What Sergei Eisenstein and other art-film pioneers said of the Walt Disney studio in the 1930s —that it was making the best movies on earth, by finding exciting new ways to perfect the art of visual story-telling —directors and reviewers say today of Pixar. John Lasseter and his team are bringing the same care and genius to computer-generated animation that Walt did with handmade drawings. Finding Nemo is, so far, the apotheosis of the Pixar style: the ultimate fish-out-of-water story, with a fretful dad (voiced by Albert Brooks) enlisting a forgetful friend (Ellen DeGeneres) to find his lost son. But all the Pixar features (Toy Story and its sequel, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles) have the means of enthrallment. Pixar doesn’t make cute movies for kids. It tells universal stories through a graphic language so persuasive that children and adults respond with the same pleasure and awe. It’s as if the Pixar people have the first clue to the next, higher form of popular movie art.
It’s despicable.” My distinguished colleague practically spat on learning that I had deemed Cronenberg’s remake of a mediocre s.f. movie as worthy of inclusion in a 100-best-of-anything list. Well, I love it. Yes, The Fly is about a scientist, Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who slowly and irrevocably morphs into a giant insect, much to his horror and that of his girlfriend (Geena Davis). But I see, and resee, the film as a profound parable on love and loss. Brundle might be the victim of any degenerative disease—cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s—who struggles to retain his humanity even as he decays into something … monstrous. The scientist in him wants to study, understand and extend his metamorphosis into Brundlefly; the lover wants to protect his beloved from the danger he represents. Mixing self-aware wit with gross-out special effects, Cronenberg elicits a creepy unease, at least for those of us who think of middle age as the dress rehearsal for senility, or worse.
The Foo Fighters captured five Grammys and Adele won four, including the song of the year trophy for “Rolling in the Deep,” at a Grammy ceremony that had the difficult task of celebrating music’s best while mourning the loss of one of their greatest, Whitney Houston.
From Nicki Minaj’s Red Riding Hood getup to Katy Perry’s head-to-toe blue ensemble, TIME rounds up some of the best (and worst!) sartorial choices at the annual music awards show.