Reilly Grant

Pixar manages to blend outstanding animation technology with some of the best story tellers in the movie business.  The first thing you see when watching a Pixar movie is the animation.  Toy Story was groundbreaking in it’s use of computer animation, but Pixar has moved beyond that.  Sure, Ratatouille debuted incredible new fur rendering techniques, and there are shots in WALL-E that are indistinguishable from a photograph, but that is not where the magic in these films lies.  No, Pixar films feature stories that are new, and different, and they use all that fabulous technology to bring them to life.  WALL-E is a tearful romance, with no dialog or human characters for the first 45 minutes!  Ratatouille takes the rat, scourge of the kitchen, and turns him into the greatest chef in all of France.  That leaves, of course, the latest Pixar feature, released a few weeks ago in theaters (and, if you haven’t seen it, hopefully still is playing), Up.  Perhaps the most amazing part of the entire film is the first 10 minutes. (continue reading…)

I was never a huge fan of the original Star Trek series or the movies; except for Leonerd Nimoy.  TNG and Voyager were my favorites.  When this movie came out I was afraid of two things which have plagued science fiction and Star Trek movies in the past.  First, that it would be just another action movie.  The trailers definitely played up the movie’s fast paced action sequences.  This is a problem that a lot of science fiction movies have.  Science fiction is not about action, it is about people and the future.  Second, that it would turn out like Insurrection and Nemesis; with a weak plot and irrelevant story line.  The only good TNG movie was First Contact because they actually had some good source material to build a plot out of.  The others didn’t have enough relation with the series to fit in at all.

Edit: Orson Scott Card (author of the Ender’s Game series and other wonderful sci-fi books) has posted a review of this movie as well as the new X-Men film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Uncle Orson Reviews Everything. I generally agree with everything he says and, being a professional writer, he says it better than I do.  Thanks to Rafi for pointing out his column to me. (continue reading…)

When this came out in theatres I was sceptical. It seemed like another Spy Kids-esque teen superhero movie. How wrong I was. Bolt is Disney at it’s best. A heart-warming story and the excellent animation we’ve come to expect only out of Pixar films. Of course, since Disney owns Pixar now it isn’t too surprising we’re seeing this kind of thing out of Disney Animation Studios. Bolt found me laughing at every joke and brought a tear to my eye with it’s sweet innocence. Getting the movie to play, on the other hand, was not so enjoyable. Disney seems to have improved their anti-piracy measures quite a lot in it’s recent DVD releases.

(continue reading…)