From the “not-exactly-but-still-sort-of-animated” department comes the trailer for Be Kind Rewind now on Yahoo! Movies. The Jack Black/Mos Def comedy tells of two video store clerks who make, and then rent to unsuspecting customers, their own versions of famous movies. Keep an eye out for the famous Simba/Scar conflagration reenacted with paper cutout characters.

o-meon updates with a podcast interview with Chris Sanders, director of Disney’s Lilo and Stitch and DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming Crood Awakenings. The same podcast also features an interview with the other Chris: Chris Chibnall, writer and executive producer of the hit BBC series Torchwood.

Ultimate Disney has posted an in-depth review looking at today’s release of The Muppet Show: Season 2 to DVD. This season of the hit puppetcentric variety showcased many famous “live” performers such as Milton Berle, Julie Andrews, and Zero Mostel in addition to the Muppet gang of Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie the Bear […]

For those attending the final four days of SIGGRAPH at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA, the following press release details the major presence DreamWorks Animation will have at the world renowned computer graphics conference:

Tomorrow night, August 2, 2007, at 7:30pm the Newport Beach Film Festival will be holding its annual Animation Showcase at the Orange County Museum of Art. This program will feature all the animated shorts shown throughout the regular run of the festival this past April. Follow the link for a complete listing of titles to […]

Buena Vista Entertainment has opened a fun and zany website devoted to the upcoming release of The Tick vs Season 2 to DVD on August 7. Get desktop wallpapers, instant messenger buddy icons, and more. Additionally, a montage of highlights from the series’ second season can be seen here.

o-meon has the downlow on Pixar director Andrew Stanton’s presentation at the San Diego Comic Convention on his current project, WALL•E, “the story of the last of these [trash-compacting] robots that for some unknown reason, is still working after mankind left Earth some 700 years earlier.” The basic plot details mentioned are fairly non-spoilerish and […]

GOSH! The Starz network is now featuring Jennifer Shiman’s next mini web epic: Napoleon Dynamite in 30 seconds and re-enacted by bunnies. Sweet!

The Orange County Register yesterday reported on a new motion capture technology pioneered by Gene Alexander. Known as “MaMoCa, which stands for ‘Markerless Motion Capture,’ [it] will cut the cost of ‘motion capture’ by 90 percent.” The article includes a link to a video of the technology in action.

o-meon updates with a podcast interview with Neal Gabler, author of Walt Disney, The Triumph of the American Imagination. “With the full cooperation of the Walt Disney Company, and especially the Disney Archive, Gabler’s seven years of painstakingly meticulous research has produced the most complete portrait yet of one of the most influential lives of […]

Ultimate Disney has an in-depth review of the DVD for Miramax’s Renaissance, the black & white film noir animated vision of life in France five decades from now (shades of Minority Report). Additional images from the visually arresting film can be seen here:

After a long absence, Clay Kaytis’ Animation Podcast returns with part four of the Burny Mattinson interview. In this final segment, Burny “talks about his work on various films including Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Mulan, and he shares some great advice on story idea generation and pitching.”

Below are streaming links to the new Bee Movie (www.BeeMovie.com) trailer in a variety of formats:

Soon to be a rival to hand-drawn, stop motion, computer-generated, and motion capture animation is . . . sand animation. The web edition of The Orange County Register features Hungarian sand animator Ferenc Cako, who tells stories with sand in front of admiring audiences. “With just an overhead projector, a movie screen and a few […]

o-meon reports that Click and Clack, Public Radio’s famous Tappet brothers, are to become the first-ever animated primetime series for PBS launching in summer 2008. “The fast-paced series will take off where the radio series ends, focusing on the adventures of Click and Clack and their crew of mechanics and co-workers.” The new series will […]

TVShowsOnDVD has announced two new animated DVD sets to be released soon based on DC Comics superhero characters television series. The first, The Adventures of Aquaman, will feature 36 episodes which originally aired from 1967-68, while the second, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, will feature 10 episodes from 1985. Both sets will be released […]

The official website for The Simpsons Movie allows one to create, in paper-doll fashion, an avatar of themselves (or anyone they prefer, real or fictional) in true Simpsons-like appearance. The website also features several games, a tour of Springfield, and more.

DreamWorks Animation has just released a new Bee Movie trailer featuring never-before-seen footage to AOL Moviefone. Click on the link to see superstar comedian Jerry Seinfeld in action as an animated bumblebee experiencing romance and death-defying adventures in the human world.

DreamWorks Animation has made the following press release available detailing how its recent Shrek the Third has earned $600 million (and counting) worldwide in box office receipts and how the whole Shrek franchise has crossed the $2 billion mark:

On sale now at Xlibris books from the masterful hand of Didier Ghez comes Walt’s People – Volume 5, the next in a series of books conducting serious, scholarly interviews with artists who knew Walt Disney himself. Volume 5 features “in-depth interviews with artists James Algar, Bill Anderson, Buddy Baker, Jack Bradbury, George Bruns, Alice […]

o-meon reports the sad news that Disney animator/director Art Stevens passed away last May 22 due to a heart attack. Stevens began work at Disney in 1940 and worked on animated features such as Fantasia, Song of the South, The Three Caballeros, the Winnie the Pooh shorts and more. He helped Ward Kimball out with […]

The following are images of four paintings by Disney animator Andreas Deja and displayed last Thursday night at (and available for sale from) the Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, CA:

o-meon has pictures and sound bites of the actors and other Pixar luminaries at last Friday’s world premiere of Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille at the Hollywood Kodak Theatre, home of the Academy Awards. Among those caught among the sights and sounds of the multimedia extravaganza were Disney Studio chairman Dick Cook, Ratatouille stars Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, […]

The following are photos of three wire sculptures crafted by Disney animator Andreas Deja and displayed last Thursday night at the Van Eaton Galleries. These wire sculptures were first mentioned at Animated News & Views in August 2005 in our Conversation with Andreas Deja (look at the very end of the interview) and were inspired […]

From now until the end of August Regal Cinemas is holding its annual summertime Family Film Festival. “Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for […]

The following is a quick YouTube clip taken at last night’s lecture by Disney animator Andreas Deja at the Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks as part of a fundraiser for ASIFA-Hollywood (numerous photos from the event coming soon). Here he is explaining how he got inspiration for Lilo from watching a group of Hawaiian […]

The Orange County Register’s weekly Wine & Food section today offers up an article on the culinary aspect of Disney/Pixar’s upcoming Ratatouille, noting the gustatory research that the Pixar people devoted themselves to in order to portray the world of upscale French cuisine accurately. For those who like animation and food, this is the article […]

o-meon goes to drama class and dissects a rat, Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille, that is. According to o-meon’s head writer, Chuck Oberleitner, “Technically and artistically, the film is prepared as brilliantly and served up as beautifully as anything we’ve come to expect from the kitchens of the Emeryville animation studio. Unfortunately, most of the film’s main characters […]

More news from the land down under: Orange County, California, not Australia. Yesterday’s Orange County Register reported on the soft opening to the media and select annual passholders of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland Park before its grand opening today, June 11. From the sound of it there are now two Disneyland […]

The following is the official press release announcing “An Evening With Andreas Deja” at the Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks on Thursday, June 21st: