Soul (a movie review post)

 

Pixar has not been my favorite production company of late. After spending more than a decade as Hollywood's golden child that could do no wrong, they ended that run with Toy Story 3. Their movies after that, with only a few exceptions, became formulaic and, well, boring. I've said previously that I believe that was due to the loss of John Lasseter as their creative guide. I still mostly stand by that. Since 2010, only three of their movies stand out as something more than ordinary. Two of those were by Pete Docter, this being one of them.

The first thing I'm going to say is how... wonderful... yes, wonderful, it is to have a movie "about" jazz that isn't made by fucking Damien Chazelle. There's nothing in this about how the white savior man is going to save jazz from... I don't know. It was never really clear what Chazelle thought he was saving jazz from. Itself, probably, since Chazelle seems to believe that jazz was made for the white man, and it can't be trusted in the hands of the people who invented it.

This movie isn't really about jazz and doesn't have a whole lot of jazz in it. Which is fine, because I'm not much of a jazz fan. I don't hate it or anything, but it's not something I'm just going to turn on if I feel like some music. In fact, the movie isn't about music at all. It's about dreams. Life dreams, not the ones you have when you're asleep and forget promptly when you wake up. Or, maybe, it's about inspiration. That's the word, or a word, they use in the movie. 

But that's not really right, either. The movie is about living your life and not just... drifting through it. It's about not letting fear get in the way of pursuing the things that spark you. From a casual distance, it's a beautiful movie. It has some endearing and some poignant moments.

It also has some issues, which I will try to point out without being spoilery.

Joe is a musician, a jazz musician. He's been chasing that lucky break all his life. His mother wants him to get a real job. A permanent one. Not that he doesn't work. He teaches music, but he's not, evidently, a permanent teacher or anything like that. The conflict at the opening of the movie is that he's been offered a permanent teaching position, and he's torn over whether to accept it or not because, for some reason, if he acceptd a position as a music teacher he'll have to, for whatever reason, no longer accept gigs playing in clubs and bars. Um... The dude's not married and has no kids. This is an artificial conflict. Do I give up on my dream of being a "musician" by taking the teaching job or not?

There is also the subtle implication that Joe has not been adequately pursuing his dream because he hasn't been successful at becoming a "musician." There are scenes of him doing other life stuff, like watching TV and doing laundry, which are there to suggest that these are times when Joe was failing to pursue his calling. What the fuck is that about? No one can spend 24/7 doing one thing and one thing only. That he has not "made it" is not because he has not adequately pursued his dream.

And there is the complete dismissal of the importance Joe has played in the lives of the students he's taught and their own inspiration toward music because of him. It's like those things, though important, do not actually matter because those things have come at the expense of Joe's own success. Or something like that.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I don't really think these are good messages to be handing out. Not that I think these are messages that are really intended, but the framework of the movie delivers them anyway. If you are not famous and "successful," you have failed your dream. You have failed to pursue it adequately. It's our cultural belief, and it's ingrained in the movie, which is too bad, because there could have been a deeper message.

All of which may sound like I didn't like the movie, which would be incorrect. It's one of the top three Pixar movies of the past decade, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It came close to bringing tears to my eyes. I would gladly watch it again. And I might, since it's streaming on Disney+. None of which changes the fact that I wish that Docter had gone just a little bit further with the movie and not relied so heavily on our societal views of achievement and success. It's a really good movie, just not a great one.

Sisters (a movie review post)

There's something to be said for any movie willing to go up against Star Wars and, whatever that is, it can be said about Sisters. No, I'm not sure what it is, but I know there's something. Actually, they may have said it best with their promo explaining why they kept December 18 (henceforth known as "Star Wars Day") as their release date:


Honestly, the promo is my favorite thing about the movie, which is not to diminish the movie at all, but I think the promo is pretty darn awesome.
Not that it has anything to do with the movie itself.

So, yeah, I'm sure if there was an actual movie category called "stupid comedy" that this would be in it, but, then, so would a lot of very popular and great comedies going all the way back to the 80s. That doesn't make them not funny. And, yes, there are some things that cross the line of believability in Sisters, but that doesn't make it not funny.

And it is funny. Very much funny.
But with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler how could it not be?

There's even a little bit of message about what it is to be family.
But, mostly, it's just funny.
And a little bit painful. The music box knows what I mean.

There's not much else to say about this one.
James Brolin and Dianne Wiest were great as the parents. My kids are still teenagers, but I could totally empathize with them.
John Cena was hilarious.
Ike Barinholtz was good but a little bit distracting because he looks too much like Mark Wahlberg, and my brain kept wanting it to be Wahlberg but it wasn't, which was disconcerting.

Look, I get it. Usually these kinds of movies are full of teenagers doing dumb teenager kinds of things, but that's the point. The point that we don't ever really grow out of wanting to do those things. I guess. I mean, I never did those things, but I had friends who did, so I get it. Basically, you have to find the balance between growing up and staying a kid.

And it's funny!
Just remember to turn off the water.