Film

More than a feeling

Inside Out

Animation directors don’t get a lot of kudos. Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant, Ratatouille) is probably the most known and celebrated in the lot, and he deserves the accolades. John Lasseter gave us the first two Toy Story films, which earns him forgiveness for Cars 2. Please allow me this space to sing the praise of Mr. Pete Docter, director of Up, perhaps the greatest animation movie ever made, and now the man behind the wonderful, imaginative Inside Out. The likes of Docter and Lasseter, and the movies they deliver, are proof that a great animated movie is more than computer artists creating pretty pictures. Docter, who also directed a little movie called Monsters, Inc., has an amazing knack for conveying real emotion in animation. This is a guy who had audiences crying in mere minutes during the opening of Up, and now he’s given us a film that deals strictly with emotions in a hilarious and innovative way. Inside Out is another masterpiece, not only because it looks fantastic, but also because it generates real, genuine feelings. It also has some of that blissful, bizarre insanity that made Up such a winner. There are creations in this movie that just burst with genius energy. The movie goes inside the mind of Riley (voice of Kaitlyn Dias), newly displaced from Minnesota to a small house in San Francisco with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan). Inside Riley’s mind we see her emotions, played by the likes of Amy Poehler as Joy, Bill Hader as Fear, Lewis Black as Anger, Phyllis Smith as Sadness and Mindy Kaling as Disgust.

Other amazing ideas within this brilliant film’s universe: Riley’s memories in the form of little crystal balls with life occurrences playing inside them. There are the different islands of her mind representing family, goofiness and, her favorite sport, hockey. Finally, there’s the subconscious and dream factory, where discarded imagiby Bob Grimm nary friends and creepy party clowns hide. Along with being very funny, the film bgrimm@ bluntly addresses the loss of memories as newsreview.com we grow up, how memories can be forever tainted with sadness, and just how important 5 sadness is to any human being. It’s all handled in a Pixar way, which doesn’t mean whitewashed and sanitary. At times, the film is actually quite brutal and startling. That’s what makes a Pixar film a cut above the rest, including the best of the Disney animated films. There’s a level of complexity here that you don’t find in your average family film. Parents, expect to have some big discussions with some of your more alert kids after taking them to see this one. Poehler’s Joy is visualized in a bright blue and green pixie akin to Tinker Bell. It’s her voice that anchors this movie, one of the great animated film performances. Hader’s gangly and nervous Fear, along with Black’s volcanic red Anger, provides most of the film’s comedy. A sequence where Fear gets bored watching one of Riley’s routine nightmares is a big highlight. Sadness, a roundish, blue, bespectacled orb, seems to be a threat throughout the movie, trying to touch and taint memories. That proves to be somewhat of a fake-out by the film’s end, when we find out her true destiny in Riley’s upbringing. As with Up, Docter has put together an animated movie that impresses with every second and surprises at every turn. His work has more layers than most dramatic liveaction affairs. We are only halfway through the year, but I see Docter as a top candidate for year-end Best Director honors. As of right now, he’s made the year’s best movie so far. So, if getting a beautiful, top-notch Pixar film in 2015 isn’t good enough for you, hold on, because Inside Out is the first of two new Pixar films this year. The Good Dinosaur is set for release this coming Thanksgiving. I can’t wait. Ω

What kind of name is "Disgust"?

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excellent 4 Dope Writer-director Rick Famuyiwa finds a creative way to make his movie a throwback/homage to the best of Spike Lee films. He makes his protagonist, Malcolm (Shameik Moore), a hardcore fan of late ’80s, early ’90s black pop culture, to the point where he dresses the part and fronts a throwback band. This gives the film an instant Do the Right Thing sort of feel. It also helps that the likes of Public Enemy are on the soundtrack and Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley from Do the Right Thing) has a prominent role in the cast. Malcolm is a straight A student trying to get into Harvard, and he finds himself having to do some pretty shady things on his path to success (echoes of Tom Cruise’s character in Risky Business). The movie is one of the year’s funniest, and it has a strong message about racial stereotyping at its core. In addition to a strong and winning performance from Moore, Rakim Mayers is very strong as Dom the local drug dealer, and Zoe Kravitz is terrific as Moore’s love interest. It’s one of the year’s great out-of-nowhere surprises.

4Jurassic World Taking place 22 years after the original movie (Jurassic Parks II and III are not acknowledged in this film), John Hammond’s original idea has come to fruition, albeit in a bastardized, Six Flags kind of way. Jurassic World has been up and running for years under the guidance of Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), another rich guy owner who just wants the world to have lots of fun with dinosaurs. How naïve! Director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed), who had a hand in writing the script, throws everything into this movie. It’s one of those sequels that makes fun of sequels, and it honestly couldn’t be much dumber. But, sometimes, dumb is good when you are dealing with a big movie featuring rampaging dinosaurs. This one features the Indominus Rex, a hybrid dinosaur created by man in an effort to curb waning interest in dinos. Of course, the monster breaks loose and totally ruins a lot of vacations. Chris Pratt goes along for the silly ride as a raptor trainer, and Bryce Dallas Howard plays the self-centered park supervisor who will have a change of heart before the movie plays out. The finale involving all-star dinosaurs kicking each other’s asses is a real winner. Yes, less emphasis on the people stuff and more dinosaurs, please. I must admit, I was relieved that Sam Neill’s crotchety paleontologist was nowhere in sight.

4Love & Mercy Paul Dano and John Cusack play Brian Wilson young and old, and both are spectacular in this well done biopic of the Beach Boys legend. Dano occupies the ‘60s and ‘70s, with Wilson in the studio, experimenting with drugs and starting to lose his mind. Cusack picks up the story later in life, with Wilson journeying outside after years of seclusion and eventually falling in love with a car seller (Elizabeth Banks). Paul Giamatti is sinister as Dr. Eugene Landy, the man who kept Wilson secluded for years and basically terrorized him into remaining mentally ill. While neither actor is a dead ringer for Wilson, they are successful in capturing his mannerisms. Dano plays Wilson as a man with childlike wonder as he leads dogs into the studio to make music. Cusack gets everything from the facial tics to Wilson’s soft spoken voice. They both deliver stunning performances, and because the film had the cooperation of Wilson, you get to hear the Beach Boys music, too. Both stories are told in parallel, rather than chronological, fashion, and it’s a great way to see Wilson’s life.

4Mad Max: Fury Road George Miller is back in his post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, messing around with fast rigs on desert landscapes. He has a new Max, Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson, and Charlize Theron is along for the ride. The results are a blast, probably the best in the franchise when it comes to action. I’m going to have to give a few points to Gibson over Hardy for his Max portrayal. Hardy is good in the role, but Gibson is the original and best Max, even if Gibson is a total asshole. The film starts off with a shot reminiscent of The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2), and then it just goes berserk. Max gets himself captured by a really disgusting looking, villainous ruler named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and finds himself hanging upside down and providing blood for a pale, bald Joe minion, Nux (Nicholas Hoult). A shaven-headed Theron shows up as Imperator Furiosa, a one-time loyalist of Immortan Joe, who tricks him and kidnaps his wives, intent on taking them to some sort of green promised land. When Joe figures out she’s making a run for it, his soldiers (who look a little like the cave creatures from The Descent) take off after her. This includes Nux, with Max strapped to the front of his car wearing a facemask reminiscent of his Bane getup in The Dark Knight Rises. The folks who put the look of this movie together, from its terrific cinematography to its costuming to its incredible stunt work, all deserve praise and extra beers.

2San Andreas Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays rescue pilot Ray, a gutsy and virtuous man on the job who, nevertheless, can’t keep things together on the home front. He gets divorce papers from wife Emma (Carla Gugino) on the day he’s supposed to take his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) on a trip. Before he can pout and dwell on things too long, the earth starts shaking for what will be a series of devastating earthquakes. When it’s all over, numerous quakes and tsunamis have destroyed Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Hoover Dam. While the destruction looks great, and director Brad Peyton pulls out all of the stops when it comes to destroying California, the dialogue in this film is atrocious. When Ray heads out to save his wife in L.A. and his daughter in San Francisco, it’s often the worst of soap operas. Yes, it’s fun to see the San Francisco Giant’s stadium get smoked, especially if you’re a Dodgers fun, but it’s no fun listening to the words spoken by performers before and after the devastation. Granted, dialogue in a disaster movie doesn’t have to be top quality, but this stuff makes a Michael Bay movie sound like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

3Spy This is yet another spoof of the James Bond spy movie genre, and it’s a good one thanks to the presence of Melissa McCarthy. It doesn’t hurt that the film is written and directed by Paul Feig, who gave her an Oscar-nominated role in Bridesmaids. The team followed up that piece of comic brilliance with the fun police-buddy comedy The Heat. McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a CIA agent chained to a desk in service of her partner in the field, Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Circumstances call for Susan to go into the field for the first time, and she must leave her bat-infested CIA basement behind. In the field, she must do battle with an evil arms trader Rayna (a deliciously nasty Rose Byrne) while contending with rogue agent Rick Ford (a surprisingly hilarious Jason Statham) who doesn’t believe she’s up to the task. The mission takes her to locales like Rome and Paris, while requiring her to sport some pretty embarrassing grandma wigs. For all of her talents as a physical comedienne, McCarthy’s true strengths lie in her ability to shoot off rapid-fire insults at unsuspecting victims. She and Byrne have a couple of verbal square-offs in this film where you have to believe the two actresses were given permission to just go at it and see what happens. Man, you don’t want to face off with McCarthy in an insult contest.

3Tomorrowland The future is a little confusing and convoluted, but kind of cool anyway, in director-writer Brad Bird’s (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) interesting enough ode to one of Disney’s most popular park attractions. Boy genius Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) and his jetpack attend the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York, during a wonderful sequence that recreates the legendary event. After sparring with the curator of an invention contest (Hugh Laurie), the despondent boy winds up on a bench, sulking, only to be given a special pin by a mysterious young girl named Athena (the absolutely incredible Raffey Cassidy). The action cuts to years later, when that same girl gives a pin to teenager Casey (Britt Robertson). The pin, when touched, transports Casey to a seemingly future land where invention is encouraged. Casey eventually winds up with a grown Frank (George Clooney), and they travel back to Tomorrowland to save our world. The script was co-written by Lost and Prometheus scribe Damon Lindelof, so, naturally, all of the dots don’t seem to be connected. Lindelof can be a little ambiguous, even confusing at times, but he’s always interesting. If you like your movies tied up in a nice little bow, the works of Lindelof are not for you. As for me, I have a fun time trying to figure his stuff out, even if I don’t come up with all of the answers.