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Movies & TV

Pixar perfection

Okay, so Cars 2 is a dud. Let’s not dwell on that any longer than absolutely necessary. Instead, let’s look back, in chronological order, at the truly great cinema that Pixar has produced over the last quarter-century.

There’s an awful lot of it – and more than enough to make us believe the digital studio can find its way back to the awe-inspiring creativity on which it built its reputation. And from the evidence, it shouldn’t be that hard it just needs to stop making movies with numbers at the end of the title.

Luxo Jr. (1986)

In under two minutes (including credits), John Lasseter turns a simple tale of two anthropomorphized desk lamps – a big, paternal model and its smaller, more frantic “child” – into a mission statement for the Pixar brand. Character first followed closely by story. The digital animation impressed film-festival audiences at the time, but it was the comic timing of Luxo Sr.’s perfectly executed double-take – that made them applaud. (I was there. It happened.) NW

Visit To Pizza Planet, Toy Story (1995)

Pretty much every minute of Toy Story could be used in a Pixar highlight reel John Lasseter and his digital posse aren’t showing off so much as reveling in the possibilities of their CG tools to tell a moving, engaging story. But it’s Buzz and Woody’s trip to Pizza Planet that packs the most silliness and brilliance into the shortest amount of time, with jokes in the background, foreground and dialogue wrestling for our attention. It all builds to the moment that introduces the little green aliens who worship The Claw, at which point we realize that Pixar is capable of almost anything. NW

“When She Loved Me,” Toy Story 2 (1999)

There’s a lot of great stuff in Toy Story 2 – Woody’s crisis of conscience when he discovers he’s a valued collectible, the introduction of new characters like Jesse and Bullseye who slot right into the established world, the dizzying ambition of the climactic chase through baggage-sorting machinery. But nothing comes close to the devastating experience of Jesse’s flashback to the little girl who outgrew her, set to Sarah Mac Lachlan’s haunting performance of “When She Loved Me.” If you’re not already sniffling, you are dead inside. (And I’m still pissed that no one else noticed Toy Story 3 shamelessly lifts its entire plot – right down to the motivation of the evil Lotso Huggins bear – from this number.) NW

A Crushing Blow, Monsters, Inc. (2001)

In the strangest Take Your Daughter To Work Day ever, monster pals Sully and Mike smuggle the human toddler they’ve named Boo – swaddled in a truly unconvincing monster suit – to Monsters, Inc. headquarters, where she promptly wanders off. A little bait-and-switch leads Sully to think she’s been squished in an industrial garbage disposal, allowing Pete Docter to demonstrate his animators’s mastery of silent-film acting (and pay homage to Chuck Jones’s hand-drawn delight Feed The Kitty). Boo’s little adventure while Sully is distracted is an innocent delight, as she gets rounded up with some actual monster kids and teaches them all to shout “Mike Wazowski!” at the top of their lungs. It may be the best expression of the demented innocence at which Pixar’s animators excel – and the scene finds its echo in the rambunctious robot riot triggered by WALL*E seven years later. NW

Opening scene, Finding Nemo (2003)

Before the opening titles, Andrew Stanton delivers a prologue that explains why clownfish daddy Marlin (voiced with nervous perfection by Albert Brooks) will later be overly protective of Nemo and will do anything to find him. Here parents-to-be Marlin and Coral (Elizabeth Perkins) have just moved to a good neighbourhood, complete with “great schools” (get it?) and a terrific view. And what a fantastic view it is, with such vivid and colourful underwater details you’ll be glad you spent that extra money on a high-definition screen. Light domestic comedy soon turns into tragedy, however. And just after this scene, Marlin discovers the sole surviving egg that will become his son and covers it carefully with his fins, an image that returns near the film’s poignant end. GS

Dash runs for it, The Incredibles (2004)

As with Toy Story, virtually every scene in Brad Bird’s delightfully retro-minded superhero adventure can be held up as an example of Pixar at its finest. But I always come back to the terrific jungle chase where super-fast Dash (voiced by Spencer Fox) speeds away from a posse of Syndrome’s hovering henchmen. Terrified at first, the kid quickly realizes his powers make him capable of fighting back – and winning. The kinetic sizzle of the sequence, with its knowing references to the speeder-bike chase in Return Of The Jedi, is fantastic, but the real pleasure is to be had in watching Dash discover the full measure of his abilities. That little giggle he lets out when he learns he can run on water? It’s the best moment in the movie. NW

Anton Ego’s review, Ratatouille (2007)

The climax of Brad Bird’s scrumptuous film comes when the food critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O’Toole) finally tastes the signature dish by Gusteau’s new chef. After his first bite, the connoisseur’s catapulted back to childhood in a Proustian flash before devouring the rest of the ratatouille with a youthful zest (listen to O’Toole’s ecstatic outburst). What follows, though, takes the picture to a whole other level, as Ego, after patiently waiting to meet the mysterious chef (Patton Oswalt as the rat, Remy), delivers his review of the creation, as profound and moving a statement about art, artists and criticism as can be found anywhere in cinema. GS

WALL*E goes about his day, WALL*E (2008)

In a perfectly calibrated prologue, Andrew Stanton’s robot romance opens with an eight-minute sequence introducing us to its eponymous hero, the last little robot on a desiccated Earth. As WALL*E cheerfully compresses ancient refuse into the building blocks of a massive pyramid, the movie fills us in on the whereabouts of the vanished humans (they’re on a massive star liner called the Axiom), the state of things on Earth (deserted for about 700 years), and WALL*E’s instantly understandable desire to hold someone’s hand – inspired by a musical number from Hello Dolly! When the day is done, WALL*E says goodnight to his cockroach friend, folds himself up and rocks himself to sleep. Had the movie ended there, it would have been a perfect short film instead, it goes on – and gets better. NW

Carl and Ellie’s marriage montage, Up (2009)

Justly famous, there’s not a single wasted moment in this wordless montage that takes just over four minutes to reveal the ups and downs of an entire marriage. From the opening details about the bride and groom’s radically different families to their choice of furniture (traditional versus modern), each frame tells us about character. Director Pete Docter cleverly uses the Paradise Falls savings jar and a series of ties to mark the passage of time (and the changes in fashion). But the real genius lies in the small things: Carl’s crestfallen expression when he realizes their adventure just won’t happen, Ellie’s despair after finding out they can’t have children, and the parallel picnics. Notice too how Michael Giacchino’s Oscar-winning score is carefully modulated to enhance each tiny moment – changing from romantic waltz to gentle melancholy and, finally, total heartbreak. GS

Meet Dug the Dog, Up (2009)

Is Dug the dog the greatest animated canine in the history of cinema? Quite possibly, but not because he wears a collar that lets him talk. It’s because he’s allowed to be a dog, with a minimum of exaggeration the talking is entirely secondary to our understanding of his behaviour. Watch the clip and pay close attention to Dug’s face (and his tail, which moves a little faster than his brain) even if he wasn’t talking, we’d understand him perfectly. Of course, hearing him speak in co-writer and co-director Bob Peterson’s husky, enthusiastic voice just makes everything that much better … and the joke of the collars just gets smarter and funnier once you realize Alpha the Doberman’s precise speech patterns are the result of his thoughts being literally translated from the original German. NW

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