Cloudy 2 Trailer Arrives on 27th

To contact us Click HERE

Tweet

Sony Pictures Animation had commercial success last year with the Genndy Tartakovsky-directed Hotel Transylvania, they're surely hoping to replicate that this year, which will see them release two new films: The Smurfs 2 on 31st July and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 later (27th September, US/25th October, UK). The less said about the former the better, but Cloudy 2 has the potential to be a lot of fun, and we'll get our first practical glimpse at it on the 27th of this month!

SPA tweeted the above picture yesterday, promising a the first trailer for the sequel in five days - that has now ticked down to four. I wasn't a huge fan of Hotel Transylvania last year - the animation was magnificent though - but I am a huge fan of the first Cloudy film and am eagerly anticipating the second! We got our first look at concept art from the film last month.

Cloudy 2 sees the return of much of its original voice cast, including Bill Hader, Anna Faris and Neil Patrick Harris; Kristen Schaal and Terry Crews have joined the cast, with the latter replacing Mr. T as Officer Earl. Directing is being done by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn.

We'll post the trailer as soon as it's up.

Rio 2 Cast and Crew Revealed; Due for 2014

To contact us Click HERE

Tweet

Blue Sky Studios, who will release Epic later this year, return to sequels in 2014, with a follow up to their 2011 Brazilian-bird film, Rio. Yesterday, details of the film's voice cast were revealed in a press release by the studio's parent company, Fox.

The original voice cast are returning, which includes Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway and will.i.am; added to the cast are Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies), Bruno Mars, Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) and Pierce Gagnon (Looper), amongst others. Carlos Saldanha is returning to direct, as are producers Bruce Anderson and John C. Donkin. Sergio Mendes and John Powell are also returning to handle the film's music.

Blue Sky get a lot of flack sometimes - it is a fair point that they should stop casting bloody singers in their films - but Rio was a really good and really fun film, and with almost all of the original crew returning, I have no doubt the sequel can be just as good.

In terms of a release date "Twentieth Century Fox's international rollout begins March 20, 2014, followed by its domestic release on April 11, 2014".

85th Annual Academy Award Predictions [UPDATED: And Winners]

To contact us Click HERE

Tweet

The biggest night of the year on the film calender is nigh; the 85th annual Academy Awards ceremony takes place tomorrow! Hosted by Seth MacFarlane and emanating from the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, this year's Oscars are close, very close. As such, it's time for me to let out my inner awards pundit and offer up A113Animation's predictions on what will be walking home with a golden statue at the end of the night.

Animation is a particularly close call this year; for months I was sure Laika's ParaNorman would take the prize, but the tide has turned, particularly after Disney's Wreck-It Ralph swept the Annies at the start of the month. Though Ralph is the best film of the five, it may well be Pixar's Brave that takes home the award, particularly after its swell of momentum at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, and the Academy has always been fond of Pixar. Tim Burton's Frankenweenie had a lot of awards hype around it, but it doesn't seem to be a threat to Disney's other two offerings. It's great to see The Pirates! nominated, especially after getting so little recognition elsewhere, but it seems unlikely Aardman's latest will herald a second Oscar for them.


Short wise, it should be Disney's Paperman. Should be. But, personally, it seems more likely that Minkyu Lee's Adam and Dog will take the prize home, despite its lack of major advertising. Nonetheless, it's another close category. Life of Pi should and almost certainly will take home Best Visual Effects, a bittersweet win after Rhythm & Hues recently filed for bankruptcy.

On the live-action side, Argo seems a lock for Best Picture at this stage, and with the inexplicable omission of its helmer Ben Affleck from Best Director, the safe bet for that one is Spielberg. Most of the acting categories seem pretty sewn up (Daniel Day-Lewis is almost unbeatable at this stage, and a win will make him the only actor to ever win three Best Actor Oscars). Cinematography should be Claudio Miranda for Life of Pi - although Roger Deakins' work on Skyfall may well get the nod - and Best Original Song will definitely be Adele for "Skyfall". It's all really quite exciting!

Films we think should win are in bold, films we think will win are underlined; the winners will be highlighted in gold after the fact. No prediction indicates it's a category that I'm not knowledgeable about/haven't seen any of the nominees for.


Best Animated Feature:

• Brave
• Frankenweenie
• ParaNorman
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits (The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists in the UK)
• Wreck-It Ralph

Best Animated Short Film:

• Adam and Dog
• Fresh Guacamole
• Head Over Heels
• The Longest Daycare
• Paperman

Best Picture:

• Amour
• Argo
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Django Unchained
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor:

• Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
• Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
• Hugh Jackman – Les Misérables
• Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
• Denzel Washington – Flight

Best Actress:

• Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
• Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
• Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
• Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor:

• Alan Arkin – Argo
• Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
• Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
• Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
• Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress:

• Amy Adams – The Master
• Sally Field – Lincoln
• Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables
• Helen Hunt – The Sessions
• Jackie Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook

Best Director:

• Michael Haneke – Amour
• Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Ang Lee – Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
• David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook

Best Original Screenplay:

• Amour – Michael Haneke
• Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
• Flight – John Gatins
• Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
• Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal

Best Adapted Screenplay:

• Argo – Chris Terrio
• Beasts of the Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
• Life of Pi – David Magee
• Lincoln – Tony Kushner
• Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell

Best Foreign Language Film:

• Amour
• Kon-Tiki
• No
• A Royal Affair
• War Witch

Best Documentary Feature:

• 5 Broken Cameras
• The Gatekeepers
• How to Survive a Plague
• The Invisible War
• Searching for Sugar Man

Best Documentary (Short Subject):

• Inocente
• Kings Point
• Mondays at Racine
• Open Heart
• Redemption

Best Live Action Short Film:

• Asad
• Buzkashi Boys
• Curfew
• Death of a Shadow (Dood Van Een Schaduw)
• Henry

Best Cinematography:

• Anna Karenina
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Visual Effects:

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Life of Pi
• Marvel's The Avengers
• Prometheus
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Film Editing:

• Argo
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Original Score:

• Anna Karenina
• Argo
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Original Song:

• "Before My Time" from Chasing Ice
• "Everybody Needs A Best Friend" from Ted
• "Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi
• "Skyfall" from Skyfall
• "Suddenly" from Les Misérables

Best Sound Editing:

• Argo
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall (Tie)
• Zero Dark Thirty (Tie)

Best Sound Mixing:

• Argo
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit
• Les Misérables

Best Costume Design:

• Anna Karenina
• Les Misérables
• Lincoln
• Mirror Mirror
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Production Design:

• Anna Karenina
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln

Related posts: 3rd Annual A113Animation Awards Results

Disney's Big Hero 6 Adaptation Listed for November 2014 Release

To contact us Click HERE

Tweet

2014 is gearing up to be a really good year for animation: Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, Laika's The Boxtrolls, possibly Henry Selick's The Shadow King, and now another exciting prospect from Disney. A while back we heard that Disney were working on an animated adaptation of one of Marvel's lesser known properties, the super-team Big Hero 6. Now it's official.

Today's reveal, courtesy of Bleeding Cool, backs up what we heard in June of last year: the film is being directed by Don Hall (Winnie the Pooh) and is due in 2014. The release date revelation comes via RentrakSpain, a reliable site, who are listing Big Hero 6 for a 21st November, 2014 release in Spain - which tallies up with Disney's usual animated release schedule. UPDATED - 20:25 (GMT), 24/02/2013: The US release will fall, presumably, on 7th November - we heard in October that Disney had slotted an unnamed animated picture for release on that date. Hopefully the UK release won't be in 2015.

Still no official word from Disney, but it seems to be a pretty sure thing at this point - expect to hear something at Disney's D23 event this summer. Until then, it's a really exciting concept!

Thanks to Benjamin Boekelaar for the tip off.

Oscar Results: Brave and Paperman Win

To contact us Click HERE

Tweet

Directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman accept their Oscar. ©A.M.P.A.S.

Yesterday was the night of the 85th annual Academy Awards. Hosted by an animator, it was a big night for animation - yet also a rather bittersweet one given the current turmoil in the animation and VFX industry, highlighted by a protest in Hollywood just prior to the ceremony.

As predicted, Disney's heavily acclaimed (and A113Animation Award winning) Wreck-It Ralph just missed out on the Best Animated Feature statue, which went instead to Pixar's Brave. The tide turned in favour of Pixar's latest in the last month or so, having won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA, and the studio managed to secure their seventh win in the category.

I think someone's rather happy. ©A.M.P.A.S.

Personally, I felt Ralph was the better film - it was damn near perfect - but only just. Anyone who frequents this blog knows I adored Brave; it was a very well crafted, beautiful, funny and powerful film and Pixar are, as always, very deserving of the award. Original director Brenda Chapman was again present to accept the award alongside fellow director Mark Andrews (complete with kilt), and the two posed for some rather enthusiastic pictures together.



Check out a post-award Q&A with the directors (via Pixar Post) above. What's great about all of this is it seems that Brenda Chapman has found comfort and solace in her removal from the director's chair of Brave, and everything seems rather amicable now - complete with friendly banter. MAndrews stayed mum when asked about what his next project will be though. After eight long years, it's great to see this brilliant film get such recognition; congratulations to Mark, Brenda, Katherine Sarafian and the entire Brave crew on the well earned Oscar.

Paperman director John Kahrs accepts his Oscar. ©A.M.P.A.S.

Disney continued their big night with a win in the Animated Short Film category (the studio's first win in the category since 1969), with the innovative and heart-warming John Kahrs-directed short, Paperman, taking home the Oscar. The black-and-white delight beat out tough competition from Adam and Dog and The Simpsons short The Longest Daycare to take the prize. Ironically though, the film's producer, Kristina Reed, was chucked out of the ceremony for celebratory launching of paper aeroplanes - apparently A.M.P.A.S don't have a whimsical side. Reed was allowed back in ten minutes later.



Rhythm & Hues notched up another bittersweet victory too, taking home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for their breathtaking work on Life of Pi. Bill Westenhofer gave an impassioned speech, thanking the crew, but as he turned towards confronting the dire straits that R&H and the wider VFX community are in at the moment, the producers classlessly cut them off with the Jaws theme tune. Check out a full transcription of the planned speech over at Cartoon Brew. Our thoughts go out to our friends over at Rhythm & Hues and our congratulations on this accolade - check out our interview with one of the winners, Erik-Jan de Boer, here.

People laughing at the play off music don't realize that the folks who made Life if Pi don't have jobs anymore.
— Catherine (@cathicks) February 25, 2013

The irony is that Life of Pi had a very good night at the Oscars, also winning Best Cinematography (for Claudio Miranda, who is now shooting Brad Bird's Tomorrowland), Best Score and Best Director (Ang Lee).

In the wider realm, last night brought a diverse spread with no big winner: Les Misérables took home three awards, Django Unchained took two, Lincoln won only one (in a move that saw Daniel Day-Lewis become arguably the greatest actor of all time, becoming the first man to ever win three Best Actor Oscars), while Silver Linings Playbook's Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress. The big news being though that, as predicted, Ben Affleck's Argo took home Best Picture. Congrats to all the winners! Full results here.

Images via Big Screen Animation.

2014 Jeep Cherokee Officially Revealed, Let the Face Naming Begin…

To contact us Click HERE

After someone sneaked out a few pictures of the new 2014 Cherokee from Jeep's factory and unloaded them earlier today on Jalopnik, Jeep thought that it might be a good idea to release a shinier set of professionally edited and produced images to show us its new mid-size SUV at its best.

If anything else, the new 2014 Cherokee that replaces the Liberty in North America and its namesake in other parts of the world, needs to look its best with that - how shall we put it delicately, awkward looking face, which we don't know if it reminds us more of a modern-day Pontiac Aztec or a catfish with some serious indigestion problems...

In addition to these photos, Jeep tells us that the 2014 Cherokee will make its world premiere at the New York International Auto Show at the end of March, and that it sets "a new standard with even more best-in-class capability, exemplary on-road driving dynamics, and fuel economy improvements of more than 45 percent versus the outgoing mid-size SUV model."

We've heard that the new Cherokee is built on the same CUSW platform as the Dodge Dart, which has its roots in the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, while Allpar reported that engine options are likely to include a 3.2-liter V6, and a choice of four-cylinder units.

We'll get to know more details in the coming weeks, but until then, feast your eyes on the Cherokee gallery and share your thoughts in the comments area.

PHOTO GALLERY

---

Show Us Cars with a Face Only a Mother Could Love

To contact us Click HERE

Let's face it (pun intended); looks, beauty and taste are subjective concepts. What one person finds attractive, someone else will view as average or even worse, but there are some things that the majority of people will agree upon.

For example, most people found the Pontiac Aztek's face aesthetically repulsive, while countless words have been written about the BMW 7-Series' (E65) droopy snout.

The jury on the new Jeep Liberty-replacing , 2014 Cherokee's distinct fascia is still out, however, reading your comments here on Carscoops, the signs aren't promising for the Chrysler Group's mid-size SUV…

Naturally, with so many different cars made around the world, there are plenty of controversial designs. We took the Liberty (again, pun intended) to share some photos of cars with divisive or just plain ugly faces.

What we're asking from you, is to submit your own pictures (or tell us about it in the comments and we'll do our best to find and upload them in the post) of models with bizarre or atrocious looking front ends.

PHOTO GALLERY

---

Pagani Goes All Da Vinci Code on Us with New Teaser Videos

To contact us Click HERE

Similarly to The Da Vinci Code, Pagani Automobili is providing a series of videos as signs, called "Can you decipher the clues?" about its new factory, high-end audio system, or a new car (the Huayra Roadster), according to some viewers' comments on YouTube.

The Italian countryside, a pair of scissors, its workers' meticulous attention to detail and what looks like an ancient temple are the hints provided in the first clip.

That didn't help much, so Pagani released a second video in which they clearly state a collaboration with Italian speaker manufacturers Sonus Faber.

Well, if anything else, Pagani owners can rest assured that they'll be experiencing a high-end soundtrack from both their cars' audio and exhaust systems – not that they'll really need the former if they have the latter…

VIDEO

---

Putin Reportedly Unhappy with New Zil-4112P Limo, Marussia Tries its Luck with Concepts

To contact us Click HERE

We don't know if being the President of Russia is an easy job, but it's one that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is more than happy to do, as the former KGB officer has served President from 2000 to 2008, as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012, while he was also re-elected President again in May of 2012. What can we say; the man loves being a head of state…

The job comes with many benefits, including the ability to choose the kind of wheels you roll around in. However, Putin wasn't satisfied with simply picking out an existing car to base a presidential limousine; no, he wanted one created from scratch from a Russian company, so he asked local automakers to present their proposals.

A less luxurious version of the same car will be used by government officials to run red lights and scare Russians replace upscale German cars, such as Mercedes and BMW.

ZiL, which used to produce luxury vehicles for leaders of the Soviet Union was the first to present its proposal for a presentational limousine with a prototype named ZIL-4112P powered by a 7.7-liter engine coupled to a six-speed automatic transmission, in September of 2012.

Citing a Kremlin source, Russia's , Izvestia reported that Putin was "unhappy" with the result, though, ZiL's acting CEO, Sergei Sokolov, denied the report, saying the president has not seen the car yet. Russian officials neither denied or confirmed the report.

The other two Russian carmakers vying for the prestigious contract are Marussia Motors and GAZ.

According to the Moscow Times, GAZ is developing a luxury model based on the Volkswagen Phaeton and Audi A8, with the car to be ready in 2014.

Marussia has just completed a competition in cooperation with our creative Russian friends over at Cardesign, who notified us about the concepts that made it to the final round, with the winner (or winners), to be announced on May 1. You can check them out for yourself in the gallery below and tell us which one you like the best.

Marussia Concept Photos via Cardesign

Thanks to for the heads up Mikhail!

ZIL-4112P




MARUSSIA CONCEPT LIMOUSINES

---