Pixar!

I would love to sit in on one of the brainstorming sessions at Pixar Studios. You know the old adage, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question?” Well, it must be policy at Pixar that there is no such thing as a dumb idea. Bring anything to the table. Because you really just never know which dumb ideas are going to be green lighted as sheer brilliance. Who could have ever imagined that Up would not only be as terrific as it is, but as successful and popular as it was during its run in the theaters last year.

I envision the pitch for Up must have gone something like this:

“Ok. So our hero is 80. And after his wife dies and the city strong arms him into buying his property for major urban growth, and then he accidentally attacks a man he thinks is trespassing and therefore must be moved to a retirement community once he is deemed a public nuisance by the courts, our hero decides to attach thousands of helium balloons to his house and fly it to South America in an effort to fulfill a life-long promise he made to his late wife. Hey! In fact, why don’t we start out with a twenty-minute prologue that shows the tear-jerking lifetime love affair our hero had with his wife. We show everything. Dreams deferred. Heartbreaking realizations of infertility. And we end with her death and his subsequent solitude. Kids are gonna love this one!”

Any other studio would have laughed this proposal right into the garbage can. But not Pixar.

Since 1995, and the release of the first fully computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, Pixar Studios has been the premier movie studio for animation and the uncontested leader in story originality. No other major Hollywood production company has been as consistently successful. And no other studio has managed to incorporate the consistent child-like wonder that established the magic of the Hollywood Golden Age with the same majesty and grandeur that Pixar has infused into each of its ten terrific movies. A Pixar movie is not merely a ‘kids movie.’ These are movies that can be enjoyed by all.

I saw Up when it was first released last summer, and while I have come to expect greatness from Pixar, I was truly amazed by the genuine themes and grown-up emotions introduced in the film’s lovely prologue and woven throughout the remainder of the film. Ideas such as the loneliness that follows the loss of a lasting love affair and the regret that accompanies unfulfilled promises are not something you expect to find in a cartoon. But they are part of what makes a Pixar movie such a special and lasting piece of cinema.

My wife and I watched Up again last night, and I found myself just as thrilled by the adventure, just as captivated by the story, just as touched by the characters as I was the first time. Up, after Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, is only the second animated movie ever nominated for a best picture Academy Award. I think it more than deserves such an accolade. But whether or not it wins on Sunday will be merely a footnote in some future writer’s critique. Of much greater significance is the continued encouragement of every wildly passionate and off-the-wall proposal that enters the offices of Pixar Studios. Such encouragement leads to brilliant creativity. That’s entertainment!

Join me again next week for my recap of the Academy Awards.

Until then, here is my hope that we all find our Shangri-La. Goodnight.