Coco

No Formal “In Theaters” Column for 12/8/17

There’s just an informal “In Theaters” column this week as there is only one new wide release, and Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones in Just Getting Started is getting the kind of reviews that ensure that it never will.  To recap, KT picked Coco and Justice League to stay #1 and #2 at the box office last weekend, and so they did, and so they shall again.  James Franco’s The Disaster Artist did better in limited release than Episode VII did, but even in wide release this weekend is going to look the same as the previous two.  Coco puts Disney on top three weeks in a row going into next week’s box office steamrolling by Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which should keep Disney on top at least another three.  The mouse is ruling the box office until mid next-month.


 

6 thoughts on “No Formal “In Theaters” Column for 12/8/17”

  1. Just saw Coco. It is wonderful. Thought it was the most visually amazing Pixar movie. They keep one-upping themselves. You’re right, something is missing that keeps it from being a flat out masterpiece, and maybe that something is a cast that’s more memorable, but I still loved it from start to finish, and smiled through most of it. This genre of film is constantly hammering home the importance of family, but Coco… let’s just say that I did NOT tear up at the end of another Pixar movie. Not even close. It NEVER HAPPENED.


    The moment when Miguel decides to let go of his music, because his family is more important… that is such an important moment. The first time you accept that you have to sacrifice things you want, even long for, if you want to do right by the people you love… it’s an important mark of maturity.

    Also, how fitting, in today’s climate, that the celebrity musician, the guy Miguel hero-worshipped all his life, and thought he got his talent from, turned out to be a murdering sociopath. It was the decent character, the one who formed an actual relationship with Miguel over the course of the movie, that Miguel had derived his strength from all along. We always have to remember that celebrities are strangers, and when we go to see their movies, we are conducting business transactions with strangers. All my life, I have had zero interest in the doings of rich and famous people, even those whose work I obsess over, because even the things I do know about them are scant, and have been doled out by publicists, and people out to make money. Our heroes should be much closer to our lives.


    I know that all this is obvious in the movie, I was just impressed by the way the film’s plot/structure so perfectly laid out the film’s theme. The story felt more streamlined than other Pixar films, it had the air of a Grimm’s fairy tale, I thought. There was not much extraneous going on, it was pure storytelling, much like the original Star Wars.

    I’m not saying that because I’m a SW fanatic BTW, I’m saying it because, whatever you think about Lucas’s dialogue, there is NOTHING in that script that does not serve the story, and I don’t mean the larger SW story, I mean the story of that ONE FILM. Except for the new scene with Jabba, which is unfortunate. Hopefully when Disney buys 20th Century Fox, we’ll finally get the untouched original trilogy, and there will be a silver lining to the world turning into Rollerball.


    My only complaint is that Coco did not have nearly enough music in it. In the theater, halfway through the movie, an obviously disappointed kid told his Dad (very audibly), “I wanted this to be a musical.” He was right, that kid.

    Liked by 1 person

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