INSIDE OUT Is a New Pixar Classic

INSIDE OUT Review:

- To distill complex ideas and concepts into easily-palatable art that can be enjoyed and appreciated by all ages is no easy feat. And yet, with INSIDE OUT, the geniuses at Pixar do just that. They create a film so thematically rich and resonant that I have to say - it left me somewhat floored. This isn't the first film or TV show to look inside someone's head and anthropomorphize emotions. We've seen it in works from the old sitcom Herman's Head to Epcot Center's defunct ride Cranium Command. But never has a look inside a person's head been realized - visually or thematically - with this much thoughtfulness and artistry. INSIDE OUT is not just the best Pixar movie in years, it's right up there in the top two or three films that the storied studio has ever produced.

INSIDE OUT takes us inside the mind of young Riley, a girl who's been uprooted from her life in the Midwest to hilly, hippy San Francisco. The trauma of the move, combined with all of the normal preteen anxieties and awkwardness, means that a lot is going on inside Riley's head. And the film shows us how all of that plays out by going all in - showing us the inner workings of Riley's mind via personifications of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust.

The movie brilliantly conveys how these core emotions develop from infancy and through childhood, to the point where, in the preteen years, they once again begin to evolve and change. Watching the film from an adult perspective, there's an undeniable sense of nostalgia-tinged sense of loss in seeing Riley slowly stray from childhood innocence into pre-adult hyper-awareness of reality. Wonderment and imagination is supplanted by stress, social anxiety, familial frustration, and all-too-acute self-awareness. The effect is like watching a band make intricately composed music out of a few basic notes. It helps that the emotion-characters are so amazingly realized. Their designs are perfect - totally embodying - simply yet effectively - what each represents. And the voice-acting is similarly fantastic. Amy Poehler is award-worthy as Joy - spunky, caring, determined. But what's really interesting here is the interplay between Joy and Sadness. Sadness, voiced in a memorable and at times heartbreaking performance by The Office's Phylis Smith, is perhaps the film's most stand-out character. In part because Smith makes her both painfully reflective of the way in which we actually feel sadness, but also because the movie emphasizes just how important Sadness is in order for a person to experience Joy. The two characters are companions in the movie, just as the two emotions are intertwined in Riley's brain. It's a powerful idea that's at once both simple and incredibly layered - that in order to be well-rounded, empathetic people - we need to be able to experience and understand sadness.

There's a deep sense of nostalgia for childhood innocence in the film - it will likely have you thinking back to formative moments of your childhood in a way you likely haven't in a long while. But INSIDE OUT is also an incredibly fun and funny film. Louis Black was a standout to me as Anger. As with the other emotions, Anger seems to perfectly embody the way in which our own rage-meters actually get triggered. But man, Black is also hilarious in the role, serving as a red-hot rage-machine counterpoint to the sullen Sadness and peppy joy. Meanwhile, Mindy Kaling's snarky Disgust and Bill Hader's neurotic Fear round out the movie's comedic trio. When Joy and Sadness leave Riley's control center on a mission to prevent catastrophe, the scenes of Disgust, Fear, and Anger left to haplessly hold down the fort are consistently off-the-charts funny and entertaining.

What's also interesting is that, even though we get such a complex look at what's happening inside Riley's head, that fact never really undermines how great of a character Riley herself actually is. Riley could easily have felt like a walking puppet whose strings are being pulled. But instead, she feels fully-drawn and someone that we really, really root for. We just want her to turn out okay, and we cringe whenever Anger or Sadness or Disgust takes over and seems to derail her from being happy and her best self. Similarly, we can't help but feel a sense of loss as we see her growing up at the expense of childhood flights-of-fancy, like her almost-entirely-forgotten imaginary friend Bing-Bong (voiced amusingly by the always-great Richard Kind). But again, what's great is that while Riley's emotions are universal, she herself is still a very specific character. That means that the movie can have some real fun when it shows us fleeting flashes of other people's heads. The results are often really funny, but it's also sort of poignant to see how we can all be so different and yet so uncannily alike. This is a film that espouses empathy, and it does so in a deceptively smart and nuanced way.

INSIDE OUT would be an impressive film just by virtue of how spot-on it is in its representation of our memories, thoughts, and emotions. From the way our unconscious mind creates dreams and nightmares, to the way that an earworm ad jingle can get lodged in our brains, INSIDE OUT feels dead-on with its incredibly well-thought-out depiction of the human mind. Visually, Riley's mindscape is gorgeously rendered, with every aspect seemingly thought through to the last detail. At the same time, we never care about Joy and the rest of the emotions at the expense of Riley.

I could rave about INSIDE OUT for many more paragraphs, but I'll just compliment by saying that the film itself works in the same way as Riley's emotions do. This is a film that goes to some surprisingly dark and somber places, but in doing so it rewards us with true joy and heartfelt emotional connection. It's Exhibit A of what separates Pixar's best from the rest of the animation pack - they don't take shortcuts to get us emotionally involved in their stories - they don't hold back or pull punches, and that makes the payoff that much more meaningful. INSIDE OUT is a movie that will tug on the heartstrings of even jaded adults. But more importantly, there is an important and brilliantly-realized message here about understanding ourselves, and in doing so understanding and empathizing with others.

My Grade: A

THE SKELETON TWINS Cuts Deep

THE SKELETON TWINS Review:

- For years, Bill Hader was the unsung MVP of Saturday Night Live - the modern-day Phil Hartman who simply elevated the quality of any sketch by virtue of being in it. Hader was effortlessly funny on SNL, but there was also a manic darkness to many of his characters that made you wonder if he might have a Jim Carrey-like ability to transition from comedy to drama. Well, wonder no longer. Bill Hader absolutely kills in THE SKELETON TWINS, a dramedy in which he gets to be very funny, but also show some previously-unseen dramatic depth. This is, quite simply, a total breakout performance for the SNL alum. The film pairs Hader with SNL colleague Kristin Wiig. The two play brother and sister, and the chemistry between them is incredibly naturalistic. There is a sense of intimacy with this film that helps to sell the drama. The laughs are bigger and the gut-punches hit harder because there is such a clear sense of authenticity that these actors bring to the table. The result is that, while THE SKELETON TWINS has some flaws, it's so earnestly likable that you can't help but be won over. Hader and Wiig's fantastic performances seal the deal.

The movie - from writer/director Craig Johnson - opens with Hader's Milo and Wiig's Maggie each contemplating suicide. Milo goes through with it first, and just as Wiig is about to do the same, she receives a call from the hospital that her estranged brother tried to off himself. The two live on opposite coasts and haven't spoken in ten years, but Maggie goes to see her brother - a failed actor living in LA - and convinces him to come live with her and her fiance in New York. So yeah .. as you can tell, the tone of this one is comedic, but the humor is decidedly pitch-black.

However, that's not to say that the film isn't ultimately uplifting. The characters go to some dark places, but the great joy of the film is seeing this brother and sister duo - who have each arrived at a pretty bleak place in their lives - help each other up and into the light. Before that can happen though, Milo and Maggie each have major obstacles to overcome. Maggie is married to Lance, a likable-enough lunkhead played by Luke Wilson, in classic Luke Wilson fashion. Lance is a pretty solid dude, but his basic-bro lifestyle is a bad match for Maggie. Maggie keeps her unhappiness repressed around Luke, only finding solace by going behind his back and cheating on him with any number of random men. Milo, meanwhile, seeks to get out of his failed-actor funk by reconnecting with an old lover. Problem is, the old lover (played with creepy cowardice by Modern Family's Ty Burrell) is Milo's old high school English teacher, with whom he had a nearly life-ruining affair as a teenager. Suffice it to say, both siblings are seemingly locked into downward-spiraling behavior patterns. Their only hope, cheesy as it may sound, is each other.

And again, what might have been unbearably emo somehow works in the capable hands of Hader and Wiig. The rawness of their performances - and the comedy chops they bring to the table to keep things from getting too self-serious - allow the movie to reach unexpected heights. The highest of those heights is an instant-classic sequence in which Hader's Milo turns up Starship's cheesy 80's ballad "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" and coerces Wiig's Maggie into joining him in the lip-synced duet. Maggie resists at first, but soon enough, she gives in to the moment and, finally, Maggie goes full-Wiig, and Hader goes full-manic-awesome, and the scene is just transcendent in its sheer joy and greatness. And yet, as hilarious as it is to see these two SNL vets get goofy and riff off each other, there's a real power to the scene as well. The music provides the catalyst for these two troubled siblings to lift each other up out of the darkness - a theme that comes into play repeatedly throughout the film.

At times, I do think the movie overdoes it a little. The more cynical part of me had a few moments where I was tempted to roll my eyes a little, and shake my head at the contrivances the movie throws at us in order to get to some of its big emotional-catharsis moments. Still, Johnson does an admirable job of making most of the movie's emotional beats feel earned. The director seems to have a definite knack for creating and maintaining a moody, absorbing aesthetic.

THE SKELETON TWINS is a really worthwhile indie flick that is elevated by two fantastic lead performances. We've seen that Wiig can do more dramatic roles, but this to me is a coming-out party for Bill Hader as a more-than-viable dramatic actor. He's hilarious in the film, but also brings real rawness and pathos to the character of Milo. He and Wiig make even the smallest moments in this movie memorable.

My Grade: A-

THEY CAME TOGETHER Is A Wet, Hot, Hilarious Comedy Classic

 THEY CAME TOGETHER Review:

- Funny is funny, and good lord, THEY CAME TOGETHER is flippin' funny. Sure, comedy might be subjective, but for me, the comedic stylings of David Wain, Michael Showalter, and the rest of the crew from 90's comedy troupe The State hit the sweet spot. And if that sort of comedy floats your boat, then it's time to rejoice, for They Came Together is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Back in the day, The State was one of my holy pillars of comedy, alongside things like The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, Conan O'Brien, Weird Al, and the films of Mel Brooks. The State helped mold my taste in humor, and helped fuel my love for out-there, absurdist comedy. The group then went on to have perhaps its greatest moment with the David Wain-directed, Wain and Showalter-written cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. Wet Hot is always hard to talk about, because people always want to assign *reasons* why great comedies work as well as they do. Wet Hot isn't a classic because it's a pitch-perfect parody, or because of any sort of message it has or anything like that. Nope, the movie is just funny as hell, and completely encapsulates and exemplifies everything that makes The State's brand of absurdist humor so hilarious. The writing is so smart and sharp - and the lines delivered so well by the talented actors - that the movie will be quoted and referenced from now until forever. Since Wet Hot, a bunch of members of The State collaborated on the movie The Ten, and Wain, Showalter, and Michael Ian Black starred in the short-lived Comedy Central series Stella (and then the latter two re-teamed for the equally short-lived Michael and Michael Have Issues). Wain has also gone on to direct two very funny, but slightly more mainstream-friendly films in Role Models and Wanderlust, in addition to his web series - Wainy Days - which he also starred in. Showalter released a pretty-good indie comedy called The Baxter. And Wain and others have been involved in the fantastic Adult Swim series Children's Hospital, which is very much in line with the style of humor that made The State such an influential sketch comedy show.

There's your short history lesson. But the context is important so that I can make the following point: THEY CAME TOGETHER is the best movie anyone from The State's been involved with since Wet Hot American Summer, and if you're a fan of The State, Stella, or Wet Hot, you seriously need to drop whatever thing you're doing at this very moment and go watch this film.

Here's the thing: THEY CAME TOGETHER is a much more overt parody movie than Wet Hot. It's a satire of romantic comedies, in particular the sort of formulaic, cutesy, schmaltzy moves that just kept coming down the Hollywood assembly line in the 90's and early 00's. There's less of 'em now (thank god), but the tropes are now so embedded in our collective pop-cultural consciousness that we all know the conventions inside and out. So yes, on one level, there will be people who enjoy the film primarily because of how sharply and cleverly it skews rom-coms. Not just in a broad sense, but on a micro-level. Wain and Showalter love micro-analyzing all the weird little nuances that we sort of accept as being part of a given genre. The stock characters, the way people talk, the plot devices that show up over and over again until they become, essentially, self-parodying cliches. They take what's already absurd about the genre and then crank up the absurdity to eleven. At the same time, as someone who's not really a fan of 90's-style rom-coms, and who would not normally be all that intrigued by a straight-up genre parody, I can vouch that THEY CAME TOGETHER is not a simple genre parody. Like Wet Hot, this is, more than anything, a movie that exists so that Wain and Showalter can have a forum for their weird wordplay jokes, wacky sight gags, and calculatedly hilarious randomness. So please, hold the phone, all you critics who talk about this film like it's the rom-com version of Scary Movie. No. Not even close. Yes, the premise of the film is based on genre-parody, and many jokes and characters are in direct reference to rom-com convention. But that, my friends, is only part of what the movie is all about.

In any case, let's back up for a minute and talk about the film's plot and structure. The movie opens on a dinner between two couples. One - Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) - tells the other couple (played by Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper), the tale of how they met and fell in love. This serves as the movie's framing device, and on multiple occasions we cut back to the two couples for various interjections and digressions. The first four names I mentioned already give you a solid idea of just how fantastic the cast is. For one thing, Rudd and Poehler - both alumni of Wet Hot - are perfect in their respective roles. They both totally get the tone that Wain and Showalter are going for. Rudd in particular has become a master of doing the sort of mock-sincere comedic acting that this sort of movie calls for. And Poehler is similarly excellent. Meanwhile, their characters' backstory is a great little extended riff on typical rom-com types. Rudd's Joel works for a giant, soulless candy conglomerate looking to shut down its mom-and-pop competition. Poehler's Molly owns a small little candy shop where all profits inexplicably get donated to charity. So of course, they hate each other at first, even if it's all too clear that they're fated to fall for one another ... eventually.

There are so many great moments in this film - I was pretty much laughing constantly for the duration. Some of the funniest stuff in the movie comes from the interaction between Rudd and New Girl's Max Greenfield, as his freeloading little brother. Their melodramatic conversations are instant classics. Rudd also has great scenes with his group of supportive buddies, who he meets for basketball games that mix hilariously awful basketball playing with the espousing of various nuggets of wisdom and life lessons. Ken Marino is (as always) a standout as Rudd's brash, mulleted b-ball buddy. But Jack McBrayer and Keenan Thompson are no slouches. Michael Ian Black is also a scene-stealer as Rudd's asshole work rival. Nobody does smug d-bag like Black, and he cranks up the douchery to new levels here, to hilarious effect. Actually, the candy conglomerate where Rudd works is filled with funny folks. Micaela Watkins and Jason Mantzoukas pop up as co-workers, and then, Christopher Meloni ... Dude. How is a guy whose stock-and-trade is playing stern hardasses also this freaking funny? Meloni became a cult comedy icon in Wet Hot, and he's breathlessly funny here as Rudd's grandiose boss. I can't even talk about the character without spoiling a bunch of great jokes. Suffice it to say, the guy just owns it once again. Who else? Ed Helms is funny as a sad-sack suitor of Molly's, Zandy Hartig is excellent as Molly's glum sister, and Wain himself makes a great cameo that is too weird to even explain in writing. Speaking of cameos, the movie is jam-packed with them. I don't want to spoil anything, because some of the actors who pop up are just so wonderfully random and unexpected. I'll just say: there's a random "making-of-the-film" segment, *within* the film (shades of Children's Hospital) which features some great appearances. And then, towards the end of the movie, a very respected actor makes a totally insane appearance that is just weird, random, and awesome.

For the rom-com fans (or rom-com haters), there are tons of references - both broad and specific - to various films in the genre. Everyone from Woody Allen to Nora Ephron gets skewered, and I've already seen articles on Vulture and other websites that list out all the little nods to various genre staples. A lot of the parody isn't even specific to rom-coms though. Like I said, Wain and Showalter love to microanalyze the weird ways that characters talk and act in movies in general. And anyone who's followed their work will see the kinds of trademark jokes that have popped up in things like Stella and Wet Hot reappear. So yes, you can bet that there will be at least one random make-out sesh where one character dramatically whispers to the other something like "what are we doing ...?", and at least one diatribe that includes an absurdly long list of rhetorical questions. There will be random gross-out gags and at least one big, romantic profession of love that falls hilariously flat. In short, all the sorts of jokes that these guys deliver so well are here, and man, as a devotee of The State and all that came after, I couldn't be happier.

There's just a great feeling that comes with seeing the best in the biz do what they do best. I grew up on The State's humor, and because we only rarely get new material from the State/Stella crew working in tandem, THEY CAME TOGETHER couldn't be more welcome or more needed. In a world dominated by Apatowian improv-comedy, dramedy that is less about laughs and more about social satire, etc., it's infinitely reassuring to know that Wain and co. are (almost singlehandedly) carrying the torch for this sort of balls-to-the-wall, anything-goes humor. This is no mere nostalgia act though. The laughs I got from this movie were genuine, and they were big. As many great comedies as we've already seen this year, the laughs produced by They Came Together were the only laughs I had that were of the truly uncontrollable, deep-belly-laugh variety. This is the comedy that made me want to urge every friend I have to go see it so that we can immediately start quoting and referencing it. This is the comedy where friends who *did* see it are already incorporating its best quotes into everyday conversation. This is the stuff of comedy legend, people. I don't know if this is quite in the same hallowed league as Wet Hot. It doesn't provide quite the same concentrated burst of nonstop comedy perfection. But it's close. Very close. And I can only hope that Wain and Showalter keep making these movies and doing their thing. Because this is my comedy sweet spot, and nobody does it better.

My Grade: A

THE TO DO LIST Doesn't Quite Go All The Way

THE TO DO LIST Review:

- A few years ago, Bridesmaids inverted the usual Judd Apatowian formula and crafted a sweet-yet-raunchy comedy that also proved to be a big box office hit. Suddenly, the floodgates seemed open for gross-out comedies not explicitly told from the male point of view. And hey, to me, that's awesome. We've seen endless variations on the geeky-guy-pines-for-out-of-his-league-dream-girl story. Why not see what happens when you flip the template, and focus in on the good-girl valedictorian who wants to explore her inner wild-child? Psyched to see a group of smart and funny folks tackle this very subject matter, I went into THE TO DO LIST with pretty high expectations. In last year's Safety Not Guaranteed, Aubrey Plaza proved that she had the chops to be a great quirky-comedic leading lady. Throw her in an envelope-pushing hard-R movie alongside the likes of Bill Hader, Alia Shawkat, Donald Glover, Connie Britton, and Clark Gregg ... and I'm 100% onboard.

Unfortunately, as well-intentioned and as loaded with comedic talent as the movie is, it only occasionally scores big laughs. Good intentions, sadly, don't always equal hilarity - and the movie seems to struggle to define what kind of comedy it wants to be. The movie's spiritual successor definitely seems to be American Pie, but American Pie managed to capture a zeitgeisty tone that The To Do List seems to fumble to recapture.

The movie centers around recent high school grad Brandy Klark (Plaza), who made it through high school with barely an amorous encounter to her name - so focused was she on grades. Now, in the summer before the start of college, she's become smitten with a local, guitar-strumming alpha male named Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), who melts her heart with an acoustic rendition of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me," and who happens to be sharing a summer job as a lifeguard at a local pool. Determined to win the attention of Rusty, Brandy decides to work her way through a to-do list of sex acts so as to eventually be worthy for her older and more experienced object of lust. With the help of her two boy-crazy friends, Fiona (Shawkat) and Wendy (Sarah Steele), Brandy opens herself up (so to speak) to a multitude of new experiences - rounding the bases, if you will, before preparing herself to eventually go all the way. Of course, Brandy's single-minded pursuit causes some rifts with her friends, her family (her over-involved, over-sharing parents played by Britton and Gregg, and her prom-queen sister Amber - Rachel Bilson), and with her friend Cameron, who harbors a major crush.

Right off the bat, there's sort of an inherent dilemma in doing an apples-to-apples, gender-swapped inversion of the typical "She's Out of My League" type of story. Plaza may not be the typical young Hollywood starlet, but she's still an attractive woman whose character shouldn't have much trouble seducing any guy she sets her sights on - particularly the horn-dog Rusty. To the movie's credit, it becomes about much more than just the endgame. Instead, when a Brandy-Rusty hookup becomes an inevitability, it becomes a movie about women being boxed in as either the "virgin" or the "whore" (a problem that Brandy directly mentions). And it becomes a movie about Brandy having to choose either the geeky good-guy or the good-looking bad-boy. And it's about the unfairness of being forced into that choice (more a comment on other teen movies than any realistic sort of scenario). In between, Brandy semi-enthusiastically hooks up with just about every other male character in the movie, as part of her mission to complete the to-do list.

The problem is that THE TO DO LIST raises a couple of complex issues - acknowledging that it can't and won't simply be a female-centric version of American Pie - but never *really* tackles them in any meaningful or satisfactory way. The movie seems to want to say something about Brandy's behavior, but there are mixed messages, to say the least. It all climaxes (no pun intended ... okay, sort of intended) in a final act that is sort of off-putting. There seems to be a semi-conscious effort to subvert genre norms and not have Brandy do things just for the sake of pleasing the audience. But for that reason, the movie tends to have a bit of a mean streak. I mean, look, there's a reason why all those movies about awkward and geeky guys resonate - it's because the best ones seem to come from a real place of teenage trauma and pain. The To Do List rarely feels like it's tapping into anything real - it's more about the genre subversion for subversion's sake - and so it lacks a real sense of authenticity. Unlikable can still work if it's coming from a real place - I think of the brilliant, Diablo Cody-penned Young Adult as a prime example. But here, writer-director Maggie Carey makes it feel like she's working backwards from an admittedly hook-y premise. The premise doesn't necessarily feel like it comes organically from the characters. So Brandy feels less like a character and more like a walking vehicle for the movie's premise. Why was Brandy so puritanical in the first place? If her friends are out having sex and hooking up, why does she seem so ignorant to it all? Why exactly does lusting after one guy suddenly make her want to experiment with a whole menagerie of guys? There's a lot of stuff here that, honestly, feels a bit forced and contrived.

(Aside: the movie is set in 1993, but for no real reason other than as an excuse for lots of awkward references and "let's laugh at how things were back then" jokes. The 90's setting is almost less a plot-point than it is a running gag, but it's also played too straightforwardly to be all that funny.)

Here's the thing though: THE TO DO LIST could have avoided a lot of these sorts of issues by simply going big, broad, and absurdist. The movie's best moments come when it goes in that direction, and just chucks any pretense of sincerity or realism out the window. For example, when Andy Samberg shows up as an Eddie Vedder-wannabe grunge singer, who's hilariously dark and tormented howls while hooking up with Brandy had me loudly laughing. Another example is the hilariously over-the-top writing for Brandy's parents, which forces Clark Gregg and Connie Britton to give matter-of-fact sexual advice to their daughter in a way that might make even Eugene Levy blush. But the movie's more absurdist moments are outweighed by the movie's more dominant tone - which is much more straightforward and sitcom-y. The film attempts to mine a lot of laughs and extract a lot of shock value from how far it goes with some of its sex gags and gross-out humor. But despite the almost uncomfortably frank depictions of various sexual acts, things still seem oddly restrained. It's like the sex itself is supposed to be shocking/funny enough to power the movie's engine. In reality, the movie needed more jokes and gags that ratcheted things up a notch, and built some more real, comic momentum. Maybe the memory of the brilliantly-escalating jokes from this summer's THIS IS THE END is still too fresh - but in comparison, the comedy of The To Do List felt a bit weak and unimaginative. Yeah, it's different and semi-shocking to see a female protagonist get, um, intimate with herself onscreen in this level of detail. But the ensuing jokes to make the scene worth more than just shock value are sorely lacking.

Still, I mentioned the level of talent in the film, and it really is an impressive ensemble that helps to elevate things. I'm still a huge fan of Aubrey Plaza. She is eminently watchable in this, and she does innumerable little things to make certain scenes funny beyond what's in the script. She's getting really good at physical comedy as well, as evidenced in, among other scenes, her hilarious attempt to woo Rusty while wearing an ill-fitting bikini. Meanwhile, guys like Bill Hader bring improvisational talents so as to make little, off-the-cuff-scenes (like his impromptu Home Improvement parody) into memorable comedic moments.

THE TO DO LIST has its moments - it's helped immeasurably by a great and funny cast, and it's frequently fun to just watch these talented actors do their thing. But too many jokes and gags fall flat for me to recommend it as a must-see comedy. And for a comedy that has a number of incredibly broad, over-the-top gags, the movie still feels too serious-minded for its own good. To that end, it feels like a movie intent on saying *something* about femininity and sexuality, but that can't quite nail down what that something is.

My Grade: B-