Digital
Media FX News Archives
Friday
- June 8, 2001
- New Monsters, Inc. Trailer
Released!
- Atlantis Reviews
- Toon Boom Announces Animation
Contest for Mac Users
- News Link of the Day
- Disney Domain is Under Siege
New Monsters,
Inc. Trailer Released!
(by digitalmediafx.com) Disney has released the official first
movie trailer for Monsters, Inc. giving more depth into
Pixar's newest animated production. Here is the synopsis for the
movie:
"Monsters,
Incorporated is the largest scare factory in the monster world
and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) is the top kid Scarer. Sullivan
is a huge, intimidating monster with blue fur, large purple spots,
and horns. His Scare Assistant, best friend and roommate is Mike
Wazowski (Billy Crystal), a feisty, one-eyed, green ball of a
monster. The cast of characters also includes the factory's CEO,
a crablike monster named Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn) and
the snake-headed, beguiling receptionist Celia (Jennifer Tilly).
One of the top Scarers is a sarcastic chameleon monster named
Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi). Visiting from the human world is
Boo (Mary Gibbs), a tiny girl who goes where no human has ever
gone before."
The movie
trailer is available via the Internet (see link below) and is
also attached to Disney's animated Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
> Click
here to view the movie trailer.
> Click
here to post your comments - or read others comments - about the
trailer.
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Atlantis
Reviews
(by digitalmediafx.com) Atlantis: The Lost Empire opened
today in Los Angeles and New York to mixed reviews. Here are some
initial critic quotes pertaining to Disney's newest animated production:
Susan Wloszczyna
of USA Today - "...What Atlantis gains in chills and
thrills, it loses in pure emotion. The visuals are a stunning
widescreen mix of digital and hand-drawn artwork that is far more
edgy and angular than typical Mouse fare. The giant waves, monster
crustaceans, flame-throwing fireflies and rivers of lava arrive
in a furious rush. It's a Saturday-morning cartoon pumped up on
steroids..."
Elvis Mitchell
of the New York Times - "...Disney's newest animated feature,
Atlantis: The Lost Empire, is a monumental treat as well
as a crafty assemblage of mythologies. The movie accepts the squareness
of its period, 1914, instead of trying to amuse audiences with
anachronisms, although a few do slip in..."
Owen Gleiberman
of Entertainment Weekly - "...Atlantis, with its gee-whiz
formulaic characters, is the essence of craft without dream, but
the movie, in a strange way, is more personal than the artists
who made it realize. Its real lost empire might almost be the
day that hand drawn animation in the conventionally Colorform
Disney style could still saturate us with wonder..."
Kenneth Turan
of the Los Angeles Times - "...Atlantis: The Lost Empire
plays more like the best Disney animated film of 1981 than 2001.
Story line and characterization are decidedly old-fashioned, and
a curious decision about production design gives this wide-screen
cartoon some of the look and feel of a Saturday morning TV cartoon
series..."
Atlantis
opens nationwide next Friday.
> Click
here to visit the "Atlantis is Waiting" dFX Movie Site.
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Toon Boom
Announces Animation Contest for Mac Users
(by digitalmediafx.com) Toon Boom Technologies, a leading supplier
of 2D animation software for major film and television studios,
has announced a contest where the winners will be awarded an opportunity
to work with professionals. The contest, which officially started
yesterday and runs through June 30, challenges users to unleash
their creative talents by using Toon Boom Studio (Mac version)
in one of three Web animation categories: music videos, political
cartoons and online advertising.
The winners
of each category will work directly with interactive entertainment
giant Sega of America, Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist Mike
Luckovich and internationally-acclaimed DJ Mark Farina to create
Web-based animated shorts.
The work of
each winner will be shown at Macworld Expo in July. In addition,
each winner will receive $1,000, Toon Boom Studio 1.0 software
(worth $499), a 9x12 inch Wacom Intuos Tablet (worth $429) and
a trip to Macworld.
For full contest
details, click
here.
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News Link
of the Day - Disney Domain is Under Siege
According to USA Today:
"Disney
isn't just releasing its usual big-event animated feature this
summer. When Atlantis: The Lost Empire is launched on Friday
in New York and Los Angeles (and then wide June 15), consider
it a counterattack akin to the explosive Tokyo raid in Pearl Harbor.
The artists are sketching outside the studio's G-rated formula
with this PG-macho action-adventure about the search for the missing
continent
"
Click
here for the full story.
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