Inside Out (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 27 Aug 2015

After hitting a rough patch the past couple of years, Pixar was losing momentum. It had to get its act together and fast. With Inside Out, the folks at Pixar have done just that and then some. 

Inside Out is about a young girl, Riley. More specifically, it's about the bubbling personalities inside her mind that symbolize various emotions: there's Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. The occupy the headquarters inside Riley's head where they discuss how they should respond to what Riley's experiencing. Depending on which emotion's running the show, Riley will behave in a certain way. New memories are created all the time and they're shaped like colored balls. Depending on the kind of memory it is, it'll have a different color. If it's a happy memory, it'll be yellow; if it's sad one, blue, etc. Riley and her parents move from Minnesota to San Francisco, but it's not a pleasant change for Riley. She has trouble adapting to her new home, the new school and so on. Things get out of hand when the two crucial emotions, Joy and Sadness, are accidentally ejected from HQ and launched into the memory database which are shaped like islands, each with its own theme. With Joy and Sadness removed, Riley's demeanor worsens and it's up to Joy and Sadness to rush back to HQ to restore balance.

When you read about the story, you immediately start imagining the possibilities. Pixar could have a field day with a story about a young girl's mind...and they do. Inside Out contains all kinds of wonderful visualizations of the human mind. 

However, to broach the topic of the mind is also fraught with danger. It makes sense for a film to set some rules for itself, rules it has to follow. On the other hand, this is the mind we're talking about, where everything's possible. The main issue I had unfortunately involved the central problem of the film: Joy and Sadness are ejected from HQ and have to go back before Riley does something drastic. Why can't Joy and Sadness just, oh I don't know, teleport or 'wish' themselves back into HQ? They're emotions! Oh, I get why Pixar went this route: they wanted to explore more aspects of the mind in a smart and funny way. Therefore, Joy and Sadness have to be ejected from HQ just so they (and we) will stumble upon Imagination Land, the 'train of thought', Riley's long-term memory storage and those personality islands I mentioned earlier. It adds to the variety and I get that. I just feel that applying these physical handicaps to Joy and Sadness makes no sense, since they are, you know, emotions. 

This minor (or major, depending on how you look at it) flaw aside, the film's a lot of fun, particularly those involving the complex machinations of the mind. You've got a literal train of thought and the absolutely hilarious scenes involving an assembly producing tight-jeaned imaginary boyfriends who proudly proclaim they would die for Riley. You've got two workers discussing which memories will be removed from storage (which US Presidents are more important to remember). You've got a dark cave symbolizing the subconscious where giant clowns and grandma's vacuum cleaner reside. The list goes on. 

There's a key scene towards the end where Sadness plays a huge part. I won't spoil exactly what happens, but let me just say that Sadness plays a positive role in the story's outcome, surprising given her general uselessness and the chance of her accidentally corrupting positive memories. Her presence actually contributes to Riley's emotional well-being. In a world where we're bombarded with messages telling us that 'life is a game', to stay happy and party hardy (Coca Cola commercials spring to mind), it's nice to see Pixar telling kids (and adults) it's okay and healthy to be sad. (I'd add, as long as it doesn't control your life, but that's another story.) 

In the end, the positives outweigh the inevitable plot holes that arise when dealing with stories about the mind. Pixar (or, more specifically, Pete Docter and his team) has managed to tell a moving tale about the human mind in a way that's both endearing and funny. Part of me hopes Pixar will pull a 'Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight' and produce a sequel with a more mature Riley. Think of the possibilities: there could be new emotions, new interactions between these emotions, the landscape of Riley's mind could change to reflect the new phase of her life, etc. *sighs* If only Pixar accepted fan suggestions...

WALL·E (2008) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 19 September 2014

WALL·E is one of those, quite frankly, magical experiences that you simply have to see (and considering the date of this review probably already have). Pixar was already a household name by 2008, having effectively taken up Disney’s mantle and producing films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo. WALL·E was different however. For the first time, Pixar would engage in overt social criticism. The people at Pixar had already dabbled in social criticism somewhat with the suburban setting in The Incredibles and the satire on communism in A Bug’s Life, but that was all relatively subtle. Granted, depending on the viewer, what might be symbolic or subtle for one might be obvious for the other, but we can at least say Pixar was operating on the level of subtext. With WALL·E however, Pixar was ready and willing to dive into full-on political overtones.

            The film begins with roughly a half hour section featuring absolutely zero dialogue. It is the year 2805 and the earth has turned into a giant garbage-filled wasteland after decades of consumer culture etc. As the earth’s population as boarded highly advanced spaceships and ventured into space, many trash compactor robots are deployed on Earth to clean up the mess, so that humans can eventually return. We follow one of these robots, Wall-E, as he goes about his daily life, cleaning and retreating to his home, a storage truck where he displays the all-too human traits of fawning over clips of Hello Dolly! and living with his pet cricket. One has to wonder why robots whose only purpose is to clean even need A.I that grants them all these human traits. (Because it makes him a likeable protagonist of course.) Eventually, another robot arrives, Eve (can you smell that religious symbolism?), whose job, it turns out, is to analyze whether the earth can support vegetation. They slowly but surely bond, but Eve freaks out once she sees the little plant Wall-E found, stores it inside her ‘body’ and goes into standby mode. Eventually a ship arrives and takes Eve, with Wall-E clinging on the ship. The ship docks at an even larger ship, the Axiom, functioning as a city, with many people living their lives onboard. These people have all become morbidly obese, living without purpose and relying on the ship’s automated systems to sustain them. As Wall-E tries to help Eve, they become embroiled in what is basically a quest to bring the people back to Earth, ‘where they belong’.

            First of all, I’ll rave about the things that are easy to rave about, starting with the visuals which look positively dazzling. When watching Studio Ghibli films I appreciate how they often go for the ‘authentic,’ handcrafted art style, but armed with computers, the people at Pixar are able to create a dazzlingly believable Earth and Axiom that would be nigh impossible to imitate in all its detail if done purely by hand. If one of animation’s primary purposes is to transport the audience to another world, then Wall-E is an unequivocal success in that regard.

The character of Wall-E is also a stunning achievement simply due to the fact he has zero dialogue (in the traditional sense). He doesn’t speak, but is able to communicate with others (and us) through an array of expressive animations and sounds created and voiced by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt. Pixar’s extraordinary success in bringing Wall-E to life is easily half this film’s success. You can’t tell me you didn’t try to imitate Wall-E’s voice at least once…

Speaking of the film’s success, this is also partly due to its Highly Serious political and social subject matter which is executed in a way that is essentially too simple, but peppered with enough humor that it’s still easy to appreciate. Messages like ‘we have to take care of the earth,’ ‘the earth is our true home’ and ‘(American) consumer culture is ruining our world and lives’ are on full display here, for better and for worse. Quite a few times I found the way these Big Messages were communicated a bit too Captain Obvious, but the mostly excellent comedy (including a great parody on Hal 9000 from 2001) ensured the film never devolved into annoying pretentiousness. The comedy was Pixar knowingly winking at the audience, balancing the threat of self-importance the film’s messages might be perceived to carry. There’s a part of me that realizes this film is also made for children and obviously can’t become a dissertation on politics, but since Pixar films are also made for adults, I have a tendency to roll my eyes at the sometimes too easy cultural critique and jokes (like the fat Americans). This may sound like nitpicking, but I feel WALL·E can be held to a higher standard on this front as this was the first Pixar film to deal with societal issues upfront and not just on the level of subtext.

            I also didn’t like the Big Dramatic Moment at the end, when Eve tries to repair Wall-E, only to end up reverting him to his original programming, making him a hollow husk of his former self. Here, there is the threat that the Wall-E we’ve all come to know and love has symbolically ‘died’. But anyone with a functioning cerebellum would know this film wasn’t going to end with Wall-E Dying For Our Sins, but that he would be revived and what clichéd better way to do it than with a farewell kiss from Eve. Unsurprisingly Wall-E is back to his usual self and the film ends, with the people ready to repopulate earth. Though a short scene (and though I like the focus on Wall-E’s eyes, again showing how he is the biggest part of the film’s success), this is easily the low point of the film, because in retrospect I realize it’s the same cheap emotional manipulation as we would see later in Pixar’s Toy Story 3, when our favorite gang of toys are ready to embrace death-by-furnace…only to be saved at the last minute. It’s that cheap bullshit that aims to make the audience experience a character’s death without actually killing said character. It just makes me roll my eyes and anxiously wait until the scene’s over.

            All in all though, this just might be Pixar’s best film, because it manages to combine many disparate elements into a mostly satisfying whole. The visuals are stunning and believable, the amount of details are reason enough to watch it again, Wall-E himself is a study in nonverbal communication and how to evoke emotions in an audience through nonverbal means, the more overt political messages are relevant and effective and work more or less and when they don’t, the excellent humor is always there to soften the blow.

Random observations:

-I find it interesting that the openings of both WALL·E and Up are the best parts of the film. Before the film goes into Serious Mode, it’s incredibly moving and enchanting to just see Wall-E go about his business. Pretty much the same goes for Up which had such a moving opening that it ended up emphasizing just how by-the-numbers the rest of the film was. 

-Could someone explain to me why Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar for Sound Mixing when the first part of WALL·E is nothing but sound?

Toy Story 3 (2010) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 19 September 2014

Like many films, prior to watching it, I was well aware of the fact that an incredible amount of people had already boarded the hype train for Toy Story 3. It was one of those occasions where you couldn’t turn without someone regaling you with their oh so emotional experience watching Toy Story 3. The fact that it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars only added to the hype for me, because that had only happened two times earlier, with Beauty and the Beast and Up. What this told me was that if it didn’t make me cry big, manly tears, then this film would be somewhat of a disappointment. Unfortunately, this is what happened. The film was for me somewhat of an emotional letdown, but it’s saved by its superb comedy writing.

            The story deals with Andy heading off to college and having to decide what to do with his toys. After a series of accidents (what else), our familiar gang of toys find themselves in a children’s daycare. It all seems like heaven, but there’s the question of whether they should stay or return to Andy. Woody is the only one who decides to try to return, but is taken home by a little girl. The other toys discover that the children play way too rough with them and decide to leave. However, the daycare hides a gang of toys led by a large purple teddy bear called Lotso, who rules the daycare with an iron fist and our pack of toys find out leaving won’t be so easy. The film thus devolves into Woody returning to Buzz and the rest and trying to break out of the daycare and return to Andy.

            As I previously stated, my main grievance with the film is that the drama failed to connect with me somewhat. I am of course referring to the two big emotional scenes toward the end: the scene where the toys’ lives are at stake and the ending itself. I found myself in the undesirable position of realizing on an intellectual level what the filmmakers were trying to achieve (Maximum Emotional Impact), but not really caring on an emotional level. The furnace scene was however very tense and I found myself reflecting on all I’ve experienced with these toys as it was happening: they may be toys, but dammit, I’ve known them since I was young and they shouldn’t be harmed. I still feel though that entire scene was a tad emotionally exploitative: to make the audience experience the death of Woody and co without actually killing them, a cliché often found in films. (But then again, entering a theater is implicitly allowing yourself to be exploited and it’s what entertainment is made of.) As for the ending, I knew the ending tried to make people reminisce about their childhoods and all the toys they used to own and I highly appreciate the sentiment itself, but the scene itself is done with all the subtlety of a brick to the face: the scene where Andy give his toys away, gets in his car, turns toward his toys across the street and says, and I quote, “Thanks guys”, is enough to send someone like me screaming for the hills. 

Like Chuckles, I am not amused...

The true star of the film however is its humor. Unsurprisingly, it was written by Pixar newcomer Michael Arndt who had previously found success with Little Miss Sunshine which is the film that found a way to make a family smuggling the corpse of one of their deceased family members (the grandpa) out of a hospital not only plausible, but funny at the same time. As with that film, the humor in Toy Story 3 is outstanding. When I think back to Toy Story 3, I don’t think of the supposedly sad ending, I think of Spanish Buzz, Barbie and Ken, etc. Easily my favorite moment is the introduction of Chuckles the clown, who is actually (of course) a cynical, world-weary clown. From the way the camera pans to him sitting in the window opening as a melancholy harmonica plays, to his wonderfully clichéd dialogue and gravelly voice, this is parody done completely right.

            It’s not like I’m saying Toy Story 3 is bad. It’s not. As far as trilogies go, this is quite honestly a great success. It’s really funny, it’s tense (the ‘prison break’) and despite any qualms, it’s a film easily watched and enjoyed from beginning to end. It’s just that besides the excellent comedy, I didn’t really connect emotionally with then ending part which was made all the more surprising by the fact that pretty much everyone else practically had to renew their supply of Kleenexes from both blowing their loads over this film and wiping their collective tears. 

Image:

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26400000/Chuckles-chuckles-26449099-907-682.png