In a positively ludicrous week for film releases -- with a whopping SEVEN new titles hitting screens in Canada -- what is the one thing that makes me happiest? It's not Jewish drug runners in Holy Rollers. It's not Year of the Carnivore, the feature debut from Canadian indie-darling Sook-Yin Lee. And it's not the twisted family drama of Winter's Bone despite that film being one a whole lot of people are calling the best of the year. Nope. Look at the picture up above. See the fuzzy guy on the left. That's what's got a smile on my face today. But more on that later -- first, we recap the other stuff.

Remember those weeks in late winter when there was only one new feature hitting screens? Or the weeks when there were none at all? Well, this ain't one of those weeks. No, this week the release slate is packed so tight that at least a couple of titles are doomed to fail no matter how good they are because there's simply too much choice out there. Sorry, Rapt. Sorry, Sweetgrass. You're screwed. Whether or not you're any good, nobody's going to see you because the indie/arthouse audience are all going to be at Year of the Carnivore or Winter's Bone. Holy Rollers, you're probably done for, too. Memo to the little indie distributors: there's a reason the big guys avoid releasing more than one film targeting a particular audience for the same day. You might want to talk to each other a bit more to find out who's doing what when to prevent this from happening. Those empty weeks in January and February would've been a lot better for all of you than coming out now when you're all going to cannibalize each others' audience. But I digress. Of all of these, Year of the Carnivore has the biggest built-in audience because of director Lee - and it is certainly not without its charms - but Winter's Bone is the best of the lot. If you're only seeing one, that should be it. Not to say the others aren't good, too, but sometimes you just have to prioritize. Over on the big budget end of the spectrum they've got things sorted a little better with Jonah Hex playing to the teen crowd while also glamorizing anorexia, apparently. If I hear one more person refer to those pictures of Megan Fox in her corset as 'sexy' I'm going to be violently ill. Someone feed that girl. Toy Story 3 gets the kids and the parents lucky enough to tag along.

Now back to my original point.

What is it that makes Pixar... well... Pixar? It's not the technological ability, though they have that in spades. It's not the marketing, but ditto there, too. Most would point to the storytelling and while I generally agree I think the key is something a little more specific. Pixar succeeds - turning out hit after hit after hit - because their storytelling has heart. Real heart, not Hallmark heart. And it's got that because they pay attention to the details of life, they know where they come from and where they hope to go and they try to be honest about the journey. Sometimes that means making movies about grief, such as Up. And this time? Well, the obvious theme is aging, obviously, and becoming redundant and unnecessary but continuing anyway, but the real charmer for fans is that guy on the left. Fans of Japanese animation already know who he is and why he matters but for those who don't, that's Totoro.

Totoro is a magical forest creature at the heart of Oscar winning director Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, arguably the greatest film produced by the greatest living animator on the planet today and one of the greatest of all time. Since its release, My Neighbor Totoro has gone on to become one of the best selling Japanese films of all time - the best selling in the Studio Ghibli library, handily besting higher profile films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away - with Totoro himself adopted as the company logo. In a lot of ways Pixar have modelled themselves after Studio Ghibli in the way they tell their stories. After all, just as Up is about grieving, if you strip away the magical elements of Totoro it is, at its core, about two little girls coping with the fear that their mother might never return from hospital. Totoro is the friend that helps them through it. It's a magical film in the very best sense, a film that I can - and have - watched over and over again and whose appeal seems completely universal, paying no regard at all to gender or age. And while other companies stash product placement and such into the corners of their films, Pixar is going out and finding ways to put Totoro into theirs because A) they know and value the history of animation and B) because he represents what they want to be. And good on them for it.

My Neighbor Totoro is widely available on DVD now, having been released by Disney a little while back on these shores. Do not let the presence of two Fannings on the English dub track dissuade you. If you have never seen it, it is an absolute must. And if you already have, then buy it and watch it again. And again. And again.