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What's often forgotten or given little recognition in the wake of his untimely passing on Wednesday is Steve Jobs' influence on the development of computer-animated movies. Before his return to Apple in 1996 and his championing of devices such as the iPod, iPhone, and iMac, Jobs made an astute purchase from moviemaker George Lucas of a struggling graphics company. His drive and commitment to a fledgling project at Pixar eventually realized itself as Toy Story, the first computer-animated feature-length movie ever produced.
Widely regarded as "one of the greatest and most revolutionary films in the history of animation," Toy Story has become the touchstone of the Pixar brand that has gone on to create such award-winning and commercially successful movies as Wall-E, Up, and Finding Nemo. Eventually, Disney bought Pixar in 2006 for $7.6 billion, naming Steve Jobs to the board of directors and leaving him the single largest individual shareholder in the company (7%).
In tribute to his passing, we're asking you to vote for your favorite Pixar movies. We've compiled a list of all the studio's feature-length movies released to date. Just order the list to reflect your personal top 10 and hit submit.
Vote for Your Top 10 Pixar movies >>
Posted 10.06.11 by reelz -
It's not for nothing that Hamm the Piggy Bank is the first toy Andy picks up as he nostalgically looks through his old toy box in the trailer for Toy Story 3. John Ratzenberger, who voices Hamm, has been in every Pixar movie — the only actor who can claim that honor. In fact, the studio considers him its good-luck charm.
So in anticipation of Toy Story's return (one of our must-see movies this summer), we've picked our favorite scenes for each Ratzenberger-Pixar character.
Watch John Ratzenberger's 10 Best Pixar Moments >> Posted 06.02.10 by reelz -
Hollywood is currently so hooked on dystopias it's turning the multiplex into one. Whether it's solar flare bombardment (2012), an "unnamed cataclysm" (The Road), nuclear armageddon (The Book of Eli), or a pissed-off God (Legion), the world's coming to an end and the survivors are totally screwed.
This got us thinking: Which future movie worlds are the biggest bummers? Here's our Top 12. New Hampshire, these are not.
Posted 01.22.10 by reelz -
The ReelzChannel 100 began when we asked Leonard Maltin for his favorite Hidden Gems of the decade. His list led the web team into a general discussion about the best movies of the decade and — after no small amount of debate, arguing, and (we're not proud to say) some petty name-calling — we decided we'd better bring it to an end with a company-wide vote. Then it was just a matter of tallying up the votes and hoping for the best. Lucky for us, ReelzChannel is filled with a staff ranging from movie lovers to movie fanatics. What turned out isn't what you'll find on a critic's best of list — instead it's what movie fans really enjoyed.
In day five of the ReelzChannel 100, we highlight the Top 10 Animated/Kids Movies of the Decade.
Posted 12.25.09 by reelz -
The Academy Awards will be adopting a part of its past when the show airs March 7, 2010. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis has announced that the Best Picture category will double to include 10 nominations instead of the standard five.
The practice of nominating 10 movies ended in 1943, when Casablanca beat out 9 other movies to win Best Picture. At a press conference, Ganis explained the change:
After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of itsearlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of theyear. Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters torecognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show upin the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the racefor the top prize. I can't wait to see what thatlist of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.
Had the Oscars included 10 nominations last year, Slumdog Millionaire might have had some competition from The Dark Knight and Wall-E.
The nominations for the Academy Awards will take place February 2, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA.
Posted 06.25.09 by Ryan -
Pixar has released the first teaser trailer for Toy Story 3, due in June 2010.
Be sure to pay close attention when you see Up this weekend, as it was earlier reported that Pixar will unveil a look at a character from Toy Story 3 somewhere in the movie.
Below, you can see the trailer followed by a fun video that chronicles Pixar's tendency to introduce upcoming characters in its movies. (We find Wall-E's appearance in Toy Story particularly amazing.)
Posted 05.29.09 by reelz -
Up, the first Pixar film to be released in Disney Digital 3-D, may be thematically different than previous Pixar releases, but the creators are banking that the unique nature of Pixar's filmmaking process will help Up succeed.
In a recent interview, director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) said:
We have a system where people are selfless about giving up their own time, their own energy, their own comments.
Brad (Bird) will be off in the middle of directing something and we'll drag him in to watch this movie and he'll spew out all these great ideas that I get to use and then I'll do the same with whoever comes along next. Between that and the philosophy of "If you don't make mistakes, you're not taking enough risk." We're sort of expected to fail along the way. It's expected that we're going to falter and pull the emergency cord and get everybody on board to make this good.
In a separate interview, Docter admitted that not all Pixar films start out as winners:
At some point or another, every one of these (films) has sucked. That's the truth. And then you fix them.
Added producer Jonas Rivera:
We kind of treat every film like it's the first film we've ever done and the last film we'll ever do.... We kind of approach it like, whether or not people like this one as much as the last one or the first one or the third one, we don't know. We want to do the best we can every single time. So when you go see one of these, we go to bed at night knowing that's the best we can do. That's the best we got.
Up tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a grumpy man who ties balloons to his house and sails off for South America with an 8-year-old stowaway named Russell (Jordan Nagai).
Posted 05.28.09 by BrentJS -
Pixar -- the Academy Award-winning digital animation studio behind such colossal hits as Toy Story, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E -- debuts Up this Friday, its first film presented in Disney Digital 3-D.
3-D films have not had a very impressive track record, but director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) hopes that subtler 3-D effects in Up will keep the audience engaged:
We tried to learn from all the films that had come before us and what makes it work. The things that were important to me as a director was not to distract people with 3D. You don't want to pop them out of the movie by going "ooga-booga." We basically said, "Okay, the screen is like a window and you can see into it but let's not bring too many things out." That adds a certain sense of depth and I think, for a lot of people, they feel more transported into that world. Hopefully, it's not distracting to the point of popping you out of the film and it's a more immersive experience.
Up tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a grumpy, retired balloon seller who ties balloons to his house and sails off for South America. Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer, accidentally stows away with Carl and the two opposites encounter thrills and adventures in the Venezuelan jungle.
Posted 05.26.09 by BrentJS -
After winning for Best Animated Feature Film, director Andrew Stanton was asked if the character development and depth of WALL-E was a sign of where animated movies were heading:
To be honest we were trying to go that deep with the first movie we made at Pixar. Toy Story was an attempt to just show that it's a movie and we just happen to be using animation as a medium to tell it. It's like saying because it's in black and white suddenly it means it has to be a cop movie or mystery. It's very odd. We have just been trying to make the most sophisticated film that we can with the very deep characters, and we assume that if it's well told then any age will understand it. So, that's been sort of the same attack on every film.
While Stanton already has an Oscar, he was no less pleased with the Oscar for WALL-E:
WALL-E really was the most unique personal film I could have made, and I really expected it to speak to a minority, not a majority, because I felt I had gotten away with that with Nemo. So, to get this kind of response, it just really gives you a lot of confidence to listen to that little voice inside you again the next time.
For more with Stanton, read our pre-Oscars interview.
Posted 02.23.09 by Ryan -
Posted 02.22.09 by reelz