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It's engaging stories, great characters, good acting, lighting and hundreds of things working together that makes a motion picture a truly MOVING experience. One of the most critical pieces is a film's musical score. Even before recorded dialogue, music was there and it's always had the power...

With " Brave " opening at No. 1 this past weekend , that now makes it thirteen hits in a row for Pixar Animation Studios . A box office winning streak which has been applauded & envied by many in Hollywood for nearly two decades now. And speaking of thirteen in a row ... By doing the voice...

In honor of Super Bowl Sunday (that annual television event that turns tens of millions of us into couch potatoes, when we wolf down handful of greasy potato chips and/or platters full of toppings-laden potato skins), I thought that - today - it might be appropriate to pay tribute to that most cinematic...

Here's kind of a depressing fact to start 2011 off with: 88% of all people will fail to keep their New Year's resolution . With 45% of those folks falling off the self-improvement wagon by the end of January. And why is that exactly? To be blunt, it's because a lot of us aren't willing...

So what's the very best way to break into the biz? Does going to some four year school like Emerson College or CalArts (which specializes in Communications and the performing arts) really give you an advantage? Or would it better in the long run to just hook up with some outfit like pabootcamp and...

In 1979 George Lucas decided to create the Graphics Group as part of the computer division within Lucasfilm . In 1986, Steve Jobs paid Lucas $5 million and renamed the newly independent company Pixar . Twenty-five years have passed, and as of last Friday, " Toy Story 3 " has earned $920 million...

With “Toy Story 3” earning over $365 million worldwide since this Lee Unkrich film was released on June 18 th (More importantly, with the “Toy Story” franchise having produced over $8 billion in global retail sales to date), it is sometime hard to remember that – just 15 years ago – there weren’t a whole...

If you read my March 16 th non-review of that Showest screening of “ Toy Story 3 ,” then you already know that I’m a huge fan of this Lee Unkrich film. But you know what truly impressed me about this Pixar production? That in the months leading up to the release of this acclaimed animated feature, no...

It’s that time of year again. When high school and college students all over the country are graduating. More importantly, when JHM readers reach out and ask for my suggestions when it comes to the perfect graduation gift for the would-be animators and Imagineers in their families. This year, though...

Let’s start with the obvious question: Is Lee Unkrich concerned that he’s going to be the guy who breaks Pixar’s now-10-pictures-long winning streak? When I got to talk with the director of “ Toy Story 3 ” as part of a roundtable session at Comic-Con last year, Lee admitted that – with each new hit that...

A few days ago, Lee Unkrich tweeted this phone message that he received from someone named Geordi. Who – upon learning that Lee was directing “ Toy Story 3 ” – actually left Unkrich voicemail which said : “Please, please don’t screw (this movie) up … Make it big. Make sure that something very important...

With its turn-of-the-century architecture, Gotham Hall has long prided itself on being that spot in New York City “ … where style meets sophistication.” Well, yesterday morning, all of that style & sophistication gave way to silliness. As Disney Consumer Products turned this seven-story-tall gilded...

Have you looked at the calendar lately? No, I’m not talking about how there are just seven shopping days ‘til Christmas. I mean that – as of today – we’ve just two weeks left ‘til 2010 gets underway. Well, the folks who run The Walt Disney Company are clearly already making plans for next year. Over...

So what are the odds that – all on your own – you’ll ever get to see the inside of Pixar Animation Studios ? To be honest, they’re not good. At an “Up” preview screening that was held in Hartford, CT. back in May of this year, Donald Evans (i.e. the Senior Vice President of Animation Marketing for Walt...

According to John Lasseter, the folks at Pixar Animation Studios have been dying to make “Toy Story 3” for years now. But – that said – that doesn’t mean that it’s been all that easy to come up with a storyline that was a worthy follow-up to the much-beloved “Toy Story” & “Toy Story 2.” As John recalled...

Bernie W. writes in to say: Jim -- Can you please help me win a bet at work? A co-worker of mine says that WALL-E makes a brief cameo appearance in " Ratatouille ." More importantly, this guy has bet me $100 that I'll never ever be able to find that robot in this movie. Copyright 2007 Disney...

There's this genuinely eerie passage in Karen Paik 's " To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios " ( Chronicle Books , November 2007), which talks about how a single book basically changed the course of John Lasseter 's life. In ninth grade, Lasseter was searching the art section...

I know, I know. Pixar diehards keep insisting that " Ratatouille " is this enormous success. That there's no possible way that anyone could ever be disappointed with the way this Brad Bird film has performed to date. Well, if that's really the case, then someone should probably tell Brad that. For -...

By now, you've probably heard that -- over this past weekend -- " Ratatouille " finally officially achieved really-for-real blockbuster status. Earning over $200 million during its initial domestic run. Mind you, it did take this new Brad Bird film quite a while to reach that milestone. As you can see...