Netflix Movie Review: Like Father (2018)

Now Playing on Netflix

The first of two excellent new female directed features to premiere on Netflix this month, Lauren Miller Rogen's Like Father begins with the tried-and-true romantic comedy premise of a bride being left at the altar before things move in a delightfully unexpected direction.

Opting to leave strategic voice mail reminders instead of walking down the aisle on time, when her husband-to-be realizes that his fiancée has chosen her phone over him once again, Kristen Bell's workaholic bride Rachel finds herself without a groom.

However when one man leaves, another arrives. Surprised to be face-to-face with Harry (Kelsey Grammer), the estranged father she hasn't seen in decades, the two spend a spontaneous night of drunken commiserating after which, she's even more shocked to discover that they've wound up on her honeymoon.

Trapped on a cruise ship together, while on one level the film works very well as an upbeat, feature length ad for Royal Caribbean – in stark contrast to the way that Adam Sandler has freely admitted he chooses exotic settings for his films as a way to vacation with family and friends – Like Father's setting serves a crucial role.

Had the two reconnected and found themselves in say, Hawaii, they would've gotten on the next available flight back to reality as soon as they sobered up. But trapped in close quarters on a vessel where they don't know anyone else and are constantly congratulated by strangers who believe they're newlyweds, Rachel and Harry are forced to interact. Like two people stuck on a desert island, on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, Rachel can run but she can't hide.

Addressing some of the practicalities of their instant vacation right away (like the fact that they'd left without luggage), as a storyteller, Miller Rogen is smart enough to know that they're not going to be able to dive right into the rift of their relationship without a serious push.

And in Like Father, this comes in the form of an entertaining and wisely diverse ensemble of fellow travelers, including scene stealer Paul M. Downs as a new family therapist and one half of a gay couple as well as the filmmaker's husband Seth Rogen as a Canadian schoolteacher in a small but hilariously understated role.

Calling Rachel out for her incessant cellphone use and pushing her and Harry into a number of the ship's activities – from appearing as contestants on a newlywed game show in one of the film's comedic highlights to hiking around Jamaican waterfalls – it's only a matter of time before emotions, grudges, and secrets erupt.

Written over the course of six years (and seventeen drafts!), following her the release of her first co-scripted effort For a Good Time Call..., after life dealt Miller Rogen a cruel hand following her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, she was inspired to turn that darkness into light, resulting in an ultimately sweet yet surprisingly moving, multilayered feature filmmaking debut.

While the decision to incorporate some of the real world issues facing people today gives Father an unexpected sense of gravitas, Miller Rogen takes a cue from mid '80s John Hughes and (along with her charming stars) keeps things moving at a fast pace, knowing that it works against her upbeat, sunshine bright summer picture to dwell on things too long.

Likewise working against some of the genre's stereotypes by taking Like Father out of the realm of romantic comedy and into the mainstream, despite some unavoidable predictability in plot, Miller Rogen does her best to take an unexpected approach. And one of the most impressive examples is in the way the writer/director makes sure that, although she needs to find a balance, Rachel isn't treated like a villain for (much like her father) loving her job.

Immediately believable as father and daughter, in what – despite the fun ensemble vibe – is a terrific two-hander, the always likable Bell and Grammer serve and volley one-liners with ease, nicely adapting to changes in tone.

Delivering some of the staples of other Netflix movies including multi-generational appeal and a killer soundtrack, Like Father adds in cruise friendly karaoke tunes, knowing that when your film stars a Disney princess, you've absolutely got to get her to sing.

While, yes, Royal Caribbean couldn't have paid for better advertising, in Like Father, Miller Rogen combines real world problems with traditional screwball and romcom building blocks to create a solidly entertaining summer comedy you're sure to stream more than once. And who knows, you might just call your relatives to come over and watch.

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Movie Review: Observe and Report (2009)

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Unfortunately, while deadlines sometimes reign supreme-- Observe and Report is the best recent example of why I make a concerted effort not to review a film for at least 24 hours after I see it. And precisely, it's because-- well, to put it bluntly-- sometimes you need that amount of time to figure out exactly what the hell you've just seen.

Obviously, yes I grant that most of the time it’s fairly easy to exit the theater and make a snap thumbs up or thumbs down judgment but surprisingly despite the advertising strategy that this is an interchangeable, quintessential Seth Rogen comedy-- this is not exactly the type of film of which it’s possible to quickly observe and report, much to the shock of basically everyone exiting the theatre at our recent press screening.

While of course it’s great to be challenged and you have to admire writer/director Jody Hill’s courage to go to the extreme right from its start—I must say that my puzzled reaction hasn’t gone away as only a few days later, I’m still stunned.

For, who would have thought that—similar to some of the more arty fare I’ve taken in this past week at our local Phoenix Film Festival—Seth Rogen’s newest comedy would be this hard to pinpoint? Definitely not this reviewer, that’s for sure.

Yet it was as wildly unpredictable and filled with mood swings as its bipolar disorder afflicted main character as for nearly the first hour, Observe and Report is essentially fall-out-of-your-seat-funny (despite a few rough jolts from left field). However, during its overly long and unspeakably grim finale, it loses the funny in favor of Kubrickian madness as it turns wickedly dark, mean-spirited, overly violent, and bizarrely twisted in its tone to match our lead character’s pursuits following a major disappointment and decision to pull himself off of his required medication.

For, although it's the second film this year to take a look at mall security guards following actor Kevin James’ family-friendly surprise early ’09 hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop-- there is no mistaking Observe and Report for Blart no matter how similar they may appear on the surface.

Additionally, nor is it easy to lump it together with Seth Rogen’s most recent Apatow and post-Apatow box office fare that’s found the extremely busy, incredibly gifted young comical star lending his voice to animated works including Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, Kung Fu Panda, and Monsters vs. Aliens as well as keeping up appearances as our favorite post-Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell slacker in Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri, and others.

And the reason for this can be summed up in two words or one name-- Jody Hill. Having garnered a cult following and fans in Will Ferrell and Adam McKay who helped bring his debut film The Foot Fist Way into the mainstream, Hill decided that for his follow-up effort which found him backed by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures (the same duo that brought us The Dark Knight and Watchmen), he would avoid as the press release notes “’winking’ at the audience.”

As producer Donald De Line shares in recollection of his earliest meeting with Hill at Sundance which screened The Foot Fist Way, Jody Hill “really wanted to push the envelope... [and] to do something that didn't fit into any one box,” with a film that “pushes the boundaries of what a ‘Hollywood comedy’ is supposed to be. There’s no self-consciousness, no sense of parody about [Observe and Report].”

To achieve what Jody Hill called his goal, “to make films that are dangerous and controversial, even if they offend some people,” he sought inspiration for this work which he wrote with Rogen in mind from one of his favorite films-- Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Wholeheartedly confessing that Observe and Report may in fact “be the only comedy ever made that was inspired by” the film that screenwriter Paul Schrader discussed on its Special Edition DVD as being about “a certain breed of white boy,” who isolates himself-- Jody Hill took the idea of a peculiar lead character who is “in a position of power but... [doesn’t] know how to deal with" it to form the basis of the plot.

Similar to Robert De Niro's character Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Seth Rogen’s character Ronnie Barnhardt is cut off from reality and filled with dangerous delusions of grandeur coupled with a hero complex (or more precisely, an antihero one).

After a flasher starts terrorizing women in the parking lot of his domain—Forest Ridge Mall—the self-important head of the mall security department decides to treat bringing down the exhibitionist “as his call to arms, to greatness.”

Taking it upon himself to throw together a special elite task force that consists of his sycophantic right hand man Dennis (Michael Pena), two gun-obsessed Asian twins (John and Matt Yuan) in addition to a youthful mall security wannabe employed at a mall restaurant—the stakes for Ronnie’s “case” which he likens to something out of King Arthur are raised when the flasher targets his cosmetic counter dream girl, Brandi (Anna Faris).

Having tried to avoid the admittedly creepy and obsessive Ronnie at all costs, the bimbo party girl Brandi becomes yet one other obstacle for Ronnie as he tries to compete against the real police, headed up by hard-nosed Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) when Harrison flirts with and stares a tad too long at Ronnie’s crush.

Instead of working with the police, Ronnie irrationally sees them as his enemy in a strange figurative pissing contest as he tries his hardest to nail not only the perverted perpetrator but a mall robber after the shoe store gets raided during the night. Wasting Harrison’s time by endlessly pointing his racist finger at anyone and everyone including a Middle Eastern employee and a Spanish speaking janitor—when Harrison finally snaps and tells Ronnie that he’d never be able to be an actual cop and should stick to his job assignment to observe and report, Ronnie decides to try and join the local police force.

While it doesn’t take a genius to predict how well that’s going to work as the aggressive and hostile Ronnie engages in one of the most terrifying psychological screenings ever, it’s about this time that Hill drops an endless amount of razorblades into the film that you can only liken to Halloween candy as it deceptively starts like a run-of-the-mill Rogen comedy until the blood begins to let and gush like a horror movie.

While Hill tries to include some brighter spots including a likable but awkward possible flirtation between Ronnie and the sweet born-again-virgin Christian Nell (Collette Wolfe) who always gives him free coffee despite his unwillingness to realize her interest and the film’s greatest scene-stealer in his perpetually drunk, promiscuous, and blunt mother (Celia Weston), much like the funny but ultimately cringe-inducing Foot Fist Way, soon the far-darker yet still cinematically superior Observe and Report takes you into some very uncomfortable places.

These include some ridiculous hard drug use that makes absolutely no sense for the characters, senseless beating of children in the head with skateboards, and a scene that initially looks like a date-rape although the female character who has partied herself into a near coma is given one gross out moment and a line added to prevent us from walking out in the hopes we’ll assume it’s a lucid and consentual encounter (for the record, women still see right through it).

Decidedly, Hill adheres to his own vision for the work 100%-- critics, audience members, and everyone involved be damned-- in a way that definitely takes guts to use your first shot at a big studio film and not play it safe but instead to go all out in a movie that even Rogen admits contains “some shocking stuff” (this from a guy who starred in Zack and Miri and Knocked Up). Despite this, Rogen continues to share his admiration for Hill’s emphasis on “character study.”

While more often than not, I found myself laughing—especially in every scene involving Weston who proves she has the surprise comedic chops that Mary Steenburgen had in Step Brothers—and I enjoyed the concept of irresponsible characters who take their small amount of authority and go wild with it similar to David Brent or Michael Scott in both the BBC and NBC versions of The Office. However, it’s one that I still have a hard time recommending wholeheartedly since there’s just so much about the film that pushes you away to the point that you realize there’s very little about Ronnie's Observe and Report universe to like.

Still, worth it in the end for Rogen fans as he proves his deftness this time as an actor and—coming off the heels of Crossing Over—it’s great to see Ray Liotta return to the comedic territory he aced in Heartbreakers since as producer De Line correctly reveals, “just saying Ray Liotta versus Seth Rogen made everybody laugh.”

Unfortunately, I wish I could say that the film did a better job of consistently doing just that instead of going out of its way to shock and repulse by having had Hill go back and watch his favorite director Scorsese’s ability to move in and out of peril and hysteria sometimes in the same scene (i.e. Liotta’s work in GoodFellas).

Since—much to Hill’s credit—he really had us involved from the get-go in the film’s successful beginning until he began to shove. The pushes were made gently at first more in the realm of the dark humor of the Coen Brothers until we were soon overwhelmingly black and blue, making one realize that Hill’s script could’ve benefited from the way Scorsese has always managed to make us empathize with people whom we probably would avoid in real life in lieu of the rogue gallery of walking restraining order like kooks served up in Observe and Report.

Or, to go a much more lowbrow route, by taking another look at some of the films made with Seth Rogen and realizing that the strength of all of them—even when we’re sickened by some of the visuals is that deep down, there’s a heart buried beneath all of the f-bombs with which we’re far more willing to observe and report with pleasure.

Movie Review: Monsters Vs. Aliens (2009)

You've heard of TV’s Bridezillas, the multiplex’s Bride Wars, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, along with the horror classic Bride of Frankenstein.

But this week we meet an entirely new bride in DreamWorks Animation’s brand-new 3-D feature length film Monsters Vs. Aliens as the petite Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon plays a Modesto, California girl who unwittingly morphs into the kiddie version of "The Attack Of the Nearly 50-Foot Woman" after getting slimed by meteor residue just before she's set to walk down the aisle.

While initially her beaming glow is mistaken for her wedding day excitement, soon Susan (Witherspoon) quickly grows into the 49 to 11 inch tall “Ginormica” before our military intervenes, a tranquilizer dart hits the target and she's whisked away to a secret governmental holding cell for “monsters” currently supervised 24/7 by Uncle Sam.

Befriending other creatures also residing in the prison-like atmosphere (despite a feeble attempt to ease Susan’s nerves with a retro kitty “Hang in There” poster for her cell), soon the young woman becomes acquainted with the rest of the film’s genre fitting group of lovable eccentrics.

Headed up by the Ph.D insect Dr. Cockroach (House’s Hugh Laurie), Arrested Development’s hilarious Will Arnett as a half-fish, half-ape gung-ho monster dubbed The Missing Link, the scene-stealing Seth Rogen (Kung Fu Panda, Pineapple Express) as the adorable but dim-witted blue blob aptly dubbed B.O.B. which DreamWorks notes is “short for benzoate-ostylezene-bicarbonate” and the enormous Insectosaurus—soon the X-Men meets Dirty Dozen gang of unlikely outsider underdogs is called upon when the evil alien mastermind Gallaxhar (The Office’s Rainn Wilson) sends an ominous robot to the planet Earth set on destruction.

In addition to see the filmmakers’ easily identifiable B movie influences from the monster and alien movie heyday of the cold-war era 1950s along with “the style of poster art of the genre,” and “Mad Magazines of the period,” as the DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures press release reveals that savvy Mad Magazine and ‘50s film enthusiasts will “recognize the homage to these sources during the war room playback of archival footage of the pre-capture sprees of Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D., The Missing Link, B.O.B. and Insectosaurus,” cinematic referential jokes fill the entire film with shades of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Dr. Strangelove, The Dirty Dozen, The Blob, and countless other movies running throughout.

This is especially the case in the heavily Dr. Strangelove inspired relationship between the animated films president voiced by Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert and Kiefer Sutherland’s dynamically creative and surprisingly laugh-out-loud funny launch away from 24’s intense and “whispery” heroic Jack Bauer into a “country accent,” as director Rob Letterman muses, “he just started screaming at the top of his lungs… [and] broke out into something brand new and that really nailed the character.”

Similar to the highly successful blending of adult and child friendly humor that's made DreamWorks Animation’s hits such as Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda such a success—it’s the great and lively ensemble that helps add flavor to the film’s story-line that’s ultimately a bit simplistic and straightforward despite the fact that this flaw is hidden extraordinarily well by its stunning 3-D animation and mind boggling action sequences.

Although I think the film may not have been quite as enjoyable without the 3-D which amazes right from the start-- aside from the fact that it has some very positive morals woven throughout as those whose society have named “monsters” end up being the ones to save the day and Susan discovers that her previous ambition to become the picture-perfect and tirelessly supportive wife of her self-involved fiance Derek (Paul Rudd) pales in comparison to her own goals when she begins to believe in herself and what she has to offer as a human being.

The first film served up by the studio in “Tru 3D,” and unlike some of the more gimmicky 3-D films in recent memory, the format perfectly fits this material. This it does in not only reviving that same drive-in B-movie feel for which the filmmakers were aiming but it also brings to mind the idea of once again making filmgoing a true experience.

With increasingly impressive home theater technology including Blu-ray and lifelike video game systems, the box office has taken quite a hit and so it makes perfect sense that just like when television kept viewers in their homes in the 1950s prompting studios to create widescreen, Vistavision, Cinemascope, Cinerama, and 3-D-- once again Hollywood is taking a cue from lessons learned in the past in terms of not just subject matter (as the 50s truly were the era of monsters and aliens) but style as well.

The film will be available in various versions from 2-D to 3-D to 3-D IMAX and it should be interesting as time will tell just how successful the film and indeed this medium is when it reaches viewers at home via DVD and Blu-ray. And admittedly while the level of writing doesn’t match the incredible artistry and craftsmanship of the other departments involved in Monsters that we’ve come to expect from the studio that recently gave us the incredibly witty Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Kung Fu Panda, it’s sure to be one of the first major blockbusters of 2009 and one that definitely needs to be seen on the big screen to be best appreciated.

However, this being said-- as far as "monsters" are concerned, I still hold those wise-cracking and power-absorbing huggable characters from Pixar's Monsters Inc. up as my favorite animated variety offered to families thus far in a wholly satisfying blend of animation and comedy.

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DVD Review: Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who (2008)

Coming Soon,
Available to All,
On DVD & Blu-ray,
You'll Have a Ball!

(12/9/08)

View the Trailer & Photo Gallery

In 2008 with the release of-- what could very well be the most wholly satisfying animated feature of the year-- Dr. Suess' Horton Hears a Who!, Fox's CGI divisional company Blue Sky Studios proudly announced to Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, "WE ARE HERE!"

Having already burst onto the scene with Ice Age as well as providing some truly spectacular bits of CGI for our pop culture landscape such as augmenting David Fincher's incredible Fight Club and the memorable "talking fish" episode of The Sopranos, Blue Sky has always been one of the best kept secrets in effects work and computer animation.



However, with this tremendous new release of Horton, which-- typical for computer animated works-- stuns in a visually eye-catching transfer to DVD and Blu-ray and in doing so we're actually let behind-the-scenes of the company to see the talented and impossibly young inventors at work. But before I delve into the extra features, here's a reprint of my original theatrical review of Horton.

Dr. Suess' Horton Hears a Who!

Alternate Title: Horton Hears a Who!
Directors: Jimmy Hayward & Steve Martino
Original Publication Date: 3/29/08

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent,” so goes the famous quote from Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg that seems to be even more poignant when scripted for actor Jim Carrey as he lends his vocal talents to bring children’s literature’s best loved elephant to life in Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! From the same studio that created the family films Ice Age and Robots, Blue Sky Studios of 20th Century Fox, directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino craft not only the best adaptation of Dr. Seuss brought to screen thus far but also the best family film of 2008 as of this review.

For years, I’ve been wondering if I was simply growing too impatient with animated features, having found myself bored by critical smashes such as the overly long Pixar hits The Incredibles and Cars and struggling to stay awake during films such as Curious George and Bee Movie and although there’s been a few notable exceptions (Surf’s Up, Over the Hedge), I’ve found myself steering clear of animation. However, it wasn’t until I saw Horton Hears a Who that I fell back in love with the concept of bright, magical animated family films that manage to blend positive messages with high flying entertainment and quality humor that gave at least this viewer the same kind of amazing theatrical experience that I had while seeing Finding Nemo or the Toy Story films years earlier.

While on one hand, the film, like several animated works filled with A list stars for better or worse (which take jobs away from voice-over actors), has a boast worthy roster that comprise a comedic dream team in the form of not only Carrey but also Steve Carell, the legendary Carol Burnett, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler and Isla Fisher, I found myself forgetting the magnitude of the stars after only a few lines by each were uttered as admirably they began to ham less and instead preferably stick with telling the terrific tale.



For those who, like myself, barely remember the book, I’ll bring you up to speed—moments into the film we meet our unlikely elephant hero Horton who hears a noise coming from a tiny speck on a clover flower, only to discover that he’s listening to residents of the tiny universe Whoville or more accurately, the mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell). Eventually concluding that “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” Horton tries to save Whoville by bringing the flower to a place where it will be protected from outside forces such as the disbelieving kangaroo (Carol Burnett) who feels Horton is becoming a dangerous agitator that must be stopped and hires the Russian vulture Vlad (Will Arnett) to do just that.

Touching, beautifully animated, fast-paced (refreshingly just 88 minutes) and undeniably heroic, Horton Hears a Who is the type of film that will entertain adults just as much, if not more than children as I found myself laughing frequently throughout by the increasingly wild situations and characterizations by the cast.

Note: The book, which was published in 1954 sent some readers and journalists looking at Seuss’ work as a political allegory and in a fascinating sidebar “Who are the Whos?” by Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Markovitz (3/21/08, p. 42) he chronicles three takes on the work, including the two likeliest which saw it as first a look at postwar Japan (which Seuss has admitted) and secondly as yet another 1950’s artistic offering that echoed the political climate of America during the devastating McCarthy hearings.

The DVD

Having seemed to been sent a combination of both the Single Disc and Two-Disc Special Edition of the film all included on one critical screener copy, I'm unable to dissect exactly which version I'm reviewing but wanted to deliver you the inside scoop on the bonuses included throughout. Containing an entertaining director's audio commentary with the filmmakers Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino-- both the single and two-disc versions also boast an all-new animated Ice Age short featuring the memorable characters Sid and Scrat, which is aptly dubbed Surviving Sid.

Reminiscent of vintage Warner Brothers cartoons, Surviving Sid is filled with misadventure and comical peril as little animals try to endure camp counselor Sid and while cute-- it's instantly outdone by two more memorable shorts included with animated features-- the brilliant BURN-E available on the WALL-E DVD as well as the bonus DVD Secrets of the Furious Five which came along with Kung Fu Panda.



Yet, the most fascinating extras for me all surrounded the making of the film. While sometimes we're overwhelmed by insistent and phony Electronic Press Kit styled interviews filled with pompous narration and interviews that nearly seem scripted, what's apparent right from the start of these extras is just how passionately everyone involved felt about the making of Horton. Also containing deleted footage and animation screen tests (with optional introductions and commentaries), it's an amazingly inspiring all-access pass to the dedication and tireless energy of the young animators who tried to stay true to Suess' trademark drawings filled with curves, wrinkles, swirls, and the struggle they had to make the short classic book into a compelling feature that still captured the same heart and spirit of the tale.



Ensuring they had the blessing of Dr. Suess' widow-- the filmmakers note that Suess had never been adapted as a feature length animated work and they discussed the trials and joys of translating the author's 2-D designs into a 3-D world, right down to certain shadings and even making their first version of the screenplay a book-like treatment with the original animation in tact when they made their presentation to the Suess family. Once they received the go-ahead to make the film, Blue Sky developed a critical style guide and complete set of rules for everyone involved to follow as they point out the various Suess qualities that animators had to reproduce faithfully.

And while it's a riot to watch the all-star cast record their scenes, which then sends the animators back to the storyboard panels to re-imagine and invent the animation yet again-- going as far as to literally act out the scenes themselves in front of computer cameras, just lip-syncing to the actors to get their movements, it's even more intriguing to watch the brainy, young animators themselves. Agonizing over different reads and styles of relaying a thought or action with varying body language by bringing in other colleagues to do an alternate "read" of their scene, one reveals they shoot twenty minutes of live video, then edit it until they have a usable tiny amount they animate to fit the right emotional core of the scene and stay faithful to the actor's voice work. And thankfully, they note that some of the actors allowed themselves to be filmed while they were in-house doing their voice-work, and the artists noted that they'd take some strange visual cues or movements possessed by cast-mates such as Steve Carrell, Will Arnett, and Amy Poehler and incorporate it directly into the drawings.

Horton also offers a treasure trove of features from elephant fun facts, interviewing kids about how the smallest of actions can help promote a more peaceful existence, to the importance of being open-minded and without judgment in others with "A Person is a Person: A Universal Message," along with games and cast interviews. Additionally, saving the best for last-- there is some terrific footage of Jim Carrey as he relishes in completing his first CG cartoon and what drew him to the part of Horton-- the innocent elephant and it's humbling and admirable to witness his own anxieties and perfectionism in wanting it to be a success. Moreover, it's a wonderful addition to an already superior year of animated DVDs and Blu-rays, along with the recent releases of Panda, WALL-E, Tinker Bell, Sleeping Beauty, and others.

Also available as a special gift set with a Horton plush toy available this coming Tuesday right in time for holiday shopping-- no matter which version of Horton you pick up, the result is anything but "small" as it's sure to become a modern, childhood favorite. Moreover, it's a highly recommended, life-affirming, positive, and inspiring film. And it's truly exciting to anticipate what Blue Sky and the other first-rate animation studios will release next to a world that desperately needs to be reminded right now that we're more alike than one thinks and in this time of conflict (as opposed to the brilliant yet bleak last forty-five minutes of WALL-E) that there's always hope if we band together. So clean out those ears, pick up a flower, and get ready to listen to some Whos.

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