Pixar gets the crown

Okay, you-know-who returns soon, so I'm taking one more shot at this.

Today's installment of art museums for film fans is all about gigantic, blockbuster, crowd-pleasing slick corporate goodness. Starting next week MoMA, the mother of all modern art museums, bestows it's imprimatur on that scrappy, avant-garde, artsy animation studio, Pixar. Pixar: 20 Years of Animation will include paintings, sculptures, models, digital installations and, yes, a complete retrospective of all the films.

Now, I have to be honest, I'm really not so sure about this one. MoMA has always been devoted to film - they established a film archive early in their history, rightly recognizing that cinema was to be one of the 20th century's most dominant mediums. And Pixar certainly deserves props for consistently putting out quality product. But somehow this whole thing just strikes me as a bit of a corporate make-out session: MoMA packs in the family crowd (at $20 a ticket, don't forget), Pixar gets lots of respectful praise, fluffing up the box-office for their next release, and just for good measure everyone gets to move some merchandise. Or hey, maybe I'm just cynical. But do me a favor: after you're wowed by all the digital cuteness on the first floor, take the escalator upstairs and take a look at some art (like this, and if you are at MoMA I definitely recommend checking out this - one of the best contemporary installations MoMA's managed in recent memory).