Next batch of Pixar films after the Monsters Inc. prequel

The short film before the main feature was treacle worthy of enhanced interrogation technique; it looked great though. As for IO, it was rare for a movie -- any movie -- to suggest that happiness and sadness are essential components for a full life.

Man, some friends on Facebook yesterday were saying Lava was alright, but then others shared opinions more in line with this thread. It was then that I realized the people who liked it were those with kids who have to watch Dora the Explorer every day.

It's the sub-Stephen Merritt ukelele strummer that wrecks the thing. Like I said, conceptually and visually it's a coup.

NYTimes stinger: _“Inside Out” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Young children may be mildly alarmed in places, especially at the sight of their parents weeping through the last 20 minutes._

--Josh in Chicago

Completely accurate.

Only redeeming quality for me was that the islands were ostensibly Hawaiians and were portrayed by Hawaiian voice actors. I'd bet that Kuana Torres Kahele did his own strumming, sub-Stephen Merritt or no.

Interesting that Disney's used Hawaii as a setting before and is apparently doing Hawaii again in the very near future.

LOVED this

Movie was great (my son I think liked it a touch less than his parent's did).

LAVA song totally infectious schmaltz.

So excited to see this with my girls when the older one comes back from camp.

Get ready for the tears

there's no ilx presence at all for big hero 6, how odd

big hero 6 was okay, just a bit over calculated

AiSF otm about the lava song

BIG HERO 6 was a big hit with my kid and while it's imminently watchable for adults, I do agree that it's extremely lightweight. Pixar is so far ahead of what anyone else is doing (while okay except for the Fantastic Mr Fox) it's almost unfair to compare.

i will likely now see this movie due solely to this thread so score one for you
preview is just so so bad

there's no ilx presence at all for big hero 6, how odd

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 21 June 2015 13:50 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought it was pretty underwhelming, though it looked great.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 21 June 2015 14:10 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah. also didn't follow through on any of the flagged endings afaicr

Lava short reminded me of a Pixar parody concept a friend had -- its exact inverse -- about a lonely man living in his Igloo, until one day he chips enough ice away to see that there's a more competent girl in an Igloo next door. And he wants to join their Igloos.

this was so good

Amazing movie. Pop Culture Happy Hour folks pointed out that it's a movie with no villain, which is unique, especially for a movie for kids. I cried through much of it - probably the most draining movie I've ever seen (but i only recently became a total softie).

OTOH, Lava was lame. Usually they showcase some new animation trick with their shorts, but I didn't see anything like that. And the song and "story" were completely flimsy.

And the kids loved it too! I think the name/marketing campaign really blew it for this movie.

yeah the marketing on this has been terrible but imo it's the strongest complete Pixar offering since ratatouille. The gender stereotype stuff falls with a wet splat and there's some meandering in the second act but tremendous performances and the emotional beats are all direct hits. Not a dry eye in the house by the end and it's well earned.

Pop Culture Happy Hour folks pointed out that it's a movie with no villain, which is unique, especially for a movie for kids.

Totoro

Kiki's Delivery Service too - even Ghibli films with an antagonist don't tend to have a villain.

Yeah, I'm really glad that Inside Out had no villain, since it's something you don't usually see in a lot of childrens films. Alot of Pixar movies tend to do the thing where a character befriends the leads, and then turns out to have sinister motives and betray them, and I respect Pixar for not returning to that well.

i saw lava last year and yeah, way insipid. nothing wrong with kt kahele (tho "ukulele sucks because indie rock" is one of my favorite ilm looks) but i never wanna see another love-powered resurrection. it's like being dramatically punkd.

maria and cyrus went to inside out the other night and i totally didn't go because of the trailer! bad trailer! oh well. i could still go i guess. rufus hasn't seen it...

you would get a kick out of it i think, scott, it's super satisfying as just a really long, funny index of thought patterns

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-curse-of-the-pixar-universe

god, brody is insufferable

old school trolling

In lieu of the mysteries and wonders of life, instead of big dreams and big fears, in place of the cosmic sense of childhood infinity that Terrence Malick thrillingly got at in “The Tree of Life” (the best movie about a child’s inner life that I’ve ever seen),

I had no idea TTOL was a Pixar cartoon!

Brody is good sometimes, but this is definitely example of one of his worst tendencies: walking in with rigid, somewhat bizarre pre-conceived notions (in this case about the emotional lives of children) and then tearing a movie to pieces because it offers a different perspective.

I kind of would love to see him direct a response film based on the ideas in his column

seeing this tomorrow. one person I know said it was the only pixar movie in years he didn't cry at; seems completely at odds with what everyone else's experience has been. but he is kind of a drunk and young.

I don't cry at movies, still liked it.

I liked it ok, "didja have to tell kids their imaginary friends will die someday?" is pretty mild as far as my kid movie grumbles go. I'm not sure kids enjoy whimsical self-analysis and metaphors about the need to accept pain as much adults do - already heard about a three year old who thinks the movie is about a robot "because she had people in her brain!" But I was entertained.

Hated lava, though - what an expensive video for such a shitty song

I didn't really cry at this one, but it's probably because all of my islands of personality have crumbled into the canyon.

Uh, I guess a three-year-old may not grasp it, but it's not hard to imagine the premise and execution being compelling for, say, a 9-year-old.

I didn't really cry at this one, but it's probably because all of my islands of personality have crumbled into the canyon.

Same, kind of underwhelmed.

Joy was such a condescending jerk (in the beginning, but that was sort of the point).

Also: San Fran-stinktown.

Disgust's animation and faces are great though.

i didnt like this bcuz they kept putting the protagonists in one desperate situation after another and they got stupider and more desperate and then the way they finally got out of the final one was such a dumb deus ex machina and it was really frustrating and stupid like the toy story 3 furnace scene 10x in a fucking row and lava was fucking stupid too.

yeah but the abstraction chambere

disgust is so stupid why does that get to be an emotion and not like... ANY OTHER EMOTION PEOPLE FEEL. it was just a way to shoehorn in mindy k so dumb.

Pixar could've added Gay and cast Adam Lambert.

well it is interesting to note that when they went into the parents heads the emotions were all the same gender as the mom and dad but riley's were BOTH GENDERS omg pixar blowin my mind rn

I like the part where Bing Bong killed himself.

fuck richard kind

have to admit I wept like a baby at the end of this, my wife is still teasing me about it, but the wish to leave my son with more happy than sad memories is a very strong and fraught feeling for me.

i also realize this movie is for babies so its ok that i didnt like it but im so sick of this ITS FOR ADULTS TOO hype bullshit when it is clearly NOT

Turning Red was good, best pixar in a while I thought (I didn't like Soul as much as most people I think). Kind of weird to see a "period piece" (no pun intended) set in 2002, I guess this is just one of those movies where cell phones would have ruined the whole plot.

Toronto setting was a novelty but 2002 setting was a bit strange, particularly as the 'markers' of it being set in a different time didn't really work...? Like, tamagochis weren't a thing beyond what, 1998? Hadn't boy bands pretty much died out by then? Would a bunch of junior high kids really all have flip phones in 2002? (I was in high school then and most kids didn't have phones, but maybe Toronto was more ahead of the curve than Alberta)

Anyway thought Turning Red was.. fine, I guess? It's no Coco.

I have yet to see Turning Red, but I have had a lot of the same similar thoughts about the various anachronisms that I am aware of, especially the whole boy band thing. Like boy bands were still kind of a thing in 2002, but a lot of the major ones went on hiatus that year, with various members pursuing solo projects and those that did exist did not really sound like the ones from a few years before. Max Martin wasn't really dominating the charts, and wouldn't really come back till 2004 with Since U Been Gone. Most pop was either going in full on R&B direction, what with the Neptunes working with everyone, or in a more rock/pop-punk direction. The main boy bands I remember at the time was stuff like B2K or Diddy's takeover of Making the Band, which were firmly in the R&B territory. You had groups like Busted, but they were in that "We got Guitars!" cateogry and only ever had a tiny following here in North America, to the point that a bunch of their songs could just be recycled a few years later by The Jonas Brothers. I mostly associate that fall with the most popular group amongst young girls at the time probably being Good Charlotte, as well as an abundance of kids wearing ties ala Avril Lavigne. Maybe life was just different for people in Alberta? I too don't remember many kids having phones at the time either, but I was also living in small town and not a big urban center.

Except for Soul, the last Pixar I saw was Monsters University eight years ago (!). What are the good ones? Now have covid-enforced time to catchup

Must see: Inside Out, Coco, Toy Story 4 (I may be alone in liking it better than 3)

Decent: Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, Onward, Luca

Meh: The Good Dinosaur, Soul

I'm assuming Cars 3 is crap because the first two were crap, and I haven't watched the new one yet.

The original Cars was OK. The second and third ones were, indeed, crap.

I thought Toy Story 4 was surplusage, but then again, I thought Toy Story 3 was too. Ducky and Bunny were about the only real saving grace of 4.

Soul was pretty good. It tried for the emotional punch of Up but didn't quite connect.

I didn't understand the world of Cars at all. Is this supposed to be a world where humans don't exist, and automobiles exist in their place? Why are the horseflies little trucks? Pixar is typically very good at presenting a thought-out logic to the relationships between objects (toys) or just non-humans (rats) and human world, but Cars didn't have any of that. Also, the plot was basically Doc Hollywood. I don't remember why I watched Cars 2, but it seemed to just double down on the Larry the Cable Guy character's bumbling idiocy, which I didn't find charming the first time around. Also, one of the worst end-credits songs in cinematic history.

I liked the antique-store setting of Toy Story 4 and I thought the film displayed more visual inventiveness than I would have expected from the series at this point. I totally get why people might think this series has run its course, though.

The rules of the afterlife in Soul were far too complicated--a peeve of mine likely acquired from having watched a lot of similarly convoluted afterlife-fantasies like Made in Heaven,Chances Are, and Heart and Souls when I was younger. It looked and sounded great, though; I appreciated that it took some visual inspiration (at least) from A Matter of Life and Death.

Read upthread for all of the stuff that pissed me off about Soul

I think saying boy bands weren’t cool anymore and about to split up may be missing the point of what a 13 year old girl likes or cares about in this fictional band who haven’t yet split to get sexy with the neptunes. Not everything has to be more music historian nerds. Same goes with the idea that a kid may play with a toy beyond its initial year of being massive.

Turning Red was great. It was hilarious and it’s really refreshing to see a take on becoming a teenager where the character stayed true to her spirit. Not the best Pixar movie but still has so much to enjoy.

I've only just seen Onwards. My 8yo was loving it but clearly felt the end was frustrating (a while afterwards I found him crying and he said it was a stupid film that they never should've made). Would be interested in other kids' reactions... I enjoyed it more than I expected, but can see how the "promise" dangled throughout the whole movie being whipped away might be clever but didn't really land with my kid.

(Plus I feel slight >:( that Ian realised he had someone for all that stuff all along... and the mother gets zero credit for bringing up two kids solo while grieving but it looks like I'm the only person who thinks that's worth mentioning....)

ONWARD, not Onwards!

Pixar should focus on making actual good movies for the children instead of focusing on proselytism

stop posting

look i know we’re all transfixed by barbenheimermania but not nearly enough people are talking about the fact that elemental features two shots showcasing unambiguous visual references to goatse

that's because you're the only person who saw Elemental

and now i can’t unsee it