Inside Out

Flix!
Pixar Studios in association with Disney.


I might be slightly nostalgic, but I love having a cartoon before the movie. This was standard fair when I was a kid. Why do I bring it up? Because there is a pixar cartoon before Inside Out. It's called "Lava" and it's about a lonely volcano. As goofy as that premise is, the folks at Pixar made it work. It was fun and most enjoyable.

And then we get to watch a most clever and delightful film.

First of all, one might ask, "What is a slightly aged couple doing going to a children's animated film?The official excuse my wife and I came up with is "in the event we ever have grandchildren, we are making sure this film is okay for them to see." Hey, it's our story and we're sticking to it.

The film starts with the birth of a beautiful little baby. As her mother coos over her, she has a wonderful feeling....and we shift to inside her brain. And now there is someone there. It's Joy. Joy has short cropped blue hair and is always happy and looking for the upside. Soon however the baby becomes uncomfortable and starts to cry. And in the brain (officially known as 'headquarters'), we meet Sadness. Sadness is also blue. She is always down and can only see the down side of everything. As the little girl grows we are introduced to Fear, Disgust, and Anger. Let me just get the credits out of the way:
Joy: the amazing Amy Poeler, Sadness: Phyllis Smith, Fear: Bill Hader, Disgust: Mindy Kaling, Anger: Lewis Black, and an additional great character Bing Bong: Richard Kind.

The story takes us on a journey of a young girl who grows up in Minnesota and plays hockey and is suddenly uprooted and moved to San Francisco. We learn to love this girl, Riley (voice of Kaitlan Dias), as she interacts with her Mom (Diane Lane), and especially her Dad ( Kyle MacLachlan). When Joy and Sadness accidentally get sucked up out of Headquarters and end up in Long Term Memory, they gather up Riley's Core Memories and are determined to get them back to Headquarters. That is the gist of the movie.

But along the way, Riley and her Mom go to get a pizza in San Francisco and it has broccoli on it. Anger in Riley's brain screams "First the Hawaiians ruin pizza, and now you!"

Okay. After Joy and Sadness started their journey home, I had a problem at this point. I took at least TWO times longer than it needed to, to get back to Headquarters. It became overly frustrating. Great movie making until this, dummies.

But while they were in long term memory, they encountered "Bing Bong", Riley's imaginary friend when she was a kid. He was a mostly cotton candy elephant with a usable mouth. They had a lot of fun when Riley was a kid.

The story in Riley's life is that she is having great difficulty adjusting to life on the west coast, especially after joy and sadness have been sent to long term memory. In fact, she decides to go back to Minnesota.

So, see? There is drama here.

This film has many wonderful concepts, such as the library of long term memories. Whenever a memory is created, a sort of marble is manufactured and the long term ones are stored. There is also a dreaded pit of totally forgotten memories. These marbles have turned black and are discarded forever. Occasionally a crew has to go through and discard long term memories that really have no use anymore. The crew foreman was the unmistakeable voice of Paula Poundstone. That's all I know about that.

Bringing back the imaginary friend Bing-Bong was genius. And they show how he and Riley used to ride in the spaceship wagon they'd created and would fuel with "song power." And this actually becomes important eventually in the film. There are so many "outside the box" concepts here that it is really tough to review. There really isn't anything like it, or anything to compare it to. So....

This is a wonderful movie. For all ages. What a clever idea. Pixar and Disney went out on a limb with  a kind of goofy concept and wow, good going guys!

This is a wonderful movie for those of all ages. Amy Poeler as Joy, and Lewis Black as Anger. Can it get better than that? This was a delicious romp from start to finish. And as I always say at the end of one of these, "I wish Walt Disney could have seen this. He would be so thrilled."

The only flaw for me was milking the making it back to Headquarters WAY too long. For me, this kept if from being a totally tremendous motion picture.

I especially love one of the last narrated lines, "After all, she's 12 now, so what can happen from here?" And hey, don't leave during the credits! There is some wonderful stuff offered then!

See this. Make up some excuse, like my wife and I did.  It's worth it.

GRADE: A-

Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey.
PBS

TUBE!

There was so much hype about this show, and people were posting how excited they were that a new season was starting, and it all seemed so contrived and weird to me. But how can one rationally criticize something they've never seen. One can in special circumstances, but this isn't one of them.

So I took the plunge and dived into the first season of Downton Abbey. I frankly didn't get why someone once again was trying to jam this format down our throats. I mean in the 70's there was "Upstairs, Downstairs", and the network version "Beacon Hill." But it is a bit like Todd Rungren releasing "Hello It's Me" again and again...."I wrote a great song, doggone it and I'll re-release until you all finally love it."

Downton Abbey is a soap opera with an unlimited budget. But that does not mean it's a bad thing. The storyline was interesting, and the costumes phenomenal, and it had Elizabeth McGovern. But after the first season I decided it wasn't my thing, and in a nonsexist way thought of it as more of a woman's story. And what wrong with that? I like women.

So I recommended it to my wife, and after only one episode she binged watched five seasons. So I think I was right. (Although she called the fourth season slow and her least favorite.)

Even though this show wasn't my thing, I cannot critically call it bad. And sure there are men that will like this and women that love the movie "Die Hard." But overall, I feel like I should just say, it wasn't for me, but that doesn't make it not good.

So if you're curious, give it a go. I found the hierarchy of the servant staff to be intriguing. The Butler is the top dog and it works its way down through Valets and Footman and Maids etc.

Worth a watch.

GRADE: B+