By Dave Montalbano
http://cinemadave.livejournal.com
While Jurassic World is still the champion of the box office, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out scored $91 million over the weekend.
Disney/Pixar created a string of critical and financial successes with films like Monsters Inc., A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, Ratatouille, Up, and peaking with Toy Story 3.
Since 2010, however, Disney/Pixar has been dominated by rival companies and Disney’s own internal production company. But, Inside Out returns Disney/Pixar to its former glory.
Inside Out is a simple story about Riley, an 11-year-old girl who moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. The genius of this movie is that most of the dramatic conflict is Riley’s internal struggle between Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black) and Fear (Bill Hader). The emotions are personified with individual characteristics and provide each voice actor a field day.
The first five minutes of the film presents a happy family unit. The move from Minnesota to California is presented as an adventure, creating fond memories. Yet, when the dust settles from the move, Sad begins to intrude on Riley’s core memories, tarnishing the past. When Joy tries to prevent this from happening, the two emotions are sucked into the netherworld of the subconscious.
While remaining “a kids movie,” Inside Out enters the realm of a college freshman psychology class. In Riley’s subconscious, we meet her baby fears (party clowns) and her invisible friend, Bing Bong (Richard Kind). This part of the film takes on a darker hue, much like the melancholia many 11-year-olds face through the rites of passage.
Much like the crowd reactions to Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 2 & 3, children are comforting their parents who are sniffling and tearing up. The film provides the psychological double entendre that makes the Disney/Pixar partnership a continuing cinematic force to be reckoned with. It is also an entertaining flick with a superb musical score from Michael Giacchio, who also scored Jurassic World. Giacchio is the next generation’s John Williams.
Meanwhile, at Cinema Paradiso … The Farewell Party opens June 26 at Cinema Paradiso, Hollywood. An award-winning film from both the Israeli and Venice film festivals, it is a dark comedy in Hebrew with English subtitles about euthanasia. July 9-16, Cinema Paradiso, Ft. Lauderdale, will be presenting “Filmed in Broward,” sponsored by Broward 100, a celebration of films produced here. Line-up includes crowd favorites like True Lies, Body Heat, Married to the Mob, Analyze This, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and more. For more info., visit www.fliff.com.