Dan’s Top 100 Everything: #8 Pixar

I like Pixar movies. Shocking, right? Pixar falls in the same category as John Green, elevating to a higher plane a genre that I adore but that is often dismissed as immature fun (animated films and YA lit, respectively). Simply, if you’re interested in well-told, mature, compelling stories and you’re interested in animation, then Pixar…

Animation Evaluation: Pixar 1995-2006

Toy Story (1995) Kevin: Whenever one great civilization falls, another one rises up in its place. It’s no different in cinema history. The Disney studio released their 33rd animated feature, Pocahontas, in 1995. Pixar released their 1st. Toy Story was heralded at the time for innovation and novelty. It is remembered today for giving us…

Brian Terrill’s 100 Film Favorites – #41: “Toy Story”

100 Film Favorites – #41: Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) In the last post I mentioned a relative shortage of Disney so far (well, except for Dead Man’s Chest, Holes, Ernest Saves Christmas (through Touchstone), Atlantis, Wreck-It Ralph, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Darby O’ Gill & The Little People, and National Treasure) Okay, so maybe there…

In which The Annie Awards lose all credibility

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…

Happy 25th Anniversary, Pixar!

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,…