PopSmart

On Tuesday, the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema will be screening the documentary The Pixar Story (through Nov. 8). The “authorized” but reasonably candid film recounts the rise of Pixar, the computer animation studio responsible for such hits as the Toy Story movies. It doesn’t break much stylistic ground, and Pixar’s behind-the-scenes processes have been thoroughly chronicled on its DVDs, but The Pixar Story provides an interesting portrait of the risks and pressures the studio endured in its early days.

I write about The Pixar Story in a little more detail in this week’s upcoming issue, which goes online Wednesday afternoon. Here I wanted to mention that director Leslie Iwerks is the granddaughter of Ub Iwerks (1901-1971). Who is Ub Iwerks, you may ask? Only a two-time Oscar-winner and one of the pioneers of the animation art form and a crucial early collaborator with Walt Disney – Iwerks is even credited with the design of Mickey Mouse. Iwerks was a major contributor to the visual style of animated cartoons in their formative years, as you can see in 1935’s short “Balloon Land,” which qualifies as one of the strangest animated shorts ever made, particularly in the disturbingly phallic nature of the villain of the piece, the Pin-Cushion Man (you’ll see what I mean). It’s work-safe, while being something of a Freudian nightmare.

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