Pixar Review 18: Inside Out

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Feeling a little emotional guys? I am because I’m so happy at the amazing movie I just saw! I LOVED Pixar’s latest movie- Inside Out. I know it sounds like hyperbole but it may be my favorite Pixar movie. Yes, it may even be better than my beloved Up. I really believe that is true.

Inside Out is great in every way. I loved the characters, world, humor, story, everything. There is nothing I would change. If you are expecting criticism in this review you will be sorely disappointed.

I am going to do my best to keep this review spoiler free. My thought is to then go back in a couple of weeks, once most you have seen it, and post a spoiler review about the small details and goings-on of the plot.

Basically the story of Inside Out is about a girl named Riley (love that Pixar picked a girl). She is a happy 11 year old who is still a little girl and hasn’t grown out of making monkey sounds with her Dad and being goofy.

Unfortunately Riley’s parents are moving her from her hometown of Minnesota to San Francisco, California. This naturally brings up a lot of emotions for a young girl and in this movie those emotions look like…

In the world of the story our minds (not brains) are made up of a mission control of sorts that are run by our 5 emotions:

Joy voiced by Amy Poehler

Sadness voiced by Phyllis Smith

Fear voiced by Bill Hader

Anger voiced by Lewis Black

Disgust voiced by Mindy Kaling

All the voicework in Inside Out is first rate. What I found so remarkable is these characters should be very one-note. They are after all emotions. This should make things very predictable, even grating, but they aren’t at all. Sadness is an especially dynamic character and you come to realize that great relationship between joy and sadness in our lives. It’s brilliant.

The world of the mind is not only staffed by emotions but also is the receptacle for all different kinds of memories. The memories are little glass balls that glow with whatever emotion the memory entails (a happy memory being yellow for joy, fearful memory purple for fear etc). There are also memories for data, long-term, short-term, even a hilarious joke of a song that you can’t get out of your head!

There are also core memories that are the most important for forming Riley. Those core memories are then the supports for the personality islands.

Riley’s personality islands are goofball, honesty, family, friendship and hockey. (I know this sounds complex but it really isn’t).

The 5 emotions are responsible for keeping all the memories in check, the islands floating, and making sure Riley is ok. Unfortunately things go awry when the core memories are lost along with Joy and Sadness. This creates a delightful parallel story between Riley who is all the sudden without the emotions to cope with this huge change and the journey of Joy and Sadness getting home and helping Riley. Plus, Disgust, Anger and Fear have to try and manage Riley as best they can without Joy.

inside out 15 — Riley speaking before her new class

inside out 10 — Joy and Sadness lost in the department of long-term memory

inside out16 — Anger, fear and disgust trying to keep things together.

Joy and Sadness end up going through imaginationland, as well as several other parts of Riley’s psyche and subconscious that I won’t spoil. But along the way they meet an old imaginary friend of Riley’s called Bing Bong voiced by Richard Kind. This was an unexpected, unpredictable and wonderfully dynamic character.

I’ll leave the rest of the plot for you to uncover on your own. Let’s just say all the plot strands end up in an ending that is as good as the beginning of Up. For real….

I cried, it made me think about my own emotions and feelings, and it made me laugh really hard. Everything has layers in Inside Out including the jokes. For example, there may be a joke about the subconscious that may go over a kids head but anger getting red, fiery and steamed up will make them laugh- so something for everyone in nearly every scene.

One thing that Pixar does so well (and old school Disney did also) is take kids seriously and this movie does not ‘cutify’ Riley at all. She is a real person with feelings and emotions that affect her family. Seeing into her mind is the equivalent of seeing into her heart and it is a lovely place. She is creative, different, normal and vulnerable. We also get little peeks into the command centers of other characters. They aren’t that different from Riley (again that respect for kids. I love that).

And like I said the ending is perfection.

From an animation standpoint it is stunning. I loved the way the emotions were drawn so that they looked a little fuzzy at the edges, a little ephemeral. I think Riley and her parents are some of the best humans Pixar has done and the world with the memory globes is gorgeous. There are scenes where we get into dimensions where the animation is astonishing and surprising and I loved the way they did the ‘memory dump’ and the almost charcoal like globes down there.

The music by Michael Giacchino does the job but isn’t quite as good as the score for Up which is one of my favorites of all time. It didn’t make me think of my Grandpa like Up did but I am thinking about what my core memories are. We all have them.

And like I said all the voice performances are perfect. The emotions should be one note and predictable but they aren’t. Just like most emotions they are layered and complicated.

But again also very funny. I laughed my head off. I loved a scene where they found tiles of opinions and facts. They get spilled and the conductor tells them ‘they often get mixed up”. That’s the kind of humor we get all over the place (or pizza being on broccoli!).

Very rarely do I see a movie more than once in a theater. The last time I did was Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is a top 10 movie for me (I saw it 3 times in a week…). I guarantee you I will see Inside Out at least 4 times in the theater and will pre-order it on blu-ray as soon as I can. I LOVED it. I couldn’t wait to see it and now I can’t wait to see it again.

Your kids will love it. You will love it. It’s one of the greats. This will definitely be my favorite movie of the year. I can promise you that.

Overall Grade- A+

Here is my youtube review

Pixar Review 17: Lava

June 17, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Today I got the chance to see the new Pixar movie Inside Out and I was not in the least disappointed. You’ll hear more about that in the next post. But let’s not let my enthusiasm for Inside Out allow me to forget the delightful little short they had before the feature film called Lava.

Directed by James Ford Murphy Lava is a simple short that is a love letter to Hawaii and Hawaiian music (you know I will love that!). The artwork in Lava is gorgeous. We get wide swooping shots of both the Hawaiian mountains and the beautiful ocean. We see whales jumping up out of the water and everything sounds so peaceful and serene.

As we dive in closer we see that the volcano has a face and we learn he is singing a Hawaiian song. The volcano named Uku is voiced by Kuana Torres Kahele and the song he sings is a sweet plea to the Island Gods to allow him to find the love he see’s all around him. I love Hawaiian music so that was great!

I like that the volcano looks like a jolly old soul but he kind of reminds me of Jabba from Return of the Jedi!

Luckily his song is heard by another volcano but it is buried deep in the ocean. The female volcano is named Lele and she begins singing her own song to Uku. It’s a peaceful lovely duet.

Like I said this isn’t one of their more groundbreaking shorts but I did enjoy it. Anytime I can look at Hawaii, hear Hawaii, think about Hawaii I’m a fan. It’s a sweet little love story. Can’t go wrong with that.

Overall Grade- B

Pixar Review 16: One Man Band

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

This week is going to be a little strange as far as my Pixar reviews. I am going to be seeing Inside Out tomorrow along with the animated short Lava. This means I will have both of those reviews out of order (I’m not waiting to post about it! There’s no way!). So I will post about One Man Band today and then Inside Out tomorrow and maybe Lava depending on how long it takes me. Definitely by the end of Wednesday (I also have to make videos at the same time. Phew!).

I have watched Cars but am not sure when I will post about it. So just bear with me friends as we are a bit out of order this week!

One Man Band is a Pixar short with a ton of charm and some similarities and differences to the previous shorts. I must admit to be a little let down after Boundin’ had narration to get another short that feels like a silent film. It’s very similar to the rest of the Pixar shorts in that regard. It also has a similar plotline to For the Birds and Knick Knack where the cocky guy (or guys in this case) gets their just rewards in the end. So in that sense it isn’t very creative.

But in another sense it is creative. It is the only second short using human characters and the first to be set in the past (Medieval times). It also uses music the most effectively (as an actual character in the story) of any of the shorts. The music is written by Michael Giacchino who would go on to do the music for Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Cars 2 (and the recent Jurassic World). I think it is one of his best arrangements.

In the sound design it reminded me of Tin Toy which also features a one man band but in the form of a toy. One Man Band is about a little girl who is going to put a coin in a fountain and make a wish. She then see’s a man who has a one man band he is carrying around. This includes a tuba, piano, drum, clarinet, and more. He of course wants desperately for the girl to give him the money instead of throwing it down the fountain.

But just as he is about to get the coin we hear the sound of a violin. The little girl looks around and see’s another One Man Band guy who’s get up is more strings oriented with violins and other instruments. I’ve never seen a one man band like this before and it is very fun especially when all the violins expand and play.

This guy seems a little more cut-throat than the other one who is more good natured. I like how the guy is literally inside the mandolin (or whatever that instrument is).

The two start battling each other with music to try and win the little girl over and get her coin. This is just amazing sound work and music as it isn’t just a jumble of sounds but 2 distinct ‘bands’ battling it out. It is never in doubt what sound is coming from which man.

Naturally as is the case with most competition things get a little out of control and they end up making the little girl drop her coin and she becomes angry. It’s really cute.

Well, it turns out our little girl might not be as hard up as we thought and she has a whole bag of coins and she makes her will known throwing coins in the fountain and making the men chase the coins. It turns out she can even play the violin pretty well too.

So like I said there are some things about this short that make it very excellent- mainly the sound mixing and music. They are first rate. It also looks fine and has some of the clearest humans Pixar had done (look at the knuckles and wrinkles on the finger of the girl. She is much less pasty than other human characters Pixar had done). As most of the short is about music, it being the strength means the short is pretty good. And it is a very funny cute little story.

I guess I just wish there was dialogue or a narrator more of a story like we saw in Boundin’, but it is still an entertaining short, which will make you smile.

Overall Grade- B+

So ready to go to Inside Out! I can hardly contain my excitement!

Disney Girls Facts

June 15, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I love it! Go Disney women

Why Fs are Important

June 15, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Why a C isn’t a failure and why an F grade is actually important, even for movie reviews. I wrote this on my regular blog but talk a lot about my movie reviews here on the Disney blog. A C my friends is not an F! A C is an average movie that had a lot I enjoyed or it would have been a D or F. And please read the reviews don’t just look at the grades. There are very few movies I don’t have something nice to say. It’s part of being a fan of something to allow for occasional failures, some average, some good and some masterpieces. I need all of the grades 🙂

Turn Your Brain Off?

June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Today I found myself thinking about big budget studio movies (intended blockbusters). Typically if I am anywhere on the ‘it’s ok’ to ‘I hated it’ track I will hear “why can’t you just turn your brain off and like the movie?”. The answer is that I can turn my brain off- kind of.

I can be entertained by a stupid movie. For example, Furious 7 I gave a B and that is a definite turn your brain off movie. Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift on the other hand would get a D and I was not able to turn my brain off for that one. What’s the difference?

I don’t know…

Why did Amazing Spiderman 2 drive me nuts but Guardians of the Galaxy dazzled me? On an individual level I can explain it. AS2 was cluttered, poorly written and felt like it wasn’t trying to make a good movie just preparing for the sequel. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were pretty good but I found Jaimie Fox to be unconvincing as a villain and nothing else engaged me in the story.

Guardians in contrast is about a group of vigilantes who each have a backstory that is interesting, with good writing, small nods and puzzle pieces to the MCU, great music, and likable characters. It has a lot of smaller roles that are done very well with great actors like John C. Reilly, Glen Close and Benicio Del Torro. I also loved Gamora and Nebulla and felt their stories had real heart (as well as Starlord and his mother). It was something new and different and very funny too. For me it had enough layers to not be a ‘turn off your brain’ movie but again a space opera adventure mystery.

I don’t want to get too bogged down on individual movies but that’s just an example of why one version I could enjoy and another didn’t work.

I know a lot of the turn off your brain movies I don’t like don’t deliver what they are promising. Lone Ranger for instance was sold as a fun Western movie . We knew the show and wanted something like Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas. Instead we got a tedious story of unlikable characters arguing. It’s also insanely long and the attempts at humor fall flat. It was a brutal time at the movies.

Furious 7 on the other hand worked because it has likable characters, it never stops with the silly action and the humor works. It never takes itself too seriously. In contrast, the Transformers movies have action that is supposed to be epic but feels plodding, terrible dialogue, unlikable characters, pointless explosions and it feels so long. It wears out my patience.

I think the key is the pacing, likable actors, new special effects, and not too much that is cringe-worthy. I can ignore some bad dialogue or plot holes but give me bad dialogue, plot holes and be 3 hours long you are pushing it. I could ignore a lame romance or cliched character but give me lame romance, cliched characters and boring special effects or bad dialogue forget it.

A movie like Jurassic World has just enough of the likable aspects for me to give it a pass but not enough for me to LOVE it like some people.

It’s like I have some kind of scale in my brain where I tick off good things and bad things and overall I walk away either liking it, thinking its ok, or loving it. Here’s what I came up with:

That’s the best I can think of to explain why some movies work for me and others don’t. It can have the silliness. It can have items on both sides of this chart but when it tips the balance on the left side and not enough of the right it’s a problem.

So I’m not really turning off my brain but ignoring my brain. I’m certainly aware of all the bad things in a movie. My brain knows the flaws of a film (no perfect movie) but there’s enough good things to still be entertained, even enamored with a movie.

What do you guys think? Can you turn off your brain for a movie? What’s the factor in allowing that to happen and not? What would you have on your chart? What’s a turn off your brain movie you like and one you hated?

When Marnie was There Review

June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Get out the tissues for more than just a heart-wrenching movie. I have now seen what is evidently the last Studio Ghibli film. This is my response to that reality:

The last film is called When Marnie was There and I’m happy to say if they are going to go out this is a great one. I LOVED it!

Here’s my youtube review. I’d love if you guys give it a watch and a thumbs up. (I said wrong name on my youtube review. Sorry)

It’s about a girl named Anna who is clinically depressed. So much so she wishes she was dead. As a foster daughter she is deeply loved but still struggles with feeling unwanted and unloved. She says at the beginning ‘there are some people who fit in the circle and there are some that are outside”. She has resigned herself to being an outsider and thinks she is incapable of both giving and receiving love from anyone. I was really impressed with how deep they were willing to go. This is no cliched ‘down in the dumps’ kind of depression. This is real despair.

Worried about her, Anna’s mother sends her to a relative in the country to try and help her with her asthma and get her emotions back from this dark place. The animation is gorgeous in the countryside, some of Studio Ghibli’s best.

The sound mixing is also excellent. When she walks through grass it sounds like someone walking through grass. The rain and water sounds are so authentic. I don’t normally notice things like that but in this case it was wonderful and really gave a lush rich and textured feel to the movie.

Anna likes to sketch and one day she stumbles upon a marshland with a big mansion at one end.

Eventually she notices a teen like herself at the house. She has long blonde hair, blue eyes and seems like almost a ghost on the lake. She comes and goes at odd times and there is something other-worldly about her.
Anna dives further into the mystery of the marsh and the mansion and as she does a relationship between her and the girl named Marnie develops.

Some might see it as a lesbian romance but because of things we learn I think it is a deep and abiding friendship. Regardless they love each other and through the experience Anna begins to realize she is worthy of love and that she has great love in her life. She learns her value to the world and that’s a story arc that almost always works for me.

I was bawling my eyes out! I would say more but I really don’t want to spoil it for all of you. It is very clever and does not wash away her mental illness too easily. She grows little bit by little bit over a summer and really comes to know who she is. She even can be a jerk at times because she is so nervous about being rejected. That all felt totally authentic to me of someone dealing with a mental illness.

I felt like Anna was very close to hurting herself (like I said very dark) and Marnie is the equivalent of an angel sent to rescue a lost soul. I also loved the mystery element and like all good Studio Ghibli films I wasnt quite sure where it was all going. The climax in a silo was exciting and heart wrenching.

If I was going to nitpick I wasn’t that crazy with the US dubbing they did. It just didn’t seem to fit and normally Ghibli does a great job. I also thought the music was just ok (Kaguya had one of the best scores I’ve ever heard). The Priscilla Ahn song is nice during the credits. I love her but the score was average by Ghibli standards

But other than that I loved it. I thought it was bold and took a girl from a dark place to one of joy and happiness in a believable way. It’s a movie about hope and how we all have people rooting for us. Friendship and a knowledge of our eternal worth is what gives us hope and makes life worth living and Anna realizes that and is a new vibrant woman as a result. (In a way it is kind of like Field of Dreams. Other worldly message from the past to heal wounds and move forward).

The mystery surprised me at times and kept a brisk pace. The love overwhelmed me and the animation is stunning. It is definitely one I will want to get on blu-ray and it holds its own with the Studio Ghibli greats. If you can find it near you please go and see it. These studios need to know we love their work. Maybe someone else will pick up the banner with Studio Ghibli leaving us?

Here’s the trailer

Overall Grade A

Until then bye, bye Studio Ghibli. I love you!

Jurassic World Review

June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So I just got the chance to see one of the big movies from the summer, Jurassic World. It is the 3rd sequel to the 1993 classic- a movie I saw in the theater 6 times because it hung around my town theaters forever. It’s interesting because I don’t normally like scary movies but I’ve always had a nostalgia for the original.

Jurassic Park 2 was a disappointment with the scenes in San Diego feeling more like a Godzilla movie than Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum as the skeptic makes 2 watchable along with Steven Spielberg’s direction. 3 is just plain silly with Tea Leoni shrieking her way through every scene.

After all that we get Jurassic World and they acknowledge all of the previous films. There are little hints, easter eggs for all 3 throughout the movie (something I did enjoy).

That said it makes for a premise that to me was hard to get on board. It’s supposed to be 20 years after the original movie. That means how many years since San Diego and the island in the 3rd? It takes a long time to build a park like they show in Jurassic World and yet they not only built it, contained the dinosaurs, and convinced 20k people to come all the way to Coasta Rica on a regular basis after what happened in San Diego? No way. (And like I said the previous movies actually come into play so it is not a moot point).

I went into the movie hoping they would convince me that such a park could really exist and I was not convinced.

But let’s accept that it does and move on. Surprisingly I didn’t hate this movie. In fact, if you want a popcorn movie it is entertaining on that level.

Basically they have the park up and running and Bryce Dallas Howard is the corporate non-kid friendly woman in heels we’ve seen in a million other movies. She was such a weak uninteresting character. And there is a scene where she literally outruns a t-rex in heels!

She makes such idiotic choices again and again. It’s the equivalent of a person in a horror movie who decides to keep going back into the house of the crazy person. Evacuate the island! (Laura Dern is sorely missing in this one, or even Julianne Moore).

Chris Pratt plays an animal trainer who has managed to train 4 raptors who he has given names. I really liked his character and just as in Guardians of the Galaxy, he is funny and sarcastic and very confident.

There are also other solid side characters like Irrfan Khan as the CEO of Jurassic World who is a little more sensible than Howard’s Claire. BD Wong also makes an appearance (another wink to original movie).

(How does he look exactly the same from 1993?)

We also get Claire’s nephews played kind of blandly by Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins. I heard an interview with them and they asked what they would do differently than their characters in the movie? The little boy said “I would be smarter than they were” Yep, they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

The key that makes this movie watchable and entertaining is the cat and mouse chase between the dinosaurs and the people. Claire and the park has created a new creation called Indominous Rex. Evidently people have gotten bored with a regular T-rex.
Funny because nobody has gotten tired of Shamu? Circus’ still draw crowds with their elephants. I think people would be plenty excited for a t-rex!
The new Rex is unpredictable and breaks out killing dinosaurs and causing mass panic. It was pretty scary but not too scary.

This part of the movie worked as spectacle and I was entertained by it (and it is a lot of the movie so that is saying something). Because it is a new dinosaur we haven’t seen in 1-3 it was a little unpredictable but my friend and I kept whispering to each other ‘ah she’s a goner’. It was so easy to predict who was dinosaur fare and who wasn’t.

Vincent D’Onofrio plays a black hawk type security guy who wants to take the dinosaurs and use them for warfare. This whole plotline even for a stupid popcorn movie was so ridiculous. I couldn’t wait for him to get off screen and get back to the dinosaurs. The idea after San Diego of controlling the indominus rex or even the raptors is so absurd.

I’m making it sound like I didn’t like it very much but that isn’t the case. It is stupid and dopey but some good scares and Pratt is charismatic so I was entertained. I think the average moviegoer will go and enjoy themselves.

It could have been much better and the ending is too dark. I couldn’t tell what was doing what. And I though the iconic music was way underused. I guess they didn’t get John Williams to do any new variations on his themes? It wasn’t grand enough for this kind of popcorn movie.

Like I said if you want to go to the movies and see kid-friendly scares and laugh at the dopey characters and story than you’ll enjoy it. If you can’t dive into an imperfect movie than give it a pass.

Any of you seen it? What did you think? What do you think of all the winks to the other movies?

As far as content there are lots of kills but minimal blood and some scares but nothing a kid old enough to see the Harry Potter movies can’t handle. There’s a very silly scene where a woman rolls up her sleeves and unbuttons her shirt to show she’s tough…groan but that’s about all the skin you get. Minimal language.

Overall Grade- C Content Grade- B+

Also even with inflation how did this cost 50 million more than the original. A few of the special effects looked really green screened and cheesy? Hollywood needs to get the budgets under control.

Disneynature 6: African Cats

June 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Next up in my review of the Disneynature films is African Cats. It marks a change in the canon on how the films are told. The previous films have been more standard documentaries. In African Cats we get an attempt at a narrative with character names ascribed to the animals and a supposed story they are telling. If you read my review of Monkey Kingdom which I did out of order they totally describe a social structure, conflict and personality to the monkeys. I don’t know how much of that is hogwash but it does make the films more accessible for the average moviegoer that does not like documentaries.

African Cats tells the story of 2 families of ‘cats’ a single mom Cheetah named Sita with 5 cubs, and Mara and her mother Layla who are lionesses part of a pride. Like with the monkeys they attempt to show a contrast between the lonely isolated cheetahs and the pack of lions that do everything together.

Most of the movie is both cheetahs and lions trying to get food. As both species are carnivores this means it is the most bloody of any of the Disneynature films I’ve seen to date. Many animals are hunted and eaten with blood on the faces of the lions and cheetahs. This might be upsetting to very small children but I asked my friends and they all agreed their kids can handle it.

The little cubs are so cute that it helps with those scenes. Plus, the lions face their own foe that wants to eat them when they have to cross a river filled with crocodiles. As my friend said “they get the whole “circle of life” thing”…

Speaking of circle of life I am a little surprised there wasn’t more analogies made to the Lion King. I think James Earl Jones might have been a cool narrator instead of Samuel L Jackson. Since they are doing a narrative it might have been fun to have a few winks at Lion King or maybe some of the music thrown in?

Let’s start with the many positives of African Cats. It looks amazing. How they were able to get some of these shots I will never know. You are watching these lions tear apart a zebra from limb to limb or a cheetah chase down an antelope or jackle and wondering how the filmmakers aren’t completely terrified?

The vistas of the African safari are stunning. You get these amazing panning shots of herds of wildebeests and the cheetah sprinting at an insane pace. Practically every shot I was left wondering ‘how the heck did they do that?’ and it almost looks fake it is so good.

Also the question of the pride over the cheetah being solo has an interesting dimension for talking with kids about being self-reliant vs relying on others. Working together vs being strong on your own. Both have value and can be a functional part of nature as we see with the cheetahs and the lions.

If the scenes of carnage are a little much it could also be a chance to discuss nature with your children which is a good learning opportunity.

The downsides to African Cats is at 89 minutes it is definitely too long. It could have had a good 15 minutes cut and not missed a beat. There were sections where I started to lose interest- maybe we have one hunting sequence too many?

My other flaw is the narration can feel a little forced and heavy handed. You can tell they were just testing out the adding a story to nature thing and there were segments I wished I could turn the narration off and just watch the animals. I was not emotionally invested in the story like I was with the flamingo movie (still the best of Disneynature by a considerable margin) Crimson Wing. Samuel L Jackson is fine as the narrator but I don’t know if he has the gravitas needed for a project like this. He sometimes seemed a little bored.

But flaws aside it is a beautiful film about some of God’s most amazing creatures. The power of the lion and the speed of cheetah are awe inspiring.

Overall Grade- B

What about you guys? Do you get upset seeing animal-on-animal hunting and killing? Do your kids get upset by that kind of scene? Any of you seen African Cats? It’s a pretty good movie.