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I’ve been trying to find a copy of the 2004 animated short Lorenzo for quite a while. The film appeared in of theaters in front of the film Raising Helen which, oddly enough, I didn’t manage to catch. Anyway, from the look of the Google searches people use to find my page, a lot of other people are looking for Lorenzo too. So here’s a question for all you good people - is there anywhere online that one can see this piece of work? Any copies floating around out in the aether?

There’s been a great deal of news lately about various upcoming Disney and Pixar productions, what with this year’s release of WALL-E inching closer and the first hard news starting to leak out about Up and Toy Story 3. Rather than crank out a couple of posts a day with each small story - other sites are bound to have them up quicker anyway - they’re collected here en masse in case you’ve missed anything. I’ve also included a few stories concerning Ratatouille and its director Brad Bird, as they begin to reap the fruits of the end-of-year awards season.

Ratatouille

Aside from its Oscar nominations and other awards, Ratatouille has collected the Golden Tomato for best-reviewed wide release of the year from critic metasite Rotten Tomatoes. Director Brad Bird spoke to the website about the award and the film’s critical reception. Other honors the film has earned include an award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Animated Picture and nominations for awards from the Art Directors Guild for production design, the BAFTAs for Best Animated Film, the Producers Guild of America, and the American Cinema Editors for Best Editing (Darren Holmes).

In a series of interviews, Bird has spoken about his influences and demanded respect for animation writers, as well as describing the process behind the writing of Ratatouille’s screenplay.

Finally, as a neat little extra, Pixar artists have created a Little Golden Book featuring art from the short Your Friend, The Rat. The short, which premiered with the DVD release of Ratatouille, was directed by Pixar story man Jim Capobiano, who highlighted the creation of the film on his blog. The book features actual production art from the film and is available at Amazon.

WALL-E

Buzz for WALL-E continues to build as more information leaks out from the film. Musician Peter Gabriel has revealed on his website that he is writing music for the picture, while new images have been posted on /film and the Disney Reporter (shown here). I’ll speculate that the other robot in the stylized drawing is EVE, the futuristic robot with whom WALL-E falls in love. She can also be seen on the recently-revealed cover of The Art of WALL-E, shown below and available for pre-order at Amazon.

More merchandise is on the way; a few screenshots have been released for the tie-in videogame under development at THQ. The fan community has gotten in on the act, with a group dedicated to building their own real-world replicas of the titular robot. We’ve even seen the first WALL-E case mod.

Expect interest in the film to expand after its upcoming Super Bowl ad.

Up

Upcoming Pixar linked to the above image, as seen in the Disney animation exhibit at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s the first piece of character art released from the film depicting the protagonist, who has been described as a senior citizen who “travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.” Reports say that the story is loosely modeled on the tale of Don Quixote, perhaps indicating that the hero is more imaginative than actually daring. Personally, the above picture strongly reminds me of Spencer Tracy in his later roles, such as Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? or Inherit the Wind.

Toy Story 3

Possibly the biggest story to come from this update is that not only will Toy Story 3 be produced in 3-D for its 2010 release, but it will be preceded to theaters by 3-D re-releases of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. John Lasseter, Pixar co-head honcho and director of the first two films, will oversee their conversion to 3-D from the original data elements. Toy Story 3 is being directed by Lee Unkrich.

As the Variety article linked above points out, Disney is increasingly using 3-D technology to draw viewers to cinemas. What remains to be seen is whether this will prove a viable artistic tool or just another cyclical trend such as when 3-D surged in the 1950s and the late 1970s and early 1980s. Will the technology add anything besides gee-whiz factor to the new film, and especially the already existing films, or will it just be a gimmick? It’s estimated that the number of 3-D capable theaters nationwide will be in the thousands by the time of the film’s release; while I trust Pixar not to pull a Fozzie Bear (”cheap 3-D tricks?!”), it will be interesting to see how this plays out. The release schedule:

- Toy Story - October 2, 2009
- Toy Story 2 - February 12, 2010
- Toy Story 3 - June 18, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so there’s been a pileup of Disney detritus in my links folder. Now that I find myself bereft of anything that I’m bothered to write about, it’s time to share some of the actually interesting things that other writers are blogging about.

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Disney has released its 2007 annual report and, while it may be the dullest and least informative annual report ever (how bare must your calendar be if you have to slap High School Musical on the cover? You couldn’t even give us some DCA renderings?), it at least has a nice new image from The Princess and the Frog:

This 2009 animated release marks the first return to traditional animation for Disney since 2004’s execrable Home On The Range and is the first true animated fairy tale from the studio since Beauty and the Beast. So far, most of the film’s buzz has resulted from publicity about the lead character, Tiana, being the first black Disney “princess”. While admittedly the whole “Disney princess” marketing jihad gives me the galloping creeps, Tiana is a nice change of pace and so far the limited amount of conceptual art to be released from the film has been intriguing.

Far more interesting to me than the possible demographic breakthroughs of the film, though, are the potentials presented by its setting. Set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age, The Princess and the Frog (wow, it would be so much easier to type its previous title, The Frog Princess) promises a world of French Quarter elegance and mystical bayous, as well as “a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.” Done well, this could be a film dripping with atmosphere from smoky jazz clubs and arcane voodoo ritual in the decadent decay of the Crescent City.

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Walt Disney Pictures recently released the first official promotional image for its upcoming CG-animated film Bolt. The film, set to be released on November 26th, 2008, emerges from a troubled development process and it appears that new director Chris Williams and team have completely reworked the design of the film since the departure of former director Chris Sanders. This shift has caused something of a ruckus in the animation community, with some Sanders fans incensed at the alteration of his very personal project and others insisting that fans keep the faith with John Lasseter and the Disney “Story Trust”.

I have mixed feelings on the issue, many of which are caused by a general lack of knowledge as to what happened to cause Sanders’ departure. Lasseter has intimated in interviews that Sanders was either unable or unwilling to work within the framework of the Story Trust to resolve story problems with the film. Without knowing specifics of these problems, it’s hard to tell how severe they were or how much stemmed from disagreements in tone. Rumors trickle out that it was thought that the film was “too quirky for its own good” and that Lasseter was not a fan of Sanders’ trademark wackiness.

While I certainly have faith in Lasseter’s story sensibilities, and the notoriously individualistic Brad Bird has shown that it’s possible for vocal directors to work within Pixar’s collaborative style, I am a fan of Sanders’ quirkiness and find his voice and style to be both interesting and valuable. Lilo and Stich was a breath of fresh air for animation fans, and a rare bright spot in a very dark time for Disney watchers. Bolt, formerly titled American Dog, was Sanders’ pet project and brainchild, and it’s upsetting to see a project taken from its creator given Pixar’s aspirations to a “director-driven” system.

For me, the question is not whether the film will be good or not - I too have faith in the new Story Trust and am sure this will be no Chicken Little - or whether Sanders’ departure dooms the film. After all, Lasseter took Jan Pinkava off of Ratatouille and that became a masterpiece; directors were also pulled off of Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Kingdom of the Sun (which became the highly enjoyable though lightweight The Emperor’s New Groove). My question, as I look at the very homogenized design in the publicity still, is whether there’s room for distinctive or unique artistic visions in the framework of Disney Feature Animation.

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