Friday, January 21, 2011

Rio

Rio, often promoted as Rio: The Movie, is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated musical comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, in which the film is set. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, George Lopez, Jemaine Clement and Jake T. Austin. The film tells the story of Blu (Eisenberg), a spix's macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a female. He eventually falls in love with Jewel (Hathaway), a free spirited macaw, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Clement), a cockatoo.















Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 1995, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. However, Saldanha learned of the production of the films Happy Feet and Surf's Up, and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their movements.

20th Century Fox released the film on March 22, 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, and was later released in the United States on April 15, 2011. The film received positive reviews from film critics. Observers praised the visuals, voice acting and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $445 million worldwide.










The story takes place in Rio de Janeiro. Wildlife trade is common there, and several types of exotic birds get smuggled to different countries. One such bird is Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), a young Spix's Macaw who is unable to fly. He lives in a bookstore in Moose Lake, Minnesota. Blu's owner is Linda (Leslie Mann), who adopts him as soon as he arrives in Moose Lake. One day, Linda discovers from Túlio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Brazilian ornithologist, that Blu is the last male of his species, and he needs to mate with a female to preserve it.

After Linda takes Blu to Túlio's aviary in Rio, he falls in love with Jewel (Anne Hathaway), a female Spix's Macaw who longs to escape. The aviary is raided by a group of smugglers led by Marcel (Carlos Ponce), who has Blu and Jewel chained to each other. His Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Nigel (Jemaine Clement) reveals that he was once a performer on a television program, but he was soon replaced by a parakeet. Nigel, embittered, has specialized in the capture of exotic birds. Blu and Jewel flee from the smugglers and end up in a jungle.










The next morning, Blu and Jewel meet a toucan named Rafael (George Lopez), who offers to take them to his bulldog friend Luiz (Tracy Morgan) in removing the chain. He also unsuccessfully teaches Blu how to fly. The group meets the Red-crested Cardinal Pedro (will.i.am) and his Yellow Canary friend Nico (Jamie Foxx).

Nigel hires a horde of thieving marmosets led by Mauro (Brian Baumgartner) to help capture Blu and Jewel. Linda and Túlio, along with the smugglers' young assistant Fernando (Jake T. Austin), also try to find Blu. Pedro and Nico take Blu and Jewel to a bird's samba club, where they perform a duet, but are attacked by the marmosets. Their bird friends, including a Roseate Spoonbill named Kipo (Bernardo de Paula), fend them off long enough for the five to escape. Fernando eventually leads Linda and Túlio to the smugglers' hideout. While there, Marcel reveals his plan to use the Carnaval festival to smuggle Blu and Jewel.












Meanwhile, Blu and the others meet Luiz, who uses his drool to release Blu and Jewel from the chain, much to Jewel's happiness. Just as Blu, who is too depressed to fly, part ways with Jewel, she is captured by Marcel and Nigel. Linda, Túlio, Blu, Rafael, Nico and Pedro infiltrate the festival. The humans pose as dancers there, but Marcel and Nigel capture the birds. Blu uses a fire extinguisher to free all the captive birds on Marcel's cargo plane, but Nigel confronts Blu and Jewel. Jewel ends up in a dangerous accident and Blu lures Nigel into one of the plane's propellers. As Marcel and the others jump out of the plane, Jewel falls out of the plane, but Blu jumps after her. While falling, she kisses him, finally encouraging him to fly. The duo reunites with Linda and Túlio, who tends to Jewel's injured wing.

Later, Linda and Túlio organize and run a sanctuary along with Fernando to protect a part of the jungle from smugglers. There, the humans releases Jewel and Blu into the jungle. During the credits, Blu and Jewel happily live in the jungle with their friends, and are the parents of three chicks. Nigel is shown to have survived from the plane crash, and Mauro humiliates Nigel for his loss of feathers. Meanwhile, Marcel and the smugglers are arrested.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Gnomeo and Juliet

Mrs. Montague and Mr. Capulet (Julie Walters and Richard Wilson) are two elderly people who despise each other. When they leave the garden, objects come alive in both their gardens. The Montague garden is filled with blue garden gnomes, and the Capulet garden houses red garden gnomes. Later, both blue and red gnomes attend a lawnmower race. Representing the blues is Gnomeo (James McAvoy) and representing the reds is Tybalt (Jason Statham). During the race, it looks like Gnomeo is winning; however, Tybalt cheats and wins the race, destroying Gnomeo's lawnmower. Gnomeo and his best friend, Benny (Matt Lucas), insult Tybalt for cheating, but Tybalt ignores them. Benny watches Mrs. Montague ordering a new cheap lawnmower, disappointed.










Later that night, Gnomeo and Benny, infiltrate the red garden in disguise, with blue spray cans. Benny sprays Tybalt's well and accidentally triggers a security light in the process, alerting the red gnomes to attack. During the escape Gnomeo ends up in a nearby neglected garden. He bumps into a disguised Juliet (Emily Blunt), the daughter of the red gnomes leader Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine). Juliet is attempting to retrieve a unique orchid, and the two romantically fight over it. They each discover the other's colour before fleeing the garden. When they both go back to their gardens, Juliet tells her frog friend Nanette (Ashley Jensen) about her newfound love. Nanette states that the relationship is romantically tragic.










Gnomeo and Juliet then have secret meetings in a secret garden, where they meet a pink plastic flamingo named Featherstone (Jim Cummings). He supports and encourages their love, and the two begin to meet regularly. Though when the two of them are getting ready for a date, Lord Redbrick introduces Juliet to Paris (Stephen Merchant), a red gnome that Nanette has fallen for, though Juliet manages to get away. Later, when the two return back to their gardens, Gnomeo finds his mother Lady Blueberry (Maggie Smith), who is distraught after the reds infiltrated the garden and destroyed the plant Gnomeo's deceased father planted. The blues want Gnomeo to take revenge on the reds, and he realizes that he cannot refuse unless he tells his secret. He tunnels underneath to reach the red garden, but just as he is about to spray the prized flowers of the reds, Juliet sees him. He backs out suddenly, telling Benny that the nozzle on the spraying bottle was jammed.










When he and Juliet meet up again, they briefly argue until Featherstone stops them, telling them that other peoples' hate destroyed his love. He and his girlfriend were separated when the two people living in the house, where their garden was, got divorced. After he has explained this, Gnomeo and Juliet apologize, but when they are about to kiss, Benny sees them, distracts them, then runs into the alleyway, where Tybalt is waiting with his lawnmower. Tybalt drives at Benny and chops his hat clean off with a trowel. Tybalt fights Gnomeo on his lawnmower, but he is destroyed when crashing into a wall, killing him. The reds attempt to attack Gnomeo, but Juliet, to the surprise of her father and clan, defends Gnomeo, saying that she loves him. A woman suddenly jogs along, so all gnomes become still and inconspicuous. Gnomeo ends up on a road, and everyone believes he was run over by a truck. Lord Redbrick has Juliet glued to her fountain because he does not want to lose her like her mother. Gnomeo's pet, a mushroom named Shroom, is left alone and goes on the road, where he realizes that what appeared to be Gnomeo is actually a broken blue teapot, and that Gnomeo is still alive. Gnomeo eventually ends up in a park, and climbs onto a statue of William Shakespeare (Patrick Stewart) and tells him his story. Shakespeare tells Gnomeo that his story is very similar to Romeo and Juliet and that it is likely Gnomeo's will have a sad ending as well. Shroom and Featherstone come to find him.


















Benny, meanwhile, buys the Terrafirminator lawnmower using the computer and cancels the order of the Kitten Clipper, to get revenge on the Red Gnomes, despite Shroom trying to convince him that Gnomeo is still alive. The Terrafirminator goes out of control and destroys most of the two gardens. Gnomeo makes it back to Juliet to try to un-glue her, but he is unable to. She tells him to go, but he refuses, and the two share a kiss just as the lawnmower crashes into the fountain, self-destructing in the process and the William Shakespeare statue in an "I told you so" moment of confidence. Everyone believes that both Gnomeo and Juliet are dead. Lord Redbrick and Lady Blueberry, both realizing that their feud was responsible for this, decide to call a truce. Suddenly, both Gnomeo and Juliet climb out of the rubble and are both fine just as Mrs. Montague comes back to see if the Kitten Clipper lawnmower has arrived and so was Mr. Capulet who are soon horrified to see the destruction. The film ends happily with Gnomeo and Juliet getting married on a purple lawnmower, which symbolizes the truce.