Inside Out

In my notes on Terminator:Genisys, I wrote that I’ve lost interest in big budget, yet empty, animation festivals.

Inside Out is a big budget, yet rich, animation festival.  I loved it.

This is an amazingly ambitious picture, bringing together contemporary psychology theory, brilliant storytelling, and cutting edge animation to take us inside the mind, perhaps even the soul, of an 11-year-old girl struggling with a cross-country move and all the uncertainty that can bring.

Of course, this sounds like the type of thing you may recall from elementary school films, but we’re talking about a Pixar movie here.  This is the studio that sold us on the concept of paying rats to prepare our meals.  Inside Out makes us care about his girl and – I don’t quite know how to write this – the component parts of her psyche in a way that not only captures our imagination, but improves our understanding of ourselves and of those around us.

I love Inside Out.  I love everything about it.  It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

Baby Mama

All right, here it is: BABY MAMA is laugh-out-loud funny.

Here's the setup: ridiculously hot Tina Fey is a career woman whose biological clock is ticking ... like ... this. Problem is, her doctor "doesn't like her uterus," and it looks like she'll never be able to carry a baby. Enter ridiculously hot (and surprisingly funny) Sigourney Weaver as Chafee Bicknell, proprietress of a first class surrogacy service. She matches rhTF with consistently funny Amy Poehler, whose white trash bonafides are cemented by her common-law marriage to ever entertaining Dax Shepard.

And away we go, in a class and culture and gender comedy that's consistently funny and perceptive. rhTF proves that not only can she sway an election, she can carry a movie. How much so? BABY MAMA features Steve Martin's best comedy work in years, and rhTF measures up to him in every frame. cfAP does great work with what could have been an elementary role, and eeDS and the rest of the supporting cast (including Maura Tierney, Romany Malco, Will Forte, Fred Armison, John Hodgeman, and the always likable Greg Kinnear as the love interest) are just plain first rate. The script casts a knowing comedic eye on pregnancy and love, and it manages to be simultaneously sharp, biting, and hilarious.

BABY MAMA is way funnier than I'd expected. It made me lose track of time and kept me chuckling right through the end credits. To those who were put off by the crass and dull trailer, be not deceived by the poor decisions of the marketing department. This picture is a winner.

Shrek the Third

SHREK THE THIRD ("Shrek 3," hereafter), is a joyless slog through a never ending stream of tired jokes. Sure, my kid liked it plenty, but my kid is eight years old. You gonna trust him?

Here's the setup: Just as Shrek departs on a voyage to find the heir to the kingdom, Prince Charming rallies the forces of evil to conquer said kingdom so he can, um, put on a show. Ok, fair enough. Problem is, Shrek 3 can't do anything more with this premise than it did with the two earlier, funnier installments. The fun of having fairy tales turned on their head has diminished, and this movie has little to add to that formula.

On the up side, Shrek 3 employs some terrific actors. It's always great to see Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and (the surprisingly good and versatile) Justin Timberlake get work. There are no performances that pull one out of the viewing experience, though it's a shame that they're in service to such an uninspired story.

Ah, well.

Horton Hears a Who!

HORTON HEARS A WHO! is a beautifully animated, well voiced, faithful retelling of the Dr. Seuss classic. I nearly fell asleep.

Don't get me wrong. My kids loved it. Many of the people in the theater applauded when the credits rolled. It's just that I've read that story so many times that it holds no mysteries for me.

Ah, well.

Blades of Glory

The Will Ferrell figure skating comedy BLADES OF GLORY, which could just have easily been entitled WILL FERRELL FIGURE SKATING COMEDY is intermittently funny, but it’s the kind of movie whose comedy comes from its situations, not its characters. That’s because the movie has no real characters, but rather characatures. There’s Ferrell as, essentially, Elvis Stojko and John Heder as Brian Boitano. When the two are banned from Men’s Singles competition, they do what Brian Boitano would do: they man up and start skating doubles.

That’s pretty much your movie, and it’s intermittently entertaining as long as you’re willing to go along with its central premise: that figure skating is ridiculous and that male figure skaters are pussies. That premise, and the gags BLADES OF GLORY milks from it, is pretty much all the movie has to offer. This would spell disaster if they’d cast anyone other than Ferrell at his schticky best, Heder in full mincing ninny mode, and (married) comic geniuses Will “Final Countdown” Arnett and Amy Poehler as their hilariously evil foils. (Aside: I’d never accept an invitation to the Arnett/Poehler house for dinner. I don’t think I could get out of there without peeing my pants with laughter.) This cast takes a paper-thin (and potentially offensive) premise and characters with less depth than an 8-yr-old’s poetry and, amazingly, makes them work. BLADES OF GLORY didn’t make me out-and-out guffaw, but it did keep me chuckling. That’s good enough for an in-flight movie, and that’s all I needed when I saw it.