Friday, June 19, 2015

Day 900: Meet the Emotions

Well, amazingly, for the second time this year, I was able to catch a showing of a new Disney film on opening day, and this time I had the chance to see it in the theater at the Mall of America! It's funny because I'm fairly certain that in all of 2014 I saw about one movie in theaters, if that, and in the past few months I've seen four, one of which I saw twice. But we're here to talk about the emotions inside our head, specifically those featured in Disney & Pixar's new animated feature film, Inside Out.



A number of years ago, when they first introduced the concept for this film, my reaction was pretty much the same way it is for any new animated film coming out of Disney or Pixar: Skeptical. I remember the feeling with Tangled and Frzoen and Wreck-It Ralph and even as far back as Cars. After all, a movie about emotions? How in the world?

But like always, I put my trust in Pixar and they brought everything they had to this film, and honestly, without giving any spoilers, I think that this is one of the finest Pixar films to date. It has the creativity of Toy Story and Cars mixed with the pure emotion we get in films such as Up, all while mixing in the humor we've seen in films such as Monsters Inc. I absolutely adore this movie and everything about it, and here's why, for me at least, I think it meant more than ever.

Over the past two years, or at least since making my way to college, I've really been forced to examine how I look at life. I've had a lot of hate thrown my way, and for a long time the best way to respond to it, or so I thought, was with anger and sadness and fear. But then a little show called Once Upon A Time became more important than ever and brought me the positivity of Jennifer Morrison, who's on my list of role models for that exact reason: positivity. There's so much hate in our world, but I've decided to make attempts to embrace the joy instead, and you know what? It works. Once I decided to stop being angry and sad and terrified, my life got better, and it got brighter. I think a year or two ago I would have watched this film from a completely different perspective, but now, I see so much of myself in Joy, and it's extremely comforting to know that maybe I have a little Joy of my own up in my head. That was an extremely weird sentence out of context...

Of course, as the movie shows, it's totally ok to associate with another of the emotions too. We all need anger and sadness and fear and disgust to live a happy and fulfilling life. It's all a part of the game. And that was comforting too, and I think that is what's going to hit home with so many viewers out there. It's totally normal to be sad or angry, and sometimes we need to embrace those emotions the same way I strive everyday to embrace joy.

Regardless, you can bet that I'll be seeing Inside Out again, probably at least once while it's still playing in theaters, and then many many times after I have my own copy on BluRay. If you have yet to see Inside Out, I highly reccomend seeing it, as it's a film absolutely everyone can relate to.

After all, we all have emotions inside our heads...we just have to meet them.

If you've seen Inside Out, let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Have a magical day!


(Note: This blog post was written on June 25 due to travel).

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