I am going to get crucified for what I am about to say in this post. Deep breath. Please don't hate me. Deep breath. Here goes ... I do not watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yes, it's true. Family Guy. Check. Robot Chicken. Check. Futurama. Check. Erik gets yelled out by his wife when he attempts to watch three minutes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (or ATHF) because she thinks it's the stupidest show on the planet. Triple check.

The bits and pieces of the show I have watched were pretty solid, though it's safe to say The Force is best enjoyed when your mind is a bit altered ... if you catch my drift. For those who are not aware, ATHF is a cartoon aired daily on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and it revolves around the bumbling adventures of Meatwad (a wad of meat), Master Shake (a milkshake) and Frylock (a box of french fries). Needless to say, the show has built up enough steam (as well as a massive fanbase) through its television play and DVDs to warrant a feature film on the big screen. Not long ago, a very funny teaser hit the net, and now Variety brings us word that First Look Pictures will debut the 86-minute film this March on 800 screens across the country.

Pic, which was written, produced and directed by co-creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, will primarily focus on the origins of the three characters and feature the voice talent of Maiellaro, Willis, Bruce Campbell (kick ass!) and Neil Peart of the band Rush. It shall be interesting to see how this film does theatrically (I'd say $8-9 million would be a huge success -- keep in mind it's only on 800 screens), but I'm positive the DVD will rake in the cash. What other Adult Swim toons would you like to see on the big screen?

Just the fact that I had to check the spelling of the film seven times before creating the title of this post isn't a good sign of things to come for Disney and Pixar. Say what you want about this summer's crop of films (they're all sequels to sequels to sequels!), it's sure to go down as one of the most competitive in recent history. According to Jim Hill Media, it's that competition which is scaring the mouse poop out of Disney's marketing department, who are currently sweating bullets over how exactly to go about marketing the next Pixar film, Ratatouille, due out June 29.

Now, you're probably sitting there, saying to yourself: "But Erik, Cars was the second highest grossing film of 2006 with over $244 million at the domestic box office -- why should Disney be worried about how Ratatouille will perform?" Well, while that number is most certainly ginormous, it failed to meet the studio's internal financial projections and could not live up to the bigger figures produced by flicks like The Incredibles ($261 million) and Finding Nemo ($339 million). Add to that the fact that Cars had no real competition for at least six weeks, and you're looking at a combination of luck and positioning which helped it reach $244 million.

On the other hand, Ratatouille will have to fend off Transformers (July 4) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13) with a plot that revolves around a rat (not the cleanest of animals) who dreams about being a chef (great, a filthy animal who cooks food -- there's a pleasant image). Nemo had no real competition on the animated front, The Incredibles caught us at the peak of the superhero trend and Cars had the massive Nascar audience to feed off of. So, who does Ratatouille turn to? Rat lovers? Heck, Dreamworks' rat flick saw its box office figures flushed right down the toilet -- what's not to say the same thing won't happen to Ratatouille? And then who gets blamed for the Pixar acquisition? And what does that do to Pixar's rep?

And don't even get me started on which toy the kids would rather own -- a sweeet looking Transformer or a stuffed rat with a piece of cheese on its head??

I was at a party full of film geeks last weekend, and what movie were people talking about at length? Not Awesome; I F***ing Shot That!, the Beastie Boys movie playing in the background; not any of the Oscar contenders currently flooding theaters; not even Christmas movies. No, for some reason, the people around me were chatting nostalgically about the recent DVD release of Disney's 1973 animated Robin Hood, which features animated woodland animals as the principal characters in the standard Robin Hood/Maid Marian story. The voice talent included Disney regulars Peter Ustinov as evil Prince John, Phil Harris as Little John, and Terry-Thomas as Prince John's nasty sidekick, Sir Hiss.

Another character was voiced by a musician who composed some of the songs for the film, the late Roger Miller. Miller's 70th birthday is today; he died in 1992 from cancer. It's probably not considered fashionable to confess to a liking for Miller and his 1960s-era country music, but I grew up listening to it on road trips and in my grandmother's car (on 8-track, no less), and his music is still a road-trip favorite of mine. As a child, I found the novelty-style lyrics in songs like "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd" irresistable. So you can imagine that I was naturally enamored of a movie that combined cute animated creatures with Miller's music. I even had a 45 rpm record with songs from the movie to play on my little plastic turntable. In Robin Hood, Miller plays Alan-a-Dale, the singing rooster, as pictured above. I haven't seen the movie in years and years, although I can remember Miller's "Whistle Stop" song from the film pretty well.

Miller wasn't in many other films, although occasionally he turned up on TV shows, and his songs still appear on a number of soundtracks. In the past year, his big hit "King of the Road" could be heard in Talladega Nights and Brokeback Mountain. Now I'm wondering whether it's worthwhile to give Robin Hood another look, or if it's one of those movies that's best remembered nostalgically from childhood days. The film geeks at the party claimed that the new DVD contains an alternate ending, but is it worth the risk of possibly finding the movie too childish and irritating from an older viewpoint?

John Patterson has an interesting article up over on The Guardian carping about the liberties Hollywood has taken in adapting classics of British children's literature. The most recent offender, of course, is Miss Potter, directed by Australian Chris Noonan and starring Texan Renée Zellweger as Britain's beloved best-selling author, rather than any number of British actresses who could have played the part.

Patterson is (mostly, at least) tongue-in-cheek -- at least I think he is, I don't always grok British humor. But this is, after all, the same chap who, in writing about the religious right witch-hunting animated films, called Bugs Bunny a "flagrant naturist" and said of Foghorn Leghorn that he's "all about the cock" -- something that most American writers would be way too uptight to dare to say in print. Any writer who goes after Dr. James Dobson for labeling Spongebob Squarepants a "nellie" just because he holds hands with his best friend Patrick and watches "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy" is okay in my book.

It's practically impossible for me to sit here and list the top ten short films from 2006. Not only are there thousands of shorts to sift through, but the majority of them are not available online. So, how does Erik go about putting together a list of the best short films from 2006? Will he randomly spew out names and titles for films you'll never be able to see unless you just happen to show up at a specific festival on a specific day at a specific time?

Of course not. What I've actually done is comb through all the previous Eat My Shorts and chosen my ten favorite short films that I've written about this year. Most (if not all) of them are not from 2006, but they are available online and all of them are wonderful, fantastic and definitely deserve your attention. This has been an amazing year for short films, and I like to think (in my own bizarre fantasy world) that Eat My Shorts truly helped spread the word -- that it helped bring more attention to an art form that desperately needs to be back in front of a mass audience. Oh, and thanks to you for being a part of the revolution. Viva la Shorts!

Cartoons are a pixel's-length away from taking the Academy by storm. Animated films this year have a serious increase in competitors, giving award voters a lot to choose from. As the Oscar watch warmsup, studios are wooing Academy members for their animated films as much as they are for Dreamgirls or Babel. This year there are sixteen animated features that are contenders for Best Animated Feature nominations. A category once dominated by Pixar and DreamWorks, the pool has now grown to include Fox, Sony and Warner Brothers.

It was a good year for much of Hollywood, but a bad year for A Good Year. The Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe team-up only grossed $7 million domestically, and has been labeled a flop. Variety has listed the major box office disappointments for 2006, and interestingly enough, a few of them have to do with water. The appropriately bad way to describe their fate, then, is to say that they drowned. Flushed Away, The Lady in the Water, Poseidon and The Fountain (okay, I didn't see it, but I don't think there's an actual water-type fountain), just couldn't swim. Here's some more bad puns: Sharon Stone didn't have the Basic Instict 2 stay away from a dumb sequel; Producer Dean Devin said, "Flyboys," to his new movie but it crashed and burned; All the King's Men stayed away from this remake, and so did everyone else; Audiences let their Freedomland in other activities besides seeing a movie starring Julianne Moore and Samuel L. Jackson. There's no pun needed for The Wicker Man; it just sucked.

Unlike the biggest flops of all time, none of these movies from 2006 broke a studio or likely ended a career. Ridley Scott and Wolfgang Petersen (director of Poseidon) have had flops before, but they can be forgiven for "flukes" every once in awhile since they usually turn out successful work. Plus, their films did okay business overseas. International box office saves more flops these days than back in the times of the really big bombs. Most of the other filmmakers represented are also probable to bounce back, or at least fall back on their other talents. Joe Roth (Freedomland) has already returned to producing. Steve Zaillian (All the King's Men) is back to writing. Tony Bill (Flyboys) may continue acting. Michael Caton-Jones (Basic Instinct 2) will eventually make another crappy film. M. Night Shyamalan (Lady in the Water) might need to be forced to work on somebody else's script for once, but he isn't going to disappear anytime soon, unfortunately.

You've heard his voice a million times, and now you can actually see what he looks like. Don LaFontaine, who has provided the "This summer, one man fights injustice and tyranny ..." voiceovers for over 3,500 different projects appears in this video, along with a sleigh-load of other voiceover talent reading "The Night Before Christmas." Aside from the Blockbuster commercials a few years ago, and the bizarre yet funny short film Five Men and a Limo which was made for the 26th Annual Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards from 1997 (that's a mouthful), you've probably never seen this guy's face.

Now's your chance to see him, Eddie Deezen, Dennis Haysbert, Jim Cummings and a load of other voice over actors (hey, you throw the voice of Pooh and Tigger into anything, and I'm a sucker for it) instead of just hearing them. They do a great job of it, and even throw in some Hanukkah cheer. After the jump, gather your friends and family around the warm glow of the computer screen, and let them soak in the wonderment of something you never see: the face of voiceover artists.

Well, the day has finally arrived and we here at Cinematical would like to wish you and yours a happy, healthy, film-inspired Merry Christmas. Should you be looking for something to read while the (turkey? ham? some other random meat?) is cooking in the oven, here's a recap of all the wonderful lists we've thrown together in honor of the holiday season. Enjoy! (Oh, and try not to eat too much.)

Cinematical's 12 Days of Cinematicalmas:

DVDs Your Kids Want, Even if They Don't Know It -- Says Kim: "Sure, there are a few gems here and there, but this Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/winter holiday of your choice, why not reach back a little into the past for some truly great children's films that your kids may not even know enough about to put on their wish list?"

The World's Most Obnoxious Xmas Comedies -- Says Scott: "So anyway, the Deck the Halls trailer reminded me -- hey, there's been a whole BUNCH of really rotten Christmas comedies over the past few decades! At least seven, anyway! Which brings us to the list; all naughty, no nice."

Documentary Box Sets to Add to Your Christmas List -- Says Christopher: "When it comes to movies, single-title DVDs just aren't going to cut it. Criterion editions are almost there, but not quite. No, for your present demands, you need something bigger, like a box set."

Essential Home Theater Gifts for the Film Buff -- Says Chris: "If you watch movies at home and want to maximize the "cinematic experience" of those movies, following are some essential tools that will help you get there."

Seven Things You Didn't Know About It's A Wonderful Life -- Says James: "Here are seven things you may not know about the Frank Capra / Jimmy Stewart classic, from where it began to its reverberations in the here and now."

Movies to Wrap Presents By -- Says Jette: "I'm very fond of putting on a movie in the background while I'm wrapping presents. The idea is that the movie should be something I've seen before, so I am not tempted to put down the scissors and ribbons and watch closely."

Non-Christmas Movies Set During the Holiday Season -- Says Jeffrey: "Sometimes a movie simply set during the holiday season can weave Christmas into its storyline without making an overt holiday statement, and these can evoke a warmth and nostalgia -- or sometimes the opposite -- of their own."

If you're going to remake a classic film, you can do it one of two ways: Either you take the path of doing something so completely different from the original that their mutual origin is practically indistinguishable, or you pay homage to the first by sticking as close as possible to where you started. Charlotte's Web, starring Dakota Fanning as the spirited farmgirl, Fern, who saves the life of a runty pig, and Julia Roberts as the indefatigable spider who weaves a magical web to save him again.

I was five when the classic animated adaptation of the E.B. White book came out; I've watched it countless times -- especially as my own children came to love the film and watched it over (and over ... and over) on videocassette and then DVD -- and it's always held a special place in my heart. So when I heard a remake was in the works, I was a smidge ambivalent. Why mess with something that already works so well? Who could ever replace Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte A. Cavativa, the arachnoid with a heart of gold? Julia Roberts, that's who.

I distinctly remember sitting through George Miller's wonderfully sweet Babe a few years back and thinking "Wow, someone could totally make an excellent movie out of Charlotte's Web with this technology." And while, like millions of you, I grew up adoring the Hanna-Barbera animated version of E.B. White's classic story, the truth is that, well, the book's a whole lot better than the cartoon. (Watch it again, nostalgia-fans, and you'll see what I mean.)

So when I sat down with this all-new feature-length live-action adaptation of Charlotte's Web, I was equal parts excited and skeptical. (I really loved the book when I was a kid.) I'd heard that the flick was originally offered to Tim Burton, but he chose to do Sweeney Todd instead, and that's just as well -- because the director I was mildly cautious about (Gary Winick, Tadpole and 13 Going on 30) turned out to do a bang-up job on Charlotte's Web. Big handshake to writers Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge) and Susannah Grant (Ever After) for keeping the spirit of White's book alive while tweaking it just enough for our oh-so-modern kiddies.

The idea and feelings behind Christmas change drastically at a few key points throughout your life. Of course, there's the first realization that Santa does not actually exist, and instead your mom and dad are buying the presents -- at the same time, trying to convince you it is instead some big fat man from the North Pole who's sliding down the chimney with a bag full of stuff from the local mall. Some kids just connect the dots as they begin to get older, others find out from "smarter kids" and, well, people like me find out after they get up to go to the bathroom at midnight.

Once the cat is out of the bag, you go through a brief period of time where, instead of harassing Santa through poorly-written letters, you harass your poor parents. A lot of the magic is now gone, and it becomes simply about the gifts. However, once you're old enough to start working, a new kind of pressure emerges -- the kind that quietly whispers in your ear: "Hey kid, you should start getting presents for other people now." Once that happens, Christmas, as you know it, is officially over ...

Pencil. Paper. Have you two met? I think the better question may be directed to the animator -- do you remember how to use them? I remember when Toy Story came out in 1995 -- it was huge! It broke barriers being the first full-length computer animated film. It was exciting and quickly became the thing to do; seemingly making hand drawing the thing of the past. Disney animation is now putting a stop to the CGI addiction and returning to a more traditional drawing plan.

This change, just announced today by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, will take place in Walt Disney Co.'s Burbank studios, leaving Pixar to exclusively work onCGI projects. There isn't a specific answer to why the change happened, but one rumor centers around Chris Sanders who is responsible for Lilo and Stitch and the upcoming film American Dog. Lilo and Stitch, if you can remember, was hand-drawn -- and was a huge success. Perhaps they're hoping the same hand-drawn success with American Dog.

I do think it's nice to know that there is an effort being made in preserving this art form. I often times get worried with how great technology has become that we get further and further away from our origins. Being a bit of a technology dunce I don't understand the steps necessary in making a CGI film but I do fondly reminisce about the making of Steamboat Willie. I still vividly remember watching how they drew out the story to create the film. It was exciting seeing the characters come to life right off the page. I find relief knowing that there are many films to come made in that same historical way ... and I'm sure many animators are relieved too.

For many of my generation, Hanna-Barbera animation is more associated with television than film (see TVSquad's post). After all, the studio produced some of the most famous TV cartoons from the '60s on, including The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Yogi Bear Show, The Powerpuff Girls, and many, many more. Plus, the Cartoon Network would hardly be anything if not for the team-up of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

But Hanna-Barbera had a lot to do with cinema, and not just for movie versions of their series, like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. In the beginning, before cartoons were a Saturday morning TV staple, they were a Saturday afternoon cinema staple, and animated shorts were shown on the big screen. Hanna and Barbera got their start making shorts for MGM, which led to multiple Oscars for their Tom and Jerry titles (none of which were actually won by the pair by name) plus an uncredited bit for Anchors Aweigh, before the studio closed its animation studio in 1957. It was then that the duo formed their own company and dove into television, but other features did come now and then, such as The Man Called Flintstone, Jetsons: The Movie and Charlotte's Web.

William Hanna died in 2001 and now Joseph Barbera has joined him in Hollywood Heaven. He died Monday of natural causes at the age of 95.

For some reason I was getting all nostalgic this morning. I was thinking back to the days when I was in school, before the internet blew up, when the trailer premieres for huge summer blockbusters were reserved only for special spots in the primetime television lineup. I remember looking forward to Superbowl Sunday, not for the game itself, but to see which big summer trailers would debut during the commercials. However, now that I write for a movie blog and movie trailers hit the net before the theater, and before TV, a certain magic has disappeared. There's hype, sure, but there was just something about waiting for a certain day, a certain time, to crowd around the television in anticipation with no idea what was about to hit. Or maybe it's just me.

Regardless, the first trailer for Shrek the Third has now arrived online. Basically, if you're a fan of the first two Shrek films, then you should definitely dig the third installment. All your favorite characters are returning (plus Justin Timberlake!) for yet another adventure in the land of Far, Far Away. Shrek (Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are back, and are installed as the new King and Queen of Far, Far Away when King Harold (John Cleese) falls ill. Determined to stay in the swamp, Shrek places Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) in charge of installing Artie (Timberlake) as the new King, while Fiona and her band of wacky gals fend off a takeover attempt by Prince Charming (Rupert Everett).

The trailer itself looks pretty funny, and it shall definitely be interesting to see which of this summer's third installments (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Spider-Man 3 or Shrek the Third) takes home the most at the box office. Who has the largest fanbase? Shrek the Third sails into theaters on May 18. Yay!