Next batch of Pixar films after the Monsters Inc. prequel

whoops one brief aside:

focuses on cherishing family members, both alive and those who have passed.

What changed in-between the first and second week for Coco to soar that much? Word of mouth, good reviews on Chinese sites like Douban Movie, and a cultural connection to the film helped spur it into Pixar’s most successful title ever in China, and Disney’s second most successful animated film behind Zootopia ($236.1 million). The Qingming Festival is one of the most celebrated in China, and focuses on cherishing family members, both alive and those who have passed. Coco’s message, about that exact thing, likely resonated well with Chinese filmgoers, Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at USC’s US-China Institute, told The Wrap in 2017.

China may be thousands of miles away from Mexico, but the film’s embrace of Mexico’s Dia de Muertos and honoring the dead have resonated with Chinese audiences who have similar traditions, said Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at USC’s US-China Institute.

One of China’s biggest holidays is the Qingming (which roughly translates as “tomb-sweeping”) Festival. The Chinese mark it by celebrating family both living and dead: Loved ones travel together to graves to pray and offer food and drink.

“There have been films in the past that Chinese audiences have embraced for their message about family,” said Rosen. “What we’re seeing with ‘Coco’ is similar to what we saw with ‘Dangal,’ which was about the first women wrestlers to compete for India and their father who trained them. That film also had a strong message about putting family first and became a huge hit in China.”

watched this without really knowing what to expect beyond thinking it was going to be something about about jazz and the power of music starring jamie foxx. was definitely not prepared for it to be mostly about the complicated rules of new age afterlife with the black character on the poster voiced by tina fey and jamie foxx voicing a wacky cat sidekick, with music by beloved jazz duo trent reznor and atticus ross

DJP heavily otm here, tbh im kind of shocked this movie isnt getting dragged like crazy for its tone deaf racial stuff (unless it is?)

Here's one review that talks about the issues with the movie:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/soul-feels-like-pixars-first-black-movie-made-with-whit-1845956107

Also here:

https://colorwebmag.com/2020/12/28/mo-reviews-soul-disney-pixar/

This one is less about the racial aspects and more about the message, which I agree mostly settles on "why bother having dreams":

https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/soul

with music by beloved jazz duo trent reznor and atticus ross

Doing their ambient thing, but Jon Batiste handling all the jazz.

I thought some of the comments on the gizmodo post provided good food for thought.

yes, i noticed his subordinate credit of "jazz compositions by", right after the "original score" credit for reznor & ross. i guess his jazz compositions werent original enough to get equal credit

imagine hiring a jazz person handle the original score for a jazz movie without the steady hand of two white goth dudes to guide him

Yeah, I don't know how that works. But I guess they can be seen as "original songs" whereas the stuff Nine Inch Nails did was the main score?

Eh, that's semi-expected re: the difference between a movie's score and the songs/soundtrack used within it. Theme/incidental music vs actual full-on songs written for the movie happens all the time, see for example the Moana soundtrack where the first disc is all of Lin-Manuel Miranda's and Opetaia Foa'i's songs and the second disc is all of the connecting instrumental music Mark Mancina wrote.

Re: the comments on that Gizmodo piece, I am reading this one and wondering how high this person was before watching the movie:

Joe had to stop being Joe to appreciate his life because he only wanted his life back so he could return to not living it. The transformative nature of him being put into a cat doesn’t remove his blackness because the center of the movie is still a black man’s voice and a black face onscreen almost 100% of the film.

I view it as a dialogue between the interiority of Joe’s blackness in the form of a cat viewing the world disconnected from it and the physicalness and presence of his black body interacting with that world from the perspective of someone who has absolutely no experience with it. Joe gets to filter his own world through his own understanding without being trapped in the person-ness of reacting like Joe.

This paradoxically uplifts and emboldens the black voices AROUND him. When Joe leans back, black men and women in his community talk that much louder and we actually get a movie with MORE black experiences than just the one. We get the specific voiced perspectives of a single black mother, a black barber, a black woman who’s an expert at Jazz, all of these other people expressing themselves and explaining themselves as black people rather than just riding along with one man imposing himself on the narrative single-mindedly with nothing to play off of. If Joe KNEW what he had to know without learning, then he’d possibly fall into the black mentor trope instead of being the one who needs to grow and experience an arc.

And at that point Soul becomes a movie about BLACK COMMUNITY instead of simply middle-aged black maleness. The idea that the movie can only progress and grow by Joe learning from even more experienced and diverse black voices than his own is something I found really precious and valuable as a black audience member.

And I think one thing missed in a lot of reviews is what 22's role actually is. She’s not just an obnoxious kid who doesn’t like to learn even though she has the smartest people. She’s specifically a kid stuck in the education system that inner-city children are most susceptible to — rote learning and recitation with no experience or exposure. The experiencing and participating is something schools are paring down and throwing away.

It’s not subtle that Joe is specifically a music teacher at a time when schools in his neighborhood are likely experiencing cuts to music classes and extra-curriculars. He’s a man with a huge opportunity who doesn’t realize how much he contributes to that world and how hard these kids are struggling and how much they need him. And Joe is also a black music teacher trying to explain why music is good to someone who can only THINK about music but can’t actually feel music like a human being through real experience.

This felt really rewarding in a way. It’s probably the first Pixar movie in a long time I felt actually GOT its material and knew what it was trying to say. And it did it patiently and thoughtfully in a way I really enjoyed.

This would have been a fantastic reading of the movie had Joe the Cat actually spent like one iota of time listening to and learning from his black community. All of the lessons this person is ascribing to his growth were given to 22; it's explicitly how they developed their spark.

i dunno, that comment seems on point to me! Joe (slowly) figures it out by the end

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/pixars-troubled-soul

(copy the URL and paste this to the end of it if you want to annoy sic: ?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned&fbclid=IwAR0ondKr-iZh840L7Z--kNoqfvJGw2ZTlrPz5sJzJrMxH6uBlC9Lm44IqhA )

that’s fantastic

i enjoyed this movie a lot when i watched it but djp’s critiques and others’ (and now this) have made me look at this film differently

Looks lovely -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYfJxlgR2jw

The look of these things freaks me out now. I thought soul looked almost like a real life new york with 3d cartoon characters walking around in it.

Luca is visually lovely, but slight, and a bit of a cheat: it sets up a queer metaphor that it is not quite willing to go all in on. Still, it is inspiring some great review titles; I can't decide if I prefer Calimari By Your Name (AO Scott) or Call Me By Your Nemo (someone on letterboxd).

Only just caught up with Onward which was better than I was expecting. Not top tier but solid, and did get the waterworks going a bit.

Luca felt like it was on Onward's level, but with a much more visually appealing setting

ums otm, that's about where I'd land. quality wise they felt pretty similar, but the visual charm of Luca pushed it over the edge.

Yeah, I'd rate Onward and Luca about equally. Definitely liked both better than Soul.

Soul was aiming higher than Onward but didn't always get there.

chap otm - Onward had more modest ambitions but really hit its marks. Soul may have had the higher highs but the arc and consistency were a bit more of a mess. also find it weird that 2 of their recent-ish films both revolve around music and the afterlife (though Soul and Coco are very different from each other to be sure)

Will watch Luca with the kids this weekend.

my son has already watched luca 5 times

LS otm, Soul did have some incredibly beautiful moments but it didn't hold together nearly as well as a whole.

Luca really felt like a pre-2010 sequel era Pixar film, but even better to look at.

in general my daughter seems to be more entertained by the "lesser" Pixar movies in recent years

makes sense - the "lesser" movies have entertaining kids as their prime directive, whereas the big important statement ones have to try to do more to meet expectations of audiences of all ages

This seems almost like a parody, but ... Buzz Lightyear prequel?

To infinity and … 🚀 Experience the origin story of a Space Ranger in Disney and Pixar’s #Lightyear, in theaters Summer 2022. 💫 pic.twitter.com/B8kRwSDYSO

— Pixar (@Pixar) October 27, 2021

Finally we will learn how Buzz Lightyear became Buzz Lightyear.

But more seriously, isn't the whole appeal of these Toy Story characters how they interact with the real world?

Part of the appeal is that yes

Part of it is Pixar hasn't really done much with outer space and kids love space shit

We got the whole woody backstory in 2, makes sense to do buzz

Finally, and I admit slightly reluctantly, got round to Luca - and I loved it! Comfortably preferred it to Onward and Soul, so charming and bright and stylish, and refreshingly low key.

Admittedly spending some time in fantasy 50s Italy is an easy sell when you're isolating with covid in the English winter.

It's the most Ghibli-esque of the Pixars.

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

You've already seen Soul, which is one of the best recent one imho. After that I would say Coco, and Toy Story 4 of course. The others I could take or leave.

hearing only positive things about turning red

Turning Red is great. Watched it with my family and we all loved it.

One of my daughters watched it with her friend and said it was not bad but it was "weird" and didn't like it. We've been trying to watch it with the other one, but she refuses to watch it at all. Dunno what to make of any of that, given the positive response from critics.

I am extremely excited to see my old Toronto Chinatown neighbourhood in that movie, so definitely going to watch that one

Toy Story 4 is fine and people should see it, but I honestly think Toy Story 3 wrapped up the series better and the extra film is like a long epilogue.

Coco and Inside Out both get better every time I rewatch them and are now among my favorite Pixar films.

otoh I was surprised by how much I liked Onward the first time I saw it, but that didn't sustain over follow up viewings.

Turning Red was very good but I was left slightly underwhelmed after all the gushing reviews.

Inside Out, Coco and Soul were the best in that time frame. Toy Story 4 was a huge disappointment, a lot worse than the first three films imo, but I guess watchable

Luca is somewhat underrated. I watched it while restricted to a single room because of you know what, and it offered an irresistible sun-kissed escape. Light but lovingly crafted.

hearing only positive things about turning red

Haven't seen it yet, but my first reaction to the trailer was, how do you take one of the 5 cutest things on the planet (red pandas) and make it so much less cute?

Computers, iirc.

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.