Is Disney’s New Princess Movie Racist?Poor Disney. They finally create a black heroine to add to their incredibly lucrative Princess line, and it’s already backfiring on them.
‘Bolt’ Trailer: The Anti-‘Wall-E’?While Pixar’s protagonists get less cute every year, Disney’s other animation studio goes the more traditional route.
vulture lists
7 Pixar Movie, RankedAnd which is the worst? And what does ‘worst’ mean when you’re talking about Pixar?
You Are Now Entering the Season of the JonasThe Jonas Brothers have slowly been laying the groundwork for a hostile (but tuneful!) takeover of planet Earth, and this week begins their first major campaign.
10 Top Goody-Goodies From Pop CulturePresenting the top ten churchgoing, non-drinking, promise-ring-wearing singer-actors — along with their great shames and potential for corruption. Yes, we remembered Miley Cyrus.
‘Ratatouille’ Will Probably Not Be Nominated for Best PictureRatatouille may be one of the year’s highest grossing movies. It may have a higher Metascore than Pulp Fiction, Raging Bull, and Schindler’s List. But, as the New York Times asks this morning, does it really have a shot at a nomination for a Best Picture Oscar?
Jack Osbourne: Live Earth Frenemy?“I read somewhere it isn’t beneficial.” —Jack Osbourne, onstage at Live Earth, on why his family doesn’t recycle
the industry
Robert Zemeckis Delivers Four Jim Carreys in Your Christmas StockingA Carrey Carol: Jim Carrey will play Ebenezer Scrooge plus the three ghosts who haunt him through the dual miracles of performance capture technology and his own rubbery face in Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol for Disney. Anyone who goes to see this movie deserves what he gets.
Disney Animation, 1938: No Girls Allowed!The Beat links to an amazing pop-culture artifact: a 1938 rejection letter from Disney to a woman looking for a job as an animator. Printed on gorgeous Snow White stationery, the letter lays out the company’s policy in brutal detail:
liner notes
Who Drew Those Cool Little Taste Explosions in ‘Ratatouille’?With Ratatouille hitting No. 1 on the box-office charts this past weekend — though its $47 million take notably fell short of the openings of past Pixar hits Cars and Monsters, Inc. — animator and comics artist Michael Gagné sheds light on one tiny but delightful aspect of the film.
ranters and ravers
‘Ratatouille’: Impersonal Entertainment Machine or Deeply Felt Aesthetic Manifesto?Pixar’s latest animated extravaganza, Ratatouille, is garnering near-unanimous praise from all quarters, currently sporting an astonishing Metacritic score of 95, which places it at No. 5 on the site’s all-time list, between Dr. Strangelove and The Manchurian Candidate.
the take
Will ‘Ratatouille’ Be Pixar’s First Flop?Amid all the Live Free or Die Hard hoopla, it’s been easy to forget there’s another potential box-office monster opening this week: Ratatouille, the newest film from Pixar, the geniuses who have delivered a nearly uninterrupted string of artistic and commercial triumphs since 1995’s Toy Story.
the industry
Brett Ratner Finally Talks His Way Into the Playboy MansionRatner on Hef: Director Brett Ratner will direct Playboy, a biopic of Hugh Hefner, for Universal. Brian Grazer’s Imagine will produce, and John Hoffman is writing. Ratner’s first-ever visit to the Playboy Mansion last week convinced the aging Hef that the auteur behind Rush Hour was the man to tell the story of Playboy’s part in the cultural revolutions of the sixties. We just hope Ratner remembers to put boobs in it! [Variety]