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As the major studios tinker with photorealistic character designs, can Hollywood find the future of animation in its past?

This weekend, families with hit their local multiplex to relive the wonder of Beauty and the Beast in its new live-action format. And whether the film is a runaway hit or only a modest success, Disney shows no signs of plugging its pipeline of live-action remakes. According to this 2016 Time piece, Disney is currently working on no fewer than twelve (that’s one-two) remakes of their popular animated films, meaning twelve more movies featuring up-and-coming actresses, revamped musical numbers, and CGI creatures that take a deep, deep dive into the uncanny valley.

While this brand new surge of Disney movies are likely to each be a technical wonder, for my money, there’s something oddly pedestrian about converting the beautiful Disney animated character designs into a series of photorealistic CGI models. While...

Next year will mark an important one for both DC and female superheroes. It’s been a long time coming, but Wonder Woman will mark the first female solo superhero flick of the current generation (don’t even mention Elektra, please). Additionally, this will be an opportunity to reverse the narrative on these DC Extended Universe films, which have largely received negative reception from both fans and critics alike.

Wonder Woman will definitely have a bit of an uphill battle. In addition to being the fourth film in the DC Extended Universe, it’s a flick that follows a sole superhero, and those generally don’t usually perform as well as the teamup fare. Given that Wonder Woman won’t have the same spectacle of a teamup as its predecessors, DC may be in for a bit of a shock when (or if) they end up realizing that the good...

The rumors were true: Nintendo is bringing one of its oldest franchises to the Wii U. Of course, most of the rumors going into this year’s E3 focused on the possibility of a new Legend of Zelda. But according to an article at Time that posted ahead of today’s Nintendo Digital Event, the company is planning to showcase a new game starring Star Fox, aka Fox McCloud, the sci-fi adventurer who flies around space taking down bad guys in his Arwing. (Except when he hangs out with dinosaurs for some reason.)

According to the Time piece, the new...

Michelle Williams knows firsthand what Mimi O'Donnell, the mother of Philip Seymour Hoffman's three children, is experiencing right now. And on Wednesday, Feb. 5, the actress paid a visit to the NYC apartment of Hoffman's grieving family, presumably to offer her support and empathy in the wake of his tragic death on Feb. 2. In 2008, Heath Ledger, the father of Williams' daughter Matilda, fatally overdosed in a New York City apartment not far from where Seymour was found dead of an apparent overdose with a needle still in his arm. Aaron Sorkin, a former drug addict himself, wrote a heartfelt Time piece about Hoffman's death and what can be learned from it. He recalled meeting up with the late star...

Time magazine is offering a limp excuse for its new Grumpy Cat photo spread -- telling TMZ the fact that it appears to be a flagrant and shameless rip-off of some lesser known feline photos is a total coincidence.The other spread -- featuring an Internet celeb cat named Lil Bub -- first appeared in Bullett Magazine back in October. The Time piece ran last week.And the similarities are glaring -- down to the...

Here's an odd little live-action short from Jim Henson, circa 1966, called Time Piece. It's supposed to address "the effect of time keeping on us all," and it received an Oscar nod. Look closely and you'll see Henson all over this thing -- he wrote it, directed it and starred on it. [Neatorama] For those who've always wondered what actually goes into the motion-capture process, here's a cool video called The Art of Motion Capture that shows you how it's all done.[Laughing Squid] And here's a supercut of all the spells from the Harry Potter movies. [Flavorwire]

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A proposal is on the table which could limit minors from being online for more than three hours consecutively.

As a nation, South Korea is almost the go-to country when talking about the issue of gaming addiction, particularly when it comes to online PC titles. As this Time piece points out, if you're a hot enough online gamer in a title like Starcraft, there's an opportunity there for celebrity and modest wealth. There was even a pretty huge cheating scandal a couple of years back with an unlikely nexus of professional gaming and organized crime.

All of this is the long way of saying online gaming is kind of big deal South Korea. Now, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is considering a proposal which would limit minors' access to online games to no more than three hours a day according to this Gamasutra piece. If the policy were enacted,...

Before he helped pave Sesame Street or invented the Muppets, Jim Henson was a young, experimental filmmaker. One of his earliest works, a 1963 short called "Robot," has been unearthed and put on YouTube by At&T.

The film, made for the company then known as The Bell System, was shown at a seminar for leaders of the then-nascent data-communications field. At&T -- which rustled up the video from Henson's archive and put it on its YouTube page -- writes that the film was inspired by an executive named Ted Mills and his memo to Henson, which described the relationship between man and machine this way: "He [the robot] is sure that All Men Basically Want to Play Golf, and not run businesses -- if he can do it better."

"Robot" features a cold, unfeeling machine consuming "oceans of information" as it derides the laziness and emotional vulnerability of man. It's a fun,...

Before he helped pave Sesame Street or invented the Muppets, Jim Henson was a young, experimental filmmaker. One of his earliest works, a 1963 short called "Robot," has been unearthed and put on YouTube by At&T.

The film, made for the company then known as The Bell System, was shown at a seminar for leaders of the then-nascent data-communications field. At&T, which rustled up the video from Henson's archive and put it on its YouTube page, writes that the film was inspired by an executive named Ted Mills and his memo to Henson, which described the relationship between man and machine this way: "He [the robot] is sure that All Men Basically Want to Play Golf, and not run businesses -- if he can do it better."

"Robot" features a cold, unfeeling machine consuming "oceans of information" as it derides the laziness and emotional vulnerability of man. It's a fun, dark...

Before he helped pave Sesame Street or invented the Muppets, Jim Henson was a young, experimental filmmaker. One of his earliest works, a 1963 short called "Robot," has been unearthed and put on YouTube by At&T. The film, made for the company then known as The Bell System, was shown at a seminar for leaders of the then-nascent data-communications field. At&T -- which rustled up the video from Henson's archive and put it on its YouTube page -- writes that the film was inspired by an executive named Ted Mills and his memo to Henson, which described the relationship between man and machine this way: "He [the robot] is sure that All Men Basically Want to Play Golf, and not run businesses -- if he can do it better." "Robot" features a cold, unfeeling machine consuming "oceans of information" as it derides the laziness and emotional vulnerability of man. It's a fun,...

By now many have experienced the clever, goofy, unfiltered joy of The Muppets, a film whose success reflects the plight of its characters – out of the spotlight for far too long and working their way back into the the public consciousness. While the film’s potent mix of charm and nostalgia is undeniable (if you didn’t tear up during the performance of Rainbow Connection, you’re inhuman), it might leave some of us hungry for more, and I don’t mean the soft stuff. While the film is true to one facet of Henson’s work, he was a mad, prolific genius who got involved with many projects in which the touches of the dark or surreal that only made the occasional appearance on his most populist fare like The Muppet Show and Sesame Street were allowed to fully develop.

Below, ten of the most wonderfully weird works from...

Thank you to Glenn for drawing our attention to this Melancholia poster starring Lars von Trier (one of a series). When was the last time you saw a director on his own movie poster?

I mean apart from Hitchcock's Psycho -- the one where he warns you about not entering the theater late -- I can't think of one (unless the director is also the lead actor of course). It's impish fun to use von Trier this way in marketing since anyone buying a ticket to Melancholia is going to know who he is. But the "persona non grata" Cannes seal in the upper left corner is the real design coup here. Well done, whoever thought of it.

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My New Plaid Pants chooses five fav Gwyneth Paltrow performances. Where the hell is Flesh and Bone? That'd make mine.

Thelma Adams recruits female pundits and critics to talk Best Supporting...

When Jim Henson passed away, a few unproduced projects were left on his desk. One was an early project called Tale of Sand, a script written with frequent Muppet co-writer Jerry Juhl. The script has been adapted into a graphic novel, by Ramón Perez and comic publisher Archaia. A twenty-page preview is now online, so you can get a taste of how one of Henson's unrealized projects has been translated to the comic page. Archaia [1] has the preview (via Bleeding Cool [2]) but you can see four pages in the gallery below. Head to the Archaia link to see more. [gallery columns="2"] Bleeding Cool [3] did an interview with the publisher earlier this year, which sheds some light on the project's history: This is an idea he came up with in the mid to late 50s and worked with Jerry Juhl in scripting a feature length screenplay throughout the late 60s and early 70s.

Deadline Comic-Con film correspondent Luke Y Thompson files: In a small-yet-packed room, all the way across the convention center and up the stairs from Hollywood's big Hall H stuff, significant bits of film history were coming to light. After Archaia Entertainment CEO P.J. Bickett warmed up the crowd with a joke about how their next project could be “New Kids on the Block meet Fraggle Rock,” it was revealed that Archaia's partnership with the Jim Henson Company included material from the Henson vaults, some of which had never been seen before. A full page movie script written by Henson and longtime collaborator Jerry Juhl in 1968, A Tale Of Sand, has been found and will soon come to light in comic book form. As for a potential movie form – that went unmentioned. Also never before seen, and screened, was a short piece of experimental animation set to the music of Chico Hamilton,...

Milan Records will be releasing the soundtrack album for the French drama Sarah’s Key. The album includes the original score from the film composed by Max Richter, as well as several songs from the film by artists including Frehel, Loren Wilfong and Sarah Ber. The soundtrack will be released on June 19 and will be available to download on Amazon. Check out audio clips from all track on the album below. Sarah’s Key (Elle s’appelait Sarah) is directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and stars Kristin Scott Thomas as an American journalist living in Paris, Melusine Mayance and Niels Arestrup. The film premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and has been picked up by the Weinstein Company for a theatrical release on July 22. For more details on the film, visit the official movie website.

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Here’s the album track list:

01. La java bleue – Frehel

02. The...

Time piece connoisseur and archetypal hype man, Flavor Flav, comes clean about his crazy past in his new memoir, "Flavor Flav: Icon." In it, he talks about his career turn from rapper to reality TV star, and all the blow he did in between. He also talks about losing his virginity at age six, which he expounded upon in an interview with PopEater.

"I was six years old. I lost my virginity by experimenting. The girl was the same age as me. We kind of felt a little something funny. We knew it was kind of wrong yet we felt it was kind of natural," Flav explained. "I mean I call it a lost virginity when the penis penetrates the vagina, I do consider that a cherry pop."

Flav, who never tires of carrying a giant clock around with him also described his rampant cocaine addiction. "I was spending $2,600 a day,...

We’re really excited about an upcoming series we’re doing at the Ritz, the Muppets™, Music & Magic: Jim Henson’s Legacy program! In fact, we’re so excited we put it on the cover of our guide. Why are we excited about the Muppets?

Because Henson’s bizarre children are some of America’s most cherished cultural icons. Whether you identify with the trash-talking Oscar the Grouch, the endlessly-excitable Kermit the Frog, the karate chopping egotist Miss Piggy, or the balcony hecklers Statler and Waldorf, there’s certainly a place deep in your heart for these felt friends. And we want to celebrate that thermonuclear warmth.

We’ve partnered with The Jim Henson Legacy and Brooklyn Academy of Music to present a series of special Muppet-related programming. You’ll see some of the greatest moments of the 50+ year history of the Muppets, rarely seen gems from the Sesame Street vaults,...

The second annual Arkansas Underground Film Festival returns to Hot Springs, Ar on Aug. 13-15 for an eclectic mix of both classic and modern films and videos.

Actually, after the festival’s official website vanished from the web following their inaugural edition last year, I thought Arkuff had called it quits. But, they’ve simply moved to a new website and are apparently somehow affiliated with the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

It also seems to be a totally curated festival sans submissions from filmmakers. The fest mostly consists of themed short film blocks, such as first films by filmmakers like David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Jim Henson and Guy Maddin; a night of classic avant-garde films by Bruce Conner and Kenneth Anger; a William Wegman retrospective; and a block devoted to Riot Grrrl cinema by Sadie Benning and Miranda July.

The two features that are being screened are David Lynch...

I miss Jim Henson.

Yeah, I miss the world of puppetry he became famous for, how could I not? But there's something I am missing a whole lot more. I miss the man and creator I never knew, the one I wish could have balanced the Muppets and Sesame Street with his previous adult fare. See, back in 1965, he wrote, directed, and starred in a short film called Time Piece. Let me rephrase that -- the awesome short called Time Piece that earned him an Oscar nomination.

A wild, surreal look at the philosophy of time, the film starts with Henson in a hospital as a doctor tries to listen to his irregularly beating heart. Henson taps his fingers, he coughs, and soon he's not an invalid. Visually and aurally set to the same beat, Henson's Man is briskly taken through a number of settings and scenarios. I'm talking everything from reenacting Tarzan's epic,...

The Muppets for the month of May. We are truly blessed here in Portland. Thank you, Northwest Film Center. And now to make sure this is in your head the rest of the day …

It’s time to play the music

It’s time to light the lights

It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.

It’s time to put on makeup

It’s time to dress up right

It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight.

Why do we always come here

I guess we’ll never know

It’s like a kind of torture

To have to watch the show

And now let’s get things started

Why don’t you get things started

It’s time to get things started

On the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational

This is what we call the Muppet Show

The Northwest Film...

Man, I'm really trying hard not to make a bad "TV that's outside the box" joke here... Anyway, I'm sure you all know the late Jim Henson, creator and director of Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Show and of course Sesame Street. Well before he revolutionized children's entertainment, he was an experimental filmmaker.

Henson directed The Cube in 1969 and the film was broadcast as part of NBC's "Experiment In Television" in the late 60's. It was only ever shown twice and has, over the years, become somewhat legendary. Of course now that the web has made these lost gems so accessible we're able to present it for you here!

The film is about a man who wakes up a prisoner in a strange and stark white room. Even though he can't escape, people seem to be able to enter and strange things can happen. Remind you of any other films called "Cube?...