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Pixar Release Shift: ‘Toy Story 4’ delayed, more sequels on the way

Pixar is making a shift on a few upcoming movies and it looks like sequel fever is here to stay. While sequels to Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Cars had been announced in the past, it seems like a few of these titles would be getting new dates after an announcement by the …

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‘Inside Out’, and why animation isn’t just kids stuff

Don’t you even dare call it a “kid’s movie.” Animation has been around for a while now, starting with silent experiments such as Gertie the Dinosaur, followed by the more traditional Disney fare such as Snow White or Cinderella, and becoming more modern with another round of Disney hits like The Lion King or Beauty …

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‘Inside Out’ joins the ranks of Pixar classics

By transforming nebulous emotions into relatable characters, directors Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen have created nothing short of a roadmap into the pre-pubescent mind. It’s not always a happy place, which is entirely the point. Often surreal and always delightful, ‘Inside Out’ is a rousing tribute to pure imagination.

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‘The Good Dinosaur’ has a complete voice cast overhaul

There will be an interesting book about the inter-workings of Pixar one day and the chapter on The Good Dinosaur will be especially intriguing. While we knew that the production was delayed as the company switched directors, it seems like some of the cast would move on from the project as well. The original cast …

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‘Toy Story 4’ to break from the trilogy with a new genre choice

While many people still think it is a money grab, Pixar seems adamant that their next Toy Story movie will be different from the others, and that means changing up the story a little bit. Speaking with Disney Latino earlier this week, Pixar president Jim Morris revealed that Toy Story 4 will break from the …

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‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Wall-E’ coming to life in LEGO form later this year

It may seem cliche, but everything is truly awesome now with LEGOs. After a hit movie last year, it seems like the company is now digging into pop culture more with Back to the Future and Ghostbusters sets out, but now it will go into the Pixar label as well as one of the most …

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‘Toy Story 4’ in works for 2017, the Internet explodes

There are few things in pop culture that have a softer spot in ’90s kids hearts than Toy Story and its subsequent sequels. And after the reaction to the two-Oscar winning, Best Picture nominated Toy Story 3 was essentially, “Oh my God, that was a million times better than I would’ve ever expected and now …

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The Pixar Theory: Timeline Explained

Pixar has been known for including Easter Eggs in its films, adding Pizza Planet, Luxo Ball, A113, or something the next film. Because the movies allude to each other,  Jon Negroni came up with the Pixar Theory: the films together have a unified timeline that spans centuries. The video below explains how Earth went from Up …

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‘Up’ and the World Outside Our Doors

Mention Up to someone, and it is almost inconceivable that their response will not immediately mention the montage. The sequence which opens the film has come to overshadow all that follows so completely, it almost feels like a short film appended to the beginning of the wild, raucous action-adventure that follows. The “Married Life” sequence …

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The Fearlessness of Pixar’s ‘Ratatouille’

Good things might happen to those who wait, but the Disney/Pixar masterpiece Ratatouille tells us great things only happen to those who act fearlessly. “Anyone can cook,” is the quote most viewers leave the film with, and director Brad Bird lets the themes represented by this philosophy—nothing is impossible, anyone and everyone is capable of …

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‘The LEGO Movie’ is another fast-paced, exuberant delight from ’21 Jump Street’ directors

The LEGO Movie Written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller USA, 2014 The opening moments of Pixar’s last great film to date, Toy Story 3, depict an intentionally, increasingly goofy and outlandish fantasy scenario in which all of the toys in Andy’s bedroom play a part. There are the heroic Sheriff Woody and …

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‘Atlantis: The Lost Empire,’ Or When Disney Stops Caring About the Child Audience

Atlantis: The Lost Empire Written by Tab Murphy Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise US, 2001 One of the biggest complaints of animated films in North America is that they are undoubtedly targeted solely at children. While Disney and Pixar may occasionally slip adult jokes in to their films, the films are still marketed …

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28 Days of Disney Animation: ‘Toy Story,’ Technology, and The Power of Nostalgia

The opening and closing images in the Toy Story trilogy are one and the same: a picture-perfect blue sky with a couple of carefully placed, nonthreatening fluffy clouds in the middle. While both are computer-generated facsimiles, the former is a facsimile of a facsimile: the comforting wallpaper in the bedroom of a little boy named …

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‘Frozen’ a pleasant enough experience despite standing in the shadows of Disney animated classics

Walt Disney Animation Studios has become, in its relative old age, both charmingly and cripplingly self-conscious. Each new entry seems to quiver in the shadow of the greats, the vaunted classics that have become untouchable for many.

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Mousterpiece Cinema Calendar

This is the Mousterpiece Cinema schedule for the end of 2013 and the first six months of 2014: November 23, 2013: The Jungle Book 2 (2003) November 30, 2013: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) December 7, 2013: Frozen (2013) December 14, 2013: The Santa Clause 3 (2006) December 21, 2013: Babes in Toyland (1961) December 28, 2013: Saving Mr. Banks (2013) January 4, 2014: Toy Story (1995) January 11, 2014: Sleeping …

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‘Planes’ a limp and uninspired entry in the ‘Cars’ universe

The story goes, per a five-part PBS documentary back in the early 2000s about the history of the Broadway musical, that when Andrew Lloyd Webber was shopping around Cats to be performed and produced in the United States, he reached out to iconic producer/director/Stephen Sondheim collaborator Harold Prince. Webber pitched Prince on Cats, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s book of feline-centric poetry, and when he was finished, Prince admitted to not grasping the deeper metaphor. Were the cats representative of the English class system? Was one of the cats a member of the royal family? What piece had Prince not figured out yet, he wondered. Webber paused, then said, “Hal. It’s about cats.”

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‘Turbo’ an unmemorable rehash of Pixar films like ‘Ratatouille’

One of the most exciting, complex, and fully realized animated films of the last 20 years is Ratatouille, Pixar’s creative champion to date. The film presents its audience with a patently insane concept—a rat who wants to cook, and become a master of haute cuisine in Paris—and manages to ground every action, every reaction, and every consequence in reality. Not just the reality of the movie, but the reality of the world; when the kitchen staff at Gusteau’s is shown that the gawky young man who took their restaurant by storm is actually controlled, like a marionette, by this sharp, intelligent rat, all but one quit, because what other action would be appropriate?

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‘Monsters University’ a surprising cut above its predecessor

It’s 2013, and in the world of pop culture, most of us comfortably take Pixar for granted. Here is a studio that, from 1995 to 2010, churned out financially successful films that were also unique, exciting, fresh, and captivating in ways other movie studios could only dream of. The relatively dark days arrived with Cars 2, a sequel to a movie that wasn’t as well-liked (rightly so) as Pixar’s other work.

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Top Ten 3D Animated Movies Your Kids Should See Before They Grow Up

5- Finding Nemo (2003) A heartbreaking and heartwarming movie about clownfish, 2003’s Finding Nemo had audiences glued to the screen. A story about a son taken from his father, and the lengths a dad would go to save his only child, Finding Nemo was a fast favorite. Exploring both life under water, and unlikely relationships, …

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Top Ten Animated Movies to Show Your (very young) Kids

It’s no secret that sitting down and watching something with young children can be very hard. Children can get really scared easily. You have to be careful what you show to a child if you don’t want his or her crying to wake you up in the middle of the night. And what may be …

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BAFTAs 2013: Who is going to win? – part 1

With awards season truly underway, it is time to dust off the gowns and practice the speeches (not to mention the he-deserved-it-more look) and make out predictions for the BAFTAs. Part 1 will cover the following categories: – Best Documentary – Best Animated Feature – Best Film not in the English Language – Best Adapted …

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