In Contention

Tag: The Princess and the Frog

  • Disney sends all-star auteur team to Comic-Con

    Tim BurtonWell, this is impressive. Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Tim Burton and Robert Zemeckis have all lined up to help represent Walt Disney Studios at Comic-Con in San Diego later this month, in the interests of showcasing a range of new and/or revived Disney features at the geek mecca. This is the first Comic-Con for all four filmmakers, so it’s quite a coup for Disney to assemble them in one place.

    Burton and Zemeckis will be joining a panel on 3D filmmaking (the first time Comic-Con has broached the subject), which will include discussion, not to mention exclusive footage, of their respective upcoming 3D features “A Christmas Carol” and “Alice in Wonderland.”

    Meanwhile, Miyazaki and Lasseter are set to participate in an animation panel (which also includes such veterans of  hand-drawn Disney animation as “The Little Mermaid” duo Ron Clements and John Musker), in which a range of upcoming animated titles — including “Toy Story 3,” “The Princess and the Frog” and “Ponyo” — will all be previewed.

    Both sound likely to be hot tickets. Kris, of course, will be on site in San Diego and covering the whole shebang for your reading pleasure. Lucky man. (Full press release after the cut.)

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  • 6/1 Web Round-up

    Eminem with Sacha Baron Cohen's hind-quarters at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards• Did you miss Eminem’s close encounter with Sacha Baron Cohen’s bare ass?  Never fear. [The Guardian]

    • Pixar’s “Up” reminds of the lonely sport of cluster ballooning. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Was Universal going for scary or sexy with the “Drag Me to Hell” poster? [The Big Picture]

    • Eric Snider notes the failure of high peaks so far at the 2009 box office, but fails to note the money is just spread out more than usual. [Cinematical]

    • Peter Sciretta digs into “Up” and comes up with a slew of Pixar Easter eggs. [/Film]

    • 10 cool old man protagonists for the “Up” fan. [Spout Blog]

    • Jeffrey Wells: “Terminator Salvation” apologist. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Brooks Barnes manifest a story about ‘The Princess and the Frog” out of thin, questionably resourced air. [New York Times]

    • After accusing the Edinburgh Film Festival to “caving in to anti-Israeli views,” director Gary Sinyor hands back his Charles Chaplin Award. [The Independent]

  • ‘Up”s lovable sidekick protagonist gets some ink

    Jordan NagaiOne of the things I briefly noted (and wish I had expanded upon) in my review of Pixar’s “Up” (releasing tomorrow) was how “pitch-perfect” child actor Jordan Nagai is as the voice of Russell, a Wilderness Explorer sidekick of sorts to Ed Asner’s disgruntled Carl Fredricksen.  Thankfully the young chap is getting a bit of press in the film’s run-up to domestic release tomorrow, like this Susan King LA Times piece featuring Nagai and “Up” director Pete Docter in tandem.

    On the development of the character, as well as the casting process:

    Nagai was chosen from about 500 kids who auditioned to play Russell, a typically rambunctious 8-year-old who befriends a crotchety, elderly widower named Carl (Ed Asner).

    Initially, said Docter, Russell was to be more hyper. In fact, the initial concept was based on the effusive personality of animator Peter Sohn, who was the voice of Emile in “Ratatouille” and is the director of the short “Partly Cloudy,” which will be shown before “Up.”

    “But Jordan [was] a little more calm and relaxed about things,” said Docter, who also directed Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.” “We started to change the character, and that made him more unique and special.”

    /Film’s David Chen, meanwhile, has put together a thoughtful post dissecting the fact that Disney/Pixar hasn’t made mention of Russell’s Asian-American ethnicity via advertising or, for the most part, press interviews.  As Chen notes, this flies in the face of the Disney’s hyping of the character Tiana in the upcoming “The Princess and the Frog,” who will be the studio’s first African-American princess…

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  • ‘Princess and the Frog’ poster and trailer

    I’m really holding out hope that Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” is something special. As much as I love the future of animation and the dazzling capacity of CGI throughout the industry, I have a special place for 2D traditional animation (my all-time favorite animated film remains “The Lion King”).

    The good folks at Cinematical got their hands on an exclusive first look at the poster for the film, which I’m including below, along with the new trailer, which was released last week.  Also, check out Peter Sciretta’s report from a WonderCon panel in February on the future of traditional hand-drawn animation in this brave new world.

    The Princess and the Frog

  • OFF THE CARPET: Handicapping 2009 a year in advance!?

    Ewan McGregor and Hilary Swank in AmeliaAhh.  The dust is settling.  And on the horizon, just visible through the mist and waiting to drive us all up the wall once again: the 2009 Oscar season.

    I’ve been writing this year-in-advance column for probably six years now, and I always look forward to gazing ahead.  No one dives in so pathetically deep this far out as yours truly, but in exchange for not having a life for the past few months, I get to unload this burden the day after our annual season’s peak and forget about little gold men entirely for a few months.

    It’s quite liberating.

    The most interesting thing about the season to come, from my vantage point, is the lack of a dreaded “frontrunner status” for any of the contenders.  Some might say Clint Eastwood’s Nelson Mandela project (which is not called “The Human Factor,” mind you — the director says the film is currently untitled and is based on John Carlin’s book “Playing the Enemy”).

    Others might say Rob Marshall’s “Nine” (coming from a money-tight company hoping to avoid echoes of “Memoirs of a Geisha”).  But I don’t see a “Geisha” from here, or a “Charlie Wilson’s War,” expected heavies waiting to miss the mark.  The field is curiously flat, and as a result, excitingly broad.

    Let’s get to it, shall we?

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  • Behind the scenes of Henry Selick’s ‘Coraline’

    Every time I walk into the comic book store lately I feel the urge to pick up Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline.” I haven’t done so yet (mainly because I’m buried in so many other books at the moment), but it’s an interesting tale that could make a fabulous feature film.

    Henry Selick is, of course, doing just that and Rotten Tomatoes has secured a behind-the-scenes look at the film. Focus Features is set to distribute “Coraline” in February of next year, but there is still an outside shot at an Academy-qualifying run in 2008 if the film is finished in time. It would enter into the animated feature derby with “WALL-E,” perhaps Sony Classics’ “Waltz With Bashir” and DreamWorks SKG’s “Kung Fu Panda” (which is just asking to be kicked to the awards curb).

    Next year, the competiton looks to be Pixar’s “Up,” Walt Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” and Focus’s own “9.” Perhaps Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” will turn the tide for motion capture for the animators, but I doubt it.

    “Coraline” is currently set for release on February 6, 2009.