The Walt Disney company showed everyone that it I alive and well, with a slate of great films, great stars, and great directors and producers working on some amazing work for the coming year.  And Uncle Walt would be proud of the variety and style of all that is happening at Disney.

 

On Tuesday, every seat and then some at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace was taken as Disney, and their partners at Marvel, Dreamworks, and Pixar and the Disney banner, dazzled the audience with the stars and directors and producers for the upcoming slate.

 

First up was Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Film, who blasted the audience with stunning footage from the upcoming, "The Avengers." And what a film! An all-star cast, with every hero in their repertoire all together in this one film. It looks like everyone joined the fun to send this one into orbit. Robert Downey as Ironman, and Chris Evens as Captain America head the cast of a storyline that is simple - a team of super-humans form a team to save the world from the Loki. And what a battle it is, with more twists and turns than the Triangle Square parking lot.

 

Feige also showed that Thor 2, Captain America 2, and Iron Man 3 were also in the works and scenes were spectacular.

 

For Dreamworks, actor Chris Pine talked about the soon-to-be-released "People Like Us", a little picture with great themes as Chris Pine plays a man who has to deliver $150,000 to a sister he never met. Pine is supported by Elizabeth Banks, and Michelle  Pfeiffer is his mother.

 

Dreamworks also has Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" being readied for its Christmas opening, with Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Fields as his mother. We were ready to enlist on the Union's side after watching scenes from this film, obviously one of Spielberg's best works, so rich and full, and what a picture it paints. Lewis is magnificent as Lincoln, and Spielberg is up to

the task of taking on a story of such a great man he long loved and admired.

 

Disney then brought out Tim Burton to completely overwhelm everyone with scenes from the fall release, "Frankenweenie", which looks like an immense hit. Done in stop motion, and filmed in black and white, and also 3D, the film is an immense panorama of eerie beauty that only Burton could bring. Transylvania meets Burbank was a line, and it was sure an homage to old horror movies, and even has Christopher Lee himself as one of the main characters playing Dracula. The story is from Burton's past, as he had a favorite dog that was killed when he was young, and made a short for Disney about it many years ago, and now pulled it out and put it back together.But as Burton said, "this is no story of a boy and his dog."  But it is really just that and so much more. A boy's dog is killed and he brings him back to life with disastrous results. As Burton also said, "this is no "Lady and the Tramp", but it sure enough was just as special and beautiful. Burton said it was a "Lord of the Flies" vision of children, and he dug from his memory for some fascinating characters, with Lee rocking the place with laughter as he played a Vincent Price look-a-like teacher, explain how lightning strikes people to terrified kids in a school with lightning and a storm rage across an awesome sky.

 

Also up is "Good Life of Timothy Green", and star Jennifer Garner also won Female Actress of the Year Award at the event today. This was so different. Parents find out they can't have a child, and they write down all the things they wanted their child to be if they could have one, and bury those words in a chest in the backyard, And next day, a young boy, covered with dirt, appears at their door. He tells them he is from the garden, (he even sprouts leaves on his legs). The film is written by the same writer who gave us "What's Eating Gilbert Grape,"  and it is a dazzling and amazing look at a wild plot and a great story.

 

Next was one of the biggies, "Oz, the Great and Powerful", directed by Sam Raimi, and starring James Franco, Milla Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams, who all shared the stage and spoke of their love for great story. Oz is the backstory to the Wizard of Oz, and we learn who the heck was the Wizard and where did he come from, as well as who was Glenda the Good Witch as well as why were they all there. What a plot, we were hooked from the first words, and sure enough,. Raimi and Franco discussed the story and the script, and how the story is thrilling, exciting, and romantic, as well as having characters with problems that we can relate to well and having them grow into something better than they thought they could do. Franco said, "A selfish man becomes a selfless man." Scenes and story were outrageous, as can be expected from this crew. And Disney's got them.

 

A great treat was having Kermit the Frog ride out on the stage on a wooden horse, and discuss with Miss Piggy, the new movie they were going to do.  The audience went wild as the two were the actual characters used in films.

 

Johnny Depp and producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gorth Verbinski, the original crew for Pirates of the Carribean," took the stage to cheers, and Depp, opened with the question, "Did anyone else see a frog on a horse and a pig riding through here?"  But they weren't there to just be there, they were there to speak of "Lone Ranger," which will definitely bring back the Western! This was so outrageous, as Depp is not the Ranger, but Tonto, and plays him as outrageous and wild as you would expect in a hilarious tale. It was filmed in John Ford country in Monument Valley, and Jack White is doing the score, so that should be a treat also. Depp said he didn't know "if Jay Siverheels (the original Tonto), would play it like I did".

 

And finally Tim Lassiter from Pixar cane to the podium and opened with a great line, "If you love

what you do, you will never work a day in your life." Of course he loves his job! And he rolled to their release, "Wreck of Ralphie," an original story set in video game arcade and the life of a character in an old time video game who is tired of always being a bad guy and is jealous of the lives of others, and so he runs away to other games as characters but finds his 8 bit player cannot compete well in a scary new video world. The movie is hilarious and populated with outrageous characters and take offs and will be very huge at the box office. There are scenes so wild and crazy it is difficult to describe except to say, "Awesome." Everything, from the video game he inhabits to the new world around him, is so different we want to jump in the picture and play part of the other games.

 

Whew!

 

LionsGate also premiered the film, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" a hilarious and heartwarming comedy about five couples and is based on the Best Selling book of the same name.  Cameron Diaz, Chris rock Elisabeth Banks, Jennifer Lopez, and Chris Rock all spread out across the audience and shared on the making of the film and what was so special. My description may tell you it deserves a great audience as the movie is very funny, very, very, very.

 

And who would have thought that Focus Features, the studio that is  king of every independent-minded film, would bring us the oh so great, "ParaNorman,"  where a misunderstood boy who can speak with the dead, takes on ghosts, zombies and grown-ups to save his town from a centuries-old curse. Now this is one special and crazy film that completed a day of dazzling films and special stories.

 

This day showed that great ideas are springing up all over town, as each movie today was a very special story and screenplay, and all were not typical, but outrageous in each special way, with great plots and fresh ideas.

 

Wednesday brings a lot of excitement in innovation, as the day starts with "Laser Light Technology the New Frontier in Screen Brightness, and we all have to sign waivers to attend, I guess in case the brightness blinds us. But apparently, this new technology takes away the need for special compressed gas bulbs as well as the need for special 3D effects as it does it automatically. And we will also see new processes of shooting film from 40 frames to 60 frames per seconds, where the standard now is only 24 frames. These two are HUGE advances in making film, and all will be spectacular advances making film so much greater. Report on this tomorrow.

 

Movies are alive and always will be! It's a great business we are a part of and we love it!