There’s little doubt that since Alvin and the Chipmunks, CG-live action family movies haven’t been afraid to go for a more cartoony look, and that’s certainly true of Yogi Bear, where, if this trailer is anything to go by, the CG characters seem to have dropped in from another world. However it does look like it might be quite fun for kids, with Anna Faris as a wildlife filmmaker heading to Jellystone, where she meets Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) and discovers the walking disaster area that is Yogi. However one thing I can’t quite help wonder, is what the point is of paying Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timerlake to voice Yogi and Boo-boo, and then making them sound like the cartoon, so you wouldn’t know it was them? Why not just get a proper voice actor to do it? It’s not like anyone will care. Yogi Bear will be in cinemas this Christmas.

Disney has talked a lot about how their first CGI fairytale movie, Tangled (based on Rapunzel), is an attempt to capture the look of classic hand-drawn Disney animation, but in a 3D computer graphics environment. While he had a brief look at this in the teaser trailer, now a featurette has popped up online, which talks far more about the inspiration behind the film’s look and how they went about creating it’s old-but-new feel. It’s well worth a watch, so click below to take a look. Tangled hits US cinemas in November.

Oftentimes footage from an eciting upcoming movie is shown at Comic-Con, and then it’s either never released to the rest of the world, or we only get to see it via dodgy bootleg copies shot at Comic-Con. It’s great then that a decent version of the five minute extended trailer for Thor has shown up online, giving us a great look at the feel of the movie. From the Halls Of Asgrard and a shouty Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Thor is banished to Earth, meets Natalie Portman and gets his hammer. In fact, there’s not really much point saying much more about the plot, at this trailer slightly has the feel of being an abbreviated version of the movie, except with fewer special effects (because they’re not finished yet). While many worried whether the fantasy of gods would look silly on screen in a comic-book movie, it actually seems to work quite well, and I don’t reckon Thor will look out of place lined up with the likes of Iron Man and Captain America in the Avengers. It’s certainly got me more excited about the film’s release next May.

Last year it was announced that Roland Joffe (The Mission) had been hired to make a movie about controversial Opus Dei founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. It was pitched, in the backer’s words, as ‘a sympathetic portrayal of the Catholic organization, bravely contradicting the sentiment set by Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code.’ So no killer albino monks here. Instead Charlie Cox (Stardust) stakes on the lead role of the Opus Dei founder, who set up the organisation in 1928 as a way for Catholics to learn to sanctify themselves without abandoning secular life, bringing God into everything they do (although it’s this strictness over people’s lives, combined with its secrecy, that’s caused controversy). The film, funded by Opus Dei itself, also stars Wes Bentley and Dougray Scott, and now the first trailer has arrived, which you can see below. There Be Dragons isn’t not likely to assuage Opus Dei critics, who are wary of the group’s recruiting practices and are bound to see the film as a two-hour promo, but it might be an interesting counterpoint to the controversy that has surrounded the organisation for years.

Normally the words ‘graphic novel’ bring to mind images of sci-fi and thriller plots, but Tamara Drewe is something rather different, a graphic novel aimed largely at women, which is essentially a modern day update of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd, in which sexy flirt Drewe (Gemma Arteron) returns to her small country village after completely transforming herself through plastic surgery and a new look. She stirs up dark passions amongst the locals, which leads to tragedy. Now the first official UK trailer for Stephen Frear’s movie version has been released. Tamara Drewe is scheduled for release in the UK on September 10th. Click below for the trailer.

Disney has been talking about converting Beauty and the Beast to 3D for years. Indeed they were showing footage at events last year and saying it’d be in cinemas in time for Valentine’s Day. That never happened, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up on the idea, and although no new release date has been set for either the UK or US (next Valentine’s Day would seem a good bet though), it appears the conversion is getting a strictly limited release in New Zealand in August (it’s only playing a single cinema chain with 15 theatres), perhaps testing the waters. Whatever’s going on, a trailer has popped up for it online, and while we don’t get to see the 3D, it’s nice to know the movie is returning to cinemas (although it’ll hit Blu-ray first this autumn). BTW, those who’s seen 3D footage say it’s quite impressive, with Disney going back into the archives and the original drawings, so they can create a properly layered three-dimensional effect.