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#99 Toy Story - Not Just a Child's Play-thing
It's been just over a month since I had a dinner party at my place for the viewing of the 99th movie on the AFI list. At the rate I'm going, I'll be done with the challenge in...2014...crap...I need to step up my game. But at the risk of sounding despairing, let's just jump right into the run-down on this great American film.
The Good - The Bad - The Reason - The Food
                      The Good:
It's "Toy Story". It's a movie I loved when I was young and have learned to appreciate even more as I've grown up. This is, thanks to the careful crafting of John Lasseter, no accident. It was Pixar's goal when they set out to make a movie that would entertain the kids, but keep the parents happy too. While this is now the norm, it was really one of the first "kids" movies to cater to both the adults as well as the kids.
It's seriously hilarious. When Buzz gets captured by Sid's little sister and gets all Stockholm-syndromy Mrs. Nesbitt?
             Truly horrifying child-villain Sid was voiced by late-90s teen heartthrob Erik von Detten.
So good.
It's a great story that has universal appeal. I think it's safe to say we all wished out toys would come to life and play along with us. Every single one of my Barbies had a unique name (the villain in the saga was played by a crop-haired fiend named Alanis), and I wished so hard every day that those dolls really came to life. Pixar tapped right into our wildest dreams and made them even cooler than we could have imagined. Best.
The Bad:
I think the bad in this case is more of a reflection on how good CG animation and Pixar has become over the years. The CG in "Toy Story" can at times look current and flawless, but sometimes the early stages of the process show through. There are a couple layers of blockiness they hadn't yet shaved off, and it can look strange. Again, this really reflects more on how far they have come in CG animation.
It's also short. Running at just 77 minutes, the pace moves along at quick a clip and can feel very hurried and a little chaotic. Compare this to "WALL-E" where we spend the first big chunk of the movie with two non-speaking robots, and it's a noticeable difference.
The Reason:
When "Toy Story" came out in 1995, it was the first ever completely CG-animated feature-length film. Now, almost twenty years later, CG-animation has become the absolute norm and it's because of the precedent set by Pixar. And, like I mentioned before, it was one of the very first family films that put jokes and bits in specifically for the parents/adults/older audience members. Just like in "Ben-Hur", I think "Toy Story's" position is based on how many precedents it has set.Â
                                Woody and Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Mayor of Hollywood Tom  Hanks and Michigan-native, Chevy-driving, Campbell’s soup-lover Tim Allen.
There are so many quotable lines that pop-up frequently in our generation. All of Woody's token pull-string phrases get dropped whenever anyone so much as says the word "boot". I dare you to say "Somebody's poisoned THE WATER HOLE!!!" to someone and wait for the inevitable "There's a snake in my boot!" or "Rrrreeeaaach for the skyyyyy"
On an end note, to really get a great idea of the kind of work and time and love went into "Toy Story", I recommend checking out the documentary "The Pixar Story." It's sweet and funny as well as an interesting look at all aspects of their very unique creative process.
The Food!
The obvious choice for the food would have been Pizza Planet pizza, but I didn't feel like slapping together a little 'za. I wanted to make something that would evoke childhood, a simpler time. I wanted the kind of food I would have scarfed down in between the hours of playing with Beanie Babies, Barbies, and Breyer horses (what was my thing about "B" toys?).
                                        This is Tour Guide Barbie from "Toy Story 2". Mattel was hesitant to use Barbie in the first film, unsure of how it would fare in theaters. When it became a huge success, they went in for the 2nd and 3rd.
I went with a six-cheese macaroni and cheese and hot dog casserole. I made a basic white-sauce then added one cup of cheddar, 1/2 cup of smoked cheddar, 1/2 of 4-cheese Italian blend (thanks Kraft!). The bottom of the casserole dish also had some of the Italian blend sprinkled. Mixed in with the cavatappi noodles were Nathan's all-beef hot dogs. Topped off with seasoned breadcrumbs, bacon bits, and parmesan cheese, I popped the dish into the oven until the crust was golden brown and all cheese bubbly.
It.was.so.good. We ate up every last bite.
We took a brief intermission during the movie to eat dessert. I made blonde-brownies following the recipe on the back of Nestle chocolate chips. Then cut them into bars and made ice-cream sandwiches! Delicious and rich and a little difficult to eat.
But it wouldn't feel like childhood if you didn't end up wearing most of your dessert, right?
#100 Ben-Hur - A Film of Epic Porportions
As the first post for the AFI Challenge, this is a bit of a rough draft for posts down the road. I'm trying to hammer out the formula for these still, but without further ado here is...
The Good - The Bad - The Reason - The Food
                                  The Good:
The genre classification of William Wyler's 1959 classic is "epic", and it lives up to its name. The film's running time is 3 hours and 42 minutes and spans the course of many years, just like its Greek namesakes. We follow our hero, jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) as he is betrayed, enslaved, rectified and vindicated. There is Roman indulgence and opulence, there is injustice, there is a slave ship, there is a sea battle, there are sheiks, there is leprosy, there is Jesus Christ, and there is, of course...
             Ben-Hur's horses are genuine Lipizzaners; Messala's have been dyed black.
A CHARIOT RACE! This race is one of the most famous scenes in movie history for good reason. It. Is. Awesome. Once you've reached the intermission and popped in disc two (you read that all correctly), you're a bit weary. You think this movie might never end. So much has happened, but all you can remember is Charlton Heston regularly looking like he's throwing up in his mouth then swallowing the bile back down again. Until! The chariot race.Â
It took the team three weeks to film with nine teams of live horses and drivers in the beating Italian sun. The scene lasts a total of 9 gripping minutes when our hero finally exacts his revenge on Messala (Stephen Boyd), once his closest friend, now his betrayer!
               Gore Vidal stated that in his (uncredited) over-haul of the screenplay that he wrote in homoerotic subtext to Judah and Messala's relationship. The actors later claimed ignorance, but come on.
Contrary to popular myth, and to the credit of the crew, no one actually died during the chariot race. The props department made individual jointed and weighted dummies that would perfectly mimic the human body's reaction to be run over by several teams of galloping horses and chariot wheels.
Finally, it's a good story. Like so many stories set in Roman times, we have a man unjustly set into servitude and we get his redemption. We're rooting for this very toothy, robust, blue-eyed Jew to get back to his mother and sister.
The Bad:
                                     This guy is definitely a Jew and definitely not a gun enthusiast.Â
It is long. It is so long. It is very, very, very long. And for a movie that is just shy of four hours, its pacing is surprisingly off. One minute we're on a slave ship, then a minute of horses parading later Judah is a Roman statesman, yet another five minutes later he is returning to Jerusalem after years of living it up and racing chariots in Rome. It's jarring. You really have to prepare yourself to take on this endeavor. There's also a love story that is lazily and unnecessarily tossed in. It neither pleases nor sates me.
The Reason:
Ben-Hur is one of two films ever to win 11 academy awards (the other is Titanic). However, it is the most winning film ever at the Academy Awards because back in 1959 there were only 12 categories. This means Ben-Hur won every, single award except one, best screenplay. And we thought this year's Grammys were predictable.
It's also a classic in so many ways. It's a tale as old as Rome, told in the Roman fashion. It is classic Hollywood to its core in the lavish set decoration and lengths to achieve authenticity, in its acting and its grandeur. The story's uniqueness comes in that it is at once nothing at all to do with the life of Jesus Christ and everything to do with the life, and death, of Jesus Christ.
                           You probably don't believe me that this is the coolest scene in the movie.
And in, what I'm sure is going to be a common theme during this process, what I might look at as old and hokey, was ground-breaking. It set the standard by which everything from that point on was measured, earning it the #100 spot.
The Food!
For this film, I wanted to make something that embodied the clash of cultures in the story. I finally came up with making a Roman slow-cooked brisket. Brisket is, to me, a strong representative of Jewish food, with any Jew I've ever met claiming his/her mom makes the best (to the mothers' delight, I'm sure).
To showcase the Roman culture crush, I first cooked bacon in my dutch oven, leaving the fat to sear the brisket with. I then made a pretty standard braising base with carrots, celery, onions, red wine, and tomatoes. I then covered the brisket in the partially cooked bacon and nestled it in for 2.5 hours.
Of course, no braise would be complete without bread to sop up all the juices and goodness. I made a simple garlic parmesan pretzel bread under the broiler.
We ate like the Roman senate, ad nauseum.
AFI Challenge: 1 Year, 100 Movies
In 1997, AFI came out with a list called "100 Years...100 Movies" celebrating and ranking the top 100 American films of all time, but more realistically since film was created. On the tenth anniversary they updated the list to include especially groundbreaking films, like Titanic and Lord of the Rings, that had since been released since.
                            It is considered the definitive and most comprehensive list on the great American films, so of course this means I've seen a paltry 22 out of 100. A whopping five of those that I have seen are in the Top 10, but at the end of the day, I'm derelict in how many of these important films I've seen.
Paired with my great cooking passion, I've taken on the challenge of watching all these 100 movies over the course of one year, and cooking a special dish to go along with each.
Now, it is important to note that I "started" in October with #100 Ben-hur which is 3 hours and 42 minutes, and thusly, took me 4 months to finish. A post detailing the meal and movie will follow shortly, but we're starting the task from when I finished the tale of old Judah Ben-hur on Saturday, February 25, 2012.
Hold me accountable, internet! And check in to see what I've been eating and watching and for regular Polar Bear posts!
