DreamWorks Animation hosted a showcase at the Pacific Design Center Thursday morning for its three 2010 releases: “Shrek Forever After,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “MegaMind.” Pursuant to CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg’s 2007 dictat, all will be 3D releases.

Director Tom McGrath (”Madagascar”) introduced ten minutes of (2D) footage from his superhero comedy “MegaMind,” executive produced by Ben Stiller, as a film about how “no matter how much you screw up in life it’s never too late to make the right choice.” He emphasized that the film is a work in progress (it doesn’t hit theaters until November), and indeed many of the shots were clearly in early stages of digital animation.

McGrath walked the 250 or so in attendance through the backstories of the characters and some of the storyline, which plays out from the point of view of the villain, whom McGrath suggests is perhaps “misunderstood.”

More after the jump…

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual Golden Globes festivities will take over the Beverly Hilton Hotel January 17.

Yes, that’s three weeks from now. But it’s never too early to map out your afterparty attack.

The Beverly Hilton will once again be the Big Top under which the various celebrity circuses will sparkle and whirl, spilling one into the next. Here’s a partial list of locations for all your cocktail and canoodling needs.

(Be sure to check back for updates, as more events and relevant commentary are sure to be added.)

1. Warner Bros. Studios/InStyle — Oasis Courtyard

You get the most bang for your buck at the WB/IS shindig, since it  merges fashion with the famous and anyone else who’s got even a tenuous relationship with celebrity. Plus, the Bros. had a mighty fine, eclectic year — “The Hangover,” “Harry Potter,” “Terminator Salvation,” “Watchmen,” “The Blind Side,” “The Final Destination,” “Sherlock Holmes” — so expect the babes, bubbly and back-slapping to be free-flowing.

*Note: InStyle is also having its annual GG viewing dinner, hosted by managing editor Ariel Foxman.

2. HBO – Circa 55 + Poolside

While not quite the critical dynamo it was two years ago, HBO still fields a splendid Globes bash with a reliable hip quotient. Keep in mind: as the night goes on, this thing gets packed, so go early if you want to hang there. With a sublimely resurgent “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (jammed full of “Seinfeld”), the ratings-happy “True Blood” and newcomer “Hung” carrying the series mantle, the cabler also did well with “Grey Gardens” and “Taking Chance” on the feature side. And don’t forget the comedy fixtures — from Will Ferrell and Robin Williams to Wanda Sykes, Danny McBride and Zach Galifianakis — that ramps up the unpredictability factor should they swing by.

3. NBC Universal – Hotel Rooftop

Putting NBC Universal that far off the ground with minimal safety railings seems like a bad idea given the year the film division has had. Better install some kind of aerial netting for when things get drunkenly bleakest. And don’t loiter on the sidewalks.

4. Summit Entertainment – Stardust Room

Summit’s critical breakout, “The Hurt Locker,” has been feted by just about every critics group in the country — for picture, director Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal’s screenplay. The Globes followed with its own tank load of nominations. So here’s looking to an explosive party.

5. The Weinstein Co. – Old Trader Vics space

Yes, TWC still has a party. And this year they actually have a reason to throw one. “The Road” may have dead-ended and “Halloween II” may have run out of candy, but homegrown hero Quentin Tarantino delivered his biggest hit with “Inglourious Basterds.” Between that, “Nine” and Colin Firth’s vaunted turn in “A Single Man,” the glamour and movie geek chic should be thicker than Brad Pitt’s Tennessee accent.

Several months after Aaron Sorkin came aboard “Moneyball” — and slightly longer since the plug was pulled on Steven Soderbergh just before the start of production — the underdog baseball pic is well into its next stage, or inning, if you’re in a punning mood.

Several directors have met with star Brad Pitt, studio execs and/or producers over the past weeks. And while the studio has not formally made any offers, a number of names have surfaced, including that of the Oscar nominee Bennett Miller and the suddenly ubiquitous Marc Webb.

Webb has been entertaining a slew of interest since his “(500) Days of Summer” jolted critics and the development community this summer. He’s attached to a remake of the Danish thriller “Just Another Love Story” and met on Universal’s remake of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” to name a couple.

Just what to make of all the Brad Pitt rumors on Warners' "Sherlock Holmes"? First the Daily Mirror comes up with a startling revelation – that Brad Pitt is in London, per the request of Guy Ritchie, to shoot scenes as Holmes' nemesis/villain Moriarty for the pic.

That's quickly picked up by a host of blogs — and then just as quickly debunked by Warners, which releases a statement that Brad Pitt is not in fact in the Ritchie take.

All quieted down for a couple days, until today, when MTV.com ran a snippet of an interview with Ritchie saying that Moriarty is indeed in the film, in what is some kind of cameo or stunt role (think Sean Connery in the Kevin Costner "Robin Hood" — which is what we thought, and then saw MTV's Adam Rosenberg had thought the same).

"Some kind of an appearance is probably the best way to describe it," the helmer tells the site, then goes on to say that the actor playing him is not credited, as far as he believes.

You know a movie is carrying a lot of expectations when a projection snafu becomes news. Thursday night’s interruption of the highly anticipated “Benjamin Button” screening at the DGA — in which the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i3727898fb2739b04bafe3065d38af993
“>screening was stopped a half hour in because of color problems resulting from a digital-projector malfunction — had some tongues wagging today.

Of course as much as people love to speculate — and bloggers love to theorize — the effect of this screening on the movie’s ultimate performance, both at the box-office and with awards voters, will be absolutely nil.

The only people it had to be tough for were director David Fincher, who wasn’t there, and producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy and D.P. Claudio Miranda, who were (Miranda must have had a strange feeling, given how much care was put into the look of the film, when a few people, intending to reassure, said it was all okay because they didn’t really notice a big difference). In a way Paramount did its job too well; there were so many tastemakers and so much anticipation at the DGA that the snafu was talked about more than had Par not been as effective.

It’s odd to offer a take on the first 30 minutes of a film that’s already been completed — though that didn’t stop many in the screening about the reverse-aging epic from offering an impromptu Roger Ebert, or the easy jokes about re-starting the movie from the end — but we’ll say that what we saw looked great. It’s mythic and quirky and with all the novelty you want from a premise like that.

And it’s worth noting that for all the ink about the screening, compared to other snafus it was modest; we were at that screening of “Borat” in Toronto a few years ago when the projector went out . At 2 a.m. you had Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen (in character) doing an improvised set while Michael Moore tried to fix the projector.

That was surreal. This was just slightly…curious.

Here ’s this weekend’s Fandango Five – Weekly Ticket Sales (as of 1/04/07 4:00 pm PST):

Night at the Museum 21%

Dreamgirls 11%

Charlotte’s Web 10%

The Pursuit of Happyness 5%

Children of Men 4%

Fandango Weekly Poll: The Screen Actors Guild has announced its nominations for the Best “Ensemble Cast” of 2006. Which one deserves to win?

The Departed 46%

Little Miss Sunshine 28%

Dreamgirls 12%

Babel 8%

Bobby 6%

The Fandango Fifty: The Top Stars Moviegoers Want to See in 2007

Johnny Depp and Reese Witherspoon may enjoy a very good year at the movies. To compile the Fandango Fifty, Fandango asked filmgoers to rank the stars they are most looking forward to seeing on the big screen in 2007. The online survey was posted at Fandango.com during the last week of December 2006.

[posted by Sheigh Crabtree] As the celebu-tabs have dutifully reported for weeks, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie attracted extreme behavior on the set of "A Mighty Heart" in India. NYTimes sent local
operative Anupama Chopra behind papparazzi frontlines to document the madness from the
production’s perspective. Observations from Plan B’s Dede Gardner, Jolie, Winterbottom and Maddox:

Mr. Futterman said that “a sense of unease” hung over the shoot,
especially in Pakistan. But the problem that temporarily derailed “A
Mighty Heart” turned out to be more prosaic than Al Qaeda: the
paparazzi. Since their arrival in India in October, Ms. Jolie and Mr.
Pitt were stalked by Indian and international news media. Indian
newspapers brimmed with pictures of the couple and their children
taking impromptu auto rickshaw rides and walks in the park. There were
front-page articles of them visiting an astrologer who predicted that
the film would fail (though Ms. Jolie denied this); of Mr. Pitt buying
a sex-enhancing love potion in Jaipur (the headline read: “Try with
curry, for extra hurry”); and of the couple adopting an Indian child
(again Ms. Jolie denied it but added that they were likely to adopt
before she tried the natural route again).

Photo by Peter Mountain/Paramount Vantage

Half Nelson is on a winning streak, with three Gotham wins, including best feature. Ryan Gosling’s starting to look real good for a Best Actor nomination. (I called it in Premiere.) Babel is also gaining some momentum, and the tributes cast a spotlight on Little Children, Painted Veil, Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men. [Gotham Awards photo by Wireimage]

The Gotham Awards show will be broadcast on NYC TV (Channel 25) on December 6, 2006 from 9-11pm EST, and will be presented with exclusive webcast coverage via IFILM.COM beginning on December 4, 2006:

Winners of IFP’s 16TH ANNUAL GOTHAM AWARDS
Best Feature presented by Isabella Rossellini
Half Nelson: Ryan Fleck, director; Jamie Patricof, Alex Orlovsky, Lynette Howell, Anna Boden, Rosanne Korenberg, producers (ThinkFilm)

The 2006 Gotham Awards Best Feature Jury included: actors Sarita Choudhury and Willem Dafoe, casting director Avy Kaufman, producer Jon Kilik and director Bennett Miller.

Best Documentary presented by Rosie Perez and Chazz Palminteri
Iraq in Fragments: James Longley, director; James Longley, John Sinno, producers (Typecast Releasing in association with HBO Documentary Films)

The 2006 Gotham Awards Best Documentary Jury included: director of photography Maryse Alberti, directors Fenton Bailey, Eugene Jarecki and Penelope Spheeris, and editor/producer Samuel Pollard.

Breakthrough Director Award presented by Jennifer Jason Leigh
Ryan Fleck for Half Nelson (ThinkFilm)

The 2006 Gotham Awards Breakthrough Director jury included: directors Atom Egoyan and Paul Schrader, actors and Chiwetel Ejiofer and Annabella Sciorra and actor/director Stanley Tucci.

Breakthrough Actor Award presented by Billy Baldwin
Shareeka Epps in Half Nelson (ThinkFilm) AND Rinko Kikuchi in Babel (Paramount Vantage)

The Jury for the 2006 Gotham Awards Breakthrough Actor Award included:
actors Ellen Barkin, Jennifer Jason Leigh and, actor/directors Jon Favreau and Liev Schreiber, director John Singleton and casting director Cindy Tolan.

Best Ensemble Cast Award presented by Sarita Choudhury and Annabella Sciorra

Babel: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Kôji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Said Tarchani, Boubker Ait El Caid (Paramount Vantage)

The 2006 Gotham Awards Best Ensemble Cast Jury included: directors Miguel Arteta and Neil LaBute, actors Billy Baldwin and S Epatha Merkerson and casting director Kerry Barden.

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award presented by Parker Posey and Alessandro Nivola
Choking Man: Steve Barron, director; Joshua Zeman, Zachary Mortensen, producers

The editors of Filmmaker magazine selected the winner of the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award.

In addition to the competitive awards, the Gotham Awards presented Tributes to:

Gotham Awards Tribute to: Kate Winslet, presented by Todd Field
Gotham Awards Tribute to: Edward Norton, presented by John Curran
Gotham Awards Tribute to: Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban, presented by Steven Soderbergh
Gotham Awards Tribute to: Ellen Kuras, presented by Sam Mendes
Gotham Awards Filmmakers Tribute to: Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, presented by Mira Sorvino
Gotham Awards Humanitarian Tribute to: Tim Robbins, presented by Sean Penn

George Clooney deflected his People’s Sexiest Man designation on 11/28’s David Letterman Show by ragging on pals Pitt and Damon, according to guilty pleasure blog JustJared.

Why am I running this picture? Because like many other people, I enjoy looking at gorgeous movie stars. [Via Hollywood Elsewhere.]

To sum up:
Borat killed. Nothing else came close.

Catch a Fire, Venus, Last King of Scotland, Little Children, Babel, Volver, and The Lives Of Others continued on track for Oscars. Pan’s Labyrinth was another fave here, and could be a Mexican entry.

Marc Forster’s Stranger than Fiction could get into the race if the critics like it enough—I heard some mixed response. It’s fabulously written and acted and very funny and even suspenseful. Will Ferrell is well cast as the schlumpy dull accountant who falls for earthy baker Maggie Gyllenhaal, who along with Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman could win a supporting nom.

It’s hard to say what will happen with For Your Consideration, Infamous, Breaking and Entering, Bobby; all were met with mixed responses. For Your Consideration seemed to me like another trip to a tired old well; Infamous is stuck with being the second film about Truman Capote but should be seen; Breaking and Entering is Anthony Minghella all over: it’s well made and smart and the actors are good but it leaves you outside somehow, looking in. I’m wondering why I have such ambivalent feelings about Jude Law. Due to a deadline, I missed my Bobby screening last night.

Among the new films, The Fountain, All the King’s Men and A Good Year all disappointed. All the King’s Men I have yet to see, but the press and industry people wondered what movie Steve Zaillian really wanted to make. If it had been good it would have come out last year, basically.

The Fountain is a noble failure from a talented director. Darren Aronofsky conceived it on a grand studio scale but trimmed it back after Brad Pitt left the project. The movie still could have gotten smaller. The contemporary story about Hugh Jackman fighting against losing his wife (Rachel Weisz) to cancer works, and so does the story within the story, written by her and read by him, about a conquistador searching for the fountain of youth for his queen. But the third future story…Aronofsky explained it to me, but man, it’s out there. Basically Jackman is a yogi in a bubble in a nebula.

A Good Year is a male fantasy in which Russell Crowe tries to be charming and somehow fails; it feels like a movie made by a bunch of men getting drunk every night on location in Provence. While it was made on a $30 million budget, which is low for a Ridley Scott/Crowe movie, it’s still one of those studio movies that bears no resemblence to reality: it looks good and should function as an escapist romance–but doesn’t.

Among the movies for sale, I adored Sarah Polley’s restrained handling of romance among the aged in Away from Her, starring the incandescent Julie Christie.

Top commercial director Tarsem’s self-financed $14-million war-time fable  The Fall was influenced by The Princess Bride, but was more visually arresting than narratively coherent. Filmed on location in Morocco, India and Spain, the film drew interest from the usual gaggle of distributors–Focus, Searchlight, Goldwyn. But it took Harvey Weinstein just ten minutes to walk out.

It took me ten minutes to walk out of Renaissance, a stylized high contrast black and white rotoscoped sci-fi policier influenced by Sin City but irritating to watch. You couldn’t see the characters’ faces, which made the bad voice acting harder to take. It made Richard Linklater look like a genius.

I stayed through to the end of Jennifer Lopez’s El Cantante, a straightforward sincere and cliched musical biopic which should play well to the Latin audience. A deal was supposed to close last night. See above for info about the Picturehouse acquisition.

Netflix debuted its first Toronto movie, Jeffrey Garland’s This Filthy World, starring the hilariously dirty John Waters, one of several Netflix-commissioned stand-up flicks. Waters also took the Al Green stage with Shortbus writer-director John Cameron Mitchell for a hilarious dialogue about outlaw cinema. (More on this later.)

Filmmaker Fernando Meirelles came to Toronto to display footage from his recently completed Brazilian production, Paolo Morelli’s City of Men, a follow-up to the City of God film and TV show. Meirelles said that he has abandoned his sprawling Intolerance opus in favor of a chance to direct a Brazilian/Canadian production of Jose Saramago’s novel “Blindness” for release in 2008.

The greatest frustration for me here is that given the demands of my job, there’s never enough time to see some of the more interesting and obscure movies.  I heard great things about the Cannes hit Red Road, Picturehouse’s Brit comedy Starter for Ten, Paul Verhoeven’s WW II drama Black Book, Tony Kaye’s abortion documentary Lake of Fire, the doc The U.S. vs. John Lennon, the Death of a President, the fairy tale Penelope, the new Alain Resnais and Patrice Leconte films…still plenty of catch-up to do.

THR’s full Toronto wrap.

Angelina Jolie masterfully works the celebrity magazine system. In fact, she’s so good at it, she’d make a fab tab editor, writes Businessweek’s Jon Fine:

One indicator of
Jolie’s skill at working this system, at overwhelming it with stories
so the media don’t need to find their own, is how the aftermath of her
highly publicized hookup with Pitt played out. The exact moment of the
couple’s ignition is not known, but Jolie and Pitt met cute on the set
of last summer’s blockbuster Mr. & Mrs. Smith while Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston. (And when Jolie was coming off a major box office flop in 2004’s Alexander.)
But in short course the story line "was not ‘I took someone’s husband.’
It was ‘I adopt children. I donate [much of] my income,"’ says one top
tabloid editor. "She is a genius at changing the narrative….. How do
you hate someone who spent Thanksgiving helping Pakistani earthquake
victims?"

— posted by Sheigh