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.

Coco (a movie review post)

This turns out to be a difficult movie for me to review. Seriously, I've been contemplating the review for two days and still haven't figured out how exactly I want to approach this.

The easy thing to do is just to say that it's a great movie, because it is a great movie. In fact, since Toy Story 3 came out in 2010, Coco is one of only two great movies that Pixar has released, the other being Inside Out. The story is well-told and heartfelt. Heartfelt enough that it brought a tear to my eye. The aforementioned Toy Story 3 was the last movie to do that to me, as far as I remember.

As per Pixar, even in their less than good movies, the animation was fantastic. And fantastic in a way that we really haven't seen before: It was fabulously colorful. Like a sugar skull:

In fact, there's not anything I can point to that I would say would make the movie better. No improvements necessary.

And, yet...

And, yet, I am uncomfortable with the message, the message that family always comes first and is most important. More important than anything. I just... well... That's just not true.

I could get into examples of why that's not true, but it's probably not really necessary. Either you agree with the statement or you don't and nothing I say is going to matter one way or the other. Besides, any examples I could make could be entire posts, and I don't want to get into trying to summarize things in a way that is succinct. For instance, I could say:

When my grandmother died, my uncle, through unethical and possibly illegal methods, stole all of  the land my grandparent's had owned, leaving my mother and my aunt with virtually nothing.

But, then, you're going to want me to explain that, and I don't feel like getting into it. The short of it is that family shouldn't get any special passes just because they're family.

However, my disagreement with the message doesn't detract from the movie itself; the movie is great, and you should certainly go see it. At the theater even. It's really a movie which should be enjoyed on the big screen.

Beauty and the Beast (a movie review post)

What I want to do here is to talk about Disney's scheme of remaking their animated hits as live action movies, because, other than Maleficent, it seems rather pointless. However, when the goal is to make money, they are quite nicely fulfilling their point. Beauty and the Beast has already made over $200 million, and it hasn't, at the time of this writing, even been out a week. However, that discussion has nothing to do with the actual movie and should probably be saved for some other time. Or not had at all. Well, I'm sure plenty of other people are having it, so, probably, I will skip it other than to say that I liked the idea of re-telling the stories, as in Maleficent, from some other point of view.

Of course, the problem with talking about this movie, at least for me, is that it's very difficult to do as a thing all on its own without any kind of comparison or consideration of the 1991 animated feature. Probably, that's impossible. Disney's original Beauty was a landmark film and, really, changed animation forever. It was the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy awards and was the cause of the best animated feature category being created. This movie, the remake, despite beautiful animation, can't be said to be anything more than conventional. In fact, my daughter's response to it (and she's the one who wanted to see it) was, "It was all right."

I think I liked it more than she did. But she hasn't seen the original in so long she barely remembers it, and it was never anything to her more than another movie on video. In post-Pixar days, it's difficult for earlier animated movies to hold up. Maybe that's why they need to be remade...

But part of what I liked about it had to do with nostalgia more than any inherent quality in the movie itself. Which is not to say that it's not a good movie. It is. It's a good movie, possibly very good, with some great performances and great music, which goes without saying since much of the music is from the original.

Also, as you could expect from a Disney movie, the cast is great. Emma Watson is charming. Kevin Kline is... well, he's Kevin Kline, so he was great. Dan Stevens looks princely, which, especially for Disney, is appropriate. Luke Evans is incredible and came close to stealing the whole movie. Not quite but close. Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen are an amazing voice pair. They, also, came close to stealing the show.

Really, though, what it comes down to is this:
If you're a fan of the original because you remember seeing it in the theater when it was first released, you will probably get a big shot of nostalgia from this movie and love it. I'm going to guess that children will really enjoy it, too, but I don't know if it is the kind of movie that will actually compete with animated movies for their attention. For people in between, well, it's probably not going to be anything special. It's good, but it's not going to blow you away or change your life. It's probably worth seeing on the big screen, though.

Finding Dory (a movie review post)

I want to continue to believe in Pixar; I really do. I've met people who work there, was friends with one of the animators for a while (until we fell out of touch), and I've been to the studio. Their early movies are some of the best films ever made. However, it's undeniable at this point that their actual acquisition by Disney has had a detrimental effect. Since Disney took over, four of the seven films they have produced have been sequels, and three of their next four movies in production at this moment are also sequels. They've almost ceased to cover any new ground, the exceptions being Toy Story 3 and Inside Out.

So, yeah, Finding Dory does nothing new, covers no new ground, er, um, water. Sure, it's entertaining. It has some funny moments and introduces one new, great character, but it's virtually identical to Finding Nemo and strays out of the realm of believability far more frequently. And, yeah, I know it's a movie about talking, sentient fish, and I'll buy in for that, but I can't quite go all the way to octopus-driving-truck.

Speaking of the octopus, Hank, he's great. His character arc is also completely predictable, but he's a very fun character while onscreen. Really, he steals the whole thing. He would have been better, though, if he wasn't just the new incarnation of Gill, the escape-focused fish from Finding Nemo. No, it doesn't change the character sufficiently to have Hank wanting to escape in rather than escape out.

I guess what it really comes down to is this: If you've seen Finding Nemo, there's no real reason to see this movie unless you just really loved it and want to see the characters from a slightly different angle doing basically the same thing over again. If you have kids who are younger than Finding Nemo, they'll probably love Finding Dory and it won't matter whether they've seen Nemo or not. Kids notoriously love to watch the same thing over and over again (I still kind of have nightmares about Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, a movie I never ever need to see again).

If you haven't seen Finding Nemo... I don't know. I'd probably say just go watch Finding Nemo because it's a better movie. All I know is that when I come out of a movie and am glad I didn't have to pay full price for it (because we had two free tickets), then I can't in good conscience give it a whole-hearted recommendation. If you have the time and don't mind spending the money, sure, it's not going to drive you from the theater in disgust. It's good. Or good enough. But it's not great. It's not even Pixar-good. It's Cars 2 and Monsters University, movies completely playing to the formulas of their predecessors to rake in a buck.

The Good Dinosaur (a movie review post)

Dinosaurs were my first great love, from the moment I saw my very first one sometime around the age of four. Maybe three. I was instantly fascinated with them, and it was my goal for about 10 years to be a paleontologist when I grew up. But that's a story for another time.

Dinosaur movies, though, are not that fascinating. Inevitably, like in The Land Before Time, dinosaur movies deal with the dinosaur apocalypse and one small group trying to get to safety. So it was that The Good Dinosaur promised to be something different. A movie where the dinosaurs don't suffer an apocalypse. A movie where they live. A movie about what might have happened if they had not become extinct.

Unfortunately, that moment from the trailer, that moment when the asteroid misses Earth and the dinosaurs don't die, that moment happens with the opening credits and is over in a few minutes. The movie goes downhill from there. Downhill into being nothing original or new at all. It's just a weird hybrid of Ice Age (deliver the human baby to other humans), The Lion King, and a bunch of other stuff you've already seen.

That said, the animation, the background animation, is amazing. It's so amazing that at times I questioned whether it was CGI or not. The dinosaurs, though, are cartoony, and don't really fit their environment. They stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

The other good thing is Sam Elliot as Butch, the cowboy T-Rex. The whole thing with the T-Rexes as cowboys and the Raptors as rustlers was fairly amusing, and Elliot is the cowboy. I mean, you can't really get more cowboy than Elliot. It just oozes out of his voice.

But that's about it for the good.

The problem is that Pixar should have just let this movie die. When you have to, essentially, fire the guy who came up with the idea because he can't put the story together, you should start to re-think whether you should be making that movie. When, after doing the voice recording for the entire movie, you decide to re-write the script and re-record everything, you need to be re-thinking whether this is a movie you should be doing. Then, when you decide to dump virtually all of the voice actors and replace them, you really need to be thinking about whether this is a movie you should be doing. The Good Dinosaur was not a movie Pixar should have been doing.

I suppose I'm glad I saw the movie. Well, I am. It is a Pixar movie, and I wouldn't have been able to deal with just not seeing it, but, then, I wish I hadn't seen it. I certainly won't be buying it. It's the first legitimate failure from Pixar. There's no "Pixar" quality to it at all. It's mediocre at best, just as a movie, but, from Pixar, it's a disappointment. Completely.

Clone Wars -- Season One

I've watched more than my share of sci-fi on television, not all of it very good. Some of it downright bad. Some of it, like the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so horrible that there's no legitimate reason it should ever have been allowed to continue. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is not one of those shows. The Clone Wars, in fact, is good sci-fi, even in its first season. It "suffers" from only two things, at least in the minds of most people:
1. Its connection to the prequels.
2. It's animated.

Seriously, in this day and age, why do people still belittle "cartoons." It's not a cartoon, okay. Quit calling it that. And, really, when you say, "I don't watch cartoons," in reference to, say, a Pixar movie or a Studio Ghibli film, you just sound dumb and/or weirdly prejudice. The Clone Wars is in the same realm. Sure, it's "targeted" at kids, except that it's not. Really, it's just produced to be "kid accessible," but kids are not necessarily the target audience. The target audience is anyone who wants a more fleshed out view of the Star Wars universe.

As for its connection to the prequels, you just need to get over it. My gosh, they happened. Get your collective heads out of your asses and grow up.

So The Clone Wars does flesh out the Star Wars universe, and it did it on an ongoing basis for six years. For me, the best part of the series is seeing the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin develop. From just the movies, you don't get to see the bond between the two and just how strong it was, so, unless you can fill in the gaps yourself, you fail to grasp the trauma for Obi-Wan when Anakin turns to the Dark Side and he's forced to confront him. I think most people failed to grasp that simple concept. The Clone Wars allows you to see and experience the brotherhood of the two men.

The other thing The Clone Wars does really well is explore just what it means to be a clone. A product. Within that, what does it mean to be an individual? What is the importance, the value, of one clone? Or, more appropriately, one person?

What I'm saying is that The Clone Wars explores real questions and looks at real issues and puts those things in a context that pretty much anyone can understand. It's no mere cartoon. The first season is strong. It didn't need time to "find its legs," as so many other, especially sci-fi, shows do. This series should be a must watch for any Star Wars fan. Any real Star Wars fan, at any rate.

However, as good as it is, there are still some episodes I like, I'll say, less well. Only two, though, really. You can see the reviews for those two:
"Blue Shadow Virus"
"Mystery of a Thousand Moons"

Picking a favorite episode from the season is much more difficult. For instance, I love half of the episode, "The Gungan General." The parts where Anakin and Obi-Wan have to work with Dooku to escape the pirates are some of my favorite moments of the season, but, then, they are countered in this episode by it being the absolute worst usage of Jar Jar in the entire series (or, at least, season one, but I think it's true of the series as a whole).

But, fine, I'll pick one! I'm going to go with
"Storm Over Ryloth"
as my single favorite episode. As I said in the review, I highly recommend it.

Next week, we start season two! I hope to see you there, and, remember, you can decide to participate in this blog event at any time. Just go here to sign up!

Inside Out (a movie review post)

I think it's safe to say that it's been a few years since Pixar put out a truly great film. Not that I haven't enjoyed the last few, but they've lacked a certain Pixar-ness. And if you're wondering what I mean by "Pixar-ness," well, I can't answer that question. You might as well ask me to define love definitively. Whatever it is, though, Inside Out has it.

My first thought was that this is the best movie they've done since Up (because I was forgetting that Toy Story 3 was actually after Up because those movies exist all together somewhere outside of the rest of the Pixar movies). That was before I found out that this one is made by the same guy that did Up, Pete Docter. This one is just as good (I know because my wife spent approximately half of the movie crying and the other half laughing).

The first most interesting thing about the movie is the representation of how the mind works. Evidently, a lot of research went into getting the science of it correct, even if just for an animated movie. The whole thing started, basically, as a science question because, when his daughter entered adolescence, Docter asked himself the question, "I wonder what's going on her brain." And, so, he tried to find out. And, then, made a movie about it.

The idea of there being core emotions and those emotions sort of being in control of who we are as people is, what I'm going to call, "good science," meaning they didn't just make up that stuff for the movie, only simplified it a little. I think the struggle between Joy and Sadness for the movie is extremely telling for our culture, especially for girls and women for whom there is a much greater social pressure to be happy. All the time. Of course, the conflict centers around Riley's loss of control of her Sadness.

Which is where I'll stop, because I don't want to have spoilers.

The animation was amazing, as is to be expected. Mostly, it's the backgrounds. The movie is full of memory marbles (my term; I don't know what they actually call them) and, if you pay attention to them in the background, they are always active. They're not just stacks of static spheres to fill up space. Seriously, the difference in animation from when I was a kid to now is... it's the difference between making a cardboard stage and putting on a finger puppet production and television.

The voice acting was, of course, excellent. Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith were perfect for Joy and Sadness. Poehler brought to Joy the same kind of exuberance that she brings to Leslie Knope, which is why, I'm sure, she was chosen for the role. But it's Smith who really made the movie. Her rather, what I can only describe as, sad-sack voice was the perfect fit for Sadness. The other voicers were great, too, but it all comes down to Joy and Sadness; if those two hadn't worked, the movie wouldn't have worked.

And it does work. If you've ever seen a Pixar movie and enjoyed it, you definitely don't want to miss this one. In fact, if you take the Toy Story movies as one spot, Inside Out has a fighting chance at being one of the top five movies Pixar has done. Okay, that might be a hard call, but saying top six seems kind of weird. Anyway, it's a great movie. It will make you laugh, and it might make you cry.

Frozen (but full of warm fuzzies)

Pixar's loss of John Lasseter's direct involvement in their day-to-day operations hasn't done them any favors (see my reviews of Monsters University and Brave); however, his influence on Disney as a whole looks to be unmistakable. Unmistakably good, at that. Whereas the last couple of Pixar movies have descended to fairly typical Disney fare, Frozen rises towards the kind of film we haven't seen from Pixar since Toy Story 3 (a movie that made me cry, and I don't cry at movies very often). It's not as good as TS3, but it's definitely the best Disney Animation movie in a good long while.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the movie is delightful on so many levels. Olaf steals every scene he's in, and my kids loved him. Seriously, my daughter especially has not stopped talking about him, and both of the younger ones have been singing as much of his "puddle" song as they can remember. My daughter, who is less interested in movies than the boys, would have turned right around and seen it again. [And we'd (my daughter and I) planned to see Desolation of Smaug together (because the boys (and my wife) were too disappointed with the first one to want to go see the second one), but, when we walked out of the theater from Frozen, my daughter said, "I don't want to go see The Hobbit; I want to see Frozen again," which we're not actually going to do (because I'll just buy here the DVD), but, now, I have no one to see The Hobbit with (which I'm only going to see because I feel compelled to do so).]

The animation in the movie was, in a word, incredible, especially the ice and especially especially the ice bridge. The songs are good (and who knew Kristen Bell could sing? Okay, so, well, maybe lots of people, but I didn't know, so I was surprised to see that she had performed her own songs), and, as I've already implied, the song by Olaf was really catchy.

The best parts of the movie, however, can't be talked about without being spoilery: You've been warned.

The death of the parents at the beginning of the movie is pretty typical for Disney. I'm not quite sure why all of their young heroes have to be orphans of some type, but it's almost always the case. Possibly, for Frozen, it's there to help you feel as if you're in a typical Disney film (I kind of doubt it), but, whatever the reason, you know when the parents are leaving on their trip that they're not coming back. Of course, that's what sets up the problems for the rest of the movie. Elsa has no one to help her cope with her powers and grows up in isolation because of it.

One of the best moments is between Anna and Kristoff as he chastises her for attempting to marry someone (Hans) that she had just met that day. It's very amusing, because the immediate True Love thing is so endemic in Disney movies, so it's refreshing to see it handled like this in this movie. In fact, the catalyst of the whole thing is Elsa (now the Queen) refusing to allow the marriage between Anna and Hans because they had only just met. There's even a comment from Kristoff to Anna where he is saying "no" to her about something (no, I don't remember exactly what) because he doesn't trust her judgement. All of this is a nice break from that Disney cliche.

And then there's the whole thing with True Love's Kiss that they also turn on its head, and that was great to see, too. And I won't say more than that, because I don't want to give everything away. Let's just say that the movie ended with both Anna and Elsa growing as characters, something that Brave, unfortunately, lacked.

At any rate, it's a very enjoyable movie and one that I hope is signaling a new direction for Disney. Disney Princesses are great and all that, but it's good to have some that don't need to get rescued.

Also, Alan Tudyk was great. I didn't even realize that was him until I saw his name in the credits. He's a great voice actor and under-appreciated as an actor in general.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 5: It Just Got Happier

When we were at Disneyland back during the summer, I was joking with my kids about how Disney was going to take over the world. I may have mentioned this in one of the posts about all the Disney stuff, but I couldn't find it upon a casual perusal, and I don't have time for anything more in depth. As I'm writing this, though... wait a minute! Yes, it's here. Disney has been buying so much: Pixar, Marvel, and, now... Star Wars.

Yes, Disney bought Star Wars! Not just Star Wars but all of Lucasfilm including Skywalker Sound and ILM and all of that. They get Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It's a huge deal. A $4 billion deal of which Lucas gets $2 billion in cash. I can't even imagine that.

So this is one of the things that I was joking about while we were at Disneyland as we were strolling through Tomorrowland -- Star Wars being the next step Disney would need to take in their bid to take over the world. Star Wars is the biggest entertainment franchise ever to exist other than Disney itself, so this is... well, it's just HUGE!

The immediate result of the deal is that another Star Wars movie is going into immediate production for a 2015 release. And, yeah, I already hear the moaning out there blah blah blah, but I have just two words to say to all of you who think this is bad: The Avengers. If anyone can pull off another Star Wars film, it will be Disney.

I actually like that Lucas has done this. It opens all kinds opportunities to expand the world of Star Wars. Expansion that Lucas would never have done, because, well, he's tired of everyone bashing him. And who can blame him?

There are three more movies on the horizon now: episodes 7, 8, and 9. Movies that Lucas said he would never make. But I'm sure that's just the tip of the ice berg. There have been rumors going around about a solo Boba Fett movie, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen, now, too, especially since Joe Johnston, director of Captain America, provided the final designs on the character. He's also been bugging Lucas about making that movie for years.

The most significant part of the whole thing, though, is that Lucas said he's wanted to see Star Wars passed down for future generations, and there really is no better place for Star Wars to be for that happen. If Disney knows how to do anything, they know how to preserve cherished movies and pass them on from parents to kids and, well, to more kids. Not that I think Star Wars ever would have passed out of memory, but Disney will keep Star Wars alive and growing.

None of this even takes into consideration the great talent that will now be available to play in the Star Wars universe. Hey, Joss Whedon already has a relationship with Disney... can you imagine? There are so many possibilities!

And, well, heck, I'm still stuck on episode 7. Seriously. And my kids are super excited. Exciting times!

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 2

As I'm sure everyone knows, Disney bought Pixar a number of years ago. A few years later, they bought Marvel Comics. They own The Muppets. They own ABC. They own ESPN. I could go on, but, really, why bother? They own a lot of stuff. I sort of think, maybe, Disney plans to own the world. Just a couple of weeks ago, I would have said that was a bad thing; however, I'm not so sure now. I mean, if they were to do with the world what they've done with Disneyland, I think it might actually be a better place.

Of course, no one would ever have any money, because, my gosh, are they good at selling things!

But everyone would be happy, so, maybe, the lack of money wouldn't matter?

So... the trip:

The trip down to Disneyland was an even longer drive than the trip up to Trinity Lake, which is kind of weird. Well, at least, it's weird to me. Going up to Trinity Lake is like going to a completely foreign place in a lot of ways, so it feels like it should be farther away. We had all kinds of plans to be at Disneyland by early afternoon, but a late start and bad traffic around L.A. defeated us, so we got a much later start at the park than we had meant to. I learned a lot, though, about planning for the next trip if we ever go back.

I had nothing to do with the planning for this trip. As I said, I was sort of just instructed that I was going and didn't really have any say in the matter. But, then, you don't really argue, I suppose, when someone offers to take you to Disneyland. You don't turn down free, right?

To start things off, we stayed at Disney's Grand Californian hotel. That place was amazing. I wish I had pictures for you, but there was just no view of it from the outside that I could get that would have captured the hotel. However, I have some shots from our balcony into the park, because, yes, the Grand opens directly into California Adventure.

And this was in the hotel:

I really wanted to eat there or, at least, get coffee there, but we never did. We were pretty much at one park or the other for all of our meals. But, wow, I really wanted to go there! It was probably better, though, that we didn't; that place was expensive! Next time, though, coffee for sure!

Our first destination for Thursday night after we arrived was Tomorrowland and Star Tours! Just to say it, Star Tours is awesome! Even the line is awesome. There's all kinds of stuff to keep you entertained while you stand in line, which is true of a lot of the lines, but Star Tours most of all. We had fastpasses, though, so, mostly, we skipped right through the line, which was rather a disappointment. My younger son and I wanted to go back at some point and wait in the regular line so that we got watch the video presentation and listen to the droids banter, but we never got to. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from Star Tours, because we didn't get to stand still long enough for me take any (and, by the time we went back to ride it again, my camera had decided not to be compliant with the whole picture taking process).

By the time we got back to the hotel that first night, I was sold on Disneyland. Here are a few more pictures:

Sleeping Beauty's castle.

In Tomorrowland.

The parades were awesome!

They had floats!

This whole thing with the parades is significant, because my wife kept mentioning to me prior to the trip the fact that they had parades, but, you know, I thought she just meant marching bands and stuff. The kind of stuff they had at Six Flags (the real Six Flags) when I was younger. At some point, she mentioned something about the floats being lit up at night, and I had to do a double take. So, yeah, they have these huge parades through Disneyland with floats and everything, and  they are amazing! I wish I had more and better pictures of them.

Yes, I got swallowed by Monstro.

One other thing we did our first night was to go on the "It's a Small World" ride. No one could believe I wanted to do that. I can understand why they couldn't believe it, because, really, no one else wanted to do it, but, as I've said, everyone else had been before. However, Small World is just SO Disney, and I can't imagine having not done it. I'd have gone on it again, too! There's just so much to see in there; you can't do it all at once. Here are a few pictures:

And that was most of the first evening. Small World, Star Tours, a parade, the Star Trader (the Star Wars store), and lots and lots of looking at stuff. So much stuff!

Stay tuned for part 3... whenever that happens to happen.

Are You Brave Enough?

As all Pixar movies, Brave is a beautiful piece of work. The landscapes are gorgeous. The animation excellent. The characters interesting. Despite all of that, I was left slightly unsatisfied at the end of the movie.

It's not that it wasn't a good movie; it was. It was very good. But, I guess, I was just expecting something a little bit more from Pixar, because, in the end, it turns out to be a pretty typical kid-oriented fantasy movie. It's the kind of thing where the kid makes a bad decision but gets rewarded for it anyway. Basically, parents are always wrong and if they would just open their eyes and take a look at you and how deserving you are to have your way then they would just see that that's true and let you have your way. Of course, it's not that simple in these kinds of movies, and the kid has to make a big mistake for the parent to actually take a look at the kid and, instead of the kid having to deal with any consequences of his/her actions, s/he's able to put everything right which enables the parent to say, "Oh, you were right all along. Here, have everything you always wanted."

And this is the unfair bit, I suppose, because, if this movie had been from anyone but Pixar, I would have been fine with it. Not that I would have thought it was a better movie, but I wouldn't have been left with a feeling of disappointment. As it is, though, Pixar has been pretty good about taking that next step in dealing with personal responsibility. They've had characters that have worked through difficult issues, looked at their own behavior, and come out stronger and more mature individuals on the other side (with the exception of Wall-E, which I thought was cute but a bit heavy handed with its message and lacking in the personal growth department (even Cars 2 had a strong dose of personal growth)). The character of Merida does not come out a stronger and more mature person on the other side. She may appreciate her mother a bit more, but, in essence, she's the same at the end as she was at the beginning.

To make matters worse, the whole movie revolves around the question, "Are you brave enough?" Are you brave enough to change your own fate? It's a good question, and it sounds like a Pixar question. So I went into it expecting the heroine to do just that, to be brave and change her fate. But that's not what happens. At no point does she take the brave stance to change her fate. Instead, she runs away and makes a bad choice. It felt very The Little Mermaid to me.

I find it more than a little ironic that Pixar, a movie company known for their "bravery" in movie making, took the less than courageous route in a movie about being brave and taking your fate in your own hands.

Which makes me wonder about the influence Disney is having over them. Pixar kept their own studio headquarters up here near San Francisco when Disney bought them. The idea behind that was so that they could keep their autonomy. Do their own thing. Continue to make the movies they'd been know for. But I'm not sure that's happening. Last summer's Cars 2, which I liked, is considered Pixar's first failure for its overt merchandising. A movie short on story for the sake of being flashy and selling a lot of stuff. That's so very... Disney. And, honestly, even with the stronger than typical female lead, Brave felt much like a typical Disney "Princess" movie. Even Toy Story 3 was pushed through by Disney. Actually, because Disney owned the rights to any Toy Story sequels, they were going to make the movie without Pixar's involvement at all, but after their Pixar acquisition, Pixar took control of it and started completely over on the project (and thank goodness for that!).

Maybe it's just the lack of John Lasseter. With the acquisition by Disney and his expanded role as chief creative officer for both Disney and Pixar (along with a handful of other duties (which included the creation of the new Cars theme park at Disneyland)), he's had to be much less involved in the individual projects at Pixar, and it was always Lasseter that was the real heart of Pixar. It was his vision that created Pixar, took it from a failing animation department that George Lucas sold to Steve Jobs and Jobs was considering selling off to Microsoft (or anyone that would take it, really) and turned it into the most profitable movie studio ever (they currently have the highest average box office take across all of their movies of any movie studio). Is it that Lasseter's vision for Pixar has been removed or diluted, or is it that he's finally bought into Disney's way of doing things? I'm hoping with his more direct involvement with next summer's Monsters University that we'll see a return to what is more expected from a Pixar movie.

All of that said, my kids loved Brave, and that's really what matters. As I said, it is a good movie. If it had come out under the Disney banner rather than Pixar, I wouldn't have thought a thing about it. In fact, I would have applauded them for providing a female lead that did not need a man to "complete" her, but from Pixar... well, it just fell short of expectations.

When Everyone's Special...

...no one  is.

The Incredibles is one of my favorite movies, not just one of my favorite Pixar movies. Not that I couldn't say that about a lot of Pixar movies. But that's beside the point.

This is another post I started quite a while ago, but I think it flows pretty well out of my last post. Really, I'll give my soap box back at some point.

There are two themes in The Incredibles that attract me to it. The first of those is being who you are. Not hiding yourself away and pretending to be other than you are, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about the second theme, the one that has to do with society exalting mediocrity so that everyone can be "special."

It's somewhat of a paradox, too, because we are a society that exalts the "popular" while simultaneously trying to devalue everyone else so that we're all the same. The conflict arises because it boils down to "winners" (like Charlie Sheen >heh<) and "losers." If you're the hot commodity, you're a winner. Everyone else is a loser.

But we live in a society (mostly confined to North American at the moment but spreading) that doesn't believe in having "losers." A society that says everyone can be a winner... no, everyone is a winner. A society that tries to protect the feelings of, well, everyone (and saying "it's all subjective" is the ultimate defense against qualitative judgments of any kind). A society that doesn't believe in pointing out that anything is bad or wrong. A society that says "everything is good all the time." [See my post about the book Bright-sided for more on this.]

Let's use a sports analogy, shall we?

Because my daughter was playing softball (you can read that story here), my wife and I have been doing lots if digging and searching around for information about teams and leagues and all of that sort of thing. Meaning, my wife has been doing lots of research and passing the interesting bits on to me. One of the articles I read that really stood out to me is the rise of Little Leagues that do not have winners. Well, that's not true; they don't have losers. Everyone gets to be a winner. There are no outs. There are no scores. Everyone gets to hit the ball and run the bases. Why? Because we, as parents, need to protect our children from being "losers." And having hurt feelings.

But it doesn't fool the kids. And it doesn't help the kids. The kids want there to be winners, and they're willing to accept the prospect of losing, because they want the chance to win. They want the chance to win.

But none of us want our kids to be "losers," so we take that prospect away from them. We want to make them all winners, but the problem is that you can't have winners if you don't also have losers.

In many ways, I feel like this whole self-publishing game is becoming like these little leagues. We're not allowed to say anything negative, because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. No one is "allowed" to be a loser, and, if there are no losers, everyone gets to be a "winner." Even if that's not true. And we all know it's not true, but, if no one says anything bad, we can keep pretending.

There's this book I want to read, The Fourth Turning, that's all about this stuff from a generational perspective. We own the book, but it's out on loan (because I didn't get to it fast enough after my wife read it). Of course, loaned books can't usually be said to be owned books very often. That's my perspective anyway. Loaning it out is equivalent to giving it away.

At any rate, my generation, in the book, is known as the "unprotected" generation and looking at how I grew up, I tend to agree. We were the generation of latchkey kids (and I started being one by age 7). The current generation, the millennials, the generation my generation is raising, is known as the "protected" generation, and it is a direct response to the self-involvement of our own parents by trying to be over involved in our own kids' lives. It should be the "over protected" generation. [I've been reading a lot about how our aversion to allow our kids to experience risk is not so good for their internal development. Sure, they don't get broken bones, but they never learn how to take risks or, sometimes, even think for themselves.] And there was this other article about the first of the millennials entering the job market and how they need constant supervision and feedback (because they've never really learned how to be independent).

Anyway... I'm straying a bit, and it's getting late, so I need to wrap this up.

The point is this:
There are people in the world like Dash and Mr. Incredible. Not people with super powers, but people that standout above all the rest. We really don't get anywhere by trying to force everyone into a mold of sameness. The problem we have is that we don't want to acknowledge that there are some people that really need to either find something else to do or work harder at whatever it is before they can be good enough.

Like my brother playing basketball in high school. He was a short, white boy. Shorter than me, and I'm only 5'8". But my brother could play and play well, and it's what he wanted most to do. He had to work hard at it. And he did. Hours every day. And I bet you're expecting me to tell you some miracle story about his hard work and perseverance, but I'm not going to. He did make his high school team. He was the only white boy on the team one year. Mostly, he just warmed the bench, though. Why? Because, as good as he was, he wasn't better than the other boys on his team. Mostly because he just wasn't tall enough. And that's a suck thing to be that good but still not to be able to compete. Eventually, he had to come to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be able to do that thing, basketball, and he went to other things.

But he did try. He gave it his all to see if he could make it, but he just couldn't pull it off. But he still plays for fun, so it's not like it was taken away from him.

To bring this back to writing, I'm going to switch movies. There's a quote at the end of Ratatouille that I love, but I'm only going to paraphrase it for you, "Not everyone can be a great writer, but a great writer can come from anyone." I do think everyone should have the opportunity to take their shot at being a great writer. Or a great anything. However, I don't think everyone can do it. I don't think most people can do it. Which is not to say that you shouldn't try. But, if you're going to try, work hard at it. And take the criticism (both bad and good (because to critique something is not just pointing out the bad)) people give you while you are busy working hard, and use it to get better.

Some people won't be tall enough. Some won't be fast enough. Some will just never get the break they need. Some will never get good enough because we don't tell them they need to work on their grammar so as to avoid hurting someone's feelings. And that's really the worst thing that can happen. To not become a winner because no one ever bothered to tell you that you were losing.

Everyone can't be special, because when everyone's special, no one is.

Pixar's Ironic Messenger

Pixar's newest release is slick. And when I say slick, I mean it's SLICK. In the same way that Lightning McQueen is speed, Cars 2 is slick. Shiny. Mint. The animation is... there are no actual words for what the animation is. Especially the animation on the racing locations. I sat there thinking, "I want to go there." Especially when they were racing in Italy, and, actually, I have no real desire to go to Italy, but those scenes... I would have just stepped into them if I could have.

Cars 2 embraces everything kids loved about Cars and focuses in on it and makes it Bigger. Better. Faster and more intense (to quote a famous director (well, he's not famous for being a director, but that's the phrase he's known for when directing (points for anyone that knows whom))). Throw in Michael Caine as Finn McMissle, the James Bond of the movie, and you have  the perfect mix for the perfect spy spoof. And it is. If you can imagine a James Bond movie where he's accompanied by Johnny English (a Rowan Atkinson creation, if that gives you any idea). Actually, just see Cars 2, and you won't have to imagine it. Caine is suave and sophisticated while Larry the Cable Guy is, well, Mater.

In comparison to other Pixar movies, this one has been getting bad reviews. Which puts it on just about even footing with other movies. As a total aside, I find it extremely curious that the first movie that Pixar has released that attacks a particular group, in this case Big Oil, is the first of their movies to get any kind of negative reaction. In general, their movies have been about the human condition, and this one is, too, but Cars 2, specifically, makes the statement that Big Oil is bad. WALL-E has a similar theme, an environmental theme, but they don't target any particular group with that movie; they play it safe by equating their environmental message with said human condition -- humans need to "shape up" but not any specific ones. But, hey, I agree with them, Big Oil is bad. They are one of the big evils in the world, and, if Pixar wants to call them to the carpet, I'm good with that. I mean, when a Saudi prince starts talking about how they need to drive oils prices down so they can keep the US dependent on the Middle East for oil, you know something's wrong.

I'm not trying to say there's any kind of conspiracy against Cars 2 or Pixar by Big Oil, but I do find the negativity surrounding the movie to be, well, like I said, curious.

Moving past the oil thing, probably, the biggest "flaw" of the movie is its failure to meet audience expectations. Cars is about Lightning McQueen. He is the star of the movie. The trailers leading up to Cars 2 support our assumption and expectation that Lightning will, again, be the star of Cars 2. Pixar fails to prepare us for the reality, and the blame for that lies squarely with them. Or with Disney. With whoever prepared the trailers, but I'd find it hard to believe that Pixar didn't have some control over that. The truth is, though, is that Lightning is not the hero of the sequel. That distinction falls on Mater (If you doubt it, check to see who got top billing for the movie. Hint: it wasn't Owen Wilson). I think it's quite possible that adult audiences just couldn't come to grips with the comic relief from the first movie taking over in the spotlight in the second. Kids, though... well, kids love Mater, and I'm pretty sure it hasn't been an issue for them.

That's a failing I often see in reviews of movies for kids, the tendency to belittle them for no reason other than that they're for kids. Pixar, of course, has spoiled the wider audience by making their movies equally appealing to adults, so when they release a movie that is geared (no pun intended) more toward kids, adults get a little upset over it.

If Cars 2 does a have a failing, I'd say it's one of story telling. The big plot is the spy story with the message about big oil, but they needed something else to give it that emotional impact they're known for, so they tried to weave in a story about friendship and how we need to accept our friends for whom they are. Lightning is embarrassed of Mater. In fact, it is the early conflict over this that sends Mater off on his adventure. However, because the movie is focused on Mater, we never get the opportunity to make an emotional connection with Lightning over the issue, so there's no tug on our heart when we get to the pay off for that in the movie. Just an intellectual acknowledgment that, yes, we shouldn't try to make our friends be someone they're not. It's the failure of these two story lines to support each other that leaves the audience feeling that there could have been something more. Sort of like making one peanut butter sandwich and one jelly sandwich and leaving it to the audience to figure out what to do with them.

Having said that, I do feel the need to point out that this movie is still vastly superior to the average Hollywood offering. If this is the worst Pixar has to offer, and I'm not saying it is, because I actually enjoyed it a lot more than WALL-E, no one has any reason at all to complain. And it's worth saying: Big Oil is bad.

Reflections on a Week

We sat around at the fairgrounds waiting for the fireworks to start. We got there a little too early this year, so it was a long wait. However, between rounds of Uno and other card games, it gave me plenty of time to observe people.

The people were divided into two main groups: families (like us) and young people. Mostly, the families are uninteresting. I mean, they're busy corralling their kids just like we are. Or not corralling them, as was the case for most of them. I spend a fair amount of time trying to prevent my children from running amok, so there's not much interest for me in watching other people's children do so. Still, it was mildly amusing when the 4ish year old boy a few plots over grabbed a miniature lightsaber with both hands and attached it to his crotch and proceeded to act like he was peeing with it. Not that that in and of itself was amusing, but his mother started laughing uncontrollably and pointing the behavior out to everyone (strangers) around her. Of course, the positive feedback from his mother spurred him on to spin and dance around while holding the lightsaber in place. (I'm just not thinking the same behavior from a little girl would have been tolerated, much less encouraged.) This lasted until he spun himself so out of control that he could no longer stand.

When I say the other group was made of young people, that's not entirely accurate. I should say that the other category of people was made up of roving bands of young girls. Like packs of wild dogs roaming the streets in some post-apocalyptic world. Generally, 5 or 6 of them. Never fewer than 3. Hunting. Aged anywhere from 12 to 25. Mostly in short shorts and low cut shirts with artificial assistance to display their... assets. (Well, except for the 1 girl in a thin, white tank top with nothing beneath it except herself. There was nothing artificial there.) Roaming the crowd looking for stray boys. The problem being that there were no stray boys. And this is the part I find interesting. These kinds of events always attract groups of girls. Girls out to snag guys. But the guys don't show up for them.

Not that there were no guys. But the guys that were there were very obviously already attached. Like the guy behind us. He was there with his girl and 4 of her friends. I know this, because they had me take a group picture of them. The guy sat in his spot all night except for one foraging trip to the concession stands. Accompanied trip. Because it would be too dangerous for his girl to let him go off alone with so many predators around. No groups of guys wandering around looking for like-sized groups of girls, though. None.

Somewhere in there something is wrong. It's certainly not like the malls back in the 80s. Yes, there were the same packs of girls, but there were also guys. Mostly huddled in the gloom of the arcade hypnotized by flashing lights and the sounds of Donkey Kong. Or the food court. Of course, if you were in the book store, like me, you were safe. Completely safe. Better than hiding under a rock.

My daughter eats a lot. When I say a lot, I mean constantly. Like a hummingbird. We think she has a black hole in her stomach. I spend hours everyday trying to keep her in food. Which is in direct opposition to her desire to play. There was a watermelon eating contest for kids at the fairgrounds. I'm not exactly sure how they were defining kids, though. My daughter desperately wanted a snow cone. A $5 snow cone. Which I refused to buy. $5 for a cup of ice? What the heck is that about? The prize for the watermelon eating contest was a free snow cone, and the entry fee for the contest was only $1. So we let her enter. At this point, I'd like to point out that my daughter is 8. She was the youngest kid to enter at the time she was doing it. All girls and except for one other, all over 12. Did I mention the fact that it was all girls? One of those roving packs of girls, one other girl (with her father), and my daughter. She was upset because of all the big girls in the contest and feared she couldn't win. At the last moment, they split it into two groups: all the over 12s and all the under 12s. That just left one girl against my daughter, so it was a pretty easy win for her. However, she came in second out of the whole group. Pretty amazing. And she got her snow cone.

They have this thing here on Wednesday nights during  the summer called, in all originality, Wednesday Night Market. It's what it sounds like. Local businesses and farmers set up stalls and sell stuff in the streets of down town. We bought some great peaches. My kids got to hold some snakes and a newt at a booth being run by the local herpetological society. My daughter, who is pretty fearless, adamantly refused to touch the snakes. Until her brother did. He's a cautious lad. Perhaps overly cautious. His first reaction was also no. Which is what I expected from him (but not from his sister). After looking at all the snakes in boxes, though, and watching all the other people hold them (and wear them), he finally piped up, "I want to hold one." As soon as he had it in his hands, his sister had to do it, too. No, she's not competitive.

Although the crowd at the market is a bit more eclectic than the crowd for the fireworks (which I'm going to blame on the farmers' market section), there were still those densely knotted groups of girls wandering through the crowds looking for the non-existent guys. Again, any guys there were definitely already owned.

There was also a trip to the Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco. We just renewed our family plan with them, so there should be, at least, a few more trips there within the next year. The albino alligator was doing well after a recent algae cleaning. My daughter was completely engrossed in trying to count the number of moray eels. And she made a friend in the rain forest:

Of course, then, my younger son also wanted to hold a butterfly, so he spent the rest of his time walking around with his finger out (Although my daughter hadn't been trying. It just landed on her). And trying to watch the frogs mate, which he also missed seeing. It was a fun day other than my daughter trying to constantly rush us on to the next thing before anyone else was finished with the thing we were on. That's just how she is.

That's most of the week. There will be reviews coming as soon as I can write them about Cars 2 and Super 8. I just want to point out (because I find it very (very) curious) that Pixar slams big oil in this movie, and it's the first of the Pixar movies to get bad reviews. Or less good reviews. Non-stellar reviews. But I'll talk more about that later.