"Finding Dory" Breaks Animated Box Office Records on Opening Weekend

Scene from Finding Dory

When it comes to Pixar, there are few films as beloved as Finding Nemo. It isn't just one person's opinion. The film holds a 99% on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes and the film grossed nearly $900 million in 2003, making it the highest grossing animated film at its time. By the looks of this past weekend, its sequel Finding Dory may prove to be a legitimate threat to any and all records that the original achieved 13 years ago. For starters, it broke the single best opening for an animated movie ever, as well as several others. Not too bad for a fish with short term memory loss. Read on to find out more.

Review: "Finding Dory" is a Good Film Until She Finds Everyone Else

Scene from Finding Dory

In 2003, Finding Nemo premiered to the world with a novel premise and one character who stole the show. Played by Ellen Degeneres, her name was Dory and she was a blue tang with short term memory loss. No matter what she lacked in intelligence, her childlike naivety made her to Pixar what Minions became to Illumination Entertainment: an insurmountable icon. Her motto of "Just keep swimming" has become one of the studio's most recognizable lines of dialogue. It's no wonder then that 13 years later that the studio who with the help of a blue tang momentarily had the highest grossing animated film of all time, would return to the sea with Finding Dory and yet another novel premise: who are Dory's parents, and where are they? It's a solid showcase for Pixar's most beloved fish, if only everyone else would just step aside.

The Top 10 Pixar Directors

This weekend marks the release of Pixar's 17th feature Finding Dory (review coming soon). Following the highly successful Finding Nemo after 13 years, it continues to see Pixar's influence on the zeitgeist being held strong and true. But what about the voices behind these now iconic films? With a strong and diverse roster of talents, it feels important to recognize the voices that brought the works to life. The following is a list of my Top 10 favorite Pixar directors based on how I ranked every entry. While the Top 5 features the familiar heavyweights, the bottom half manages to feature some lesser known talents that will hopefully continue to make quality work and find themselves further up on the list. For those missing, it was an often close competition and hopefully they will pose a threat as the studio enters its third decade of quality animated work.

Why There Needs to Be a Best Voice Actor Oscar Category

Whether or not you believe it, voice acting is a real art form. It's a concept that most people take for granted, especially as many of the most revered titles rely on familiar celebrity voices. However, the construct is very similar to radio in that we never see the speaker. While there's still images that convey a story, the speaking is important in order to convey a deeper soul. For instance, a voice needs to sound somber during a tearful scene or ecstatic during an action sequence. It's a small thing that we take for granted, and have largely ignored. With the release of Pixar's latest Finding Dory, I am going to make my case as to why voice acting should be recognized in its own category. 

The First "Finding Dory" Trailer Remembers Something Special

Scene from Finding Dory

It's hard to remember the impact that Pixar's fifth film Finding Nemo had upon release. Its aquatic journey brought to life one of the studio's most successful films to date with memorable performances by Ellen Degeneres And Albert Brooks. The film even became the first for the studio to win Best Animated Film at The Oscars. It will be 13 years later when they launch their latest sequel Finding Dory, which focuses on crowd favorite Dory as she goes about finding her mother. From the look of the first trailer, it's probably going to be more of the same madcap silliness that was present in the first film, just more Dory-centric somehow.