In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. Today, we examine how superheroes are employed in kid-friendly fare, to good and bad effect.

Comic books, especially superhero comics, were at one time thought of as being exclusively entertainment for kids. Any adult who read comic books would be considered borderline illiterate and not someone you’d want to associate with. I’m fairly certain that there are many people out there that still hold that opinion.

But comics haven’t been exclusively for kids for almost three decades. While there are some comics that are aimed at the younger set, they are becoming rarer as the years pass. This is a shame not only because there is room in comics for both kids and adults, but also because the world of film has shown that superheroes can be quality entertainment for kids and adults at the same time.

A sterling example of this was 2004’s The Incredibles. This was the sixth film released by Pixar, who were well in the run of quality films by this point. The film was a pastiche on the Fantastic Four with that team’s surrogate family dynamic morphing into a biological family dynamic. Mr. Incredible was the Thing like strong guy, who was immodestly named like the FF’s Mr. Fantastic, whose power set was matched by Elastigirl. Violet had invisibility powers akin to the Invisible Girl and Dash had the youthful impetuousness of Human Torch and Jack-Jack seemed be able to turn into flame (amongst other powers as well).

While there was an antecedent for The Incredibles in the Fantastic Four, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t original. It was, as most Pixar films are, a film that works for both adults and children, although The Incredibles gave the adults a little more to enjoy. The kids got the slapstick humor and flashy superpowers, while their parents got themes such as the Dad  balancing family life with his “secret”  identity. It was a film about the things you must give up in order to provide for the ones you love and the difficult pursuit of a satisfying balance between what you want to do and what you have to do.

The next film on our list is not quite as complex as The Incredibles, but is one of the few kid’s films to have a “Story by” credit given to an actual seven-year-old kid. That kid was Racer Max Rodriguez, whose father, Robert Rodriguez, decided to adapt the characters they both created around their house to the big screen in the form of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.

The film centers on a lonely outcast named Max who creates a world where young superheroes Sharkboy and Lavagirl live and have adventures. However, the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred when the heroes ask Max to come with them to save their world.

The film takes on a Wizard of Oz like dimension as many of the people Max knows appear in the dream world he created in different forms, yet tied to the way Max views them (for example, Max’s real life bully Linus becomes the villain Minus in Max’s fantasy world and his mean teacher Mr. Electridad becomes another villain named Mr. Electricity).

The film was a critical and box office disappointment, but is known for being one of the first films to usher in the 3-D resurgence and for being the first major film role of Taylor Lautner. All those Twimoms who get weak in the knees whenever he takes off his shirt in the Twilight films should take a look at that trailer up there.   He’s practically a baby in this film. They should be overcome with shame.

If you are looking to create a superhero movie for kids, you could do worse for a plot than a superhero high school or a teenager dealing with famous superhero parents. Sky High combines both plot elements to good effect.

The film had a lot going for it. It marked Kurt Russell’s return to Disney family fare (although now as the parent instead of the kid), featured geek culture icons Lynda Carter and Bruce Campbell, had a role for Broken Lizard’s Kevin Heffernan and reunited Kids in the Hall members Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald. It was like they were doing a movie with a collection of actors with large cult followings.

The story was solid if conventional. The cast definitely made the most of the material and I really liked the end product. So much so, I am not ashamed to admit that I saw the film in a theater. However, it is with great shame that I admit that the very next year I saw a similarly themed film in the theaters, a film with a whopping 3% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

That’s not bad. For a long time, Zoom: Academy for Superheroes had a 0% fresh rating, meaning it received absolutely no positive reviews at all. I didn’t really consider the film to be that bad, I have definitely seen worse, but the film wasn’t very good either.

If you were able to get past the fact that the federal government considers a six-year-old girl with super-strength to be a good line of defense against an incredibly powerful, homicidal super villain speeding his way towards Earth, you’d find other things about the film to make you wince. Like what, you may ask? Well, the reliance on gross-out gags for the sake of gross-out gags. There is an extended sequence where the four young trainees lock the more awkward scientist/trainer/mentor (played by a Chevy Chase who either just had bad plastic surgery done or is coming off a bad allergic reaction to a bee sting) in a room used to train the potential heroes how to react to adverse weather conditions. After Chase’s character is pelted by rain, sleet, snow and struck by lightning, a robotic skunk (yes, a robotic skunk) comes out and sprays (yes, the robot skunk has functioning anal scent glands) him in the face. It’s a pretty good spraying. If I recall correctly, Chase allows some of the spray to go into his mouth, which, you know, is one way to make it funnier. Well, if the scene was funny to begin with, maybe.

On top of that,  we get a Smash Mouth-heavy soundtrack, an extended Wendy’s commercial in the middle of the film, a countdown to disaster that doesn’t countdown in linear fashion (it goes from one day to two days then one day again), and Courtney Cox trying to act nerdy and clumsy. If you take away all of that, you have a relatively harmless kids flick. But the problem is, you can’t take all that away.

It’s only fitting to end this installment with Megamind after starting it with The Incredibles, because the two films have a number of similarities beyond both being CGI animated superhero kid flicks. Both films opened on the same day (November 5^th), albeit six years apart. One is done by Pixar, the other by Pixar’s main competition in quality and profitability, Dreamworks. Both draw their inspiration from comic book mythos’ (the Fantastic Four mythos is to The Incredibles as the Superman mythos is to Megamind).  Both appeal to adults as well as kids. And both are humorous examinations on superhero tropes.

This film takes a look at the stereotypical super villain who wants nothing more than destroy the superhero of the city he lives in. What happens when he gets what he wishes for? Well, create a new enemy to destroy, become a hero himself, and/or both.

The film had a great cast that would have been perfect even if the film was live-action. I mean, wouldn’t you want to see Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and Will Ferrell together in just about anything? While it wasn’t quite as good as The Incredibles, it was good in its own right.

Next time, we discuss why it is best to use original superheroes if you want to make a superhero comedy.

1. The Croods (Dreamworks/Fox, 4,046 Theaters, 98 Minutes, Rated PG): So, like the Flintstones, only with a bigger family and as a road picture? Okay then.

Dreamworks has always been a step or two behind Pixar when it comes to their animated films. It’s not as though they haven’t had successes. Heck, at the box office, they might be way ahead when it comes to grosses. But in the quality of what they put upon the screen, they are definitely second to Pixar.

Although, I doubt even Pixar would have been able to do much with this subject. The film focuses on a prehistoric family that has to travel to new lands when their home is destroyed.

The film is co-directed by the director of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, which is a good sign. . But the other co-director worked on Space Chimps, which isn’t.

2. Olympus Has Fallen (FilmDistrict, 3,098 Theaters, 120 Minutes, Rated R): And now, we come to the Die Hard knock-off. Not only that, but it’s the first of two “Die Hard in the White House” films coming this year (the other, White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, will be along in June).

They both have similar plots too: terrorists take over the White House and it’s up to one man to save the president. What separates this one is that the one man is Gerard Butler, the president is Aaron Eckhart, and Butler’s character is a disgraced former Secret Service Agent instead of a current one.

I always find it interesting when two movies make it so far into production with such a similar premise. Of course, based on the trailers, this one seems to really be working from the Die Hard template. It will be interesting to see how different White House Down turns out to be.

3. Admission (Focus Features, 2,160 Theaters, 117 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Tina Fey is now at a crossroads of her career. 30 Rock is done, and now the question is what she will do next.

It’s not like she doesn’t have options. She is a successful author, a great comedian, and has the makings of a good film career. But will she be a movie star? Can she be a movie star?

In this film Fey plays a strict Princeton admissions officer whose world is turned upside down when she is introduced to a potential student who might be the son she gave up for adoption years earlier. The things she does might cost her job, but might garner her so much more.

For Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans, writer Marti Noxon is a rather decisive figure based on whether or not you liked the developments of the show’s sixth season, which she oversaw. Beyond that she has contributed episodes to Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, Angel and Glee, while for the big screen she scripted the recent Fright Night remake and did a polish on I Am Number Four. Now it appears as if one of the next items on her resume will be a film with the folks at Pixar Studios.

The news comes from Pixar’s senior development executive Mary Coleman (via The Playlist) stating that the writer is currently working on an undisclosed film. What’s surprising about this turn of events is that an outsider is working within the usually closed-gate confines of Pixar.

I would like to think that Noxon was hired based on the quality of her resume. But after Pixar’s first female director Brenda Chapman was fired off of Brave and replaced with Mark Andrews, the studio has been open to charges that their Pixar Brain Trust – the group of executives who also work on the creative side of their business – is a boy’s-only club. Her hiring could definitely be seen as pro-active step to dispel that perception.

Either way, I look forward to seeing what film that she has been brought in to work on. Currently the studio has in development Pete Docter’s film that reportedly takes place inside the mind of a young girl. This certainly sounds like a story that could match Noxon’s sensibilities. We’ll see.

1. Resident Evil: Retribution (Sony/Screen Gems, 3,012 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated R): Most films based on video games die a quick death at the box office. Not this one. This is the fifth installment of the franchise and is the main reason why Milla Jovovich doesn’t have to become a full-time participant of the comic-con circuit for the foreseeable future.

Doing a plot description for this film is kinda superfluous. If you are a fan of the franchise, you already know what it’s going to be about and you’re already there. If you haven’t seen one of these films, coming in at this stage of the game might not be worth the trouble.

But, since I have column space to fill, here it goes. Alice (Jovovich) fights zombies and the company that created them, while finding out more about her personal history.

2.Finding Nemo 3D (Disney, 2,904 Theaters, 100 Minutes, Rated G): I’m torn about this film. What it boils down to is this: I love Pixar (and like this film a lot) but hate the 3D trend with a passion. Love the fact the film is hitting theaters almost a decade (really!) after it was first released, sad that it is being released in a blatant cash grab.

The film is a classic and I recommend that if your kids (or you yourself) haven’t seen it, then by all means do so. If you’re lucky, then a theater near you might be showing it in non-3D, so you can save yourself THAT headache.

3. Last Ounce of Courage (Veritas/Rocky Mountain Pictures, 1,407 Theaters, 101 Minutes, Rated PG): Finally, we have this mystery entry for a film I have never heard of. This is what the synopsis on IMDB says about the film:

Last Ounce of Courage is the story of an American hero standing up for his beliefs in a time of cynicism and fear. Inspired by his grandson, a grieving father and courageous youth will rally their community to conserve the freedoms we the people hold dear. Bob Revere is a small town Mayor and combat decorated veteran. He faces a root of bitterness from his past filled with heartbreaking loss. His grandson comes back into his life after many years to ask the most important question, What are we doing with our life to make a difference? Bob had grown apathetic along with an entire town. Now with the help of children, a group of people all band together to inspire hope, take back the freedoms that are being lost and take a stand for truth.

Kinda vague, right? So I research further, and watch the trailer below, and find out that noble fight for freedom the soldier’s death inspires his son and father to fight is the fight to restore Christmas to his bucolic Red State-ish town. Yes, I live in a suburb of hyperliberal New York City and there are more Christmas decorations decorating the streets come November than you can choke a reindeer with, but in the redneck paradise Bob Revere (get it?) lives in, you can’t do so much as have a Christmas Parade without the ACLU getting involved.

Yes, this is the worst kind of ham-fisted propaganda–one that is poorly written, poorly acted, and poorly thought out. Instead of spending your money on this, put it in an envelope and send it off to the Romney campaign. It will probably be better spent that way.

It’s not fair to call Brave a return to form for Pixar. From a quality standpoint, yes, it definitely is comparable to other Pixar films. But it is also very different from everything than the studio has done before. It is Pixar’s most human movie to date. There are no talking monsters, toys or cars. If anything, this might be the first Pixar movie that has more in common with the classic Disney movies of old than anything Pixar has ever done. It has a princess, a witch in disguise, and a curse that has potentially fatal implications.

Merida is Scottish princess who is happiest when riding her horse through the woods at breakneck speeds, firing arrows at preset targets along the way. However, her mother, Queen Elinor has other plans for her. Merida’s destiny is to be married off to first born of another Scottish clan as an act of diplomacy. Merida has no interest in giving up her freedom and Elinor refuses to listen to her daughter’s pleas for independence. After stumbling upon a witch in the woods, Merida asks for a spell to make her mother change. Unfortunately, she did not specify what exact change she wanted, and what she got was a curse that could remove her mother from her life forever.

Every good Pixar film has a strong emotional center, and this one’s is based on the way parents and children communicate, or, rather, don’t communicate. Most filmmakers would just have the characters of Merida and Elinor scream at each other throughout the movie. Brave constructs a scene where Elinor pours her heart out while arguing her position to her husband Fergus and Merida states her case to her horse while cleaning its stable. It’s a brilliant scene of back and forth, a dialogue between two people in separate locations that would bridge their differences if they said the words to each other (and end the film at 20 minutes). But both Elinor and Merida are too proud and too stubborn for that to happen. However, this scene echoes in later scenes when the act of verbal communication becomes physically impossible for them and they have to find another way to communicate. We see that their mutual love and concern for one another makes them work to reach common ground. It’s a very powerful theme. And Pixar does it perfectly.

The animation in the film is the best its ever been in a Pixar film. Scotland’s rolling hills, scenic cliffs and lush waterfalls are so richly defined that you get the sense Scotland is a magical place even before the Wisps and Witches appear. Merida is drawn as the pitch perfect version of a teen who is at the cusp of leaving her awkward years and learning to assert herself. Her hair, well, I could probably make a lot of people uncomfortable by gushing over the way her hair is animated.  But her shocking red mane is evocative of her character. It is wild and untamed. They probably had a team of animators working months to have Merida’s hair behave just right, and it was time well spent. Because it is little things like this that add dimensions to Pixar characters, help theatergoers become invested in them and make Pixar movies so great.

The voice cast, with the exception of Brits Emma Thompson as Elinor and Julie Walters as the witch and Pixar good luck charm John Ratzenberger as a palace guard, are all Scottish actors such as Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson and others.  This adds yet another level or realism and allows audiences to immerse themselves deeper into the narrative.

If you are a parent, especially a mother, or a child, the film will probably resonate more with you than with others. But if you are one of those “others,” you will still enjoy Brave. It is a finely crafted film, where the plot points are clearly introduced and followed up on to the audiences satisfaction. It is solid, Grade A storytelling and sterling film making. It’s a great film, just the type you’d expect from Pixar. Highly recommended.

1. Brave (Disney, 4,164 Theaters, 100 Minutes, Rated PG): I want this to be good. I want Cars 2 to be an aberration in quality and Pixar to go back to dependably putting out good films. I want this more than anything.

And maybe because I want this so badly, I look at the trailer for this film and feel that Pixar knocks it out of the park. I get the understanding that the clips tell only a small part of the story, but the story they tell is Pixar at its finest. There were genuine laughs, heartfelt moments, and beautiful imagery. I am man enough to admit I teared up a bit when I saw it.

The plot, about a girl who rebels against what society–and her mother–expect her to be, isn’t exactly original. But in these cases, Pixar usually brings a new perspective to make the plot fresh and new. I can’t wait to see this film. I might even bring my daughter with me.

2. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Fox, 3,106 Theaters, 105 Minutes, Rated R): For all intents and purposes, it looks like this film is being played straight and not as a comedy. It is being presented, if the ads bear truth, as a horror/action film with our 16th President as the lead character.

If this is the case, then this tactic is pure genius.

The plot, taken from the book of the same name, is built on the conceit that an academic researcher accidentally stumbled upon a secret journal by Lincoln detailing his time as a hunter of vampires. It is couched in real world events and presented as if it were a historical fact. And that makes it funnier. Playing the film as a serious action film makes the false realism all the more funny.

Fun fact: Benjamin Walker, who plays Lincoln, had a birthday on June 21. May his birthday present be a big weekend for this film.

3. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Focus Features, 1,618 Theaters, 101 Minutes, Rated R): This film is a darkly comic look at what might happen if we got advance notice that the world is going to end. A funny look at human mortality is one thing, but let’s talk about cinematic mortality. When you are released on the same weekend as two other major releases with a little over half the theater count, your film doesn’t have a long life. Nice knowing you is right.

The film stars Steve Carell as a man whose wife bolts when she hears the news that an asteroid will strike the Earth in three weeks time. Suddenly free, Carell’s character makes it his final quest to find his high school sweetheart. Who he does find is Keira Knightly as a neighbor who helps him on his quest and eventually falls in love with him. Yes, that Keira Knightly.

The premise looks intriguing and it has a great cast (when actors the caliber of Derek Luke and Martin Sheen are at the bottom of the IMDB page, you have a pretty amazing cast). But there has to be some reason why the film was sacrificed to the summer movie gods.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we begin our four week “vacation” overseas with the most notable one-off comic films Europe has to offer.

Comic books are a uniquely American art form, but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t popular in other parts of the world. Europe and Asia have come to embrace the comic medium over the decades. As a matter of fact, they have been quicker to see the artistic merits of comic books than we here in the United States were. While Americans were considering comic books cheap entertainment for kids and emotionally stunted adults, people overseas were using the medium to expose on sexuality, politics and philosophy.

To cover every foreign comic book film would take up too many weeks in this here rundown, so we will be covering some of the films that have the most name value here in the States, either in their comic book form or in their film adaptation. This means that there will be a lot of great comic book films left out in these four weeks. And for that I apologize.

Our tour of Europe begins in Italy with one of the most influential Italian comic book heroes—Diabolik. Diabolik was created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani in the 1962 paperback graphic novel, Il Re del Terrore (“The King of Terror”). He is a highly-skilled thief who steals only from other criminals and is aided and abetted by his partner and lover Eva Kant. The character has influenced such comic writers as Mark Millar and Grant Morrison, who have created characters in their work influenced by Diabolik.

In 1968, Dino De Laurentiis brought Diabolik to the big screen in Danger: Diabolik.

Directed by Mario Brava and starring John Phillip Law in the lead, the film was a fairly faithful adaptation of the comic, with only the violence and adult themes toned down for the screen. The film detailed Diabolik going up against a crime boss who was upset about all the negative attention his organization was inadvertently getting from the police due to Diabolik’s actions.

Later that same year, De Laurentiis would bring another European comic book, this time a French one, to life on the big screen (with John Phillip Law along in a supporting role). The comic book was Barbarella.

Barbarella, like Diabolik, was created in 1962 by Jean-Claude Forest in a serialized form in the French periodical, V-Magazine and goes to show the difference in mentalities between American and French consumers.

That year saw the debut of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk in American comics, the white-bread Superman was topping the sales charts, and American comic books couldn’t have vampires or werewolves in fear of damaging vulnerable readers’ minds. Barbarella was a woman who travelled through space, getting herself into troubles where she had to use sex to get out or get into them. Nothing terribly graphic was shown, but when even the word “sex” would have gotten a comic book banned in the U.S., it shows you how far ahead of the curve Europe was.

The film was directed by Roger Vadim and starred his then-wife Jane Fonda as Barbarella. This is odd when you realize that the comic book Barbarella’s appearance was based on Vadim’s first wife, Brigitte Bardot. Dinners after a day’s filming must have been mighty interesting.

If nothing else, the campy film served as the inspiration for one of the best bands of the 1980s—Duran Duran. The band named itself after Durand Durand, a mad scientist played by Milo O’Shea in the film.

There have been several attempts to remake the film, including one by Vadim before he died with Sherilyn Fenn, then Drew Barrymore in the lead role. The most recent attempt was by director Robert Rodriguez, who was hoping the remake would be a star-vehicle for his then-girlfriend Rose McGowan. This version fell apart when Universal, the studio set to produce the film backed out over budget concerns and McGowan’s ability to carry the film. A German company was set to step in, but the thought of being away from his family made Rodriguez scrap the idea altogether. The pair would move on to another comic book adaptation, Red Sonja, with similar results.

Europe is also home to a large number of Muslim immigrants. Many of these immigrants escaped from Muslim countries when a new conservative religion-based regime takes over, but not all are welcomed fully in their new home countries, as they face the turmoil over whether to assimilate or stay true to their Muslim upbringing. One of these stories was Marjane Satrapi‘s, a story she related in the graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2.

Satrapi was a little girl around the time of the overthrow of the Shah in Iran, and she lived through the revolution that removed him from power and saw how that revolution had become co-opted by Muslim clerics. Eventually, at age 14, she is forced to leave Iran by her parents and relocate to Vienna, Austria. She finds a hard time adjusting to the Western world, struggling on what she should do—adapt to her new surroundings or stay true to her Iranian heritage. The graphic novels were made into a film in 2007 called Persepolis.

The film won a Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film of 2007, losing out to Pixar’s Ratatouille. The film also garnered some controversy in Muslim countries, with Iran filing a formal grievance with the French government about the film’s inclusion in the Cannes festival.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is proof that Hollywood can also screw up adapting foreign comics as well as homegrown ones.

Based on the incredibly popular Italian comic book, Dylan Dog, the film stars Brandon Routh, Peter Stormare, and Sam Huntington (thus reuniting Superman and Jimmy Olsen from 2006’s Superman Returns), the 2011 film adaptation doesn’t quite get it. The comic book was an existential satire on the world through the lens of horror.  The film is a typical action/horror film loaded with snark and obvious humor in place of the original’s subtlety and wit. The film was hardly advertised and died a quick death at the box office, making just over $4 million worldwide against a $20 million dollar budget.

Next time, we’ll travel a little farther East as we check out some comic book films from Japan, before we cover film series from both areas.

Among all the reasons to get excited about when a new feature film from Pixar is released, one of the things I like the most is the fact that we also get a new short film from the pioneering animation studio. A number of these shorts were released on DVD in 2006 and it looks as if the studio is gearing up for a companion volume in the near future.

The Pixar blog A113 Animation (named after the Cal Arts classroom where many of Pixar’s animators first studied their craft), had a chance to talk with Enrico Casarosa, director of Pixar’s newest short La Luna which is scheduled to be paired with this summer’s Brave and Chris Wiggum of Pixar’s publicity department, and they indicated that a follow up video release of some of the studio’s short films was in the works.

A113 Animation: Mm, it’ll be on the DVD for Brave hopefully?
Enrico Casarosa: It actually, it’s supposed to be on the DVD of the shorts, you know, there’s a new shorts [DVD], and that’ll be available soon.
A113: When’s that due out, the second shorts collection?
Chris Wiggum: We haven’t announced that date yet, so, there’ll be an announcement about that coming up in the next, the next few months I would guessed.

It should be interesting to see what other shorts will be showing up on this new release. The first volume featured 13 shorts ranging from 1984’s The Adventures Of Andre And Wally B, back when the company was still a part of Lucasfilm, to 2006’s Lifted.

Presumably the new package will contain the six other shorts, including La Luna, produced since 2006 that have appeared in front of Pixar’s features. Of course, only six shorts would make for a rather lean package, so what else is there left for Pixar to add on? Well, there is the new Toy Story short Small Fry which appeared in front of The Muppets, plus the shorts created for the Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up home video releases. That gets us to ten. Perhaps there are some more surprises lurking in Pixar’s vaults. I for one know that I would like to see the original, unaltered version of Knick Knack get released.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Pixar has always been synonymous with storytelling that was leaps and bounds ahead of what any other Hollywood animation studio has been putting out. And the thee new projects that the studio announced last night at he Las Vegas CinemaCon trade show show that that tradition will be continuing with the announcement of three new films that will be forthcoming over the next few years.

First up is The Good Dinosaur. Disney first unveiled the project back at the D23 Expo a few months back, but this is the first time that we have a title. Set on an alternate version of Earth where “the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct,” the film is a comedy from directors Bob Peterson and Peter Sohn. Peterson has been working at Pixar all the way back to the first story Toy Story film and helped work on the stories for Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and Up, which he also co-directed. It is set for a May 30, 2014 release.

The following summer, specifically June 19, 2015, will see the release of the still untitled Pete Docter (Up, Monsters Inc.) project that, according to the press release, “will take you to a place that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen: the world inside the human mind.” Joining Docter as co-director is Ronnie del Carmen, who storyboarded Ratatouille and Up. Toy Story 3 scripter Michael Arndt is writing the screenplay.

Pixar honcho John Lasseter further added about the story, “[It] takes place in a little girl’s mind and it is about her emotions as characters, and that us unlike anything you’ve ever seen.” Well, far be it fom me to second-guess John Lasseter, but the premise does sound a bit like the old Fox sitcom Herman’s Head.

Finally, Disney confirmed the existence of the film that Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich has recently been hinting at. It too is untitled but will be about the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. There is no scheduled release date for this but I would expect it sometime in 2016.

1. John Carter (Disney, 3,749 Theaters, 132 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Schadenfreude is the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. I don’t know if a movie can qualify as one of those “others,” but if it can, then this film is a shining example of the term in action. There’s a lot of pre-schadenfreude going on here. A lot of people are actively rooting for this film to fail.

To be fair, the film is calling a lot of the schadenfreude upon itself. It is a $250 million dollar film based on a character celebrating his 100th birthday this year. It has a writer/director with no live-action film experience, an unproven lead, and it’s a sword-and-sorcery concept melded with science-fiction that doesn’t usually set the world on fire.

However, that writer/director is Andrew Stanton, who has two, count’em, two Oscars for his work at Pixar (for Wall*E and Finding Nemo) and four other Oscar nominations.  That unproven lead is Taylor Kitsch, an actor who is playing a lead or co-lead in three huge pictures this year (this one, Battleship in May, and Savages in July), so it’s not that Hollywood doesn’t have faith in him. And that character and concept was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame) who has lasted this long by building generation after generation of fans.

I’m typically negative here, but I’ll tell you what–I’m pulling for this film. I’m rooting for it. I hope it’s great and it pulls the audiences in. Try anti-schadenfreude sometime. It’s fun.

2. Silent House (Open Road Films, 2,124 Theaters, 85 Minutes, Rated R): For a horror film, this one has a lot going for it. It has Elizabeth Olsen, who probably should have gotten an Oscar nomination last year for her work in Martha Marcy May Marlene. And the film was shot as one continuous take–no editing. That is a great technical accomplishment.

However, it is a horror/suspense film. So, not being edited might not be the best thing for the film. You can build a lot of tension with a jump cut here and there. And the plot–a young women is sent to close up her familiy’s lakeside retreat, but while she is there, evil things starts to happen, would be totally conventional if it wasn’t for the continuous shot gimmick.

Who knows? The gimmick might work. But it might not.

3. A Thousand Words (Paramount/Dreamworks, 1,890 Theaters, 91 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Remember a couple months ago, when Tower Heist came out? You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting some article stating that Eddie Murphy was back to his raunchy comedy film self. Those writers should have held off on publishing those articles until this film came out, because it has more in common with The Nutty Professor than 48 Hours or Trading Places.

Murphy plays a man who screws over a guru and becomes cursed. Whenever he says a word, a leaf falls off a tree in his yard. When the last leaf falls, he dies. The rest of the film involves him trying to make amends as quietly as he can so he can save his own life.

Doesn’t seem as bad as some of Murphy’s worst movies, but that’s not saying much.