Sunday, November 25, 2018

Wouldn't Fit in Comments

I have to confess to being only partially qualified to address your post. Of the twenty Pixar films you list, I have seen sixteen. The four I missed are: The Good Dinosaur (almost never heard of it), Coco (no time, really), Cars 3 (Cars 2 soured me on the series), and The Incredibles 2 (too recent). Also I never focused before on two parallel processes producing animated films from one basic source. Your post stretched me out a little and I appreciate it.

Of course I won’t express an opinion on material I haven’t seen, but I do have to say that The Incredibles offers so much: it’s a little mushrooming of popular culture, with stunning visuals, appealing characters (especially E, the costume designer), and some deeper issues thrown in, like our rampant disgust with our current over-litigious culture, and the psychology of obsessive envy.

The Incredibles places itself so specifically in time and place - clearly the early 1960s, complete with James Bond-type infrastructure and gadgetry, automobile styles, and media coverage techniques. And a world separated into “Supers” and the rest of us is all too familiar to anyone who has read even one Superman comic. It’s the kind of opus made specifically for this kind of outlandish storytelling. I watch it a couple of times a year.

Toy Story 3 remains maybe the best thing Pixar ever did. Winks and nudges in the direction of pop culture - “No, Buzz. I AM your father!” Seriously? - and of course all the toys are pop culture references in themselves. The main thrust for this picture is the hair’s breadth escape by our intrepid heroes from the embittered and possibly schizophrenic stuffed bear, Lots-o’. The emotional themes are as weighty and fraught as in any live action drama, and we forget we’re actually dealing with toys’ lives. How deep can you go? It broadens the definition of animation, and the sophistication and effectiveness with which it deals with adult issues of family, rejection, and betrayal stake out new ground for the genre.

Finding Nemo didn’t have the luxury of too many pop culture references, but the jokes abound anyway. Mount Wannahockaloogie? The Shining-inspired “Heeeeere’s Brucey!” as the shark chases Marlon and Dory; fart jokes between seagulls. But for me the epic quest of the movie, while having its thrills and memorable moments, especially surfer-dude sea turtles riding an ocean current, is too static and borders on the frustrating, Dory’s shtick notwithstanding. It’s excellent work, but I think a little short of Toy Story 3. 

I know movies in general depend on us viewers suspending our disbelief, and especially  animation. And I love the Paris that’s portrayed in Ratatouille, but try as I might, I couldn’t quite buy in to the rat-sous chef interface that supports the whole film. The movie’s lovely, and slyly pokes fun at French cuisine snobbery with a rat-infested restaurant winning over the jaded critic, but while I liked it, for me it rests on a flimsy foundation.  

The preceding paragraph probably makes me a Philistine.

Wall-E is a very interesting entry. Its issues are both current and timeless: the progress of artificial intelligence combines with humanity’s inability to deal with itself or its planet. Its visuals are excellent, its dramatic pace unflagging, and the changes wrought in the principals are profound. It does belong high on any list. 

If I were, say, to compare Wall-E with Zootopia, I would say that Wall-E is superior because of its ambition and how well it executes its concept. But Zootopia is a gratifying product in my opinion. It combines cartoon cuteness with a noir hard-boiled mystery - ever notice how all the action with the hench-wolves and trapping the crooked bureaucrat happen at nighttime? There is the friendship forming, then falling-out, and then reforming-stronger-than-ever, a whole series of delightful visuals (love the commuter train), and of course, a rotten-to-the-core public servant as the bad guy. That theme never gets old.

Seems to me Moana and Brave are both products of the current zeitgeist of female heroes, and extremely young female heroes. I enjoyed both of them; their difference is that Moana is a civic-centered story, and Brave centers on family. Moana can be predicted pretty easily, but Brave has multiple show-focusing suspenseful moments where Moana spends more time enlightening us about Pacific Island culture and history.


Let me finish on Frozen. It’s exceptional graphically, and its comic relief portions are super top-notch. It’s one of the few animated features that’s actually a musical, in that its chief characters sing songs that carry the plot forward and establish the mood of the scene and act. The family drama at its center is deep and real enough to carry the movie. However: they made SO much off it, and the marketing of merchandise and the production of a live action stage show (fun, epically staged, a little gimmicky and needing one musical number excised - I saw the Broadway preview in Denver), that it has become a kind of instant institution. Little sister princesses were seen everywhere on their long gowns and gloves, you couldn’t escape the logo if you left the house - enough! I understand being torn about Frozen, completely. It seems churlish to denigrate something so successful, but it was just too ubiquitous. It’s not possible for them to forgo a sequel, is it?

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Pixar Post, Part 1

After watching The Third Man and having my movie ziggurat altered, I began thinking about rankings, and remembered that I had wanted to do something similar here about the twenty Pixar movies that have been made, seeing as how earlier this summer saw the release of that 20th film, The Incredibles 2, a movie I have yet to see.

Quickly, the list:

  1. Toy Story
  2. A Bug's Life
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Monsters, Inc.
  5. Finding Nemo
  6. The Incredibles
  7. Cars
  8. Ratatouille
  9. Wall-E
  10. Up
  11. Toy Story 3
  12. Cars 2
  13. Brave
  14. Monsters University
  15. Inside Out
  16. The Good Dinosaur
  17. Finding Dory
  18. Cars 3
  19. Coco
  20. Incredibles 2
It has long been my contention that in 2010 with the release of Toy Story 3 Pixar began a long slide off of the top of the mountain of being the greatest animation film maker in the world, a title reclaimed by Disney. Tangled was also released that year, and while Tangled isn't as good as Toy Story 3, it is far closer to the original Golden Age of the '30s for Disney in terms of look and design, and it marked a reversal of their earlier efforts. 

Meet the Robinson's (2007) and Bolt (2008) aren't bad, really, but it's obvious that Disney is playing catch-up in terms of digital animation and storytelling. I mean, dang, compare those two with Pixar's two from the same years: Ratatouille and Wall-E.

Wreck-It Ralph came out the same year as Brave, in 2012, and it appeared the gap between Disney's in-house digital animation group and Pixar had finally disappeared. Frozen's 2013 smash-hit brought more shine to Disney than the prequel Monsters University brought to Pixar in that same year, and by now the eclipse has complete.

Pixar's best two films between 2013 and 2018, Inside Out (I didn't like it as much as many other people) and Coco (I may love it more than many other people) compare favorably, if not being better than, Disney's two best films during that same timeframe: Zootopia and Moana. 

If I were to rank those four, it would look like:
  • Distant 4th: Inside Out
  • Tie for Second: Moana
  • Tie: Coco
  • First: Zootopia
I may be torn in my feelings about Frozen, but between Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, and Moana, Disney has fully reclaimed the mantle, despite the excellence of Coco.

And here we're only talking about two animation producers and a single distributor! What a time to be alive!

Anyway, back to my desire to talk more about Pixar...

A Brief Note about the Cars Trilogy

I've always felt that the worst Pixar movie between Toy Story and Toy Story 3, a fifteen year era that saw 11 movie releases and the absolute height of Pixar's dominance, was Cars. And over the summer when I was inspired to do this listy-shenanigans post by other writers similarly minded listy-shenanigans, nearly all of them had the Cars sequels near the bottom of the list, as in the worst of the worst.

I have yet to see Cars 2. Cassius loved Cars so much that he eventually broke the DVD and now I haven't seen that installment for a few months. BUT, Cars 3 is on Netflix and has replaced the original as the Boy's go-to talking Car movie. I can say that I've seen the first and third movies recently.

I, too, would rank them near the bottom of any Pixar ranking, but in a vacuum, both movies fit on a continuum, bookending the main car, Lightning McQueen's, lifecycle from star rookie to flailing elder, and are pretty good as a pair. 

Hearing that Cars 2 is a spy spoof starring mostly 'Mater, the tow-truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, with maybe some racing on the Euro circuit, I could see this movie filling the 20th spot on a list, with the first and third, taken together, represent a salvage of the talking-car theme to possibly higher up the list.

Other Brief Notes

I'd like to mention later some thoughts on Brave, Inside Out, and The Good Dinosaur. Also I'd like to voice my disappointment with Finding Dory's setting at the Morro Bay Aquarium (a fictional place) while not actually showing Morro Rock at anytime during the film's running time.

So...how would you rank the movies? Would your ranking be in terms of best or in terms of favorite? Are those the same for you guys? My list may look something like this, but it could change with the weather...(I'm only going with five)
  1. Finding Nemo
  2. Ratatouille
  3. Toy Story 3
  4. Coco
  5. Wall-E
What about Monsters, Inc and Up? And the OG Toy Story? 

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Nifty ESPN-Created Yankee Game!

Check out this game, called Keep the Yankees in the Yard.

You get to place pitches against Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gary Sanchez.

The game lasts only nine pitches: a changeup, a fastball, and then a slider---in that order, to each batter. The only outcomes are swing-and-miss or homerun. You can choose either lefty or righty pitcher. A homer ends the game.

It's pretty fun. I've won it a few times, striking out the side on nine pitches, but losing is pretty funny.

And, while I'm here, here's a link for an article about Aaron Judge making like Mike Trout and trying to improve a hole in his game successfully in real time.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Discovering Baudelaire, An Overview

I have too much to say on the topic of:

  1. My trips to random bookstores I drive by, decide to visit, and eventually buy something;
  2. Discovering a specific artifact;
  3. Doing research on the artifact;
  4. Consuming the artifact;
  5. and, Having my World View adjusted by the artifact.
This is the "artifact" of which I speak:


I'd heard of Baudelaire, but I knew virtually nothing about him. I'd never heard of Theophile Gautier.

I'm currently deeply involved in putting together a series of blog posts about this tiny collection of essays (just two, with an introduction--it's barely 120 pages in total)(the titular "Poem of Hashish" is not a poem, but an essay).

I never knew this tiny collection even existed, and it nearly didn't: this pairing of contemporaries was only put together in the 1960s, about a hundred years after each was published, and a hundred-and-fifteen years after the events that was being written about occurred, and only because the times seemed to call for it.

Both Gautier and Baudelaire were amazing writers...

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

What Fucking Time Is It

Its 0104... and it's now Tuesday... I'm still awake and watching 'Highlander' on Amazon... should I be sad about this?

What a film... what a time... nothing says awesomeness like a Queen soundtrack set to wrestling and Scotish highlands.  Great sweeping aerial shots too. Then you see him... the Highlander.

Flash back hundreds of years.

This soundtrack............. it touches my soul............ in ways that I can't explain.  I see hallways of Lichen. I see... no... taste  fruit cocktail............ the cherries that have grit on them. I think of baseball cards... Ryne Sandburg....... and tripping while eating a banana.

What fucking time is it. Now 0109. Sword fight now... reminds me more of Bill and Ted. Those two idiots.  But back to the hallways of Lichen... and the super low urinals... that are only low if you have never experienced one higher...

McCloud just beat a dude with a pipe... while in the parking garage...

Now I think of sore lungs... like when you swam all day... eyes sore too. Fucking chlorine. Time to eat cheap pizza at a birthday sleepover.

What's that sound......... the train?

Going to bed... too much nostalgia for one movie.

But watch it anyways... what an asshole... think he'll win?

Monday, March 19, 2018

Thinking of Pinstripe Power

The last post was back in September? Yikes.

Okay, so, how good are the Astros going to be? Like, holy cow, did they get WAY better or is that me overreacting?

I like the Yanks passing on Gerrit Cole, but having him in pinstripes would have been okay...just giving up prospects for a kid...my memory is flooded with the Weavers and Pavanos and Igawas and Pinedas and and and...I guess Pineda was okay after his surgery and discovering pine tar. I'm a little out of the loop out here on the edge of the continent.

It still hasn't quite set in that we got Stanton, or, as a website I read regularly abbreviates it, TMGS. Which of course stands for The Mighty Giancarlo Stanton. People around here are pissed---TMGS is from LA (essentially) and wanted to come pay for the Dodgers, but they were too uptight about the money---or that's how its portrayed around here, whether that's the case or not probably doesn't matter.

At least not to us, am I right?

Stanton and Judge and Sanchez and Bird and Severino and Betances? And Andujar and Torreys in a couple of months? Is it me or did the Yanks just build the basis for another homegrown (plus TMGS) dynasty on the sly?

IS CASHMAN THIS GOOD OR THIS LUCKY OR BOTH?

Probably both...