#6 ‘Coco’/’Meet The Robinsons’

Movie night date – 27/03/19. Post date – 28/03/19.

First new post on the blog! I’m excited! Excitement is all around! Sorry if it’s too much excitement; I am trying to hype myself up after having a yelling match with a scammer calling this morning about an apparent hacker in the computer…GREAT START TO THE MORNING! Anyway, children’s movie night! This weeks movies were 2017’s ‘Coco’ by Lee Unkrich, and 2007’s ‘Meet The Robinsons’ by Stephen Anderson.

Coco – 2017 – Lee Unkrich – 105 mins

I’m gonna have to start off with saying something goddamn surprising happened with this movie; I cried. It was such a weird feeling to have just suddenly appear inside me. I’ll level with you all, I am a big sook (I actually had to Google spelling that one; never written it down) when it comes to sad parts of movies. I remember being a kid and watching ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial’ and crying when ET ‘dies’. This movie however, I think hit too close to home. The Coco character and her forgetfulness and how music effected her just seemed to be too much like my life of looking after my grandmother with Alzheimer’s. It always fascinates me when I play songs and my grandmother knows them. I didn’t know she knew ‘Daniel’ by Elton John but she would say, “Oh, that’s Daniel!” when I played it. She’s also singing all sorts of strange songs I’ve never heard of. Props to the movie for having an accurate representation of how music can trigger memories.

Despite all the blubbering at the end as Coco was losing her memories, I liked this movie a lot. I mean the plot twist of who Miguel’s father is was foreseeable, but I am no a kid who the movie was meant for. The animation was really sharp and colourful and highlighted all the parts of Mexican culture and the Day Of The Dead as far I know it. I don’t know a lot about it but this movie kept it informative but not so much that it dragged the story down.

The music was on point as well! I was not expecting great original music from a Disney-Pixar film. The only ones that come to mind are ‘You Got A Friend In Me’ from ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Married Life’ from ‘Up’. I am definitely going to look into getting the soundtrack. One quick Google later I am finding that the music was done by none other than Michael Giacchino, who I love for a lot of his works. Most notably his work on the mentioned music from ‘Up’, he did the music for movies such as ‘Doctor Strange’, the new ‘Star Trek’ trilogy of movies, and the new Spider-Man MCU movies. So you can thank him for that fancy orchestrated original Spider-Man TV series theme that gave every nerd a boner at the beginning of ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’. Overall, I liked this movie. A solid thumbs up from me.

Meet The Robinsons – 2007 – Stephen Anderson – 94 mins

‘Meet The Robinsons’ has always been a favourite of mine. I saw it in theatres and bought it on DVD. As a kid, probably because it had time travel and it was a movie I could just put on a watch mindlessly. Rewatching it now, the movie spoke to me more than ever. The inspirational “Keep Moving Forward” was always a favourite of mine because of this movie, and was only emphasised more when Monty Oum died and it became a memorable quote for fans of ‘RWBY’.

“I know! I’ll turn him into a duck! Yes, yes, it’s so evil! (pause) Wait…I don’t know how to do that, and I…I don’t really need a duck.”

– Bowler Hat Guy

I loved the Bowler Hat Guy. What a ‘villian’! I thought about this movie lately cause I couldn’t remember the name of the Bowler hat, whose name is Doris. It was unintentional I chose movies 10 years apart, but I definitely noticed a huge difference in animation quality. Another thing I loved about the movie was the songs sung by the frogs. If you know me, you know I love music anyway so I am gonna look at music a lot in films. Rob Thomas’ song for the movie ‘Little Wonders’ is pretty good, but I liked ‘Where Is Your Heart At?’ and ‘Give Me The Simple Life’. I was surprised how much I remembered the lyrics and sang along at 1am.

Another movie which is cooly based on a book ‘A Day With Wilber Robinson’. I can’t say I’ve read it though I remember wanting to buy it to read it after seeing the movie, but it is loosely based on it much like ‘The Iron Giant’ and its source material. The movie has a lot of emphasis on bubbles…which was surprisingly cool to me. The time travel used bubbles, people travelled around in bubbles as we can see in the future. When time changes back, it comes back as if it is being washed clean in bubbles. Very interesting choice of common bubble theme. The movie also does an awesome job with lighting. The past is sepia, the future is bright and colourful, and the altered future looks gloomy and sad. I completely forgot that Adam West voiced one of the family members so that took me by surprise. Also, while fact checking that, they say Cornelius Robinson looks like Tom Selleck, and when he appears he is actually voiced by him. It’s the small things, you know? Anyway, classic film to me! Love it to bits. Not my favourite Disney…thats coming up later when I do a Disney night.

Closing Thoughts

So that was some children’s movies. Next week is going to be something you’ll…sing praise about. It’s gonna be musical based, specifically one that’s very relevant to me right now, and another one…I’m not set on the other one yet, but it will come to me.

Hope you’re having a wonderful day and keep smiling.