Pixar's Inside Out

[phantom_power]

Did you like the short that was on before it?

[greenman]

Disney's utterly madcap release schedule. All Marvel films come out a couple of days early in the UK,and all animated films come out months late. Anyone who can give me a legitimate reason for this is lying through their arsehole.

My guess would be business from younger children with parents picks up more in the summer holidays.

[BritishHobo]

Fuck, that makes a lot of sense. But then it happens with their Disney releases as well, which tend to come out January/February, despite November released in the US - this happened with The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Wreck-It Ralph. Frozen did come out in December, but I assume that was more to do with the snow/Christmas theme of it.

However it could be a sign of a shortening of their unnecessary gaps, considering Inside/Out is only going to be a month late, rather than the couple of months that Pixar films seem to be. The Good Dinosaur, Pixar's next film, appears to be coming out only two days after the US (27th November here to their 25th). But I'm not sure how accurate that information is, nor if it will change.

[QDRPHNC]

Saw it last night. Will also admit to some moist oculars (two nights in a row now - took the boy to see Babe at a second run theatre the day before, that bit where the man sings to the pig).

Just totally wonderful. So dense with ideas yet so simple and accessible.

[QDRPHNC]

Oh yeah, the Lava short. It was cute, but it would have been even cuter if both the volcanos had been lumpy and weird looking. It was like Michael Elphick getting together with Lethal Weapon 3 era Rene Russo or something.

[Head Gardener]

[CaledonianGonzo]

I can't believe how similar this is to The Numbskulls.  They've stolen the whole concept and execution from DC Thomson, lock, stock and barrel.  Someone should sue someone.



Smart-arsery aside, this is joyous, isn't it?  Ain't no justice in the world if this isn't bagging awards, specifically the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  Even if only for the run of amazing jokes in the end credits.

That Abstract Thought sequence, man.

I'm guessing the release date delay is also partially to avoid a clash with Minions,  as I can imagine this is a way trickier sell, particularly for very young children.

[BritishHobo]

Saw it again last night, that

Spoiler alert

memory dump

[close]

scene is easily up there with Pixar's best. Fucking lovely.

[daf]

Will this be as good as The Numskulls from The Beano?

From The Beezer in my day!

in 1990 the comic became The Beezer and Topper following the acquisition of The Topper by The Beezer.

Before it's stock market flotation as Beezer Bogle & Hegarty, of course.

[Benjaminos]

Saw this last night - absolutely joyous, from start to finish. Best Pixar film out of all of them, I reckon.

They really couldn't have picked a better voice actress for Sadness, Phyllis is absolutely perfect.

Spoiler alert

I couldn't bear her character to begin with, but by the end I was totally on board - which I suppose is the entire point they were trying to get across, she's necessary in her own way.

[close]

Loved the joke that long term memory were

Spoiler alert

just sending the gum jingle up for a bit of a laugh

[close]

, loved the

Spoiler alert

goofball memory of running round with pants on head

[close]

, loved the whole thing.

[CaledonianGonzo]

This has really stayed with me.  The more I think about it, the more profound it seems - a wonderful mix of simplicity and complexity.  The Being John Malkovich of kids' movies.

[McQ]

It's pretty much a film about depression and CBT, isn't it? I absolutely loved it. The touch at the end where the core emotions started coming out a mix of different colours as Riley started to grow up was pretty great.

Lewis Black provided a lot of the biggest laughs for me. And Amy Poehler was perfectly cast. She's pretty much playing Leslie Knope in this, isn't she? Her overwhelming positivity and indefatigable spirit and all that.

[great_badir]

It's pretty much a film about depression and CBT, isn't it?

I thought this myself.

My 5 year old daughter loved it.  I liked it, but couldn't get past how unremittingly depressing and bleak a huge chunk of it is.  It's like the moment at the beginning of Up when you see the soft-focus happy memories give way to the miseries of life which, in Up, lasts for a couple of minutes.  In Inside Out it's about two thirds of the fucking film.  Even the obligatory Pixar happy ending couldn't shake how empty I felt when I left the cinema.

Which probably says a lot about the writing and characterisation, I suppose.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I dunno if I'd go so far as to call it bleak - bittersweet is probably more appropriate.  Aptly.

[QDRPHNC]

I'm guessing the release date delay is also partially to avoid a clash with Minions,  as I can imagine this is a way trickier sell, particularly for very young children.

A shame, since Minions is a noisy, horrendous, stupid, sloppy, awful patronizing dungheap of a film.

And I say that as someone who didn't mind either of the Despicable Mes.

They really couldn't have picked a better voice actress for Sadness, Phyllis is absolutely perfect.

Spoiler alert

I couldn't bear her character to begin with, but by the end I was totally on board - which I suppose is the entire point they were trying to get across, she's necessary in her own way.

[close]

I felt the same way, she was just brilliant. Even how she looked visually, the kind of sad sack we all sort of recognize without disliking or pitying or patronizing.

[popcorn]

Oh dear. I thought this was poor.

It was weirdly unfunny and I'm not sure why. (Some lines fell really flat. "Forget about it, it's Cloudtown" - that barely counts as a pun. Saying deja vu twice was a gag - saying it three times is overkill.) I found the characters charmless. The visual design is sugary and bland. There's some crap plotting -

Spoiler alert

creating copies of the boyfriend and using him to scale a distance, and using Anger to burn the window - these felt like solutions to badly-designed puzzles in an adventure game, you could swap them with anything else and have them make just as much sense.

[close]

Most of all, the central conceit didn't really add up.

Spoiler alert

When Joy falls into the pit of memories, what's happening here? Riley forgets what it's like to be happy? OK. So then when Joy escapes using the rocket cart... what does that mean, metaphorically? Like... Riley partially recalls her imaginary friend - just his cart, not the friend himself - and remembers happiness...? It all got really convoluted and weird and didn't seem to follow its own logic.

[close]

Of course, the real crime was Lava, the short at the start. Appalling. Fuck. That song. Christ. Ow.

[MuteBanana]

I think Riley forgets what its like to be happy when Joy disappears from that control room.

Simply getting out of the memory dump doesn't make you remember something either. It just means its there, down below, a potential.

[Noodle Lizard]

I'm with popcorn, I'm afraid.  I may just not be mentally ill or bald enough, but I couldn't really relate to or empathise with anything going on.  It's the "family moving/kid bummed out" scenario that's been done better even in other Pixar movies, and the pacing is all off.  We completely ignore the "outside" for huge periods at a time (which would be fine if the movie didn't focus on the internal world directly and immediately affecting the external one), there are weird seeds planted that don't really go anywhere, and then it's just resolved. 

The internal logic of the "inside" doesn't really work/make much sense either, it's tonally inconsistent and the entire script feels like it was concocted in a board room.  The attempts to pull at the heart strings felt incredibly manipulative as well, there's absolutely fuckall subtlety to be found.  Everything it tries to do in that regard or as far as getting some kind of message across was done far better in films like Toy Story 3 and The Lego Movie.  I don't know if it's really intended to be all that funny, but it didn't even get a smirk out of me.  Call me a joyless cunt, but I felt nothing throughout.

The Lava film looked incredible, but was shit.

[BritishHobo]

Oh dear. I thought this was poor.

It was weirdly unfunny and I'm not sure why. (Some lines fell really flat. "Forget about it, it's Cloudtown" - that barely counts as a pun. Saying deja vu twice was a gag - saying it three times is overkill.) I found the characters charmless. The visual design is sugary and bland. There's some crap plotting -

Spoiler alert

creating copies of the boyfriend and using him to scale a distance, and using Anger to burn the window - these felt like solutions to badly-designed puzzles in an adventure game, you could swap them with anything else and have them make just as much sense.

[close]

Most of all, the central conceit didn't really add up.

Spoiler alert

When Joy falls into the pit of memories, what's happening here? Riley forgets what it's like to be happy? OK. So then when Joy escapes using the rocket cart... what does that mean, metaphorically? Like... Riley partially recalls her imaginary friend - just his cart, not the friend himself - and remembers happiness...? It all got really convoluted and weird and didn't seem to follow its own logic.

[close]

You do make some very good points here, in that nothing after the train gets knocked off its tracks really corresponds with the whole idea of emotions. Accidentally falling in the pit, getting out again, using the boyfriends to trampoline back to headquarters, none of these have any relevance to returning joy to Riley's mental state. Similarly outside of her head there's no reason she'd suddenly snap back into an emotional state on the bus.

I agree with you and Noodle Lizard on that, and somewat on Lava (that song is bizarrely on-the-nose). However you are also both awful and should be ashamed.

[CaledonianGonzo]

It's the "family moving/kid bummed out" scenario that's been done better even in other Pixar movies

Unless this one of the bits of Cars 2 where my attention drifted.....

[Noodle Lizard]

Unless this one of the bits of Cars 2 where my attention drifted.....

I think Toy Story covered it (more on behalf of the toys than the kid, granted).  But the "grumpy kid who doesn't want to move" trope is done to death: Beetlejuice, countless Goosebumps stories, The Lost Boys, The Hole, (fucking) Twilight, Mean Girls, even The Conjuring throws in a half-arsed nod to that trope (which, of course, gets dropped immediately).  That premise alone isn't particularly interesting to me anymore, and there really isn't much to the "outside" story.  That'd be alright if the "inside" story felt more relevant, but it becomes virtually meaningless once you realise there's no real resolution to it that makes any sense.  I don't know how many writers are credited, but it really does feel like a bit of a camel.

Your mileage may vary, of course, I know a lot of people love it.  It didn't win me over, sadly.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I dunno if what precipitates the emotional crisis (and ensuing loss of innocence) is really that important in the grand scheme of things.  it's just a catalyst for what the movie's really about, which are the emotional changes as you start to transition from childhood to adulthood - and the positive value of sadness in terms of emotional balance.

Personally, I think it's extraordinary that a family film is tackling things like the transience of memory and things like cognition and sense of self.

[Bored of Canada]

I saw this movie and in the wake of it, my then girlfriend decided to break up with me.

But it was WORTH IT BECAUSE THIS WAS A LOVELY FILM. The most consistently achingly sad and sweet film of the lot. The fact that Phyllis is one of the leads of a feature film makes me happy.

Richard Kind slays it as always. Amazing man. This and A Serious Man are his two best roles, I say.

[kittens]

was good. made me sad lots. lava was pretty wank though

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I just saw this. I was quite disappointed really. I feel like they tried to tackle complex emotional/developmental issues and threw in cutesy stuff to keep kids entertained.

Not in the same league as Wall-E. Not even in the same league as Up.

[Nowhere Man]

This was brilliant and it made me cry. I thought the message behind it about

Spoiler alert

depression being sometimes necessary was heart-wrenchingly positive. 

[close]

[popcorn]

This isn't very good, but.

[idunnosomename]

I laughed at "tens of pounds". Not sure why. It reads basically like a child has written it.

[Blinder Data]

As already stated, Lava looked amazing but was a bit disappointing. I assumed it would progress from the cutesy start and do something meaningful, but it didn't. The guy's voice was annoying as well, and now that song is going round my head.

Inside Out was great. I can sort of see where popcorn and Noodle Lizard are coming from re: plotholes and convenient internal logic, but if you focus on that instead of the visuals, characters, message, subtlety, warmth, the bloody warmth - then I dunno, I feel like you're missing the point a bit. To make the exploration of emotions and memory the focal point of a kids' film and pull it off is a pretty stonking achievement. Nice to hear some kids liked it; it felt like one for the adults, really.

It wasn't as funny as previous Pixar films, though I loved the 'I would die for Riley' guys fulfilling their wish - and the dialogue between the various emotions was very well put together. The film felt small but perfectly formed - looking forward to catching it on a small screen again.

Dat sigh tho

[popcorn]

CONTRARY BASTARD POST ALERT

As already stated, Lava looked amazing

I can't even agree on this much, and this is Pixar we're talking about, so it's extra disappointing.



This photorealism style is creepy as fuck. And why is the woman volcano a babe? I mean the guy volcano looks like the kid from Dinosaurs.



Why would such a babe of a volcano hook up with him? Was it necessary for the woman volcano to look so cartoonishly feminine for us to "get" the story?

God it's hideous. I'm gonna HURL.

Inside Out was great. I can sort of see where popcorn and Noodle Lizard are coming from re: plotholes and convenient internal logic, but if you focus on that instead of the visuals, characters, message, subtlety, warmth, the bloody warmth - then I dunno, I feel like you're missing the point a bit. To make the exploration of emotions and memory the focal point of a kids' film and pull it off is a pretty stonking achievement. Nice to hear some kids liked it; it felt like one for the adults, really.

I don't get this either. Inside Out is the first Pixar movie (of the ones I've seen, anyway) that felt like a dumb kids' movie in terms of art direction and character design. It's all sugary and pink and cheap. It felt like a Mario Kart level and the characters remind me of shit animated IM emoticons or mascot characters or something.

And maybe it's focusing on the wrong thing, but it's a high-concept movie with a concept that doesn't really work.