Geri's Game

Dir: Jan Pinkava

1997

***

Geri's Game was the first short film to be made by Pixar in eight years, the last being Knick Knack in 1989. They had obviously come a long way since then. The animation was brilliant for the time, the background/foreground perspectives being one of the better developments, as well as the overall detail. However, the biggest change was that Pixar were now animating human beings. Geri was Pixar's first proper real person seen in great detail, humans appeared in Toy Story but only fleetingly. This was Pixar's second big showcase, to show were they were and what they could now do in areas they hadn't covered before. It was also the beginning of the Pixar short accompanying their big feature. These days, the anticipation for the introductory short film before the main film is just as high as for the film itself and sometimes, on a few occasions, the short has surpassed the main feature. Geri's Game is a simple and sweet little story of an old man (voiced and made to look like Bob Peterson) playing chess with himself. He changes his attitude and depending on which side of the board he is sitting and before long it seems as if we're watching two characters, when it is in fact only one. There is a bit of a mistake here as in one seen we see two sets of hands but you have to be concentrating to catch it. It's nice but I didn't find it quite as charming as their earlier or later offerings. It didn't stop it from winning the Oscar for best animated short in 1998 though.