When Pixar launched their first feature length animated film, Toy Story in 1995 they introduced the world to set of full-realised toy characters, loosely based on their award-winning short, Tin Toy After the original was heralded with critical praise and a very successful run at the box office, the decision was made to release a sequel in 1999. Cleverly titled Toy Story 2, the … [Read more...]
Review: WALL·E (2008)
It is suggested that WALL·E, Pixar's 9th feature film, was developed from an idea by writer Andrew Stanton that was mentioned during the post-Toy Story brain-storming session between him and John Lasseter. Pitched as a Robinson Crusoe style story of loneliness and isolation, but set on an evacuated Earth bears more than a passing similarity to Doug Trumball's now iconic Silent … [Read more...]
Review: Ratatouille (2007)
As part of Pixar's move away from the early childish topics for their films, their 8th feature, Ratatouille, focused on the broad topics of ˜family vs. career' and the need to improve, move forward and change. The budget for the film was $150m, which showed an increase in production costs necessary to improve the computer animation and it took over $620m at the box office. … [Read more...]
Review: Up (2009)
Up was something of a landmark movie for Pixar “ it marked the studio's 10th feature film, was the first animated movie to open the Cannes film festival and was the studio's first film to be presented in 3D (but try not to hold that against it). Directed by Pete Docter, his second time in the director's chair, after Monsters, Inc., it was also a huge commercial success grossing … [Read more...]
Review: Finding Nemo (2003)
Finding Nemo is the fifth feature film created and released by Pixar in association with Disney Studios. It is the first Pixar film not to be directed by John Lasseter, with Andrew Stanton taking over the helm as well as writing it. Like all Pixar films, the cast and crew researched the topic of Finding Nemo in great depth, including learning to scuba dive so as to better … [Read more...]
Review: Toy Story 2 (1999)
After the success of Toy Story had loudly announced Pixar's arrival in the world of feature animation and A Bug's Life continued their box office success, John Lasseter and friends went back to Woody, Buzz and the gang with Toy Story 2. Reuniting the same cast as the original, but with a new crew due to the work taking place on A Bug's Life and during production Lasseter once … [Read more...]
Review: The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Wizard of Oz has achieved a feat almost unchallenged by any other motion picture of the last century; any frame of the film is almost instantly recognizable, the imagery legendary (twisters, the yellow brick road, the ruby slippers) and is as fresh, loved, venerated and watched as it was at the time of its release over seventy years ago. In actuality, the film was not a … [Read more...]
Review: Toy Story (1995)
In 1995, fledging animation house, Pixar released their first ever feature film, and the first film to use only CGI throughout, its name was Toy Story. Based on a short film called Tin Toy and using recognisable toy characters from the past, Toy Story became a critical and commercial smash hit and revolutionized animation and immediately made Pixar one of the most exciting … [Read more...]
Review: The Princess Bride (1987)
It˜s testament to modestly-budgeted 1987 fairy tale The Princess Bride that decades later, the mere mention of this film elicits gushing from young and old viewers alike, followed by recollections of everyone's favourite quotes and characters. Most will either wax lyrical over the love story between Buttercup (Robin Wright - before the Penn) and her farm-boy turned … [Read more...]
Review: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011)
Nominated for the 2011 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is an HBO documentary, and is, as the title would suggest, the third in a series of documentaries covering the story of the 'West Memphis Three'. The story revolves around the chilling triple murder of three adolescents in 1993 in a small town in Arkansas and the subsequent trial and … [Read more...]