Pixar just released this teaser for their second sequel, Cars 2.  While it’s fun to rip on Dreamworks for being the Fredo of animated movies (this cartoon pretty much says it all), Pixar didn’t get the reputation for being the smart one by making movies like Cars 2.  Michael Caine voicing the smooth British car and Larry the Cable Guy as the buck-toothed hillbilly car is an idea right out a Dreamworks brainstorming session.  The only thing missing is popular song explicitly about cars.  Larry the Cable Guy seems like the kiss armpit fart of death for any project, doesn’t he?  Imagine if Andy Kaufman had come out with his “foreign guy” character, and when he realized people liked it, put out 10 foreign guy records and changed the name on his driver’s license to say “Latka.”  “Well, looks like a I found my niche, time to invent a catch phrase.”

[via ThePlaylist]

Unfortunately this came from Tumblr, and people on Tumblr aren’t very good at crediting their sources so I don’t have much information about it.  Is it real?  Is it Photoshopped?  Um… I don’t know.  All I know is the kid really looks like the Toy Story kid.  It seems like something someone could do fairly easily in Photoshop, but my knowledge of Photoshop is mainly limited to adding cats and putting Vince Vaughn eating an ice cream cone into the background (he’s everywhere!).  Anyway, fun picture.  But still not nearly as cute as the real-life kid from Up.  I would kidnap the sh*t out of that kid.  What?  I mean I would use him for pickin’ up chicks.  No, you’re weird.

[Thanks to RoboPanda for the tip]

Only a few weeks ago, we were talking about a box-office slump and Hollywood’s worst Memorial Day Weekend in 17 years.  Turns out all it takes is a 3D Pixar movie to reverse that trend, as Toy Story 3 carried the cumulative box office to its highest third weekend in June ever, up 29% over the same weekend last year. (Full top 10 after the jump).

Toy Story 3 grossed an estimated $109, the highest-grossing weekend of a Pixar picture yet (aided by premium 3D pricing, of course), followed by Karate Kid, A-Team, and Get Him to the Greek, all of which fell less than 50% from the previous weekend.  Pretty much every film did well this weekend.  Oh, except for Jonah Hex, which managed to earn less in its opening weekend than Killers did in its third.  Yep, that’s the Ashton Kutcher-Katherine Heigl joint that didn’t screen for critics.  Turns out, movie fans may be stupid, but not so stupid that you can stick a hastily-cobbled together, 72-minute comic-book hack job up against Pixar and expect it to make money.  Hey, where are all those semi-annual “Critics Don’t Matter” articles now?  People heard it sucked and they stayed away.  THAT’S RIGHT, PRETTY BOY, CRITICS ARE IMPORTANT TOO! WOOHOO!

(*high fives cat, puts Ace bandage on wrist, puffs inhaler*)

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"Check your perimeter. Are there any gays in there?"

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Incredibles/Ratatouille director Brad Bird is at the top of the list of directors Paramount wants for the JJ Abrams-produced Mission Impossible IV, which is set for release in 2011, just like my balls.

Tom Cruise and Abrams have been meeting with filmmakers new and old, including “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer and “Shaun of the Dead” director Edgar Wright, whose adventure-comedy “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is coming out this summer.
Bird has been itching to make his live-action debut for a while and has long been developing “1906,” which takes place around the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That project is set up at Warner Bros. and is rumored to be stalled because of budgetary reasons.
Bird would not be the first Pixar-ite to jump into live action. Andrew Stanton, who directed “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E,” is in London shooting “John Carter of Mars,” a feature based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs hero.

Hell yes the Pixar guys should do live action.  Storytelling is storytelling.  Though if I was Brad Bird, I don’t think I’d want my first shot at it to be with a dead franchise starring Tom Cruise.  Come to think of it, is it really fair to call working with Tom Cruise “live action”?  They should just get him one of those talking collars that the dogs wore in Up.

UPDATE: Yahoo just posted the full trailer, which I’ve included above.

Here’s the new teaser for Toy Story 3, even though I don’t really care.  Out of all of Pixar’s movies, this one just seems like the one that least needed a sequel.  Anyway, it’s still Pixar, so I’m sure it can’t be too bad if you just need something to entertain your dumb wiener kids for a few hours.  Still, I think I’d rather see some kind of neo-noir called Sex Toy Story.

RABBIT VIBRATOR: *running in circles* Oh boy oh boy oh boy, it’s Friday night!  Don’t you guys just love Friday nights?

GRIZZLED OLD SCUZZ-COVERED BUTT PLUG walks up smoking a cigarette.

GOSCBUP: *sigh* Kid, when ya get to be my age, Friday’s ain’t nuttin but an unwelcome reminduh of a head fulla bad memories.  *takes drag*  Oh da tings I seen… *shudders, hacks up phlegm*

FRENCH TICKLER: Teepical lazee Americaain.  I long for za day when carpet were long and Fronch teeckeler ruled zee bedroom!

ANAL BEADS:  EVERYBODY QUIET!  We have to spin around 17 times and count to 112 or else it’ll be a terrible night and you’ve interrupted our counting!

THAI BOY jumps out of closet

THAI BOY: SUPPLIES!

Get it?  Because the beads are anal?  Yeah, yeah, I know where the corner is.

Okay, so it turns out this was already a Mad TV sketch.  I’m gonna go kill myself now.

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