Posted by Allen on June 7, 2009 under Movies | 
Finishing up my inadvertent Week of Pixar-Related Stuff:
For the second straight weekend, Up was the top movie at the box office in the United States Ummm, oops, scratch that…Up was the second-place movie at the box office in the U.S. this last weekend – its gross dropped only 35% from last weekend to this weekend. People, that’s absolutely spectacular, at least for most movies, and it’s still pretty impressive even by Pixar’s lofty standards (see chart below). For some perspective, industry pundits celebrated Star Trek’s 42% second-week dropoff as an example of excellent staying power, and this is…well, it’s seven better, isn’t it? (For further comparison, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian fell off 55% between the first and second weekends and X-Men Origins: Wolverine fell off 69%.)
The lesson to be learned here? Short movie titles lead to better audience retention numbers, of course.
Up has already grossed $137 million and is still going strong after weekend number two, meaning it’ll easily sail over the $200 million mark with a decent shot at $250 million by the time it’s done, which would put it in the upper echelons of Pixar’s top moneymakers (but well below Finding Nemo, their biggest hit to date). For more numberiffic comparison, here’s how the nine previous Pixar flicks did in their first two weekends and overall:
| Flick |
First Two Weekends |
Total Domestic Gross |
Second-Week Dropoff |
| Up |
$137 million |
??? |
-35.0% |
| WALL-E |
$127 million |
$223 million |
-48.5% |
| Ratatouille |
$109 million |
$206 million |
-38.3% |
| Cars |
$117 million |
$244 million |
-43.9% |
| The Incredibles |
$143 million |
$261 million |
-28.7% |
| Finding Nemo |
$144 million |
$339 million |
-33.7% |
| Monsters, Inc. |
$122 million |
$255 million |
-27.2% |
| Toy Story 2 |
$116 million |
$245 million |
-51.6% |
| A Bug’s Life |
$68 million |
$162 million |
-48.4% |
| Toy Story |
$64 million |
$191 million |
-30.8% |
So, it’s official: Up is a blockbuster commercially and critically: an astonishing 98% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com and, honestly, probably already something of a lock for next year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar (or at least a nomination; we do still have half the year left). That makes Pixar ten-for-ten, consistency which is almost mind-boggling. They’ll have to wind up with a swing-and-a-miss someday, of course, but this streak is one I’m hoping doesn’t end anytime soon.
Posted by Allen on June 4, 2009 under Movies, Reviews |
I read a discussion of Up recently — I don’t remember where — which said that the movie was ultimately about acceptance of death, which is an awfully adult theme to find in a kids’ film. (Truth be told, of course: Pixar movies are family movies, not kids’ movies, and there’s a big difference.) I think that statement’s close, but not quite accurate: it’s more fair to say Up deals with the ability or inability to accept change in all its forms and learning to let go of the past, whether that past was one or seventy years ago. Up reminds us that when someone we love passes on — or even just passes out of our lives — life doesn’t end for those of us left behind. Up suggests we appreciate the little things in life and that those little things can be bigger than the biggest adventure.
And Up gives us these weighty messages wrapped up in the gaudy Mylar of thousands of helium-filled balloons.
As I discussed in my ranking of the ten Pixar movies to date, the “worst” (for some awfully lenient definition of “worst”) of their films don’t engage the emotions nearly as much as they engage the eyes. That fault most certainly does not plague Up – I have to admit that I cried while watching it, and I can’t remember if I’ve ever done that before.[1] Pixar started their career by finding the humanity in inhuman characters (toys, bugs, monsters, etc.), but in Carl Frederickson they’ve created quite possibly their most human character yet.
Director Pete Docter lays out all we need to know about Carl in the first ten minutes of the movie, covering sixty-odd years of his life during the opening sequences. His crankiness is given believability and meaning; grumpy though he may be, he doesn’t fit the simple Grumpy Old Man stereotype. Carl is not ill-tempered by nature but by circumstance, and it’s the circumstance of meeting Russell, his young opposite, which begins to bring him out of his emotional hole.
Russell couldn’t be much more Carl’s antithesis: young where Carl is old; optimistic and exuberant where Carl is withdrawn and cranky; brave and adventurous where Carl is shuttered. Even visually the difference is clear: Carl is almost a perfect square, Russell is almost a perfect egg. What the two have in common is something of a common history, and the bond which develops because of it, each affecting the other, ultimately provides much of Up’s lift.
I must talk for a minute about the dogs which feature so prominently in Up. To see just what an amazing feat of modeling and animation these dogs represent, what a leap in quality, please go back and watch the first Toy Story. Even at the time, watching Buster felt like a “they’re not quite there yet” moment in the middle of an otherwise technologically mind-blowing (again, for 1995) movie: his square, awkward build and clunky animation left plenty of room for improvement.
And improve they did. Each of the dogs here has not only a distinctive and well-rendered look, but a clear and well-animated personality as well. Dug was especially done well: his character model may be cartoonier than the other dogs’, but that more cartoony look allowed for more expressiveness, which the animators used to fantastic effect. His look also visually sets him apart from the other, more realistically-modeled dogs so that we never group him in with the “bad” dogs. Dug stands out as my favorite character in the movie: the fact that he always remains Just A Dog and never an especially “humanized” or anthropomorphized dog (even though he could speak) was one of Docter’s nicest touches.
[1] I cried during
The Iron Giant, but that’s
totally different since I saw it on DVD.
Brad Bird lined up all of my emotional buttons and punched them all at once. The big meanie.
Posted by Allen on June 2, 2009 under Movies, Ten2One |
Welcome to the first installment of yet another new ongoing series I just now thought up: Ten2One, which is, in all honesty, just a fancy handle for a fairly standard Top 10 list. To kick things off, in honor of the opening of Pixar’s tenth animated feature, Up, I present to you my ordering, from worst to first, of my favorite Pixar movies.
10. A Bug’s Life (1997)
While A Bug’s Life might be my least favorite Pixar movie, I want to note that I don’t at all think it’s bad. It’s still perfectly entertaining, and the leap in technology from Toy Story, their first film, to this, their second one, was immense – just look at that model bird in the big climax. But A Bug’s Life also featured their most annoying lead character, and most of the secondary cast, while funny, didn’t have any of the emotional connection that the great Pixar movies have. This one gets a solid B from me, which is still damn good for being in the bottom slot on this list.
9. Cars (2006)
I know John Lasseter’s The Man at Pixar and all, but this labor of love from him was…underwhelming. Again, certainly not bad – and it’s held up surprisingly well to the several thousand of viewings of it I’ve endured thanks to my two daughters. But I think the fundamental problem with Cars was much the same as with A Bug’s Life: its lead character simply wasn’t compelling enough (Owen Wilson’s voice just didn’t connect with me) and the supporting cast was colorful but not especially engaging (Paul Newman’s Doc Hudson aside). Maybe that’s a problem which will get rectified in the sequel.
(Side note: I have a separate post brewing about that difference between these two “lower tier” Pixar movies and all the ones above it; I hope to get that written sometime this week.)
8. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
And now we enter the solid A-minus-and-up range with the movie which has bumped farthest down the list simply because all the films released after it have been better. And that “emotional connection” thing I mentioned was missing from numbers nine and ten above? Yeah, totally present here. There’s more pure emotion in the closing shot of Sully than in those last two flicks put together. (Pixar Show-Off Shot: Sully’s fur, especially when blowing in the wind and covered in snow.)
7. Toy Story 2 (1999)
In many ways, probably a superior film to the original Toy Story, but this list is rating my favorite Pixar movies, not necessarily the best, and that’s a small but important distinction to make. Story goes that Toy Story 2 was supposed to be a straight-to-video release (banging out straight-to-video sequels was pretty much standard practice with Disney’s animated features then), but when Disney realized just how good it was, they had Pixar finish it up for theatrical release instead. And good thing, too: it went on to gross $245 million, making it the third-highest-grossing film of ‘99.
6. Up (2009)
My full review’s coming very soon, but for now I’ll say that Up is the first animated movie since The Iron Giant to make me cry. (Yes, I know that’s more knocks against my Jason Statham-like Tough Guy image.)
5. Ratatouille (2007)
One of the things I absolutely adore about this movie – even aside from the gorgeous renderings of Paris and the celebrations of both cooking and eating – is the fact that lead characters are so flawed. Remy is petty, obstinate, defensive and rash; Linguini is weak (to begin with, anyway), cowardly, willing to take credit not due him, and equally rash. Yet together, they manage to lift themselves above their “humblest beginnings” (so says the critic Anton Ego) to incredible successes – and they lift Ratatouille up, too.
4. Toy Story (1995)
I first discovered Pixar in 1992 when I saw their short film “Knick Knack” as part of an animation festival in Tampa. I immediately fell in love with the company — while they certainly weren’t the first company to produce computer-generated animation, they were far and away the best I’d seen yet — and I desperately looked forward to seeing more work from them. Then two years later, I heard they were producing a feature-length animated film to be released by Disney. I saw Toy Story the weekend it opened in theaters — a tradition I’ve continued to follow with all nine of their subsequent releases — and loved it even more than I’d been expecting to. The technology obviously doesn’t hold up as well as one might hope, but hey, it’s fifteen years old; that’s lifetimes in terms of software development. The story craft was already there, though, and (here’s a little secret for you) that’s just as important to me as the actual animation. (Toy Story also sparked some of my earliest love for Joss Whedon, before I even knew who the hell he was!)
3. WALL-E (2008)
WALL-E has to be one of the most engaging, sympathetic leads in any movie in recent history; the fact that director Andrew Stanton and his crew managed to convey those qualities with such limited dialogue really is amazing. Yes, OK, fine — the environmental message can come across a little preachy. Or a lot preachy. But it’s a good message, so it doesn’t much bother me, especially in the service of such an excellent movie.
2. Finding Nemo (2003)
One of the most finely-tuned scripts of any movie I’ve seen, animated or otherwise. Not a scene or line feels wasted to me: the Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay director Stanton received for this movie was very well justified. Nemo features one of the strongest supporting casts of any of the Pixar flicks, and the interplay between Ellen DeGeneres‘ Dory and Albert Brooks‘ Marlin still makes me laugh (and care) every time I watch it. Unsurprisingly, the bit about the overprotective father learning to let go gets to me, too. (Also, Nemo was the first of four Pixar movies to date to take home the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.)
1. The Incredibles (2004)
Honestly? The Incredibles is my favorite movie, period. Here’s the thing: when I first saw the teaser trailer for this one before Finding Nemo and found out what it was about and who was behind it, my mind was already blown. It’s Pixar? And superheroes? And it’s written and directed by Brad Bird, the genius behind The Iron Giant, my favorite non-Pixar animated movie? My expectations were so high that I was convinced there was no way this movie could possibly live up to them.
But it did. To make a bad Pixar joke: if my expectations were infinite, then The Incredibles went to infinity and beyond. The characters are richly nuanced and believable, the animation and design are stunning, the script respected its audience’s intelligence, the heroic action scenes are, well, incredible…honestly, The Incredibles is pretty much my platonic ideal of a movie. I sincerely hope they never make a sequel, because I don’t think it could do the original justice.
Of course, Pixar’s blown away my expectations before…
Tags: a bugs life, andrew stanton, brad bird, cars, finding nemo, john lasseter, monsters inc, pixar, ratatouille, the incredibles, toy story, up, wall-e
Posted by Allen on May 31, 2009 under Movies, Photography |
Originally published December 9, 2005. This is not what will actually be happening in Toy Story 3 (pretty clearly, I think). I wrote this after I snapped this picture when Laurel dropped her Woody doll in the snow outside our house. At the time, Disney and Pixar were going through the contentious battle which saw Disney threatening to make Toy Story 3 without Pixar — I think luckily for all of us, that original plan was scrapped once The Mouse officially acquired them. Now, though, feel free to go check out the official Toy Story 3 teaser trailer, and look out here for more Pixar-related content this week, including my review of Up. (Spoiler alert: I liked it.)
The Walt Disney Company today revealed that the plot of
Toy Story 3 – a movie the studio is making without longtime partner Pixar, who produced the first two
Toy Story features — would surround the mysterious death of Woody at the hands of a “cereal (toy) killer” and the other toys’ quest for revenge. Speculation has it that Disney’s willing to kill off the beloved cowboy sheriff because
Tom Hanks was reluctant to lend his voice talent to the project; given
Tim Allen’s career of late, he’s expected to return to the role of Buzz Lightyear. No word on whether Slinky Dog (voiced by
Jim Varney, who died in 2000) would also meet his grisly end in the flick.
Posted by Allen on June 30, 2008 under Movies, Reviews |
For all of the usual Pixar brand of amazing technical virtuosity on display in WALL-E (and believe me, there’s plenty of it), it’s the wonderful characterization which makes the movie such a joy to watch. That director Andrew Stanton and his wizards at Pixar were able to draw such well-developed characters with such little dialogue is testament to the skill of their animation and story departments. I have trouble imagining a more human movie about robots.
If you’ve seen director Stanton’s previous masterpiece, Finding Nemo — and really, if you haven’t by now, you really should — that depth of character won’t surprise you in the least. WALL-E himself shows himself to be one of the more appealing leads of any of the Pixar films; on retrospect, this big-hearted, curious, noble, romantic little waste-collection robot is probably the most likable lead Pixar’s ever created. All of the film’s robot characters have distinct, well-crafted personalities, and almost none of them have much dialogue to speak of (pun intended). I think WALL-E and Eve spoke ten different words between them, yet there was never any problem communicating with each other or with the audience.
During the early parts of the movie, the audience is expected to piece together for themselves what happened to Earth, but once the setting changes, the Kid Gloves of Subtlety come off in favor of the Brass Knuckles of In Your Face. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; the less-subtle bits also provided a good deal of the movie’s comic relief. WALL-E might be a love story between two robots, but it also falls cleanly in the Science Fiction Film With a Message mold. The same segments of the population which allowed themselves to get lathered up about the environmental message in Happy Feet will be thoroughly pissed off by WALL-E, which amplifies the green message and throws in several helpings of condemnation of our consumerist society to boot. The two other main themes I took from the movie — Open Your Eyes to the World Around You and Follow Your Own Directive — likely won’t go over any better with the crowd who’d be upset with the Take Care of the Planet one. But I think all of these points are valid ones to teach our kids (and adults). More than valid, really. Essential.
Anyway , it’s nice to see that Pixar has next year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar wrapped up early. One critic mentioned that he thought WALL-E could be up for Best Picture, but now that the Academy Awards have a separate animation category, I’m not sure any animated flick will ever get a Best Picture nomination again. I’ll be curious to see if it gets a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Andrew Stanton, especially given the paucity of dialogue; my suspicion is not, though my hope is yes. I guess we’ll find out in February.
Grade: A.
(Related side note: the short feature before the movie is one of the best they’ve done yet. Hysterical, and also dialogue-free, as most of their shorts are. Do not arrive to the movie late.)
Posted by Allen on July 28, 2006 under Movies |
As I had hoped when the Disney-Pixar deal went down, Pixar’s John Lasseter is reintroducing traditional hand-drawn animated features in his new role as Chief Creative Officer at Disney. First up: The Frog Princess, to be directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the guys who directed The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Treasure Planet (well, two outta three ain’t bad). Alan Menken will be in charge of the music for the movie, which will be a return to the Broadway-esque Disney hits of the early 90’s (think, for example, Beauty and the Beast (which Menken worked on) and The Lion King). This announcement seems to me to be something worth celebrating — the driving talents behind The Little Mermaid making a new cartoon feature with John Lasseter in charge of the whole thing? Oh, yeah, man, good stuff.
But according to the news brief on the IMDb, the Hollywood Reporter doesn’t think Disney’s bringing 2D animation back is such a hot idea: the traditional animation “no longer draws the crowd,” the Reporter says. Um, hello, Hollywood Reporter? Yeah, the thing is that bad hand-drawn animated flicks, movies that seem excessively lame, insult the audience’s intelligence or seem to exist only as launching pads for Happy Meal toys… those are the movies that don’t bring audiences anymore.
Let’s go back to 2002, the year the death knell for cel animation was rung, for just a moment, shall we?
In November of ‘02, Treasure Planet, by most accounts a not-very-good movie, brings in a pitiful $38 million in the United States. Planet’s monumental failure pretty much single-handedly decimates Disney’s cel-drawn animation department, resulting in thousands of layoffs and the shutdown of Disney’s Florida animation facility. It was at this point that the “hand-drawn animation is dead” movement began in earnest.
Yet only five months earlier, Lilo and Stitch, a great movie with plenty of heart designed to appeal to both adults and children, pulled in $145 million domestic, plus launched a spinoff series and several direct-to-DVD sequels. Lilo and Stitch grossed almost as much in its opening weekend ($35 million) as Treasure Planet made during its entire theatrical run. By any metric used, Lilo and Stitch was a solid hit. (For some reason, every article I’ve read of the “no one wants to watch 2D animation” variety ignores this fact — doing so would dispute the foregone conclusion the writers were trying to assert, I suppose.)
Even 2003’s Brother Bear, which was released with relatively little promotion as a result of the huge stinking disaster which was Treasure Planet, managed to earn a healthy $85 million at the box office. (And 2004’s lame Home on the Range, also released with almost no promotion, still managed to out-gross Treasure Planet with a $50 million haul.)
So because of one massive stinkbomb, all of a sudden no one wants to watch hand-drawn animated features anymore?
Audiences do like hand-drawn animation when done well. (Have you noticed the huge surge in popularity of anime over the last decade?) Computer animation isn’t inherently superior, and doesn’t automatically ensure that people will show up. You’ll notice that in the glut of computer-animated movies that have come out over the last few years since 2D animation went into its coma, there have been some pretty big duds in that list, too (The Wild and it’s $36 million take, anyone?). Would The Iron Giant or The Lion King have been better movies if they had been done in 3D rather than 2D? No, I don’t believe it would have. What makes these movies work are the characters, the story, the songs (where applicable), the heart and soul that comes through — not whether the animation is flat or three-dimensional.
If John Lasseter’s going to be overseeing these new features, I have every expectation that the new breed of 2D movies will be more Lilo-like than Planet-esque. Lasseter might be most associated with computer animation, but the man knows storytelling and character and detail, and it’s those qualities which I hope will make these new hand-drawn features every bit as excellent as the Pixar films.
Posted by Allen on January 24, 2006 under Movies |
Back on December 27th, I got to talking about Disney and Pixar and the rumors that The Mouse was going to buy Pixar outright rather than simply renewing their soon-to-expire distribution deal. I had some qualms, I said:
I might be less concerned if they installed John Lasseter as Almighty Inscrutable Pixar Overlord and left them alone, but I have trouble imaginging Disney buying a new toy and not wanting to play with it.
Well, the deal’s done — Pixar is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. Steve Jobs just made himself somewhere north of $3 billion (yes, that’s billion) and finds himself the single largest shareholder in Disney (which could mean some interesting corporate synergy ‘twixt Disney and Apple, I’d imagine).
But the most important part of the buyout?
John Lasseter, the highly respected creative director at Pixar who had previously worked for Disney, will rejoin the House of Mouse as chief creative officer for the company’s combined animated studios and will also help oversee the design for new attractions at Disney theme parks.
I swear to ${god}, that sentence almost made me cry when I read it.
Not only does installing Lasseter as CCO help insure that Pixar will get to keep on keepin’ on as they have been, it also might mean a rebirth of traditional 2-D animation from Disney. Lasseter has said he’s a fan of old-school animation — might we get to see Disney return to producing new hand-drawn animated features? It doesn’t seem like it would make much sense to have two separate computer animation facilities, especially when one would so clearly outclass the other. Former CEO Michael Eisner was the oatmeal-brained idiot who decided Disney should get out of the cel-animation business; now that he’s gone and Lasseter’s in charge, maybe Lasseter can reverse that decision.
I’m sure his buddy Brad Bird wouldn’t mind. I know I sure wouldn’t.
Posted by Allen on December 27, 2005 under Movies |
As I’ve been predicting since early in the negotiations, Disney and Pixar are nearing a deal to re-up their distribution deal, which was set to expire after the release of Cars next year. I can’t honestly see how anyone might have believed this deal wasn’t going to happen — both companies stood to lose way, way too much if they parted ways: too much money for Disney, too much caché for Pixar.
I do have some concerns about the new agreement, if the information out there right now turns out to be true. If Disney were to outright purchase Pixar and make them the official Disney animation division, as one rumor has it, Pixar would lose the independence that’s allowed them to craft their movies they want the way they want to make them. If Disney owns them rather than simply distributs their product, Disney would likely want to have more of a white-gloved, three-fingered hand in what Pixar does and how, and we’ve already seen how wretchedly Disney manages their current animation department. I might be less concerned if they installed John Lasseter as Almighty Inscrutable Pixar Overlord and left them alone, but I have trouble imaginging Disney buying a new toy and not wanting to play with it.
Part of the deal might also include allowing Disney’s current 3D animation department to produce Pixar-sanctioned sequels to some of the Pixar catalog. I’m not sure if this one’s true or not, since Disney’s in-house 3D division seems to be nothing more than a poorly-constructed sham (”Circle 7 Studios” taking its name from the logo for the ABC studio across the street from their offices). I had been thinking that Pixar wouldn’t want to be involved with making any direct-to-video sequels of their work…until I remembered that Toy Story 2 was originally intended to be exactly that. So we’ll see; I’m going to leave this development in the “skeptical” column for now.
Those concerns aside, though, I’m very glad this deal’s going to get done. I’m not the biggest fan of The Mouse, but I realize that Pixar’s better off having their name connected to Disney than not. The distribution and promotion they get (like, say, having their creations slapped all over theme parks around the world) from being associated with the Disney Multimedia Conglomerate can’t be beat by anyone else they could have snuggled up with. And they certainly didn’t want to get into distributing their own movies; far better to let a company with that infrastructure in place take care of it so Pixar can stick with what they do best.
home
top