Anne Thompson has a kickin’ essay on digital cinema from the precursors of Monster House to that film’s massive breakthroughs in motion capture (yes, those are REAL people who were filmed via motion capture for the animation, taking the Gollum stuff light years further) to what’s coming very soon with Beowulf and Avatar.  Wow!  See the entire essay here.  Yes, Monster House is in 3D and Avatar is going to push stereoscopic real 3D even further.