Girl Meets Geekdom

Six full CG-features made the list of ten animated features deemed eligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which allows a total of 3 nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. This list include Chicken Little from Disney Animation, Gulliver’s Travels from the India-based Pentamedia Graphics, Hoodwinked from Weinstein, Co., Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, Madagascar from Dreamworks Animatiom, Robots from Blue Sky Animation, Otomo’s Steamboy, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Valiant from Vanguard Animation, and, last but not least. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit from Aardman Animation.

This may be thought of as a weak year for computer animation with no Pixar production in the running, and half of the candidate film being newcomer films from studios that had never before released a feature length computer animation. However, it is certainly a good year for stop motion animation with Wallace and Gromit and Corpse Bride both receiving critic-acclaim and box-office success. So who will be nominated? We won’t know until Jan. 31, 2006, but I would put my money on Wallace and Gromit, Corpse Bride, and Madagascar, with Wallace and Gromit taking home the Oscar. We’ll find out in a few months if I am right.

Movie title: Reality Bites Starring: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, Ben Stiller Directed by: Ben Stiller Written by: Helen Childress Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy Year: 1994

Maybe it’s just that I’m approaching that post collegiate angst period of life, but there is something in Reality Bites that is very real and revealing about stepping into the world for the first time. In my depressive “what to do with the rest of my life” state, Reality Bites has been something to ponder, to relate to, and simply to enjoy.

Reality Bites is an angst-ridden glimpse of life after college for 4 Generation X-ers. Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder) is a woman with her own ideals and big dreams to become a documentary filmmaker. She gets her first taste of post-collegiate life when she takes a job at a TV station and moves into an apartment with her college roommate Vickie (Janeane Garofalo). Soon they are joined by another college friend, Troy (Ethan Hawke), a man who chose not to graduate college in favor of his philosophical views on society and has been in love with her for some time. Lelaina shows antagonism towards Troy from the start, and ultimately ends up in a relationship with Troy’s opposite–a yuppie TV exec, Michael played by Ben Stiller. Ultimately, this story deals with characters facing bleak realities that come with idealism, love, and career.

The interesting thing is that the characters are not necessarily likeable, but they grow on you as you watch them slowly let go of the adolescent ideals of their identity. Strangely enough, the film is uplifting despite a depressing subject nature. There’s no wrong or right, and the film is structured in such a way that you can still relate to the characters without necessarily agreeing with them, yet they belong to a unique generation. The film is accompanied by a great soundtrack that carries you through a glimpse of the 90’s.

In General:
B+ Movie
B+ Performance
B+ Script
A+ Music
A- Love Story

Sony has just released the Monster House Trailer, which has me bouncing off the walls with excitement. Why, you ask? Monster House happens to be the film that I got to work on as an intern at Sony Imageworks two summers ago.
The film is directed by Hollywood newcomer Gil Kenan, and produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. It utilizes the same “performance capture” technology as Polar Express, but the movement is a little more natural. For one thing, they did have kids act out the kids roles so there is none of that scaling down Tom Hanks business, plus I beleive the animations have more freedom
I saw the animatic for this film in the early stages of production, and the familiarity of the trailer amazes me. I guess that goes to show how much planning goes into a CG film. Anyway, I highly encourage everyone to see the movie when it comes out. If you subscribe to my blog, you can count on me to give you regular reminders!

For those of you who follow studio news, you know how shaky Disney has been this past year. After nearly 70 years of Disney feature animation, the studio leaves behind its old traditions to become the newest latecomer among all-3D animation studios. The news ending Pixar’s partnership with Disney coupled with criticism of Michael Eisner and the announcement of his resignation spark many speculations to the future of Disney. This weekend marked the release of Disney’s first all-3D feature, Chicken Little–the film the defines the future of Disney Feature Animation. For those of you who were holding your breath, you can let out a sigh of relief now.

Despite less-than-stellar reviews, Chicken Little finished first at the box office with a projected $40 million. Although this is nowhere near the vicinity of ~$70 million openings brought in by the Pixar/Disney team, it has outdone industry predicted figures, making it the second-biggest opening in Disney history following the Lion King.

Yes, yes, after months of rumors, it is finally official: Disney has bought Pixar. The price tag on Pixar ultimately closed at $7.4 billion. This is probably the most surprising piece of news since the Autodesk/Alias buyout. A few weeks ago I would’ve put money on the deal falling through. Pixar just seemed so independent, so we-don’t-need-Disney. It wasn’t just a Steve Jobs farce to raise the value, I heard it two years ago from Ed Catmull in a lecture he gave at my school. I guess they really had me convinced that Pixar really was going out on their own. Granted the deal is greatly in Pixar’s favor…and now Ed Catmull is the president of both company’s animation studios, so he really has nothing to complain about. Jobs is the biggest Disney shareholder and is probably the biggest winner of all. Interestingly enough, years back he actually tried to sell of Pixar to Microsoft and HP. Good thing for him, neither of them went for it.

Well what can I say? All the computer graphics businesses are assimilating.

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