Soul Mining

Film: Soul
Format: Streaming video from Disney Plus on basement television.

Pixar makes interesting choices with their films. We’re not going to see Oscar nominations until March in 2021, but that gives me a lot more time to find potential nominees early. With two Pixar movies this year, it’s pretty likely one or both will make it in. Soul, released at the tail end of 2020, is almost certainly going to be a nomination (and I think Onward is likely as well). Soul, though, is interesting because it might be the first Pixar movie that is legitimately made for adults.

Soul is the story of Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a musician who, while dreaming about gigging professionally while marking time teaching middle school band part time. He’s clearly not happy teaching band, and when he’s told that he’s being given the opportunity to work the job full-time, he’s not really sure how to react. Sure, a regular paycheck and benefits are important, but it’s not really what he wants. It is, however, what his mother wants for him and what she has always wanted for him.

Life of Riley

Film: Inside Out
Format: Sycamore Theater.

Being a frequent customer of one of our local mechanics has dividends. With six oil changes, you get two free movie tickets. With that in mind, I took Kid #2 to see Inside Out last night since Kid #1 is currently in Vermont for a couple more weeks. It’s hard to beat free movie tickets, and since the other choices at the small local theater were the fairly panned Minions and the thoroughly panned Terminator: Genysis, going to see the latest Pixar film was an easy choice.

Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, my expectations are up when I watch a Pixar movie. Inside Out is Pixar’s 15th feature-length film and the 13th one I’ve seen; of those 13, I genuinely like 10 and think the other three are at least worth watching. Inside Out falls into that first 10. The real question is where. Pixar at its best produces the best animated movies of anyone. Mid-tier Pixar is still generally a step above most other animation studios. What that means is that mid-tier Pixar tends to be better than other family-oriented animated films, but still feel like a disappointment because of those high expectations. Inside Out based on that, is somewhat disappointing. This is a clever and narratively complex movie, but there are parts that simply don’t work for me.

Coming Out of the Closet

Film: Monsters, Inc.
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

Monsters, Inc. is what turned me into a Pixar believer. When Toy Story was released, I didn’t have kids and both A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2 came out when my oldest daughter was just a baby. But with Monsters, Inc., Gail was three and old enough to see it and get it. So not only did this make me a Pixar believer, it was also my first Pixar film. I’ll just say it here: I think this is about as close to a perfect family film as exists. If you prefer to read angry rants, I’m not going to be complying this time. This is going to be 800-1000 words of me gushing.

For the two people who still haven’t seen it, Monsters, Inc. posits the idea that the monster in the closet in the room of a little kid is a real thing. in fact, there’s an entire monster world that has an industry that depends on the nighttime fears of children. Monsters come out of children’s closets to scare them, because the noise of the screams of frightened children is then used by the monsters as energy. Our main characters are James P. “Sully” Sullivan (John Goodman), the top scarer for Monsters, Incorporated and his work partner and roommate Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Sully is a big, furry blue and purple monster with horns who is great at scaring kids when on the clock and easygoing otherwise. Mike, a green sphere with arms and legs and a single eye is a little more intense and sometimes lost in his own delusions of grandeur.

My Beautiful Balloon(s)

Film: Up
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin;’ flatscreen.

When Pixar puts out a dud of a film, like Cars 2, it’s both understandable and incredibly frustrating. On the one hand, not everyone hits a home run every time. On the other hand, expectations are so high for Pixar films. Over and over again, they seem to do the impossible. Up shouldn’t work. This is a movie made for kids and the main character is in his 70s and uses a quad cane. And yet it works because Pixar is smart enough to stick to what works for them: they write good stories that touch on something real and human in everyone. Up defies expectations because it lives up to what we expect from Pixar.

The reason their films work is because they avoid stereotypes as much as possible. Oh, they’ll play with them now and then. Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) is very much the stereotype of an old curmudgeon. His putative sidekick, Russell (Jordan Nagai), however, is not what we’ve come to expect. Jordan is chubby, excitable, earnest, and Asian. But he’s a kid before he’s any of those things, which makes him completely believable. He’s a real kid, not an Asian stereotype forced into a movie.