Shelby Lynne won the Best New Artist Grammy in 2001, the year she released her best album, I Am Shelby Lynne.
Lynne had released five albums prior to this one, and had been recording for more than a decade. The criteria for the Best New Artist awards is this: “For a new artist who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording which establishes the public identity of that artist.”
Continuing my countdown of every Pixar movie…
#14. Onward (2020)
(up one spot from previous ranking)
Pixar’s most recent release was a pleasant surprise, given a marketing campaign that promised a lightweight kiddie flick (not that there’s anything wrong with a lightweight kiddie flick — and Onward is one, to an extent). In its final act, the movie finds surprising emotional depth in the story of two brothers on a quest to magically reunite with their dead father.
Continuing my countdown of every Pixar movie…
#16. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
(down four spots from previous ranking)
I don’t have anything bad to say about Monsters, Inc. yet it slipped to a rather low position relative to the rest of Pixar’s lineup.
I love the imagination that went into Monstropolis, and the whole idea of an economy that runs on the bureaucratic collection of children’s screams. And as I wrote in yesterday’s post, Billy Crystal and John Goodman turn in winning performances.
Continuing my countdown of every Pixar movie…
#18. A Bug’s Life (1998)
(up two spots from previous ranking)
When you talk about Pixar’s amazing early run, it’s easy to forget that their second film was actually pretty ordinary. A Bug’s Life certainly didn’t live up to Toy Story and was a let-down three years after that groundbreaking release.
It’s a sweet movie that feels like Pixar Lite. It’s not as laugh out loud funny or hold-your-breath exciting as its brethren, and it doesn’t have the thematic weight of the studio’s best films, but it does each of those things a little bit.
Continuing my countdown of every Pixar movie…
#20. Brave (2012)
(down one spot from previous ranking)
As a follow-up to the disappointing Cars 2, Brave wasn’t exactly a sign that Pixar had righted the ship.
It took 13 films for the studio to finally feature a female protagonist, but the result feels more in line with Disney’s traditional princess lineup than Pixar’s work.
A thin plot and an overreliance on slapstick humor take away from an otherwise touching story about a mother-daughter relationship.
Meet Me In Montauk 