It’s high time that Pixar was funny again. Before you begin writing fierce and angry comments, keep reading, even if you’re tempted not to. When people think of Pixar’s highest creative peak, they likely consider the four films released between 2007 and 2010: Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3, movies typified more by their emotional highs than comic highs. This is not to say that this quartet of films aren’t funny; they are, and frequently so. But think of Up, and you hear the tinkling sounds of Michael Giacchino’s Oscar-winning score and the “Married Life” montage in its opening act. Consider WALL-E, and you may think of WALL-E and Eve swirling around in space, triumphant in their mutual admiration and determined to help the human race evolve once more. And Toy Story 3’s final act is an emotional flood for most audiences. Pixar hasn’t stopped being funny, but they’ve allowed themselves to be swept away by that flood.
The Pixar Perspective on The Necessity of Trailers
Great movie trailers are something of a lost art. While we are overloaded with ads for every new big-budget movie these days, they’re getting more obnoxious, cacophonous, and ruinous. Depending on the movie, you can go onto its website or YouTube and see a handful of TV spots—most of which repurpose the same shots, action, and dialogue, but tweak them ever so slightly to stand out—as well as teaser trailers and full trailers that often lay out a movie’s entire plot. If they don’t, they’re almost certainly going to show you some of the most impressive bits of action or the funniest jokes. It feels as if we’ve been clucking our tongues at trailers that spoil the films they sell since the advent of the Internet. So why, exactly, should we watch trailers for movies we know we’re going to see? [Read more…]
