My all con­sum­ing love for Pixar con­tin­ues unabated.

Not only does it look amaz­ing, the Aus­tralian release date is just one week after the US. Unprecedented!

Every­one knows those short films made by Pixar that screen as a run in to the main fea­ture. While only 5 min­utes long they are lot of fun to watch. Even the old ones like Knick Knack, Geri’s Game and For The Birds still get laughs a decade after they were first screened.

An inter­est­ing thing has been hap­pen­ing with the last few shorts though. While still remain­ing incred­i­bly enter­tain­ing in their own right, they also pro­vide a small tease about the next film to come out of the Pixar stable!

Take the last four for example:

Boundin’ — screened before The Incred­i­bles. Fea­tures a sheep and jack­a­lope singing and danc­ing in a desert setting.

Fol­lowed by Cars where a large part of the film is set in small town in a desert landscape.

One Man Band- screened before Cars. Fea­tures two musi­cians in what looks like a Parisian courtyard.

The next movie was Rata­touille, also set in France.

Lifted — screened before Rata­touille. Fea­tures an alien going for his abduc­tion license.

The space/scifi theme is a big part of Wall-E.

Presto — screened before Wall-E. Fea­tures a magi­cian and his rab­bit as they per­form on stage in a turn of the cen­tury the­atre. It really is the best Pixar short ever and if you haven’t seen it yet you should.)

I’m not sure how this ties into Pixar’s next movie, but I’m think­ing it would have to be the magic and vaude­ville themes that would link the two films.

I guess we’ll find out next year when Up is released.