Just how much money does it cost to be Fast and Furious?  Check out Nikolay Lamm's infographic to find out.

Just how much money did it cost to be The Great Gatsby?  Check out Nikolay Lamm's infographic to find out.

 

Mix stunning aerial pageantry from the best Cirque du Soleil shows with up close stereoscopic 3D camera work produced by legendary filmmaker James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic) and directed by Andew Adamson (Shrek), throw in a love story and wrap it all together with CG transitions and you have Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, which is now available on Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D. 

 

As you can imagine, in my position at AWN, I receive a lot of DVDs.  Many great films, many not so great films. So it’s always a treat when the postman delivers a DVD of a film you really enjoyed and have been waiting to watch up close and personal in all its splendiferous Blu-ray-ness deliciousness (sorry, been watching too many Diners, Drivers and Dives lately).  I’ve been waiting with great anticipation for my copy of Wreck-It Ralph to hit the mailbox. Thankfully, it finally arrived.  I haven’t been this happy since my eldest daughter took over her car payment. 

As an unabashed fan of the film, I can honestly say, with all bias and lack of objectivity, that the high-def Blu-ray version is exquisite.  What a treat to watch on a big screen TV, comfy couch, warm slippers, hot popcorn and trusty bottle of Makers Mark in hand.  Not even my poor old mutt Cassie, polluting the family room with such toxic ferocity I thought Union Carbide moved in next door, could spoil my moment of animation fanboy bliss.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Silly analogy not-withstanding, once again, Disney has done the animation community proud by digitally restoring and releasing one of its all-time classics on Blu-ray.  Almost twenty years in the making, Peter Pan was originally scheduled as Walt Disney’s second animated feature.  Work began in the late 1930s, but the effort was shelved with the start of World War II.  Picked up again in 1947, the film finally was released in 1953.  In celebration of the film’s 60^th anniversary, Disney has just released this animated classic bundled with a great selection of featurettes and some deleted scenes and songs.

The just released DVD set of Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie should be afforded a spot in the collection of any animation fan as well as any serious student of the medium.  Packaged in several different editions, including a 4-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack  (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy), the film and accompanying supporting materials are absolutely radiant – tremendous picture quality and high supplemental material production values make for a great viewer experience. 

Sony Picture Home Entertainment has just released on Blu-ray 3D, DVD and DVD, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, the latest film from those masters of zany stop-motion comedy and cheeky Brit humor, Aardman Animations. The transfer looks great and the animation is superb.  Though the film didn’t catch fire at the international box-office, don’t let that deter you.  The film is one of the few family movies that is enjoyable for youngsters with enough adult humor to keep the geezers happy as well.  The various DVD sets include numerous extras for hours and hours of “aarguably” the greatest set of stop-motion pirate movie festivities of all time.

Before I tell you why you must go see LAIKA’s new stop-motion tour de force, ParaNorman, I’m going to share some deeply personal recollections from my wayward past.  There is relevance here, I assure you.  Just give me a chance.  Many years, ago, when I was a young lad, I often faced the derisive taunts of my schoolmates, who took delight in calling me anything from “Farto” (a deviously pithy replacement of the first letter of my last name – I still get mail to Dan Farto and it pisses me off as much now as it did when I was 7) to “Fat Fuck” to “Jew.”   Many of these upstanding citizens grew up to become pillars of business, doctors, lawyers, disgraced investment bankers.  Two of the meanest became cops.  A couple from the pre-Jackass gene pool died in nasty drug-fueled car crashes soon after dropping out of high school. Even though Facebook was decades away from germinating in the loins of that you-know-which Harvard nabob (I can’t say his name or I’ll break into 20 minutes of angry muttering) and text messaging involved nothing more than a pencil, some paper and a reasonable sidearm throwing motion, very few of my friends and none of the various school bullies ever had any problems finding new and efficient ways of singling me out for their verbal abuse.  They didn’t need no stinking mobile computing devices to focus their bullying.  They were just naturally talented, like Michael Phelps of Jenna Jamison.

 

A new trailer has been released for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.  Come October 5th, we'll see how Burton's early live action short translates into a stop-motion feature.

 

Pixar has released four slightly (and I mean, ever so slightly) different versions of the first Monsters University trailer, which has a June 21, 2013 U.S. release date.  Four high-res images were released as well - links and full images supplied below.