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.

Why Watch? With the celebration of classic movies currently going down at the Oscars, it was the perfect year for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore to share its love of silent films, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a familiar cartoon tune. No wonder it was nominated for Best Animated Short. What former Pixar employee William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg have done here is nothing short of amazing. They’ve used the newest technologies to create a wondrous, incredible, transportational fantasy story that reaches back to the roots of motion picture history. It’s a movie that’s imagination is only trumped by its beauty. What will it cost? Only 14 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

The Mayans, the wise race of ancients who created hot cocoa, set December 21st, 2012 as the end date of their Calendar, which the intelligent and logical amongst us know signifies the day the world will end, presumably at 12:21:12am, Mountain Time. From now until zero date, we will explore the 50 films you need to watch before the entire world perishes. We don’t have much time, so be content, be prepared, be entertained. The Film: WALL-E (2008) The Plot: In the distant future, humanity has abandoned Earth (presumably after it got all jacked up in the Mayan Apocalypse), leaving behind a small waste collecting robot, WALL-E, who has faithfully executed his programming by cleaning up all the trash we’ve left behind and crafting it into cute little bundles. His predictable life is turned upside down with the arrival of EVE, a reconnaissance robot he falls in robot love with that leads him on a journey across the stars that will alter the course of humanity.

Why Watch? Because Guest Week is coming to a close and it’s time to bring out the big guns. As promised, it’s been a week of animated bliss — an overcompensation of sorts for all the live-action stuff programmed by this column’s rightful author. Not to jump the shark and go commercial all of the sudden, but a week of animated shorts isn’t complete without a little something from the brilliant minds at Pixar. In their library, the Emeryville Einsteins have plenty of great short films. Geri’s Game, For the Birds, Knick Knack and a number of others. But a personal favorite among those with a love for French style and theatrical characters is One Man Band, the story of two street performers, one little girl and a very important financial decision. It’s good for a long, sweet laugh. What will it cost? Four minutes and thirty four seconds of your fine Friday. Play on with more Short Films

Every year, the National Film Registry announces 25 films that it will toss gently into its vault for safe keeping. This year, they’ve chosen a hell of a list, but (like every year), the movies saved act as a reminder that even in a digital world where it seems unfathomable that we’d lose art, we’re still losing art. The task of actively preserving films is an honorable, laudable one, and it’s in all of our best interests to see movies like these kept safe so that future generations (and those attending Butt-Numb-a-Thon 55) will be able to screen them as they were meant to be seen. So what 25 movies made the cut this year? Let’s explore:

It may shock you to realize that you, dear reader, are a reader. You are reading this right now! Bizarre, right? And, if you can read things on the Internet, you can certainly read things that come in the traditionally accepted reading format, better known as a “book.” And if you can do it, surely the people in your life that you love enough to buy holiday presents for can do it, too! Enter The Holiday Gift Guide, and more specifically, enter this particular contribution: 18 Books for Movie Lovers. So shiny and wrap-able! So easily order-able and ship-able! So key to preventing widespread illiteracy! After the break, check out seventeen (but really eighteen) books for the movie lover in your life for holiday season gift-giving. Unlike some of those other guides, not all of these books hit shelves in the past eleven months, as I stretched beyond just this calendar year to come up with some unexpected literary picks to make your gift-giving that much more original. Did I make an egregious omission? Of course I did. Put your obvious suggestions in the comments. And, hey, if you gift one of these books and it’s a big hit, let us know which one it was. It’s always nice to hear praise. Happy Chrismakwanzakuh, you guys.

Pixar is a company that has developed a very focused vision. They put creators first, they put human drama over visual spectacle, and then they knock the visuals out of the park anyway. For a while I’d been following along with all their releases in a state of near delight, enjoying each film they put out more than the one before it, and I started to think that they were as close to infallible as a movie studio could get. But then they put out Cars 2, which was kind of an overlong mess of juvenile humor set in a pun driven, unrelatable world. This wasn’t the Pixar I loved, this was for kids! But with Brave they seem to be getting back to the basics of what makes them great; stories that can be appreciated by kids and adults alike. Here we have a young girl who is different than everybody else, who doesn’t want to be what the rest of the world tells her a young girl should be. She’s driving at something that everybody is telling her she can’t do. She’s in danger, must rely on herself, and she must rise up and become something she never thought she could if she’s going to survive a great adventure. That’s more like it. That sounds like a prototypical Pixar movie, to a tee. Check out the trailer for yourself:

While I am not entirely sure that fans of animation and puppets and joy and wonder and childhood dreams need yet another reason to check out The Muppets when it opens over Thanksgiving weekend, Disney and Pixar are not taking any chances, loading up the fleecy feel-good film of the holidays with an extra gift – a new Pixar short. But it’s not just any new Pixar short, it’s a Toy Story short. Small Fry returns us to a post-Toy Story 3 world, with (spoiler alert if for some horrific reason you’ve yet to see the third film, you cold-hearted bastard) all the toys happily living out a play-filled existence with wee lass Bonnie. Ever equal when it comes to said play time, Small Fry opens with Bonnie and her mom going on a fast food-outing, accompanied by both Buzz and Rex. But a tiny little tyrant capitalizes on some ball-room confusion, usurping Buzz’s place in Bonnie’s backpack and leaving ol’ Lightyear to fend for himself. Happy Meal toys will never look the same after you see Small Fry. Angus MacLane (who previously contributed to the Burn-E short) directs the film, which features voice work from Pixar director Teddy Newton as the bite-sized Buzz and Jane Lynch as newcomer Neptuna, along with the whole rest of the recognizable Toy Story gang, including Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, John Ratzenberger, and Joan Cusack. After the break, sate your appetite for delicious new Toy Story fare and check out larger versions of two new [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]

This past summer, Disney/Pixar continued their string of sequels with Cars 2. It may not have been the most popular Pixar film with critics, but kids loved it, and it’s one of the most merchandised movie of the year. That’s gotta be worth something, right? Now that Cars 2 is out on DVD, Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray, parents around the world will be watching it over and over and over again with their kids. Whether you liked the film or not, this might begin to wear on you. So uncork a bottle of wine or crack open a beer and find a new way to get through the film for the 50th time.

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?

What is Movie News After Dark? As per usual, it’s a nightly movie news column that finds a way to get a little silly on Monday nights. It’s mostly weekend hangover related, but also a product of its own environment. On weekend, it plays a clown in a traveling circus. It lives a diverse life like that. We begin tonight with an image of the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. As you know, Halloween is coming up and we’re all looking for good costume ideas. Over at io9, the nerds from the future have it listed as one of their 20 zero-effort, high-concept Halloween costumes guaranteed to alienate your friends. For those of us who dislike both effort and friends.

Amongst the many reactions to Steve Jobs’s death last week, I found one comparison that people drew to be quite compelling. In order to find a fitting historic analogy to illustrate the cultural significance of Jobs’s life, comparisons ran the gamut from Nikola Tesla to, erm, John Lennon (“think different,” I guess?). But several people, including, Roger Ebert, brought to light continuities with Thomas Edison. Edison, like Jobs, was an industrialist: part inventor, mostly capitalist. But specific to his own life, Edison spent most of his career securing patents and making improvements to existing technologies rather than building something from scratch. Edison’s reputation associates him with a great deal more invention than he was actually involved in. I’m not trying to be cynical about Jobs. Far from it. In fact, I’ve been more than a little annoyed with the backlash to consumer mourning about Jobs than any initial hyperbole associated with Jobs’s death in the first place. I don’t give a flying shit about executives in pretty much any industry, but saying “he’s just a CEO” does not negate the great intellectual worth and cultural interest of Jobs himself. Jobs, like Edison, developed a cult of personality that extended well beyond the person.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that is very sad this evening. Yesterday it was very exciting about the possibilities of asking out Siri, but today sadness has overwhelmed. What’s a near-sentient nightly news column to do? Well, lets do the news, as they said in the old days. As you likely know by now, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc. and the innovator of a generation, has passed away at age 56. It’s always tough to quantify how one person has impacted society, but in this particular case, it’s hard to imagine what things would have been like without Steve. Film School Rejects, like many a website, was originally designed on a Mac. He laid groundwork for much of the technology we use today. He truly changed lives. For more, I’d encourage you to read Cole’s excellent piece on Steve Jobs’ Movie Legacy: Pixar and the Technology that Freed Indie Filmmakers. Rest in Peace, Mr. Jobs. You’ve done well. Here’s to the craziest one of all… And now, on with our regularly scheduled news programming…

Disney’s limited engagement re-release of a 3D-ized The Lion King is poised to cross the $80m mark today, which means the latest news from the studio is essentially of the “what took you so long?” variety. Disney and Pixar have announced that they will give the 3D re-release treatment to (at least) four more titles over the next two years. You can start swinging your Nemo plushie around in a plastic bag right about now. And you want to put on your Ariel wig? Should I wait for you to sprout legs, too? Fine, I’ll wait. Disney and Pixar have picked Beauty and the Beast, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., and The Little Mermaid as their next titles to get an added dimension and a return to theaters. Beauty and the Beast will dance into theaters first (anthropomorphic tableware and all) on January 13, 2012. It will most likely demolish its mid-January competition, just like Simba snapped right through September. Pixar will join in on the re-release mayhem with Finding Nemo swimming back to theaters on September 14, 2012, followed by Monsters, Inc. on January 18, 2013. The long-awaited prequel to Monsters Inc., Monsters University, will open (in 3D!) later that year, on June 21. Disney will then re-release The Little Mermaid on September 13, 20123. As a kid, The Little Mermaid was tied with 101 Dalmatians as my favorite Disney flick, so the six-year-old in me is hysterically screaming on the heels of this news. All of the films will get [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]

What is Movie News After Dark? For tonight, it’s simply a movie news column working on a very, very slow news day. So it has opted for fun instead of informative. It’s betting you won’t mind. We begin tonight with the thought of big, badass robots killing the whole of humanity in Robopocalypse, a film that director Steven Spielberg will now direct for July 3, 2013. Fox and Dreamworks were announced as the studios putting up the money today, which means that Daniel H. Wilson’s excellent book will finally get some big screen love. If done right, it could be massive.

In 1985, the Graphics Group in LucasFilm‘s Computer Division was on the chopping block. As Robert Sutton relates, George Lucas wasn’t confident that computer animated films had much of a future, and as a result, department heads Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith (two pioneers of extreme importance) were being pressured to fire some of their workers. Instead, they offered up their own names to be culled, which saved the entire division. At least for that moment. It’s unclear what fate might have fallen on the Graphics Group had the Computer Division not been purchased in 1986 by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a tidy $5m. Of course, we know this department by another name: Pixar. Jobs put his money down on a company he believed in, and the result stands currently as 26 Academy Awards, an absurd amount of box office money, a legion of fans worldwide and nearly complete animation dominance in the movie world. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar at an evaluated worth of $7.4b, making Jobs the largest Disney shareholder. He is stepping down as Apple’s CEO today, and even though it’s hard to say what kind of effect that might have on the film world, Jobs’s legacy already extends far beyond Pixar and beyond The Mouse.

Normally, my capacity for interest in “might have been” cinematic trivia is limited to dreaming about the original, darker incarnation of Pretty Woman (just me?), but on certain occasions, other bits of fun knowledge catch my attention. Case in point – last night’s Twitter dump by Lee Unkrich (director of Toy Story 3, co-director of Toy Story 2, and editor of Toy Story) of “also-ran” titles for Pixar’s most beloved franchise. Pixar fans and movie buffs have long known that Toy Story was never meant to be the project’s official title, it was simply used as a working title for the film before Pixar chose something more permanent. The search for an official title led the filmmakers to ask all of Pixar to submit ideas, leading to over 200 possible titles. Yet, none of those titles seemed as appropriate as the deceptively simple Toy Story. Unkrich took to his Twitter last night to share some of those rejected titles, and even this small batch shows the spectrum the submissions ran, from the funny (Toyz in the Hood) to the simple (The New Toy) to the groan-worthy (Rex’s First Movie) to my favorite (Bring Me The Arm of Buzz Lightyear). You can check out the full list of titles that Unkrich revealed after the break.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column, sure. But at its core, it is a hunter. A hunter of the most interesting film-related tidbits of the day. Can you feel the heat? It’s not enough for director Alex Proyas will make Paradise Lost, the story of the break between Heaven and Hell. But he’s also bringing Djimon Hounsou as the Angel of Death. If there is one actor that I look at on a consistent basis and think, “that man would bring death to me,” it’s Hounsou. It sure beats Bradley Cooper as Lucifer, so we’ll see how it shakes out.

There’s a lot going on at D23 (which I spent the last two weeks thinking was the new Eminem super group), but so far the most interesting development has been from Pixar and Pete Docter. With the money-making albatross of the Cars franchise off their necks, the studio is set to release Brave next summer, followed by Monsters University the summer after that, an untitled movie about dinosaurs over the Holidays of 2013, and then a concept from Docter the summer of 2014. Essentially, there’s a lot of Pixar to enjoy before we get to it, but /film is reporting that the untitled movie will be set inside your head. Here’s the official synopsis: “Pixar takes audiences on incredible journeys into extraordinary worlds: from the darkest depths of the ocean to the top of the tepui mountains in South America; from the fictional metropolis of Monstropolis to a futuristic fantasy of outer space. From director Pete Docter (“Up,” “Monsters, Inc.”) and producer Jonas Rivera (“Up”), the inventive new film will take you to a place that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen: the world inside the human mind.”

Last month we featured one of Kees van Dijkhuizen‘s director tribute montages, the one for Michel Gondry. He did an excellent job showing off the visual power of Gondry, as well as David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Danny Boyle, and Baz Luhrmann. Now he’s cut together a video to showcase the God-like power of Pixar. It’s not like any of us need a reminder of Pixar‘s ability to make us shed waterfalls and get oversized lumps in our throats, but Dijkhuizen does a damn good job of doing so. Heart and wonder is what the studio does best, and this montage perfectly encapsulates how they do it Prepare to feel like a child again: