Toy Story

Year Of Release: 1995

Genre: Adventure

Run Time: 77mns

Age Rating: PG (UK)

Director: John Lasseter

Review

I don't know what the first DVD that I owned was but if I had to take a guess it would probably have been something like Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase. However, for the sake of this review let us pretend that, even from a young age, I was showing signs of amounting to a well rounded individual who's opinions were actually valid, and say that the first DVD I owned was Toy Story. Now that we have successfully swept my early ineptitude aside you can read this review with the knowledge that, much like the average millennial around election time, fact and my opinion are one in the same.

Pixar prepare to open the new land

 bridge that their 

profits helped build.

Toy Story is a good film. It's story was, to my knowledge, a fairly original concept upon it's release. Which is funny when you bear in mind that the film plays heavily off of the childhood fantasy of one's toys being sentient. Pixar took a running jump off a cliff with this film, should Toy Story have failed it would have more than likely ended their aeronautical career a little over two decades ago. Luckily enough, their exceptional screenplay, fleshed out characters and overall marketable plot made enough money to cushion their fall, cure world hunger and throw them into Disney's good books in one go. This good fortune meant that their initial leap of faith was more comparable to Scrooge McDuck's than it was Tommen Baratheon's. 

I don't want to focus too heavily on what this film does well. Oily Ponces in braces and dickie bows have been smothering this film in praise since before I had learned that defecating in my underwear was a no-no in most social circles. So to finish off this review I will leave you with a small list of things that I have disliked about this film since I was an ankle biter and the reasons why my young critical mind held such opinions.

• Sid - not only is his character design similar to Megamind if he had a belt strapped around his head from birth but he strongly reminded me of a twat that once bit my nan.
• Buzz Lightyear and Woody's relationship - Yes, it is one of the most thrilling bromances that animated cinema has ever provided, with sexual tension that you couldn't crack through with a jackhammer. However I have always found the start of their blossoming  bromance rather grating. Both parties show equally annoying and over the top traits (not present in the subsequent sequels) that stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of Pixar's subtle character development.
• No one notices toys dropping through a car's sunroof - This is a petty one however the whole final sequence, no matter how pant-wettingly thrilling, has always baffled me. Not Andy nor his mum pay any kind of attention to a firework going off  less than 100 meters behind their car. Nor do they notice two dolls - larger than their heads - fall through their sunroof.

Scoring

  

Final Score: 18

Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):

Q. Have you ever cried at a film?

A. Yes, The Seventh Son was a challenging viewing experience for both me and my childhood.

Q. Who is your favourite god?

A. Cardea - Goddess of thresholds and door hinges. This woman had her priorities on straight.

23 Years of Pixar

A toy cowboy towards the end 

of the third and final act.

Pixar have been churning out classic children's cinema for nearly quarter of a century now. Yes, that is a long time! Doesn't that just make you feel oh so old and nostalgic. And yes, to those few that are reading this and those fewer still who would stand to correct me, I know that Pixar have been making films since 1986. I however flat out refuse to sit and gaily sing songs around the campfire with those that believe that what Pixar were producing pre 1995 was akin to the second coming of Christ. This is because unlike those that do I prefer to go to bed after the campfire songs are done, whereas they prefer to sit in a circle, merrily producing jets of spunk whilst quoting Citizen Kane. I say this, as no matter how monolithic or important these films were in their time or how important they were in helping to create the cinematic experience as it stands today, they seem nothing but quaint in their antiquity when compared to todays standards. It is for this reason why I choose to ignore the first 9 years of Pixar's independence from Lucasfilm, instead focusing on 1995's Toy Story as their first real contribution to their true target audience. This being the film that changed the animation industry forever whist simultaneously changing the way every child swung open their bedroom door in a desperate bid to catch their toys midway through a mass re-enactment of the Jonestown Massacre. (ooh how edgy)

In all seriousness Pixar studios have played a very large part in my childhood. Growing up I remember watching their first three feature length films; Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998) and Toy Story 2 (1999) again and again. They were fun, well animated and different to other children's films at the time. They were like the cool uncle to Disney's overbearing, no sex before marriage, traditionalist father figure. They would throw in reference after reference, small little Easter Eggs crammed into every nook and cranny with countless hours of brainstormed backstories to each and every character. And whilst its true that toddlers who weren't born in a McDonalds car park won't understand these more adult references before they hit puberty - this is the beauty of it. The films have no age bracket, parents are just as likely to enjoy these films as their little winners are. Unlike Disney's happy-go-lucky filmscapes, Pixar believe that you are mature enough to hear some hard layered truths about growing up (see Toy Story 1, 2 & 3) and the human condition in general (Inside Out, Finding Nemo and Up to name a few).

Balding man celebrates his prowess

in weaving cohesive narratives.

This isn't to say that I dislike Disney films either, I quite enjoy them however it's a clinical sort of enjoyment. It's been strung through so many focus groups and boards meetings to make sure it's groomed to their family friendly image that it almost reeks of Barbicide, like a hipster at a beard show. It's the Disney charm, whilst you watch the film you are captivated by the story and you love the characters, when you leave the characters are what stay with you. Pixar, by contrast, have a near unparalleled mastery of storytelling at this point second only perhaps to the proverbial sweaty balding man explaining to the police why he was within 200ft of a school. Their successes so far have always outweighed their shortcomings in every one of their projects, even their weakest films (in terms of critical reception) are some of the highest grossing animated films of all-time.

Now, if you've read this far, I will tell you why I have written this self indulgent nonsense. Over the next few days I will be releasing a series of concise reviews on each of Pixar's feature length productions. 'Well isn't that just a posh way of saying that you're going half arse a review?', I hear you cry. Yes... yes it is.

Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):

Q: Is 'filmscape' even a word?

A: Ah, a fine question! I wrestled with this conundrum for many a moon until I googled it and turns out it's a Malaysian production company. So yes, it's a proper noun!

Q: So doesn't that just mean that, in the context you used it at least, it's a nonce word?

A: You're the nonce, shut up.

Happy Death Day

Year Of Release: 2017

Genre: Horror

Run Time: 96mns

Age Rating: 15 (UK)

Director: Christopher Landon

**SPOILER ALERT**

Synopsis

After haughty college sorority girl Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), wakes up on her birthday in the college dorm room of Carter Davis (Israel Broussard), she carries on her day as usual. However after leaving her house later that night to attend a house party she is ambushed and murdered in an underpass by a masked assailant dressed as her university's mascot. After haughty college sorority girl Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), wakes up on her birthday in the college dorm room of Carter Davis (Israel Broussard), she carries on her day as usual. However after retreating from a creepy underpass on her way to a house party and returning home to find a surprise birthday party waiting for her, she is once again murdered. Tree soon realises that she is experiencing the day of her death on repeat, confiding this information to her new friend Carter they realise that to move past her death day she must find her killer and prevent her murder.

Review

To say that going to see this film was more of a spur of the moment decision than a €2 tattoo in Málaga would be an understatement. Having never seen the trailer in its entirety my only knowledge of the film came from the first 10 or so seconds of the trailer, in which an attractive girl wakes up in a strangers bed and ignores her dad's call. Naturally my sequence of thoughts upon seeing this were that attractive girl, one night stand and daddy issues are pretty much the standard ingredients for a lonely divorced man's search history on a porn site. My second thought however was 'OH good I can skip this advert'! 'How bad can it be' I asked myself as I sat in the cinema, the answer to that is due to the fact that unlike a €2 tattoo it didn't give me hepatitis and similarly to a porno there was a happy ending I can safely state that this film was a surprisingly enjoyable viewing experience.  

A reconstruction of how 'HDD' gained it's identity.

It's well known that it doesn't count as copying if you take a pre-existing formula and change a few plot points and, well 'Happy Death Day' takes that idea and commits the creative equivalent of grand larceny, with the plot bearing a striking resemblance to a plethora of other creative properties. I can only imagine that the producers started off with the words 'Groundhog Day' written in bubble writing in the middle of a whiteboard as they discussed how they could go about making the reboot. This was until one sparkly eyed intern who was bringing them coffee said to them, 'If an original ship is replaced piece by piece over time at what point does it become a new ship?'. Now being producers in Hollywood c.2016 they were not familiar with the concept of originality, so after a quick Google search of the definition they decided that a ship is a new ship after replacing two oars, the crew and stealing the figurehead from a different vessel. Now this similarity could have been its downfall had the film taken itself too seriously and really tried to be a gritty horror, however after an initial jumpy start it settles out into a more light hearted romp much like the film's blatant source of inspiration. What I feel saved this film from falling into the sweaty pit of try hard despair that is usually populated by hipsters and teen wolf enthusiasts, is that instead of trying to seem different and edgy the film poses a moderate sense of self awareness and acceptance of its origins.

Pictured above: Secondary characters from 'HDD'

make a cameo in Chrome's endless runner

It was only after writing an entire paragraph in which I effectively whinged about how underdeveloped all of the characters were within 'Happy Death Day' that I realised that the writers had struck character development gold with the storyline. The simple fact is that, within a world that resets itself everyday leaving only the main character with all of their memories in tact, no character with the exception of the lead role will have any memory of the previous events and will act out their day in the exact same manner over and over. This means that any character development is rendered void by the end of the day leaving the secondary characters as little more than living props for the protagonist to interact with, but in the context of this narrative, that's fine. Saying that though, the secondary characters were by no means weak as strong acting and believable character interactions that played heavily on stereotypes kept them afloat and managed to make them have very defined individual personalities. So even though what the audience see of these characters is little more than a single scene with each of them, they get to see quite a broad view of their personas each time Tree interacts with them in a different way.

A short excerpt from Tree's diary.

The character of Tree Gelbman (our protagonist) is the one character we truly see change in throughout the film's runtime. She starts off as a typical spoilt and rude sorority girl who's greatest achievement up until the start of the film had been keeping her sexual partner count down to two individuals a day, this changes however throughout the course of the movie. By the end of the story the audience have seen their protagonist develop from what was essentially a gobby bus for venereal diseases transform into a much more likeable and respectful character, a change that we have all seen before in various teen movies. However, I couldn't help but feel like Tree's transformation was a lot more of a rewarding viewing experience than I have seen before in this type of character arc, as many times as it's been used. This I feel was due to the touching romance between Tree and the nerdy secondary protagonist Carter, as whilst it's relatively common for the popular girl to end up with the awkward nerd in this sort of film, the character of Tree changes so dramatically to accommodate him into her life. There is one scene in particular in which she has thwarted her would be murderer and holds their life in her hands, however earlier in that scene Carter had been killed after saving her from the attacker. After realising that should she finish her day Carter would be dead forever she hangs herself so that she can be with him again, creating the most powerful scene in the film.

There was only one character that I truly took issue with in 'HDD' and that was Tree's roommate Lori. Now she had spent the vast majority of the film flying completely under the radar acting as a moderately sweet girl who genuinely seemed to like Tree. This illusion was all flipped however in the closing 10 minutes of the film when it was revealed that she had been Tree's masked assailant all along. I remember sitting in the cinema and thinking that the film must have slipped some clever hidden clues along the way about why she was doing this or just some deep seated reason that had been staring me in the face. I was intrigued, I knew I had to give this film a second viewing to look for all of the concealed foreshadowing. But no, the reasoning behind this sweet roommate's vicious murdering spree was that she fancied her teacher (a character that Tree had been shacking up with at the start of the film) and wanted Tree out of the way so that she could move in on him during the wake, or something to that nature. So phoned in was this explanation that even Tree's initial reaction was that of complete confusion. It was at this point that I realised that I no longer cared if they had slipped in subtle hints about Lori's true nature, due to the fact that her whole issue could have been sorted out by spreading a rumour of her rival having chlamydia!

Overall, even when taking into account that the whole plot of the film rests entirely on the idea that the best way to stop two people from having sex is by killing one of them, I would recommend 'HDD' as a film to watch, if only once. Due to a comedic script that veers towards the self aware and strong performances from it's cast, 'Happy Death Day' overcomes the issues that it could have faced had it tried to sever all ties from it's inspiration.

Scoring

                                                                   

                                                                    Final Score: 14

     

Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):

Q: What is your favourite species of cacti?

A: I personally enjoy the Echinocactus Platyacanthus due to their variety of uses in traditional sweet production and weaving

Q: What foot size are you?

A: 6' 1"