The latest trailer for Pixar‘s new film Up.
It is released in the US on May 29th and in the UK on October 16th.
> Official site for Up
> Listen to our recent interview with Pixar chief John Lasseter
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Tag: pixar
He initially worked as an animator at Disney in the late 70s before going on to join the computer animation division of Lucasfilm‘s Industrial Light and Magic.
In 1986 the department was purchased by Apple founder Steve Jobs who renamed the new company Pixar (a fake Spanish word meaning ‘to make pixels’) and gave Lasseter the freedom to direct, produce and create models for a variety of projects, many of which were television commercials.
In the late 1980s Lasseter made several award winning shorts before going on to direct the groundbreaking Toy Story in 1995, the first feature-length computer animated film.
As the chief of Pixar’s creative department, Lasseter became the key figure behind an extraordinary run of critically acclaimed, blockbuster animated films.
He directed A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Cars (2006) whilst also serving as executive producer on Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003) and The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007) and WALL-E (2008).
If the success of Pixar was not enough, his career reached a new plateau in early 2006 when Disney officially acquired Pixar, and promoted Lasseter to Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Feature Animation.
The first movie he has overseen for Disney is Bolt, the tale of a small white dog who, having spent his entire life acting in a TV series, thinks that he has super powers.
Directed by Chris Williams and Byron Howard, it was produced by Lasseter and I spoke to him in London recently about his career and the new film.
You can listen to the interview here:
You can also stream it here:
[audio:http://filmdetail.receptionmedia.com/John_Lasseter_on_Bolt.mp3]You can download it as a podcast via iTunes by clicking here
Bolt is out at UK cinemas on Friday 6th February
> Download this interview as an MP3 file
> John Lasseter at the IMDb
> Official UK site for Bolt
> Official Pixar site
Here is the first footage of Pixar’s next film Up.
Original Video– More videos at TinyPic
The story is about an older man (voiced by Edward Asner) who finally fulfils his lifelong dream of exploring the world.
Up is released in the US in May 2009.
> Up at the IMDb
> Official site for the film
> More on the film at Pixar’s blog
[Link via The Animation Blog]
In an early review we take a look at the latest Pixar film WALL-E.
Listen to the podcast here:
[audio:http://www.filmdetail.com/podcast/get.php?fla=podcast-2008-07-17-77271.mp3]Download and subscribe to the review podcast via iTunes by clicking here
> Download this review as an MP3 file
> Official site for WALL-E
> WALL-E at the IMDb
> Reviews for WALL-E at Metacritic
> Get local showtimes via Google Movies
After seeing WALL-E at the weekend I have to once again salute the geniuses at Pixar for creating another extraordinary animated film.
Set in a dystopian future circa 2815, it is about a waste disposal robot named WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) who meets another robot named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) and gets involved in an unlikely romance, as well as the future of the human race.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, it is probably the most visually impressive work Pixar have yet committed to film (and that is saying a lot) but at the same time it also resonates emotionally as a suprisingly touching love story.
Robots haven’t been this endearing since Silent Running and the two central characters are joy to watch – the boxy old school charm of WALL-E contrasting beautifully with the cool, sleek beauty of EVE.
Although I would never thought I would ever compare a Pixar movie to There Will Be Blood – both have startling opening sequences with little or no dialogue.
One of the clever aspects of the film is the casting of sound designer Ben Burtt as the central character – for those unfamilar with his work he was the pioneering sound editor on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.
Along with the animators, Burtt has helped create a character who is extremely expressive without using conventional language.
The same is true for EVE, so it is even more impressive that the filmmakers have managed to craft a compelling relationship between them.
The visual landcaspes are equally impressive, full of rich detail and nods to other sci-fi films.
I’ll review it in full in couple of weeks on the podcast, but for the time being this is another glorious home run for the Pixar team.
WALL-E is out now in the US and in the UK on 11th July
> Official site for WALL-E
> Read reviews for WALL-E at Metacritic (it is currently at 93 which is a very impressive score for a mainstream film)
> Find out more about Pixar at Wikipedia