Shrek

Shrek is an Academy Award winning animated feature film based upon William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book entitled Shrek! It was directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson and animated by DreamWorks Animation SKG in May 2001. Shrek was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001. It was released on DVD and VHS on November 2, 2001.

The name Shrek likely comes from the Yiddish word שרעק (pronounced Shreck) or the German word Schreck, in either case meaning "fear" or "terror".

The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving yet grumpy green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and John Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.


It was critically acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humor to appeal to children. It made notable use of pop music—the soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, The Baha Men, and Rufus Wainwright.

The film was extremely successful on release in 2001 and it helped establish DreamWorks as a prime competitor to Walt Disney Pictures in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. Furthermore, Shrek was made the mascot for the company's animation productions.

hrek 2, which was released in the United States on May 19, 2004, is the 2004 sequel to the 2001 computer-animated DreamWorks Pictures film Shrek. In April 2004, the film was selected for competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. There are more Shrek movies to follow, according to Jeffrey Katzenberg: "We didn't have the guts to tell anybody when we started out, [but] we have two more chapters to tell. Not unlike Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings. The difference is they did have the guts to make all three of them 'back-to-back-to-back'".



Shrek 2 scored the fourth-largest three-day opening weekend in US history, as well as the largest opening for an animated movie until May 18th, 2007, when it was eclipsed by its sequel Shrek the Third.As of 2006, it is the 3rd highest box office grossing film of all time in the United States. Worldwide, it is the ninth highest-grossing film of all time.It went on to be the most successful film in 2004.The associated soundtrack reached the top ten of the Billboard 200. It is also the highest-grossing animated film of all time

Corpse Bride

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a 2005 Academy Award-nominated stop-motion-animation film based loosely on a 19th century Russian-Jewish folktale version of an older Jewish story and set in a fictional Victorian era England. It was directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, and filmed at 3 Mills Studios in London. Johnny Depp led an all-star cast as the voice of Victor and Helena Bonham Carter (for whom the project was specially created) as the voice of the Corpse Bride. This is the first animated film in which Johnny Depp has been a voice actor. The film was nominated in the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. It lost to another stop-motion animated feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which also starred Helena Bonham Carter.

The movie exhibits Burton's trademark style and recurring themes (the complex interaction between light and darkness, and of being caught between two irreconcilable worlds). The movie can be particularly compared to The Nightmare Before Christmas , Burton's previous stop-motion feature project (directed by Henry Selick and based on a Tim Burton poem, which Corpse Bride director Mike Johnson worked on as an animator) and Beetlejuice, especially in the scenes depicting the underworld and its deceased denizens. The studio intentionally emphasized the links, as some commercials for Corpse Bride were accompanied by songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas (specifically, "What's This"); also, in an issue of Disney Adventures, Emily (the title character) was compared to The Nightmare Before Christmas's Sally, despite the stark contrasts in personality between the outspoken, free-spirited Emily and the quiet, timid Sally.

The Simpsons Movie

The Simpsons Movie

Chicken Run

Chicken Run is a 2000 stop-motion animation British film made by the Aardman Animations studios (which produced the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit films).

Chicken Run features many of music from 70s pop culture. The Soundtrack was later released in February 2001. The infamous main song "Chicken Run Into The Sun", also known as the "The Chicken Run Song", was played both in the middle scene where ginger and rocky went through the pie machine and the end credits. Jack Zswimmer wrote the song and today has gone on to Disney projects such as Finding Nemo

Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) is a Japanese animated film by Hayao Miyazaki that was first released in Japan on July 12, 1997 and in the United States on October 29, 1999 in select cities and on November 26, 1999.

Roger Ebert placed the movie sixth on his top ten movies of 1999 [1]. Mononoke also became the highest grossing movie in Japan until Titanic took over the spot several months later. Overall, Mononoke is the third most popular anime movie in Japan, next to 2001's Spirited Away and 2004's Howl's Moving Castle, both also by Miyazaki.

It was rated PG-12 in Japan, PG in the UK, M in Australia and PG-13 in the U.S. for images of violence and gore.



It is a jidaigeki (period drama) set in late Muromachi period of Japan, and centers on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who need its resources, as seen by the outsider Ashitaka. "Mononoke" ("Mononoke") is not a name, but a general term in Japanese for a spirit/god/monster of the natural world.

Pink Floyd The Wall

Pink Floyd The Wall is a 1982 film by British director Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. The film is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound. It features virtually no dialogue and is mainly driven by Pink Floyd's music. Although it features a linear storyline, in many ways The Wall more resembles a long-form music video than a traditional narrative feature film.

The film contains fifteen minutes of elaborate animation sequences by the political cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe part of which depict a nightmarish vision of the German bombing campaign over England during World War II set to the song "Goodbye Blue Sky".

Picnic

Picnic is a 1955 Cinemascope film in Technicolor which tells the story of an ex-college football star turned drifter who arrives in a small Kansas town on Labor Day and is drawn to a girl who's already spoken for. The plot covers a twenty-four hour period, and was considered daring for its day. It stars William Holden, Kim Novak, Susan Strasberg, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O'Connell, Nick Adams, Betty Field and Rosalind Russell and is sometimes cited as a richly detailed snapshot of midwestern American culture during the 1950s.

The screenplay was adapted by Daniel Taradash from William Inge's Pulitzer Prize winning play. Directed by Joshua Logan, Picnic was widely popular and made Kim Novak a star. Rosalind Russell received critical praise for her role as a middle-aged, frustrated schoolteacher. Audiences reacted to it as a realistic, "slice of life" story.


The movie's hit song, "Theme From Picnic," reached Number One on the Billboard charts in 1956 and was Number 14 overall that year. Composed by George Duning and comedian Steve Allen (though Allen's lyrics are never used during the film), the song was used in the dance scene between Holden and Novak, wherein Columbia's musical director Morris Stoloff blended "Picnic" with the 1930s standard, "Moonglow." The two songs are often paired in later recordings by other artists. The soundtrack album also sold well, reaching 23 on the Billboard charts.

Naruto the Movie

Naruto The Movie is a film based on the popular anime and manga series Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto. In Japan, it was released in theaters on August 21, 2004. The popularity of the series has spawned several sequels, hello beginning with Naruto the Movie 2. The movie was released on DVD on April 28, 2005. The film chronologically takes place sometime before episode 101, though events in the film leave its exact place in the series continuity questionable. The ending song is called Home Sweet Home and is sung by Yuki. The English version replaced this song with "Never Give Up" by Jeremy Sweet due to licensing restrictions.

As a bonus, the short and somewhat scatological OVA Konoha Annual Sports Festival ( Konoha Undōkai was included with the Japanese release of the film. The ten minute opening short revolves around Naruto's inability to use the washroom while participating in the tournament. It is notable because virtually every character, living or dead, in the Naruto universe makes an appearance in it (most of them standing in a restroom-queue).

In America, the film was released as a one-day showing on June 6, 2007. Instead of the OVA included with the Japanese release, the American release included a short featurette entitled "World of Naruto", as well as a behind the scenes featurette afterwards with interviews with the main English cast and select members of the main Japanese cast. The OVA will, however, appear in the U.S. DVD release. The DVD release is set for September 4, 2007. The movie premiered on Cartoon Network on September 8, 2007. The film also played at Cineplex Odeon and Empire Theatres cinemas in Canada, distributed via Bell ExpressVu to play the film at all cinemas at the same time. The film aired at the Great British Museum in London, U.K. on July 28, 2007 for a single showing at 2pm, and is currently to be released on DVD on November 5, 2007. The film is also slated for one-day showings in Australia on October 14, 2007.

Maboroshi no Chiteiiseki Dattebayo is the second film based on the popular Naruto anime and manga series by Masashi Kishimoto. It was released in theaters in Japan on August 6, 2005. The movie takes place after episode 160.

The Prince of Egypt

The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 Academy Award-winning American animated film, the first traditionally animated film produced and released by DreamWorks. The story follows the life of Moses from his birth, through his childhood as a prince of Egypt and finally to his ultimate destiny to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, which is based on the second of the Five Books of Moses, Exodus.

Directed by Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells and Steve Hickner, the film featured songs written by Stephen Schwartz and a score composed by Hans Zimmer. The voice cast featured a number of major Hollywood actors in the speaking roles, while professional singers replaced them for the songs. The exceptions, however, were Michelle Pfeiffer, Ralph Fiennes, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, who sang their own parts.

The film was nominated for best score and won for Best Original Song at the 1999 Academy Awards for "When You Believe". The pop version of the song was performed at the ceremonies by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. The song, co-written by Stephen Schwartz, Hans Zimmer and with additional production by Babyface, was also nominated for the Best Original Song (Motion Picture) at the 1999 Golden Globes, and was also nominated for Outstanding Performance of a Song for a Feature Film at the ALMA Awards. The movie went on to gross $218,613,188 worldwide.

Madagascar

Madagascar is a computer-animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation, and released in movie theatres on May 27, 2005. The film tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who have spent their lives in blissful captivity and are unexpectedly shipped back to Africa, getting shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar. The voices of Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock and David Schwimmer are featured. Other voices include Andy Richter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Cedric the Entertainer.

A short film called The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper was released with the Madagascar DVD, and was theatrically released with Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in the United States. A Madagascar 2 is planned for 2008. Dreamworks is also planning for a Madagascar 3 but none of the cast has signed on yet.

Hoodwinked

Hoodwinked is an American computer-animated family comedy produced by Blue Yonder Films with Kanbar Entertainment. It was released by The Weinstein Company in selected markets on December 16, 2005, before expanding nation-wide on January 13, 2006. It was written and directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech, and stars the voices of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Andy Dick, David Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Anthony Anderson, Chazz Palminteri, and Benjy Gaither.

Based on the Little Red Riding Hood folktale, structurally, it borrows from the films Rashomon and The Usual Suspects, as well as frequently intertwining various plots. The film's setting uses the same type of anachronistic and satirical mixing of modern and fantasy culture as the Shrek films. It is 86 minutes long and is rated PG for mild action and thematic elements.

A sequel to the film, titled Hood vs. Evil is currently in production for an expected 2008 release.

is 6.7/10 as of August 2007. On its opening weekend the box office totaled up to $16,879,402. It grossed $109,211,568 worldwide, including $51,386,611 in the On Rotten Tomatoes, as of August 2007, the film's overall score is 48%, which is Rotten. The film gained a somewhat better reception among the general public; its weighted score on IMDBUnited States.

Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is an Academy Award-winning computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. It was released in the United States/Canada on May 30, 2003, in Australia on August 27, 2003 and in the UK on 10 October 2003. The movie is the fifth Disney/Pixar feature film and the first to be released during the summer season.

The movie was released on a 2-disc DVD on November 4, 2003 in the United States and Canada, in Australia on January 16, 2004, and the UK on February 27, 2004. It went on to become the best selling DVD of all time, with 28 million copies sold. Time magazine listed it #10 as one of the top best 100 films ever made.

The film received many awards, including:

• An Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
• Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie and Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie, Ellen Degeneres.
• Saturn Awards for Best Animated Film and Best Supporting Actress, Ellen Degeneres
• Seven different Annie Awards in multiple categories

Finding Nemo was also nominated for:

• Three additional Academy Awards (Original screenplay, Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds; Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Score); Achievement In Sound Editing)
• Two Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress, Ellen DeGeneres
• Three additional Saturn Awards
• Three additional Annie Awards
• A BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay
• A Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
• Two MTV Movie Awards

In Search of Santa

In Search of Santa is a 2004 film directed by William R. Kowalchuk. It was released in the US on November 23, 2004. Its runtime is 80 minutes.

Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four is a 2005 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics comic Fantastic Four. It was directed by Tim Story, and released by 20th Century Fox. This is the second live-action Fantastic Four movie to be filmed. The previous attempt, a B-movie produced by Roger Corman, was never officially released.

Fantastic Four proved a box office hit on its opening weekend. By September 2005, the film had totaled over $330 million worldwide with a domestic gross of $154 million. In addition the movie also did very well on the DvD Sales.

However, the critical reaction was mixed to negative, scoring only a 26% at Rotten Tomatoes and 40% at metacritic, both movie review aggregation websites. The movie was criticized for weak storytelling, poor science, an overall lack of much action, and paper-thin characters — especially the bland portrayal of Doctor Doom, one of the hallmark villains in the Marvel Comics world. In addition, Jessica Alba's performance earned her a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress. The only constant target of praise was Chris Evans' portrayal of the Human Torch and Michael Chiklis' performance as Ben Grimm/The Thing.

Shark Bait

Shark Bait (The Reef in the UK, Pi's Story in South Korea) is a 2006 computer animated film. The plot revolves around Pi and his attempt to win the heart of Cordelia while dealing with a bullying shark. The film was heavily criticised for borrowing heavily from other films such as Finding Nemo, Shark Tale and The Little Mermaid and, despite the amount of talented actors and comedians involved in the voice over work, did poorly at the box office.



Our hero, Pi (Freddie Prinze Jr., is a little fish who, after losing everything, goes to live with his aunt (Fran Drescher) on an exotic reef. Before long, he's madly in love with a pretty girl fish (Evan Rachel Wood), but the local bully, a shark (Donal Logue), also has the hots for her. So Pi decides to learn Kung-Fu so that he can take on the shark and win the girl, even though the shark is many times bigger than him.

Ice Age

Ice Age is a feature-length computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox in 2002. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. Its sequels are called Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) and Ice Age 3 (2009).

The characters are all prehistoric animals with the exception of some early humans (who bear some Neanderthal-like facial features, yet are not shown conversing, only grunting or yelling, and possess technology that is much more sophisticated). The animals can talk to and understand each other and are voiced by a variety of famous actors. What can also be noted is that, like many films of prehistoric life, the rules of time periods apply very loosely, as many of the species shown in the film never actually lived in the same areas, let alone the same time periods.

• Manfred aka Manny (Mammoth) — Ray Romano
• Sid (ground sloth) — John Leguizamo
• Diego (Smilodon) — Denis Leary
• Soto (Smilodon) — Goran Visnjic
• Zeke (Smilodon) — Jack Black
• Oscar (Smilodon) — Diedrich Bader
• Lenny (Smilodon) — Alan Tudyk
• Scrat (Saber-toothed squirrel) — Chris Wedge
• Carl (Brontops) — Cedric the Entertainer
• Frank (Brontops) — Stephen Root
• Rachel (Female ground sloth) — Jane Krakowski
• Jennifer (Female ground sloth) — Lorri Bagley

Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown in some international releases, or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 film sequel to the computer-animated 2002 film Ice Age and the . It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in BelgiumPhilippines on March 29, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in China, on June 9, 2006.[1] It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the original Ice Age, and the music is done by Robots composer, John Powell.

This film was originally rated G by the MPAA, but was re-rated PG by the MPAA for some mild language and innuendo. The working title was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but for the movie's final release, the creators decided to remove the number 2, calling it Ice Age: The Meltdown, as the movie follows the same characters as the first one, starting where the first ended. However, in the UK, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the movie had the 2 in their packaging after the name change (they however did edit the 2 out of their TV ads).

The Ant Bully

The Ant Bully is a computer-animated film produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone, John A. Davis and Keith Alcorn's DNA Productions and directed by John A. Davis. Released in movie theatres on July 28, 2006 by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, it is based on a book by John Nickle and featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Allison Mack and Paul Giamatti. Concurrently with the general release, the film will be offered in big screen IMAX 3D, the format also used with The Polar Express.

The soundtrack's music score was composed and conducted by John Debney and there are no songs in this film. The entire movie score was released by Varese Sarabande.

Cars

Cars is an animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, presented by Walt Disney Pictures, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Its release date was June 9, 2006 in the U.S. and July 28, 2006 in the UK. This movie is the seventh Disney/Pixar feature film, and the final film under a contract with Disney created before the purchase of Pixar by Disney.

Directed by John Lasseter, who had previously directed other Pixar movies such as Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and A Bug's Life, the film is set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles. It features the voices of Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, John Ratzenberger, George Carlin, and Larry the Cable Guy. Many of the voices of the racecars are real race car drivers. They include Richard Petty, Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Michael Schumacher. Notable cameos also included sports broadcaster Bob Costas as "Bob Cutlass," NASCAR broadcaster and former Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip as "Darrell Cartrip," Jay Leno as "Jay Limo", and Tom and Ray Magliozzi (hosts of NPR's weekly Car Talk) as Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze. The film was rated G by the MPAA. The film premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.

Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many Film Critic Associations such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006. Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes. Randy Newman and James Taylor received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth). Cars was also selected as the Best Family Movie at the 2006 People's Choice Awards. Perhaps the most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award.

However, Cars did not receive the inaugural British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Animated Feature or the 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Both of these awards went to Happy Feet. Cars' defeat at the Academy marked the first time since the award's inception that the winner of the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature did not go on to win the Academy Award, a big upset, since Cars was expected by most to win.