Pour out a little Sparks Four Loko Thunderbird for Yogi Bear today, as the surefire critical darling which opens next month has been DISQUALIFIED from the Academy Award animation category.  Can you imagine?  This is like banning Babe Ruth from baseball.  WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS!?

Yogi Bear was thrown into the consideration category [well sure], but here’s the accompanying rule of why it was disqualified. Under Academy rules, for a live action film to be eligible in the animated feature category, “a significant number of the major characters must be animated and animation must figure in no less than 75% of the picture’s running time.”

Although “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” – a mixture of live action and animation – passed the 75% threshold, “Yogi Bear” apparently did not. So the main three players that will probably get the nomination will be Toy Story 3, Megamind and How To Train Your Dragon. [IngeniusProductions]

Looks like you’ve won this round, Kitty Galore.  Yogi Bear was never meant to be corn pigeon holed as *just* an animated film anyway.  An animated Oscar would’ve just taken the focus away from the real goal, winning Best Picture.  I imagine we’ll eventually see a day when Yogi Bear 3D is recognized not just as a great animated movie, or even a great movie, but as a great work of art.

(Update: I put the trailer after the jump to make the page load faster)

Pixar consistently blows my mind with their stories and melts my face off with their animation, while the rest of the animation world does 15 variations on chihuahuas eating tacos and kangaroos that box.  But this trailer for Despicable Me (from Universal and Illumination Entertainment) looks promising. If only because it kept making me go “Wha?” and I still don’t know what it’s about.  Here’s the official rundown:

In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of minions, we discover Gru planning the biggest heist in the history of the world. He is going to steal the moon, yes, the moon. Gru delights in all things wicked. Armed with his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, he vanquishes all who stand in his way. Until the day he encounters the immense will of three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has ever seen: a potential Dad. [Yahoo]

Aw, how cute, it’s a metaphor for dating a stripper.  I stuff my dollars inside the hole in their heart.

Read the rest of this entry »

JoBlo just posted this video of Destino, a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney (who no doubt bonded over their mutual love of fascism).

Destino began in 1946 as a collaboration between Walt Disney and the famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali. A first-hand example of Disney’s interest in avant garde and experimental work in animation, Destino was to be awash with Dali’s iconic melting clocks, marching ants and floating eyeballs. However, Destino was not completed at that time. In 2003 it was rediscovered by Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, who took on the challenge of bringing the creation of these two great artists to fruition.

Yep, looks pretty much like an animated version of a Dali painting.  GRR, STUFF TURNING INTO OTHER STUFF!  What I’d really like to see is a collaboration between an old Chuck Jones cartoon and the people who made that Japanese horror film from yesterday.  Like, maybe the roadrunner would trick the coyote by turning into a painting of a penis that ejaculates ninja stars.  Because roadrunner very clever, you see.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve seen Up, you know it comes attached to a short called Partly Cloudy, one of the most insanely creative things I’ve ever seen.  It’s about clouds who synthesize kitties and puppies and give them to storks, who… oh just watch it after the jump, there’s no way to explain it.  But not to be outdone, Dreamworks animation has announced their next project.

The project, referred to internally as “Boo U.,” recently picked up writer Jon Vitti (“The Simpsons Movie”), who will pen the screenplay. The story line centers on a ghost who is bad at his job and must return to ghost school. [THR]

Haha, ghost school!  WTF?!? LOL!!1!  You’ve done it again, Salieri!

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are three new clips from Pixar’s Up, which opens May 29th (keep you ears peeled for Patton Oswalt’s voice as the TV announcer in the first one)*.  The old guy is voiced by Ed Asner and, because it’s Disney-Pixar and not Disney, the kid is voiced by newcomer Jordan Nagai.  Rest assured that if it was Disney, the kid would be a Jonas brother or a Cyrus sibling or some little sh-t from Nickelodeon with Zac Efron hair.  Anyway, the bottom two clips are featurettes, which aren’t as interesting because it’s just nerds talking about their drawings.  Get back in your hole, nerd!  Draw me another adorable robot!

*Correction, apparently it’s actually this guy. Thanks to LucasRuinedMyChildhood for the tip. (A confuse people for Patton all the time. It’s normal to hear his voice when you sleep, right?)
Read the rest of this entry »