Meydiana

Heartbreakingly beautiful. Surpasses Up and Inside Out Coco is about Dias de las Muerte (Day of the Dead), family, family crises and musical passion. The posters have a boy and an adult skeleton capering through the afterlife. So you can know that upfront, Pixar is going to fully deal with the subject of death that it touched upon I UP and hinted at in the death of childhood innocence in Inside Out. We were subtly forewarned that tissues would be needed. :) It surpasses the other aforementioned masterpieces by being more relatable, drawing on family restrictions and prohibitions (e.g. "there will be no X in this family!" X being "instead whatever has caused pain to a family member in the past". Pick your poison my reader). It surpasses them in making death tolerable. It reminds us that we should be mindful and respectful of all those who went before us. Most of all it taps on the shoulder and whispers that the temporal, the world we live in, in just as important as the next one and we should strive to keep family bonds strong. For when we're at the end of our rope, who else is there to pull us up? Did I mention bring Kleenex? A full box. Even hard core macho men are driven to quiet sobs and immediate phone calls to mothers and fathers telling them "mama, I miss you." Beautiful.

.Better Than I Expected As a frequent movie goer, this was just about my only choice today since I've seen the other movies that are playing now. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I expected it to cater to teenagers, which is mostly did, but as a person in my 70s, I enjoyed it too. It does tug at the heartstrings, which I find manipulative, but it wasn't too hard to hold back the tears. The acting is very good except for Schwarzenegger, who is just OK as an actor, but his being so easy on the eyes makes up for it. The plot is predictable; anyone can pretty much guess correctly what's going to happen along the way, but for a romance-type movie, that's just what they do. And there are some plot holes, like Katie knowing how to swim when she's never been in the sun and her house doesn't have a swimming pool, and her attending a swim meet to watch Charlie swim but no explanation as to how she got from her house safely to the car and from the car safely to the swim arena. She had on a hoodie, but if that's all it takes, she could go out more often during the day instead of having been cooped up in her house during the day for all of her life. And if exposure to the sun for one day is deadly, how did she get home from the hospital when she was born before they knew she had this disorder. None the less, it's a good enough movie - just a little sappy - but I think the kids will love it.