Coco, from Pixar

Okay, might as well give it its own thread now -- one last trailer just appeared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvomHFZO0mk

It's pretty bullshit that this gets its own thread but The Book of Life didn't

A more than fair point!

This is probably my favorite Pixar movie.

However, Disney hedged their bets by preceding it with a fucking horrible Frozen short (subjectively 2683833 hours long) whose entire conceit seems to be to sell Princess Elsa Christmas shit to white people who might otherwise be offended by the subsequent feature.

Things I loved:

1) City design
2) Singing
3) Weird emphasis on shoes
4) color
5) Frida Kahlo’s guava
6) fantasy/world-building that is decidedly non-European

Things I didn’t love

1) repetitions of “family is important” at end of movie.

I thought the Frozen short was 40 minutes long. My daughter informs me it was 20 minutes long.

Me, I thought Coco was pretty good, though definitely that's understood with the frame of "for an animated children's movie." It's pretty packed with stuff and very emotionally charged.

It's also a good guitar movie: in the close-ups of the main character's fingers when he plays, it's plausibly close to the music you're hearing, chord for chord and note for note. Much better than "Whiplash" in this respect.

A Pixar staffer came and spoke to my class about the set design for this movie, it was fascinating.

Which class

It's called Introduction to Design Theory, a 101 class for a variety of majors, mostly graphic, apparel, and interior designers.

Cool!

loved this

Okay, I'm going to need you all to signal in some way whether you saw The Book of Life* before giving your opinions. I'm happy to let you come up with your own system.

* or the Tree of Life, if you can make it work.

I liked this more than Book of Life

Did not see it, sorry. Is it a precondition for commenting?

I thought it was weird that Lee Unkritch and (not Alfred) codirector Molina appeared before the movie to tell me to admire the complexity of the design of the city of the dead. Was this on other prints, versions?

I saw it too. I think it was none-too-subtle film-industry PR, with the following unspoken messages:

1. Even computer-animated movies are works of painstaking, loving creative labor by human hands.

2. The film industry creates high-skilled jobs - even the technology-dependent films involve lots of cute, sympathetic people.

3. So don't fucking pirate our IP, you ingrates. Keep buying theater tickets. And when you want to watch it again, buy the movie from us. To do otherwise is to take food from the mouths of the animators' children.

4. John who?

5. Profit!

http://remezcla.com/lists/film/latino-film-critics-review-pixar-coco/

soda, I am a bit curious about your reaction above. On the one hand, you praise the non-European mythology. On the other, you seem to be saying you found the message "family is important" was heavy-handed and overdone.

But I would say that the whole cultural surround of ofrendas is inextricable from the theme of filial piety and reverence for ancestors. In other words, the message that you say is overdone is the whole point of the pre-Columbian ("non-European") elements you just praised.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you, and not trying to be argumentative.

lol the frozen short was so incredibly bad. loved coco tho. all our kids loved it too. even the 18 month old maintained a little interest.

lol my friend left for about ten minutes of the Frozen short and came back in and said "IT'S NOT OVER YET???" really loudly

haha. yah i had heard some things so was happy to stand in line for popcorn etc and came in like 15 minutes after start time and it was only like 5 minutes into the frozen thing, my kids didnt even care about it or laugh at it. really dragged on.

I thought this was pretty good, and I liked its relative simplicity. The bright colors are so perfectly suited to this medium that it's amazing it took so long for a (well, two) animated dia de los muertos features to come out. Only specific (and minor) criticism that seems somewhat legit is that for a Disney movie about musicians there are remarkably few songs or musical numbers in this, especially since that interminable never-sit-through-again Frozen turd of a "short" that preceded it had so many.

Happy for the universal outrage I saw for the frozen short. Even my 4 yo was like when is the movie with the Skeletons going to start.

Okay, finally saw it today, great, brilliant, loved it, etc. My girlfriend's background is Peruvian on her dad's side and suffice to say she was very, very moved by it for a wide number of reasons.

The Frozen short had a moment or two, no more. The trailers before the Frozen by and large should have been drowned at digital birth. Anyway, as of this Friday the Frozen short is being removed from the screenings so I say go back and see it again then.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/olafs-frozen-adventure-leave-theaters-coco-co-director-adrian-molina-explains-pixar-thinking-exclusive-154315526.html

Canny move. The positive word of mouth had me interested in seeing this, but the pans of the Frozen 'short' made me think waiting for home video was the smarter play.

so... this isn't a straight rip/knockoff of Book of Life? cuz it sure looks that way.

I thought the knitted-animation portion of the Frozen short was clever. I don't think I've ever seen that done. Indeed, it formed an interesting counterpoint to the papel picado opening sequence of Coco.

That said, gah, most of the rest of it can fuck off and die

so... this isn't a straight rip/knockoff of Book of Life? cuz it sure looks that way.

Said film's director talked about how much he loved Coco a few weeks back.

so... this isn't a straight rip/knockoff of Book of Life? cuz it sure looks that way.

Uh, I'm not very up on contemporary cinema, but I'm told it contains lots of movies that address not-entirely-original stories/themes/topics, and yet are still good and funny and have original stuff in them.

Indeed, I hear it's Kind Of A Thing now (like, how many broody SpiderBatSupermen have there been now?).

ike, how many broody SpiderBatSupermen have there been now?

would you like to hear my opinion of this phenomenon

no

so... this isn't a straight rip/knockoff of Book of Life? cuz it sure looks that way.

No. There are several similarities, but it's pretty different in style and substance.

well this got me all weepy that's for sure. thumbs up. good adventure, effective hammering of the now-standard come-to-appreciate-your-family stuff, made more poignant than in, say, Brave, since the story grows to include the problems of people besides the child protagonist. but yeah the whole last twenty minutes i was at the very least choked up and often teary-eyed.

obviously the visuals were great. there were a few shots where it felt ALMOST like great stop-motion, like when miguel is running away from imelda up a staircase... wonder if they've started trying ways to tweak the framerate or something to give it a flicker that our brain registers as more real. also liked a moment where... i want to say the whole skeleton extended family are trying to get through a door at once, and then they pop out like a cork.... anyway it struck me as the right choice cartoonwise and they didn't try to animate it seamlessly. one frame they're in the door and the next they're popped forward several feet. good cartooning but so often these CG-animated things have trouble breaking loose of moving their objects around in 3D space in a consistent, Newtonian-physics kind of way. good stuff.

obviously the visuals were great. there were a few shots where it felt ALMOST like great stop-motion,

Which is ironic, because the last few stop animation films have been massively enhanced by CGI. Or for that matter, the Lego films, which are all CGI, but made to look like stop animation.

finally got around to seeing this. I think this is probably the best pixar film since UP and it even gives Up a run for its money in some respects; the story in Coco is more consistently good. Visually it's the most impressive movie they've made since Finding Nemo (which at the time just blew me away, the way the water was rendered).

I saw this and it's good - it's been in the making since 2011, which excuses the impression that it's ripping off Book of Life.

I can't really think of any kids films which really mine death and mental illness for trauma as much as Pixar films.

Without meaning to spoil, did anyone else get 15 seconds where they thought the twist (well, the second twist) was going to be way darker than it ended up?

This was amazing! Can't think of a better Disney movie let alone Pixar. No I haven't seen Up

The face of old lady Coco was maybe the most impressive CG i've ever seen

this>>>>>>>>>Up, but I really don't like Up, which I think is a mess and a missed opportunity.

beginning and ending are amazing, make me cry just thinking about em. all the nonsense in the middle with talking dogs ("squirrel!" gag aside) and christopher plummer as an evil old adventurer in a super-plane.... yikes.

so this really might be the best Pixar then

I had Pixar down as an efficient maker of spectacles but this was way more than what I've seen from them before

i loved coco but i don't really get how you could be into this and not into any other pixar movies? but also i don't really care

I haven't seen Ratatouille either. Really I've not seen enough of the really hyped-up ones to judge. I wouldn't say I wasn't into the other ones! Just that they struck me as good animated fare, whereas this felt a little better than that idk

Like, this was on the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs tier. Higher, even?

which Pixar films have you seen?

may I remind you you're under oath

I thought Cloud w/ Meatballs (not Pixar!) was a relentless slog. Sequel is much better!

Masterpiece Pixar is, imo, Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, Incredibles (maybe; it's basically an animated superhero movie), Monsters Inc., maybe Ratatouille, maybe Wall-E. Worst include all three Cars, Monsters U (totally forgot this existed!), Good Dinosnore ... probably forgetting one or two. Most perhaps ambitious but glaring missed opps in imo are Up, Brave and Inside Out. I'm not sure where I would put Coco right now, probably at the "pretty good!" slot with, like, Finding Dory or Toy Story 3.

One I wish would be remade from scratch is Bug's Life. It's fine, but so much potential.

With ratings

Toy Story 8/10
A Bug's Life 6.5/10
Toy Story 2 7/10
Monsters Inc idk it was ages ago 7/10
Finding Nemo 7/10
The Incredibles 6/10 (aged badly)
Wall-E 8/10 (would have been more but for the trenchant social commentary)
Toy Story 3 7.5/10
Coco 9/10

Hope that all seems fair. I want flappy bird's opinion too

Go see Ratatouille!

mulan is getting the remake treatment next year, seemingly minus songs and eddie murphy character, from the director of Whale Rider. could actually be..... good???

(orig film has its moments and means a lot to a lot of people obv - but the handling of the villains is super racist and augh murphy's schtick)

His dragon is basically the donkey from Shrek again, isn't it?

Here's nu Mulan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01ON04GCwKs

oh yeah nu Mulan actress is all pro-Hong Kong police posting.

Oh hell yeah @ nu-Mulan.

(maybe we need a Mulan 1.0 & nu-Mulan thread)

(& hell no at pro-police posting! wtf)

Hmmm...

https://gizmodo.com/coco-2-is-officially-in-the-works-at-pixar-2000578708

The original is a brilliant one-and-done as it stands. But hey, if they can pull it off... (I want them to bring back the three piece punk band and the arty/depressive EDM person from the song contest, of course.)

I used be all in on Pixar and I know I saw the original but man I have a hard time remembering any of it.

I only recently watched this on netflix too not knowing anything about it (I thought it was going to be about a french designer, heh). I think the only pixar movies I've actively liked have been this and Ratatouille. I've never been able to make it all the way through Mulan.

And yes, all one and done films. I'm suspicious of Coco 2.

Yeah, that run (as well as Up) is my 'there's your golden age' run for them.

imo Up and WALL-E both have incredible, just incredible moments, but the movies surrounding those moments are not always great

Indeed. Neither in the class of the first two Toy Story films. Coco is incredible though. I only watched it once but it has embedded itself in my mind enough for me to recall whole scenes, characters, music etc with ease - couldn’t say that about Up. Wall-E is good but not on that level for me. Ratatouille is fantastic.

Wall-E maybe more in that Monsters Inc tier for me, good enough, will watch if it’s on but won’t actively seek it out.

My memory of Wall-E was that the first section was astonishing and then it lost its magic a little but watching it again with my son I found the spaceship scenes just as moving as the clean-up. Maybe it's because the horror of the tech-fuelled couch potato humans hits harder for me these days.

In fact…

perfect film, no notes
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Coco

banger
Ratatouille

It’s good but wouldn’t watch again
Turning Red
Up
Finding Nemo

will watch if it’s on but not actively seek it out
Monsters Inc
Wall-E

Have never seen but mean to as several different people I know have compared me to Violet
The Incredibles

Have never seen, will probably check out at some point
Soul
Inside Out

have never seen, zero interest
Cars & sequel (s)
A Bug’s Life
Brave
Onward

Anything else not mentioned

Wall-E is really just “what if phone was bad…and made you fat?!” It’s Black Mirror for kids.

… and that's ok

Peter Gabriel’s theme song is great

Wall-E and Up both start incredibly, but fall off significantly on the back half. Ratatouille starts out good but ends as well as Up and Wall-E start. Coco is great start to finish. Toy Story 1 and 2 are perfect, esp. the latter. Finding Nemo is perfect, don't recall the second. Monsters Inc. is great, second was lazy, iirc. Both Inside Outs are good but especially the second. Incredibles 1 is great, 2 isn't. Turning Red I did not like at all, really, though like Brave (another imo mid effort) it (like all of these, really) looks great. Onward, Cars, Dinosaur rare total misfires. If it were a proper Pixar film Tangled would be up there, imo.

Yeah Toy Story 1&2 & Coco are tops for me too. I’d add Monsters Inc, which imo is easy to underrate because it’s so breezy — and Encanto, which obviously isn’t a Pixar movie but has always felt very Pixar to me. I’ve watched it countless times with the kid and I think it gets better every time. It’s very emotional but without going into the “manipulative emo apocalypse” zone that Pixar has over-leaned into since Up.

Gyac - bases on what you did and didn’t like I feel confident that you’d get on with Inside Out

This TS3 erasure feels weird. I thought people generally liked it?

Perfect, No Notes
Wall-E
Ratatouille
Inside Out

Also Excellent
All 4 Toy Story films (I'd probably rank then 2>3>1>4 but the differences are not major)
Coco

Perfect, No Notes but clearly made for children
Finding Nemo
Monsters, Inc

The highest of highs but uneven
Up

Good, high quality children's films
Onward
Incredibles
Brave

Fine
Luca

Grudgingly recognize as fine despite being shameless cash-in sequels
Inside Out 2
Incredibles 2
Finding Dory

Trying too hard to be a Classic High-Concept Pixar Film
Soul
Elemental

I guess I've seen most of them!

This TS3 erasure feels weird. I thought people generally liked it?

This TS3 erasure feels weird. I thought people generally liked it?

I just adore The Incredibles so much, it's in my Perfect No Notes category along with Ratatouille, Coco and Wall-E.

For some reason I utterly despised Luca. I don't think it was terrible per se, but it feels like the most watered down, generic movie that studio ever put out, effectively "lowering the floor" so to speak. Once upon a time Pixar had a rep for a quality level that had their movies, at worst, being head and shoulders above any other animated studio in terms of writing and story telling.

Yeah it’s entirely forgettable, I think back on it positively pretty much just because it was pleasurable to spend an hour and a half in the sun-drenched scenery of coastal southern Italy

Yeah, that was the one good aspect of it. It's sad because it was an original too. For over a decade, they avoided sequels aside from Toy Story and Cars. That was a sign of solid management protecting the team's creative process and expressed a certain confidence you don't often see anymore from studios producing high budget films. I remember thinking to myself that when they start making sequels of their classics rather than making new classics they were over it. Incredibles 2 was the breaking point for me, the "jump the shark" moment if you will. They made some good stuff after that moment (Soul), but it's nothing that's really hit that creative peak anymore. They've lost their edge.

Yeah, Luca worked for me just because it was pretty! In summer of 2021 that was pretty welcome. I almost went and saw it when they put it in theaters for a weekend a year or so ago, just cause that seemed like it'd be a nice getaway. The actual story is kind of a collage of off-the-shelf elements from Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, and Ranma 1/2. But whatever!

But these days Pixar's output is basically divided between "that was pretty lovely, not quite one of their classics but nice!" and "that looks like garbage, I'll pass, thanks." It's really the existence of the latter category - which used to just be the Cars films but is now like a third of their output - that's dragging things down.

For over a decade, they avoided sequels aside from Toy Story and Cars. That was a sign of solid management protecting the team's creative process and expressed a certain confidence you don't often see anymore from studios producing high budget films. I remember thinking to myself that when they start making sequels of their classics rather than making new classics they were over it.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I loved the idea of them coming up with something new each time out, 'big' franchises aside. Even Ghibli had a sequel effort once but...like, *once.*

Maybe discussed upthread, but iirc they never wanted to do sequels, but Disney threatened to release sequels whether Pixar wanted to or not, so Pixar relented in an effort to maintain control. But not too long after the animated non-Pixar Disney films started to get really good again, too, better than a lot of the Pixar films. Moana, Princess and the Frog, Frozen, Tangled, Encanto, Wreck It Ralph, Zootopia ...

it is funny how the Disney Animation/Pixar lines are now almost indistinguishable in terms of style, quality, concepts. looking at the list of Pixar films, I didn't even realize they had made Luca and Turning Red

Cars 3, against all odds, was actually a good movie. It hits a lot of the looming middle-age notes of The Incredibles.

When put forth this way, it certainly looks like my children grew up in a time of incandescently good animated movies...

Esp. If you add in Illumination (Sing, Minions, Secret Life of Pets) over the same time period.

...And the ungrateful little snots weren't even aware of how good they had it. As far as they know this is just how good movies are. And they STILL prefer gamer YouTube and TikTok slop.

Welp, disown them and set them free. (That is the right reaction, yes?)

xps I kind of lost interest in Pixar awhile ago, even though I still caught several films and mildly liked a couple of them, but Toy Story 3 was the last one that left an impression on me partly because it seemed to build on its two immediate predecessors, Wall-E and Up - the idea of death and loss loomed heavily on those two films, and they're a big part of Toy Story 3, not to mention the best thing about it. (IIRC an intern I was working with said she was embarrassed that she broke down crying when the main characters held hands...you probably know the scene I'm talking about.) The movie wasn't quite as tight and polished as the previous Toy Story films but I thought it was a worthy end to a trilogy and a promising sign of how much Pixar's films were growing and developing, even when saddled with a "sequel."

Unfortunately, it hasn't played out so well after that, with plenty of disappointing sequels and even another Toy Story film (which I've yet to see).

Is everyone forgetting Lightyear? Hands down their worst film, even worse than Onward and Elemental.

My son's favourite …

Coco was fantastic. I don't think I've seen any other Pixar movies. Maybe we should watch the Rat next.

But yes Coco! Very well done. And I say this not just because I used to live next door to Benjamin Bratt's parents.

xp possible that many of us haven't seen Lightyear. Toy Story 4 was such a big falloff, I have no desire to see further films in that series

i had Lightyear in mind for my "obvious garbage" category above, along with Elemental. Onward probably belongs here also, if I really force myself to remember the trailer.

Lightyear was absolutely terrible

It wasn’t THAT bad. It saw it in the theater with my kids and it was a decent cartoon. I didn’t think Onward was bad at all. Part of the problem is that we expect a lot of Pixar, so when they make a mediocre movie it’s extra disappointing. As someone who has had to watch a lot of kid crap, I draw the line at Cars.

It wasn’t THAT bad. It saw it in the theater with my kids and it was a decent cartoon. I didn’t think Onward was bad at all. Part of the problem is that we expect a lot of Pixar, so when they make a mediocre movie it’s extra disappointing. As someone who has had to watch a lot of kid crap, I draw the line at Cars.

Cars was fine what’s with all the hate?

sucks and is pandering and is totally muddled and basic and Doc Hollywood.

For over a decade, they avoided sequels aside from Toy Story and Cars.

This seems like a sentence, until you realise that one of those sequels is their best film, and the other their worst.

Some of WALL-E is genuinely touching, but gyac is otm about it being Black Mirror for kids, and the montage of him 'romancing' his comatose love interest really squicked me out.

but Toy Story 3 was the last one that left an impression on me partly because it seemed to build on its two immediate predecessors, Wall-E and Up - the idea of death and loss loomed heavily on those two films

I mean yes, but that's Pixar for you - the dip before the happy ending in Finding Nemo is incredibly upsetting, I will soon watch Toy Story 2 again and cry ugly all the way through Jessie's song, and there's the line about how taking your kids to see Inside Out will mean they may see things that will distress them, like you breaking down during the last 20 minutes. (but yes the scene in TS3 is amazing)

I quite liked Lightyear really, thought it was much better than I'd expected from reviews and such. I found the setup very moving with him trying to get the space travel fixed & time passes more quickly for everyone else. And it had the robot cat to help him deal with the trauma. It's obviously a very different thing than the Toy Story movies but for me at least it was very enjoyable in its own way.

The only ones I haven't seen are Elemental and the three Cars. I once caught the first half hour+ of the first Cars and I thought it to be astoundingly dull. People told me it needs some time to get going but those films seem so unappealing to me. Can anyone convince me to give them a chance?

Toy Story 3 is incredible. Few things in film bring tears to my eyes like that one scene at the end does.
Coco certainly is one of the best, if not the best of them all. From a very early point you can already predict how that one song will be used in the ending but even so I can't imagine that anyone is prepared enough for how hard it hits.

The ones I liked least are Good Dinosaur (can hardly remember it though) and I have to say Turning Red - thought the metaphor was overblown & the main storyline with the controlling family seemed too clichéd, especially since it was released so shortly after Disney's Encanto (which I also liked more for the visuals, music and some of the characters than for its story).

I like Elemental a lot. I really liked how it leaned into a depiction of a particular type of immigrant/minority experience.

I saw Cars 3 first and was not expecting it to be about the middle-age transition from being the person who Does the Thing to being the person coaching the person who Does the Thing. I was also a parent to very young kids when it came out and the parallels between the Lightning/Cruz relationship and the relationship I was building with my kids weren’t perfect but were definitely there.

(Cars 1 and 2 are not nearly as good, particularly Cars 2)

Started a project:

30 years of Pixar movies: poll 1 (1995-2004)