Inside Out (8/10): Pixar delivers another emotionally engaging wonder.

“Congratulations San Francisco, you've ruined Pizza! First the Hawaiians, and now YOU!”

Pixar has always raised the standards for animated films despite their latest weaker entries (Monster University and Cars 2), and fortunately Inside Out lives up to those expectations adding another emotional and moving entry to their long list of successes. Inside Out is inventive and imaginative in the way it portrays the emotional roller coaster that children go through growing up. In Inside Out the main character has to face moving to a new city and experiencing its new surrounding, and director Pete Docter manages to tell that story through the complexities of human emotions which we can all identify with. I did see many young kids get a bit bored and distracted by the emotional buildup of the story, but older kids and adults enjoyed the ride and got emotionally invested with the story (it got a bit dusty in the eye department). Younger kids might love louder films like Home which really don’t do anything inventive other than recycle simple gags, but thankfully Pixar goes beyond the easy appeal of those movies and makes intelligent and emotionally engaging animated films that will stick with you. For instance, in Inside Out the different emotions like Anger, Joy, Fear, Sadness, and Disgust are characters that Docter doesn’t simply introduce in a thoughtless or general manner to move the story along, instead he takes his time to create a carefully structured brain where these emotions try to guide the twelve year old girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias). Docter has taken his time to introduce this world where the brain isn’t simply controlled by emotions, but there are other psychological elements involved such as memories, subconsciousness, and dreams. A lot of thought was put into the story and that is something rarely seen nowadays in animated films.

Riley is a twelve year old girl who has recently moved to a new city with her parents (voiced by Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane) after her father decides to start a new job in San Francisco. Leaving her friends and love for hockey behind in Minnesota she must learn to adapt to this new place. Her emotions guide her from within the headquarters of her mind, as Joy (Amy Poehler) is doing her best to keep things under control, but Sadness (Phyllis Smith) seems to get the best of her after a series of events seem to conspire against Riley. We are soon introduced to the other emotions in the control room: Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mandy Kaling) who all try to help guide her through the day and forge lasting memories that will shape her. However things take an unexpected turn when both Joy and Sadness get lost somewhere in the deep corridors of Riley’s brain and can’t seem to find their way back to the control room.

To be honest there were some moments that felt a bit slow and tedious while I didn’t find some of the jokes actually funny. However the film has several strong moments that managed to bring me back to the story and by the time we were approaching the final act of the film I was emotionally invested in it. The dream sequence was hilarious and well worth the price of admission alone, but I also enjoyed the time Docter took to tell the story and imagine this world from inside the mind of a twelve year old from a psychological standpoint. It’s an inventive movie that doesn’t forget about the adventure. I wouldn’t rank this as high as some of my favorite work from Pixar (Up, Ratatouille, and Toy Story 3), but it is a huge improvement from the latest entries. It surprisingly doesn’t settle for an easy ending either and I was pleased with the resolution. The final act of the movie is perhaps one of the reasons why I’ll give Inside Out a higher rating despite not being blown away during most of the film. It will probably grow on me with a rewatch. It is so rare that I haven't even mentioned how great the animation looks since there is so much to say about the engaging and emotional story.

Obvious Child (5/10): I never connected with Slate's brand of humor

“Creative energy sometimes comes from the lowest point in your life.”

Based on her short film Gillian Robespierre writes and directs her first feature length film about a comedienne who has recently been dumped by her boyfriend. It is a rom-com that has received a lot of praise for the way it tackles the issues of womanhood and abortion. The main character in this film is played by Jenny Slate and she is going through some rough patches in her life. Not only has her boyfriend recently dumped her for her best friend, but she is about to lose her job because the bookstore she works at is closing down, and she also gets pregnant after meeting a nice guy at one of her shows. Her comedic routine isn’t actually working either because it is based on her everyday experiences and lately it seems to be more depressing than funny. Her brand of humor is mostly self-deprecating, but I had a difficult time finding it funny. I’m in the minority here considering most people have found this film funny, but I didn’t find the humor in it. Slate basically plays a woman-child who is struggling to cope with the fact she has to become an adult. The comedy tries to be raw and honest, but I simply didn’t find it interesting or funny. The romance also feels conventional at times. The film doesn’t make a big deal out of abortion and that is why it has received much praise for the way it underplays the controversial issue. The film relies entirely on Jenny Slate’s performance and unfortunately I never found her humor funny so that is the reason why it didn’t work for me. There are way too many fart jokes in this film as well.

Obvious Child is a film that relies entirely on the screenplay and its cast because there is nothing special in the visual department. Unfortunately I found the screenplay and the main character a bit annoying. I already mentioned how the comedic aspect of the film didn’t work for me, but I will give it a little more credit for the romantic side of it. It might be cliched in some parts, but there is chemistry between Slate and Jake Lacy, who plays the sweet and patient guy who she meets during one of her shows. The film works best when the two are together, you get that uncomfortable feeling from both when they first meet or when they want to communicate something to each other. Richard Kind and Polly Draper play Slate’s parents who are separated (and you can see why when you meet both of them separately in the way they treat their daughter because they feel like oil and water). Then you have Gaby Hoffmann playing the best friend role and sharing several scenes with Slate. None of these performances really stood out for me but they weren’t bad either. I just didn’t find Slate’s character all that interesting or funny, and at times she really annoyed me. I am glad that the film is short because those 80 minutes still felt a bit tedious considering I was never able to connect with the characters.

My Review: A Serious Man (7/10)

¨You can`t understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That`s the real thing; the stories I give in class are just illustrative, they`re like fables, say, to help give you a picture.¨

(7/10) Those are the words professor Larry Gopnik tells one of his student`s who is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade and that is perhaps what the Coen brothers were trying to tell us about this movie. The entire plot serves as just an illustration to something they don`t have all the answers to. Just like the story one of the Rabbi`s tells Larry about the Goy`s teeth which doesn`t have a resolution, but nevertheless that doesn`t mean it isn`t a good story. Larry seems so preoccupied in this film to discover the meaning of all the tragedies that he is going through that we are expecting to find an answer, but what the directors are telling us is that sometimes there isn`t an explanation for things that happen, they just do. This is the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan also known as ¨The Two-Headed Director¨ because they tend to work together) latest film after their Oscar Award winning No Country for Old Men and their dark comedy Burn After Reading. A Serious Man is more in the line of Burn after Reading except that it doesn`t count with the big names and most of the actors in this film are unknown. It is a much more personal movie for the directors who themselves are Jews who grew up in Minneapolis. The humor in this film is dark and it isn`t a laugh out loud film, but it does have a lot of comedy in it that mixes well with the depressive mood the main character is in.

The story takes place near 1970 in a Minneapolis suburb. The main character of the film is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg who had a small role in Body of Lies and is mostly known for working in plays) a Jewish Physics professor who explains most everything through mathematical equations. His life begins to turn upside down when his wife asks for a divorce because she has fallen in love with one of his best friends, while at the same time one of his students is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade in his exam or sew him for defamation if he says anything, his son and daughter are a major headache, and to make matters worse his immature and unemployed brother is living in his couch. Things begin to unravel one by one for Larry and he seems to be falling into one debt after another due to the different lawsuits and problems he faces. Comparisons with the Biblical story of Job can`t be ignored at this point as he seems to be falling deeper and deeper into disgrace. Sari Lennick plays Judith, Larry`s wife who is tired of her marriage and is ready to live with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). I didn`t know either of these actors, but they both did a great job, especially Fred who was probably the funniest character in the film. Larry´s son, Danny (Aaron Wolff, also a newcomer) is studying Hebrew because he is about to have his bar mitzvah, but he gets into trouble for listening to Jefferson Airplane in class and buying weed from one of his classmates. Larry`s troubled brother, Arther (played by Richard Kind from Spin City) who lives with him and always seems to be getting into trouble with the law, gives him as much headaches as his son. Everywhere Larry turns he seems to be getting himself into trouble so he decides to go visit the Rabbi, but he can never get a hold of Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) so he first has to settle with young Rabbi Scott (Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory) and later with Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), but neither of them have the answers he`s looking for.

If we actually pay attention to the small clues that the Coen brothers leave we know that Larry will not find the answers he`s looking for. At first I wasn`t excited about the ending of the film, but after I thought about it I really loved it. It would have been so easy to end the movie a few minutes before it actually did and we would think that Larry would end up fixing his life, but the final parallel sequence between him in college receiving a phone call from his medic and the one with Aaron in his Hebrew class is just great and really has the Coen signature all over it. The movie is very entertaining although I wouldn`t say it is among my favorite Coen films. I think Fargo is by far their best movie to date. Anyways it is always a lot of fun to watch their movies and most any actor would work for them for free. The opening sequence only served as a mere illustration as did the story of Goy`s teeth. Rabbi Scott would say that both are simply different perspectives which don`t have a real purpose; you`re better off if you let it be. I recommend this movie especially if you are a Coen fan.