Disney has Pixar. Fox has Blue Sky. Paramount has, for now, Dreamworks. As seemingly the last studio to get into animated features, Universal has offered up the trailer for their maiden effort, The Tale of Despereaux, over at Yahoo! Movies.

Based upon the 2003 Newbury Award-winning novel by Kate DiCamillo, the film follows the adventurous antics of Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick), a mouse with large ears and - I'm just guessing here - an even bigger heart, as he bucks the status quo of cowardice that seems to have imprisoned his kind to a fearsome existence.

Besides being an animated tale of a brave rodent with a tongue-tricky title and thus fated to merit comparison to those which have recently set lofty standards for similar fare, this project genuinely looks and sounds pleasant enough for all its yay-for-being-yourself familiarity. Besides, there's only more hope to be had when we're looking at a voice cast that includes the likes of Broderick, Kevin Kline, Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Stanley Tucci, William H. Macy, and Tony Hale, not to mention a Harry Potter veteran or two.

With its eye on the year-end holiday season, The Tale of Despereaux is scheduled to hit theaters on December 19th.

When it comes to sifting through all actors responsible for portraying the most powerful man on the planet, there's no shortage of options. John Travolta did a great Bill Clinton impersonation in Primary Colors and Timothy Bottoms delivered a near-perfect imitation of George W. Bush in both D.C. 9/11: Time of Crisis and That's My Bush! Neither one comes across as particularly flattering, so presidential nominee Barack Obama has chosen a safer bet: At a recent party in Los Angeles, Obama revealed that he prefers Jeff Bridges' conflicted commander-in-chief in The Contender. Granted, he may have said this simply to keep his audience happy -- in this case, Contender director Rod Lurie, one of the attendees who was willing to plop down $28,000 for the event. "'I just plugged your movie," Obama told Lurie, according to a report the director sent to Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells.

Still, when you're under the kind of intense scrutiny that Obama currently endures, Bridges actually seems like a pretty safe choice. Choose Anthony Hopkins in Nixon and it sounds like you're endorsing the bad guy. Choose Kevin Kline in Dave and you come across as disingenuous. Choose Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove and somebody will call you incompetent. Bridges, on the other hand, plays a fierce leader bound to his moral convictions. Of course, Obama also expressed sympathy over Lurie's short-lived television show Commander-in-Chief, which featured Geena Davis as the first woman president. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he and Hillary have publicly made amends.

Indiana Jones -- he's got to be Harrison Ford, doesn't he? Okay, we had young Indiana Jones characters -- River Phoenix in the opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Sean Patrick Flanery in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles -- but I never really thought of Indy as a character who could be cast in any other way. You know, you figure the part in Raiders of the Lost Ark was practically written for Ford, who'd been in a couple of George Lucas films before that anyway (Star Wars and American Graffiti).

However, that assumption couldn't be more wrong. I've been digging around on that great source of reliable information, the Internet, and reading all kinds of stories about the casting of Indiana Jones. The general gist is that Steven Spielberg was interested in Ford, but Lucas didn't want to be one of those directors who cast the same guy in all his movies. So they tested a bunch of other actors, and were seriously interested in one who had to back out ... and then ended up with Harrison Ford after all. We are all profoundly grateful. But let's take a look at some of those actors allegedly under consideration, and a few more that I threw into the mix just for fun. (I picked only actors who were alive and the right age at the time, which is why you don't see Steve McQueen on the list.)

Time really does fly. It has been thirteen years since Kevin Kline wooed Meg Ryan in French Kiss, where he got to play a theiving French man who could teach someone to pull out the complex flavors in wine in seconds. It's not Shakespeare, or storms of ice, but it has its moments. And now, he gets to play a French man for real -- in French! The Hollywood Reporter posts that Kline has signed on for his first French speaking role in Caroline Bottaro's drama Queen to Play (Joueuse).

This is the chess film I blogged about back in November, which focuses on "a hotel chambermaid who develops an obsession for chess." Bruno Ganz was attached, but now it looks like he is out. Instead, Klein will be rejoined by his Anniversary Party co-star Jennifer Beals, plus Sandrine Bonnaire and Francis Renaud. Bonnaire will play the chambermaid who is "captivated by a romantic couple (Beals and Renaud) playing chess while staying at the Mediterranean island hotel where she works. The doctor (Kline) whose house she cleans reluctantly becomes her mentor in the game, leading her to a chess tournament and initiating major transformations in her life."

Avast readarrs! Today be Septembarr 19th -- Talk Like a Pirate Day, where land lubbers lounge with arrsome pirate lingo without pillaging saucy wenches, donning patches, or walking the plank. Ye might ARR the day away, or watch yeself some Petarr Sarrsgarrd. But maybe ye like to pull out the bung, drink up ye Grog, and fire up the VCARR. If ye do, here be a treasure chest of movie booty and pirate kings. Godspeed!

Sorry, this is as far as my pirate-speak goes!

The Pirate King -- The Pirates of Penzance (1983)

In 1980 New York City theater producer Joseph Papp fired up The Pirates of Penzance for his Public Theater, with a young Kevin Kline cast as the Pirate King. It was so successful that the cast brought it to Broadway, and then onto the big screen with almost everyone reprising their roles (Angela Landsbury was the lone change). Kline swaggered, swung his sword, and wrapped his tongue around 'often' and 'orphans,' because -- he is the Pirate King, Taran-tara, Taran-tara, and it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!

I grew up watching Shakespeare. I've seen every one of his plays performed at least once, and some of them many times. That being said, I've never been a big fan of Kenneth Branagh. I admire his dedication to the bard, and can't deny his talent, but he's never really grabbed me. However, that bugger had to go find my weakness and cast my beloved Kevin Kline as Jaques in his latest adaptation -- As You Like It. The film doesn't have a stateside release date yet, although it was released in Italy last year, but we've now got a trailer.

Branagh has changed things up again for his version of the comedic romance. Instead of all the forest fleeing coming at the hands of familial persecution and hot-headedness, it seems that they all head to the Forest of Arden because of... a ninja attack? Why? Because they're in Kyoto! It looks a bit less jarring then it sounds, and beyond this new twist, the trailer shows all the pressing bits. Kline's Jaques is joined by Bryce Dallas Howard as the cross-dressing Rosalind, Romola Garai as Celia, Alfred Molina as Touchstone, Adrian Lester as Oliver and David Oyelowo as Orlando. There's silliness, dancing, buildings on fire and Touchstone even seems to be doing a touch of Tai Chi. Branagh missed the mark with Love's Labor's Lost, so hopefully we can find out soon if he's got his game back. If the trailer is any indication, I'd say he has.

[via Film Ick]

Over at our wonderful sister site, TV Squad, there is a feature that should be of interest to our movie-crazy readership as well: The Ten Worst Movies Based on TV Shows. I know what you're thinking, how could you possible limit it to ten, right? Paul Goebel has done a pretty spectacular job. I had tried to block a few of these titles from my memory, but seeing them again gave me some war-like flashbacks of struggling through these trainwrecks. Lost In Space more than lived up to its name and wasted a stellar cast, Car 54, Where Are You? is a question no one would ever ask again, and The Mod Squad with Claire Danes should have been called My So-Called Movie.

Wild Wild West is a great call, I can't believe at no point during filming did someone say, "Really? We're doing this?" It also features one of Will Smith's absolute lamest "Let me tell you the plot of my movie!" raps, including the immortal line: I'm the slickest there is. I'm the quickest there is. Did I say I'm the slickest there is? You didn't have to, Will. You didn't have to. Movies based on television programs are almost always disasters. There are exceptions of course. Off the top of my head, The Fugitive is one of the best thrillers ever made, Maverick rocked, and both Addams Family movies are terrific black comedies. But boy, do they get it wrong most of the time. I shudder to think what they'll try to do to something like my precious Seinfeld down the line! I couldn't agree more with Paul's choice of The Avengers as number one, I would actually rank it near the top of my "Worst Movies Ever Made" list. To quote Get Shorty, I've seen better film on teeth.

Rounding out the TV Squad list are George of the Jungle, McHale's Navy, The Flinstones, Scooby-Doo, and Leave It To Beaver. What would you add to the list? For me, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle would have ranked #2, it was so painful to watch Robert DeNiro take a big poo all over his legacy.

Those with a good memory, or a penchant for Milla Jovovich, might remember Martha Fischer's initial word on Welcome to America in 2005. At the time, she was set to have a lead role in the film. However, since that time, the film has moved beyond its Jovo-origins and is now headed for release. Some things have stayed the same, and some things have had a little twist.

The film, now named Trade, seems to be centered more on the Mexican brother and sister, than on Kevin Kline's character, Ray. Briefly, after Jorge's 13-year-old sister is kidnapped by sex traffickers, he tries to find the kidnappers and retrieve his sister. Along the way, he meets Ray, who suffered a similar loss. Together, they investigate the sex trade between the US and Mexico, bringing the long-standing international problem right to US soil as the pair follow leads that bring them through an internet slave auction and then a "stash house" in New Jersey.

The film is looking to be the cogent answer to those disappointed with Teresa Villaverde's treatment of the sex trade in Transe. While she adeptly showed the horrors committed on women by focusing on one in the thick of it, the film seemed too detached, which made the movie hard to swallow and resulted in a number of people walking out during its screening at TIFF. However, Marco Kreuzpaintner's treatment seems to be a bit of both sides -- the disturbing inside as the young girl is protected by a Polish girl who was also kidnapped (probably who Jovovich was supposed to be?) and the outside struggle to break in and save her. CHUD has a more in-depth description of the film, along with its posters, which are indeed beautiful and heartbreaking.

In the best of Robert Altman's ensemble pictures, his sprawling casts fall into a sort of miraculous rhythm. No matter how divergent their storylines might be, there's never a sense that actors aren't on the same page. In MASH, for example, not only are Donald Sutherland's Hawkeye and Elliot Gould's Trapper John completely in sync, but they also share a clear understanding with Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips) and Robert Duvall (Frank Burns). And in The Player, no matter how reptilian and icy Tim Robbins' Griffin Mill gets, he never fails to share convincing connections with every other major actor in the film -- despite its rangy story, never once does the movie feel like anything less than a coherent whole. By the same token, however, when things go wrong for Altman they go very, very wrong. Despite its world-class cast, Prêt-à-Porter is a sprawling mess, full of characters and performances that have nothing to do with one another, and a story that exists simply to give them all an excuse to be in the same movie.

While Altman's latest feature, A Prairie Home Companion, is by no means the aggressive disaster Prêt-à-Porter was, there nevertheless is something off about. Stocked with an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan, and Tommy Lee Jones, the movie never congeals into a coherent whole, despite a handful of heart-felt performances. Set backstage at an old-time-style radio show called A Prairie Home Companion (also the name of screenwriter-star Garrison Keillor's long-running show on NPR), the movie takes place during the show's final performance: The Fitzgerald Theater in which it is based has been bought out, and the new owners have no interest in hosting a radio show. As Altman is wont to do, he jumps back and forth among stories that include a pregnant stage manager (Maya Rudolph), lovers planning a tryst (L.Q. Jones and Marylouise Burke), an angel (Virginia Madsen) in search of a soul, singing sisters reminiscing about their careers (Streep and Tomlin), and a star uncomfortable with saying goodbye (Keillor).

Despite the fact that I still have a really hard time watching the "Hey, Let's Be Really Cruel To Ken!" scenes (seriously -- those things are so sadistic that the movie no longer a comedy while they're going on), it's impossible to deny that A Fish called Wanda was one of the funniest movies of the 1980s. As far as I can tell, though, the only in-print DVD is pathetically bare-boned (if you don't count the very special-sounding booklet "featuring trivia, production notes and a revealing look at the making of the movie"), a state of affairs that is awfully frustrating for a movie filled with so much special feature potential (I mean, it stars 1/3 of Monty Python! How can the outtakes not be worth seeing?). Thankfully, come August, that horrible oversight will be corrected: MGM is finally releasing a DVD SE of which the film is worthy.

For less than $25, you'll get nearly 30 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes (I'm imagining 40 different deliveries of "Don't call me stupid!" crammed into a two minute montage), a couple of different documentaries, easter eggs, and A COMMENTARY TRACK FROM JOHN CLEESE!, in addition to other goodies. That, friends, is more like it. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go give more money to amazon.com.