THE GOOD DINOSAUR: The Land Beside Time

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. The Good Dinosaur is Pixar's 16th feature film, a worthy if not especially inspiring entry to their canon.

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Director: Peter Sohn

Writers: Bob Peterson, Meg LeFauve, Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Kelsey Mann

Cast: Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Sam Elliott, Steve Zahn, A. J. Buckley, Anna Paquin, John Ratzenberger

Runtime: 93 mins.

2015

A new original film from Pixar is always something to be received with great relish, for they are becoming less and less frequent as the studio's sequel-able properties increase in number. The Good Dinosaur has the added benefit of fashioning for itself a pretty good central concept: What if the meteor that wiped out dinosaurkind had instead missed the Earth, and the course of evolution had continued without interruption? Thus The Good Dinosaur presents a timeline in which dinosaurs have adopted language, and have begun to move past hunting and gathering into agriculture and animal husbandry. This is a richer idea than the typical "what if dinosaurs could talk" animated standby, as it can tackle more interesting questions about the development of a species' culture.

Unfortunately the concept is entirely wasted on this movie, which seems interested in little more than the "dinosaurs talking" business. The entire first act takes place on the farm of young Arlo the apatosaurus, and it is somewhat amusing to see the techniques these long-necked beasts use to tend their crops, but it is also by far the most boring stretch of the movie. It's repetitive and only slightly charming. The characters of Arlo's family are sketched in sand, and for the amount of narrative actually accomplished by this segment of the movie, it certainly could have been streamlined by upwards of 50%. I also reacted poorly to Jeffrey Wright's performance of the little dinosaur's father, the only other member of the family who is at all relevant to the film. It's a performance that perhaps feels warm and welcoming to a child, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Barney was trying to teach me something.

CREED: The Bod Couple

Director: Ryan Coogler
Writers: Ryan Coogler, Aaron Covington
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew
Runtime: 133 mins.
2015

As the Hunger Games saga goes out with a whimper, franchise filmmaking is feeling as tired as ever. We have godawful projects like a Die Hard prequel and a Memento remake to look forward to. We've gotten to the point where Marvel isn't the only intellectual property with a shared cinematic universe; on the horizon are the DC Universe, the Ghostbustersverse, the Universal Monsterverse, the Transformerverse, and the Fast and Furiverse. Even Pixar is hitting us with Finding Dory, Cars 3, Toy Story 4, and The Incredibles 2. We've apparently decided that we cannot let go of our favorite characters from yesteryear. We cling to them, drag them kicking and screaming into contemporaneity, and then either forgive them of their mediocrity because they are familiar, or decry their originality because they are not familiar enough.

Fortunately, as is the case with every regrettable cinematic trend, there are exceptions to the rule. There will always be good filmmakers, after all. We've already seen one long dead franchise revived to stupendous effect this year in Mad Max: Fury Road, and we're hoping for another such rousing success from the impending Star Wars VII. To do that, lightning will have to strike thrice, because Ryan Coogler has already made the second breakout franchise revival of the year: Creed.

A great deal of that has to do with Creed's lack of pandering. Everyone's favorite boxer is back, sure, but not with a wink and a nod. Rocky has no badass moments, and at no point does he even remotely attempt to punch anybody. His heroic journey is quiet, understated, emotional, and personal. Perhaps most importantly, this is not yet another "passing the torch" sequel in which the aging hero takes center stage while beneficently priming the young upstart for his own entry in the future. One of the most crucial story choices Coogler made with Creed was to give Adonis complete agency in his own story. He never denies the call, and he is never propped up by the generosity of others. He seeks Rocky out deliberately, in part because of the old champ's connection with his late great father Apollo--but Rocky doesn't agree easily. He needs to be talked into it, just as Ryan Coogler had to coerce Stallone into coming back for a seventh entry that he originally wanted no part of.

So once again, this is not another stab at diversity that sees the new blood taking a backseat to the old familiar white guy. Both Coogler and Adonis are young, black, immensely talented, and succeeding against all odds. For Adonis, his success is surprising because of his lack of formal training. For Coogler, his success is surprising because frankly, any young person of color's success as a director in the Hollywood system is still astonishing at this point. That's part of what makes Coogler one of the most exciting new voices in film, period.

FINDING NEMO: The Emotion of the Ocean

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Today it's Finding Nemo, which still maintains its quality and power despite everyone quoting it to death for years after its release.

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Director: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich (co-director)
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis, Joe Ranft, Geoffrey Rush, Andrew Stanton, Elizabeth Perkins, Nicholas Bird, John Ratzenberger
Runtime: 100 mins.
2003

Finding Nemo is Pixar's second stone cold masterpiece, and the starkest departure from their previous film is a visual one. I mentioned in my Monsters, Inc. review that although the monsters looked great, the characters spent most of the movie running around corporate hallways that lacked any visual pizzazz. Almost as if Pixar heard that very complaint and determined to never again allow their films to be accused of visual mediocrity, Finding Nemo is one of the most epic, expansive, gorgeous masterworks of production design ever created by computer animation. The visual landscape is at times populated by Pixar's signature visual gags, like a group of fish popping out of a doting mother fish's mouth, but for a far larger portion of the runtime the picture is dedicated to images that flirt with the sublime. The ocean is vast and full of darkness, terror, wonder, perversion. Finding Nemo captures all of this while still somehow maintaining a G rating.

The story follows overprotective clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) who must cross vast expanses of ocean in search of his son Nemo (Alexander Gould), who was taken by scuba divers and imprisoned in a dentist office's glass tank. Along the way Marlin meets Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a forgetful blue regal tang, and together they encounter all sorts of friendly help and unspeakable hindrance.

FANTASTIC FOUR: Journey to Turdworld

Director: Josh Trank

Writers: Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, Josh Trank
Cast: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey
Runtime: 100 mins.
2015

Nobody wants to hang around in Turdworld. A jaunt to Turdworld might be acceptable. Even a journey through it. But when your entire film is a journey, and the sole destination is Turdworld, the audience has a right to feel both robbed and insulted.

Turdworld is both a metaphor and my personal name for the other-dimensional planet which is the setting for the significant setpieces of Fantastic Four. Ever since his boy genius youth, Reed Richards (Miles Teller) has been pursuing experiments involving the transmission of matter to and from somewhere else. He's had the help of his blue collar buddy Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), but it isn't until an older scientist (Reg E. Cathey) and his daughter (Kate Mara) stumble upon Richards' work that he receives the funding and support he needs to fully bring his dream to reality. The daughter, Sue Storm, helps out, as do her slacker brother, Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), and the defunct former-boy-genius-attached-to-the-project, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Some of them use the machine to transmit themselves to Turdworld, and as a result they are horribly mutated. Then they try to fix their mutation? I don't know, the movie functionally stops happening at that point.

INSIDE OUT: Sweet Emotions

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Inside Out provided a great opportunity for Pixar to reinvent itself in the wake of a slough of mediocrity.

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Directors: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen (co-director)

Writers: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley

Cast: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Richard Kind, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan

Runtime: 94 mins.

2015

A scientist believes if you pick a lie to pieces, the pieces are the truth!

-Eugene O'Neill

The idea that your body is one whole and complete object is a lie. The idea that you govern yourself by a unified rational consciousness is a lie. The idea that you are in control is a lie. Inside Out picks this lie to pieces and represents the pieces anthropomorphically. They are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and any number of other little blobby brain workers skittering through your mind. The five primary emotions live out their lives in the control center (Headquarters). They are literally in control.

Pixar's latest film feels like a discovery. There's a whole world inside of us--more than that, a whole social system. That system is responsible for all the functions of the brain (emotions, dreams, memories, abstract thought...), and when the system is broken, the person is broken. This is the world of Inside Out, where the stakes are of the utmost magnitude: a little girl's happiness.

IT FOLLOWS: STDos and STDon'ts

Director: David Robert Mitchell
Writer: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto
Runtime: 100 mins.
2015

The first and only thing I knew about It Follows before walking into the theater was that it is an allegory for STDs. That's already interesting, but what breaks the movie out of "interesting" and into "fascinating" is that it's so much more than that. Just when you think the film is sinking into its subtext, it's abandoned for pure horror movie thrills. Not to worry though, it always returns to its themes in more complex and circumspect ways than you could reasonably expect from a slashy horror film starring beautiful, sexually active young people. It Follows doesn't fall into the oldest of horror cliches: sex is bad, if you have sex you get killed. Instead it makes that trope the premise, thereby setting it on a pedestal for us to examine its subtleties.

It Follows is a horror movie with a lot on its mind that never forgets to be a horror movie.

WE ARE THE BEST!: It's the Best

In which three young girls kick ass and take names--ideologically.

Director: Lukas Moodysson
Writer: Lukas Moodysson
Cast: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne
Runtime: 102 mins.
2014

Normally going into these things I have a structure outlined in my head, and I work through the review beat by beat. I don't have that for We Are the Best! I think, in the spirit of punk, I'll bang this one out as I go along.

We Are the Best! follows two thirteen year old girls in 1980's Sweden as they sort of fumble around from day to day, hating what they hate and loving what they love, until they happen into this idea that they should really just start their own punk band--despite having no previous musical experience. Once they recruit an unlikely third member--a young Christian girl who has years of experience on the guitar--the band starts becoming something and taking on a central importance in their lives. Meanwhile they deal with drama and trauma surrounding school, parents, and especially love interests.

More than all that, this movie is about the spirit of PUNK. And the spirit of GIRLS. And the spirit of GIRLS doing PUNK.

But more than THAT this movie is about those girls--as people.

I'm going to reiterate because that is the most important thing I can say about this movie, as it is 2014 and this sort of thing is still a revolutionary concept in cinema:

We Are the Best! treats children as though they are people. We Are the Best! treats girls as though they are people. These are two of the most egregiously uncommon achievements of contemporary film, and two reasons why We Are the Best! has to be considered one of the most incredible things to be released in 2014.