Coco (2017)

Life’s not easy for Miguel.  He desperately wants to play music, but happens to be born into a family that despises the profession.  It all goes back to Miguel’s great-great-grandmother, Imelda.  She was abandoned by her husband, who wanted to go out into the world and entertain people.  She turned to making shoes to raise her daughter, Coco.  It was a profession passed down through the generations, meaning that Miguel does have a career waiting for him.  It’s just not the one that he would have chosen for himself.

The Day of the Dead is coming up, meaning that his family is preparing an ofrenda with pictures of deceased relatives.  At the very top sit’s a photo of Imelda, Coco and the great-great-grandfather.  (Being that the great-great-grandfather is persona non grata, his face is missing.)  When Miguel breaks the frame, he comes to realize that the man in the photo is dressed like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz.  He’s even holding Ernesto’s iconic guitar, which Miguel plans on stealing so that he might play in a talent contest.

The catch is that Miguel becomes invisible once he has the guitar.  He is seen by the dead, who have come over from the Land of the Dead.  Miguel is escorted over to the Land of the Dead, where he meets his deceased relatives, including Imelda.  The only way he can get back is with the blessing of a family member, which they are happy to give him, provided that he never play music again.  This sets off an adventure for the 12-year-old boy, who is set on meeting Ernesto, believing him to be the only family member that would give an unconditional blessing., as the rest of his family is kept in line by Imelda.

For those familiar with Pixar movies, I don’t know that there are going to be a lot of surprises.  Ernesto is a hero to Miguel and to a lot of other people.  It soon becomes clear that Ernesto has a past that he wants to keep hidden.  (Sometimes, heroes make the best villains.)  Then, there’s Héctor.  He offers to help Miguel if Miguel can take a picture back to the Land of the Living.  Héctor has only a daughter to remember him.  In the Land of the Dead, beign forgotten leads to a second, possibly real death.  Héctor would seem to have more to offer than would meet the eye.

There’s also the time limit set by having to return by sunrise.  If Miguel can’t do this, he’s stuck in the Land of the Dead.  It’s somewhat cliché to have it run down to the buzzer, yes.  But I’m not sure it would have been as much fun if Miguel had made it back with time to spare.

You might think that death and the afterlife wouldn’t be good for children.  The dead are portrayed as dressed skeletons, with the most obvious skeletal feature usually being the skull.  There are scenes with the skeletons coming apart and reforming, so this may be a judgment call for parents of younger children.  However, I don’t think it was meant to be scary.  Most of it comes off as being silly.

I hate to say that a studio’s output is safe, but I do think audiences can expect a certain level of quality from Pixar.  The movie is rated PG, but I would imagine a lot of this deals with the depictions of the afterlife.  (The only really gruesome death is when Ernesto is killed by a falling bell.)  I would think that children and adults alike could enjoy the movie.  The story of a boy trapped by familial expectation is one everyone can understand.

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Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

If you’re going to wait 35 years to do a sequel, you want to make sure you get it right.  It’s often difficult to get a story that flows naturally from the first.  In some cases, like the Terminator movies, it works.  The first two movies of that franchise were originally envisioned as one script.  Back to the Future was supposed to be a standalone movie.  Its success spawned two sequels that happened to work.  Then, you have cases where the sequels are little more than a basic rewrite of the first.  (Yes, Home Alone 2.  I’m looking at you.)

Bladrunner 2049 is sort of an odd sequel.  It doesn’t exactly continue the story of the first movie.  Instead, it draws from it.  It’s a new story that might have run parallel except that it takes place three decades after the first movie.  A title card tells us that Tyrell Corporation went bankrupt and eventually acquired by a new company.  For those that don’t recall, Tyrell made the  Replicant bad guys in the original movie.  The new company has made better Replicants.  They don’t start uprisings.

KD9-3.7 is just such a Replicant.  In fact, he’s a blade runner, exactly like Deckard was.  After retiring (killing) a Replicant, he discovers a box.  Inside the box could upend everything about Replicants.  K is given the task of burying everything about the box and its contents, lest stars implode and civilizations collapse.

Like many futuristic dystopian movies, it’s never that simple.  It all comes back to Rick Deckard and the aftermath of the original movie.  You may recall that Deckard ran off with Rachael, who he had discovered was artificial.  Much of Bladerunner 2049 is original.  You get a cameo from Edward James Olmos and even Sean Young.  However, Ryan Gosling is carrying most of of the movie.  Harrison Ford doesn’t even show up until pretty late in the movie.

This isn’t to say I was disappointed with the movie.  There were some throwbacks, like the music.  (This is a world where Atari is still a major player, apparently.)  The movie doesn’t go overboard with this.  The appearance of Gaff and Rachael make sense in the context of the movie.  Wouldn’t you want to talk to someone who knew Deckard?

The movie is still about what it means to be free and what it means to be real, although the narrative is a little different.  K has a regular job with the police, but he still has to go through testing.  (Replicants have much longer life spans; the tradeoff is muted emotions.)  Things go off the rails for him when he fails a test.  His lieutenant is sympathetic, but there’s only so much she can do.

Then, there’s K’s ‘girlfriend’, who just happens to be a hologram.  If K is more (or less) human than human, what does that make Joi?  Is she any less programmed than him?  (Do holograms dream of Replicant sheep?)  It gets a little complicated, to say the least.  He’s able to buy her freedom via a portable emitter, but at what cost?  She can be a liability just as much as he can.

The movie is somewhat long at 2:44.  I had caught it back on a flight back to the United States from Shanghai.  A long running time was a virtue here.  It might not be so for everyone, though.  Make sure you have a solid chunk of time to watch it.

The movie was about as dark as the original.  If you’ve seen Bladerunner there shouldn’t be any surprises in terms of the movie’s tone.  It’s still dark.  It’s just violent and sexual enough that parents should probably use some discretion.  It’s not going to be for everyone, but I’d say that your enjoyment of the first movie is probably going to be a good indicator of whether or not you’ll like this one.

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Blade Runner (1982)

The first time I saw Blade Runner was many years ago and it had narration.  The narration was from the theatrical cut and has been removed from all subsequent cuts.  I remember liking the narration and that others didn’t.  Not liking the narration seems to have the overwhelming majority when it comes to opinion, which is what makes the theatrical version somewhat difficult to come by.

Either way, the basic story is the same.  Rick Deckard is brought out of retirement to hunt down four individuals.  Why are any the four individuals so important?  They’re replicants, or artificial people made for off-world labor.  They’re not allowed back on Earth.  Deckard is what’s called a blade runner.  He hunts down and ‘retires’ replicants.  The four replicants are the top of the line, so they need the best blade runner out there.

The movie has gained cult status in the years following its release.  It’s known for being very dark and with good reason.  Aside from the violence, which I’ll get to, I don’t think there were many scenes with daylight.  Everything seems to be at night, which makes the illuminated billboards (and product placement) stand out a little more.  As if that weren’t enough, it seems that it’s almost always raining in the Los Angeles of the future.

As for the violence, replicants aren’t very well liked.  They’re given a four-year life span so as not to develop pesky emotions or personalities.  Deckard is allowed to kill with extreme prejudice, which he does in two cases.  A third is killed by Rachael, who is most likely a replicant, herself.

This is where it the lines get blurry.  It seems that normally, replicants are given the skills they need to do their jobs.  With such a short amount of life, one would assume that there’s no time to waste with training.  It’s possible, as with Rachael, to implant a real person’s actual memories.  Does that make Rachael any less of a person than the person she’s based on?

When I first watched Blade Runner, I saw it mostly as an action movie.  You have a police officer hunting down four criminals with the express purpose of killing them.  It wasn’t until I got older that I began to see some of the finer details.  You don’t actually call killing a replicant what it is.  Instead, you say you’re retiring them, as they’re nothing more than a product of the Tyrell Corporation.  Their entire existence is to go into situations too hazardous for humans.  They’re disposable.

If that’s true, what do you call a replicant that thinks she’s a real person?  Is she any less disposable because she seems real?  Is she any more deserving of life because she’s pretty?  Then, there’s Deckard himself.  It’s implied that he may be a replicant, too.

One thing that confused me, though, is that the movie seems to go back and forth between calling them robots and people.  At least one of the makers are referred to as a genetic engineer.  They seem to be made from organically grown parts.  I’m not sure if the brains are organic, though.  It is entirely possible that the brains are mechanical.  It‘s ambiguous, as they’re not really clones and not exactly robots.

The version I got was The Final Cut, which was the last version released.  There is an Ultimate Edition, which contains several version.  I’m not sure how many of the seven different cuts are available, but it seems that if I want the narration, this will have to be the version I have to buy.  I would like to see the theatrical cut to see how well it holds up.  I’m not sure I’d get it any time soon, as it can be a bit tedious for me to watch the same movie twice in such a short time span.  I may wait to see if it becomes available streaming or at the library.

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