Why Watch? In 1988, Pixar’s Tin Toy won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. The studio’s history after that is well known, but one of the shorts that it beat out for gold was just about as symbolic as you could ask for. Technological Threat, from Brian Jennings and Bill Kroyer, was a blend of rudimentary computer animation and hand-drawn traditional that told the story of computers taking over all the artist jobs. It predicted the future the very year that it started coming to pass. The movie itself is an homage to Tex Avery-style cartoons, with dogs in suits trying desperately to draw while burdened by exhaustion, sneezing fits, and a need to stay hydrated. The robots, of course, don’t face the same problems, and as the room fills up with them, one dog fights back. Of course, unlike the story, there was no beating the tide of computer animation, making this a bizarre historical object and a hand-drawn crystal ball. Plus, it was nice of them to thank Brad Bird in the credits. What will it cost? Only 4 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull has been trying to get his Here There Be Monsters project going for quite a while. It’s a story of his own creation that tells the tale of John Paul Jones’ life as a Revolutionary War-era Naval Captain, but with a twist. In this telling of Jones’ story, there are added giant sea monsters and the like. As if Jones’ exploits weren’t exciting enough already. In order to shepherd his dream to reality, Tull hired veteran screenwriter Brian Helgeland to get together a script, and he’s been searching around for a director as well. At one point it was looking like Robert Zemeckis might come on board, but that never came to fruition, and not much has been said about the film since. Hope is not lost for Tull and his dream of telling stories where historical figures grapple with giant squid, however, as someone close to the situation is telling Vulture that the project has new life.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more excited about P.T. Anderson’s upcoming religious drama that was at one point called The Master. First off, Anderson is one of my very favorite directors, so anything he does is going to excite me. Secondly, Philip Seymour Hoffman is starring as the L. Ron Hubbard stand-in who serves as the main character, and he’s about the best actor on the planet. And third, much like Anderson’s last film, There Will Be Blood, this one is going to feature a score by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. Last time around that equaled aural awesomeness. But now there’s a new rumor swirling around the project that is almost too cool to believe, and coming from these sources, I’d say it’s pretty dang reliable. Cinema Blend was peeping in on a Twitter conversation between two directors from the Pixar stable, Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton, about movies being shot in 65mm, and they uncovered the tidbit that Anderson is going to be the next director to utilize the format. Somewhere in the thread of the conversation Bird said to Stanton, “ … Nolan shot a lot of Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. I think PT Anderson’s next is 65 too.” To which Stanton replied, “The Master is indeed in 65. They nearly lost a camera shooting in the Bay.”

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr goes rogue and infiltrates his local IMAX theater. First, he scales the wall of the plus-sized building and slides in undetected through the air vents. He slowly lowers himself into a theater seat to enjoy an early screening of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Unfortunately, he finds himself in the middle of a wild crowd of six-year-old kids for the early screening of the latest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. To deal with the psychological damage, Kevin then stumbles into the Sherlock Holmes sequel and later finds an extra seat in Young Adult, where he can imagine that his chubby caboose could land a hottie like Charlize Theron.

“Supermaaaaaan…” Be honest. It got a little dusty in your room reading that and thinking of The Iron Giant. You teared up a bit. It’s okay. It happens to all of us. I’m sure it even happens to writer/director Brad Bird when he goes back and watches this animated classic from 1999. Well, that’s one of the things we’re about to find out here with the commentary track for this very film. And, with Bird’s years at Pixar and his first, live-action feature, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, what better time do go back and see precisely what he, along with some of his top-notch animation team, has to say about The Iron Giant? So strap your boosters on, don’t be a gun, and enjoy what all we learned from the commentary track for The Iron Giant. “You stay. I go. No following.” Tears.

Sometimes writing about movies on the internet has some benefits. I mean, we get all the crappy straight to DVD movies you can think of and sometimes free popcorn. We make next to no money, but in return we get to see movies early and sometimes, just sometimes, we get to see bits of movies before they’re ready. Such was the case recently when I, along with a few other journalists, got a chance to see about twenty minutes of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol projected in a true IMAX theater. If my description, reaction, and thoughts isn’t enough to get you wet with excitement, we’ve also got the new trailer for you, so come on in and read some more.

For a while there, with the exception of the Toy Story films, it didn’t seem like Pixar was very interested in doing sequels to its big hits. The company focused instead on creating new characters and exploring new worlds every time out. But that focus has seen a shift recently with the studio putting together projects like Cars 2 and Monsters University. And if there ever was a Pixar property that felt like it could use a sequel, even back before Pixar was doing sequels, it was Brad Bird’s tale of a family of super heroes The Incredibles. So what gives? The super hero genre is inherently serial in nature. Why haven’t we heard any news about the further adventures of the mighty Parr family?

Remember Avatar Day? Remember having to procure tickets for what was essentially an extended trailer? Remember feeling really strange about going to a movie theater for a less-than-twenty-minute presentation? Oh, well, me either, because I didn’t do any of those things, but let’s work from the same sort of frame of mind, but with an actual film attached. Our friends over at /Film are reporting an exclusive tip that Warner Bros. is attaching a six-minute “prologue” for The Dark Knight Rises to all IMAX prints of Paramount’s upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol release. Though the films are coming from different studios, should this prove to be true, such a slice of marketing mayhem will no doubt push interested moviegoers and fans of the Batman to check out the Brad Bird-helmed franchise entry in the IMAX format. Paramount is already making a to-do of their film’s IMAX release, putting that version in theaters on December 16, five days before the film hits regular theaters on December 21. Both Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and The Dark Knight Rises will feature “extensive scenes” shot for IMAX, so this may prove to be the holiday season’s best pairing (beyond egg nog and whiskey). Warner Bros. has declined to comment on the story to /Film, but the team over there has gathered a couple of other sources that confirm it. Will this drive you to check out Ghost Protocol in IMAX? And just what the heck do they mean by “prologue”? Aren’t two previous films [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch this trailer several times. That’s what it took for me. The first time I watched it, the entire thing was in French. It looked okay. The second time was last night, prior to a screening of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. At the point, I couldn’t help but think that it was a mess of a trailer. Exposition up front, a smattering of incoherently laced clips in the middle, some Eminem for ambiance and finally, a big stunt. After a few more inspection runs just now, I’m seeing some pretty wicked stuff inside Brad Bird’s first live-action film. And I’ve heard from a few insiders that Tom Cruise still has it. It’s hard to throw all that together and not be confident that Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is going to be one hell of a ride. But we’ll see about all that. For now, here’s the first trailer.

I am not a gun. In 1999, we had fully embraced the future of animation. Toy Story and A Bug’s Life had already put Pixar on the map and Toy Story 2 was due out before y2k forced us to recreate all computer technology (or not). Because not only were fully computer-animated movies coming out (in addition to the Pixar collection, Antz was another fairly celebrated film and the first Shrek was just on the horizon), they had good stories. They had celebrity voices. They had the backing of major studios who were turning what was once known as kid’s movies into a behemoth the whole family could enjoy and pay full price admission for. This is why a brilliant film like Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant largely gets forgotten.

Things were going well for the currently in development fourth Mission: Impossible film. Tom Cruise was ready to get back into the shoes of super spy Ethan Hunt. Paramount scored a great director in Brad Bird. And former Alias scribes Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec were putting together a script. This was all before Cruise’s latest action flick, Knight and Day, took a giant steamer at the box office. Now the word on the street is that Paramount is looking to retool Mission: Impossible 4 and give Cruise’s character a new role: mentor.

Two weeks ago, Brad Bird — best known for his work at Pixar with The Incredibles and Ratatouille — was reported to be in the running to make his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible IV. Today we come to find out that Bird wasn’t just on the studio’s director wish list — he might just be their guy.

For a while now, The Incredibles and Ratatouille director Brad Bird has been searching for a live-action project to follow three consecutive animated works of brilliance. As of today, it may be the case that Bird will be directing Tom Cruise in his live-action debut.

Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men” passed away last night at age 93. Though perhaps the name may not be familiar, the work certainly is.

After scouring Gallery 1988, I found that they have alot more cool art. For instance, the coolest one I found was called “Nobody Wants To Play Sega With Harrison Ford.”