The Pixar Formula: Why I Don't Have Much Difficulty Ranking Pixar Movies

Pixar is my childhood. My first theater movie was Toy Story 2. During my grade school days, my life literally revolved around Buzz Lightyear (as I used the Star Command show to orient my social calendar). Finding Nemo was the first time I remember crying in a movie. Now in 2015 Pixar releases their first movie in two years, their 15th film and their first non-sequel since 2009 (Yes, you heard me right, I'm not counting Brave. In my mind that was Disney, but that's for another rant).

This post serves as both a ranking but also a chance to talk about the greatness of Pixar which is truly second to none. In reference to that greatness, I want to begin by talking about a revelation I had two years ago that was recently confirmed by Inside Out. I will then use that revelation to explain why I rank Pixar films with relative ease. This will then be followed up with my official rankings of all 15 Pixar movies to date. I suspect this post to be lengthy (but also awesome because, you know, Pixar!)

Two years ago I was sitting in the theater watching Monsters University rebound admirably from Brave the year before and I thought, "This movie is really good, but not quite Pixar".  I figured out a short time later that what I meant by that cryptic thought is that it made me feel more grown up (college age) than like a kid. I began scrolling through the Pixar catalogue in my head and quickly realized that Pixar is at its absolute best the more a movie makes me feel like a kid again. What Pixar has done, through some of their greatest successes like Toy Story and Monsters Inc., is redefine what it means for something to be a "kids movie". I greatly enjoy many Dreamworks movies, but they never make me feel like Pixar movies because they are movies targeted at kids with the knowledge that adults will watch them too. This formula is far from bad and produces movies like Shrek which are better than ever after you've grown up and start getting all the jokes.

The Pixar Formula is different. Rather than make movies targeted at kids, I honestly think they make movies targeted at adults with the intent to make them feel like kids. The difference is huge. I genuinely think adults will enjoy Inside Out more than their children because its not so much a "kids movie" as it is an "animated movie that makes you feel like a kid". Pixar is all about the feeling. That's why you can watch wordless umbrellas or volcanos fall in love and cry because it's so awesome. Pixar understands that the chief goal of exceptional filmmaking is not to make tons of money but to make audiences really, truly feel something deeply. This end must be achieved honestly and without manipulation, but that's the goal of every exceptional Pixar movie.

It is for that reason that I am able to rank Pixar movies relatively easily*: because the best Pixar flicks make me feel life most deeply and the worst (which are still pretty great) don't quite get there.
* Turns out, that was way harder than I thought it would be, but it was still pretty easy.

And now here are my rankings of every Pixar Movie:
15. Brave- I strongly suspect Brave is a lot better than I remember it to be, but I know it's last on this list for one really simple reason. It came out 3 years ago and I've only watched it once. My problem with Brave is that it felt a LOT like a Disney movie and not at all like a Pixar movie. It had moments, sure, but it wasn't what I came to see. More on this in a future post.

14. Cars 2- Even though Cars 2 is second to last on this list, I have to say that I REALLY liked Cars 2 and think the world has bashed on it waaaaay too much. Cars 2 was good for what it was which was a spy flick, very sleek and very cool. If Dreamworks had released it, it would be universally lauded, but with Pixar we expected a higher standard, even from sequels. It was a sequel and delivered as such.

13. Monsters University- This movie was exactly as good as I expected it to be, but it was also way funnier (thanks to Charlie Day) and had way more heart than I anticipated. The ending sequence is pure gold. It wasn't as good as the first Monsters flick, but it was a worthy sequel (with a LOADED voice cast).

12. A Bug's Life- Tragically this is perhaps the most forgotten of all the Pixar films. It's a great story of friendship and family that also delivers tension and action. I probably have it this low only because everything else is so great. Also it doesn't follow my Pixar Formula for making you feel like a kid again.

11. WALL-E- This one totally delivers on the "magic" level, but the story fell a little flat. I will admit, WALL-E has grown on me a lot since it first came out and I now like it a lot more. I love the silent movie vibe of the first half, and the more I watch it, the less I mind some of the preachy-ness.

10. Toy Story- I imagine you're yelling at your screens right now saying "Daniel's a HYPOCRITE!!! He just said the best one make you feel like a kid so why's Toy Story so low!!!" That is a fair thing to say, but I'm not a hypocrite because Toy Story doesn't make me feel like a kid. I was 1 year old when that movie came out so I didn't experience it as the technological marvel that it was. I will say that I GREATLY respect Toy Story for what it is, I just don't find it overall as enjoyable as some of the other flicks.

9. Ratatouille- I wasn't totally on board with this one before it came out but have loved it ever since. What I loved about Ratatouille is its innovation. Pixar had delivered plenty of great non-human characters and plenty of great human characters, but this was the first real time they brought those two worlds together. 

8. Toy Story 3- THIS movie made me feel like a kid again. Pixar timed it all up so that Andy would age along with viewers on a real timeline of his life. I even took it a step further and somehow didn't see it when it first came out, so I was in my junior year of high school when I saw it for the first time. I cried a lot and it reminded me everything I love about movies and life. In terms of overall quality, it may very well be the finest of the Toy Story franchise. 

7. Cars- People bash on Cars a lot, and I don't think any of that hate is deserved. Cars has the best character growth of any Pixar character with a great story and many lessons to be learned. Just because it was about cars doesn't mean there's not a lot to love about Cars.

6. The Incredibles- It's painful for me to not have them in the top 5, but that is the reality of ranking Pixar movies. The Incredibles is my absolute favorite superhero movie with tons of action and great family fun. The technical value is expert and the music is second to one.

5. Toy Story 2- This movie will always hold a special place in my heart. Maybe it's the nostalgia and maybe it's the opening sequence out in space, but this movie remains one that I cherish very deeply. As already addressed, TS3 is probably better in terms of story and characters, but TS2 will always be my favorite.

4. Monsters Inc.- I've always loved this one, but the true awesomeness of it's blend of action and heart didn't hit me until recently. It's with this movie that we were all introduced to Pete Doctor (who has other films coming Up on the list). Monsters Inc perfectly captured the childhood fear and fascination with the monsters hiding in our closets. Through the lives of these characters we learned not to fear something different than us and that adventure my be inside our very bedroom. Monsters Inc fuels the fire for everyone's imagination and captures childhood expertly.

3. Inside Out- I know this just came out so it's hard to judge against movies I've seen dozens of times, but everything about it makes me think it should rank this highly. I loved every moment of Inside Out which captured childhood better than any other movie ever. Inside Out reveals that childhood is not only about good times but also moments of sadness. Even as kids we're really complex people. We don't know what will shape or effect us. I can't say a lot more without giving away spoilers, but Inside Out captures a certain magic and mystery of Pixar the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen before. It truly is as good as any other movie ever.

2. Up- Hardcore Pixar fans will notice that the 2-4 movies on this list are all the work of Pete Doctor. Because he's awesome. We all know Up is an amazing movie with equal parts humor and heart, but Up gives really good perspective on life from the point of view of a child or an adult that is often missed in other movies. Russell's life isn't great. His family is broken and his dad is missing from the picture. He lives for his wilderness explorer life of adventure. In Russell we see (before Inside Out) that childhood can be a hard thing but there is still adventure and good times to be had. Russell sits at the beginning of his life full of positivity and optimism, while Carl sits looking back on his life remembering the good times and the bad times. The story of Up allows them to meet in the middle where they both find adventure on a grand scale but also a familial scale. Carl flies his house around South America and discovers that the greatest adventure in life is that of your family. Up reminds viewers of all ages that the most important things in life are people and the adventures you have with them. To top all that off, the music is simply the best ever. 

1. Finding Nemo- This movie is probably the strongest family movie made as the love of Marlin is greater than the ocean. It reminds kids that their parents are still pretty cool and protective and reminds parents how much they love their kids. It takes us into the mysterious world of the ocean, while at the same time providing us with familiar animals and scenarios. Finding Nemo is probably the funniest Pixar movie with the best pacing and story of them all. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. To sum up the Pixar Formula succinctly it is: Pixar makes kids movies that aim to make adults feel like kids and make kids treasure their childhood. Thanks for reading! 

A Rant on Game of Thrones Season 5

This will be rant on Game of Thrones season 5. If you haven't finished Game of Thrones season 5, turn back now for this post is dark and full of spoilers. However if you have finished it, read on and enjoy. I must preface this saying that I haven't read the books yet, so this rant is based purely on the show. Further than that it should be noted that, for the most part, I really liked this season. This rant is directed at the GoT fan base that's making themselves seem stupid on the internet.

In this season I would point to three main events that caused outrage on the internet: the rape of Sansa, the death of Shireen and the death of Jon Snow. In this post I want to rant about these events.

We begin with the rape of Sansa. I was downright shocked...by the reaction of the internet when this happened and not at all shocked by this event in the story. In my estimation the worst thing about the scene was the fact that Ramsey made Reek/Theon watch. Because he's a sick bastard (pun intended). I don't understand why the internet got so upset with this one because a) we've already seen rape on the show other times and b) we already know Ramsey is the worst person alive! This season I found myself hating him at near Joffrey levels. He's just that bad. So given that the act follows in line with his character and so we can't be "shocked" or "outraged" by it. Do you remember what he did in season 3? That was hardcore. Also think back to Season 1 wherein Dany gets raped by Drogo in a MUCH more graphic and on camera scene. Or think back to last season wherein Cersei gets (inexplicably) raped by Jamie. Given the graphic nature of those scenes, I say the rape of Sansa was the third worst rape of the show's history, and also not the worst thing Ramsey has done. I think the outrage of the internet on this matter boils down to the fact that most people like Sansa and all people HATE Ramsey. Our preferences deluded the internet into thinking this was the worst thing in GOT history, and it just wasn't.

Moving on to the death of Shireen. I was a little upset that this happened, but it was predicted often throughout the story. After watching five seasons of this show, we all know that if GOT starts using a character way more than in past times, something major is going to happen with them. Even more than that Melisandre and Stannis talked about EXACTLY this possibility early in the season. After one episode my friend even told me "I bet she makes him kill Shireen" and so it came to pass. I think the outrage of this one is based on the fact that it was a kid killed by her father by BURNING. That's a pretty brutal triangle but not something we need to get too worked up about. Firstly, we didn't know Shireen long enough to have much attachment to her. Secondly we've seen Stannis burn people before. Thirdly, we know he isn't the greatest dad in the world and that everything he does is directed at gaining the throne. The events of the next episode make me wonder why all this happened, but that's a different matter.

Finally we come to the death of Jon Snow and the complete and utter hatred of Olly, the boy who stabbed him last. I didn't like Jon snow. I never liked Jon Snow. I found all the scenes at the wall to be really boring 70% of the time throughout the run of the show. That said, I almost cried when he died out of shock and not of pity. I also don't like people saying "he's the one that's going to win" because it's just not going to happen. The actor playing Jon has strongly hinted that he's dead, and from what I've heard from book readers HE'S DEAD!!! So please internet, knock it off with all this "Melisandre will save him" because it's not going to happen. But even more that that, I'm upset about the hatred of Olly, I hate to break it to you guys but OLLY DIDN'T KILL JON SNOW!!! Olly helped kill Jon Snow after he'd already been stabbed several times. Even before Olly stabbed him, it was obvious that Jon Snow was about to die. That was about to happen. Olly just finished him off causing the internet to erupt with all these "he's the worst guy ever" when that's not even close to being true. Olly did nothing mean, vicious, or wrong. He, as a brother of the Night's Watch, fulfilled his duty to help kill the betrayer of their people. Whether it was right or wrong for them to do that is another matter entirely. By Night's Watch law that's what they were supposed to do. Olly had no part in deciding that should happen and no bigger part in carrying it out than any other member of the watch.

In summation: the show has done way worse things that the rape of Sansa (see everything done by Joffrey); Shireen's death was brutal but you can't be too upset about it because you couldn't have cared that much about her; Olly is no more at fault that anyone else in the death of Jon Snow; Jon Snow is DEFINITELY DEAD so shut up about how Melisandre is going to save him because he's dead. Like really really dead. As a doornail. No one else has come back in Thrones so he's not coming back either. He's dead.

That's it for this rant (which ended up much longer than I anticipated). I'll try to do a ranking in the near future or something more light-hearted.

Worth a Second Opinion

It's no secret I get a lot of my movie knowledge from Rotten Tomatoes. With action and drama movies especially I rely on their experts to tell me what I'll enjoy watching. And almost all the time if they like it, I'll like it and vice versa. But today I want to briefly review two movies I saw a while back that got relatively poor reviews and just sort of slipped through the cracks either due to their release dates or number of theaters, but I think they're pretty good movies.

First up is This is Where I Leave You. TIWILY came out last September in that weird time between all the big summer movies (May-July) and all the big Oscar movies (Oct-Jan). In other words it came out at the same time as movies like The Maze Runner that made us all think "I might see that sometime" but most likely we never will. That sort of time and movie. Rotten Tomatoes experts gave it 41% fresh and audience scores were only slightly better at 60%.

But I think they got it wrong on this one because TIWILY is actually a really, really good dramedy. The story follows a jewish family of adult children who have to live under one roof again for a week after their father dies. The family is made up of Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Connor Stoll (the guy from Season 1 of House of Cards who always makes you think "That guy was on HoC!") and Adam Driver (the guy who generates the EXACT same reaction except with the show Girls). Their mom is played by Jane Fonda with supporting cast members including Rose Bryne and the under appreciated Kathryn Hahn (I can't think of anything specific for her but she's done bit parts in Step Brothers and a slew of other comedies).

Right from the cast I expect this to be a really good movie and it doesn't disappoint. The characters maintain their own identities will still meshing together like a real family. The chemistry between Bateman and Fey is marvelous and the whole movie effort just works. It's not the funniest movie in the world (which probably led to disappointed reviewers) but it's really sweet and really charming. It reminds you that family is a complicated thing, but one that you have to deal with in your life. I would liken it to August: Osage County as they have similar premisses, but also leave you with a similar sense of the importance of living life. In my book it's a solid B+/A- kind of movie that deserves a lot more love than it got (I mean, Bateman and Fey together?!?).


The second movie is The Last Five Years. This is an adaptation of the off-Broadway musical of the same name that originally starred Norbert Leo Butz (who is an amazing person, if you don't know). It got a slightly better, barely fresh 60 and 64% from critics and audiences respectively, but this movie completely missed everyone's radar. In the large city of Portland Oregon, not a single theater was showing it when it opened! The big mystery with this movie is why it didn't get a wider release. It came out last Valentines Day, so it'd have to compete with 50 Shades and Kingsman, but those were both rated R. I really believe there would have been a fine market for a PG-13 romance comedy musical on Valentines Day starting teen idol Anna Kendrick (fresh off Into the Woods), but I could be wrong.

The story tells a romantic relationship from start to finish, but it tells it from the guy's point of view and the girl's point of view while moving in opposite directions. So it jumps from a break up to the start of the relationship and back and forth. Kendrick is predictably amazing as Kathy (seriously, she's amazing in that role) and while her co star is no Norbert Leo Butz, he holds his own quite admirably. Like all good movie musicals (and I do mean ALL) the story is almost entirely musical numbers focusing almost exclusively on these two people. The movie does the play and the score justice without cutting a single song, and that's really really rare. My biggest and only complaint is a couple of modified lyrics to be without the F-word so they could keep the PG-13 rating, but that's just me being a purist. Anyway this movie should have been a big hit with great music and big star power behind it, but for some reason it slipped through the cracks.

So go watch those two movies. TIWILY can be found on HBOGO and I imagine L5Y can be found on DVD with relative ease. I don't know what I'll talk about next time, but I'm sure it will be something good. Expect Emmys chatter coming up soon because i get almost as excited about the Emmys as about the Oscars. (I watch way too much TV, but you knew this).

Caitlyn Jenner and Identity Struggles

I established this blog to be a place where I can write about TV and movies with the hope that maybe a few people will care to read it. This week I feel the need to address the much more significant and controversial topic of Caitlyn Jenner. Please note that I do not pretend to be an expert on anything, but I have been attempting to follow the story and feel I have the right to say my two cents.

As background, Bruce Jenner was an Olympic superstar back in the seventies as a icon of sports prowess and masculinity. And honestly I think that's the problem. As a society we built Jenner up as some pillar of hyper-masculinity which he (and almost everyone else) is not. I think most fundamentally, this is a conversation about identity. Gender Identity Disorder (recently termed Gender Dysphoria) is a "condition" you've probably heard a lot about this past week. Basically it means that you feel like woman or man when biologically speaking you are the opposite. I don't have this, but I imagine it would not be fun to have your identity diagnosed as a "disorder". For a long while homosexuality was "treated" in the same way which, thankfully, we have moved past now (but not without creating the horror stories of Alan Turing and others in the process).

Identity is a REALLY important thing to us as human beings, and I think that's the part of this discussion that is largely lost on people. Most of the voices I've heard in this conversation have come from Christian sources, which is great, but I think these Christian voices have largely overlooked the issue of identity. I am a Christian and as such (ideally) find my identity in Jesus. However, even this is really hard to do all the time. My church once did a 16 week sermon series on finding identity in Christ in just the 6 chapter book of Ephesians! He preached to us about identity for four straight months and I still forgot the message a week later! The phrase "in Christ" appears a TON of times in Pauline letters because it's something we as Christians just don't get very well.

Because we, like non-Christians, want to find our identity in the world. We want who we are to be based on our income bracket, material possessions, perfect wife and kids, social status, gender or anything else in the world. But here's the difference: as Christians we are called to find our identity NOT in those things but in Christ and love everyone. Our job is love in hopes of sharing Jesus and thereby eventually changing the heart desire to WANT identity in Christ. But if that person is non-Christian, that's our only job.

The actions of Caitlyn Jenner are not what I believe God's perfect world was all about, but we aren't in God's perfect world. We're in a world where giant countries don't have clean water and millions of babies don't even see their birth. Our world is very, very broken and a "disorder" of feeling like a woman when you are biologically a man is just another part of that brokenness but no more significant than any other elements of our broken world.

Actually, that's not true. It is more significant that other elements because this situation is public allowing us all to expose how judgmental and proud we really are. It gives us the chance to stand tall and point the finger at someone else ranting about how it "defames the image of women" when we don't realize that EVERYTHING around us has completely screwed up masculinity and femininity.

Which brings us back to this issue of identity and where it is found. Very few individuals take the time to actually think about what it is to be man or woman and consider the implications. When I started doing that, everything in my life changed.

I have seen enough of the tabloids and Keeping up with the Kardashians to be reasonably certain Caitlyn Jenner is not a born-again Christian which means that I have one and one place in this discussion and that is to love. Even if she professes to be Christian (as 90% of Americans do), that doesn't change much and it certainly doesn't give me the "right" to be judgmental. I'm happy this made so many headlines because it allows the cause of LGBTQ and such to move forward, and forward is always the right direction to be going. Because forward moves us toward a place of greater understanding, greater love and less judgment.

Christians, if you see headlines about Caitlyn Jenner and get more disgusted than when you think of people participating in porn, cheating on their spouse or ANY of sexual sin, then I think Jesus has major heart work to do with you. I've lived on this earth long enough to know we all sin sexually in one way or another, so signaling out any one "variation" of that sin over any other is a problem that is only hurting and hindering yourself. Caitlyn Jenner is not an insult to women, but every Christian who judges her identity issues or sexual sins more harshly than their own is an insult to the Gospel. I'm guilty of this as well; no one's perfect except Jesus so we should keep being like Him.