Hit it, Jay!

February 28, 2011 By 3 Comments

Our favorite insipid reporter, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post, has struck again.  Kudos to Dan to putting this one in front of my eyes, in which Jay does a total flip-flop on the drivel he published in the fall regarding admissions policies at Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia—a piece I had great fun in, um, challenging.  Or, actually, maybe Jay hasn’t flip-flopped; since this piece lacks a point/thesis/intention, it’s difficult to say.  Read on.  (As always, Jay’s words–untouched–are in non-bold.)


By all accounts, he is one of the best math teachers in the country. The Mathematics Association of America has given him two national awards. He was appointed by the Bush administration to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. For 25 years he has prepared middle-schoolers for the tough admissions standards at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the most selective high school in America.

Slipped into the end of this obsequiousness is the claim that TJ is ‘the most selective high school in America.’  Per its Wikipedia page, it accepts about 480 students of 3,000 who apply—16%.  Take a stroll over the page for Stuyvesant HS in New York: its total enrollment is 3,000 students, so we’ll assume the freshmen class is roughly 800.  Admission is based solely on an exam, which about 26,000 eighth-graders take.  800/26,000: 3%.  And this was just one school I checked because I’d vaguely heard of it; it all took about 60 seconds.  Am I missing something?  Or is Jay just allowed to make up whatever he wants?

Yet this year, when Vern Williams looked at the Jefferson application, he felt not the usual urge to get his kids in, but a dull depression. On the first page of Jefferson’s letter to teachers writing recommendations, in boldface type, was the school board’s new focus:

I’d just like to remind everyone here that, in Jay’s aforementioned piece, he bizarrely asked for TJ to use teacher recs—as though they didn’t.

It wanted to prepare “future leaders in mathematics, science, and technology to address future complex societal and ethical issues.”

So far, doesn’t sound particularly offensive.

It sought diversity,

Ahh, of course, here comes the juicy stuff.

“broadly defined to include a wide variety of factors, such as race, ethnicity, gender, English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), geography, poverty, prior school and cultural experiences, and other unique skills and experiences.” The same language was on the last page of the application.

“This is just one example of why I have lost all faith in the TJ admissions process,” Williams said. “In fact, I’m pretty embarrassed that the process seems no more effective than flipping coins.”

Effective at what?  That’d be nice to know.  As Mathews points out later, the process is producing absurdly high SAT scores among TJ kids; certainly, that doesn’t entirely vindicate it—but that’s more evidence than Williams provides for his claims of a bad process.

Last year, he said, Jefferson rejected one of only two eighth-graders in Virginia who qualified to take the Junior USA Math Olympiad test, six scary problems to be done in nine hours. At the same time, “students who had very little interest [or] motivation in math and science were admitted,” he said. “Some admitted students had even struggled with math while in middle school.”

Oh. My. God.  This was the part that made this post inevitable.  By Williams’s logic, everyone who takes the Junior USA Math Olympiad test deserves admission to TJ.  Really?  Taking 1 of 2 said applicants tells us anything?  Really?  And, Jay, you’re going to pimp the awesomeness of said Olympaid by describing it as “six scary problems done in 9 hours?”  If nothing else, that description makes it sound not that bad; more detail and specificity would have been lovely if you wanted readers to be impressed with it.

And “some admitted students even struggled with math while in middle school”—NOOOO!!  What a disgrace!!  We can’t admit any student who wasn’t able to take his middle school exams blind, with no studying, one arm tied behind his back, and half as much time as everyone else.  I mean, are you serious?  It’s a problem to ever admit students who may have struggled with math in middle school, for any reason?  This sounds like something from The Onion: “Teacher complains that elite high school accepted a student ‘who even struggled with math in high school.’”

Williams knows that the school board is concerned that less than 4 percent of Jefferson students are black or Hispanic. He is black himself and was born in the District. He is familiar with the failings of math education for low-income minorities, but he doesn’t think rejecting top math students is the best way to make the school more diverse.

I love how any discussion of anything vaguely race-related has to point out that its instigator is a minority.  You know, because that’s relevant to his intellect.

The solution, he said, is to “get rid of all warm and fuzzy math programs at the elementary school level and teach real academic content to all students.” Textbooks are dumbed down, he said, to accommodate allegedly math-phobic children. Don’t get him started on the overuse of calculators.

What’s particularly interesting about this paragraph is that it markedly illustrates the limitations of Jay’s column.  Williams’s philosophy on teaching can be found at the link, and a good portion of it makes sense.  There are few bigger critics of conventional American teaching than me.  Yet, Jay doesn’t explain Williams’s cogent points (needless repetition of old material, inflexible teachers, excessive group work, to name a few); he lets him ramble that ‘some admitted students have even struggled sometimes in math OMGWTFFAIL.’  And Jay’s BUYING IT.

He showed me a copy of a Jefferson recommendation he filled out in 2004. It asked him to rate the candidate on “interest in math,” “self-discipline” and “problem-solving skills.” There was no mention of ethnic diversity. This year, recommenders are required to assess three qualities: intellectual ability, commitment to STEM [science, technology, engineering, math] and whether the applicant’s background, skills and past experiences “contribute to the diversity of TJHSST’s community of learners.”

Last November, I wrote a column endorsing that approach. I said that if the school put more emphasis on character and less on math scores, more black and Hispanic applicants would have a chance. I still believe that. But I have been so taken with the power of Williams’s teaching over the years that I feel obliged to present his contrary view.

He has run into several cases of Jefferson ignoring STEM commitment.

By the way, how does Williams know all of this?  He’s a middle-school teacher, not a TJ insider.  Is it from Bush’s advisory panel?  Just curious.

Humanities types are being accepted, and stars of Mathcounts, the nerd equivalent of youth soccer, are being rejected.

“Humanities types.”  Thanks, Jay.  I’m sure they enjoy being talked about like they’re not sentient.  The latter portion of the sentence is typical Jay claptrap; it might be perfectly defensible to reject some stars of Mathcounts when considering everything else about them.  And?

“And yet how many minorities have this corrupt process scooped up? Barely any!” Williams said.

Ah, is this what we meant by saying that the process isn’t effective?  It’s hard to tell conclusively; but this is something; addressing whether the admissions procedures have increased racial diversity would be worth noting, I suppose.  But we’re about to shift gears to fawn over Williams’s diligence in writing recommendations.

“I usually write between 45 and 60 TJ recommendations and spend at least 75 minutes on each because I make them all totally unique. I felt like last year’s effort was a total waste of time.”

Too bad you don’t fully understand the meaning of the word ‘unique,’ which never deserves a qualifier.

The Jefferson admissions committee’s careful sifting produced last year’s average senior class SAT score of 2233, the highest in the nation by far. That is impressive. But at least one gifted teacher who knows Jefferson well thinks it could do better finding the students who come for the love of math, not prestige.

Students who come for the love of prestige?  That’s the concern about the admissions process—that it’s finding 13-year olds who want status?

Look, changing admissions procedures to admit more minorities is one issue—a completely separate one.  But freaking out over the mathematical attitude of intelligent tweens is overwrought hand-wringing.  Jefferson receives tons of applications—not as many as Stuyvesant, it looks like, but plenty–all of whom come from one of the most-educated areas in the country.  In other words, there are TONS of qualified applicants.  We can parse words on the application packet to favor students with a slightly different approach to math, but, really, what’s that ruining?  Is there any evidence that this approach is dulling the school or producing less qualified graduates?

Jay, there’s a way to present a contrary viewpoint to your own.  Highlight its strongest, most persuasive points (not done) and compare them with your own (not done), ultimately either telling us why you still prefer your own (not done) or modifying your position into some sort of hybrid/synergistic/new model (not done).  Instead, Jay wrote some Vern-is-wonderful filler, printed some of his dumber claims and ignored his stronger ones, and, as always, ignored the concept of a thesis.  Well done.

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In which The Annie Awards lose all credibility

February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In the past I have praised the Annie Awards for providing a lens into the most important animated features from each year of the past couple decades. The largest mark against the awards came in 2008, when Kung-Fu Panda won Film of the Year against Wall-E, which was by far the most recognized and important animated movie of the year — and one of the most heralded of all time, for that matter.

My previous article alleges no clear culprit behind what was pretty objectively a poor selection. This year, it happened again: How to Train Your Dragon topped Toy Story 3. Now, I love HTTYD more than most, but Toy Story 3 is — by every important metric — the superior, more important film.

So what’s the story? It’s no coincidence the same studio released Kung-Fu Panda and HTTYD, and that studio didn’t have a film nominated in 2009 — the only year of the past three a non-Dreamworks film didn’t win. That’s right — Dreamworks used some sneaky tactics to win the awards.

Essentially, Jeffrey Katzenberg — chief overlord of Dreamworks and perhaps the most fascinating man in the history of animated film, though that’s a post for another day — saw a way to exploit the award selection system the Annie use. Basically, anyone who is a professional animator can buy a membership in ASIFA-Hollywood, the organization that votes for the Annie winners. (Fun trivia: ASIFA stands for Association Internationale du Film d’Animation, which is why everyone just calls them ASIFA.) Katzenberg pays for a membership for every one of his animators. Other studios do not; it’s up to the people who work there to decide whether or not to enroll.

So, surprise, the DreamWorks employees tend to vote for the films produced by the studio who employs them and pays for their membership. I don’t blame them. The limited oversight by the ASIFA has no real checks to prevent these types of shenanigans. Again, it’s not overt cheating — you can defend Katzenberg, in that he didn’t break any rules and didn’t (publicly) encourage DrewamWorks employees to vote as homers — but it also kind of is.

Pixar noticed this and decided to publicly boycott the Annie Awards. A cynic might argue that they chose this strategy simply because they have smaller numbers and can’t counter Katzenberg’s tactics. A Pixarphile would praise their devotion to integrity. I fall in the latter camp.

The result is that Annies have become something of a joke. It’s a shame; animation deserves a good awards platform. Buzz around the web sites I read is that the ASIFA is going to do something about it. Until then: we Pixar fanboys one more reason to mock DreamWorks (related)!

EDIT: Redemption?

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The Social Network: Coming Back for Everything

February 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

Rating: 4 stars (out of 4)

The Social Network’s top comparison among critics has been the beloved Citizen Kane, as both chronicle the rise and fall of a young, ambitious individual who shapes a new technological medium to his advantage.  After 4 viewings of the former (plus many more of certain scenes), endless reading of reviews, and discussions with friends, I’ve realized another crucial similarity.

Kane’s greatness, so goes the narrative, becomes more apparent the more you know about movies; its praised cinematography isn’t the sort of thing that captivates casual fans.  Likewise, Network seems to me a movie that looks better the more thoroughly you examine its craft.  The timing of the scenes, the way they flow together, the way endings seamlessly become the next appropriate beginning, the way certain lines of dialogue come back to relevance minutes or scenes later, the utter lack of meaningless moments and utter pervasiveness of conflict—it exhibits the peerless level of craft to which screenwriters aspire.

This says little about the emotion the story elicits, which I point out because the only blemish I’ve heard anyone pin on Network is that it’s a little cold.  To an extent, I wouldn’t disagree with that, though I can adore ‘cold’ movies (Closer, anyone?).  But I think there’s plenty of emotional resonance, and, more importantly, the level of craft demonstrated by the screenplay thrills geeks like me.

What’s most remarkable to me about Facebook is not the extent of its ubiquity within modern society—it’s how fast that happened.  The site launched in 2004; within all of 2 years, no self-respecting student could avoid having an account, and after 2 more years, that category had pretty much expanded to everyone too young to be elected president.  Thus it should be no surprise that, 6 years later, there already exists a book and, now, a movie chronicling the site’s rise.

21st century communicators owe a great deal to Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the anti-hero of this film who created the site, albeit possibly with help from other people whom he did not credit and compensate.  A Harvard undergraduate in 2003, he channeled his utter inability to carry on a compassionate conversation into a creationist rage that became Facebook.  Problems arose, however, from his interactions with a couple of silver-spoon twins (both played by Armie Hammer) who claimed he stole their idea and with his best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), who donated initial start-up cash and then was gradually phased out of the site’s ownership.

The Social Network, thus, intersperses the story of the site’s development with depositions being taken in two separate lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg, one by Eduardo and one by the twins, a brilliant structural choice that not only provides incredible forward momentum but also allows for moments of penetrating drama.  This is a ferociously entertaining rush through scenes laced with conflict, characters who understand themselves better than they do others, and ideas disseminated, dismantled, and disavowed.

Aaron Sorkin’s script, which pointedly, poignantly captures contradictions of the modern era, begins in mid-sprint, unspooling a delicious opening scene that makes you wonder why so many movies open in such a drab fashion.  Zuckerberg and his then-girlfriend (Rooney Mara) talk a mile-a-minute, West-Wing-for-college-students-style, and if that description titillates you half as much as it does me, see this movie.  Those first five minutes introduce the powerful irony the film pushes—the greatest cultural marker of the past generation (if not longer) springing from the mind of someone who “doesn’t have three friends to rub together.”  Network has the guts to let you dislike its protagonist right away.

Maybe it’s because Sorkin has never apologized for catering to a smarter audience than most Hollywood writers, but The Social Network doesn’t succumb to the typical Hollywood convention of deriding smart kids.  With the contrasting shots of Zuckerberg frantically typing on his computer as Harvard revelers party around him, it’s not making fun of his aptitude; in fact, it’s admiring both his brains and the perseverance with which he carries out his pet project.  Of course, it relishes the other side of him too—the less noble one.

Speaking of something less than noble, the other key player, providing a boost of energy halfway through, is Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who founded Napster, made nothing on it, and then grabbed hold of Zuckerberg’s ride.  A smart playboy, Sean manages to impress Mark with his acumen, even though the latter wants no trappings of success.  Some of his scenes—at a fancy dinner, and upstairs at a club—feature writing so sharp, dialogue so propulsive in service of both character and plot, that I had to lean forward in my chair as though I was awaiting the revelation of the villain in a suspense thriller.  Sorkin’s dialogue overflows with conflict and tension, and that, combined with his characters’ eloquence, commands your attention.

By this point, Sorkin—whose resume is getting a little absurd—has mastered all of the tricks at the disposal of screenwriters.  This tops A Few Good Men and The American President as his best movie, all of which ignores his contributions to TV—the decent Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which, despite its critics, was about 90% of a great show), and, ahem, four seasons of The West Wing.

There’s not a single solitary moment here that’s unnecessary—something that, when you think about it, very few films can say.  Sorkin manipulates the audience so subtly, so craftily, so enjoyably that not only do you never see it coming, but you simply shake your head in admiration after he does.  The ability to, say, make a line like “And the water under the Golden Gate is freezing cold” hit us where it hurts does not reside in most people.  Sean’s explanation to Mark of the man who founded Victoria’s Secret combines a capitalistic rags-to-riches fable with a cautionary tale, and it illustrates some of the differences between those two and Eduardo.  And Zuckerberg’s follow-up question, regarding Sean’s first love interest, illustrates the differences between those two, and foreshadows the devastating final shot of the film.

By that moment, you’ll be surprised at how well Parker has been fleshed out, a trait that Sorkin shares with all his characters.  Note the way he defines Harvard’s president three-dimensionally in about 5 minutes, or how Mark ‘interviews’ candidates for internships.  It’s telling that, when Mark lets down Eduardo at one point, he doesn’t apologize—though you can sense he’s thinking about it—but instead re-directs him to the company’s latest innovations.  Much of the dialogue effectively conveys the conflicting sense that A Beautiful Mind did about its protagonist—were all of his insults cruel, or did he just not always know what to say in everyday conversations?

Network, too, is a phenomenally acted film, from the ancillary characters (especially Hammer as both twins) all the way up; all three protagonists deserved Oscar nominations and/or wins (deserving, of course, not always translating to “receiving”).  Eisenberg is viciously good, especially at capturing the disturbing aspects of Zuckerberg’s personality.  Timberlake makes Sean seductive, resilient, and dependent, teeming with vigor and liveliness, every word dripping with conviction.  Garfield, excellent in Never Let Me Go, gives a performance that shines through on repeated viewings.  Though viewers may disagree over the details of who deserved what, Eduardo is the most sympathetic character, and Garfield paints his devotion to Mark without relying on corniness.  His reaction scene to getting all but written out of the company should have gotten him the Oscar nomination alone.

Despite the subject matter, director David Fincher wisely does not beat you over the head with his movie’s modernity.  No significance is played by text messaging or video sharing or Skyping, and the colors seem dried out of most scenes, especially the Harvard ones: it all looks like they could be sitting in 1980s dorms, and that’s critical for emphasizing Zuckerberg’s alienation from the society around him.  The movie gets all the small details right, too, in particular the fantastic score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross–ominous and haunting, as though things are breaking all around it (which they are).  And the scene (pictured above) at the club, with pounding music, where you sort of have to strain to hear the words, but can still grasp everything, is a masterwork of sonics–and, I think, says something about the way a lot of people live today.

“I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth,” Sorkin recently said regarding his work here.  “I want it to be to storytelling.”  That sums up my thoughts exactly—I don’t go to movies for history lessons; I go for drama and entertainment, and The Social Network has both in spades.  It has them, above all, in its characters, who are all striving for something out of their reach.  Sean wants to get on board with something again.  Eduardo wants the approval of his father and his friend.  And Mark wants, not money or products or fame, but recognition as well, but only from the one person, out of millions, who won’t give it to him.

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Toy Story (1995) Review – This town ain’t big enough for the two of us!

February 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Over in that house is a kid who thinks you’re the greatest, and it’s not because you’re a space ranger, pal. It’s because you’re a toy. You are his toy! – Woody

Rating: 4 stars (out of 4)

The success of Toy Story was almost unprecedented: Critics made it the fourth best-reviewed film of all time. Viewers flocked to the theater; no film sold more tickets in the US in 1995. Its maker, a little-known rendering company called Pixar, catapulted to stardom. Disney earned its biggest hit ever not made by the Walt Disney Animation Studio.

Oh, and it was the first computer-animated feature, ever. A few films — including Disney’s own The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast — previously mixed in some computer-generated imagery (CGI) as special effects. Plenty of commercials and theatrical shorts had been created entirely with electrons, but never a full-length film.

(And yet, the success of Toy Story was still only “almost unprecedented.” Exactly one film innovated so profoundly and successfully before it: 1937′s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first hand-drawn animated film ever.)

Pixar’s strange history as a computer hardware and software company — documented in the engaging The Pixar Touch by David A. Price — suggests that Toy Story could easily have come out as little more than a technical exercise. With all of the effort involved in creating a 80-minute computer graphic, little details like plot, characters, and script could have been lost in the mix.

That’s what makes the most staggering success of Toy Story – its pure, giddy, rich, poignant storytelling — one of the great, unlikely Hollywood victories of all time. Simply, Toy Story is nearly a masterpiece, one of the best films of its decade, and one of the best animated films ever.

It all starts with the premise, which is simple on the surface but cuts deep. Toys come to life when their owners are away. They have their own little world, organized like a small community. They worry mostly about typical things: love, wellbeing, friendship, safety. Their deepest desire is to be played with by their owners. This undercurrent of longing — to be played with and valued — allows the Toy Story series to embody all sorts of existential metaphor.

There’s also a powerful contradiction contained in the premise: the toys can’t (or don’t — more on this later) move or express anything when humans are around, even though entertaining humans is their life calling. This paradox drives much of the film’s suspense and thematic depth.

Among the key triumphs for the film is its multi-dimensional characters. Most memorable are the odd couple at the heart of the film: Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Woody starts the film Andy’s favorite toy, a position that commands respect among his fellow toys. Fortunately, he’s a good leader and he organizes the toys into a productive community. As two stressful events — moving day and the dreaded birthday, when old toys are replaced with new gizmos — approach, Woody does his best to keep Andy’s toys calm and prepared for any disaster.

With Woody’s power and responsibility has come an inflated self-importance. He relishes in the role as favorite toy and leader. Admittedly, it’s an important role: Without him, it seems, there would be no order within the toys’ community and no hero for Andy’s elaborate, imagined adventures. The other members of the toy community mock Woody’s seriousness a bit, but seem to respect his authority.

Woody is voiced brilliantly by Tom Hanks, who infuses the protagonist with humanity and comedy. His inflection and energy turn some plain lines into classics, especially one of cinema’s great rants: “You are a toy! You aren’t the real Buzz Lightyear! You’re an action figure. Y0u are a child’s plaything!”

Equally memorable is Buzz Lightyear. Woody had spent the morning before the birthday party comforting his fellow toys that they wouldn’t be replaced, but Woody himself turns out to be the one in danger. Buzz Lightyear knocks Woody off the bed and off the top of the toy totem pole. All of the toys immediately embrace him as the new, cool toy and leader. Even Woody’s beloved Bo Peep admits that Buzz has “more gadgets on him than a Swiss Army knife.”

Yet Buzz has a self-delusion that surpasses Woody’s, and it’s this confusion that drives the film: He doesn’t realize that he’s a toy. He thinks he’s really a space captain. As Rober Ebert put it, “Buzz is the most endearing toy in the movie, because he’s not in on the joke.”

Throughout the first half of the movie, Buzz operates as if he’s temporarily crashed on an alien world and has to repair his cardboard box space ship. This leads to some of the funniest moments in the film, when Buzz makes off-handed observations in a militaristic, formal tone. “I don’t believe that man’s ever been to medical school,” he remarks when toy-abuser Sid plays the part of a toy surgeon.

Because of Buzz’s persistence to his world view, his transformation is quite poignant. His belief that he’s the Buzz Lightyear comes crashing down, quite literally. Woody is forced to make a change in his self-outlook by the end of the film, but it’s nothing compared to the complete identity crisis Buzz goes through.

Credit voice actor Tim Allen for capturing these complexities. Billy Crystal was initially desired for the role, but he turned down the role, so Allen was offered the gig. Crystal’s rejection was ultimately a fortuitous twist to the film. Allen’s everyman, blue collar take on Buzz allows the character to remain relatable. Crystal’s detached, high-pitched voice (later utilized to great effect in Monsters Inc.) could have pushed Buzz into an unlikeable character.

As brilliantly-conceived as Buzz and Woody are on their own, the real magic happens when the two are together, which is the better part of the movie. Both are completely confident of their place in the world, and so the first half of the movie is loaded with great scenes where each thinks the other is the craziest toy alive.

This comes to a head in the aforementioned scene at the gas station. Buzz tries to escape to get in touch with Star Command to defeat the Emperor Zerg, while Woody just wants to get back home in time for moving day. “You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity,” says Buzz. It’s a remark that seems woefully ironic at first, but grows more true the more you think about it: Woody had forgotten that his role as a toy was the be there for Andy, not fulfill his own self-image as a leader and hero.

After Buzz’s delusion collapses along with his self-meaning, Woody helps him infuse a new meaning. In one of the more brilliant scenes of the film, Woody and Buzz’s flawed world views intersect: Woody, to escape his plastic cage, has to admit that he’s not inherently “better” than Buzz or any other toy, even if he fancies himself important. Buzz, with the help of a Woody pep talk, sees that their is a certain value and duty in being a toy. His radio may be a sticker, but the “Andy” scrawled on his foot is truly a badge of honor and responsibility.

This turning point kicks the film into its third act, which finally sees Buzz and Woody working together in a radical shift from the first two acts. Fortunately, the two cooperating is nearly as entertaining the two clashing, particularly in the climax. My favorite moment of the movie is when the two re-use an earlier exchange in an entirely different light: “This isn’t flying, this falling… with style.”

 

While many of the aforementioned scenes rank among the movie’s many superior moments, I also want to commend the opening of the film. So much of what makes Toy Story great — the respect of imagination, the honoring of the sacred bond between child and toy, the thrilling use of CGI to create perspectives and worlds that move — are summarized in those first five minutes. Plus, there’s the music, the brilliant combination of score and original songs by Randy Newman, epitomized by “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

“You’ve Got a Friend in Me” has since become a standard. The simple, catchy tune works a basic expression of love as well as an embodiment of the core themes of the Toy Story series. Particularly seeing the later films’ use of the song, it’s hard not to marvel at how well the song captures so much at the heart of Pixar’s films.

Newman also contributes two other original songs to Toy Story, “Strange Things” and “I Will Go Sailing No More,” the former of which works better than the latter. Though I love the scene where Buzz learns the truth about his toyhood, the song adds an extra layer that was not necessary. The scene would have probably been more effective with a simple score.

Aside from that, the music in Toy Story is exceptional. Newman’s score resonated so strongly that he has been brought on for five more Pixar scores.  Toy Story 3 holds his best work, but Toy Story is no slouch, particularly during the climax.

Toy Story shines in the details as much as it does the sturdy framework of the story. The side characters — from the loyal Slinky Dog to Spud the maniacal hound to Hamm the gearhead — are all given distinct personalities and animated with an astonishing amount of humanity and personality. Rex the cowardly dinosaur sticks out as particularly funny, but it’s hard to crown anyone other than the little green aliens as the most memorable secondary characters of the film. I guess all space toys have trouble with their grips on reality (including Zerg from Toy Story 2).

There are so many inspired small touches of artistry — reflections on the glass of Buzz’s helmet, messages on the Spell ‘n’ Speak, throwaway one-liners, quick and creative establishing shots that would have been impossible in hand-drawn animation — that I’m willing to forgive the movie’s few flaws that come out after close watching, particularly on the technical side. It’s really incredible how little of the film suffers from technical issues (credit the brilliant direction of Lasseter and others for hiding most flaws) but it makes the few poorly-rendered animations of humans and dogs all the more glaring.

I also found the storyline of Sid’s toys a little bit less engaging than the rest of the story. While I enjoy the idea of a toy hell at Sid’s house, the interaction with his deformed toy experiments is nearly too on-the-nose for the rest of the story which maintained a subtle and understated thematic backbone. The “don’t judge a toy before you really know him” message is a bit excessive even if it plays nicely into the growth of Woody.

The semantics of the toy/human relationship are also a bit fudged here. This film seems to indicate that toys choose not to speak and interact with humans. After all, Woody does come alive (*) in front of a person for a brief second in Sid’s final scene. This seems at odds, though, with other basic properties of the human-toy world division as shown. The notion that toys can’t be seen “alive” by humans for metaphysical reasons, not by choice, seems to be the ultimate explanation in the other chapters of the trilogy and is one that seems to fit the logic of the world a bit better.

(*) Before he comes alive in front of Sid, Woody mentions that they’re going to have to “break a few rules.”

My last complaint is the closing scene of the film. I’ve never been a fan of movies that end on a punchline, and so the joke final line and shot end the affair on a down note compared to a film that’s otherwise so universally strong. It’s a flimsy complaint, but these are the types of nits you pick when a film is so close to perfect.


These complaints aren’t enough to tarnish in any meaningful way the giddy excellence of Toy Story. Sixteen years later, the original still packs a tremendous punch and tells a story worth experiencing again and again. It may not tackle big ideas as ambitiously as later Pixar films, including the later parts of the Toy Story series. But, scene-by-scene, it’s perhaps the strongest film the studio has produced. There’s not a minute in these 81 that fail to soar to infinity and beyond.

A few other thoughts:

  • One underrated element of Toy Story is the variety of faces that Woody makes. Had his faces failed to be effectively expressive, the film would have greatly suffered.
  • There’s a bit too much emphasis on Mr. Potato Head here: too many gags that involve his face falling apart and perhaps too much of his bitter skepticism.
  • Toy Story has a few silly, throwaway gags from characters or beats we never see again: The shark who steals Woody’s hat, Buzz’s experience as Mrs. Nesbitt, and a few others.
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Happy 25th Anniversary, Pixar!

February 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

On February 3, 1986, Pixar became an independent company by LucasArts selling the organization to Steve Jobs. (Little known fact: Jobs’ first billion actually came from Pixar, not from Apple.)

Pixar spent its first decade exclusively releasing shorts before it partnered with Disney to bring you Toy Story in 1995. The rest, as they say, is history.

To celebrate their milestone — and, mostly, just because I want to — I’ve been revisiting Pixar’s films and shorts and have a few features and reviews in the oven.

In the mean time, you can read my mini-reviews of Pixar’s first ten films in the retrospective I wrote. Or, you can read The Onion’s hilarious, profane column by fake John Lasseter.

Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: ,

Decade in Review: 10 Artists Who Have Dominated the Last 10 Years

February 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Welcome to the teens! The aughties have reached their end and all of us who smugly ignored 2000 and celebrated the new millennium as 2001 rolled in are psyched about the new decade. Why? Because a new decade means that it’s prime time for retrospectives on the last decade! So, just in time for the Chinese New Year (shout out to all my fellow Rabbits!), I offer you a recap of those stars who have defined the past ten years in American music, those who are quantifiably the best and the brightest.

Yes, you read that right: my list is mathematically sound. All rankings are strictly by the numbers. Now, there are a great many statistics I could’ve used to compile the list. I have gleaned the record books looking for songs and albums matching any or many of these criteria:

  1. Spent at least 5 weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top 40, based solely on radio airplay
  2. Spent at least 5 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, based on a combination of airplay and sales
  3. Sold at least 3 million copies in the United States (“Triple Platinum”)
  4. Sold at least 5 million copies worldwide
  5. Was the best-selling album of the year in which it was released, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan
  6. Won a Grammy for Album of the Year, Song of the Year (for great songwriting), or Record of the year (for great performance in studio)

I have combined scores from each of these categories through a complex Sabermetric formula to produce a final score for each song and album, a score that I call the Coltonic Quotient. No, not really, but that would be pretty sweet, right? I just made a big graph of those six values and looked for artists who stood out. Enough with the exposition, let’s jump to the winners!

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Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , ,