There's currently a crisis in the theater industry and apparently it's all Steven Spielberg's fault. According to Variety coverage of Sunday's National Association of Broadcasters Show's Digitial Cinema Summit, the filmmaker was named as a constant obstacle in the transition to digital cinema.

Spielberg's insistence against releasing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull digitally was overruled last month when Paramount announced that it would indeed open the summer blockbuster on some digital screens, but the fact that it won't be a full digital release, coupled with the fact that Spielberg still doesn't "get" the fact that digital is superior to film, is a problematic issue for an industry having difficulties installing a necessary amount of digital projectors by 2009.

To go along with their recent announcement, Disney/Pixar have released a bunch of promo images for all of their upcoming projects, including WALL-E (June 27, 2008), Bolt (November 26, 2008), Up (May 29, 2008), The Princess and the Frog (Christmas 2009), Toy Story 3 (June 18, 2010), Rapunzel (Christmas 2010), Newt (Summer 2011), The Bear and the Bow (Christmas 2011), Cars 2 (Summer 2012) and King of the Elves (Christmas 2012). In between all of these new releases, Disney/Pixar will re-release Toy Story (October 2, 2009) and Toy Story 2 (February 12, 2010) in 3-D.

For more on this announcement, as well as additional information on each of these films (casts, plots, directors, etc), check out our original post over here. To take a look at all these images, head to the gallery featured below.

Which film are you anticipating the most? Should they even make a sequel to Cars? Talk amongst yourselves ...

What's hotter Hansel? It's not Derek Zoolander. It's 3D. My good lord, studios are really pushing the hell out of this format. I just don't get the rabid push. Some films, I get. This obsession, I don't get. I saw Harry Potter on IMAX 3D... The entire 3D portion had me dizzy and confused, and it also ruined the goodbye to a character I particularly liked. (Perhaps that was the seating, but since I was just off of dead-center, I don't think so.) Anyhow, with the full-speed-ahead 3D push, Disney has decided to re-release Pixar's Toy Story with the added dimension.

Variety reports that this release is slated to hit theaters on October 2, 2009, a few months before its sequel gets the same treatment on February 12, 2010. Both, of course, are coming out to lead up to the release of Toy Story 3, which is slated for June 18, 2010 -- a film which is already being prepped for 3D goodness. I sure hope they keep to the schedule -- moving the date for one is tricky -- moving the dates for three is trickier.

This move is the latest in the Mouse House's plans to release more of its animated films in 3D. Toy Story follows the likes of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Meet the Robinsons, and Chicken Little. I wonder how far back they'll try to go...

While I never really considered myself a huge Astro Boy fan, for some reason I'm really starting to look forward to ImagiAnimation's feature film about the little robot boy fighting danger while struggling to reconcile his circuitry with his burgeoning humanity. First Showing got the chance to speak with animator/director Colin Brady (Toy Story 2) and got an exclusive first look at some of the concept art for the film. So for the fans who were worried that their beloved Astro was going to get a big-budget makeover; don't worry, it looks like it's still the boy-robot you know and love. Although, for fans of the TV version back in the 60's (or its revival back in 2003), I'm afraid Brady has done away with the kitschy 60's vibe -- and instead, he'll be making an "epic Sci Fi fantasy".

Brady tells FirstShowing, "AstroBoy is kind of a dark Pinocchio story, but unlike Pinocchio, Astro never can become real flesh and blood. Astro's journey of self discovery and acceptance is directly linked to the hardcore killer robot fights, and to the rejection by his creator, Dr. Tanner". Brady also hinted that the film wasn't going to be strictly for the kids: "We're going for as hard PG as we can. Luckily robot violence is less disturbing than humans fighting each other with guns". Amen to that. So far there is no word on a cast but Brady did say it would likely be a mix of American and Japanese actors, but that "they have to be right for the part". Astro Boy is scheduled for release in 2009.

Mad Cow Disease -- which changed its name from Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) when it got famous in the late 1990's -- is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle, spread by the host consuming animal by-products infected by this protein mutation. The disease is zoonotic -- meaning it can be transmitted to humans (and vice versa) -- so this forced cannibalism resulted in the deaths of over 150 Europeans through 2004 who had consumed tainted beef. While only five BSE-infected cattle were identified in the U.S. through 2005 (due to their largely soy diet), the panic was enough to cause widespread bans on U.S. beef.
 

There is a moment in Joe Dante's neato kitsch comedy, Matinee, when Cold War kids Gene (Simon Fenton) and Dennis (Jesse Lee) are sitting in a movie theater, bored silly by the zany (and entirely fictional) body-switching family comedy, The Shook-Up Shopping Cart (a double bill with the equally non-existent The Bashful Bobcat). It was Dante's way of simultaneously mocking and paying tribute to the low-concept filler that Disney made in between what are now the company's enduring classics, and it was a hilarious moment.

While Disney's remake of their 1959 mega-hit, The Shaggy Dog, is not loaded with hilarious moments, it is, as they say, what it is, even if it is that same sort of self-congratulatory jape. Tim Allen plays a dog-hating lawyer who by convenient magic becomes one, makes a fun enough show of it, rolling together nicely the parts played by Tommy Kirk in the original and Dean Jones in the 1976 sequel, The Shaggy D.A. Like My Three Sons star Fred MacMurray in the original, Allen is a Disney contract player, and while he may not be the fatherly comfort that the MacMurray was, he can certainly sell a movie in the same way. People know Tim Allen from Home Improvement; they know him as the voice of Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies; they know him from The Santa Clause, and that is all the selling/warning that most people need.