keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

Michael Sporn , Keith Lango and Michael Barrier have all written posts expressing their reservations about Pixar's latest feature. All are articulate and their criticisms are worth considering.

(Mild spoilers below.) I was beginning to worry that Pixar had passed its peak. Cars and Wall-E were both, in my opinion, weaker than their directors' previous films. As so many animation directors seem to do their best work early on and then repeat themselves to lesser effect, I wondered if Pete Docter would fall into the same pattern. That isn't the case. It's nice to see that Brad Bird is not the only director at Pixar who is at the top of his game. Carl Fredricksen and Charles Muntz have both have made commitments to the past. Both are trying to do something they failed to do in their youth. Muntz is trying to prove his discovery of a giant bird and Carl wishes to follow in Muntz's footsteps, exploring a remote area of South America. Carl is the only one of the two to realize that the present is more important than the past and that opening himself up to others is more satisfying than pursuing a solitary goal. Carl is introduced as a child and a lovely seque...

The Museum of the Moving Image , as part of its Pinewood Dialogues , has posted an interview with Up 's director Pete Docter. (I earlier pointed to interviews on their site with Chuck Jones and Brad Bird. You can find out about those interviews here .)

There's an interesting article in the NY Times about how Wall Street is afraid that Pixar's next release, Up , will not meet their financial expectations. Disney, to it's credit, is defending the film's prospects. The article contains some interesting material on box office grosses and merchandising revenue. Pixar’s last two films, “Wall-E” and “Ratatouille,” have been the studio’s two worst performers, delivering sales of $224 million and $216 million respectively, according to Box Office Mojo, a tracking service. Attendance for Pixar films has also dropped sharply over the years, suggesting that ticket price inflation helped prop up overall sales for “Wall-E” and “Ratatouille.” Retailers, meanwhile, see slim merchandising possibilities for “Up.” Indeed, the film seems likely to generate less licensing revenue than “Ratatouille,” until now the weakest Pixar entry in this area. (“Cars” wears the merchandising crown, with sales of more than $5 billion.) It appears th...