Meet the Robinsons

Starring: John Lasseter’s ego, Steve Jobs’ buying power

Pitch: Tom Swift and his Atomic Pixar Killer!

Synopsis: A brilliant but socially inept boy inventor finds out about his family and himself through a series of wild and amusing adventures.

Target Market: Families and Pixar lovers everywhere

Why You Should See This Movie: This movie is the awkward culmination of years of corporate and creative battles between Disney and Pixar. Pixar repeatedly showed up its distributor, Disney, making each Pixar film a bigger hit than the previous while Disney flailed in traditional animation. Eventually, Disney fired all their traditional animators and declared computer animation the future just as computer animated films stopped being instant cash cows.

When the Pixar-Disney distribution deal finally came to a close, years of negotiations broke off and Steve Jobs, the man that purchased Pixar almost out of charity, shopped distribution until he got what he really wanted: Disney purchased Pixar and installed Jobs (now the largest individual owner of Disney stock) on the board of directors.

Immediately, John Lasseter (head of Pixar) became the head of Walt Disney Feature Animation and opened the hood on all WDFA projects. He declared Meet the Robinsons in need of a major overhaul and postponed the release by four months. (Then, just to make himself the popular kid in the office, he blew up American Dog and chased its director, Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch), out the door.)

Why should you see this movie? Haven’t you seen the cartoons? Catfighting is hilarious!

P.S. Just a reminder that nothing is so easy to label: Lasseter re-opened the traditional animation division and has started production on a new film.

Blades of Glory

Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Jenna Fischer, a million cameos by your favorite comedians

Pitch: Perfect pitch! Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite are ice skaters and have to skate together! The husband-and-wife team of Arnett and Poehler are the enemy squad! Let the money flow freely over my skin!

Synopsis: No, really. That’s it. You have seen this film a half-dozen times already from Ferrell. He’ll be shirtless a lot. Hubris will be deflated. One joke will be flogged for 95 minutes. There’s no way it can fail.

Target Market: I said “Will Ferrell”. Are we clear?

Why You Should See This Movie: WillFerrellWillFerrellWillFerrell. Warning: the first rumblings of concern that the formula is fraying around the edges is seeping its way through the critical cheesecloth.

The Lookout

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode

Pitch: A heist flick for the brain-damaged. No, not that way.

Synopsis: The kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun is damaged in many ways in an auto accident and takes a job at a bank while living in a rehab situation. A con man (Goode) cozies up to the kid to manipulate him into helping rob the bank.

Target Market: Hip indie lovers.

Why You Should See This Movie: The kid (Gordon-Levitt) deserves better than being called “that kid”; he’s become an indie darling since you saw him last. The plot is intriguing and promises to be a strong character study. The writer/director (Scott Frank) also wrote Karen Sisco, Minority Report, Out of Sight, Get Shorty, and many others