Saturday, February 28, 2015

The Top 10 Animated Movies - #6 Toy Story

I have been going back through and re-watching the Top 10 Animated Movies (as according to AFI) and reviewing them for my list (http://dinojim.com/Cultural/Movies/10Top10.html).

The current film I am re-watching is Toy Story. You can also find this on the 10th Anniversary 100 Greatest Movies of all time list.


  Toy Story is the first of the Pixar movies, with the second (A Bug's Life) taking 3 more years to come out. Pixar has developed a reputation where you can only really judge each of their movies by comparing them to other Pixar movies because often times they far surpass any other animated features. At the time of its release, the animation for Toy Story was groundbreaking, however the animation alone isn't going to cement this in history as one of the best animated movies ever. The story is pure heart and perfect. Just watching this again recently I am amazed at how many times I laughed at the jokes and how many of them are still spot on, even after all these years. It's funny watching this though, knowing that Pixar had troubles creating human characters in the beginning. That is why many of the shots of the groups of children never show any of their faces. There are only a select few people (four I believe) who get their faces shown and they are all distorted to one degree or another. No one is normal looking. This clearly gets fixed in future Pixar movies but it's funny to watch it now, knowing the reason behind their choices. Overall this movie still holds up 20 years after it was first released and I'm sure it will hold up for another 20 years.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

2015 Personal Goals - Month 1 Update

1 month in. Slowly working on things.

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1. Finish 1st Draft of my Novel
Start - Again on the list.

2. Drop weight to 167
Start - This has also been on the list since the beginning. Starting at 183.3
Month 1 - 184.0

3. Read 1 of the Top Ten Books on Zane's List
Start - In the middle of The Stories of Anton Chekhov.

4. Read 5 books on the Sybervision Book List (including 1 in the Science or Philosophy sections)
Start - Current count is at 85.

5. Finish 1 more Geological Movie Review
Start - Earthquake still looks like the best bet.

6. Watch 10 of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
Start - Current count is at 75.

7. Finish 50 things on the Blog/Website, with 25 specifically on my To Do list.
Start - My To Do list currently has ~150 things on it.
Month 1 - 4 things done. 46 to go.

8. Finish 8 things on the House Things to do List
Start - The list currently has 29 things on it.

9. Finish skinning the top of the hovercraft
Start - Hopefully I can make some time to get to it this year.

10. Get my 5K time under 25 minutes
Start - My current best is 28:32

11. Collect and photograph all of the Star Wars Comics
Start - I changed strategies towards the end of the year on this. Currently I have 3 comic boxes complete and with pictures. Now I need to finish collecting the comics and photograph all of them resulting in 8 total boxes. Currently the remaining 5 all are partially done.
Month 1 - Slowly collecting more comics. Almost finished off box #4.

12. Submit my Masters Thesis for Publication 
Start - This was the last big thing I had left to get published which I wrote before.

13. Defeat 5 Star Wars Games
Start - With collecting so many games that I have not had time to play I want to set aside some game time.

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Not much else going on. I ran my first half marathon and took my first trip to Disneyland. So much of my time was spent preparing for the trip and the race. Other than that nothing really exciting. Catching up on the Star Wars books which have come out in the last year and a half, which I had no time to read until now.