then let us know which Clooney feature you're going to be lining up for at the theaters this season, by cuss!

In the 2007 awards season, Fox Searchlight had two strong films in the mix with Juno and The Savages, and then in 2008, they dominated with Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. As many other indie arms were folding (Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent, Picturehouse), Searchlight managed to keep things up on their end.

2009, however, hasn't been so kind to them. January's Notorious didn't do bad actually, though March's Miss March was indeed D.O.A. June's My Life in Ruins similarly underperformed, while July's Adam failed to catch on as that same month's (500) Days of Summer had. Post Grad was dumped in the doldrums of August, while Whip It failed to find a crowd in October.

Cut to now: Amelia has been effectively neutered as a ready-made Oscar contender, while Gentlemen Broncos (from the director of Napoleon Dynamite, which did particularly well for the same studio) is being pulled from wider release after this weekend after posting modest numbers on two screens and earning savage reviews for the most part.

With Miramax also facing tough times, it's a shame to see studios like these have an off-year, though there's time for a turn-around yet so far as Searchlight is concerned. Summer's summer release means the timing could work out to earn a push for Original Screenplay as a happy-go-lucky alternate to many dour contenders. This month's similarly light Fantastic Mr. Fox is an Animated Feature candidate at the very least, and -- according to THR -- the Jeff Bridges drama Crazy Heart is getting a last-minute test run of sorts at the moment to see if it can merit a move to be positioned for this year's race instead of next year's.

As Peter reported a few days ago, Robert Zemeckis is going forward with a Roger Rabbit sequel. We all seem to be intrigued by the possibility of returning to Toontown, but Zemeckis' obsession with motion capture really casts a Judge Doom-like shadow over the project. Will he motion capture Roger Rabbit and his Toontown friends? Or will Zemeckis return to the old school of hand-drawn animation?

MTV caught up with Zemeckis, who was quick to assure fans of the bumbling Roger that he will remain his cuddly 2D self. "I wouldn't use it for the cartoon characters, because I think they should stay two-dimensional because that's what - I wouldn't dimensonalize Roger," he said. "And I couldn't dimensonalize Jessica even if I wanted to because she doesn't have a nose. We wouldn't want to give her a nose." But motion capture will be a part of Roger Rabbit 2. The technology is like Zemeckis' whale, and he's determined to exploit every possibility with it. His current plan appears to involve using motion-capture for the human performances. "All the other characters that [the cartoons] would sort of have fun with would be magnificent in performance capture technology."

There's that Judge Doom shadow again. The clumsy way humans and toons interacted was the point of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It was the contrast that was interesting and fun. Having animated humans just seems to take it on a trip into the Uncanny Valley. The project is still in its early stages, so maybe Zemeckis will surprise us, and have the technology be part of the story. Everyone on the interwebs seems to be championing the idea of the toons having to deal with technological advances. We can hope for that, and not that Zemeckis will just shove in a motion-captured cast just because he can't stop himself.

Halloween slowed down box office figures, but Michael Jackson's This Is It still managed the top honors for the weekend. Here's the top five:

1. Michael Jackson's This Is It: $23.2 million (total of $34.4 million)
2. Paranormal Activity: $16.3 million
3. Law Abiding Citizen: $7.4 million
4. Couples Retreat: $6.4 million
5. Where the Wild Things Are: $5.9 million

With only one wide release last week studios are making up for it with four new flicks this week.

The Box:
What's It All About: A couple in a tough financial situation are given a box that will grant them riches, except every time they use it someone somewhere will die.
Why It Might Do Well: Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly is at the helm, with a script based on a Richard Matheson story.
Why It Might Not Do Well: 55% at Rottentomatoes.com.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $16 million

A Christmas Carol:
What's It All About: Jim Carey stars in several roles in this 3D animated version of the classic Dickens Christmas tale.
Why It Might Do Well: This Robert Zemeckis guy has got some decent flicks on his resume.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Good lord, how many times has this been adapted before?
Number of Theaters: 3,500
Prediction: $42 million

Are sandstorms and magic lamps going to become the next swashbuckling trend? I think it's possible. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time lurks on the horizon (and is receiving a very mixed reception) and now Variety reports that Scheherazade and her thousand and one tales are about to get a 3D makeover. Chuck Russell is set to direct a reworking of 1001 Arabian Nights from a script he co-wrote with Barry P. Ambrose. It's not clear whether this will be live action 3D or animation, but I'm guessing live action due to the emphasis on "action adventure" in the trade article.

In Russell's Arabian Nights, Scheherazade will become a damsel in distress instead of a brainy, tale-spinning bluestocking.Apparently it's a young commander who is the hero, as he joins forces with Sinbad, Aladdin, and his genie to rescue Scheherazade and her kingdom from unspecified dark forces. I see shades of Russell's The Scorpion King.

Now, I like the idea of adapting Middle Eastern tales. It's good for kids to be exposed to world cultures, and to encounter other races and religions even if it's through animation. But there are a thousand tales worth telling that are undoubtedly more exciting and interesting than something cobbled together out of the most recognizable characters. As a kid, I was always very taken with The Sisters Who Envied Their Younger Sister because it was full of magic objects and starred a princess who took matters into her own hands. But Russell's deserts are where girls aren't muscle-bound enough for adventure, though I'm sure we'll see a very scantily clad Scheherazade in 3D. Maybe 3D skin is the next trend, not Middle Eastern settings ...

On November 10, 2009, Walt Disney Home Entertainment is releasing a 4-disc Blu-ray set for Monsters, Inc., Pete Docter's feature directorial debut. Much like Finding Nemo set the stage for what Andrew Stanton eventually did on Wall-E, the 2001 Pixar film offers a glimpse of what was yet to come from Docter – who went on to direct this summer's Up, also out next week – but it also reiterates some of the themes that run throughout all of the studio's best work, including the concept of an alternate perspective on a place or idea that seems obvious, and the idea of families that are both familiar and unconventional. But how effectively does it examine and explore those things, particularly in light of what the studio has done since?

Suffice it to say that the Blu-ray set offers not only the best presentation of the film imaginable, but a bounty of extra content that expands the film's universe in new and interesting ways. As for the movie itself?