Pixar and the Pope

Delightful clip and commentary. Now everyone should go out and see it on the big screen along with the Pixar movie “Up,” to which it is a prelude. The first five minutes of “Up” are a deeply moving testimony to married love, and the rest of the film is a beautiful exploration of courage and hope in the face of profound grief. Only Pixar could pull that off in a movie that also includes talking dogs.

Pixar is the only "Hollywood" productio company that consistantly produces fine films. Their secret? Great story development (among other things).

I put "Hollywood" in quotes because Pixar is not in LA, let alone Hollywood proper. And that may very well be another secret to their success. There's a certain industrial culture in the film industry that seems to have lost the ability to tell great stories that move the mind and heart. Hollywood still hits one out of the park from time to time, but even the Box Office successes tend to be less about story and more about explosions, car chases, fights, and sexual images. While these appeal to the admittedly large demographic of young movie goers, they will not be remembered in years to come like other films.

In ten years we will still be watching The Green Mile, Lawrence of Arabia, When Harry Met Sally, Casablanca, The Elephant Man, and others.

In ten years we will really be watching Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Jackass, or Terminator Salvation in any great numbers?

I doubt it.

In ten years we will really be watching Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Jackass, or Terminator Salvation in any great numbers?

The Terminator movies have a place in the science fiction pantheon, and still are watched.

The others you mentioned?

Not so much.

Casablanca is still my all time favorite movie, btw. Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By".

Eh, Sturgeon's Law applies to movies as well now as it did in the past. Most of what comes out now is junk, but most of what came out fifty years ago was also junk. We just remember the good stuff.

Great movies are still being made, even within the major studios, even with plenty of spectacle. I'm confident that "Dark City", the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Prestige", for instance, will be well remembered and still watched.

But yes, Pixar seems to have some sort of surprising immunity to executive meddling. I suppose you earn that when even your worst would be considered extraordinary if it had come from any other studio.

English Student: indeed. It's written to be interesting and intelligible to anyone thoroughly steeped in Christianity. For the rest of us, words like "Charity", "Truth" and "Love" don't magically transmit anything other than their common meaning. No, not even when you capitalize the first letter. The result is confusing at best. I'm not saying that it's the Pope's job to translate it into non-Catholic-speak, but before you go 'round complaining that nobody's paying attention, consider that the move from Latin to English didn't really clarify much.

Celtic,

I agree that the first two Terminator films will be watched for years to come (didn't see the third). However, I wrote "Terminator Salvation" not "Terminator movies".

Terminator Salvation is a terrible film. It does not belong with the others.

Nah,

But even that isn;t true, back in whatever golden age you wnat to pic they didn't make more than a handfull of really good movies in any given year.

Today you can still find 4 or 5 really good movies every year.

I loved that short film they played before UP.

The Anchoress' interpretation of it is interesting. It's not the same as I took home from the film, but it's a new and cool way to look at it.

I thought the little cloud creators to be very human, I didn't think of them as symbolizing the Creator, but us.

And humans produce (not just materially, but emotionally) what is good, bad, and average. We are called to love all in spite, of because of the good, bad, and average.

We are made in God's image, and God himself became incarnate in us. Every human being you see is an echo of his or her Creator. All the more so is this true of people who are hurting, angry, broken, poor, and hungry. They hold the key. In their emptiness, they are closest to being filled (and by the calling and direction of the Holy Spirit we are feed and clothe and comfort and love them all, and by his grace some of them will indeed be filled, and not by our doing!) These people ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, waiting to be realized.

Those of us who are comfortable and content are in the greatest danger of never seeking to be filled. There is an emptiness in all of us. It is a hard road to go within, and to find it, and to surrender it to its rightful owner, God, so that we can be filled. Some of us are helped along in this search by difficult life events. God is merciful.

"But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Hello Rod,

If only the Pope had challenged the sexual revolution in some way, I suppose he could have gotten on the front pages.

Given the Pope's very heavy emphasis on the essentiality of the traditional family and the culture of life (see the discussion of Humanae Vitae in s.15), I kind of think he did exactly that.

Tyler Cowen has a piece up at the WSJ on this. Well written IMO.

Steve