Pixar-athon #4: Monsters Inc

Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome back to Pixar-athon!

I’ve been somewhat contained so far. I’ve raved about these films, but I haven’t been OMGAMAZING about them. Until now. From this one on out, this will be the pixar fanboy hour. 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

This, is Monsters Inc

Welcome to Monstropolis, a world where the monsters are just regular folks like you and me. When they hide in your bed/closet/hamper and scare you, it isn't because it gives them any sort of thrill but simply because it's their job. Their world, linked to ours through closet doors, derives all its electrical power from our fear.

Now meet our heroes, James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Sulley, is one of the best "scarers" in the city. Mike is his partner, best friend, and roommate, who spends his after hours courting the receptionist Celia.

Life is great — until one of the extremely poisonous fuel sources enters their world and threatens everything. Yes, a human child! Doom-doom-doom! (Actually, she's rather adorable.) Sulley and Mike's friendship becomes increasingly strained as they try to get the little terror back to her world without getting contaminated or arrested. Along the way, they stumble upon a conspiracy that threatens to undermine their life's work — and possibly their lives.

This is another film I’ve seen dozens of times. I got it on VHs. I watch it whenever it’s one….except for last Saturday when it was on Disney channel, cuz I was soon gonna watch it for pixar-athon. This one of those movies i quote endlessly, and I can pretty much quote the entire script.

Yeah, this movie is simply amazing in every sing way. It’s one of those movies that has a lot to offer. All the creative monsters, and the small things regarding the monster world is just incredible and you can have several long discussions about these things. It makes you think, and I like that.

The film has tons of little in jokes that you may not catch the first time around. I think I have most of them, but there may be more. (It helps most of them are explained in the DVD extras…)

The film is rich is in visual quality, with some real top notch animation. The creators must had a real hard time making all this, and the finished film is so good you hardly think about that.

Okay, let’s tone down my fanboy-ness and let’s discuss the characters.

Both Goodman and Crystal both do good jobs. I especially have to give props to Billy Crsytal.  You think he would be annoying in this film, but he’s actually the funniest part! He brings a lot of humor to a movie that’s already really funny. The animation also helps in this, giving him great facial expressions that are really funny.

Oh, goodman is too. He makes sully very likable which I will go into in a bit.

Boo is actually pretty cool,. In any other movie she’d be an annoying little cu-…jerk. But she’s very interesting. Her relationship  our heros is also great. The little moments that lead to them accepting a HUMAN lead to some adorable, and funny scenes.

There’s also many other characters I like. A fan favorite seems to be Roz, this grumpy chick that makes mike do paper work.

She’s voiced by a man by the way. (Bob Peterson, who later be Dug in “Up”)

But my fave minor character is George. There’s a great running gag  where a kids sock keeps getting on him, which attract  the attention of the very ocd CDA, who …well just watch the movie and find out. It’s hilarious!

and I actually liked Celia and mike’s realtinship a lot. It’s done mostly for laughs, which is good. It’s pretty coo. I also like that it has major involvement with the plot, but I won’t spoil that.

Now for the villains..

First is Randall (Steve Buscemi) who competes with sully over the top scarer position. He’s really cool, and in a serious movie, he’d be scary as hell, but thankfully this is not a biting drama about monsters.  He has this whole  chameleon blending thing going on, which is cool. Oh and he plans to suck the scream out of little kids with this big machine, yea, he can be kinda scary…

Anyway, now for the true villain..Mr Watenoose. He’s the big leader of monsters Inc. for all we know, he’s a good guy and is bugged by this whole energy crisis thing. Then (Spoilers, but hey you’ve all seen this movie) it turns he’s operating this whole plan. Perhaps Randall is the villain for doing most of this, or maybe waternoose is for planning in it. You make the call!

Speaking of that ,I love the plot. All the twists and turns that happen in the 2^nd half are great. It honestly had me guessing at times. The overall best scene/part is when they get banished to the hymala.s it’s great. There’s funny bits, awesome bits, and heartwarming bits. This movie in a nutshell.

And that leads to John Ratzenburger’s role, the abominable snowman...who makes snow cones. His screen time is short, but it’s truly fantastic.  And his snowcone actually helps in the plot…but I won’t spoil that. It’s too awesome.

And now let’s get the easter eggs out of the way. Near the end, Randall ends up trapped in the human world/ We see him inside a trailer, and the pizza planet truck next to it. Infact, this is the exact same area the truck was, in “A bugs life”.

On the top scarers leader board, under Sulley and Randall, is a monster named Ranft.  Obvious reference to pixar employee, joe ranft. 

As far as I know, there’s no A113. I have no idea where it is, and during my research I didn’t find it. The pixar wiki says “, Pete Docter mentions he believed that it was on one of the doors in a hallway inside the factory”.. I have no idea how true that is.

Near the end, in Boo’s room, Boo has a Jessie toy, and the ball from the Luxo Jr Short.  This started the pixar tradition of putting a reference to their next film in the previous film. Boo has a toy of Nemo in there. That’s it for that.

There’s tons of other in jokes and such, but you can find all that yourself.

Also, this was the last pixar film to feature outtakes. This sucks, cuz the outtakes were always funny. All the outtakes in a film feature a cameo from a pixar character. In ABL it was woody, in TS2 it was Flick and Heimlich. Here it’s Rex. I won’t spoil how it happens though…

Oh, and since I pretty much have to say this…

GET THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM OR SO HELP ME

…it makes sense in  context.

…Wow I’ve run out of things to say. I swear I thought I could say more. But I guess that’s it.

So Monsters Inc is a great pixar film with likeable characters and of course, hilarious moments.

This is spongey saying, the chicken crossed the road because he has a fetish for getting ran over.

Freddie As FR07

Snakes, Frogs, and Secret agents. Oh My!

Hello, Spongey here.

I’m about to break some news to you:

Other countries make movies too.

No, really!

Okay, let me be more specific. Other countries make animated films. 

There’s a lot of bad obscure animated films that the US cranks out, but the majority of bad obscure animated films come from across the border.

Canada makes GOOD stuff most of the time, so that’s cool. However, any other country is known for cranking out bad animated films.

Italy gave us the Animated titanic trilogy, which have rapping dogs, evil sharks, and an octopus. E-yup!

Germany made The Magic voyage, which is the story of Christopher Columbus with a woodworm voiced by corey Feldman

I’d point out  the odd-ness, but trust me, you’ll see more of it later.

And brazil gives us rip offs of big animated films, big examples being Ratationg (rip off of Ratatouille),  the little cars (Rip off of “Cars”) and more.

Oh, and Denmark actually made a good one called “Help! I’m a fish” which has alan rickman as the bad guy named Joe. Indeed.

But, there is another foreign animated film that’s not horrible. And yes, it is very obscure…and odd.

This, is Freddie as FR07

This film comes from, of all places, BRITAIN. I guess driving on the other side on the road wasn’t odd enough for them.

The film bombed in it’s home country. In fact, it’s one the lowest grossing films EVER. The other two being “Delgo” and “The ten commandments”. Nope, not THAT one, a bad animated one.

Oh, and that actually has relation to this, but I’ll get to that later

In the US it was titled Freddie the frog and severely cut and  they replaced the French narrator from the UK version with….james earl jones.

Fuck, why can’t I find that version?!

Yeah, I just have the UK version. Which is fine since I heard the US one…kinda sucks and makes little sense.

So let’s just jump right in, cuz it’s…odd

The film opens with some nice landscapes and a decent song. And…a frog driving a car. The song is so relaxing, yet that is on screen. the frog goes in his house, and…the film proper starts. There’s no speaking, or anything. The singer sings and we see a frog. That’s it. 

It’s fine to tell the story in flashback but you can least…tell the story!

So our NOT james earl jones tells us our real story. The film proper beings in france with a boy named Fredrick ,who I’ll just call freddie. He and his dad have  magical powers….for whatever reason. His mom is dead (well duh) and instead he has his aunt.

His aunt, Messina, is also magic, but because she’s not a mother, of course she’s EVIIIIL.  One day. She kills Freddie’s dad. Yes, kills him.

You know-for kids!

How? By knocking him off his horse into the ground. What a wimp.

She turns into a snake, which she stays as for the rest of the film.

The narrator starts to  sing the next portion of the tale…then returns to speaking. What? He just…stops? If you’re going to sing, keep singing! What happened?

VOICE ACTOR:  *Singing* …and so messina was to rule, when Fredrick came of age-

DIRECTOR: NO SINGING! I’m paying you to narrate while I try to get james earl jones!

VOICE ACTOR: fine…

So messina turns Freddie into a frog…instead of just killing him like she did daddy. Freddie escapes into the ocean, while Messina chases after him. However he is saved by…..a sea monster. …k.

MESSINA: one day, I shall catch up to you, like I did your father! I will be all powerful, and I will rule the world!

…of course.

So it turns the sea monster is named Nessie, and she’s Scottish. That’s right, it’s the loch ness monster…in france. This movie with a magic chick that turns  a kid into a frog has no logic!

Freddie takes refuge with a group of frogs in a swamp, who perform jazz music. Sure, why not. Freddie tries to blend in, but sadly he can’t quite get it. Oh and the narrator goes back to singing. Guess the director got bored and let him sing.

 He explains that Freddie is  amazing the frogs with his magic. Later, Freddie grows into a giant froggie and the frogs learn he was once human, and they sing a bit. Okay song I guess but why does it take so long to get finished with it? Whatever.

We cut to London, as we join some black crows that frankly make the ones from Dumbo look PC! They bug me. Seriously, the dumbo ones were pretty cool  but these guys are annoying. 

Various british landmarks such as the tower of London start getting stolen by magic forces. This gets to the leader of a spy organization.

LEADER DUDE: we just lost some   of our best men! 005 in Russia, 007 in Hollywood..

…really? James bond?  He…

You know what, screw it, let’s move on.

So he tells us he called the French  secret service, and got their best man, who he has yet to meet. And in comes….Freddie aka FR07. 

He’s a secret agent now.

Even though we weren’t told this, and they never EVER explain hpw he got to be a freaking secret agent. They never address this. And it’s the freaking PREMISE!

Grown up Freddie is voiced by…Ben kingsley.

Yes, the man who was in Schlinder’s list, and Gandhi is now a secret agent frog.

…that’s kinda cool.

Oh, and remember that animated Ten commandments  movie I mentioned that was the 2^nd lowest grossing film? He’s in that too. What.

Freddie heads to get some gadgets and meets another hot female human agent named Daphers.  A robot fly gadget lands…on her boob

FREDDIE: I like the landing area.

again, for kids!

The leader guy shows Freddie their gadget guy named Scotty.

FREDDIE: The powers of the mind, will always overcome violence.

Yep, this is Gandhi alright.

She then says “I don’t have any concealed” weapons while pointing to her boobs. …k.

So they head off in Freddie’s spy car…that can talk and has huge lips.  No, she has no bearing on the plot. She does nothing. 

Whatever.

We spend a little time with our heroes as they try to find the bad guys. This let’s us warm up to them and gives them at least some personality.

A bad guy tries to off him, but Freddie punches him out.

The powers of the mind, will always overcome violence, eh?

We cut to their leader, El Sumpero voiced by Brian Blessed. Yes, him. Look at him and gap in awe as to why he’s in this movie. Messina has teamed up with him. Like most things in this movie, none of this is explained.

 

She laughs evilly..and …..

 

VILLAIN SONG TIME!

 

A funky rock beat starts, and she starts killing her henchmen while now voiced by grace jones. The song has her members dancing, some of which are seen as Nazis, and there are KKK members in the background.

 

…Which is weird because crabs don’t HAVE uvulas.

 

So the film continues on, assuming you didn’t pass out from confusion,. Oh, and I forgot to mention, When Freddie discovers the latest targeted monument is Big Ben, he tells the Brigadier that the target is Windsor Castle so they could go inside Big Ben and they would get taken, and he could infiltrate the enemy base. He did this by disabling their walkie talkies, and now they have no contact.

 

You think I should have pointed that out earlier….but after the KKK members, I forgot everything I ever knew.

 

The gang is miffed…but this is never brought up again. It's a shame since it's the only form of team conflict in this film; it would have been more interesting to see more moments like that.

But anyway, they end up finally meeting their enemy, and Messina reunites with her nephew she oh so hates.

 El Supremo plans to use the buildings, by shrinking them to a size of a trophy and using them as batteries to a giant crystal, which will send a powerful sleeping virus across the world (starting with the UK), which will put people to sleep, allowing him to invade and enslave them.

That’s…actually really cool. If I  ever make a list of awesome underrated villains, these two need to be high up!

So El says he  will…keep daffers for his own amusement while he sends the other to death …..ew.

So the two men are put in a  cage in a water pit thingy, and scotty starts to drown, so in order to keep  him alive down there Freddie says he will…given him the French kiss of life.

k.

(he uses a funnel and blows into it. Don’t ask)

 

So he  uses some special call to call …Nessie to save them. So she IS important Freddie continues to make French kiss jokes….yep, he’s gay. Nessie comes to their rescue, and this does not phase scotty at all.

They leave scotty on an island while Freddie and Nessie go to get help/ They head to nessie’s home, where there are MORE of her….yea the loch noss monster Is a chick….

 

Then they sing and dance. And the song is freaking catchy as hell. Oh, And Freddie dances with Nessie and kisses her. Can this guy just pick a sexual preference and stick with it?!

 

So they have tons of fun partying…while the entire world is in danger/ Nice.

 

Oh, and this entire scene with nessie’s friends, is never mentioned again.

 

Singing Loch Ness Monster Moment!

 

Freddie heads back to scotty then they go rescue daffers, and no I won’t explain it. Then daffers kisses Freddie…

 

Okay, so he’s straight. Glad we got that issue resolved. Oh and scotty seems to like daffers….3 way?

 

Btw daffers was hypnotized and saying “snake shall rule the world”. After Freddie rescues her, they go up to  a bad guy and yell “FREDDIE shall rule the world” and punch him out.

 

…guys, I just found the most awesome thing to yell while punching someone.

Seriously, next time you have to punch someone, either jokingly or for real, just yell it. It’ll be awesome.

 

They start kicking ass while a pretty awesome song by some band called Asia plays called “put down your arms”. This is  a fairly cool scene here. Fun fact, there IS  a soundtrack for this movie…though it’s really rare.

 

The song plays a couple more times during the next few fight bits, but eh I’m okay since the song is so good. El pulls his sword on Freddie, but Freddie uses those good ol magic powers to kick his ass…

Wait why didn’t Freddie just use his powers this whole time?

And why don’t crabs have uvulas?

 

You know…why does Messina even need to be here? El seems to be calling the shots, and he’s more of a threat than her. And he’s brian blessed while she’s….not. but eh, I’ll roll with it.

 

Freddie then pushes the shrunk big ben under El, and makes it big thus giving him the ultimate wedgie. As odd as Freddie as, he’s kind of cool sometimes.

 

So it seems like the day is saved…until messina decides to actually be important. Messina tries to turn into some animals to kill Freddie. But he uses his mind control to transform Messina into a buzzard and she flees.

Lame.

 

oh,, and it turns out a guy in the british agency was a spy. Does this have anything to do with anything?

Pickles.

 

So they get the monuments back, Freddie gets some sugar, and he is called to Washington for his next mission. and thus,we have…

 

THE END.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

 

This movie is…weird. It’s strange, it makes little sense, and some scenes come out of nowhere and…

 

I love it.

 

The animation is actually pretty decent for it’s budget, the characters, while not that developed, are likable, and the story has those little touches that are cool.

However, it’s so bad it’s good. It’s stupid, but man is it awesomely fun. You can tell they had fun with this film, especially the voice actors. If I ever meet ben kingsly, I will ask him if this movie is still on his mind.

Oh, and the soundtrack kicks ass. The best song being the villain song. It’s great They actually were already planning a sequel to this, but scrapped it due to it bombing. That’s sad, cuz I’d like to  see a sequel to this.

To this day this movie has yet to see a DVD release  in the US, or even the UK. I want this movie on blu ray, who’s with me?!

The film has stuff that makesit  actually decent while also enjoyably bad as well. It’s one of the oddest, yet most fun films I’ve seen in years.

The entire UK cut is on youtube if you wish to see it,. And it’s well worth your time,. If you bring a few buddies over to riff on it.

 

GRADE: B for Bad yet awesome

 

This is spongey saying,  chickens are people too!

Pixar-athon #3: Toy story 2

Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome back to Pixar-athon!

Sequels are hard to pull off.

It’s quite hard to tell  another story when you already had a perfectly good one. Sequels are rarely good. We’ve looked at some decent sequels before. And we’ve seen some really bad ones.

Toy Story was a tough act to follow. But pixar did the impossible: Made a sequel just as great as the first.

This, is Toy Story 2

Woody is accidentally damaged during one of Andy's play times, which causes him no end of concern about becoming an unwanted "broken toy." Later, Woody gets stolen at a yard sale by greedy toy collector Al, so Buzz leads a group of Andy's toys to go rescue him. Meanwhile, Woody finds out he's a piece of merchandise from an old kids' show called Woody's Roundup after meeting three other tie-in dolls based on his sidekicks on the show. Woody discovers that they're all going to be sold to a toy museum in Japan, and he has to decide whether to go back to Andy — who will eventually outgrow him — or go to the museum and last forever, but never be loved.

And that’s just the basics!

While I don’t think it’s BETTER than  the first one, it is just as amazing as it.

Again, I haven’t seen this pixar film that many times. I saw It on Disney channel once at a young age, but unlike ABL I remembered most of it, and quite liked it.  Then I saw a few more times on youtube. Sadly it is one  of two pixar films I do not own.

I like that the story has real depth. Besides the old kidnapping plot, we learn more about woody and really get to feel for him this time around. But we’ll get more into that later.

The characters are the same as before, so I won’t go into too much detail. But there’s some new characters this time.

First is Mrs. Potato Head. She isn’t in it that much, but she’s fairly funny when she is. Not much else to say.

There’s also Jessie, the other main character besides woody and buzz. We really get to know her through a backstory, which is told in song, and….it’s a Rugrats movie moment.

What is that, you may ask?

That’s a tear jerking moment in a film that’s otherwise not. Most pixar film’s have these, as we will explore later.

The moment in question for this is a song called “When she loved me”, where we find out Jessie had an owner much like andy. Only her owner grew up, and forgot about her. And you can predict how sad this is. Now you know why Jessie doesn’t like that woody wants to leave them for andy, as she thinks Andy will just dump them.

This leads to woody thinking hard about what he should do. Damn, this movie is pretty deep. This adds to woody’s character development, as I discussed.

By the way, you know those depressing  Sarah McLachlan.ads with the dogs? She sang that song. She just thrives off the tears of men, doesn’t she?

This movie is filled with little moments that make me smile. For example, there’s a callback to the “YOU ARE A TOY!” line from the first movie.

Speaking of callback’s…

There’s a toy store called Al’s toy barn, which is central to the plot.

In the first movie, there’s a scene where buzz watches a commercial, and finds out he’s a toy. The ad mentions a store called Al’s toy barn, briefly.

Well played pixar, well played.

My fave scene? There’s a bit where the toys are crossing the road to get to al’s toy barn. And they cause a crap top on car wrecks, and overall destruction. It’s amazing,

Best line? The movie opens with an epic buzz lightyear space opening…which turns out to be a videogame rex sucks at.  Later on, when they’re in al’s toy barn, rex finds a manual for the game.

REX: "You know, they make it so you can't defeat Zurg unless you buy this book! It's extortion, that's what it is!"

We’ve all encountered this, haven’t  we?

This actually ends up being important to the plot as well. I won’t say how..

Now for the villains. First is Al. he’s just a guy who wants to sell the toys to a museum to make a bunch of money. He’s funny, but there’s not much to say,

The real villain is Stinky Pete, one of Woody’s roundup toys. For most of the movie, he seems nice, but near the end, it turns out he’s a bad guy,. He’s unhappy that kids started getting more interested in space toys. Which lead to the cancelation of woody’s roundup. He doesn’t want Woody to ditch them and mess up their plan. But he gets his great comeuppance. He’s an okay villain, and he’s fun.

I’m not saying as much this time, cuz this is a sequel, and I don’t have to introduce the characters and such.

Oh, a character from the pixar short “Gerri’s Game” makes a cameo as the guy who fixes woody! And when Hamm is surfing through channels, you see glimpses of previous pixar shorts. 

Oh, and there’s another villain in the form of a Zurg toy (Buzz’s nemesis, voiced  by pixar regular Andrew Stanton). But I won’t spoil the awesome-ness that happens with him.

A113 is the same place as the first movie. The pizza planet truck is used during a scene where the other toys try to get to the airport. And they run into more of those aliens from the 1^st  one, who Mr potato saves the lives of, and they decide to stick around with him. 

But seriously, why are you sitting here reading about Toy Story 2 when you could be WATCHING it?! It’s really good, trust me!

…yea, I’ve run out of things to talk about. Uh…the animations really good, it improves on the first one.

Yup, I’m out.

So Toy Story 2 is a great sequel that is just as good as the original. Strong story, fully realized characters, and great animation. Toy Story 2 is just great.

This is Spongey saying, you already implied alien rape.

NEXT: Monsters Inc

Pixar-athon #2: A Bug's Life

Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome back to Pixar-athon!

Do you have you one movie, that you like the first time, but soon, you grow to really love it?

No? Well I do.

This, is A Bugs Life

First, the premise.

The movie begins in a peaceful ant colony, which yearly is terrorized by a biker gang-esque group of grasshoppers and the ants are forced to give them an offering of food. One year, an ant named Flik (Dave Foley) accidentally knocks the offering into the nearby creek. Hopper (Kevin Spacy) forces the ants to re-gather double the usual amount of food, giving them until the end of autumn. The ants are worried, particularly because they won't have enough food for themselves over the winter if they gather enough for the grasshoppers, so Flik volunteers to redeem himself by recruiting "tough bugs" to fight Hopper and his gang. Flik travels to "the city" where he meets a bunch of recently-fired circus bugs. After seeing them perform one of their acts, Flik mistakes them for warriors, and takes them back to the colony. The circus bugs are initially shocked when they find out why they're there, but eventually begin to love living in the colony, and agree to help Flik come up with a plan to defeat the grasshoppers.

Unlike most pixar films, I haven’t seen this that many times. I’ve seen it by itself a total of 3 times. Two of which were in 2011. Yeah, it took me awhile to get to this one. I just forgot about it until ABC Family reminded me, and then I saw it on youtube. Then I got the DVD for this review.

When I first saw it , I liked it, but at the time I let the fact that the use the whole “lier reveled” cliché bring me down. Then I watched again and really loved it for what it was. The cliché was used because it was good for the story they were doing, not because they were lazy.

It seems that this movie is one of pixars’ more underrated works. (It was the most underrated until You know what…). Even pixar isn’t too fond of this film. They admitted that they made the mistake of trying to make it better than Toy Story instead of trying to make a good movie on it’s own.

I think this movie does need more attention, because of several things, which I will get to later.

First, we have the characters. Flick at first seems like he’s the cliché “guy who fucks up a lot but has a heart of gold”. And maybe he is, but he’s just so damn likable! That is partly due to his voice actor Dave Foley (I know him now as Chris from Dan Vs…). He’s really funny and makes flick really interesting. Flick’s facial expressions could make several 4chan boards happy.

The other side characters that are not villains or circus bugs are cool. Don’t have much to say about them. Only that Dot is blueish in the movie but on the DVD cover she’s pink. ERROR

The circus bugs are awesome . There’s tuck and roll (who speak…foreign-ese), the skinny Slim (David Hyde Pierce), Hemlich (pixar regular Joe Ranft) who is so german it hurts, and there’s others but my fave is Francis (Dennis Leary) who is ladybuyg…that is a man. He’s like the squidward of ladybugs. He’s just really funny.

The leader of the bugs is PT Flea, who is John Ratzenburger’s character. John has cited PT as his fave. I can see why. He’s really funny, and he reminds of mr krabs if he ran a circus…and was a flea…voiced by john ratzenburger.

That’s all for the main characters I can actually say something about …oh yea there’s princess atta, pixar’s first princess (2^nd will be later this year…_). I liked her romance with flick, as it was subtle and it helped move the story further.

The main thing that I like about the movie is how epic it is. The film is often called an epic of miniature proportions, and I can see why. It’s about the ants, but the story is really interesting, and the stakes are high. You really feel for the characters and want them to stop the grasshoppers.

But you know what best part of the entire film is?

THE VILLAIN!

Seriously, hopper is awesome! This is all due to Kevin spacey. If you need a crazy ass villain, you call kevin spacey, man. He really brings hopper to life. Hopper is so insane, and really scary. You really feel his power, and his voice really shows. You can see why these ants fear so much.

Hopper is just plain awesome.

I can’t stress enough how epic this film is., The best part is the entire 2^nd half. The climax is simply amazing. Flick stands up to hopper, and there’s a really cool fight scene. Mere words can’t describe it. You simply must watch it for yourself.

Also, the animation is very nice to look at. The character animation is quite detailed, and when there’s a close up of something it looks quite real. It adds to the movie a lot

Now, I do think this is the pixar film I love the least amount. As good as it is, it’s not quite as amazing as some their other productions. But I do prefer it over the other pixar film people overlook…but that’s for later..

Oh, and easter eggs? A113 is on a box when flick enters the city. And right before that the pizza planet truck is right next to a trailer.

So uh…what else is there to talk about?

Oh, about the voice actors….i heard a rumor one of the bug scouts was one the very early roles of…Ashley Tisdale.

I have no idea how true that is. But if it is, this movie is now 20 percent cooler.

So yeah, that’s actually all I can say about this movie.

A Bugs Life may be a slightly weaker pixar entry, but it’s still fun epic, and awesome.

I give it an A-

This is spongy saying, pixarathon shall continue!

Pixar-athon #1: Toy Story

Hello, Spongey here.

So yea…..do I even NEED to introduce pixar?!

Since…forever, pixar has made great shorts, and films. Filled with good animation, characters, and story. Everyone has seen their films and loves them.

So I shall be looking at all of them. Keep in mind, this is all what I feel so, there.

I won’t go into behind the scenes detail that much. That’s what DVD’s are for...besides watching movies. I may mention some if it’s cool enough.

So, let’s begin with the film that started it all!

This, is Toy Story.

This is one those movies I’ve seen dozens of times. I don’t know when I first saw it. But I did get it on VHS and would watch it all the freaking time. I also watch it whenever it’s on TV. I did not see it when it got re-released in 3D however. I recently bought it on DVD and watched the commentary, which is really cool.

So why does the film have such good re-watch value? Let’s take a look…

Toy Story introduces us to the toys belonging to a boy named Andy. Their unofficial leader is Andy's favorite toy, Woody (Tom Hanks), an old cowboy doll with a string. Woody gets some competition when Andy gets a new toy for his birthday, Buzz lightyear (Tim Allen). Buzz is new, cool, and just as dynamic a personality as Woody, though he thinks he's really a soldier of Star Command rather than a toy. His undoubted leadership qualities (and up-to-date modernity) arouse jealousy in Woody; when Buzz is accidentally lost, the other toys think Woody masterminded the disappearance. Hijinks ensue, and Woody and Buzz have a final confrontation that forces both of them to join forces to keep the toy "family" together...

Right off the bat the film is a lot of fun. The various kinds of toys lead to many possibilities. We have Mr Potato head, who’s kind of an ass, Rex the dinosaur, who’s a wimp, and bo peep, woody’s love interesting. *Insert woody has a woody joke here*.

All these characters are really funny, and are tons of fun. And that’s not even touching on the really minor ones, like the army guys, who are also awesome. (And voice by R.Lee Ernie to boot…camp! Bad joke, sorry)

My favorite one Is Mr Potato head. (I totally have one of those btw) . he’s just a funny asshole kind of guy.

Now let’s talk about some individual bits of the film.

Funny thing about the animation: I used to think it was good, but a little outdated by pixar’s new standards. But then I saw it on DVD recently and man, it still looks great. It’s not the best, but it’s still some really good animation. The humans look iffy, but much better than in that Tin Toy short. Seriously, the baby In that thing is ugly.

Now for the villain. There’s two people who could possibly be the villain. First is Sid, the neighbor kid who tortures kids. He’s a lot fun, and he is a sick bastard. People have said that perhaps sid isn’t so evil. Everyone has done something like that to their toys before. However, Sid is freaking evil and takes pride in doing this,. I see this is a flanderization of those kind of people.

But…I think the real villain is Mr Potato head. Thinking about it: He’s an ass to woody, he makes woody feel bad by talking about how awesome buzz is, and he makes the toys go against him. Of course he learns his lesson and all that good stuff. Oh, and he gets a Mrs. Potato head..

And now for the most important part: John Ratzenburger’s role. He’s in every pixar film, and we’ll talk his role in each film. In this one, he’s Hamm the piggy bank. He’s very funny, and one of the best deadpan snarkers this side of…insert good snarker here. I like him a lot.

My favorite scene is all your favorite scenes. The gas station, the claw game, and falling with style. However, the scene I love that most people overlook comes near the end. Woody teams up with sid’s toys to scare sid once and for all so they can escape. So, they all come alive in a horror movie-like fashion, while woody uses his voice box to scare sid a bit.

Woody’s head then turns all the way around and then…

Woody:(through speaker)We toys see everything. (actually speaking) So play nice.

That scared the shit out of my as a kid. And it still scares the crap out of me….BUT IT’S SO FREAKING AWESOME! It’s extremely well animated, and it’s perfect. The animation, the voice acting, and the music are all great in this scene.

Of course I love this exchange

Buzz: And you, my friend, are responsible for delaying my rendezvous with Star Command!
(beat)
Woody: You! Are! A! TOOOOOOOY! You're not the real Buzz Lightyear, you... you're an action figure! You are a child's plaything!
(beat)
Buzz: You are a sad, strange little man. And you have my pity. Farewell.
Woody: Yeah? Well, good riddance, ya looney!

The real strength of the film is the voice acting. The acting is really good. You never get the sense this is coming from a script. Hanks and allen do fantastic jobs. Mainly tom hanks, who really brings woody to life.

Because there’s no easter eggs, (Besides A113 on andy’s car, and the debut of the pizza planet truck) imam wrap this one up.

Toy Story is still a fantastic, and funny film that hasn’t aged a bit. The first time was the charm.

Oh, and today is John Lasseter’s birthday! What an amazing coincidence…no really, I was working on this when I found this out. Freaky, huh?

So yeah, Toy story is awesome, but pixar kept on making amazing movies. I won’t grade these since they’re all A+…except for two but I’ll get to those when I do.

I’m spongey, and pixar-athon shall continue!

…I really need a catchphrase.