Tasty Biscuits
with fancy sauce
Recent Pixar movie dump:
Soul: For me this was a very good, not great, film (and I play piano and studied jazz drums for a while and often feel creatively unfulfilled, so you think it'd be in my wheelhouse haha). Props first and foremost to the animation. They did some really cool things with the medium, and the film is a visual treat to watch. For the most part it also nicely avoided the "overload of chase scenes necessary to keep kids' attention spans" that seems to plague most animated movies. I'm still making up my mind if I liked the very end or think it's a bit of a cop out (maybe a bit of both haha). Still, it's always nice to see Pixar deliver movies at the quality they've shown they're capable of. B+
Brave: This one caught me by surprise. I figured I had it pegged from the moment I saw the trailer way back, and the general reaction seemed to confirm my suspicions, which is why I never got around to seeing it (although I feel like it was an easy narrative to latch onto, as after batting 1,000, Pixar released Cars 2, and then Brave, so it was easy to say "They don't have it anymore!"). But the plot takes a really big swing I wasn't at all expecting, and as a result the scope of the story feels refreshingly insular, and as a result I was extremely engaged from then on. Worth checking out if you avoided it for the reasons I did. B
The Good Dinosaur: Another visually beautiful film, and also, extremely funny, which I was not expecting. There are some creative, inspired plot choices up top which, but unfortunately after that there's not much else to the film. This one definitely suffers from the "chase scene overload" I mentioned above. Also, the complete lack of a denouement did not help things. Usually I'm a favor of less rather than more as far as that's concerned, but its absence cheapened the stakes established at the film's onset, which left a sort of "....okay?" feeling at the end. C+
Onward: It's okay. That's really about all I can say. Like, it's fine, I liked the story well enough. I think it's another case of the "Pixar Burden" being placed upon it, but no studio can produce quality hit after hit, especially when they make such a high volume of films. Didn't feel like the first watch was a waste or anything, but can't see myself revisiting this one. C
The Incredibles 2: Wow, what happened. I was looking forward to this one too. Instead it felt utterly disposable. Very disappointed. That's about all I can say. D+
Soul: For me this was a very good, not great, film (and I play piano and studied jazz drums for a while and often feel creatively unfulfilled, so you think it'd be in my wheelhouse haha). Props first and foremost to the animation. They did some really cool things with the medium, and the film is a visual treat to watch. For the most part it also nicely avoided the "overload of chase scenes necessary to keep kids' attention spans" that seems to plague most animated movies. I'm still making up my mind if I liked the very end or think it's a bit of a cop out (maybe a bit of both haha). Still, it's always nice to see Pixar deliver movies at the quality they've shown they're capable of. B+
Brave: This one caught me by surprise. I figured I had it pegged from the moment I saw the trailer way back, and the general reaction seemed to confirm my suspicions, which is why I never got around to seeing it (although I feel like it was an easy narrative to latch onto, as after batting 1,000, Pixar released Cars 2, and then Brave, so it was easy to say "They don't have it anymore!"). But the plot takes a really big swing I wasn't at all expecting, and as a result the scope of the story feels refreshingly insular, and as a result I was extremely engaged from then on. Worth checking out if you avoided it for the reasons I did. B
The Good Dinosaur: Another visually beautiful film, and also, extremely funny, which I was not expecting. There are some creative, inspired plot choices up top which, but unfortunately after that there's not much else to the film. This one definitely suffers from the "chase scene overload" I mentioned above. Also, the complete lack of a denouement did not help things. Usually I'm a favor of less rather than more as far as that's concerned, but its absence cheapened the stakes established at the film's onset, which left a sort of "....okay?" feeling at the end. C+
Onward: It's okay. That's really about all I can say. Like, it's fine, I liked the story well enough. I think it's another case of the "Pixar Burden" being placed upon it, but no studio can produce quality hit after hit, especially when they make such a high volume of films. Didn't feel like the first watch was a waste or anything, but can't see myself revisiting this one. C
The Incredibles 2: Wow, what happened. I was looking forward to this one too. Instead it felt utterly disposable. Very disappointed. That's about all I can say. D+
