My Top 5 Pixar Films

This month, Pixar Animation Studios will release its 13th feature film, BRAVE. To mark the occasion, I give you my Top 5 favourite Pixar films. Aside from the CARS films, I'm a big fan of all the Pixar pictures, so it was tricky to narrow it down to five but when it came down to it, I knew these were my Top 5 all along.

In alphabetical order, they are ...

FINDING NEMO (2003)

Pixar's first Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature was also their first bonafide worldwide smash. Sure, they had success with all four of their previous releases but not compared to the staggering heights FINDING NEMO just kept swimming toward. I have been dying to watch it again for some time now but I am waiting for the 3D rerelease expected later this year to dive into this ocean one more time. Once you find yourself immersed in these uncertain, and breathtaking waters, the magic of Pixar, and director, Andrew Stanton, takes over. Waves of laughter, suspense, heartbreak and immense joy crash over you throughout the experience. In fact, it's so good, you kinda almost wish Nemo would stay lost just a little longer so you could stay under water that much for a few more minutes.

THE INCREDIBLES (2004)

I will freely admit that the first time I saw THE INCREDIBLES, from Pixar genius, Brad Bird, I missed large chunks of it because I was on a date and reasonably distracted. In all fairness, I was torn. Through the corners of my eyes, I could see that this was one, well, incredible piece of filmmaking. What I love about this film, aside from the phenomenal animation work, which goes without saying practically for all Pixar features, is how it skates so perfectly between the spy genre and a family film. It is as intense as any James Bond picture, with action sequences that put some big budget live action films to great shame, but it still has that unmistakable Pixar heart that makes it unforgettable. The only thing I don't get about it, is why we have not yet seen Mr. Incredible and family get the sequel they so rightfully deserve.

RATATOUILLE (2007) 

They said Pixar was crazy for putting rats in a kitchen and expecting people to show up in droves but they were wrong! Well, mostly anyway. RATATOUILLE had a hard time hitting the same success as some previous Pixar outings but like fine dining, this dish is just not for all. Those who love it though, and there are certainly many, know that this is one of Bird's finest works. The unlikely friendship between Remy, the rat, and Linguini, the chef, shows us that we should always dream and that sometimes, we need others to help make the loftiest of our dreams come true. The visual style of this Paris-set masterpiece is exhilarating and intensely well orchestrated; it demonstrates at all times just how much care Pixar puts into every frame. Like the critic in the film, feasting on this dish always makes me feel like a child again.

THE TOY STORY TRILOGY (1995, 1999, 2010)

By now, we can all acknowledge that Pixar redefined the notion of family film when they released their first feature, TOY STORY, in 1995. Not only did they give the world the first fully computer animated feature but they also reworked the genre so that the films that came after it would play, or at least attempt to play, to both parents and kids alike. And as audiences flocked to the experience, they quickly realized that this new style of animation was actually amazing to behold, and not clunky or limited as some believed it would be. The first sequel would break records around the world and by the time they got to the third film, by far the most accomplished and surprising in the series, Pixar had also shown the world that sequels, even the ones we don't think are necessary, can and should have great purpose. 

WALL-E (2008)

My heart melts every time I see WALL-E. Firstly, he is by far my favourite Pixar character. By the sheer nature of his being a robot, he is limited in his capacity to feel and show emotion but somehow, he exudes more love than most of the human beings I know or see on screen. His courtship with the beautiful EVE was so simple - all he wanted was to hold her hand really - and yet it was also so incredibly moving. In fact, it got me feeling things I forgot I knew how to feel. It also had me in total awe for the first half of the film, which is essentially silent. It was such a bold move to remove almost every trace of dialogue from a family film that it could only have been made and pulled off by Pixar. Some argue that the film loses focus once talking is reintroduced into the film but I would argue that those people just wish they feel as purely and as honestly as WALL-E does.

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Black Sheep Interviews Mark Andrews

PIXAR, THE BRAVE.
An interview with BRAVE director, Mark Andrews

Who would have ever thought that the studio who brought you rats in kitchens, robots in space and monsters in closets would be considered brave for telling a princess story? Yet, here we are. Pixar Animation Studios is set to release their 13th feature length animated film, BRAVE, this month, and all anyone can seem to focus on is the fact that for the first time in Pixar history, the protagonist is a girl.

“It is weird,” BRAVE director, Mark Andrews, tells me when I ask him if the attention his main character’s gender is garnering, is at all strange to him. “It’s not like we have a big dry erase board that says, ‘Pixar films until 2025: Girl picture, giraffe picture, something in Saudi Arabia!’ If we focused on that aspect, on marketing, on what we haven’t done, then we would be playing to that instead of playing to the strengths of the character and the story.”

These particular strengths are what Pixar has come to be known for and this can be at least in part attributed to their incredibly organic attention to detail. “We are more focused on building something from the ground up instead of hitting some bar or some expectation,” Andrews tells me of the Pixar philosophy, when we meet at Toronto’s Casa Loma, during the BRAVE press tour. “We’re still very much in the canon of Pixar, which is to say you’re going to get something where you don’t really know what to expect, but trust us, its gonna be good.”

The film had just screened, to great fanfare, for Toronto audiences the night before. Naturally, Andrews wore a kilt to the event. In what is now a great Pixar tradition, a number of the film’s animators, along with Andrews, spent a couple of weeks in and around the highlands of Scotland to take in the scenery. Andrews considers this research pilgrimage to be invaluable if you want to get out of your head. “You have to go, you have to touch everything to get here,” Andrews motions toward his heart at this point. “And once I get here, then I can get it on to a page or into a painting or tell somebody else about it because I can give them these details to hold on to. You get to the character of it all.”

Andrews, hard at work

The character everyone is talking about is Merida, a red-haired fireball of a character, as bullheaded as she is fearless and forward thinking. Not only is Merida, voiced in the film by BOARDWALK EMPIRE's Kelly McDonald, the first Pixar girl but she’s also a princess at that. “Disney’s done the princess, y’know, a lot,” Andrews jokes boisterously. “We knew we had a princess. It serves the story and raises the stakes but we knew we were making an anti-princess. She’s everything a princess is not.”

Taking on a princess in a long line of princesses, while still making sure to make the character modern and relatable to today’s crowd, meant tweaking the formula a little. “Being a princess and being a woman are very different things. It’s not this old adage that you have to be saved, that you have to fall in love to be complete,” Andrews states with the pride of a father. “Merida’s not questing for happily ever after. She’s discovering who she is and how she fits into this world, on her own terms.”

Merida marches to her own beat

And so even though I began all of this by pointing out how odd it is that there is so much focus on Pixar first’s in BRAVE (add first fairy tale and period piece to the list while you’re at it), as opposed to the film itself, Andrews is happy for the attention nonetheless. “I kinda like that everyone is gravitating to the specifics about the film so that when they see it, they’re going to see it’s so much more than just a picture about a girl.”

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED
Written by Derek Connolly
Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Starring Aubrey Plaza, Jake M. Johnson, Karan Soni and Mark Duplass


Darius: There’s no sense in nonsense, especially when the heat’s hot.

Whether you’re spending your time running away from it or whether you’re constantly obsessing over every tiny detail from it, the past inevitably leaves its mark on everyone. Of course, there are also those who take it all one step further and build elaborate and unstable time machines from whatever parts they can piece together at their disposal. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED is about that guy. Well, it’s about more than that but more importantly, it is also one of the simplest and most sincere indie comedies I’ve seen in some time.

In the mid 90’s, a classified ad was placed in an issue of Backwoods Home magazine, enlisting assistance for a time travel experiment. The ad asserts that the man placing it has successfully traveled back in time already but that subsequent trips cannot include a safety guarantee. It is clear that whoever placed it had to be a colorful character but so would the person who would answer an ad like that have to be. This is what inspired novice screenwriter, Derek Connolly, to write his first screenplay. By having three journalists - well, one lazy as all hell journalist (The New Girl’s Jake M. Johnson) and two overworked interns (Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza and relative newcomer, Karan Soni) - investigate the ad and subsequently the man behind it (Mark Duplass, half of the directing team behind CYRUS and JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME), all the characters have to come to terms with where they are in their lives by acknowledging their pasts and how they’ve written them in their minds.

Of course the implication of the title is that going back in time, or facing the past if you will, is potentially hazardous to your health. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED may be slight in its scope but under the direction of first time feature filmmaker, Colin Trevorrow, the entire cast brings their own depth to their characters, making for a pretty warm and endearing movie. You never know where its going to go next but wherever it brings you, you can rest assure it will be a surprisingly funny and realistically touching place. If only the future could provide that same guarantee, right?

IN DARKNESS

IN DARKNESS
Written by David F. Shamoon
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Starring Robert Wieckiewicz

Clocking in at 144 minutes, EUROPA EUROPA director, Agnieszka Holland’s latest, and Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee, IN DARKNESS, is no easy journey to endure, especially if you have any difficulty with dark, cramped spaces. This is the story of what are now known as Socha’s Jews, a group of less than a dozen people who hid in the sewers during WWII in Lviv, Poland. Leopold Socha (played on film by Robert Wieckiewicz), a sanitation worker, helped them at first for money, but as time progressed, 13 months of time, he comes to know a more humane side of himself. By taking to the sewers, Holland has crafted a frank, honest look at humanity’s ugliest period.

PROMETHEUS

PROMETHEUS
Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron


David: Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.

The ship which Ridley Scott’s latest foray into outer space is named for, PROMETHEUS, is itself named after a Greek god. In case you’re unfamiliar, this particular God is not only credited with the creation of man, from clay no less, but also with providing mankind with fire and the possibility of progress. The trouble is he had to steal the fire in the first place and so his deed would need to be punished. Aside from eternal torment and torture, Prometheus would also be forever known as a symbol for overreaching and the often unfortunate consequences of doing so. There is only one person doing any overreaching on this ship though and that’s the director. Not to mention, it would seem to me that naming an exploratory space ship thus would just be more of a subconscious effort to sabotage your chances for success than anything else.

PROMETHEUS opens with stunning shots of landscapes and waterfalls and culminates in a bizarre spectacle that announces the possibility of a truly unique and breathtaking film experience. It then moves rather quickly into all too familiar territory. Type on the screen dictates the time and place of the mission, while people are asleep in pods on the ship, and an android watches carefully over them with some potentially questionable motivation. There were months of speculation but now there is no denying that this is an alien movie, somehow connected to Scott’s seminal 1979 film, ALIEN. It isn’t made clear just how at first but it certainly follows exactly the same pattern as his original film, as well as James Cameron’s sequel, ALIENS. After everyone wakes up, they pal around in the cafeteria; the ship’s authorities have money on their minds at all times; disposable crew members are picked off in small increments; heck, there are even things that pop out of stomachs and girls in tiny, objectifying briefs. The technology allows the film to look fresh and updated but the familiarity left me wondering if I was watching a remake and also why no one told me ahead of time.

So, once you realize PROMETHEUS is an ALIEN movie, the question becomes is it actually a good ALIEN movie? It is, to some extent, if you consider the word “alien” to mean beings from outer space and not the specific ones from the original film. Go in expecting them and you will be disappointed. That said, I can’t guarantee you won’t be disappointed if you go in not expecting them either. We wait to see what all the fuss is about for a good hour, and marvel at its beauty, because PROMETHEUS is nothing if not beautiful, but by the time the action comes, we have been waiting for it for so long that it almost feels forced. And I know that genre pics like this warrant all secrecy but the fact is that the spoiler moments in this film almost spoiled it completely for me. There are moments that are just too hard to believe or too sadistic to be taken seriously. Some of these moments are too hard to truly recover from even. Scott may know aliens but he doesn’t seem to know much about creating credible human beings here.

PROMETHEUS is co-written by LOST alumni, Damon Lindelof (along with relative newcomer Jon Spaihts). Like in the popular television series, Lindelof again attempts to tackle ideas about where we came from and where we’re going. And once again, he provides vague musings about our nature that truly only beg more questions. Hence the reason any characters left at the end of the film are only left with one question on their minds; why is this happening? Naturally, they must find out and so PROMETHEUS seems destined to continue its quest, which, while noble in intention, is really nothing more than a setup for a sequel. With that, PROMETHEUS the film reveals its true mission is not so dissimilar to that of the ship. Profit at any expense is always more important than understanding humanity.

Black Sheep interviews David Cronenberg & Robert Pattinson

THE COMEDY OF COSMOPOLIS
An interview with COSMOPOLIS writer/director, David Cronenberg and star, Robert Pattinson

When a director is as prolific as David Cronenberg is as of late, it is not uncommon to end up interviewing them more than once in the same year for different projects. I had spoken with Cronenberg earlier this year when A DANGEROUS METHOD had its Canadian release and with this week’s release of COSMOPOLIS, I found myself face to face with the icon for the second time in six months. Somehow I had completely forgotten that the man is way more amusing than I would ever expect him to be.

“I used a little Apple program called iDirector,” Cronenberg announces of his COSMOPOLIS process. “A little green light goes on if its ok and a red light if you need another take.” See what I mean? The man is hilarious.

There is nothing funny about the premise of COSMOPOLIS though. Based on the 2003 Don DeLillo novel of the same name, Cronenberg’s 20th feature film recounts protagonist, Eric Packer’s day long quest to get across Manhattan for a haircut from his regular barber. It sounds silly on the surface but it is set against the backdrop of the collapse of capitalism, making the film both timely and incredibly tense.

As complex as the story is though, Cronenberg had very little trouble adapting the book into a screenplay. “I literally transcribed all the dialogue [from the novel] and put it into screenplay form. Then I looked at it and asked, ‘Is this a movie or not?’ And it was.” The entire process took him all of six days to accomplish. His extensive experience allows for this kind of efficiency. “Now that I’ve adapted a few things, I’ve accepted the rule of thumb that there are some things that you just can’t do in movies that you can easily do in novels, and vice versa. The things that didn’t work or that I couldn’t make work, I just left out.”

Pattinson on the streets of Toronto, made to look like NYC

One of the things that does work in the film is its star, the infamous Robert Pattinson, whom was also on hand for the COSMOPOLIS Canadian press tour. This is the first collaboration between the two super powers and already rumoured not to be the last, with Pattinson lined up for another unconfirmed Cronenberg project to be shot in France. The secret to their success? “I was in the very obvious throes of a panic attack. I guess its part of my process where I feel like I have to go through the motions of feeling like I’m having a heart attack,” Pattinson admits, wearing his anxiety like a second skin. “David got me to stop worrying. Although, he may have just been placating me until I came around.”

Pattinson was not originally supposed to play Packer, a tycoon loathed the world over for simply being rich and good at it. The role was first given to Colin Farrell but when he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, Cronenberg rewrote the script for a younger actor (which is more authentic to the book anyway) and immediately thought of Pattinson. The last minute casting change did not leave much time for Pattinson to prepare though.

Cronenberg directs Pattinson

“I was not going to come up with a completely original interpretation of DeLillo in two weeks. That’s completely ridiculous,” states Pattinson, when pressed about how he came up with the character so quickly. “There’s something about the construction in DeLillo’s writing that is so easy, you don’t need to add anything to it. That’s the direction David encouraged me in.”

Cronenberg didn’t just encourage this loyalty to the word on the page, he insisted on it. “In general, I don’t want the actors to be screenwriters. They’re not designed for that,” Cronenberg quips, without the least bit of insult to actors at all. “If everybody is improvising and you have actors who are used to doing that with each other, that’s a whole other thing. Basically, I want them to stick to the script but within that, there are tons of things an actor can bring to it.”

Pattinson kicking back and letting Cronenberg steal the show at the Toronto press conference.

The remaining cast of COSMOPOLIS is made up of many familiar Canadian faces, including Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Kevin Durand and Sarah Gadon. The film was shot in and around Toronto, from Yonge and Bloor to Union Station to Geary Avenue in the wee hours of the morning. Once again, Toronto is made to look like New York City, something that COSMOPOLIS has been criticized for not doing as well as it could have. “Somebody had said to me that there aren’t even any New York landmarks in the film but there aren’t any in the book either. In fact, a lot of the places, actually almost all of them that are mentioned in the book, are gone,” Cronenberg says, in response to this criticism. “So even if we were shooting in New York, it would have looked like it did, I have to say.”

As the capitalism capitol of the civilized world, the story had to be set in Manhattan. And with as much global unrest as there is these days, COSMOPOLIS couldn’t hit at a more opportune time. Be warned though occupiers, while the film depicts the demise of the financial world as we know it, it doesn’t do it how you would think. “There are no anti-capitalist characters in the movie, even though you might think it is an anti-capitalist creed on some level,” Cronenberg declares. “It’s really more pro-capitalist with people just wishing they were in on the action.”

Pattinson with co-star, Paul Giamatti

While typical fare for Cronenberg, COSMOPOLIS is not what your average Twihard (that is what they call themselves, right?) would ordinarily see. Pattinson still thinks they will like it though. “I like this script the same way I liked the TWILIGHT scripts. I’m not a post-modernist scholar,” Pattinson begins to explain but at this point, Cronenberg cuts him off.

“Your agent said you were,” he says, dryly and without missing a beat. Suddenly everyone is laughing again and the interview is over. With chemistry like that, who knows? Maybe Pattinson will be the new Mortensen.

Black Sheep interviews Patrick Wang

A NEW FAMILY
An interview with IN THE FAMILY writer/director/star, Patrick Wang
and star, Sebastian Banes

As a first time, independent filmmaker, there are few honours that vindicate all the hard work involved in making your first film like an Independent Spirit nomination for Best First Feature. IN THE FAMILY writer / producer / director / star, Patrick Wang, is fortunate enough to know this great reward.

“It was such a relief,” Wang tells me when we meet at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto, where IN THE FAMILY will make its Canadian debut. “As a producer, I knew this would make things a lot easier.”

As a writer, Wang drew upon many sources of inspiration to tell this intense family drama. “I started with this image in my head of two dad’s playing soccer with their kid. I just found myself wondering about them, about what their life was like.” That initial thought would grow into a story where one man loses his lover of six years, only to find out while grieving that he has no legal rights to the son they raised. Instead of letting his pain give way to anger though, Joey, who is incidentally played by Wang, allows generosity of spirit to light his way.

“Even though it has nothing to do with my life, some of my spiritual influences made it into the film,” Wang explains. “There are pieces of my dad in Joey, pieces of my heroes. People who just have this very elegant way of living their lives. In face of difficulties, their mode of operation is not to fight harder.”

There are times when I was watching IN THE FAMILY that I just wanted to shake Joey and tell him to fight back but speaking to Wang showed me that this was really nothing more than my own reaction to a somewhat unorthodox approach. “I need this example just as much as many other people do just to remind us there is a different way of going about things,” Wang says, with ease.

Banes and Wang

Another key factor to the film’s success is the relationship between Joey and his son, Chip, who is played by fresh face, Sebastian Banes. He may only be 8 but, as he tells it, he’s been in the business for a while now. “I started when I was 3,” Banes tells me, when I ask if acting is something he’s always wanted to do. When we touch on what its been like to be a part of IN THE FAMILY, he smiles and says, “I fell really excited and I feel like I’m a movie star.”

Any favourite movies for this young movie star? “Well, I really like IN THE FAMILY,” says the quick witted young man. “And I also like action movies.” Then we talked about THE AVENGERS for a bit. Ask Wang what it was like to work with his co-star and he beams. “It was a lot of fun; we were very close but, let me tell you, the days he was on set were very tiring. On top of everything else, I had to be a dad too.”

Wang and Banes, with co-star, Trevor St. John

All kidding aside though, by demonstrating how little rights Joey actually had to his family, his home and his former life, IN THE FAMILY continues to reinforce the case for gay marriage. Wang is optimistic that people are heading in the right direction but sees more work ahead. “Difference is a very hard thing for people to deal with. It isn’t a shortcoming, just a natural instinct. As laws change, that’s wonderful because it automatically puts us on a better path. You can have it in your laws but you still need it to be in the people. That’s an ongoing thing.”

Films like IN THE FAMILY certainly help this great cause. Just ask the voice of the next generation. “Some people are ok with it, some people aren’t,” Banes tells mewhen I ask his official stance on the subject. “I have a mom and dad but I wouldn’t care if I had two moms or two dads. I think that’s cool.”