Toy Story

I rewatched Toy Story last night; I was hanging out with a friend when his roommate came back with a bunch of people and pulled us to the lounge to watch an old childhood favorite.  It was a weird experience.

First thing I noticed was that I could barely remember what happened on a grand scale, but that I could remember each and every shot of the film as it moved on.  I always knew exactly - EXACTLY - what was going to be on the screen next.  Apparently I saw this movie a lot of times.

Second thing was how much Pixar has improved over the years.  I remember Toy Story looking amazing when it came out, but this... This was okay.  Everyone moved just fine.  Sort of.  There was a little bit of uncanny valley going on, and some weird blinking.  The backgrounds were very... barren.  Not much on the walls, and every shot was from very low to the ground.  That makes sense since all the characters are toys, but it made it seem like they'd created a bunch of walls, put wallpaper on them, and then left the world as this bunch of flat surfaces to be populated only with key props as needed.

Third thing was that that next door neighbor kid Sid had a seriously crappy childhood.  I remember being terrified of him, but in retrospect I just feel bad that his dad is an alcoholic, his mom is never around to help her children, he only has one shirt, he sleeps in his bed with all his clothes on and no blankets, eats breakfast in his room (old Froot-Loops)... And he takes out all of his anger on his toys.  Imagine, then, this kid that clearly needs help, a tortured soul, imagine his TOYS - the one outlet that he has - literally RISE UP AGAINST him, tell him he's a bad person, and threaten to kill him.  Yeah.  He's not going to grow up to be okay.  At least his sister might break out of the trap her family has set for her.  She seemed pretty smart, and her abusive older brother stops being abusive by the end of the movie.

Watching the movie with a bunch of physics majors, I also was treated to the many impossabilities of Buzz Lightyear's exploits throughout the film.  Turns out he is a magical space hero after all, because that's the only way you'd be able to trash Newton's laws as thoroughly as Buzz does!

Overall, though, fun times.  Pixar has come a long way since the 90s.

Movie Trailers #4: Quick Hits

Despite my best efforts, there's still a lot of trailers I haven't covered out there.  Fortunately, there's not much to say about most of them.  Because there's a bunch of them and not much to say, I'm not going to embed these ones - instead I'll link them.  Now without further ado...

Toy Story Double Feature:  In preparation for Toy Story 3, Pixar is re-releasing the first two installments in this franchise... IN 3D!  Actually, the 3D part is not cool.  I hate having to wear those silly glasses.  Whatever, these movies were great the first time around.  Toy Story marked the move into modern animation instead of classic Disney animation, and at the same time it was one of the best kids movies I've ever seen.  I'm biased, though, since I grew up on the stuff.  Then #2 came out and didn't suck, a feat which I'm very impressed by.  So yeah.  If you're into Pixar movies and don't mind the 3D gimmick, head out to this one.  It's only going to be around for 2 weeks in October.

Legion:   Yeah, bitches!  Let's blow some shit up!  WOOOOO KILLIN ANGELS

When In Rome:  Yeah, bitches!  Shitty romantic comedies starring Sarah Marshall!  That's her name, you know.  Sarah Marshall.

Tron:  Legacy:  Tron has The Dude in it?  That's the movie I want to see; fuck Tron.  I want to see Tron set at a bowling alley.  I want to see The Dude just out for a bike ride when some asshole cuts him off and ruins his day.  Yeah.  I've never seen Tron, so I have no reason to fan-boy out about this movie.  Thus to me, it just looks like another bad movie about an animation team having way too much fun for their own good.  Er, I mean, another bad action movie.

Law Abiding Citizen:  Ew.  I hate torture movies, and I hate "bad things happen to good people for no reason" movies.  Okay, I hate the torture movies, and I hate the kind of "bad things good people" movies that only use that motif to set up the torture parts of the movie.  This looks like a good example.

The Twilight Saga:  New Moon:  Hahahaha no.

Whiteout:  This looks like a great one shot RPG where everyone dies at the end.  Maybe I'll run something like that in a few years for ERPL.  Looks good enough to go see with Danl and not as bad as the premise would have me believe.

I just found this preview for a movie called Inception, but I think I could write a whole post on that preview alone.  So I will in a couple days.  Until then.