Spot the Pizza Planet truck, win the goofy booty

It’s summer, the kids are bored and the grown-ups are too warm for Twister – it’s time for family cinema gold. Why not bring out yet another movie in which animals can talk, couple it with a lack-lustre storyline, and a mish-mash of actors. Cook it for about a year, let it cool for a month and what are we left with? Zookeeper.

What’s your favourite Pixar film? Gotta be Toy Story hasn’t it, the first one you watched? Or wait, what about Up, or Wall-E, or maybe you’re partial to a bit of Mrs Incredible? Lord knows I am. Anyway, point is, nobody knows what they’re favourite Pixar film is, but everyone knows what their least favourite Pixar film is: Cars. Well ladies and gentlemen, trust me, Cars is practically The Godfather compared to its sequel. Prepare to be thoroughly disappointed.

Over the years we have sat back with our families, with various sugary goods, and have indulged ourselves in some quality CGI filled entertainment courtesy of Pixar. But who do we rave about when they’re over? Well it certainly isn’t the man who made it all possible. Let us appreciate this unsung hero by looking over his years of achievement in the world of family entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, this is John Lasseter’s Cheat Sheet.

Tired of going to a bland old West End cinema, paying £8 for a popcorn combo and crying salty tears all the way through the latest piece of superhero big budget low quality rubbish, lamenting the state of exhibition practices these days? Do you long for the days of all nighters, of midnight movies, of dirty dive bars that stick a blanket to the wall as a makeshift screen? Well, you’re not the only one, as we pay tribute to the groups that are bringing movies out of the cinema, and re-igniting our love for the big screen.

With Larry Crowne released last week, it got us thinking. Thinking about how despite his occasional flaws, we blummin’ love Tom Hanks. With over sixty acting roles under his belt, we pick our top ten Tom Hanks movies.

Could it be true??

Cars 2, arguably the undoing of decades of hard, sweat inducing work from the wonder that is Pixar. What were they thinking?

For the longest time animation was simply perceived as something for kids, and wasn’t taken seriously by adults. If an animated film did in anyway achieve the hallowed ground of ‘appealing to kids and grownups alike’ it was considered a pretty rare thing. Today, animated films about toys are getting Oscar nominations and reviewers like to deal out their opinions based on one neat bit of criteria: is it any good?

When Jaws exploded onto our screens in 1975, the world cowered before the most realistic special effects ever created. Cinema and CGI has certainly moved on since then, but we can’t help but notice that the life span of these new, snazzy effects is getting shorter and shorter. Did film-makers have it right to begin with?