I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Mike's New Car (2002) *** (out of 4) Fun Pixar short has Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) from MONSTER, INC. doing more damage. Mike gets a new car and decides to take Sulley for a drive but he doesn't know how all the controls work yet, which leads to a lot of trouble for the duo. I actually haven't seen the full length film that the characters are from but after seeing this I'm certainly going to try and make a stronger effort in getting it on. I thought the film showed a lot of imagination considering how little time they had to tell the story. The idea of various instruments going wrong could have made for a simple film but the nice imagination takes the idea and really runs with it. I loved the sequence where Mike gets sucked up in the engine and his only way out is by making a phone call to Sulley who's still sitting in the car. I was a little surprised to see that this was nominated for an Oscar but either way it's an enjoyable little film.

This short animation is about the new car Mike bought. He is proud of it until things go awfully wrong."Mike's New Car" is aimed at very young children. To be honest, I do not quite see the attraction of this short. The plot is a simple one, featuring merry mishaps of Mike and Scully while working with the technologically advanced car. It is not particularly hilarious or warm. If this was nominated for an Oscar, then the other shorts must have been very bad, or there were no other shorts.I find "Mike's New Car" rather forgettable. I have never been a fan of "Monsters Inc", so it may have affected my judgment of this animation.

This little short movie followed MONSTERS, INC. and we had already seen the Academy Award winning short FOR THE BIRDS (which I'm sorry to say, I found terrible). This short is not much better.Still, I actually laughed once on this short movie, which was actually surprising, considering that the whole thing was just plain stupid. There wasn't much of a purpose to this short film other than that maybe Billy Crystal and John Goodman enjoyed making MONSTERS, INC. so much that they wanted to keep working. Kinda like the "extended ending" on the SHREK video which was basically just a bunch of people singing karoke. Anyway, the whole isn't all that great, but I do recommend seeing this before you watch FOR THE BIRDS.MIKE'S NEW CAR: 3/5.

This is a wonderful little bonus to Monsters, Inc. included by Pixar on VHS and DVD release. This is almost as funny as For The Birds and as rich in detail. While I like cel animation slightly more than CGI (odd, because I have zero artistic ability and can't draw a straight line even with a ruler), Pixar's work enthralls me. Pixar succeeds because they understand that a story is necessary, or even the greatest animation (or whatever) crashes in a heap at the foot of the stairs and can't get back up. This point appears to elude entirely too many people of late, including the folks at Disney (Pixar, it should be noted, is not part of Disney, but is a separate company that has a distribution deal with The Mouse.) and it's not that hard to make sure you have a story first, though all too often it must seem that way in the film industry. I hope Pixar continues to do shorts, whether for R & D purposes or just because they want to do them, as they do a great job. Well worth watching. Recommended.