If you happen to be in the New York (why do they get all the good stuff?) area this weekend and are a Pixar fan, be sure and stop by the NY comic Con to check out the first 50 minutes of UP. According to Toon Zone:

New York Comic Con is proud to announce that the first 50 minutes of Disney•Pixar’s 10th film, UP, will screen for the first time at New York Comic Con in the IGN Theater. UP is a comedy adventure about 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 9-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. From the Academy Award-nominated director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.), Disney*Pixar's UP invites you on a hilarious journey into a lost world, with the least likely duo on Earth.

Disney•Pixar’s UP screening will be introduced by director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera on Saturday, February 7 at 6:30pm in the IGN Theater at New York Comic Con. Please note seating is EXTREMELY limited and interested attendees are recommended to arrive at 5:30 PM for a security check-in. No cameras, phones, or recording devices will be allowed at the screening, and all must be checked at the door.

From apple trailers:

A man wakes up deep inside a cave. Suffering amnesia, he has no recollection of how he came to be here or of what happened to the man whose body he finds beside him. Tailed by a mysterious creature, he must continue through this strange and fantastic world. Enclosed, Tolbiac has no other option to reach the surface than to use REZO ZERO, secret observing cells in this cemetery-like abandoned mine. He embarks upon this journey guided by the roots of a plant, leading the way and the main subject of attention of the REZO.

Like what you see? You should, because this is a photo of the legendary Jude Law in a movie called Rave directed by Sally Potter. Thanks to the guys at Filmonic.
From her site:

Part of the subject matter of RAGE is the ugly use of beauty in the pursuit of profit. Drugged by Marketing, sapped by fear of aging, conned by the cult of celebrity... image becomes all.

Jude Law, whose beauty has sometimes been held against him as an actor, made the courageous decision to accept the role of Minx - a “celebrity super-model” and took on a kind of hyper-beauty for this persona... a ‘female’ beauty which gradually unravels as the story unfolds.

Strangely, the more he became a ‘she’, coiffed and made-up - the more naked was his performance. There was great strength in his willingness to make himself vulnerable. It was an extraordinarily intense part of the shoot.

Wow, there are a whole slew of new T4 images up at WIRED
Let's go trough em' one by one, shall we.


Matrix anyone?


This one's straight out of Joel Schumacher's Batman.


And this one is the Borg...er, I mean the Terminator Factory.

Check out the wired article and the rest of the images here.

As it stands, I'm always the last to know, so when I heard about this movie I figured everyone must be talking about it already. Not true. It's gotten very little hype, which to me is outrageous. Synopsis is as follows:

In TOKYO!, three visionary directors come together for an omnibus triptych examining the nature of one unforgettable city as it’s shaped by the disparate people who live, work (and run amok) inside an enormous, constantly evolving, densely populated Japanese megalopolis — the ravishing and inimitable Tokyo. In the tradition of such films as NEW YORK STORIES, NIGHT ON EARTH, PARIS JE T’AIME and its forthcoming sequel NEW YORK I LOVE YOU, TOKYO! addresses the timeless question of whether we shape cities, or if cities shape us — in the process revealing the rich humanity at the heart of modern urban life.

For some reason this movie never got a proper DVD release. But I've seen listings online that show a March 10 street date. If you can't wait that long watch it for free on hulu.com

Here's the trailer for the self proclaimed Greatest Mafia Movie Ever Made. This movie opened in Italy May of 08 and will be released Feb. 13 in the U.S. and has garnered much critical praise.

I had a little chuckle while browsing through some of these movie posters from abroad on Cracked. Some of them don't make a lick of sense.
For instance Star Wars:

Now Playing is a new section in which I chronicle my progress through a video game diary style. This week it's Mirror's Edge.
Installment 1 after the jump.

yes! Yes! YES! Finally, a true WIDEscreen television. Measuring in with an aspect ration of 21:9, this super wide tele from Phillips is sure to dazzle film buffs everywhere. I've actually wondered what one of these might look like. CNET UK got to see the TV in person, and of course they have a few issues with the screen. I'm all for this, but I doubt it'll become standard anytime soon. Seriously people, there will always be black bars as long as content is produced in different aspect ratios. Or you could just get a dedicated constant height theater.

Yatterman trailer:


Is that a key-chain at the end? This could be awesome.

The guys at the Pixar Blog are salty. And perhaps justifiably so, the internet is ablaze with angry Pixar fan boys foaming at the mouth ready to call bull shit on the Annie Award's decision to completely snub Wall-e, and award best picture to Kung Fu Panda. The thing is, I really liked Wall-E, but I also liked Kung fu Panda. The whole idea of one being better than the other is preposterous in the first place, but to imply that Katzenberg had anything to do with it may be even more absurd. I'm sure we'll being hearing more on this subject in the coming weeks, or at least until Wall-E gets crowned (which it will) the king of animation entertainment at Oscars this year.

This is a pretty cool interview with director of Sleep Dealer Alex Rivera VIA Wired.

If you've ever been interested in checking out videos about artists like Matthew Barney that aren't limited to the 2 minute run-time of the art 21 clips, check out UbuWeb.
About the site:

UbuWeb is a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.

All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).

And the Directors Guild of America 2009 Honorary Life Member Award goes to...Roger Ebert! I've been thinking about the role of criticism recently and about how vital it is. Critics contextualize film and champion directors much to the benefit of film fans worldwide. So this one's for you Roger Ebert. Thanks for so many years of great input!

P.S. Be sure to check out his desert island dialogues.