Review: Inside Out

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★★

“Inside Out” shows Pixar in a triumphant return to form. It’s one of the most original and innovative stories to ever come out of the studio, and it couldn’t come a better time. Pixar has had a long history of issuing original content to the cinemas, but after two mediocre sequels there were some questioning if they had lost some of their creative power. Those doubts seem to have been resolved, at least for now, because “Inside Out” could very well be the best film Pixar has ever done.

The concept revolves around those tiny little voices in your head. The film personifies five of the basic human emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness (voiced by Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Phyllis Smith respectively, making this one of the greatest voice casts ever assembled for an animated feature). Each emotion is responsible for bringing out that specific emotion from Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), the 11-year-old girl whose mind they inhabit.

Just like in all of Pixar’s films, all is right with the world until it isn’t. In this case, Riley and her parents move from their Midwestern home to San Francisco. This causes all the memories Riley has to be affected by Sadness, something Joy doesn’t want to see happen. But an accident within the emotions’ headquarters sends Joy and Sadness into the far away regions of Riley’s long-term memory storage leaving them unable to control her emotions. That leaves Fear, Anger, and Disgust to lead the way. With everything falling apart, Joy and Sadness have to race back to headquarters before Riley’s entire personality is altered.

This is a genius premise for a film, and the first logline released by Disney several years ago made it immediately intriguing. Not often do the promises of great ideas turn into great films. Pixar has really made themselves synonymous with quality filmmaking over the years despite a couple missteps along the way. They’ve really outdone themselves with “Inside Out.” It may very well go down as their best film. We’ll need to marinade on that one for a while before handing it that title, but it makes a very strong case.

For my money, Pixar’s finest film is “Up” which was directed by the great Pete Docter who also lends his leadership to “Inside Out.” It’s no wonder both of these films are among the studio’s best. Docter knows how to pull the best emotions out of his scripts as evident by full-grown adults weeping during the opening 10-minutes of “Up.” But here, he literally pulls emotions out of this script and makes them into classic Pixar characters (including the best Pixar character ever: Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong voiced by the incomparable Richard Kind). He brings them to life thanks to Pixar’s innate ability to make computer-drawn designs into life-like creations, but mostly because the screenplay is so well written that we’re able to immediately identify with them.

And this is where Docter is able to dig into the most creative corners of his own mind. This isn’t the first movie where Pixar has breathed life into inanimate objects, but it is the first time they’ve had to create characters – and an entire world, for that matter – out of something that does not exist at all. This is something we as filmgoers aren’t privileged to these days: the ability to be taken somewhere you’ve never seen before.

The level of detail in the animation is nothing new for Pixar and shouldn’t come to the surprise of anyone who has seen their movies in the past. Yet, they continue to improve their style with each new film. The film is edited together as if it were a live action film, which brings out a more film-like quality rather than that of a goofy cartoon. Combine that with the need to create an entire world from scratch makes this film much more unique than the studio’s previous efforts. Not just unique from its creative design and animation, but also from the story side since this world has its own set of rules it follows that we must learn. We’re not given to a huge opening sequence of exposition about the rules, but instead pick them up as we go along which makes the film enormously fun.

Without any emotional involvement within the story, “Inside Out” would have still be an enjoyable movie, but Docter didn’t want that to be the case. Apparently, he wanted tug at your heartstrings as hard as he possibly could until you left teardrops on the cinema floor. It’s shouldn’t be a surprise that a movie with emotions would be somewhat emotionally charged, but “Inside Out” is an astoundingly emotional film with a few very powerful sequences.

“Inside Out” is a massive success about the realities of getting older and working through life’s problems. It’s a stunning return to form for Pixar in all departments: story, animation, voices, and most importantly its ability to make you feel something other than just causal entertainment. It’s a film made with much more soul and passion than almost anything else we’ve seen so far this year. This will end up being one of the best films of 2015 without question.

Review: Monsters University

by Trevor Kirkendall
★★★

When Hollywood runs out of ideas, they tend to go with one of three things: remake something, reboot a franchise or make a sequel and/or prequel. Seeing as the vast majority of films coming out these days fall into one of those categories, Hollywood is surely coming up short on new ideas. I tend to roll my eyes at things like that, especially the remakes and reboots. Sequels and prequels I can understand a little bit. Most aren’t as good because they try to surpass the original in everyway. That’s not a good way to approach a sequel. If anyone knows how to second film in a series properly, its Pixar. “Monsters University” is a perfect example of a prequel gone right.

In “Monsters University” – as it was in “Monsters Inc.” – screams from children power the city. Monsters are employed by the power company, Monsters Inc., to sneak into the bedrooms of kids in order to scare the daylights out of them. The monsters responsible for doing this are called scarers. Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) has dreamt all his like to be a scarer. The day has finally arrived for him to start fulfilling his dream. Its his first day as a college student at Monsters University.

His roommate is a creepy chameleon-like monster named Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), who we all know was the primary antagonist from the original film. Here, he’s just as nervous as Mike and trying desperately to fit in and be one of the cool kids.

On the first day of class, Mike encounters James P. Sullivan (John Goodman), a laid back student who thinks the success he’s going to achieve has already been handed to him thanks to his family name. He’s here for show and to party. His name even gets him into the coolest fraternity on campus, Roar Omega Roar, led by Johnny Worthington (Nathan Fillion).

Mike and Sulley end up competing against each other for the whole semester and their antics ultimately cost them passing grades on the final exam of the semester, kicking them out of the program by the chilling Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren). Determined to still be a scarer, Mike joins a second rate fraternity – Oozma Kappa – in order to compete in the Scare Games. Sulley joins too, much to Mike’s disapproval. Hardscrabble agrees to let them back into the program if they win the Scare Games.

That’s quite a bit of plot for the first twenty minutes of the film, but its incredibly engaging. You never feel lost, confused or – worst of all – bored at any moment during the movie. Pixar’s story department has always been able to cram a lot of layers into their films without seeming like its too forced. They also know what type of film they’re making. Their films are not just meant for kids. They have many elements that the kids like, but the story is also deep enough that it can be identifiable with an older audience.

What “Monsters University” does well to keep its older audience’s attention is to put small homages everywhere that will remind of some of the great college films out there. While there might not be a direct reference to something like “Animal House”, there are elements that sort of remind us of films like that. There might also be a few things here and there that might remind you of your time in college, too. So many little things, even in the background of the scene, can help conjure up those memories. You need to be on the lookout because they’re everywhere.

Pixar has mastered the ability to create a very strong supporting cast of characters. First there was “Toy Story” with two main characters and a whole room full of secondary characters. The film would have been nothing without each and every toy in the child’s bedroom. Then there was “Finding Nemo” with the crazy fish trapped in the fish tank. Each character helped make that feel like a “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” style metal hospital.

The secondary characters that make up the Oozma Kappa fraternity help bring “Monsters University” to that classic Pixar level of characters. Middle-aged founder Don (Joel Murray), two headed monsters Terri (Sean Hayes) and Terry (Dave Foley), loveable geek Squishy (Peter Sohn) and the crazy Art (Charlie Day) make up the fraternity characters. They’re so well written that it gives the film the additional humor to go along with the natural humor that derived from the screenplay. And they’ll probably remind you of someone you might have known at that time of your life.

“Monsters University” is entertaining enough for everyone to enjoy. I don’t think it’s quite as good as “Monsters Inc.” but that was going to be a tough film to follow. The idea for making it a prequel was a smart idea. Mike and Sully were fun to watch in the original, but it had a definitive ending. The only way to show us more of these two was to go back to their youth.

Pixar won’t be breaking any new ground with this film like the did with masterpieces such as “Up” or even “Toy Story 3.” Its not designed to work on that same emotional level. But what it does provide is an enormously entertaining way to spend a couple hours. Pixar continues to prove that they are the standard bearer for animated filmmaking these days. They are one of the very few production companies out there today that understands good storytelling. If they’re not the best, they’re certainly up there.

On a side not, the Pixar animated short film the precedes “Monsters University” is called “The Blue Umbrella” and it is magnificent. Its only six minutes long, but every frame is beautifully told. What caught my eye was how very realistic the cityscape was animated. There were moments when it didn’t even look like a cartoon. It should definitely generate some interest in what Pixar has in the pipeline. Particularly their June 2015 release “Inside Out” which is set inside a girl’s mind (that’s all they’ve said about it) and their June 2016 release which will be about Dia de los Muertos. Of course, there’s also the fan favorite: the November 2015 release of “Finding Dory”, the long awaited and highly anticipated sequel to “Finding Nemo”.