The Toys just did it once again. Seems odd that this saga, born 15 years ago in a emerging animation studio co-founded by Steve Jobs and called Pixar, writes the film history once again.

Toy Story was the  first 100% 3-D CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) feature film ever produced . This film took 5 years to be produced, since The Walt Disney Co. started talks with Pixar for a 3 film co-production deal signed in 1990.

16 years later, in 2006 Disney ended up acquiring Pixar, converting Steve Jobs (main shareholder of Pixar) in the main individual Disney‘s shareholder (with a participation of 7% in the company).

Since Pixar was born, 7 of its 11 produced feature films have been nominated by the Academy Awards in the Best Animated Feature Film category. 5 of those 7 actually won the award. This means almost half of their produced films  have won the Oscar in this category.

Once again, Disney-Pixar, writes the film (hi)Story. Toy Story 3 just got the record for the highest box-office revenues ever achieved by an animated film, with more than 920 million dollars collected Worldwide (this amount doesn’t include the revenues of this last weekend).

Toy Story 3 took 3 years in being produced. With more than 100 computers working almost 24 hours a day for the movie.

This great number success stories achieved by Pixar are not only based in its constant innovation in CGI animation techniques, but most importantly in the quality of its wonderful stories. Pixar movies are able to take to the movie theaters not only families, but also have created a new kind of movie-goer that you will only see in the theaters every time there is a new Pixar movie out there.

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If making your ego grow seems not enough for you when being liked by your viewers when visiting your site, then, probably Flattr could be a better solution for you.

Flattr is a site that allows you to get a little amount of money each time a viewer in your website chooses to like a content in it. It basically works like the Facebook “like” button (just like the one you can see at the end of this post and you will click even if you don’t like this article ).

When Flattr was born it was restricted only to users  with invitation. Now it is open to all the public. The only inconvenient is you will have to pay a minimum monthly fee of  2 euros. That same fee is the one you will use to reward those sites you like. This means, that the system counts the total times you “liked something” during the month and splits the fee you paid among those things you “liked”.  And this is the same way you will be getting money from your Flattr viewers each time they like something in your site.

The system still has to mature to see if it does work and gets enough number of users to become popular, and also profitable for those authors that will include Flattr in their sites. Nevertheless, sounds like a great start-up idea.

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It’s funny how long it is taking for some contents to become online globally. It first happened to music, and it has been happening to film since the Internet connections had enough coverage and speed to allow Peer2Peer systems to include movies in their listings.

It is so hard for film industry to get all the rights from the different creative and corporate branches involved. But there are also so many International legislations and different author rights recognitions, that global distribution sites for movies seems still very far for the Major Studios Products.

The bad thing is they are losing important opportunities and time to change peoples’ habits of how to watch movies online. Piracy has been growing in exchange and has been convincing people that they don’t have to pay for this kind of contents.

Away from the legal, illegal and allegal debate, there is other film industry branch that is trying to make its space and beat Piracy, thanks to a easier and more liberal way of distribution. This is the Independent film industry.

All over the world new sites are being launched to distribute Indie films specifically. For example, in Spain there is a website called Filmin, that distributes indie films bought by some of the leading Independent Distributors in the country. In the U.S. there is Indieflix. And there are many others with this same positioning.

These sites are based in the following premise: Independent  movies are hard to find online even in those countries where piracy is killing the film sector. So this is a great way to make this products available to the interested consumers, and yet paying what is owed to get to them.

Also, the online distribution allows many movies to be seen at all. As some small movies are not able to get distribution agreements to launch in movie theaters. So probably the online media is the only solution for them to see the light one day.

Online legal distribution of films is a reality that is still in its expansion process Internationally, but we hope for the own sake of the Major Studios, to be able to clear all the obstacles that don’t let them establish this kind of distribution globally. Because it is getting too late, and the later they get there, the worst will it be.

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Youtube has really impressive Ad formats, like  the Masthead Unit types. But this is probably the first time they deliver an action so shocking, creative and funny at the same time.

A video that starts like the usual behind-the-scenes interview with Sylvester Stallone, ends up being a war zone.

The action is not just entertaining but also set us very well in the kind of movie The Expendables is: A group of old time action movies’ stars, joined together to laugh at themselves in this peculiar comedic-action story

It is better to watch it with your own eyes. It is real hard to refuse sending it to your friends.

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Fflick is a very simple website that uses your Twitter to track your friends’ tweets referring to any movie title. That way you know your friends opinions about the movies you have seen or you are about to watch.

The platform was launched about 9 months ago and is a mix of Rotten Tomatoes concept and Twitter. It brings out the most important element that makes us go to see a movie or not: A friend recommendation.

The site not only shows your friends’ tweets about a title but it also shows the total number of mentions a movie have had in the whole Twitter up to that moment. This is also useful to know which are the most popular titles or find opinions from other Twitterers that you aren’t following.

Nevertheless, the site has a limited number of titles, most of them depend on their launching date in the U.S., so many Non-American or Independent titles are still missing to be included.

Word-of-mouth has proven to be the most trusted content advisor by people. So, now you will be able to know if that movie really worths the ticket you are about to pay and take advantage of discovering the movie critic hidden in each of us thanks to Fflick.

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For those who haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t worry I promise not to include any spoilers in this post.

They took a little to launch Inception in Spain, but probably the strategy in choosing the date was the best one, since if it have had premiered at the same time than in the U.S., it would have fought against Toy Story 3 in the box-office. Also, a movie like this, with such great reviews all around, gets such good word-of-mouth free campaign, that the movie does not need to spend as much money as in a global launching.

This is why we should suspect of high-budget movies global launches, as they usually have a bad word-of-mouth effect, and the distribution companies try to avoid it by releasing everywhere at the same time. This strategy  is usually focused in getting a high amount of money in the first weekend, before the people punish it on the following weekends. Those movies are usually known as: “take the money and run” (just like in the Woody Allen title).

Talking about Inception. There is basically one thing it should be said about: “if you haven’t seen it, go for it”. It will surely drive your mind crazy from minute 1, and it will continue doing so for a while once you get out of the movie-theater. Even if you are not used to discuss movies after watching them, this one will make you do it. It will grab you, take your mind out of the theater for about 2 and a half hours, and once the lights are turned on, you will not be able to think about anything else but the movie. The most important thing about all this, is that nowadays, not many movies are able to provoke this effect on you. So don’t miss the opportunity.

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Adam Sandler and the rest of cast in the movie Grown Ups have delivered a very original campaign showing the 5 male co-stars in the movie when they were little boys. Most of them would not even need to have the actor name in them…

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Apple retail stores revenues have increased almost 75% thanks to iPad launch.

When iPhone was launched, many Technology specialists thought it was never going to work (you can read many of their opinions here).  All of their points were very reasonable, but the thing is sometimes buying a gadget is something that has more to do with fashion than reason.

The same critiques were applicable to the iPad, which is nothing more than an enlarged iPhone with all the advantages of a Kindle (even its price) and all the disadvantages of a system based completely in Apple decisions on what you are allowed to do with it. Users are totally dependent on what is available in iTunes store; at the same time developers should work only with Apple. Licenses and standards when launching new apps. But no one cares about this when something is so cool to have in your hands and has such a strong word-of-mouth.

Numbers don’t lie. We are in the midde of one of the worst economic crisis ever known and Apple Stores have incrased their sales in 75%.

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