Quick Takes: "Up", "Monsters Inc.", "A Bug's Life", "The Incredibles"

"Up" (**1/2)

Directed by Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson

My oh my, how a single month in between can make all the difference. At the tailend of April I took this film as a lighter friend. What changed? In a word, me. To be perfectly honest, "Up" has aspirations of being something more intimately emotional, but there's a stillness to each shot that stuck out to me this time. The intimately hued color palette doesn't illusion the stillness of nearly every shot. It's as if Wes Anderson directed a Pixar film, and the small emotions simply don't come to the fore the way they used to. The narrative is there, but it all just seems odd and uninviting. For a film that's meant to feel like a waltz, "Up" is rather stiff.

"Monsters Inc."  (***)

Directed by Pete Doctor

This is admittedly Pete Doctor in an even more cartoony light, but there's something closer to reality about this film than his more recent endeavor. Maybe it's just a further sweetness to it, or maybe it's the real impact of a company forestalling societal collapse by use of children's fear. That is an interesting concept that they don't quite go into. They don't make it so clear that what they are doing is wrong, which is where my issue with the film comes in. It just seems like so simple a narrative stroke to add, but they only frown upon kidnapping of children. They don't bring it full circle to insight guilt into our main characters. Also, the relationship between Mike and Sulley is a little bit too inferred. Maybe that's what they're hoping to do with the prequel. I hope so anyway.

Pixar titles "The Good Dinosaur" & "Dia de los Muertos"

Pixar prepping for one hell of a delicious period of rehabilitation after "Cars 2" proved that the perennial animation studio of our time can not only do wrong, but do very wrong. This year has them releasing "Brave", their first female protagonist feature as well as their 13th film, and this fall they're bringing back the instant classic adventure "Finding Nemo" in 3D. Of all the ill-needed 3D modifications, this is the one I am most absolutely pleased and excited to see. Next year they have primed up a 3D conversion of "Monster's Inc." to coincide with the release of the much anticipated prequel, "Monster's University". My fingers are crossed that they have a story worth telling on their hands there.

So let's start with the bad news, shall we? Pete Doctor has proven his worth with the company both through the previously stated "Monster's Inc.", as well as with the heartbreaking traditional adventure of "Up". His next film, still untitled, is supposed to take us where we've never been before: inside the mind of a young girl. "Inception" for the Pixar gang? Yep, sounds a lot like it. Well that project hasn't exactly been put on hold, but it's been pushed back a year to 2015 to free up space for their other previously untitled film. I might be in a position to be unhappy if the other film didn't have just as delicious a subject as Pete Doctor's film.

THE LISTS: Best Pixar Characters

It feels overdone to the regular ranking of Pixar's many films, because I feel there's often only a few films that stand at the head of the pack. The Toy Story trilogy seems to be in their own individual class, more outstanding as a whole than in their separate pieces. Cars and A Bugs Life instantly land at the back of the pack, and Cars 2 looks to set a new standard as the worst of Pixar's catalog. For me, WALL-E, Ratatouile, and Finding Nemo are the biggest true winners. However, as Cars 2 seems to be the Pixar film most lacking in well rounded characters, I feel it's worth looking over the best of those.

Pixar is less known for outstanding films than they are for outstanding characters, and it's the cling to those characters that make the films so effective. Quite obviously enough, no characters from A Bug's Life and Cars make it in. On the other hand, neither did The Incredibles, but that's ensemble a piece with Pixar as you can get. True, they could've rounded those characters a little better than just the simple family dynamic. However, as I started to give certain characters passes on to the top ten, I couldn't help but notice some rather big ones being left out.

First of all, Buzz from the Toy Story franchise was left out of the pot, despite having such a compelling arc in the first film. There were also a few smaller characters that didn't make it in because they didn't have enough screentime. I love Ken in Toy Story 3, but he barely missed the cut, and for the sake of specificity, Ellie of Up is more of a driving force than a character. Remy from Ratatouille was the closest to a number 11 pick as I could find, but he would have never been so wonderful without Patton Oswalt's surprisingly strong performance. So now I give you my picks for the top ten Pixar characters, after the jump!

The Beauty of Pixar