Step 1. Don’t mess with a good thing. Despicable Me follows a tried and true formula of good story + decent animation = entertaining family film. But it isn’t quite up to Pixar quality.
Step 2. Realize it can’t all be Pixar. I’ve said it before and will most likely say it again: Pixar sets a high bar when it comes to animated films. In essence, every other animated film (yes, I count the DreamWorks ones, too) seems to pale, even in the smallest degrees, in comparison. Thankfully, Despicable Me falls in the smallest degree category, meaning it does hold up better well under the Pixar microscope.
Step 3. Call your hero Gru. The story revolves around a wannabe bad guy named Gru (Steve Carell), who, up to this point, hasn’t really achieved truly evil mastermind status. I mean, the best he’s done is to steal the Statue of Liberty… the small one from Las Vegas. He tries, though, exciting his army of minions (little yellow creatures that look like pill capsules with goggles) with dastardly plans and inventing new – and mostly useless – devices to carry out such plans. But when a young whipper snapper evil genius named Vector (Jason Segel) starts beating Gru to the punch, Gru decides he’ll do the impossible – steal the Moon – to outshine his competitor. But Gru actually has some redeeming qualities, which come out when he adopts three little girls from the local orphanage as a way to get into Vector’s lair and unexpectedly becomes attached to them. Aw, turns out the hunched bald guy is a big softie after all! Does he eventually steal the moon? Or does he chuck his evil plans to make it to the girls’ ballet recital? I’m not going to tell; you’ll have to see for yourself.
Step 4. Hire a good vocal cast. Carell perfectly voices this loathsome yet sweet character, who is a cross between The Addams Family’s Uncle Fester and Boris Karloff. Segel plays Vector as a spoiled brat with too much time on his hands. The three girls, voiced by iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Elsie Fisher, are adorable, especially Fisher whose line “It’s so FLUFFY!” makes me laugh every time I hear it in the trailer. Other supporting voices include Kristen Wiig as the mean orphanage owner; Russell Brand as Gru’s mad scientist partner; Will Arnett as the president of the evil mastermind bank (they’ve got to get their money for their doomsday machines somewhere); and then the minions, who almost always steal the show. I can see those toys all over the floor now.
Level of difficulty in watching Despicable Me: Nil. BUT … If Toy Story 3 had not just come out, I might be singing Despicable Me‘s highest praises. It’s hard for me to watch another film of its ilk and say, “Oh yeah, that’s just as good or even better.” Sorry, I can’t do it. Still, Despicable Me does what it sets out to do, and audiences of all ages should enjoy themselves.
Step 1: Listen up, all aspiring 3D filmmakers: Pay attention to what James Cameron has done with his truly spectacular looking Avatar. This, my friends, is the right way to create a 3D film experience.
and her team are plugged into cylinder machines, their Na’vi look-a-likes walk among the tribe. Things get dicey, however, when paraplegic Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) shows up as the newest member of the scientific team. The gung-ho military leader Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) zeroes in on Jake and convinces him to gather intel on the tribe while he is one of them. He agrees – but then Jake experiences his first real avatar excursion and is hooked. He begins bonding with the Na’vi people, who decide to train him to become a warrior, and eventually falls in love with the beautiful Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), his teacher. When Jake starts to side with the Na’vi, Quaritch takes matter into his own destructive hands. You can see where this is going, right?
form of digital 3D filmmaking with Ghost of the Abyss and now Avatar. While he may lack a certain pizazz as a screenwriter, his what must be obsessive-compulsive perfectionism in making Avatar a groundbreaking feat in filmmaking astounds you. Beyond just placing the audience “in the moment” with the 3D technology, Cameron manages to create this world of Pandora around you so exquisitely, you can almost touch it. It’s lush, mossy green, quiet, explosive, filled with sights (giant rainbow-colored flying birds, hairless dogs) and sounds (the Na’vi’s rebel yell). This guy deserves SOME kind of an award for this remarkable achievement – and with his recent Golden Globe nomination and possible Oscar nod, he may get it. Again.
2D animation isn’t dead yet, dagnabit! It’s not surprising 
John Lassiter: “When I was up at Pixar and when the studios down here decided that were not going to do hand drawn animation anymore, it broke my heart. Never in the history of cinema has a film been entertaining to an audience BECAUSE of the technology. It’s what you do with the technology. So when the merger of Disney and Pixar happen, the very first decision we made was we were going to bring back hand drawn animation. And as we started working on [The Princess and the Frog] and bringing people back, it was so exciting. Some of the artists left the studio that were working on hand drawn animation because they didn’t want to be kind of re-trained for computer animation. But some of the artists were re-trained. So we brought both of those groups back together and never have I worked a group of artists who had more to prove to the world; it was a dream team of artists. This art form is spectacular. And I asked from them to aim high. ‘Let’s make great art’ I said, so we chose two films to look at: Lady and the Tramp and Bambi. Bambi for the bayou, the nature and almost impressionistic qualities, and Lady and the Tramp for the humans, architecture and character design. Pinnacle of Walt Disney’s style.”
of dangerous to choose a person and lift them up so high. I’m gonna play a role that somebody doesn’t like. At some point, they are going to be, ‘She was AWFUL!’ and think bad things. But I think if we can separate those things and think to yourself, ‘Wow, I really like how she’s handled her career. I like the way she handles herself as a person’ then I’m really honored and amazing. I hope it does push other children to look up and say, ‘See that star up, the one you can barely see that twinkles small, that’s one I’m going to grab.’ And they do it.”
Step 1: Combine the late Roald Dahl’s clever storytelling, director Wes Anderson’s cinematic sensibilities and an engaging vocal cast and you’ve got the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox — one quirky, dangerous, sweet and entirely entertaining flick.
Step 4: Speaking of Tim Burton, don’t let the stop-motion animation stop you. While this technique is still one of the most painstakingly detailed form of animation, so visually cool, Anderson wanted Fantastic Mr. Fox to go one step further than just the usual animated fare. Instead of the actors sitting separately in sound booths to record their parts, the director set it up where the actors met in the English countryside and did their parts almost as a radio play, with everything being recorded as they acted it out. I’m sure this was the only way Anderson COULD do it, if wanted the film to be distinctly his, and it pays off. The dialogue seems much more organic, and Anderson employs some of his favorites, including Schwartzman, Bill Murray as Badger, Willem Dafoe as Rat, Michael Gambon as Mr. Bean and Owen Wilson as Coach Skip. Adding Clooney and Streep to the mix is just pure genius. Wouldn’t be surprised is Clooney joined the Anderson gang permanently, but then Wes would have to fight the Coen brothers, Grant Heslov or Steven Soderbergh for Clooney’s time.
Step 1: Chalk this one up to bad timing. After all the other animated CGI films this year, Planet 51 just feels like a rehash, and not nearly as charming as it wants to be.
Writer/director Wes Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers, ever since Bottle Rocket, his first film. I just dig his style – the stories about broken or unorthodox family circles, the great production design, the title cards always in the yellow Futura Bold font, the eccentric soundtracks. So, when I heard he was tackling children writer Roald Dahl’s delightful 
Factory and The Twits, which was my favorite one. And the movie is so scary. Have you seen the movie? Whoa. I knew [Fantastic Mr. Fox] as a kid, too. It’s crazy that I could be a part of a real piece of literature, not only literature but something that means a lot to a nation, a world. I heard he was the most beloved in all of England. The country did a poll, he’s the No. 1 most loved writer.”
Step 4: Make that style work with a stop-motion animated film, even if it kills you
eating, we all were really eating. The sound was recorded with just one microphone. And that’s how we could get overlapping and mistakes. It’s always an adventure with Wes, now that I think about it.”
Step 1: Hold onto your mug of warm apple cider. This newest, action-packed version of A Christmas Carol could get a little bumpy.
