Review: Inside Out

The reviews have called it a breakthrough for Pixar, but no. It's good, but it borrows from so many other sources I'm not sure why film reviewers are astonished by its originality.

All of the "Toy Story" movies have the same plot and the same theme.

The plot: "We have to get back home!"

The theme: Leaving behind your childhood is the most painful thing you'll do.

"Inside Out" borrows both of these concepts.

The only real difference is in the "Toy Story" films we follow the toys going home in the real world. In "Inside Out," they're going home in a surrealistic world, a place where there's an actual "train of thought," and "graveyard" for old memories. I kept thinking about "The Phantom Tollbooth," the little-seen Chuck Jones film where the protagonist also finds himself in a world of abstract concepts.

(Not to mention Robert Clampett's "Porky in Wackyland.")

It's harder on the audience. Everyone knows the rules of physics in the real world, what are they in a surrealistic land of dreams?

And the concept of the emotions being the stars. Fox did this with "Herman's Head" some years ago, and no one called that genius.

See it, but your kids might get a little restless.

Bugs Bunny news

The story is Warner Bros. is going to make another Bugs Bunny live action/CGI film and Jenny Slate is going to write it.

The Jenny Slate thing doesn't bother me, afterall, she was the best thing about the last Alvin and the Chipmunks film.

The CGI thing doesn't bother me, this is the future, there's no turning back.

What bothers me is the live action part. Why why why must they do this? Why can't it be *all* cartoon? Roger Rabbit ruined full-length character-revival cartoons for everyone. Think about it, every time a classic cartoon has been revived it had to be done part live action:

Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Chipmunk films, Casper, the last two Loony Tunes films, the Smurfs! And what did they all have in common? Mostly all of them sucked! (I'm giving a pass to "Loony Tunes Back in Action," because though it did suck, Joe Dante's heart was in the right place, and there were a million funny ideas, but the whole film just didn't come together (The Louvre sequence came closest to bringing Chuck Jones back to life))

I don't see Pixar teaming the Incredibles up with Justin Beiber, nor have they teamed up Nemo with Tyler Perry. There's a reason Pixar doesn't put live-action actors in its movies: Because Pixar doesn't want to make movies that blow!

Bugs Bunny doesn't need Brendan Fraser, Bugs Bunny doesn't need Jenna Elfman, and as God as my witness, Bugs Bunny doesn't need Michael Jordan (worst idea for movie ever).

I'll tell you who else Bugs Bunny didn't need: Clark Gable. Think of those Loony Tunes when they slipped in movie stars from the 1940s. Children from all over the world watch these cartoons today and say, "I don't get it." Putting real people in these movies dates them...immediately... and you might get a chuckle the year the film comes out, but after that, you get a movie that blows.

Give me a movie with all the Loony Tunes characters on a 90-minute adventure with lots of subversive humor.