In Review: "Inside Out"

When was the last time you said, "Let's watch it again!" after sitting through a 2-hour movie? Maybe when you were 5? Mine was after seeing this movie once last Friday and the second time on Saturday. In my opinion, this is the best Disney/Pixar movie since "Finding Nemo". It blows "Up" out of the water.

The Story

Riley and her family are moving to a new home with a new school and a new group of friends. That's the basic plot line, but what makes it more exciting and more innovative is taking a look at what is going on inside of Riley's head during this life-changing event.

Riley has 5 core emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). These emotions run how Riley reacts and interacts with the world around her through a control panel in her head called "Headquarters". But what happens if Joy and Sadness accidentally leave "Headquarters" and Disgust, Anger and Fear have to run the show? How will Joy and Sadness find their way back? And what is lurking inside of Riley's brain?

The Stars

All of the voices were perfect fits for their characters. Some were obvious choices like Lewis Black for Anger (he always seems to be yelling) and Mindy Kaling for Disgust (she has the best mean-girl voice). Others were surprises like Bill Hader as the concerned Fear and Amy Poehler as Joy, who usually plays characters with dry humor and not usually bright caricatures.

The Message

This movie addresses so much: how taboo sadness is in society (especially for women), how controlling depression can be, and how much family and love means to the human soul.

The lesson I liked the most from this movie is how important it is to feel -- feel all emotions. Not just kids or women or men or whites or blacks but all people! Even animals! (Stay til the credits to see more instances of what happens inside of people's heads.)

It is so wrong of us to shirk an emotion of the right to be felt, even the ones society deems as "bad" or "wrong". When we are angry, we have the right to be angry and show that anger. If we don't, it can hurt us and our connections with the people and the world around us. Imagine a world without fear or without sadness. People would be jumping off buildings and living without sympathy or compassion. Fear protects us from doing things that will hurt us emotionally and physically. It knows that sticking our hand in an electric socket is a bad idea and so is distancing ourselves from the people who love us. Sadness lets us feel what other people are feeling and live outside of what we want and what we feel.

All of these emotions shape who we are and how we react to the world around us. And no one doesn't have one of these emotions. No one is without fear or sadness. Everyone gets down sometimes and no one is down forever. The human mind is so complicated, and every mind is so different from the next. For example, during the movie, when Riley was angry there were times when I felt sad. But that doesn't make it wrong, it just makes us different.

Overall

The coolest part about this movie is how original, inventive and well-researched it is. Some of my favorite parts include when Joy and Sadness visit Imagination Land where all of her daydreams and imaginings live (like a cookie house, Cloud Land and the French Fries Forest), travel through the Abstract Thought Machine which allows Riley to break down and understand concepts and travel on the Train of Thought that contains all of the information, imaginings and ideas she comes up with during the day. Pixar has also come up with this idea that each memory, big and small, becomes a tiny sphere that is assigned to an emotion based on how that memory makes us feel. Some of these memories powers our Personality Islands that make up who we are. The pieces of the puzzle are so well researched and thought out, you know they talked to some psychologists before beginning animation.

This is what Pixar looks like when it's on its game. This is the inventive, creative stuff that we all feel in love with when we saw "Toy Story". This movie will most likely not make much money (because there's not much merchandise to sell) nor will all the kids be talking about it (it's much more adult than a movie about fish). But I know this is one I would want my children to see, and their children to see, and their children. It's one of the very best.

4 out of 4 Memories

In Review: "Jurassic World"

The latest installment of the Jurassic Park series is a simple reminder that the world of horror has changed. What people thought was cool and scary 22 years ago doesn't cut it anymore. But that doesn't mean that we should throw it in to please the people. The original movies worked because of the type of scary that was used. It was more than a dinosaur movie. It was a dinosaur movie that made you scream for your life and the lives of the characters who were about to be breakfast.

The Story

Someone made a dinosaur theme park -- again! (Seriously, when will these people learn!) The last three movies have happened, but everyone in this movie seems to think all three incidents were fluxes and would never happen to them.

This time, we have a full-fledged Disney-World-like park with a luxury resort and tons and tons of victims... uh, I mean people. Bryce Dallas Howard (Hilly Holbrock from "The Help"- you're welcome. It took me the whole movie to figure that one out) is one of the top producers of the film, who is far from the animals and close to the numbers. Then we have a raptor trainer Chris Pratt who is all about communicating with the animals and working as allies rather than mortal enemies. Bryce's nephews come to visit her and stay at the park, exploring all of the seemingly safe ride (like a giant hamster wheel next to stampedes of triceratops. How is that NOT dangerous?)

In order to get more people coming to the park and make more money, owner Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) tells his team of scientists including Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), from the first movie, to make the next greatest thing in dinosaurs. The team creates a monster dino with every predator capability you could think of. And what happens? Well, the monster escapes and madness ensues.

The Stars

Chris Pratt can only go up from here. Since his starring role as the Star Lord in "Guardians of the Galaxy", Pratt has become the action heartthrob. This movie just proves how well he fits into this genre. Though I wish he would've had a few more funny one-liners, he was so suave and cool in the crazy madness. And there are talks of him being the next Indiana Jones? I'm all for it.

Bryce Dallas Howard did a great job in her taking-care-of-business female counterpart role in the film. She had a little bit of attitude and moved toward the maternal nature after she got some serious whining out. The one thing though- the shoes. No woman in her right ride would run away from dinosaurs in high heels. I know it makes her look like a bad-ass but come on. Now way.

The Message

The new installation does turn several nods to the original film- the kids end up in the abandoned main hall of the first film, we see the original Jeeps, merchandise. This movie knows that it's not the original, and all of the money and fame that it will have has almost everything to do with the fact that the first movie did so well. And there is a final battle scene that just further proves the original is better than the remake. Which I very much respect.

There are some very dark shadows in this movie to critique the act of watching the movies themselves. I was both disgusted at what I was watching and disgusted that I was watching. These people go to this imaginary park to see dinosaurs locked in a cage and devour their lunch. Lots of gore and guts. To me, this is appalling behavior. People made money to see a goat die. People paid money to get splashed by a fish dinosaur after it has eaten its breakfast. And I, as a moviegoer, paid money to go see a movie about people dying. It's an interesting look into this new genre of horror and the need for blood, not suspense.

Overall

The story is not new. The character archetypes aren't new. The dinosaurs themselves are not new or exciting (some really missed opportunities there), but really, what did we expect? This movie has been done three times already, what else is there to do with a theme park with dinosaurs in it? I think the goal of this movie was to try to bring the dino love to the next generation. I honestly don't think that will happen with this movie.

It's a movie for the parents to show their kids and then introduce them to the real meat- the original films. It's a gateway movie, if you will. And as a gateway, it can never compare to the original and only tries to. But it also is not substantial enough on its own.

1 out of 4 Raptors

Books that Need to be Movies

The age old question: Which is better, the book or the movie?

The thing about this tell-tale question is that the two things are near impossible to compare. Sure, you can compare the produced real-world created film to your endless imagination and the images you saw in your head, but really, they are going to be nowhere close to each other. You can't possibly take a 700-page book and fit every word of it into a 2-hour movie. Even if you read it straight without breathing you couldn't do it!

But you wonder... what would my favorite book look like on screen?

So here are a handful of the books that I have read. But they are simply my imaginings. Maybe someday they will make it to the big screen.

"Dorothy Must Die" Series by Danielle Paige

("Dorothy Must Die", "The Wicked Will Rise", Untitled Third Book; Prequels: "No Place Like Oz", "The Witch Must Burn", "The Wizard Returns", "Heart of Tin" (July 28, 2015))

If you love the "Wizard of Oz" and happened to see the musical or read the book "Wicked" (by Gregory Maguire), you will like these books.

After Dorothy has returned home from Oz, another Kansas girl unwillingly travels to Oz (Amy Gumm) and finds herself in a place that is quite different from the storybooks she's read. All of the characters you know and love are evil, including the girl with the sparkly red shoes.

Why I love it: You know that things were not all gumdrops and rainbows in the Oz you saw on TV. This page-turning series makes you question everything you thought you knew about the movie and the original book series.

Why it would make a good movie: This magical and dark world needs to be recreated on the screen because no matter how hard I try, I can't imagine the whole world. I know there is a team of experts out there who will think of every tiny detail or visual reference from the original material that could make this an epic series.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

("Cinder", "Scarlet", "Cress", "Winter" (Nov. 2015), "Fairest" (Jan. 2015))

My favorite stories to read -- re-imagined fairy tales. This series starts off with Cinderella as a cyborg. Yeah, with metal arms and legs and a computer brain. She falls in love with an emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth (apparently Asian countries are all friends now). The story goes pretty much the same --Cinder has an evil stepmother and stepsisters, an android friend, and she dances with the prince at the ball-- you get the picture. But that is not the end of Cinder's story. We through Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White's stories in the mix to get one big fairy tale.

Why I love it: I love my fairy tales and these girls are all kick-butt queens who fight for themselves and get the prince as a bonus.

Why it would make a good movie: This series goes right along with a current trend in storytelling-- fierce female heroines who are strong and many senses of the word. Think Katniss Everdeen from "Hunger Games" and Tris from "Divergent". These girls have just a touch of other worldliness and a little bit of magic. Who doesn't love that?

"The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender

Sorry, not a series but still a good book. Rose discovers that she can taste emotions when she bites into her mother's lemon cake and feels her mother's depression. The idea of this story is fascinating, but I haven't quite figured out how tasting someone's emotions could be shown visually. That's why I bring it up. I will leave it to people who are much more skilled than I.

Why I love it: Rose's gift is connected to one of the truest truths about food -- people live in their food. The reason that I love chocolate chip cookies is because my dad makes them for our family on special occasions. Whenever I'm away from the city, I want a hot dog from Portillo's. Our hearts and lives live in the food we eat and the food we cook. This book does a fantastic job of showing that through storytelling.

Why it would make a good movie: An awesome excuse to make a new food movie. I can never get enough of those.

"Timeless" Series Alexandra Monir

("Timeless", "Timekeeper")

A fantastic time travel romance that so beats "The Time Traveler's Wife". Michele moves to her grandparents' house in New York City and finds a mysterious key that transports her to 1910. There she meets a handsome stranger, but can she learn to control this power? How can their love win against time itself? How can she live in the present and the past? 

BUM BUM BUUUUUUM!

Why I love it: I found this book as a tiny self-published e-book on my Nook, had nothing to read at the time and fell in love with this character and the romance. The author does a great job of connecting everything so that random fact that you didn't think you needed to know will become important later on.

Why it would make a good movie: The cliff hanger of the first book! It was so painful! Someone else needs to feel my pain. Also, time travel and history and romance makes for great movies.

"Witch & Wizard" Trilogy by James Patterson

("Witch & Wizard", "The Gift", "The Lost", "The Kiss", "The Fire")

I can't even begin to describe to you my love for James Patterson's writing. Every book he writes are never-ending page turns you won't be able to put down. He combines his mystery and suspense with a little bit of magic and dooms-day action. I'm just gonna leave it at that because there are so many spoilers in me saying anything about the book. But I will tell you, it's about twins who have magical powers.

Why I love it: If you're like me and have read the Harry Potter books hundreds of times but still love the characters and the magic, you will love these books. The relationship between the siblings is so honest and real. The magic is a little different from HP- no wands- but still fun.

Why it would make a good movie: Harry Potter has made so much money. It is still making money. I think one of Patterson's books should follow in the same footsteps.

Do you have any books that you want to see turned into movies?