Monsters, Inc. (2001) - Another Jewel in the Crown of Pixar

 

You know what just hit me? I really haven't been talking about Pixar on this blog. Outside of the Toy Story marathon I did in preparation for Toy Story 4, and the occasional First Impressions, I haven't talked Pixar that much, and that is a darn shame because Pixar is easily one of my favourite animation studios ever. Pixar literally revolutionized animation with their Computer Graphics and stories that spoke to both the children and adults in the audience. These were the movies that carried Disney through their post-renaissance era and eventually the kind of movies Disney would end up making. Pixar is a really important part of animation history, so I thought it would be a good idea to review one of their movies this time, and since I'm still celebrating getting three-quarters closer to the big one-double zero reviews, let's look at another one of my favourites, Monsters, Inc.

The story focuses on two monsters, Mike Wazowski and James Sullivan, otherwise known as Sulley. They work at, what is essentially a power production facility in the monster world, which is a clever piece of worldbuilding as their world is powered by the screams of children... that sounds really horrible when I say it like that. The two are the top of their workforce, but then Sulley finds a door on the scare floor while working late and accidentally lets a child in the monster world, which is really bad considering this world is afraid of children and sees them as dangerous, deadly and toxic. Sulley and Mike now need to return the child without raising suspicion, but they soon find that there is something much more sinister at work than them. The overall story flows really nicely, you can see how the events lead into each other, and it's pretty genius how they set up the laughter plot point, I will say the reveal is okay, maybe a bit too subtle, but after a couple viewings you do get to notice things like the careful wording of Waternoose when Mike is explaining the situation to him. I don't think it's the best reveal in a Disney or Pixar movie, but it is not the worst.

While I'm on the subject, one thing I want to mention is the ending. I think the ending to Monsters, Inc. is one of the best endings to not just any animated movie, but any movie period. It's a really touching ending, especially when you consider the characters. The characters are really well written for this movie, they don't talk like cartoon characters, they talk like real people, with real quips and backtalk, almost to the point where, even though I hear John Goodman and Billy Crystal, I don't see them, I see their characters. This is a contrast to performances like Jeff Bridges in The Last Unicorn or Orson Welles in The Transformers movie, where I could only picture the actors in the recording booth. You have Sulley, a humble and hardworking guy, and Mike, a narcissistic but generally good person. They're both likeable, but not perfect. I don't think I really appreciated Mike as a character until I watched TheRealJims' YouTube video about the movie. It really made me appreciate the movie in a new way. On top of that, the rest of the main cast is also entertaining, Randall is perfectly sinister and slimey, Mr. Waternoose is authoritative and seemingly friendly, and Roz is just... a perfect character. On top of that each monster has a very unique design, many of which I don't think I've seen in other monster media.

I think animation wise, this is easily one of the best looking animated movies of the 2000s. The character design alone, you can see almost every hair on Sulley, and you can almost feel the scaly texture of Randall's skin. To be fair, most of the environments this movie takes place in are pretty bland, when you think of a monster world you might think of something much more stylized like Nightmare Before Christmas, or Aah! Real Monsters, but I don't really mind the more mundane environments, the interesting and unique monster deigns more than make up for the more mundane world. On top of that, when this movie wants to get visually interesting, it gets visually interesting. The climax of this movie is easily one of the best and most exciting animated climaxes in cinema, and the reveal of the massive door storage area still amazes me to this day. Major credit to the animation team behind this movie.

Ultimately, I don't even know what else to add without stealing lines from other reviews. I mean, Monsters, Inc. is fantastic, and easily one of my favourite Pixar movies, definitely on the same level as Up and Toy Story 3. The story is well written, the characters are likeable, the voice acting is excellent, and the animation is superb, it really is incredible that Pixar was capable of hitting peaks like this early in their history. Really, this is another movie, I really doubt that you needed me, or really anyone, to tell you how good it was, it's one of Disney-Pixar's most popular movies, getting a prequel movie, and a spin-off series on Disney+ which... not really something I'm into, but that's not important. At the end of the day, Pixar really is one of the best animation studios around, and Monsters, Inc. is just one of their many amazing movies that any animation fan must see, if they haven't already. Really, do I even need to say I give it a High Recommendation?

Editorial: Netflix... yep, this again...

The irony is sickening, last year I was almost nothing but positive about Netflix. Their animated film output last year was phenomenal, to the point where I actually said, or at least implied, that I was happy Nimona was being put on Netflix. Well, guess what everyone is saying now, that Netflix is a bad service with bad business practices and doesn't deserve Nimona. Okay, fair is fair, I don't think anyone actually said the first part and I've seen only one person say that last bit, but you get my point, right? The year was 2022, I had little bad to say about Netflix and finally decided that they may be turning over a new leaf, and not even in the next year, literally during the same year, everyone began turning on Netflix. Why is that?

Admittedly, my disdain for Netflix has always been from a movie-goer perspective. Netflix seemed to have the strategy to place their name on any pile of garbage and hope that enough people watched it to earn a profit. Pets United, The Larva Island Movie, Duck Duck Goose, and lest we forget about the poorly marketed dumpster fire that is Cuties. Even when Netflix released a good movie, like Arlo the Alligator Boy or Klaus, I mean I liked those movies, but I wouldn't say they're some of the greatest animated movies of all time. Klaus was good, but it wasn't as good as Treasure Planet or even something like Felidae. Maybe it's because 2022 was so devoid of anything spectacular, that I was giving heaps of praise to Netflix for producing so many unique kinds of movies. Apollo 10½, Wendell & Wild, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, very unique movies that were different from most of the rest of the 2022 line up. This however, completely ignores the other aspect of Netflix, the shows.

Netflix played host to a variety of different types of shows, and being in the animation community, lots of people gravitated towards shows like Dead End: Paranormal Park and Inside Job, which a lot of people really liked. Inside Job stands with a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7 Rating on IMDb, meanwhile Dead End: Paranormal Park stands with an 86% audience score, a 100% on the "Average Tomatometer" (BTW, that looks like it should be pronounced Tomay-TOM-itter), and a 6.9 on IMDb. Granted, none of that is a measure of quality, but it is a measure of popularity, and these shows were clearly popular. You don't get a 91% if you're not popular on some level. So clearly, Netflix would see these ratings and think to give both shows more seasons right?

Oh my goodness, if they actually thought that, one; I wouldn't be writing this, and two; you wouldn't be here. Netflix decided to cancel both shows because... actually I don't know, but I'm sure it's a stupid reason, because of course it would have to be, it's Netflix. This is the streaming platform that thought that Vanguard's movies were good investments, I don't think there is a single brain cell working at the executive table at Netflix. Cancelling these two shows, despite their popularity, is like Disney cancelling DuckTales... oh wait... Disney did that too... and that's why we're stuck with the divisive finale. Oh ho.

All of that however, is just the moist pork and asparagus cake compared to the salt and vinegar frosting that is Netflix's password sharing policies. According to DiscussingFilms, Netflix has introduced a new method to keep people from being happy, forcing users every 31 days to log in on a home Wi-Fi network, or else have the account blocked. Now, does Netflix have the right to implement this? That's not the question, the question is "how is this a good idea in the first place"? All it's going to do is make even less people use Netflix. There are plenty of users who use a shared Netflix account because they can't afford their own, or are spending their money on another service, or they're, you know, trying to buy basic necessities because they get paid so very little. Netflix seems to be under the impression that when it comes to decided whether someone wants to have food or Netflix, they'd choose Netflix. The reality is, if someone had to choose between food, rent, utilities and Netflix, Netflix would literally be the first thing to go, because who the actual Hell would choose getting to watch Duck Duck Goose when you have no food, no shelter and no electricity to watch it with?

The irony of it all makes me sick, but I guess at the end of the day, a string of quality does not support the heavy weight of awfulness. Netflix's disrespect to animation, complete buffoonery of password sharing deterrents, and selection of awful, awful "Netflix Original" movies, really does mean that at the end of the day, the joke was on me. Giving Netflix any amount of slack was a joke at my expense, and I should not have been at all surprised when people began saying things like "Netflix doesn't deserve Nimona". because at the end of the day... they're right. Nobody deserves Nimona really.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) - A Fun and Bizarre Disney Classic

 

I think everyone knows Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The classic Victorian era children's novel, not unlike A Christmas Carol, has been a popular story for adaptations, parodies and reimaginings since the birth of cinema. It's hard to think of someone who has not heard of this story, in any form, be it the original book and its sequel Through the Looking Glass, or from the American McGee games, or even the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit", one of my personal favourite songs of all time. Arguably the most popular version of the story is the 1951 Walt Disney animated feature. This movie followed the success of Cinderella, and has become one of Disney's most beloved properties. I don't think I really need to ask why.

Alice is a young girl who is being taught a history lesson, but she loses interest and wanders off, finding a peculiar White Rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch. Following this rabbit leads her to Wonderland, where she keeps trying to follow the White Rabbit, but ends up coming across many strange, kooky and curious characters. Of course, this movie does have some differences from the original Lewis Carroll book, many of the scenarios that Alice finds herself in end in completely different ways in the book, but I don't think the changes are that egregious for this movie. The changes they made fit the tone of the story they're telling, which is still undeniably the story of Alice in Wonderland. It kind of fits in with other adaptations from Disney, like Winnie the Pooh or Pinocchio, where the books and movies are two distinctly different from each other, but the themes and tones and enough of the story beats are still in tact that the changes in the movie are not all that upsetting, unless you're a book purist, in which case, learn to have fun.

On top of that, it's not like Alice just randomly stumbles into all the scenarios, she has a set goal in mind. She comes across the Tweedles after following the White Rabbit, she notices the Caterpillar's hookah smoke after being kicked out of the flower garden, the Cheshire Cat directs her to the Mad Hatter and March Hare. This does give the movie some sense of structure and cohesion rather than a movie like Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure, which I also liked, but the story was not that movie's strongest aspect. Overall, I can say the story of this movie is straightforward and not very rocky, a solid A grade effort.

Of course the characters are what makes this story iconic. We all know these characters and the voices associated with them, Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, Jerry Colonna as the March Hare, Pat O'Malley as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Bill Thompson as the White Rabbit, Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, and may we never forget the great Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat. The voice talent is superb, everyone's voice matches the characters perfectly, and topping them off is Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, and she does an equally amazing performance, so much so she actually reprised her role as Alice in the Kingdom Hearts video game and House of Mouse in 2002, there are very few characters that symbiotic with their actor.

As characters, everyone is pretty good. Alice in Wonderland is a weird story where everything is an antagonist, but not really a villain. I know the Queen of Hearts is grouped in with the Disney villains, and she is probably the most evil character in the story, but not everyone is all that helpful. Even the characters that are helpful have a nastier side to them, the Door Knob almost taking joy in Alice's predicament, the Caterpillar losing his temper with Alice, and the Cheshire Cat, clearly a trickster archetype. All of the craziness and antagonistic behaviors are all balanced out by Alice, who is curious and playful, but also has her limits. While I don't know if this movie has Disney's best characters, I can definitely see why they've remained iconic, and why whenever someone imagines Alice, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter or Cheshire Cat, it's usually these versions of the characters people think of.

Now, let's talk about the animation. First off, it is amazing, but not the actual animation itself, it is fantastic, but pretty standard for Disney. What wasn't standard for Disney at the time, was the effects, the lighting and the colour palette. The lighting in this movie is fantastic, environments darken to highlight certain parts of the location, or to emphasize a mood. Plus, seeing the Cheshire Cat fade away is always a cool treat. The colour palette is a perfect blend of visually interesting colours, but not anything that is eye bleeding or too unappealing. You'll never forget that this is a bizarre fantasy world, but it's not too out of the ordinary. This is one of the movies that the entire group of Disney's Nine Old Men worked on, and it shows, these were THE animators at Disney and are some of the most respected names in animation. Les Clark, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Woollie Reitherman, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were masters of animation and having them all work together for this movie is just phenomenal.

Alice in Wonderland is easily one of those movies that every animation fan needs to see at least once. It's easy to think that it's only worth seeing because it's a Disney movie, but given the movie's fantastic visuals, excellent vocal performances and settings and characters that we still associate with original stories today, it's hard to think of a reason to pass this movie up. Truly an excellent movie and one of the highlights from the Silver Age of Disney. What more needs to be said?

Editorial: 2023 Annie Awards Predictions

Truth be told, I really should stop taking breaks from work without a solid plan of what I'm gonna do during that break. Oh well, month's almost over, so what can you do? Anyway, the nominees for the Annie Awards are out. Granted I'm about as enthused for the Annie Awards as any other award show, but since this one is all about animation I'll give it an advantage that the Oscars don't get. Now, the actual awards show won't be until February 25th, so this gives us animation fans plenty of time to speculate which movie will win what award, and complain about some movie getting snubbed, because that just comes with the territory. So, that's what I'm gonna do, because this sounds fun.

To make this easy on myself, and on you, I'm only going to bring up the categories for features, there are a lot of categories even putting aside all the TV and Special Production categories, so there's going to be a lot. For sake of ease, I'm going to introduce the categories and then discuss which of the nominees I think will win. This does mean I'll be overlooking quite a lot of nominees, so if you want to check out the full list of nominees, here's the link for you: https://annieawards.org/legacy/50th-annie-awards

Enough beating around the bush, let's go.

Best Feature:

Ultimately, I think the Best Feature award is gonna come down between two movies, and while my choice would be for The Sea Beast or Wendell & Wild, I think the two movies that are really in the running for this award are Turning Red and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Of the two movies, I have to go with Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, I feel like that one is the big shoe in for most of the awards this year.

Best Indie Feature:

While I loved Charlotte, and would not be shocked if Inu-Oh or Little Nicholas, Happy As Can Be got the award, I think the two movies that are most likely to win are Marcel the Shell With Shoes On and My Father's Dragon. I didn't watch My Father's Dragon, but I know that the Annie Awards love Cartoon Saloon, and since The Breadwinner and Wolfwalkers were both previously award winners in this category, I'd say it's a safe bet that My Father's Dragon will make the record three for three.

Best FX - Feature:

This is a...weird series of nominations. Not that Lightyear and The Sea Beast aren't worthy of this nomination, but I wouldn't say they were award winning good. The two major movies I think are most likely to win are Avatar: The Way of Water and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. again, I'm positive Pinocchio will take home most of the awards it is nominated for, though Avatar is... Avatar so.. we'll see.

Best Character Animation - Feature:

Two different character animators for both Turning Red and The Bad Guys got nominated here. Meaning this is one of the few categories I doubt Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio will take home.

Best Character Animation - Live Action:

I'm betting on Avatar: The Way of Water for this one.

Best Character Design - Feature:

Somehow Luck got nominated for this category, I really don't see it winning. Also Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie got nominated and after being told I had no taste because I didn't like the first few episodes, I'm pretty much done with Ninja Turtles. I'm hoping this one mostly goes to The Bad Guys or Wendell & Wild, though Puss in Boots: The Last Wish may also be a top contender. I missed out on that one, so I wouldn't know.

Best Direction - Feature:

I think all the nominees for this category are fair choices. Domee Shi for Turning Red, Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson for Pinocchio, Dean Fleischer-Cap, Kirtsen Lepore and Stepehn Chiodo for Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Nora Twomey for My Father's Dragon, and Henry Selick for Wendell & Wild, all excellent picks. Again, I'm pinning Turning Red and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio as the most likely to win in this category. Though I'm rooting for Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.

Best Music - Feature:

Err... I don't actually remember a lot of the music for most of these movies, and I have not seen Mad God at all so... I'll bet on Turning Red here.

Best Production Design - Feature:

Another Mad God nomination, I may have to check that one out. Anyway, I think this one is likely to go to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Though The Sea Beast and The Bad Guys would also be solid winners.

Best Storyboarding - Feature:

Two nominations for Minions: The Rise of Gru and Strange World. Because I actually have seen those movies, I'm gonna say Puss In Boots: The Last Wish should win.

Best Voice Acting - Feature:

I feel like this one is likely to go to Gregory Mann in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, but I do hope that it goes to Jenny Slate in Marcel The Shell With Shoes On. To be fair, David Bradley's performance in Pinocchio was also really good, shame Ewan McGregor wasn't nominated.

Best Writing - Feature:

Four nominees this time, and I only watched two of them. I'm positive it's going to go to Turning Red, but it's likely to also go to the other three nominees, ETERNAL SPRING, Inu-Oh, and Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.

Best Editorial - Feature:

Again, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is likely to win this one, but I hope The Sea Beast gets it. I dunno, I really don't pay that much to editing unless it's really distracting.

Well, that was a lot. Either way, come February I'll be looking at the award winners and sharing my thoughts on them. I eager to see which movies take home the awards, even if I'm betting most of them go to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio or Turning Red, but hey, I've been surprised by award shoes before. I'm also excited to see who gets the special awards this year, but until then, I'll see you in February with review number 75. See you then!

Seriously... does John Lassetter still have friends in the Annie Awards Sphere? How else did Luck get a nomination?

Update: What to Expect for 2023

 

2022 was a year, that about sums it up. I had quite the fascinating review log for 2022 looking at a controversial animated movie, some live-action movies with animated special effects, some direct-to-video movies, and the first animated feature film from Japan. I can't really say the new releases were spectacular, but with what is expected to come out in 2023, I'm hoping that 2023 will be a much more interesting year than this one.

Which brings me to the updates, and I might as well start with the First Impressions:
You know, I really should have these on a proper schedule, I feel like that would help with traffic to this blog, but at the same time, I do like not having them be mandatory. As usual, I'm going to have these come out sporadically, and I can't guarantee I'll get to everything. I am anticipating doing a First Impression blog on Nimona, since I've been very vocal about what's been happening to that movie, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Elemental and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Everything else will be a maybe for First Impressions.

As for proper reviews, I'm starting this year off with review number seventy-five. I'm considering one of two movies I've chosen, I'll see which one I'm up for when it comes time to write the reviews. Whatever one I don't choose, I'll do afterwards. I don't have much set in stone for reviews this year, but I do have a couple. I have Alice In Wonderland 1951, Monsters Inc, TRON, Apollo 10½, Wonder Park, and a couple others planned for this year. I'll still be doing two reviews a month, but I'll be aiming for four posts a month minimum.

Which takes me to something else I've been thinking of, you see, as an animation fan, I have a bit of a sourness towards the Disney live-action remakes. However, I've heard that there are some that aren't all bad, and that makes me wonder, how many of them are actually good movies that we just pass up because they are live-action remakes? My bet is not that many of them, but I'm willing to dig in and see what I've missed. I'm planning to do one a month, and I will take my time with it, seriously I'm in no rush to get to Pinocchio 2022.

The full list of movies I'll be talking about on this journey as of right now include:
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
101 Dalmatians
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
Maleficent
Cinderella
The Jungle Book
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Beauty and the Beast
Kim Possible
Dumbo
Aladdin
The Lion King (Yes, again)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Lady and the Tramp
Mulan
Cruella
Pinocchio
The Little Mermaid
Plus whatever comes out afterwards

I think it will be a... "fun" journey to embark on.

To wrap up, let's talk editorials. I'm going to try and do one a month, but don't hold me to that. I've kind of gotten burnt-out at the end of 2022, so if I just don't feel up for writing, I'm going to have to take priority away from Editorials, unless it's something I really want to talk about. As for TV Impressions, if I have a show I've finished and want to talk about, I'll put that in place of the editorial, but if not, than I'll probably not have an editorial for that month.

The schedule is going to remain the same, review every 1st and 15th. That also leaves the 8th and the 22nd for secondary posts, like Editorials, Disney Live Action Remakes Posts or what have you. This may be the last year I do that schedule, we'll see. I think posting on a more specific day would be better, but right now, I'm gonna stick with reviews every 1st and 15th.

Let's hope this year brings good stuff, and hope I don't work myself to hard. Let's have a good 2023, or at least try to.