3.  The Beaver

Mel Gibson plays a man in the midst of a mid life crisis and divorce who, essentially, has a breakdown and ends up finding his sanity through a puppet beaver.  Alright, first things first:  Mel Gibson probably shouldn’t be in a role that swings this close to home.  There.  Got that easy joke out of the way.  So, when I read the brief summary of this movie I thought there was no way it had a chance.  Then I saw the trailer and immediately changed my mind.  I forget with all the drama surrounding Mel Gibson that he can act.  Not just action movie act, but really act.  I honestly think this movie will be great because of his work alone.  However, because of all his off-screen fiascoes and the absurdity of this plot there’s not a lot of hope it will do well.

2. Everything Must Go

Nothing better then a comedian playing a serious role.  I always feel bad too, because some of them can act and I know they want the chance but they rarely get it.  In this movie Will Ferrell plays another man in the midst of a life changing, middle aged crisis.  This is the drama theme of the year I think.  In Everything Must Go, Will and all his possessions get locked out of his house.  He spends the week selling everything in an impromptu lawn sale and re-evaluating his life.  I was drawn to this movie early and none of the trailers have let me down.  Sadly, no one else I talk to seems to have heard of the film and it’ll be out in two weeks.  Not a good sign for what might be a very good movie.

1. Winnie the Pooh

Every time I’ve asked anyone what the Disney animated movie this year is I either hear Cars 2 (wrong) or crickets.  And how can I blame anyone for not knowing?  First, this movie is coming out in the middle of summer instead of Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Unforgivable.  Second, if you’ve seen the trailer and remember it you probably thought what I did at first:  that looks like a straight to DVD release.  But it’s NOT.  It’s a theater release.  It’s classic Pooh, with new stories, and that warm and fuzzy feeling just oozing out of it like honey from one of Rabbit’s honey pots!  (Cause Pooh’s honeypots never have no honey in them.  Silly old bear.)  I’m not going to lie, I’m absolutely bias in this case cause I grew up on Pooh.  The old movies like The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the old “people in costumes” show Welcome to Pooh Corner, the best Saturday morning cartoon ever The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and even the book as a present one year.  I loved Pooh, and it breaks my heart to  know that he’s going to drift by like a lonely, little black rain cloud.  So sad.

Didn’t want to let this whole week get carried away with nothing but E3 talk so I thought I’d take a moment to share the first trailer for the new Disney animated fairytale coming out this winter.  Now, they’ll call it something stupid but I refuse to call it anything other then Rapunzel.  Why? Cause that’s the name of the fairytale, plain and simple.

Worth noting:  the animation is actually a mix of 2D and 3D.  It’s drawn by hand then run through a computer program to give it that 3D look.  It is a hand drawn movie using a 3D program to ‘amplify’ it’s reality.  It looks okay to me, but I think it still loses some of the charm that we were reminded of with the Princess and the Frog last year.

Also, the guy is voiced by Zachary Levi better known as Chuck of the show Chuck!  Very cool.