Reading the various reviews of Cars around the web, especially the one at Kottke’s place, I was trying to figure out how I would rank the Pixar films (not including the short films).

• Monsters, Inc.
• A Bug’s Life
• Toy Story 2
• Toy Story
• Cars
• The Incredibles
• Finding Nemo

It’s pretty close, I think. The original Toy Story could really be anywhere in the list because it’s showing it’s age, but also because it was one of the best stories in the group. I go back and forth on the Incredibles, too, but my initial reaction was, “Eh,” so I’m sticking with that.

Leave your rankings in the comments. Curious to see how different your lists are.

Please note: I’m writing here for myself, not as an employee of Disney. These are my opinions, not those of the company. Thanks.

I had never seen this short film called Powers of 10. Very cool. (via Kottke)

(Editor’s note: Eric left this as a comment in my post, but I think it’s worth having as a top level post. I’ve republished it and I hope Eric won’t mind.)

Ok, I saw this movie last night with my girlfriend. I was really hesitant at first. My impression going in to it mirrored a professor of mine (retired army) at the military school I am attending. Basically, we thought 2 hours was long, so they must do what most all movies that depict real life do: they pick out a few characters, show their background (both truth and fiction), and follow them through a set of true events that are sensationalized. This is the exact reason why I did not want to see it. I thought to myself, if I ever want to watch anything like it, it should be a documentary that tries to capture the true essence of the events, not some Hollywood interpretation playing on fears and emotions.

But, I wasn’t set against seeing it. So, my girlfriend, who was more curious about it at the time than I was, and I went last night. When we first arrived (about 30 minutes before the movie), it was empty. I figured it would have a small crowd, but to my surprise, it filled to almost capacity. Then it started.

To tell the truth, I was very surprised and completely wrong about my previous assumption. This movie was a documentary. Not a conventional one. It wasn’t narrated as clips of events were shown. It was a glimpse, as true as they could make it, of 6 different places the morning of 9/11 (the flight, 3 regional air traffic control centers, FAA headquarters, and a military air defense station).

They didn’t follow any ‘characters.’ They didn’t show any background. They didn’t show crowds or civilian reactions. They didn’t use Hollywood theatrics (as we have come to know). And what is more surprising is that they used the real people that were there that morning. You did have your share of actors (mostly unknowns), but where they could, they used normal, everyday people. You could tell, it wasn’t ‘scripted,’ as in the normal Hollywood sense. The lines weren’t meant to create superficial tension (they let the events do that), but to just reflect peoples actual thoughts in the situation. And, it was in real time.

I am sure had you been in any of the regional air traffic control towers, the FAA headquarters, or the military air defense, it would have been as close as a mirror image as you could get. The actions, reactions, and speech mimicked what I believed happened at that time at those places. As far as being on the plane goes, it is only a guess to what happened, although their interpretation is as probably as good as any others. The hijackers were portrayed as real people with real fears and hesitation. The passengers were as you would expect to be in a crisis, not as those in a Bruce Willis film or Oliver Stone interpretation.

To tell you the truth, I did get a little sick. I thought about leaving, half way through, but I was able to stay. Others did leave, but not as many as I had expected. The camera work was shaky (intentionally), which can cause some motion sickness.

Overall, I don’t think there was an intended message, be it political, patriotic, etc… I think the scenes were a series of events that were put together to (as best as possible) be unbiased to the events that happened that morning. I think whatever you take from it, is solely from where you stand going in. Some will take it as a political message, some as a patriotic one, some as over-hyped, and some as too overwhelming. It becomes your own manifestation of feelings towards that day, and towards the events.

I am not trying to convince anyone to see it or even give it a good review. It struck me as a recreation, as best as could be shown, not as a movie attempting to give insight we didn’t already know or a new interpretation to something already familiar. I didn’t feel as someone was trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but I do still believe in the best of mankind. Entertainment Weekly said in its review:

“Do we need to see this? No. There’s no right or wrong way to remember 9/11, no shame in skipping the movie-fied sight or prize for those who dare to look.”

I just wanted to let people know, that the thoughts I had going into it were wrong. I am not necessarily glad I saw this movie or upset that I did. I think in the coming years, it will be a good movie to have for people that were too young to remember what happened that day. And a good reminder, down the line, when I am ready to watch it again.

Salon.com has a very good review of “United 93″. Her reaction to the movie is what I imagine mine will be. As she says,

But while “United 93″ offers a horrifyingly realistic evocation of pain and fear, it doesn’t open itself out to any greater, more expansive truth. And it offers us no hope of transcendence. “United 93″ spells out for us horrors that previously we could only have imagined, as if imagining them could never be enough. It’s an expertly made picture that I wish I could stamp out of my mind. What’s the value of artistry that sucks the life out of you?

The review basically praises the filmmaking but says, as you can guess from that excerpt, that the film was very difficult to watch.

I was also surprised to learn that some of the characters are played by the actual people doing those jobs on 9/11:

And some real-life figures, among them air-traffic controllers and military personnel, appear as themselves. Perhaps most notable is Ben Sliney, the manager of the Federal Aviation Administration’s operations command center in Herndon, Va. On Sept. 11, 2001, Sliney had just been appointed to that position; it was his first day on the job, and his performance here suggests a masterly and controlled channeling of the feelings he must have had as he faced this daylight-nightmare challenge: What must it be like when your job is to respond, calmly and efficiently, to the unspeakable?

I wonder what those people felt while making the movie.

(and yes, I’m still not going to see it yet)

In the post on United 93 below, Sural asked me:

it’s always interesting to me, hearing your views on 9/11. I’m not sure if it’s because i left the country less than a week later/was a little preoccupied (admittedly self-centered) with my own safety in flying…but it’s never been as intense an experience as it seems to be for you, maybe because i feel “silly” thinking i have any right to feel loss when i didn’t really lose anything….

…

why do you think this is so personal for you?

Here’s the answer I promised.

The short answer is, “I don’t know.” I think intellectually, I agree with you… I feel “silly” to feel loss when I didn’t really lose anything. On the other hand, I do really change the channel when I see the commercial come on for that movie. That discrepancy made me write the original post in the first place.

I don’t really feel loss, though. It’s not that feeling. It’s more a recognition of what happened. I’ve internalized a lot of the events of that day and the days and weeks surrounding it, like many who were here. (and I’d emphasize, again, that I don’t think I’m any different than many if not most people out there). I wonder if being out of the country changed the experience for you?

I felt it was important, at the time, to witness what I could and to remember what I could. In October, I had to go to NYC to pick up visas for Mom and I to go to China. I ended up walking from 42nd and 12th Ave down to Chambers and Greenwich while I was waiting. I saw the wreckage from as close as I could. I even knelt and said a prayer. On my way down I passed firehouses, collective tributes and shrines to the victims, and the other ways people grieve. After seeing all that, how can I not be affected?

The way many of the victims died also affected me. It taps into some personal fears about death. I’m someone who likes being in control of my situation. Those deaths ripped control away from every victim, even the ones that survived.

All of it sort of blurs and blends together. Combine that with the intellectual things that I recognize. Knowing that 9/11 would excuse racism and bigotry. The historical impact of having this particular President at that particular time (I can’t think of anyone worse and remember thinking that pretty much on 9/12). This movie will start all of those discussions again. A common sentiment I’ve seen on blogs is that this movie will remind people of 9/11 and what we lost. As if we need reminders. The politicization of the film is sort of the final straw.

Don’t know if that answers anything. Probably doesn’t, but there it is.

Heidi and I watched the original The Manchurian Candidate tonight. I hadn’t seen it before, but it’s obviously a classic. It was a good film, though a bit over-the-top.

Anyway, when the film started, I was surprised that it was in black and white. The film was released in 1962, nearly 25 years after The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. They were both released in Technicolor in 1939, which I also got wrong… I thought they were post-WWII films. So, while watching the movie I googled around a bit and found a synopsis of sorts of a PBS show covering the color films of WWII. In the text, they mention that as America entered the war, the government seized all the color film for the war effort.

I was curious about this, so I spent the movie writing a little script to grab a list of color movies between 1930 and 1950 from IMDB. I did some work to remove shorts (the vast majority of color films released during the period) and then broke them down by year. The list still includes random documentaries and films where only a part of the film was in color, but there’s clearly a drop in 1942, the first full year the U.S. is at war.

1930 39
1931 5
1932 5
1933 5
1934 7
1935 6
1936 13
1937 8
1938 13
1939 19
1940 20
1941 21
1942 15
1943 30
1944 31
1945 29
1946 42
1947 55
1948 75
1949 66
1950 90

It’s not as dramatic as I would’ve expected based on the firm language of the PBS page I found. Other histories indicate that color didn’t become popular until the 60’s, further making the Manchurian Candidate an anomaly (to me).

I was able to find one interesting note about film stocks, which says:

Hollywood, like other industries, encountered many wartime problems. The government cut the amount of available film stock by 25 percent and restricted the money that could be spent on sets to $5,000 for each movie. Nevertheless, the war years proved to be highly profitable for the movie industry. Spurred by shortages of gasoline and tires, as well as the appeal of newsreels, the war boosted movie attendance to near-record levels of 90 million a week.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say. Just wanted to pass on those numbers.

Update: of all of the numbers up there, the 1939 number has to stand out. It just looks like a lot of 60-80 minute two-strip Technicolor or mixed black and white/two-strip Technicolor films were released that year.

If anyone has any particular knowledge of this stuff, I’m curious for the history… Here’s a really cool history of Technicolor.

Update 2: Duh. Regarding the 1930 to 1931 drop, the depression was in full swing by 1931.