In Contention

Tag: Cars

  • Lasseter on reviving 2-D animation and Pixar’s “failures”

    The Princess and the FrogJohn Lasseter certainly gives good interview. We linked back in June to a candid and very thorough piece in which the Pixar maven talked through his up-and-down (and up again) history with Disney. Now Variety carries a worthwhile profile of the man, in anticipation of the lifetime-achievement Golden Lion he is due to receive at the Venice Film Festival next week.

    In it, he reveals the supposed secret behind Pixar’s unbroken run of hits (not to mention their enviable critical track record) to be a collaborative “creative brain trust,” whereby an in-progress project is screened every three months, then critiqued and workshopped by Lasseter and the studio’s leading creatives.

    It’s a process designed to nip potential story problems in the bud, while Lasseter and his collaborators would have you believe that such problems emerge more often than not:

    “We fail a lot,” admits “Toy Story 3” director Lee Unkrich. “We just don’t fail by the time the movie comes out. John would be the first to tell you that every movie we’ve made has been at one point the biggest piece of garbage we’ve ever worked on.”

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  • THE LISTS: Ranking 14 years of Pixar

    UpThis weekend, Pixar Animation Studios will be releasing its 10th feature film, “Up.”  For many, with the film having successfully opened this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, the occasion has marked another milestone in the studio’s continued maturation.

    In my recent review of the film, I wrote, “Watching Pixar Animation grow and develop as a studio has become almost more fascinating than experiencing one of the company’s many creative films unfold on screen. Beginning with an industry leap in 1995’s ‘Toy Story’ and eventually moving into its daring own with 2008’s ‘WALL-E,’ the studio has, at the very least, shown a desire for creative progression.”

    So it seemed as good a time as any to look back on the last 14 years of Pixar product and dedicate an installment of The Lists to the studio’s esteemed portfolio.  Of course, unlike other editions of this feature, there are only 10 entries to fill the collective.  But the order will be different for everyone.

    “WALL-E,” for example, was a major high point for many last year.  Not as much for me.  “Monsters, Inc.,” on the other hand, isn’t considered top tier Pixar to some, but as you’ll note below, I beg to differ.

    In addition to the features, I thought it might be fun to rattle off a ranked list of the 16 shorts the studio has produced, going all the way back to 1984’s “The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.”  Some of them appeared in theaters alongside feature films, others might have popped up on home video as bonus features.  You can see nearly all of them on the recently released “Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1” on DVD and Blu-ray.  The most recent addition to this collective is “Partly Cloudy,” which plays along with “Up” in theaters.

    On to the list.  Be sure to give us yours in the comments section below.

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  • Counting down the best of Pixar

    In honor of today’s release of Walt Disney/Pixar’s “WALL-E” (it seems we’re sticking with the hyphen), the gang at New York Magazine’s Vulture blog have offered up a countdown of the best films in Pixar’s consistently impressive portfolio.

    I have to say, I share their opinion that “The Incredibles” simply…isn’t all that.  I was on the bandwagon for “The Polar Express” back in 2004, but comparisons aside, the film never hooked me the way it did the rest of the film-going community.  And that says a lot, given my comic geek roots.  It’s a nice film, but a little flat.

    Their pick for the studio’s greatest work is a slightly unconventional choice: “Monsters, Inc.”  I confess I actually haven’t given it a second look since 2001 (what became the year of “Shrek”), but I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy for a number of years now.

    My choice is far and away “Finding Nemo,” the only animated film ever to land in my top five for a given year (#3 in 2003).  But I do love the “Toy Story” films.

    Here’s their list:

    1. “Monsters, Inc.”
    2. “Finding Nemo”
    3. “Toy Story 2”
    4. “Ratatouille”
    5. “Toy Story”
    6. “A Bug’s Life”
    7. “The Incredibles”
    8. “Cars”

    I obviously haven’t seen it yet, but it’s looking more and more like “WALL-E” will top everyone’s list in due time.

    Speaking of “WALL-E,” Sasha Stone at Awards Daily has put up her first State of the Race column this week, focusing on the film, its awards potential and the political message supposedly within.  Take a look:

    Wall-E begins its run at midnight.  Some peripheral chatter is focused on it being not kiddie fare or it being a target for conservatives for having a “message.”  If the message ends up being that we as a culture have a disease of consumerism and that it will end us in pathetic ruin, that is not a great leap in logic.  Look around.

    But if the conservatives do start whining about it that only means its Oscar chances shoot through the roof, as if they haven’t already.  We have here a “too big to ignore” film, a Schindler’s List of the animated feature category and if anything is to take it down it’s only going to be a shocker at the box office, an extremely unlikely scenario.

    Read the rest here.