During a Disney showcase in Los Angeles this afternoon, a few fairly big announcements were made -- most notably the fact that Cars 2 is being bumped up from 2012 to the summer of 2011. John Lasseter also announced a series of animated shorts related to the Cars franchise called Cars Toons, and those will air on the Disney Channel, as well as (possibly) screen theatrically. With Toy Story 3 arriving in 2010, this means Pixar will shovel out back-to-back sequels for the first time ever. Those Pixar fans seeking an original product will get one next year with Up.

Also during the showcase, it was announced that Oprah Winfrey has joined the voice cast of The Princess and the Frog, where she'll play Eudora, the mother of the main character Princess Tiana (Anika Noni Rose). Due out on Christmas Day in 2009, The Princess and the Frog returns Disney to their classic 2D animation and it follows a young girl who lives in the New Orleans French Quarter during the Jazz Age. Princess and the Frog also marks the first time Disney has featured an African American princess.

We'll update this post should more info come out ...

Here I was thinking that this whole movie into musical and then back into a movie trend had finally come to an end. How wrong I was. The MTV movie blog recently spoke with former American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino and according to her, Oprah Winfrey is planning to produce a big-budget movie musical of The Color Purple. The musical will use the Broadway adaptation of Spielberg's 1985 film as a blueprint and Barrino told MTV, "That's going to happen and I'm going to do it."

The original feature film was based on the novel by Alice Walker about the struggles of a young black woman in early 20th century America. The film was a big Oscar contender, but ending up losing most of the awards to the more 'colonial style' of Out of Africa. Just on a side note, it still kills me to this day that Whoopi Goldberg didn't win for her performance as Celie. Instead, she won for the vastly inferior romance, Ghost -- but I'm getting a little off topic.

The Broadway show premiered back in 2005, and Barrino took over the main role of Celie last April. Barrino is planning on taking some time off to work on her own music now that the run of the show has ended, but she won't stay gone long. Barrino tells MTV, "They're going to work with me. They don't have to [but] that's a favor, working with someone like Miss Oprah who's so talented and amazing - It's a blessing." It might be blessing for her, but I'm just not convinced that it's a great idea to begin with. How about you?

When you think of the classic 'sports movie' formula, you probably run through your favorite baseball or football movies, but make no mistake: Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters is every bit the sports flick that Hoosiers, The Natural and Remember the Titans are. It's only the extra-curriculars that have changed. Whether or not that's a good thing is entirely up to you, but if you're a big fan of totally predictable yet effectively entertaining "competition" movies, then there's very little chance you won't dig what's offered here. And even if you find the screenplay to be the pinnacle of all things obvious, the performances are still pretty excellent.

Plus, hell, if cheerleading is a sport, then so is debate.

Denzel Washington (directing his second film after 2002's Antwone Fisher) does a reliably excellent job of elevating basic material -- when he's on the screen, anyway; his character here is Melvin B. Tolson, debating coach for a black Texas college. The year is 1935, the civil rights movement is just starting to gain (a little) traction, and Tolson (despite being an unquestionably dedicated educator) is in big trouble thanks to his "questionable" politics.

The latest debate team for Wiley College is a broadly interesting one: the soft-spoken girl, the passionate hunk, the youthful prodigy, and ... the chubby one. Again, it's a good thing this movie has such a strong cast. Each of the young actors do exceedingly fine work with some fairly one-note roles. As the angry yet powerfully articulate Henry Lowe, Nate Parker is particularly excellent, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more movies from him in the future.

I can't be the only one who saw this title of the film and thought of the old joke about "master debaters," but that is probably not the best association to make when you are talking about a family film. Variety reports that Kimberly Elise has signed on to the period flick The Great Debaters. The movie is the second directorial effort from Denzel Washington and centers on a small East Texas debate team that challenged Harvard's famed team to a debate. The film is set in the 30's, which will probably add an extra "feel-good" element to it, as its sure to be not only a story of triumph over adversity, but some deep-seated discrimination. The cast also includes Nate Parker (Pride), Forest Whitaker and Washington who will play the coach of the debate team. Elise is set to play Whitaker's wife and the mother to the team's star debater.

Elise must have had an inside track on the role since one of the film's producers is media queen Oprah Winfrey, who gave Elise one of her first big-screen roles in the adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Elise has already worked with Washington on The Manchurian Candidate. After shooting has finished in Louisiana, Elise will return to work on the international drama Red Soil. The Great Debaters is set for release in 2008.

Seriously, how much do you trust Tom Hanks? Would you let him babysit your kids? Borrow your savings? Take your new car out for a spin? This is the question raised by a new list made by Forbes magazine, which ranked 1,500 celebrities by how trustworthy they are. The top ten includes mostly movie stars, including Hanks, who rated #1. The actor seems a likely choice, as he's possibly the most popular person in Hollywood these days, but does likeability equal trustworthiness? Some of the other names don't even make as much sense as Hanks, though. At first I thought maybe the list was using the term trustworthy to mean that we have trust in the celebrity's work. Hanks, for instance, can sell a movie better than anyone, meaning people trust his role choices and go to see his movies based on this trust. As for Oprah? We all know millions of people trust her recommendations. But some of the names just aren't the most bankable or even the most popular stars. Michael J. Fox? James Earl Jones? Ron Howard?

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, points to the obvious: that people can't differentiate between reality and fiction, and this list is made up of people whose on-screen personalities are who we trust, not the performers themselves. Certainly he would correlate this to our obsession with the political opinions, and possible electability, of movie stars.

So, what exactly are we supposed to be trusting these people with? And who might you trust enough to add to the list?

Check out the ten most trustworthy celebs after the jump.

A good parody is hard to spin beyond the here and now. Take "Weird Al" Yankovic, for example. The pop-music jokester has put out 11 regular albums since 1983, when the accordian-playing nice guy's spoof of The Knack's "My Sharona" (titled "My Bologna" and recorded in the men's room of his college radio station) started his career as a musician, comedic icon and food fetishist when it blew up on The Dr. Demento Show. However, every hilarious and unforgettable cut like "Eat It", "Like A Surgeon" and "Smells Like Nirvana" that hit was matched by fade-away tracks like the New Kids jape "The White Stuff" (an ode to Oreos), the Rocky III goof "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye Or The Kaiser)" or the misjudgment "Taco Grande" (a riff on Latin rough-boy Gerardo's only hit, "Rico Suave"). The secret to a successful parody is complex, involving a careful balance of picking a song that is big enough, worthy of a good-natured dressing down and most important, funny. The same is true with movies, and the latest in the popular Scary Movie series is a great example of what can go right and wrong with such an attempt.
 

We had Charlotte's Web on tonight (one of my fave childhood movies - although I must admit that Wilbur's whining does grate on my nerves after the third viewing or so in a 24-hour period) - and I got to wondering what's up with the remake of the film. I went to IMDB to check it out and, sure enough, a veritable bevy of hot stars are in the film: Julia Roberts as Charlotte, Dakota Fanning (shocking casting call there, I know) as Fern, Steve Buscemi as Templeton the Rat (okay, I can buy that), Oprah as Gussy the Goose, and John Cleese, Robert Redford, Jennifer Garner,  Kathy Bates, Thomas Haden Church, Reba McEntire, Andre 3000 from Outkast (!?!) and Cedric the Entertainer (playing Golly, the henpecked gander bossed around by Oprah's Gussy) -- holy arachnophobia, is there anyone who isn't in this film?

And then I noticed something odd. No Wilbur. Huh?!?