I never ceased to be amazed at how they do it at Pixar.  Year after year after year they keep putting out the best animated features of a generation.  But why restrict it to just animation?  Simply put, the storytellers at Pixar are some of the best writers in the entire entertainment business.  These may be “cartoons”, but they are some of the most lovable and fully created characters you will ever see.

We know all the names so well; “Up”, “WALL-E”, “Ratatouille”, “Cars”, “The Incredibles”, “Finding Nemo”, “Monsters, Inc.”, “A Bug’s Life”, and the one that started it all: “Toy Story”, back in 1995, with the only sequel ever produced by Pixar, “Toy Story 2” being released in 1999.

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“Toy Story 3” simply tore up the box office last week, completely dominating ticket sales, as expected.  That probably won’t change this weekend, as I fully expect Toy Story to still be #1 at the box office for one more week…at least until “Twilight: Eclipse” comes out next Wednesday.

Also no real surprise in the bombing of “Jonah Hex”…although it was mildly surprising to me that it tanked as bad as it did, as I thought there might have been enough people suckered in just to watch Megan Fox stink up the joint for the 10 minutes of screen time she evidently has.  However, like “MacGruber”, it looks like there are some movies so bad that you can’t get anyone out to see them.

Mini Review  - The Messenger

Almost no one saw this at the theaters, as it barely made a million dollars there, but the film did generate some buzz in the form of Woody Harrelson’s Oscar nominated performance.

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What a contradiction of terms in regards to the two major releases coming out today.  One is the most critically praised movies I have ever seen, and it looks already to be an instant classic.  The other is being totally trashed, and may fall off the planet faster than “MacGruber”.

Mini Review  - Whip It

I’m not sure what it really is saying about me that I’m doing a mini review of a “chick-flick” two weeks in a row.  I blame it mostly on the fact that my lovely wife finally brought me into the 21^st century by buying me a Blu-Ray player for our wedding anniversary this week, so I’ve been busy re-watching action adventure classics that look great on Blu-Ray (“Avatar”, “IronMan”, “300”), and therefore haven’t had much time for anything else.

So I go back to this film that I watched a few weeks ago.  I wanted to see this film as it was the first starring role for Ellen Page after her breakout role in “Juno”, as well as the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore.

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“Subtle” is not a word that can be used at any point in the latest film to take us back to the 1980s, “The A-Team”.  Nor is “Intelligent” or “Deep”.  But “Fun”, on the other hand, is a perfect one word description of this little slice of popcorn heaven.  It’s like having that one margarita too many at a summer evening’s get together with friends, you will feel bad about it the next day, and in a week’s time you’ll wonder what the hell you were thinking…but for the moment, you really enjoyed yourself; so who is to say that it was that wrong?

This movie had two very negative things for me going in:  First was that I was never that big of a fan of the television show.  I watched it for over a year, and then got disgusted by the fact that almost every episode was exactly the same as every other.  You also had one very good actor in George Peppard  as Col. Hannibal Smith, but after that there wasn’t much talent in the show…especially Mr. T., who makes Megan Fox look like Meryl Streep in comparison, acting-wise.

The second negative was director Joe Carnahan; a man who might rival Michael Bay in the suckiness department…if he had a few more films under his belt.  Two words succinctly sum up why I dislike him so: “Smokin’ Aces”.

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