Before we were able to get to the good stuff, Lee Roy Mitchell, Chairman of NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) opened the ceremony by having an acquaintance he referred to as "Coach" lead the attending exhibitors in prayer, which might have seemed a bit odd for anyone there who may have been agnostic or atheist. In the mini-sermon theatre owners were given "high marks for enforcing the ratings system" and other achievements in 2006, and it was hard not to realize the irony of opening a convention held in "Sin City" with a prayer.

After that bizarre opening, Dick Cook, Chairman of Walt Disney Pictures, was introduced and he gave a brief speech, reminding the attendants of the great year at the box office in 2006 and reiterating the point that digital home systems still don't compare to the communal experience of seeing movies in theatres. (I expect this to be a common theme in most of the speeches and presentations given at ShoWest.) He then stepped aside to present a montage of the movies that made more than $100 million at the box office in 2006, and the curtains pulled back to reveal the Theatre Des Arts' big screen digital system, which helped prove the point of how good movies look and sound in a real theatrical environment. (Borat got the best reaction from the attendants.)

After that, Dick Cook introduced Jerry Bruckheimer, Disney's "go to guy and clean-up hitter," and a giant Pirates image was displayed on the screen. Bruckheimer proceeded to tell the story of how Dick Cook contacted him six years ago to do a movie based on Disney's theme park ride for $70 million and how what was originally going to be a PG movie evolved into the supernatural PG-13 movies that was Curse of the Black Pearl, made for "more than $70 million." Bruckheimer shared how he was worried when Disney's The Country Bears flopped, but that it was thanks to the genius of Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp and everyone else that it succeeded.

Withour further ado, he announced that they would be premiering the new trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End a full week before its debut on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and the special screenings to precede it on March 18. Frankly, it was way too many amazing images and information to absorb and I don't have the memory, note-taking skills or pause button to really describe how amazing this trailer looked. Last week, there was a bit of leaked information about what was going to be in the trailer, and though some of the scenes were in there, this was cut together very differently so that some scenes were definitely not included.

It really looks like they've upped the ante from Dead Man's Chest if that's even possible, and I was blown away by some of the images of pirate ships sailing between icebergs, another of a ship sailing to the edge of a waterfall and a climactic scene of a number of ships being sucked into a giant whirlpool. The trailer revealed a few tidbits about the plot for the threequel, in that the movie will not only be about the search for Captain Jack Sparrow, but also about the Dutch East India Company led by Tom Hallander's Beckett, now teaming with Davy Jones (!), to rid the world of pirates, forcing Captain Jack Sparrow, Will and Elizabeth to team with Barbossa, and Chow Yun-Fat's Sao Fen to prevent the pirate way of life from being obliterated. As expected, there was a lot of stuff in the footage shown yesterday that wasn't in the trailer, though there was a more finished scene of Sparrow in a sword fight with Davy Jones atop the ship's rigging and there's a brief bit with Will asking Elizabeth to marry him in the middle of a big action scene and a gag in which Norrington says to Jack, "You're mad!", and then Jack saying "Of course I am. This wouldn't work if I wasn't" then him lighting a cannon which explodes, flying backwards and pulling Jack up into the air on the rigging. There were a lot more scenes that I'm probably forgetting, but I'm sure that Pirates fans will want to try to catch the trailer next Monday or when it's shown in front of Meet the Robinsons in a few weeks.

Dick Cook returned to introduce Brad Bird, the "master chef behind Ratatouille" and Bird talked about the upcoming summer of sequels and how they wanted to put a "1" after the title to make Ratatouille be the "prequel to the sequel." He talked a bit about the challenges of making animated movies like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and especially how hard it was to try to make a movie about a French rat appealing. He then introduced a 12-minute clip from his new Pixar film Ratatouille with a synopsis of the story up until that point. Essentially, Remy the Rat is from the country where he hangs with a clan of rats, but he's different, having the taste buds and knack for being a chef. Although he's warned to stay away from the local kitchens, Remy doesn't listen and the group is forced into the sewer with Remy being separated and winding up in Paris. (Bird mentioned that Peter O'Toole provides the voice of a food critic named Anton Ego.)

This seemed to be the same clip that was shown at WonderCon a few weeks back, though it might have been longer. Either way, it looked as good or better than any of Pixar's previous films, as it showed Remy's arrival at the Paris kitchen and his first meeting with the "garbage boy" Linguini, voiced by Pixar's Lou Romano. Here is a more detailed description of the 12-minute clip:

The scene began with Remy peering down into the kitchen from the skylight, talking with the ghost of a TV chef (voiced by Brad Garrett), and Remy gives him a rundown of the kitchen staff (stuff that I didn't even know). He then spots Linguini knocking a pot of soup onto the floor while cleaning the kitchen. He picks it up and tries to fill the level back up with water, throwing some ingredients in for good measure. Remy freaks out that he's "ruining the soup" and then falls through the skylight into the dish sink, leading to a fast-moving section where Remy scampers around the kitchen trying to avoid being seen or caught by the kitchen staff, ending up in the oven and onto a rolling cart that's wheeled into the dining room. Eventually, he gets back to the stove with the soup pot, and he begins to throw ingredients in to "fix the soup" with the ghostly chef urging him on. Just as Linguini spots Remy on the edge of the soup pot, the Chef spots Linguini "the garbage boy" trying to cook something and the Chef freaks out. Before he can do anything, a waiter is taking a boat of this "tainted" soup into the dining room to serve to a customer. Not only that, but it's a famous French critic being given the soup, but she asks for the Chef to tell him she loved it. Though the Chef was ready to fire Linguini, he has second thoughts after being reprimanded by a female chef referred to as Mademoiselle Toutou who refers to the late Gasteau's motto that "anyone can cook." The Chef puts Toutou in charge of Linguini, saying that he'll have to continue making that soup, and as he continues to rant and rave, he then sees "a rat" and the chefs jump over each other to capture the rat before they're ruined. The task is given to Linguini to dispose of Remy as we're into the scene of Linguini taking Remy (in a jar) on his bicycle to be thrown into the river. Linguini realizes that he can't make that soup without Remy's help and we get a nice scene of Linguini trying to make a deal...yes, with a rat... to help him. It ends with Linguini releasing Remy who scampers away but then has second thoughts and looks back to the forelorn Linguini who is doomed without his help.

Incidentally, a lot of the footage in this 12-minute clip makes up the body of the trailer (described in a previous post) which will debut with Meet the Robinsons. Ratatouille looks like another inventive movie from the minds of Disney, Pixar and Brad Bird, and I'm excited to see the rest of it, hopefully in as good a theatre as Les Theatre des Artes.

Next up was Dan Glickman, Chairman and CEO of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but we'll talk about his convention address speech in a separate post.