Since 2003 there haven’t been any new episodes of Futurama, the animation series created by Matt Groening and David X Cohen. This will change now: during the period 2007-2008 four feature-length movies will be released. Each one of these movies will be cut in 4 episodes that will be broadcast as a series on Comedy Central. The movies won’t be shown in the cinema, but will go straight to DVD.

Despite winning some Emmy’s, the series never managed to become a huge success. So for everyone who doesn’t know Futurama, here’s a short description: Fry is a pizza delivery boy from New York, who gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the year 2999. He finds himself a job at Planet Express, a futuristic delivery service, founded by his far and especially old family member professor Farnsworth. Together with among others Leela, a handsome one-eyed captain and Bender, a rude and selfish robot, they deliver packets in the five quadrants of the universe.

The first movie is called Bender’s Big Score and tells the story of a hostile takeover of Planet Express. Bender is used by criminals to accomplish their evil plans. Al Gore has a cameo and the movie is planned for American release on December 4th 2007.

The Beast with a Billion Backs will become the second movie, Bender’s Game the third and Into the Wild Green Yonder is the title of movie number four.

• Trailer third Futurama Movie: Bender’s Game
• Family Guy - The Movie

On the Dutch website Films en Sterren you can watch a very interesting (English spoken) interview with Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons. He talks about the production of the movie and much more. Did you know the hairs on Homer’s head contain a hidden signature of Groening? The hairs form the letter M and his ear is shaped like a G. Groening changed the ear after a while, because he thought it was too obvious. I never noticed it…

The town Springfield in Vermont is the winner in the Simpsons Hometown Movie Challenge. About 14 different towns in America named Springfield took part in this competition with the chance to have the exclusive première of this animation movie. In this news video you will see the winning clip of Springfield, Vermont.

• Matt Damon shows his ears
• The future of Futurama

Enchanted will be one of those magical Disney movies with a mix of live-action and traditional 2D animation.

Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) lives in her fairytale world Andalasia, where magical creatures hop joyfully and musical encounters are usual business. Giselle is happily engaged to prince Edward (James Marsden), but faith strikes when the evil queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) banishes Giselle to the real life city of New York. Lost in this big grey world where nobody spontaneously starts to sing, her only hope is divorce lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey aka McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy). Julie Andrews narrates the story.

Long time Disney composer Alain Menken delivers the soundtrack. The movie will be released on November 21st in the United States and on December 14th in the UK. The trailer looks quite funny and I can’t wait to watch this traditional Disney fairytale. Click ‘read more’ to have a look behind the scenes and the movie poster.

(Read more…)

• Coraline, a dark fairytale - Release 2008 (US)
• The secrets of Walt Disney World, Florida – Part II

A new trailer for Seinfelds Bee Movie is released. You get to see plenty of animation work and it’s really funny! (Especially the last one with the musquito )

• Trailer third Futurama Movie: Bender’s Game
• Music trailer Wall-E & Bee Movie

Sean Penn and Iggy Pop will be working on the English version of Persepolis, the animation movie about Satrapi, a little girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution. Penn will speak in the voice of Satrapi’s father and Pop will lend his voice to her rebellious and political active uncle. De voices of Gena Rowlands, Cathérine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni were already known. The English version of this movie will be released in October this year.

• Horton Hears a Who - Release 03/14/08 (UK/US)
• Bollywood Disney

Yesterday Disneybluray.fr showed the cover of the DVD ‘Pixar short films collection’ on its website. Although there is still no official announcement, it seems like the long-expected collection DVD will soon arrive. Recently Disney had registered the domains Pixarshorts.com and Disneypixarshorts.com and the UK internet store Play already mentions this DVD. The presumptions are that the DVD will be released around Christmas time. We already know what to put on our wish list.

• A Christmas Carol – Release Christmas 2009 (US)
• Purple and Brown collection

The Laughingplace says there are rumours about the production of a Toy Story Musical. This show would be performed only on the Disney Cruise ships. I think it’s a strange evolution to see these kind of ‘low profile’ musicals (see Finding Nemo), also considering the fact that there are no songs in Pixar movies.

• Finding Nemo The Musical – Video Report Broadwayworld
• “Pixar: 20 Years of Animation” moves to Melbourne, Australia

I know I don’t have enough words of praise in my vocabulary to describe this movie experience. With Ratatouille Pixar shows its superiority in the animation world. Both graphically as with respect to the content this movie was complete.

From the first minutes on, you will be drawn into the beautiful story of Rémy, a culinary rat who dreams of once becoming a chef. Unfortunately the life of a rodent isn’t meant for such a daring career choice. Until one day he meets Linguini, the kitchen aid in his favourite restaurant. Linguini can’t cook, but desperately tries to keep his job. Soon it becomes clear that a cooperation between those two, could perhaps make them the best chef of France. There is only the tiny detail of nosy colleagues and the head chef with an incredible disgust for rats.

Thanks to the fine balance between drama, humour, suspense and action I wasn’t bored for one moment. However the movie does follow the standard ‘format’, so nothing really surprising happens.

But above all, the movie is like candy for the eye. The first time you look at Paris together with Rémy it will definitely give you goosebumps. The attention for every small detail makes it very impressive. I’ve never seen rats this beautiful: the expression in body language and eyes, the ‘pink’-ness of the small noses, the tiny hairs on their ears and I can go on like this for a while…

The music of  Michael Giacchino is also outstanding. The jazzy soundtrack creates the perfect French atmosphere without sounding old-fashioned. Le Festin from singer Camille gets you instantly daydreaming. You can listen to a fragment here.

In my opinion Ratatouille is, together with Finding Nemo, the best Pixar movie ever. I fell in love with Paris, with Rémy and his chubby little brother Emile, with the clumsy Linguini and oh, what I would give to taste just one little piece of that ratatouille! I’ll bring out the cookbooks…

• Ratatouille - Release 06/29/07(US), 10/05/07(UK)
• European Posters for Ratatouille

The Australian ACMI museum has produced a promotion movie for the exhibition “20 years of Pixar”. It looks like it’s worth it!

• “Pixar: 20 Years of Animation” moves to Melbourne, Australia
• Pixar Shorts DVD

On the new website of The Simpsons Movie you can find an interesting feature: Create your Simpsons Avatar. On top of the screen, click on ‘create your avatar’ and choose your yellowness, hairstyle, body structure and T-shirt print. It probably won’t be a perfect match, but it is nice to play with.

• Interview with Matt Groening + Springfield, Vermont
• New “The Simpsons Movie” trailer