One of us thinks Pixar only came into its prime after The Incredibles and that Brave is the latest in a string of latter-day successes. The other thinks that once Cars hit the screens, the company lost its way, and Brave is the signpost of how a company that used to be about something has gone and died inside. Well, we can’t both be right, can we?
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So according to your theory we will never get another great Tarantino film since Sally Menke passed away? I’m not buying that.
Eyes Wide Shut is a masterpiece. My favorite Kubrick film.
I agree. EWS has aged really really well in my brain. I consider it top-tier KUBRICK.
I thought it was just OK when it came out and am a much bigger fan now.
I also kind of view it as a comedy with the alternate title of “Tom Cruise Can’t Get Laid”
I have to like to any movie with Sydney Pollack acting. That’s just one of the rules I live by.
And that particular scene, in the billiards room with Pollack/Cruise is flat out amazing in its staging, pacing and overall level of engagement.
I totally agree with Matt on this episode.
That is where you and I just don’t see eye to eye.
I disagree with you Matt as I don’t agree with Matt on the show and think the other Matt is more on the mark.
-Matt
LIKE
I think the underlying issue here is that Pixar gained a bit of a reputation of creating films that would connect with both kids and adults and when the adults can’t connect at that level, they complain.
When Toy Story came out, if you asked the 13 year old me if I’d still be watching these films at 30, I would have probably laughed.
I think we have spoiled ourselves into expecting films that receive Best Picture Oscar nominations and we forget that the films are still cartoons aimed towards kids and I have to say that the kids in the audience definitely seemed to be enjoying the film they were watching.
Brave is high in my PIXAR rankings. I absolutely love the film.
You are dumb.
Haha, this is why I love the Cinecast!
We aim to keep the Discourse highbrow and civilized. Oh, wait a minute. That’s why we have Mamo!
EVERYONE IS HILARIOUS.
I’m of the opinion that Pixar’s later work, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3 is far superior than their earlier work. That said, I really didn’t like Cars 1 and never bothered to watch Cars 2. Also I’ve yet to watch Brave and from reviews I might wait for DVD.
One of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas has speakers build into the chairs (not sure if it’s every chair or just the more expensive tickets). Anyways, something like THAT might be closer to what Matthew Price is looking for, where it would be technical possible for a character to whisper in your ear. However, people are paying $60 to over $100 a ticket for that show and so they can afford to do fancy stuff like put individual speakers into the chairs. To do something like that in movie theatres, I would imagine they would need quite the premium on tickets to justify it.
I’m personally still not seeing much excitement in people to Spider-Man. I’m actually surprised that it’s release is around the corner, as it feels like something still months away. However, as I often bring up, I thought Scott Pilgrim was going to be pretty huge, so it might just not be seeing it.
I think it’s been downhill since Ratatouille, for me that was the peak. Everything else since then (save Cars 2) have been good to very good but with notable flaws.
Since Ratatouille I don’t even think they are making the best animated films of their respective years.
(Quickly investigates Animation Oscar wikipedia)
2008: Wall-E vs Kung Fu Panda and Bolt? Kung Fu Panda. Bolt is close.
2009: Up vs. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline, Princess and the Frog,? All of those are better. Up is probably better than Secret of Kells I’d say though.
2010: Toy Story 3 vs How To Train Your Dragon and The Illusionist? Both of those are better.
2011: All nominees were better than Cars 2.
And some of these nominee lists are even missing stuff like Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, which I’d take over most of the last 5 years of Pixar product as well.
2012: Pirates! Band of Misfits is far superior to Brave. Frankenweenie might be better. Wreck-It-Ralph might be better too. Rise of the Guardians looks like it might surprise. The animation doesn’t look so hot in the trailer but the pedigree behind that one is not to be scoffed at.
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline and How To Train Your Dragon are great movies. Kung Fu Panda I’ve yet to get around seeing as well as many of those others listed.
Speaking of animation, Avatar: The Legend of Korra season finale came out this weekend and it was absolutely incredible. It’s the sequel to Avatar The Last Airbender, itself a great show with a lot of depth. The new show is a sequel, but is quite different to be it’s own thing while still taking place in the same world. Anyways, anyone disappointed in Brave and is looking for a story with a kick ass young heroine, go check this out instead. Although I imagine the series might be a bit too adult for really young kids, while Brave is likely safer for them.
Don’t forget ParaNorman.
In my opinion I think this year’s best animation films(Mainstream) will come in the form of stop-motion with Paranorman and Frankenweenie. I’m holding out hope that we will get another Monster House or better with Paranorman.
So I can’t help bring this back to comics I guess because it consumes most of my time atm in terms of entertainment, your conversation was reminding me of a comparison point and I couldn’t place it until the line at the end.
The way Matt Price described Pixar and what they have become to me is a perfect correlation to 60s Marvel. Lee Kirby and Ditko bottled Lightning with The Fantastic Four and Amazing Fantasy (soon to be Spider-Man). They took a genre that already had incredibly powerful archetypal characters running around (Superman, Batman, Captain America) and twisted the conventions just enough and made them relate able and personable to the reader to ignite a firestorm. Then the company saw the $$ and due to certain decisions and practices drove both the artists away (who continued doing amazing things after they left). Leaving Marvel to continue doing comics with those character yet lacking in that original spirit, I don’t mean to be cruel to everyone who followed them, but once you have read those original stories everything following feels like ghosts and not really substantial.
This article details some of the concerns one of us raised in the podcast:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/analysts-say-braves-big-open-still-missed-the-bulls-eye/
That article is hilariously inane, Matt. I find it delightfully ironic that they are discussion ‘Creative Erosion’ in the same sentence as Box Office Estimates. This is like saying that Apple was doomed after they failed with the Newton and followed it up with the G4 Cube. Nobody sees the ‘ipod’ on the horizon. I often wonder about those Deadline folks and their box-office punditry (Slump-No-Slump stuff)
What is doubly ironic (and nullifies my poor analogy) is that BRAVE is actually one of PIXAR’s greater films, not one of their lesser ones. People just haven’t figured that out yet. I think Brave will age rather well when people look past the princess, witch and slapstick and see a very well realized mother-daughter communication slash family feud story which is actually, quite great. As good as “if everyone is special nobody is special” of Incredibles, or “drop your prejudices, expand your palette” of Ratatouille (For the record, these are my two favourite Pixars).
No way Kurt. No WAY will Brave ever be looked as “greater” Pixar. It’s the Bottle Shock of Pixar films. The humor is horrible and safe, the music is horrible, the characters are as one-dimensional as it gets, it’s a cultural abortion and it doesn’t even look that great.
Teenage daughter complaining her mom never listens and vice versa? Seriously? Hasn’t that been a movie trope for years in countless films? There’s nothing new or special about it – it’s bland as it getrs. Even the physical transformation is reminiscent of something as stupid as Freaky Friday or Like Father Like Son. I’ll eat my shorts if this is ever considered upper echelon Pixar.
With Brave, Kurt has now forfeited any future right to call Iron Man a ripoff of Robocop. Because… Brother Bear exists.
But as mentioned earlier, being turned into an animal to learn a lesson has been a Disney trope for the last 20 years specifically. Beauty and the Beast, Emperors New Groove, Brother Bear, Princess and the Frog.
But oh well. At the end of the day I think even people who don’t like the film can agree that it’s not a film worth getting upset about.
It’s totally not worth getting upset about. It’s just sort of… there. Was I entertained? Not really. Was I upset or mad about the film not entertaining me, i.e. do I think it’s horrible? Nope.
Just because there’s bears, doesn’t mean the film’s a Brother Bear ripoff. If anything, I got a big Studio Ghibli vibe from the film.
Actually, in Brother Bear a boy is turned into a bear to learn how to be a man. Frankly, Brother Bear takes far more risks than Brave ever does.
Yup. Brother Bear 3: Mother Bear
Yep. There is a Ghibli vibe, but the film does not go all the way with it. See in my short review in the other thread.
http://www.rowthree.com/2012/06/25/r3view-brave/
When the remake of Robocop comes out next year, will Kurt’s head explode since it will be ripping off both Robocop and Ironman?
And while normally I agree about box office numbers (I HATE equating dollars to film quality), in this case I think next week’s numbers will be very telling for this film.
Do we think that word of mouth really matters with Pixar films? I have no idea, but I’m guessing it would matter a lot less than with regular films.
There are two Pixar movies I am very confident I will never watch again. Brave is one of them.
I’m on Kurt’s side for this one. As someone who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and literally goes into fits at the thought of change, I actually liked that Pixar did something new with this film.
Is 2 movies really that big of a trend? Toy Story 3 got 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, Up 98%. The original Cars was at the time Pixar’s lowest rated movie critically, so it’s expected that a sequel would also do poorly critically. Perhaps this theory would hold a bit more if Car 2 was a new original movie that had also done poorly critically. However, Up and WALL-E are seen as some of the stronger original Pixar movies.
As for opening weekend, Brave had the 5th top opening weekend for a Pixar. Pixar’s top opening for a new original movie was $70 million (Incredibles & Finding Nemo) while Up only made $68 million and WALL-E $63 million opening weekend. So box office, Brave is preforming very typical of a Pixar movie.
“In our experience of just under 2 cases…”
Yeah, it’s pretty meaningless data. For the reasons outlined in the article itself I don’t think you can really slug Cars 2 into any kind of overall graph of Pixar’s critical OR financial success, either.
There is something to be said for the fact that Pixar has been leaning on franchise pictures more often than not lately, between Cars, Toy Story and the forthcoming Monsters prequel. They might see some downside to that model over time, but it’s a bit soon-ish to plot the data, on account of how one of my examples hasn’t even been released yet!
Upcoming Pixar movies that have me excited:
“Día de los Muertos” film
“Inside a Girls Mind” film
They have one about a dinosaur species going extinct, which I’m curious about, but not excited, but it could be a WallE (it never ended up being that facile Short-Circuit remake that many thought it would be and was a big fat warm surprise!)
The Monsters Inc. sequel kinda pisses me off. That trailer does NOTHING for me at all. Terrible idea.
As much as I love Monsters, Inc. I’m inclined to agree with you. No reason to go back to that sandbox. Especially a party prequel. Sounds like a desperate idea to me. But I try to stay cautiously optimistic.
Wall-E is half a film and Up is horrible outside of the first reel. Pixar has been underwhelming for far more than just 2 films. Its a clear downward trend.
I actually agree with Gamble on this. But I liked Brave as much as the Brad Bird ones.
Also, in terms of either ‘angry mom-daughter’ or The Brother Bear franchise, this is a clear cut case of it’s not the story, but how you tell it. They get a lot of the Mom-Daughter nuance and how it spreads out to the wider story correct here. It’ll sink in better for some on multiple viewings, methinks.
As much as I love HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, I like BRAVE better.
If Kurt said the above statement on the street, he’d be arrested for clearly being drunk in public.
I’ve been arrested for worse. How to Train Your Dragon is easily the best Dreamworks film…It’s really great. But, for me, it still falls behind a number of Pixars … including Brave.
It doesn’t get any nuance. This is as broad as it gets, up to an including reinforcing the tried and true Disney message that the most important thing in a girl’s life is getting married. Evidently it is even too much to ask for Pixar to not make that the central plot point of a female centric film.
I’ve been thinking about it and perhaps the worst thing to happen for Pixar was their acquisition by Disney.
They were well on their way on going on their own direction when Disney outright bought the company.
I believe the franchising was a result of this, since Disney was planning to make sequels to films like Toy Story and Monsters Inc with or without Pixar.
Time Magazine’s lengthy piece on the Pixar methodology (it ain’t pretty) and the firing of Brenda Chapman, and the evolution of Brave.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2107515-1,00.html
@Kurt: HTTYD>Tangled>Brave