bob the moo It is probably because Pixar have done little else but set a very high bar for themselves, but for this short film I was a little disappointed by how straightforward it was. The plot sees an old man called Geri set up a chess board in the park and proceed to play against himself by swapping chairs each move; as the game becomes more intense, Original Geri (OG) finds himself under threat of losing.The idea is a nice one here and the animation impresses as it always seems to do with Pixar, albeit that compared to later advances you can see the lack of texturing and detail back then, but this is a limit of the period not the film. The films builds nicely as we see the game unfold but to me the ending was not strong enough or funny enough to really make an impact. The closing joke is a simple one that doesn't really make sense in the context since he is only really cheating himself (although more is not made of this) and although I was amused by the short, I didn't find it gave me the sort of impact (comedy or emotion) that many of the Pixar shorts can do.For sure this is worth seeing because the films from Pixar mostly are worth seeing, but it is a solid short, not a great one and as such it is below the very high bar that they have established for themselves.

Stompgal_87 I first saw this short when it was shown after 'A Bug's Life' on the VHS I once had and it is one of the most memorable Pixar shorts to date although I found it confusing to begin with because I couldn't tell if Geri was playing against himself or another man and I initially found Geri a rather unusual name for a man because whenever I hear that name, the first thing that comes to my mind is Geri Halliwell who had left the Spice Girls about a year after I first saw this short and 'A Bug's Life.'Anyway I'd better stop waffling about Spice Girls and comment on 'Geri's Game.' Alongside 'The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B,' 'Luxo Jr' and 'Knick Knack,' it has no meaningful dialogue and a straightforward concept of an elderly man playing chess against himself and he wears glasses to make viewers think he is playing against someone else. The music is as memorable as the short itself while the park is beautifully rendered with true-to-life autumnal colours. Geri is accurately modelled with typical features and traits of an elderly man such as wearing false teeth and pretending to have a heart attack. I also liked the sound of Geri's laughter as well as his later appearance in 'Toy Story 2' in which he actually speaks and fixes Woody.While this is the only Pixar short to have been released in the 1990s, it was as graphically impressive as 'A Bug's Life' and the first two 'Toy Story' films and one of those Pixar shorts that stands out really well. 8/10.

sashank_kini-1 Note: This isn't my original review, as the review that I had typed first got lost because of my f***ed up Internet that craps s**t (sorry but I had to vent my anger somewhere!). However, this review is shorter but contains most of the elements of the original review) While watching Geri's game for the second time, I paid close attention to its music, which is a simple melody reminiscent of French music very similar to the music in Ratatouille. When I read about the director of Geri's Game, Jan Pinkava, on IMDb, it turned out he was the co-director and scriptwriter of the 2007 blockbuster and my personal favorite Pixar venture. And most of us remember Brad Bird only.Jan's first effort is this 1997 short titled Geri's game, and it won him an Oscar. 2 minutes into Geri's Game and I was reminded of Stefan Zweig's pulsating Chess, ( one of the IMDb viewers noticed it too) which took the game of Chess to a whole new level and was an unputdownable novella, especially during the last few pages dedicated to an intense chess play between a phlegmatic World Champion and a perspicacious rookie. Jan however cannot include such psychological complexities in this Pixar short, but what he can do is introduce a lovable elder named Geri and make him play against himself with undertones of loneliness highlighted by the dry leaves piling up around him. Geri does not lose hope and plays against his alter ego, the haughty and haughty and despotic Geri who wields his chess pieces dominantly and counters every move of Geri, destroying the lovable Geri's chess pieces one after the other. Can Geri beat his own alter ego, or will his other half defeat him?The movie to me, since I am very close to my grandparents, alludes to old age and the prevalence of time over the body. The nice Geri is the old man who fights against time, the bad Geri which tries its best to overpower him. Geri shows the spirit and resilience to turn the tables on time and become the master of himself.But on a simple note, its a very warm film, teeming with goodness and warmth, and does not have any condescending attitude towards Geri. The music therefore is genial and sprightly. In one crucial turning point of the film, the music stops for a moment, only to resume once more. This is very beautifully done.Pixar's animation, for a 1998 movie, is laudable. The beginning gives a pleasing and natural mood of autumn, with the green bench and the gentle rustle of the dry leaves. Then we are shown the rough wooden chess pieces.However, it is Geri who is more intricately animated. Take for example his prominent, bony fingers and knuckles, his tiny Adam's apple and the folds on his forehead. Also, as the tension sets in, the frantic movement of his fingers and the waggling of the tongue. It is this focus on details that gives Pixar an edge over other animated studios.For a 3 minute film with only an old man in it, Pixar gives all the goodies without turning too saccharine. Bravo!My rating: 8/10

Michael DeZubiria Pixar, especially now that Monsters, Inc. (preceded by the endlessly amusing For The Birds) has been released, is quickly becoming more and more famous for the tremendous quality of the short short animated films that precede their feature films. Geri's Game, which can be seen before A Bug's Life, is one of my favorite of all of Pizar's short animated films. It's a testament to the quality of the film that the punchline (that Geri is playing chess against himself) is not only revealed in the film's tagline, but is also clearly revealed right at the beginning of the film, and yet it still retains the surprising and amusing affect. The editing in this film is so well-done that, as the chess game switches back and forth between Geri and his alter ego, you almost forget that you already saw that he is alone in the park and is therefore playing against himself in this heated game. I just learned from one of the other IMDb reviewers that Pixar dedicated enormous resources just for such a minor detail as to get Geri's coat to crease just right, and that is exactly the kind of thing that makes a good film, especially a short one. That is a tiny detail, but Pixar is so determined for their films to look just right that it is no surprise that they are now winning Oscars left and right for those films. Pixar spends all of the money that they put into their films in just the right places, and this can clearly be seen in the final product. The purpose of these short film is clearly just to add to the huge amount of entertainment that is almost invariably involved in watching a Pixar film, because they can obviously not serve any other purpose, being so short. It's obvious that they are not put in to increase the viewing time of the sometimes rather short films that Pixar puts out, but rather just to increase the enjoyment derived from their films. When you go to see a Pixar film, you get more than your money's worth, and not because the films take up more of your time, but because the quality is so high. If anything, people should be grateful that the people at Pixar are able to create such huge amounts of entertainment in relatively short periods of time, unless you have nothing better to do than spend your days in a movie theater. While that is definitely how I would personally LIKE to spend my days, I just don't have the time, and I am grateful that Pixar is so good at what they do that they are able to provide entertainment of such high quality and not take up two and a half hours of my time. Bravo!