You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. One of the first questions I had as I was working through my rubrics and compilations was a pretty simple one: Spielberg or Cameron? I’m a little alarmed by how conventional… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Trends
This is the third piece of a three-part series. First up was a collation and analysis of forty critics’ rankings of Pixar movies, and then a quick digression into my own rankings. This third part is, in my eyes, the most fun. By bothering people I know, entreating people I know to bother people they… Read More Pixar Poll Results
Tim: This is the story of something that began nine months ago, something that Matt and I conceived, you might say, and now we’re adding a third person to make our duo a trio. I am very proud of this introductory statement, and a little horrified that we’re getting back to the Disney… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #16: Disney/Pixar Rankings Roundup, Part 2 (The One Where We Grill Josh About Frozen II)
Tim: Hi, Matt, and welcome back to the closest I think we’ve come to an actual podcast in a long time. We almost fired up Audacity for this. Matt: Maybe there will still be one of those, who knows. We’re back with something that “demands” a lot of space so……stay tuned for our 10-part series… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #14: Disney/Pixar Rankings Roundup, Part 1 (The One Where We Pump Up A Bug’s Life)
Dir. Andrew Stanton. Starring Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O’Neill, Albert Brooks Two things stand out when we talk about why Finding Nemo is one of the best animated movies of the past thirty years. First is the episodic structure of the narrative; Finding Nemo is, like The Canterbury Tales, much more than the sum of its parts based on the characters… Read More Finding Dory (2016)
Dir. Dan Scanlon. Starring Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Helen Mirren The girls are at summer camp. They report something strange is in their cabin. None of them are frightened – in fact, some even seem a little giddy. Regardless, forest rangers and other law enforcement quickly evacuate the girls before heading in. Slowly, quietly, cautiously,… Read More Monsters University (2013)
We kept the last one to an hour. This one, not so much. We had many things to say about The Incredibles – Helen Parr, the best Pixar character and Syndrome, faceless victim to Bob Parr’s Howard Roark – and not so many things to say, comparatively speaking, about Finding Nemo. Listen to find out… Read More Baumann and Burch Podcast #4 – Feminist Icon Helen Parr (Pixar, Part 2)
We meant to make a single podcast about Pixar. We made two instead. This first half (which is less than an hour! Woo!) talks about our bottom five Pixar movies, as well as Tim’s scorching take on Toy Story 3 and Matt’s belief that all of these movies contain a secret message about a workers’… Read More Baumann and Burch Podcast #3 – Immigrant Pillbugs (Pixar, Part 1)
Dir. Pete Docter. Starring Amy Poehler, Kaitlyn Dias, Phyllis Smith That’s my Middle West – not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows… Read More Inside Out (2015)
Monsters University was greeted the same way that Brave was by critics and moviegoers alike: “It was cute. It would’ve been really good for a Disney movie, but it wasn’t what we expected from a Pixar movie.” The statement is, of course, doubly patronizing, and rather more unfair to one than the other. As hard as it is… Read More The Sorrows of Aging Pixar
Seeing Things Secondhand 