Excerpts from an interview with Peter Sohn, a long-time worker at Pixar and the voice of the character ‘Squishy’ in the new film Monsters University.
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A spoiler-free review of, and useful answers to likely questions from parents about, the new Disney/Pixar film Monsters University.
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Ultimate fan movie documentary maker Jamie Benning is back with his latest “filmumentary.” After successfully inventing a new genre with his feature-length documentaries for George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy, and then following them up with one on Lucas and Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, he’s now chosen another Spielberg movie for his next project.
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The Jim Henson Company and Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, are re-booting The Dark Crystal franchise — or so it would seem — with a contest called the Dark Crystal Author Quest. The deal? Fans are encouraged to send in ideas for the “first book in a new young adult series based on the world of the classic fantasy film.” The winner gets a $10,000 contract to write the book.
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A very tall, infographical take on the money-making history behind the Superman franchise, and now Man of Steel.
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Miguel Cima wants you to dig comics. The Argentine-born, New York raised filmmaker has a passion for the comics medium, and his desire to share it resulted in a short documentary, Dig Comics, which won the “Best Documentary” award at the San Diego Comic Con Independent Film Festival and was an official selection at Cannes, Vancouver, LA New Filmmakers and a dozen other film festivals. Now Cima has announced a new Kickstarter campaign to raise at least $250,000 for a feature length documentary that will promote comic books to mainstream America.
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If you’ve ever walked through a big city in a heavy rain, the first words that came to your mind at the time were probably “messy” and “dirty.” After seeing The Blue Umbrella, the short film that precedes the new Disney/Pixar movie Monsters University, you might just find yourself thinking “beautiful,” or even “magical,” the next time it happens to you.
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There are so few good dads in science fiction and fantasy. Fathers in so many stories are absent for one reason or another (death being fairly common), and sometimes they even turn out to be the villain! So where are the Mike Bradys of science fiction and fantasy? The Cliff Huxtables? You do happen upon dads of those stripes, or roughly equivalent ones, every now and then. Here’s our list of the top 10.
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Here’s the new official trailer for Elysium, starring power duo Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. Directed and written by Neill Blomkamp (District 9) Elysium takes place on a ruined Earth and a man-made space station called Elysium. Yep, this looks sweet.
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Immersive movie experience company Secret Cinema have just finished their latest production in London. Find out what film it was based around and what went on at the disused office block in West Croydon, just outside Central London.
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I discovered recently that both Flatland and Sphereland have been made into films, produced by Seth Caplan. Here’s why they’re worth watching.
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The trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second of Peter Jackson’s planned trilogy of Hobbit movies, is out. The movie itself comes Dec. 13. But here’s what secrets the trailer seems to reveal.
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Avoiding spoilers: Do you work hard at it, or do you not worry about it?
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Father-daughter artists team up to work on a Blood Kiss graphic novel based on Kickstarted film by Michael Reaves, starring Amber Benson and Neil Gaiman.
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Like every comic book geek I know, I am hugely excited for the new Superman movie, Man of Steel. The previews are amazing and it shows every sign of being one of the best superhero movies ever made. But there is one thing that could ruin it. They could try to make Superman into a super-powered Batman.
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At the recent Denver Comic Con, he arrived unexpectedly at the children’s story time stage (aka the “Comic Book Classroom Corral”) and delivered a special styling of the Maurice Sendak picture book Where the Wild Things Are. And, yes, Shatner can get away with it. With anything, it seems, at this point in his over-dramatic career.
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Many of us grew up with videogames; our kids are certainly growing up in a world where videogames are a given. But for those of us in our thirties and forties, something else is true: videogames grew up with us, and for that reason I think we feel a special bond with videogame culture. Here are two projects that I think videogame fans will appreciate.
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It’s really, really hard not to be jealous of Dan Scanlon. He’s been working at Pixar since joining as a storyboard artist back in 2001 — the year Monsters, Inc. came out — and has now directed his first full-length feature film for the company. Of course, as envious a job as his is, it wouldn’t be a job if it weren’t difficult. On my visit to Pixar last month, Scanlon told me and a bunch of other bloggers about the process of making the film.
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Long after HAL, longer before GLaDOS, there was Joshua, brought to “life” onscreen in WarGames thirty years ago, June 3, 1983. WarGames holds up at age 30, still the perfect blend of Cold War thriller, teen angst movie and computer nerd coolness.
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This month, fans flocked to see the much-anticipated second installment of J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise, Star Trek: Into Darkness. I was not among them. Why would a lifelong Trekkie not see what is widely considered to be a good action film? It failed the Bechdel Test.
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Here’s a second..and a third…chance to win the Studio Ghibli prize package!
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Kevin Smith talks about Superman’s beard, the upcoming Man of Steel movie, and comic book culture in this GeekDad interview.
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And then we started rethinking the no-violence rule. It wasn’t because we wanted our kids to fit in — I mean, we did, but there was only so far we were willing to go on that end — but we realized that we didn’t have a firm reason for the rule. We couldn’t explain it to others because we couldn’t explain it to ourselves. It wasn’t enough to ban violence in all forms simply because we didn’t like violence — I mean, truly, who likes violence? We needed a reason for why we lumped all violence into one big pile and stamped a NO across it.
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Star Wars freaks and typography nerds should really check out this excellent post over on the Tenth Letter of the Alphabet blog, all about the evolution of the Star Wars logo, from the very beginning to one we see today, complete with loads of hi-rez scans of many of the different versions.
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Ridemakerz, a line of customizable cars that allow you to change and upgrade everything including tires, lights, sound, RC chassis and more, reveal an Iron Man car that would make Tony Stark envious.
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Classic monsters abound in this family-friendly Kickstarter campaign to fund a fun and spooky stop-action movie.
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I don’t remember the tense anticipation brought on by the 20th Century Fox fanfare or the chills on the back of my neck at the blast of sound when the Star Wars logo slammed onto the screen. What I really remember is a feeling. I’ve never seen a movie in an atmosphere like that again. Packed houses on opening nights with hardcore fans, sure, but never again like this one. We were there.
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My movie-going experiences peaked when I was twelve years old. Notice I’m not saying that when my mom and dad and brothers and my friend Mike and I went to Return of the Jedi on opening night that I saw the best movie ever.
I’m just saying that as an overall movie-going experience, seeing Jedi on May 25, 1983 makes an awfully damn convincing case for my top spot.
It may have only been 2 weeks since the teaser trailer for Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s The World’s End was released, but now they’re ready to unleash the full trailer upon us.
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GeekDad readers have a chance to win this exclusive prize package to celebrate the release of My Neighbor Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle on Blu-ray.
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