Did the Right Film Win? 2003 Animated Oscars

August 24, 2015August 24, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Today I uploaded the next in my Animated Oscars: Did the Right Film Win series. We are on to 2003 and we get 2 special films and one that I hate.

If you guys follow my blog you know I did not like Brother Bear. You can read my full review to find out why I felt it made the wrong choice every time and got a rare F from me.

The two worthy nominees are Finding Nemo and The Triplets of Belleville.

Finding Nemo is the wonderful Pixar film about a father fish searching for his son who is in an aquarium miles away. It is funny, creative, very well paced with beautiful seascapes.

The Triplets of Belleville is not for everyone. It is challenging 2D animated film from Sylvain Chomet. The story is about a woman who’s Grandson becomes a cyclist but then is abducted. She meets a famous vaudville act The Triplets of Belleville who help her find her Grandson and sing a lot of catchy songs along the way. There is no dialogue for the most part and it is very strange but I like it. The animation is stunning and the music will make you want to dance. It made my Most Artistic Animated Films list.

So what do you go with the artistic film with great music or the crowdpleaser with great heart and good jokes? Watch the video and find out. 🙂

What would you pick? Would love your thoughts on if the right film won in 2003.

Pixar Review 31: Brave

August 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Are you ready to test your fate?

Let’s talk a little Brave. This is Pixar’s attempt to enter the princess movie and their first movie with a female protagonist (and until Inside Out only).

I’ll say it right from beginning Brave is my least favorite Pixar film. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it. I do. I like all the Pixar films but the problem with Brave is it doesn’t deliver the type of story it promises to tell. My next lowest Cars 2, flaws and all, is actually consistent from frame 1 a spy movie and stays very close to the genre throughout. Brave promises an epic legend and in the end we kind of get a nursery rhyme style fable (like an Aesops Fable).

I love the way Brave starts out. We see the Princess Merida independent and free spirited out climbing mountains and touching the sky.

As a fellow curly haired girl I love Merida’s look and her hair! It’s gorgeous. You don’t see curly haired heroines often and I love hers!

Much like Little Mermaid Merida is angry with her parental figure and seeks something greater than the confines of the life they have planned for her. If you haven’t gathered from the blog this is a character archetype I relate too very strongly as I always wanted to do things my own way and be my own person. This is why I loved Ariel and Belle

Merida’s main source of conflict comes with her Mother Elinor (voiced by the great Emma Thompson) who wants her to take her responsibilities as princess and future queen seriously. They fight and argue, neither listening to each other at all. I think nearly all girls I know can relate to this dynamic with their mother.

"BRAVE" (L-R) MERIDA and QUEEN ELINOR. ©2012 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved. Elinor decides to force her daughter to participate in a Highland Games that will decide her betrothal to one of 3 idiots. I do really like that they do not make one of the suitors a possible love interest. That would have been such a cop out.

But Merida decides she will shoot for her own hand in a both prideful and desperate attempt to change her fate (can you blame her for not wanting to marry one of these guys?).

Well, her Mother and her fight after this display and embarrassment (I like that both Mother and Daughter are at fault here). In frustration Merida swipes a sword through her mothers tapestry with her family and storms off into the forest.

As she races in the forest her horse throws her and she ends up at a cottage with a goofy witch.

In Merida’s defense the witch does look harmless enough and is actually a pretty funny character. In some ways she’s a little bit like Ursula although much less developed and memorable. Merida asks her to change her Mom so she can change her fate. I honestly don’t think she would ever assume her Mother would be turned into a bear or hurt physically in any way. She wants her Mother to all the sudden be accepting of her life choices and not make her go through with the betrothal, which at the moment is her fate.

The witch warns her about tempting fate but she does anyway and gets a cake to give to her Mother. She eats it as do her troublemaker triplet brothers.

All of them get turned into bears and that’s where Brave starts to lose me. Like I said before it goes from being epic in feel, a legend, to being a nursery rhyme about a woman turned into a bear. One might say it goes from being very grand and big to being small. I still think it is watchable. It’s certainly a million times better than Brother Bear which has an oddly similar story.

Merida goes back to the witch to find out what they must do and are told they have 2 days to break the spell or Elinor will remain a bear. To break it “fate be changed mend the bond torn by pride”. So that’s pretty much the rest of the movie. Elinor and Merida learning to respect each other.

But even that would be fine but the tone varies greatly between slapstick with the brothers who are also bears, pretty scary scenes with the bear Mor’du and sentimental scenes of Merida fishing with her Mom. Small children may be scared by the Mor’du. I know one of my nieces had to be taken out when I took them to see Brave. It’s very realistically done.

The animation throughout Brave is stunning. Whether it is the fierce bear Mor’du or the grand vistas of Scotland it looks so beautiful.

The voice acting is great in Brave with Kelly MacDonald a striking Merida, Thompson as Elinor, Billy Connolly as King Fergus, Julie Walters as The Witch and Robbie Coltrane, Craig Ferguson, and John Ratzenberger all contributing talent. The music by Patrick Doyle is some of Pixar’s best.

I also love the songs by Mumford and Sons and Julie Fowlis.

I do also love the core message about family and mending those bonds no matter how different we might see. I like the resolution and that it doesn’t involve meeting a man or being rescued. There also aren’t that many movies that explore the relationship between a Mother and a Daughter especially in animation and I think many girls can relate to the generational and communication gap between Merida and Elinor. I certainly can and felt many of those same feelings when I was Merida’s age towards my Mother (who was a near perfect Mother). Most girls I know want to do their own thing. They want to create their own fate not have it decided for them by anyone else.

All of that works in Brave. It just feels disappointing because of what we expected to receive from the introduction. Not the epic quest we were hoping for. I do like the ending with Pixar pulling off the emotional scene very well as they always do.

Another problem I think it has is a story like this usually has a central villain like an Ursula who antagonizes the heroine or shows some kind of real threat. The witch in Brave is only briefly seen and isn’t really a villain. We all know how Brave is going to end so without the villain it becomes kind of muddled and predictable. Frozen also doesn’t have a central villain until very late in the game but to me at least that works much better because you have other unpredictable elements like 2 princesses and an ending which again for me really worked. Plus, Frozen is a musical which is a favorite genre of mine and much better comic relief in Olaf.

So for me Brave is a missed opportunity. A lot of the problem probably comes down to the change in directors midway through from Brenda Chapman to Mark Andrews and the other issues they had making the movie. It’s not bad. In fact, I enjoy watching it but it could have been a real masterpiece.

They never will but I would love for them to go back to the world of Brave and give us a true legend. I want battles and a wicked Queen out to take Merida’s thrown. That’s the kind of legend we were promised (especially in the trailers) for Brave but we didn’t get.

Still definitely worth a watch.

Overall Grade- C Not bad Pixar considering this is the lowest grade I will give one of your movies.

Also a lot of people were very upset that Wreck-it Ralph didn’t win the Oscar. I actually think both movies suffer from the same problems. They don’t for me deliver what they promise in the introduction but they both have characters I really like. I also gave Wreck-it Ralph a C and I stand by that grade. If it were me giving out the award that year I would have picked Paranorman, which is funny, creative, well paced, quite scary, with a very unique take on a bully villain. I watched it with my friends last Halloween and it holds up very well. I also think Pirates Band of Misfits is great, but that’s just me!

Pixar Review 30: Legends of Mor’du Review

August 19, 2015August 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

In these Pixar shorts reviews I have only looked at original shorts and none of the spin-offs of movies except for Mike’s New Car and that was only because I thought the audio-commentary was the cutest thing I’d ever heard. Well, I am making another exception for The Legend of Mor’du. I wanted to review this short because I think it is a good example of the potential of Brave and the type of story it could have told. In this brief short we get a true legend. The kind of story you would tell your children and they would learn a great lesson. That just isn’t the case with Brave. I don’t think Brave is a terrible movie but I do think it fails in a lot of ways (will save most of my Brave thoughts for the review!)

The Legend of Mor’du tells the story of a man with 4 sons and each has a gift- compassion, wisdom, justice and the eldest has strength. The father decides on his deathbed to give the kingdom to all sons instead of bequeathing it to the oldest. This enrages the oldest who is not only strong but extremely prideful. He feels his inheritance has been stolen away. He demands his claim and when they refuse the brothers turn against each other bringing the kingdom into war.

The witch telling the story meets up with the Prince and offers him a chance to change his fate much like Merida is given in Brave. And as in Brave the Prince must chose family over his own pride in order to change his fate. Like most Pixar stories family is always the most important element of life and a person’s journey (probably more so than even Disney). But the Prince drinks the potion seeking to overthrow his brothers and he turns into a great bear named Mor’du.

All he needs to do is restore the bonds with his brothers but his pride causes him to embrace the bear, defeat his brothers and fight the soldiers who of course see him as the vicious bear.

The bear Mor’du slays many warriors and the armies flee the kingdom leaving it desolate and fractured. Mor’du is left alone to wander without family to support him or people to rule over the rest of his days. The lust for power and his wounded pride forever changed his fate and the fate of the entire kingdom.

Then the witch asks her audience ‘will you tempt fate?’.

Now that is a story! It is clear, concise, with a lesson where the character is tested and in this case fails. There is a clear good vs evil and an epic feeling to the journey, which is necessary in this type of story. If you think of something like Lord of the Rings Frodo is given a job to do. He must return the ring to Mordor or the Dark Lord will find it and “cover all the lands of a second darkness”. There is this clear battle between good and evil. And the weaknesses of Frodo and his entire team including Gandalf and Aragorn are tested and pushed to their limit. This makes the journey exciting and gives it an emotional heft.

Such stakes are a must for such a story. The Legend of King Arthur is another example of this kind of epic storytelling. Arthur wants to lead with all goodness, courage and peace. But he falls for the lady Guinevere leaving him and his high ideals vulnerable to being wounded and hurt. Lancelot comes and he and Guinevere fall in love despite their attempts not too. This leads to conflict and the challenge to Arthur’s vision of Camelot.

You see how such a legend needs to be a tight story with clear consequences of good vs evil? The characters individual weakness always comes into play and often leads to tragedy (even in Lord of the Rings many are asked to pay the price for the end goal including Gollum).

The Legend of Mor’du has all of these elements and it works as the legend it is trying to be. It is a cautionary tale about the dangers of pride and that loyalty to family is always key to our fate.

Brave attempts such a tale far less successfully and you will find out why in my next Pixar review… (quite the lead in right!).

Overall Grade- B

Pixar Review 29: Cars 2

August 11, 2015August 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

In many ways writing my Cars 2 review feels like writing my Frozen post (which is ridiculous because Frozen is a million times better) but they both inspire such vitriol in response it is a bit intimidating to talk about.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first thing. Cars 2 was not made to sell toys. I’ve heard this so many places and it just isn’t true. Cars 2 was made because director John Lasseter loved the original and had always wanted to make a spy movie. It is so clear when you listen to the audio-commentary that he loves this movie and had a blast making it.

Pixar has always had the philosophy of ‘only do a sequel if you have an idea’. Lasseter says in the audio commentary that he had the idea to do a spy movie, which would be completely different from the original and that excited him (which is the way Pixar likes to do things if you think about Toy Story 1, 2 and 3 they are radically different from each other).

In many ways a spy movie for kids is brilliant. If you think about it most spy movies, the James Bond, the Mission Impossibles, even the Pink Panthers are too sexually explicit and violent for kids, especially small children under 5. So Cars 2 does introduce them to the genre in lots of ways and I think that is very neat.

Do I think it is a flawed film? Yes but I like watching it. In some ways I think it is a little bit better than the original. The first has more heart and a better message but this is brighter, more colorful and moves at a much faster pace (this last watch-through I got a little bored with Cars).

Back in my review of Planes: Fire and Rescue I said this about the Cars/Planes franchises:

“The key to the Cars or Planes movies is accepting the world upfront because it is incredibly silly. The idea of a world completely of mechanical items like cars and planes is a stretch and it does not hold up to any kind of thoughtful analysis. For example, why are there no robots? If a world can somehow procreate planes, cars and trains why not robots? They have televisions? Also we know there is death in the car/plane world because the old Paul Newman car died after the first Cars film but if a car is given a new engine, and retooled like a hot-rod is it somehow resurrected or does it have an entirely new personality? See I’m already down the rabbit hole on this one…”

So there you go. The world doesn’t make sense and you just have to accept that at the outset of all the Cars/Planes movies. This admittedly may be easier for children to do than adults but for whatever reason I am able to make that leap.

Once I accept the ridiculous world it is in, the story is kind of fun for Cars 2. It starts out with Lightning McQueen getting challenged by an Italian car to a race in the World Grand Prix. This race series is promoted by a Sir Miles Axelrod to promote his alternative fuel called Allinol. The plot with the alternative fuel does get pretty convoluted and complicated for a Cars movie but isn’t that usually the case with spy movies?

The World Grand Prix starts in Tokyo so Mater and Lightning head abroad and Tokyo is animated beautifully with light and color we haven’t seen before in a Pixar. I love the look of it.

At the same time the race is happening we get introduced to a character named Finn McMissile who is first introduced to us in a great opening sequence with Finn spying on the central villains of the movie the ‘lemon cars’ (very clever I think).

I mean take a look at this scene and if you were a kid who had never seen a spy movie don’t you think you’d be pretty enthralled by it? I like it.

In Japan, McMissile mistakes Mater for an American secret agent, which our beloved tow truck is unaware. This plot is an homage to The Man who Knew too Little or even North by Northwest with the innocent at the wrong place and wrong time. However, the humor does get a little bit repetitive and grating at times.

In fact, Mater starts to annoy Lightning who in anger tells him to stop bothering him and go away. I didn’t really like seeing the arguing in such a light silly children’s movie. Luckily it doesn’t dwell on it long. Eventually, Holly Shiftwell and Finn recruit Mater to help them hunt down the lemons convinced he is actually a genius.

I really like the old school spy movie feel to the villain lemon cars. They are a lot of fun.

When the race moves to London they end up putting a bomb on Mater and there is a great chase scene where Mater, the Lemons, Finn and Holly, and Lightning are all racing around London. It’s really energetic and enjoyable to watch.

I honestly think a lot of people who criticize Cars 2 haven’t actually sat down and watched it. They just hear the idea of Cars 2 or read some reviews and decide it’s the worst animated film ever. With all due respect it’s just not that bad. In fact, in many ways I think it is good.

That said, where it falls short is the humor. I like Larry the Cable Guy, and I don’t mind Mater, but the schtick does get old in this film where it was still charming in the original. There are so many scenes of him being the idiot and that isn’t very funny, and like I said, the arguing with Lightning isn’t fun to watch. I liked some of the jokes about the lemon cars but you really missed the team feel of the original and perhaps got too much of Mater in this sequel.

Another flaw might be that while I find the lemon car villains clever as an adult I don’t know if that makes sense to the small children the film is clearly aimed at? Do children know what a lemon car is? It’s a small nitpick however because the bad guys are clearly bad guys-monocle and all. 🙂 .

The cars are also more like Transformers in Cars 2 than the traditional cars of the original, which for the most part all had the same limitations of regular cars. In here they can transform themselves, fly, drive on water, dive under water, shoot rockets etc. While that is entertaining, it does make it more of a Saturday morning cartoon type of entertainment than a thoughtful Pixar film. (Also Lightning doesn’t have stickers for lights any more. Upgraded I guess!).

I certainly don’t want to oversell Cars 2. The world is nutty in the Cars universe to begin with, and if they had asked me I would have said ‘Do Incredibles 2 first!’. But Lasseter had an idea for a spy movie and what they came up with I think is entertaining.

If you haven’t seen it I challenge you to actually watch it, and decide for yourself if you hate it or like me find something to enjoy about it. And perhaps watch it with little children- like the Minions, kids love the Cars movies. And as great as films like Inside Out are that challenge kids, I think there is a place for films like Cars 2 that simply give them a fun time at the movies.

Overall Grade- C+

Pixar Review 28: La Luna

August 9, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

If you can believe it we are in the home stretch of my Pixar reviews. Only 5 left till Good Dinosaur and Sanjay’s Super Team. I’ve been reviewing the Pixar films since April and it has been a real treat and challenging because it’s hard to write about movies you really love and have it not just be hyperbole. At least it is for me.

Well, today we have a very special animated short to talk about. One of my favorites- La Luna. It is directed and written by Enrico Casarosa and was based on the Italian fairytales his Grandpa would tell him. He also used Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli who was famous for his line sketch style animation as inspiration.

La Luna is about a little boy or Bambino who sails with his Grandpa and Father to a spot where they climb a latter to the moon and set about their work of scraping the stars from off the moon. (Doesn’t that description just sound lovely?).

In the audio commentary Enrico says he picked a Grandpa and Father for the boy because he grew up in a house with his maternal grandfather and his Dad and I guess the two didn’t get along very well. You can see that dynamic in the short with the 2 men snipping at each other in a sweet kind of way.

But really the greatness of this short is in the animation. The stars and the light is so beautiful. In many ways it feels like a bedtime story, like Goodnight Moon or something like that. It’s lovely to think about someone sweeping stars off of the moon.

Michael Giacchino gets back to his Italian roots with a lovely score that reminds me of the great Ennio Morricone.

There are moments where it looks like watercolor and where the characters look more 2D than CG. There are no other words to describe it but BEAUTIFUL!

I love the way the stars look like little light bulbs and clank together. In many ways they reminded me of the memories in Inside Out in sound and appearance. You can feel the sense of wonder from Bambino as he looks at each glowing star.

This is just a stunning image.

It’s not the most complex as far as story. It’s basically a Grandpa and Father showing a little boy how to do a job but that job is so magical and special that it doesn’t need anything more. It’s like if someone’s job was to bathe an angel. Yes it’s ordinary but it’s an angel! I mean wow!

As I’ve rewatched the Pixar shorts I can put them into several groups. There are the jokes (Presto, For the Birds, Knick Knack), technology advancing (Adventures of Wally, Tin Toy, Geri’s Game, Day & Night), and great artistry (Boundin, Partly Cloudy, Red’s Dream). To me La Luna is the greatest of that latter group. It is an artistic joy to watch and I love it. Definitely in my top 5 of the Pixar shorts.

2011 was also a very good year for animated shorts. All 4 nominees were completely lovely and the winner The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore is wonderful. In fact, I wish it was a feature film. It’s 15 minutes as a short and there’s enough there for more. So the fact La Luna didn’t win that year I am ok with. It certainly was a much better year in shorts than feature films with Rango winning which I did not care for.

What do you think of La Luna? If you haven’t seen it there are versions of it online but none that I could download. I believe it is on the Brave DVD so you can see it there. I wanted to do another short before the Brave review called The Legend of Mor’du to go with Brave so that’s why I reviewed this one here. Next up is the much maligned Cars 2. I just watched it and honestly guys it’s not that bad. In fact, I enjoyed it! So you will hopefully enjoy that review as I am sure it will be a perspective you don’t get every day.

But nearly everyone I know agrees, La Luna is one of the best.

Pixar Review 27: Toy Story 3

August 3, 2015August 4, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I’ve struggled in writing my review for Toy Story 3 because my nieces hate it. It is a film that gets very intense, too intense for my nieces and I didn’t know how much to take that into account. I had the same struggle with my Pinocchio review, which in my defense was only the 2nd review I had ever written but at the time I said:

Pinocchio is visually gorgeous with good, if heavy-handed moral teachings. It can be scary for kids and has a grim overall feel. I appreciate it but I can’t give it my highest rating because of how I know it affected me as a child.

So I gave Pinocchio a B+ and I’ve gone back and forth on it ever since. In many ways the issue is the same with Toy Story 3. How much does a child’s opinion count in reviewing an animated film? We know that animation isn’t just for children but in the same breath if they don’t like it isn’t that a problem? I don’t know. I honestly can’t decide. What do you think?

Anyway, in the end I can only review a movie based on what I think of it. At least with the Pinocchio review I was taking into account only what I thought of it as a child not other children. I don’t have that luxury with Toy Story 3. But I didn’t let anyone else’s opinions affect any of my other reviews so why should my nieces feelings be any different. I’m just going to tell you what I think. So here goes.

I love Toy Story 3! I mean this was me after watching it yesterday!

And yet I was also laughing and enjoying the tense moments so it isn’t just a cryfest. It may just be the best 3rd installment in a franchise ever. Return of the King, Indiana Jones and Last Crusade may be better but that’s all I can think of. Can you?

Anyway, in this film we are 11 years after the events of Toy story 2 and just as you might expect Andy has grown up and is off to college.

In the opening scenes they lay out two key themes for the rest of the movie:

1. Andy’s Toys are a family and while they’ve lost some they stick together as best as they can.

2. That Andy will play with them one more time.

But both seem like an impossibility because Andy wants to take Woody to college with him and the rest are accidentally sent to a daycare center called Sunnyside as a donation by Andy’s Mom.

At first the daycare seems like a pretty great setup for the toys. They will get played with again after 10 years in dust and that seems pretty great. They are also welcomed by the leader of Sunnyside, a bear named Lots-O (for Lots-O-Huggin’ Bear) voiced by Ned Beatty.

Unfortunately all is not sunny at the daycare and the next section of the movie turns into a prison escape story but it never gets serious for too long. Most of the humor comes from Buzz who gets put on his Spanish setting (so funny!).

And Michael Keaton is also hilarious as the Ken doll who falls instantly in love with Barbie and is very concerned with his wardrobe.

There is also humor from a little girl named Bonnie’s toys who fancy themselves a kind of theater group. We also learn from these toys the true story about Lots-O and how he came to run Sunnyside like a jail.

Directed by Lee Unkrich he is not afraid to push the boundaries of our expectations. Most people assume characters in a movie like this are not going to die but boy do they come close in the famous (or infamous depending on how you look at it) incinerator scene. It is such a bold scene:

I still can’t believe they cut it that close but it is incredibly gripping if way too intense for my nieces! I completely get their response because I also feel tense watching it. How can you not?

With the prison escape done we get the end of the movie which is Andy’s chance to say goodbye to his childhood and for the toys, especially Woody, to say goodbye to him. Pixar is so great at these type of emotional, life changing moments and this is one of the best.

Some may say it is unrealistic for a college student to play with his toys one last time but I don’t think it is. Maybe in a previous era it might have been but this is the era of adults trick-or-treating and dressing up for comicon. This is the era of grown men collecting Funko dolls and displaying them proudly.

I’m not the most nostalgic person in the world but even I have dolls displayed proudly in my room and I’m 34 years old. If I had to give them up I would cry because my Grandma gave them to me. There’s no reason to assume Andy would be any less attached to these toys.

But even if you set that reality aside saying goodbye to the toys is symbolic of Andy saying goodbye to his childhood and I think he knows that. In many ways it is kind of like the end of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh when Christopher tells Pooh that he can’t do nothing any more even though it is what he loves most of all.

Plus, in this final scenes we get the fulfillment of the 2 promises made at the beginning of the film creating a nice sense of closure to the film. Just as we were promised Andy plays with the toys one more time and they all stay together because they are a family. Love that.

I think we all have those moments in life where we put away childhood and become a grown up. It’s like the scripture says:

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”

That is the ending of Toy Story 3 and it is an emotion almost anyone can relate and respond too. In a way you could call it the great necessary evil of life. Despite what Peter Pan wants we all must eventually grow up.

It practically goes without saying the animation is stunning- bright and colorful, with a clarity and realism to all the characters I haven’t seen in Pixar till this film. Also the voice work is top notch with all our familiar characters and new voice actors such as Keaton, Beatty, Whoopi Goldberg, Timothy Dalton, Bonnie Hunt and Jeff Garlin. Everyone involved in Toy Story 3 did an amazing job.

Thankfully we have Pixar to keep making films for adults and some children who aren’t too terrified! They help keep some of the magic alive within all of us and Toy Story 3 has magic in spades. I loved watching it again and if I ever have kids maybe I will just fast forward the incinerator scene so they can enjoy it too. 🙂

Overall Grade- A+

And for the record I have faith they have a good idea for Toy Story 4 and it will be good. It is not going to be a continuation of the Andy storyline but exist solely in the world of the toys, a romance I’ve been told. John Lasseter is directing 4 so sign me up!

Pixar Review 26: Day and Night

July 29, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I hope you guys enjoyed my review of Up, my favorite movie. It was difficult to write but I did my best. Now for a nice breath of fresh air let’s appreciate Pixar’s delightful animated short Day & Night.

In many ways this short feels like some of the early shorts because it is more special because of the methods they used than the short itself, although the short is charming. It’s more like a Red’s Dream or Tin Toy where they were clearly stretching their artistic and technical capabilities and trying something new.

The new experiment was not just a hybrid of 2D and CG but telling stories with both mediums in the same shot. It’s really quite brilliant. 2 years later we would get the hybrid film Paperman but that’s more of a meshing of the 2 instead of them existing separately within the same story. For people that are down and depressed about the loss of 2D animation (I know many of you readers are) you should take heart at things like Day and Night. It’s sign that while we may not see the 2D film from Disney anytime soon a hybrid using both techniques is certainly possible and I think quite likely.

Anyway, Day and Night is directed by Teddy Newton and it stars 2 creatures, one is Day, one is night. We know this because we can see the world in their bodies from their unique perspectives.

At first they are kind of fascinated by what’s going on in the others world. Then they become envious and frustrated, even angry at the things they don’t have.

They are also very boastful of the things they have especially Day.

But they also learn they can work together and both enjoy experiences like when Night allows Day to enjoy a drive in movie. The movie on screen is the cowboy scene the puppies are watching in 101 Dalmatians.

The sound design and mixing by Barney Jones and Tom Myers is first rate in Day and Night. What’s really neat is the way the 2D and 3D worlds are connected. For instance, when Night is punching Day each punch is coordinated perfectly with a logger chopping down a tree with an ax. Then when the tree is toppled Day falls to the ground along with the tree.

What’s so lovely is the creatures go from envy, to teamwork, to seeing life from the other’s perspective and that I think is the true message of Day and Night. In fact, Dr Wayne Dyer appears as a voice from a radio tower ending with the thought:

“You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe are the most mysterious.”

I like the message and it’s not as heavy-handed as you might think because it is split up into small bits. And I like the idea of walking in another’s shoes before judging them. It’s so important especially in this day and age.

And it looks so lovely. One of my favorite sequences is them battling out Las Vegas which of course looks better at night!

I guess if I was to nitpick the oogling over the bikini clad women I Could do without, but it’s not a huge problem for me.

Michael Giacchino did a great job with the music and having just enough of it to be effective without getting in the way of the sound effects.

Is it my favorite Pixar short? Probably not but I really do like Day and Night. Definitely worth seeing and I hope we see even more hybrid and 2D elements in future Pixar shorts and films.

Overall Grade- B+

Good Dinosaur Trailer Review

July 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Quick post this afternoon to share with you my thoughts on the new Good Dinosaur trailer. LOVED IT!!!! It looks stunning especially scenes like the fireflies and the lushness of the grapes and leaves. I thought the terodactyl looked awesome and the scene with the snake should be great!

It was such a well designed trailer not giving away the story while still giving us tons of images to excite us. I’m really looking forward to the relationship between Arlo and Spot and hope it is something like Dumbo and Timothy Q Mouse which I know director Peter Sohn is a huge fan of.

What a treat we are in for this year with Inside Out and Good Dinosaur. Great time to be an animation fan!

Here’s my reaction video on my youtube channel. Would love you to take a look and give a thumbs up/subscribe to my channel. Thanks so much!

Here is the trailer if you haven’t seen it.

What do you guys think?

Pixar Review 25: Up

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

It’s really hard to write about your favorite movie, or at least it is really hard for me. So has been my challenge for the last week or so as I’ve faced writing about Pixar’s beautiful film Up, my favorite movie (animation or not).

To this day I have never met anyone in my real life who doesn’t like Up, and it is both my brother and my favorite movie and we are as different as can be. It was also nominated for best picture not just animated film and receives wide-spread acclaim from critics and fans with a 98% on rotten tomatoes with only 5 rotten reviews and 276 positives. On the notoriously tough to please imdb Up has a 91% of user reviews a 7 or higher, which is truly remarkable. You get the idea. I’m not alone in loving this movie!

I like Up so much when I threw my dream party look at the cake I had made (it was an open house).

So why do I love it so much? It’s tough but I will do my best to describe.

Have you ever lost someone you love? Have you ever felt the pangs of regret that you wish you had said something or done something differently with the person who is gone? I certainly have and that is the message behind Up. It is what makes it special. It is what moves me so much. It is also a reminder that we need not feel such regret because the people we love are an active part of our lives as long as we live their dreams and make them proud.

To begin with in Up we get introduced to Carl and Ellie as little children. Carl is watching a filmstrip about Charles Muntz his hero. He tells the audience “adventure is out there”. This energizes Carl and he gets a balloon which is a hint of things to come. On his way home he finds a girl named Ellie in an abandoned house. She also loves Muntz and dreams of going to Venezuela and seeing the Paradise Falls. She chronicles all her dreams in an Adventure book and has a section called ‘Stuff I’m Going to Do’.

This is another theme of the movie- adventures and the power of big dreams to motivate us whether they are accomplished or not.

Ellie tells Carl he must take her to Paradise Falls ‘cross your heart. Cross it!’. Then we see what happened with that promise. A full life plays out and this is my favorite section of film ever. If you think of it from both the journey of a couple, of a life, and from Carl’s perspective of not keeping his promise to his beloved it is so moving. I’ve seen it so many times and it still makes me cry each time.

The thing is about regret is it can make you bitter and resentful. So has happened to our elderly Carl. He is lonely and talks to Ellie as if she was sitting right beside him (I love that throughout the movie because I believe the dead are with us cheering us on). A commercial developer has taken over the land near his house and they want him to sell. He tells him “you can have the house…when I’m dead”. You get the feeling he is just waiting to die and he see’s Ellie’s ‘Stuff I’m Going to Do’ and is overwhelmed with guilt at never having taken her to the Falls.

Through various contrivances he is going to be forced to assisted living but he decides to instead embrace the spirit of adventure and use a million balloons to take his house to the Falls. This is so beautiful when it is first taking flight.

Unfortunately for Carl he is not alone in the house but his neighboring boy scout Russell is a stow away. Russell is a lonely but eager kid who wants nothing more than to get his final badge in assisting the elderly.

There’s some dangerous weather but they eventually make it close to the Falls where they come in contact with a rare bird and some talking dogs! Some people don’t like the dogs. I do and think their fascination with squirrels is very funny especially when their voiceboxes go bad.

The most friendly dog is named Dug and he bonds with Carl and Russell quickly.

Russell names the bird Kevin and it turns out it is the very bird that Charles Muntz has been hunting all these years.

Carl gets to meet Charles Muntz and it turns out he is not the hero of his youth any more. Originally they were planning on the eggs of the bird be youth serum for Muntz but it was taking up too much of the plot so they decided to leave the Muntz/Carl plothole feeling audiences would forgive them one such problem and for the most part they do. I certainly do! Plus, our villain Charles Muntz is voiced by the great Christopher Plummer so I can’t complain about that.

The key is through all of these adventures Carl never looses his purpose of honoring Ellie. He talks to her throughout and is even willing to abandon Russell in order to get the house to the Falls for his beloved. I just love that.

Again, you can feel the weight of his grief melting as he goes on this adventure. And then he looks at the Adventure book and see’s for the first time a note from his wife.

Here’s the scene in French but you get the idea. “Thanks for the adventure. Now go have a new one”. Make my heart melt.

In that moment Carl knows he did keep his promise to his Ellie and to me that is just as moving as the opening section. I cry every time (like literally I just watched it again and cried). He forgives himself and has a whole new energy to go and save Russell from Muntz. It’s a perfect scene in my book.

To me Up is a perfect movie. The emotional journey Pete Docter takes you on should be something anyone who has lost a loved one can relate too. I certainly do. Every time I watch it I feel like I get a hug from my Grandpa who I miss everyday of my life. He was my hero and I hope he is proud of me and my little life adventure.

It’s not only incredibly moving but also funny and sweet. We get a lot of humor from the dogs, Russell and Kevin. The relationship between Russell and Carl is sweet and grows organically through the story in a believable way.

The voice performances from Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson and others are first rate (how has Ed Asner managed to play the grumpy old man for the last 40 years!). And the music by Michael Giacchino is one of my favorites in all of movies. It is literally pitch perfect.

It is obviously not the most realistic stories. For instance, it would take much more than one night to blow up all those balloons but if you can just go with it you are in for something special. The script is the typically witty dialogue of a Pixar movie. It is funny and sweet and will take you on a journey if you will let it.

Ever since Inside Out I’ve been thinking about Up and how both movies are about memories. How we deal with those memories and not have them become debilitating is a challenge whether you are 11 or 71 (or however old Carl is!). And I just love how we learn in Up the adventure of life is the greatest tribute we can give those who have past on. We never forget but we keep on living and embracing whatever comes our way! It’s the spirit of adventure!

It’s so rare a movie will teach you something about life and be a true moment of clarity. Those films are more than just entertainment. They are practically scripture in my life. Up is such a movie. It teaches me about loss, love, marriage, grief, adventure, life and everything else.

So yes Up is my favorite movie. It is a movie I could watch every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of. It’s just that kind of movie to me. Something that comes around a couple times in a person’s life and is a true inspiration.

Thanks to the entire Pixar team for making such a beloved movie!

Overall Grade- A+