The Good Dinosaur (Film)

After the dazzlingly sublime Inside Out (still my favorite film of 2015), it's hard to believe that a film fraught with so much behind-the-scenes turmoil would top it. But hey, Toy Story 2's production brought Pixar down to its knees, and yet it turned out to be the best film in that peerless trilogy. The Good Dinosaur's original director, Bob Peterson (a Pixar stalwart, co-directing Up and lending his voice to the characters of Geri, Roz, Mr. Ray, and Dug), was replaced fairly late in production with Peter Sohn (another Pixar regular, director of the short Partly Cloudy, and the voice of Emile and Squishy Squibbles). The trailers for the film didn't inspire me--though most Pixar trailers don't--so I was feeling a little dubious. Did the film assuage my skepticism?

The "high-concept" premise the film propounds is, "What if dinosaurs weren't killed by that gigantic meteor?" (To which that ever-ruminative philosopher Willy Wonka would reply, "What if my beard were made of green spinach?") How would dinosaurs and humans interact with each other? I'm sure there would have been a whole lot of munching going on, but the film takes a gentler, more kid-friendly approach. Actually, one of the aspects of the film that surprised me was that humans play a diminished role in the film. The only real interaction we see between dinos and humans is between the two protagonists, Arlo (a plant-eater that looks like a Brachiosaurus) and Spot, a human boy. We don't see how human societies interact with the various dinosaur societies.

In fact, the film takes a "boy and his dog" approach (in which the Arlo is the boy and Spot is the dog) to the central relationship, which makes me question why the filmmakers had to use a dinosaur and a human at all. If you're going to make a film about animals, you should have a strong story and character reason for using those particular animals--otherwise, they're just eye candy. The Lion King is a good example of how to use animal archetypes to further the story and deepen the character relationships, even if it's not 100% accurate to real life. (We all know that Scar would actually have an American accent, just like the rest of his family.) Dinosaurs are cool (or at least we think so--who knows; maybe in real life they were pathetic), but the story could've been about a prehistoric boy and a wolf making their way through the wilderness. I do think it would be intriguing to see how humans would deal with Velociraptors, T-Rexes, or even herbivores as large as the Supersaurus, but alas, The Good Dinosaur does not treat the audience to such interactions.

Another odd choice is the contrast between the lush, breathtaking, realistic environments and the cartoony character designs of the dinosaurs. I'm not going to vilify this decision as half of the Internet is doing, and indeed, it does make some sense with the filmmakers' intent that nature be the antagonist. I do think that Finding Nemo found a better balance between the environment and character design--in fact, in that film, the filmmakers found they had to pull back on the realism and stylize the backgrounds when they found their initial tests too realistic. (Polar Express/Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, anyone?)

Speaking of Finding Nemo, The Good Dinosaur has a similar structure: two characters going on an episodic quest, meeting a variety of different characters and situations along the way. However, The Good Dinosaur's episodes feel more detached than Nemo's, and the situations less clever and humorous. One encounter features a trio of Tyrannosaurs; while they're somewhat reminiscent of the sharks in Nemo, there's no real motivation behind their behavior, much less one as amusing as "Fish are friends, not food."

The musical score, by brothers Mychael and Jeff Danna, does an adequate job punctuating the grandeur of the landscape and lends a decent amount of emotion to the more tender scenes. However, the themes didn't stick in my memory, and the Super Danna Brothers' work here doesn't come close to matching the admittedly lofty heights of Michael Giacchino's Pixar scores (save Cars 2), or even Thomas Newman's scores and Randy Newman's better efforts. There's not much quantitatively wrong with the score--I like the use of exotic instruments (especially percussion) for one--but it's still missing that intangible quality that makes a good score great.

So far, this has been a fairly negative review, but there's still plenty in The Good Dinosaur to recommend. The voice work is effective, with each actor embodying his or her character. Much of the film falls on Raymond Ochoa's performance as Arlo, and he acquits himself nicely. Sam Elliott, Steve Zahn, and Anna Paquin play the more colorful side characters with panache while not calling attention to themselves. But Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand as Arlo's parents prove the most impressive, their naturalistic, non-grandstanding performances making you truly believe in their characters as people instead of animated characters voiced by celebrities.

The Good Dinosaur's plot is pretty predictable, but the simple story allows the film to develop the emotional scenes that serve as its core. No, they're nowhere near as touching as the moving scenes in Inside Out, but they do feel earned. (One of The Good Dinosaur's writers, Meg LeFauve, also co-wrote Inside Out.) Some animated films today (mostly non-Disney and non-Pixar) try to shoehorn in tear-jerking scenes, but they feel manipulative and tacky. While The Good Dinosaur is not a top-quality film, especially by Pixar's standards, it still evinces the studio's adroit ability at telling stories in an emotionally meaningful manner.

Mother (Japanese TV Drama): Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

I've written all these superlatives about this show, but I haven't even gotten to the one aspect of it that left me absolutely flummoxed, alternately in unbelieving awe and near tears at its total sublimity: the acting of Ashida Mana as the young girl whom Nao "kidnaps" and saves from abuse. I'd seen Ashida in Pacific Rim, playing the young Mako Mori, and I thought she was pretty good. Her palpable fear and, even better, her look of absolute adoration toward Idris Elba's character made up probably the best acting moments in that movie. (Not that she had a whole lot of competition, even though I really enjoyed the movie as a whole.) But her acting in Mother is something else entirely.

I don't expect much from child or teen actors because, for the most part, they're still learning their craft and the fundamentals of how people interact in different situations. (Plus, I think it's kind of mean to call out a kid for not being a good actor.) In elementary school, I acted in four plays--three tiny parts and one fairly substantial part. However, I barely knew what the heck I was doing and, dare I say, so did most of the other kids in those plays. Of course, they were all better actors than I was, but even at that age I recognized that, even though the directors were truly talented and endlessly forbearing, this was children's theater; the final production wouldn't really appeal to anyone who wasn't related to or friends with one of the actors. So I never expected Ashida to be one of the better actors in Mother, much less the best. I mean, given this story's premise, I thought her acting was going to be either a) a bit bratty and obnoxious, or b) so nauseatingly treacly and cloying as to make one's teeth fall out. (Sadly, that's how most of these characters turn out).

If nothing else, Ashida is the only actress whose performance has pushed me over the edge to moistened eyes--and four times at that. Her character, Rena, despite having suffered deplorable abuse, displays a veneer of cheerfulness to the outside world. Part of this joy stems from a warm and loving core that refuses to be snuffed out completely, but Nao soon realizes that Rena is repressing her darker emotions in an effort to make others happy so that, just maybe, they'll accept and love her back. The pair's first extended encounter takes place at a diner; Nao clearly wants to be left alone, but Rena, left unsupervised by her mother, detects that Nao is a soul who both needs companionship and could possibly offer comfort to the forlorn child. Sure, Rena's attempts to endear herself to this outwardly stoic woman are cute and all, but there is a desperation behind Rena's near-incessant chatting. When Nao eventually tells Rena to (basically) shut up, Rena complies with a wide, amiable smile. Of course, it's meant to be ingratiating, but Ashida acts with impressively natural grace so it doesn't feel forced, manipulative, or tacky--which is probably how it would have come across if pretty much any other child actor (and many adult actors) had done the role.

Ashida not only embodies Rena's character to an uncanny extent, but she is also able to portray the character's inner desperation just peeking out from under her ebullient exterior. It's difficult for me, as an adult writer, to write lines for a character whose inner qualities are barely perceptible beneath a masked facade. That a five-year-old can so fearlessly yet naturally portray such a character is incredible. When I was five, my biggest challenge was deciding whether to read a book or play Reader Rabbit (which taught me the word "keg") on the Apple II during Free Choice.

As you can imagine, it's all the more heart-wrenching when Rena's despair breaks through her sunniness. There are at least four scenes (the ones that moistened my eyes) where Rena is trying so hard not to let her sadness break through and overwhelm her, but she just can't. And while it's happening, she's still trying like heck to stifle it, but the emotion just overwhelms her, coming out in agonizing spurts. These scenes, while profoundly heartbreaking to watch, also offer the sublime brilliance of an actress who understands how to portray such sadness. I know nothing about Ashida's personal life, but I'm willing to wager that she's been through nothing close to what Rena goes through. I don't know how much of the specifics she actually understood about her character's situation, but what's important is that her reactions and emotions are spot-on, imbued with compassionate sympathy. One truly feels that she is acting and reacting in the moment as a real child in that situation would; there is no visible sign of premeditation or preparation that you can find even in some very good actors--child or adult. Of course, credit must also go to the penetratingly astute writing of Sakamoto Yuji and the sensitive directing of Mizuta Nobuo and Naganuma Makoto, all of whom drew the best out of not only Ashida, but the rest of the cast as well.

Ashida went on to star in several other OK to good dramas--Usagi Drop, Sayonara Bokutachi no Youchien (written by Mother screenwriter Sakamoto Yuji), Beautiful Rain, and Marumo no Okite. All great performances, but her other non-Mother performance that utterly floored me was Ashita Mama ga Inai. She's apparently a singing sensation in Japan too, but what can I say, she just sounds like a moderately above-average kid singer. It is her acting, infused with preternatural empathy and understanding of human feeling, where her true and considerable talent lies.

Mother (Japanese TV Drama): Part 1

Prefatory Note: I will use the Japanese convention of listing the family (last) name first and the given name last--basically the opposite of how we write names in America.

I love a good action movie. From Kick-Ass and The Raid to Aliens and Die Hard, a well choreographed, directed, and edited action film thrills me, enthralls me, delights me. Indeed, what may be my favorite film, The Incredibles, features a healthy dose of pyrotechnic action alongside the ingeniously constructed story and richly realized characters.

Not to say that I have totally eschewed non-action films to this point. I have a great fondness for films such as Beauty and the Beast, City Lights, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Moonrise Kingdom. But to say that I actively seek out soap operas and weepy TV series would be erroneous. Which, of course, is the very nature of Japanese dramas (and Korean ones too, from what I gather).

I can't quite recall how I stumbled upon Mother, or, more importantly, why I decided to watch it.  Chalk it up to an unexplainable whim, of which I admittedly have many. Maybe it's because I'm half-Japanese and wanted to "explore my roots." Maybe I wanted to see how much Japanese I could remember from high school. (Not a whole lot, as it turned out). But I got sucked into watching all 11 episodes of this exceptional series (most episodes are 46 minutes, with the first running 71 minutes and the last running 58 minutes).

Now, this is a drama in which almost all the characters--certainly all the important ones--are female. Yet in an age when many female characters are still either one-note damsels-in-distress or tough chicks, it's more than refreshing to find a show in which--just as in life--we find a wide range of female characters, each of whom feature their own complexities, nuances, and variegated approaches to life.

Here's the basic premise: A young woman, Suzuhara Nao, is subbing at an elementary school and forms a connection with an oddly perspicacious student, eight-year-old Michiki Rena. Over the course of the pilot, Nao discovers that Rena doesn't have the best home situation; an utterly despicable (yet sadly believable) act by Rena's mother sets the plot in motion…

Before I start gushing, I will say that the show isn't without its flaws. Many scenes are very deliberately paced, to put it kindly, and could have been tightened up just a bit. The penultimate episode's cliffhanger also promises more than what the finale actually delivered--not that the ending was bad, it's just that it didn't quite reach the heights of what came before. The main plot involves Nao and Rena, but some of the scenes devoted to the subplots aren't quite as engaging. But the show's biggest blunder is about three-quarters through the final episode. Just as a poignant scene is about to hit its emotional peak, those stupid sponsor logos pop up directly over the scene, complete with the a voice-over saying, "Thank you to these companies for ruining this scene," or something to that effect. It doesn't help that the smiling moon logo of the main sponsor, Kao, makes you want to punch it right in its smug little moon-face.

The acting throughout is superb. Matsuyuki Yasuko plays Nao as understated, forgoing extreme facial calisthenics in favor of a more natural approach. Her emotions churn deep inside her, yet you can tell that they're there. When the circumstances of the story inevitably cause those emotions to erupt, it's all the more emotionally affecting. Ono Machiko as Michiki Hitomi, Rena's mom, does well portraying a distasteful, pitiful character in a hopeless situation she's mostly created for herself. (Ono is also great in Saikou no Rikon, in which she plays in irrepressibly vivacious bundle of life. When some actors portray characters on opposite sides of the spectrum, it seems like they're trying too hard. Yet Ono pulls off both these disparate characters with impressive aplomb.)

Takahata Atsuko (the voice of Lady Sagami in The Tale of the Princess Kaguya) as Suzuhara Toko, Nao's mother, is an outwardly blunt, caustic hard-hitter with a deep reservoir of emotion. In one scene, she's signing an important document, and the look of utter despondency on her face, not believing what's happening and not knowing where to turn, is painful. Tanaka Yuko (the voice of Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke) plays Mochizuki Hana; I won't reveal her part in the story, but she deftly portrays a character whose heartbreaking forbearance stems from a deeply ingrained sense of guilt.

The dialogue (written by Sakamoto Yuji, screenwriter of the aforementioned Saikou no Rikon) adroitly encapsulates the thoughts and emotions of each character. Yes, some of the scenes between Nao and Hana are a bit slow, but these characters in particular are expressing their innermost feelings for the first time; it makes sense that they take time to get their points across.

The episodes are structured in such a way that most of them end with a cliffhanger. Each episode ends with the credits playing (unobtrusively) over the final minutes. In one episode, the credits come at the very beginning, which should tip you off that some sh*t's going to go down at the end of the episode--and boy, does it ever.

(MILD SPOILER) And, of course, in another episode the credits play over a lighthearted (though somewhat bittersweet) scene that, for those so inclined (i.e., not me), causes an "Aww, how cute" reaction. The credits end, and the scene seems to be over. The episode's done, right? Then, out of nowhere, the scene gets extremely emotional very quickly, a poignant gut-punch that devastated me, catching me completely off guard. (END MILD SPOILER)

And the mastermind behind this little scene? Tune in next time to read about Mother's most essential ingredient, the attribute that lifted it from a well-written drama into an artistic tour de force that I will keep thinking about for years to come.

Read Part 2 here.