Pixar's Inside Out

[Chris D]

Although my kids saw this latest Pixar offering in the theaters, I didn't see it until buying it on 3D Blu Ray this week.

My wife didn't want to watch in 3D in our private theater, so we did the standard Blu Ray in the bedroom. First up, fantastic picture quality, and I would only expect the audio quality and 3D to be top rate as well, when I'm able to watch in our theater. Note that in the director's commentary, they say that in the "Abstract Thought shortcut" that the characters take, as they collapse down to 2D characters, they intentionally collapsed the soundfield from surround down to stereo, then just mono in the center channel speaker. It returns to surround as the characters exit.

What a great movie! After some of the recent Pixar movies (and as I feared, the "inspired by the world of Cars" movies Planes, and Planes: Fire and Rescue which Disney deliberately spun off from Pixar) have tapered off somewhat on excellence, I think this film has restored Pixar to full form. In a movie about emotions, it was a very emotional experience, and had me laughing, sad, and flat out crying for the imaginary characters. Beautiful, deep, and engaging. Truly believable "human" characters, and a real life plot that most people can relate to, especially remembering back to the emotions of childhood and how life changed. Fun and funny "emotion", "memory", and "imaginary" characters.

Loved it, and want to watch it again already. Make sure you check out the extras, like the other digital shorts in the bonus features. :45: out of :5:

[madmac]

Well look at that !! Finally a good movie to rent for a change !!

Thanks for the great review Chris !

[aud19]

Thanks Chris, how would it be for real young'uns (our guys are three)? Anything overly scary/violent/inappropriate?

[Chris D]

I would say no problems, Jason. As far as appropriateness, it would be on par with other Pixar movies, where everything is animated. So any pseudo-violence is more cartoonish, and such. Only thing I could remotely think of to be prepared for, is (spoilers not really needed) at one point in the film, the lead character is sleeping, and the emotion characters in her head try to wake her up with some strange dreams, to include a big strange clown. Certainly nothing like King's "It", but at least know it's coming, in case your kids may be sensitive to other people having strange dreams.

If anything, I would say the movie is more heart-wrenching for grownups, who understand what's really going on, and get emotionally invested in the characters. My 6 year old made me watch it again this morning, and I still cried and loved it more the 2nd time.

[aud19]

Thanks

It's tough sometimes with Pixar stuff. Some of their stuff is very sub-toddler friendly and some of it is less so. Even some of their largely toddler friendly stuff we've been fast forwarding some scenes in until recently (the opening scene of Finding Nemo where Marlin loses his wife Coral or a couple of the grasshopper scenes in Bugs Life for instance). We haven't even let them watch the Incredibles yet as there's a fair bit of fighting/violence. Where as Cars is fine from start to finish.

Ethan seems to be largely fine with most of the "scarier" parts now but Liam's still a bit more sensitive to them. Poor guy hides around the corner when we watch Aladdin and things like the Cave of Wonder scenes happen :lol:

[Chris D]

Yeah, I understand. From our trip to Disney a couple months ago, if I learned anything from that big disaster, one of the top lessons was that every kid is different. Our 6 year old is also very sensitive, and a couple of the rides that I thought would be just about as tame as they come, she got terrified at parts. FWIW, she loves Inside Out.

So I just watched the movie for a third time, which of course gave me the excuse to try it in 3D in my theater with mega surround sound. (very nice) I tried to watch it from the perspective of a 3 year old. There's some "cartoon peril" that you'd find in many kids movies, with dramatic music, while a character almost falls out of a train, or if they're running away from a boulder that's chasing them. If there's anything I think would be a risk, though, it'd be the dreams. The lead character goes to sleep several times through the movie. Maybe 20 minutes in, there's the first "dream sequence", that is about 10 seconds of zany-scary before it cuts to the emotion characters, who keep it lighthearted. Then maybe 1 hour in, there's a longer part, where the emotions try to "scare" the girl awake with her dreams. It's a kids movie of course, so they're not going to show anything too scary, but just be aware that it's coming, with a big "grandma's vacuum" that they find scary, and a big sleeping clown. They wake the clown up, who chases the emotion characters.

Man, what a beautiful emotion movie. Maybe I really connected with it so much, because I'm going through my own chapter in life of growth, change, and lots of emotions as I adapt to life. Lewis Black plays the lead "Anger" emotion character, which is perfectly cast. Only someone else like him (maybe Bobcat Goldthwait or somebody) could also play it so well.

Again, make sure you watch the final credits, and the disc extras, particularly the shorts "Lava" and "First Date".

[Hdale85]

While I liked this movie, I wasn't overly impressed with it. I expected it to be a lot better from all the hype I saw. I mean we'll likely watch it again I'm sure, just not my favorite animated film.

[Chris D]

Hey, bud! :later: