A Few Random Non-spoiler Thoughts on Coco
My kids took me to go see Coco this weekend and I was absolutely floored by this movie and just thought I’d ramble a bit about the movie if you don’t mind. Oh wait, this is my blog… I can talk about anything I want to. That’s right! hahaha.
But I have really just lit into Hollywood because they are so fixated on retread ideas, sequels, and safe bets. Super hero retreads over and over again. And I just realized that that just isn’t really fair. Sure, whole swaths of Hollywood are fixated on turning Hollywood into a stock market play with name recognition and sequels on top of sequels.
The writing though for Coco is where this movie begins and ends. And I promised you no spoilers, but as the movie was unfolding, I realized that the writers had written themselves into this incredibly tight corner that there was no way they were getting out of. And yet, voila! They did. I mean, are these the coolest writers on the planet or what? They were keeping their cool like Kevin Hart and Usain Bolt no less. It was amazing to watch, I’d actually pay to go to a clinic by Adrian Molina and Matthew Aldrich that created the screenplay… and I’m not a screenplay writer. But yeah, reminds me of the conversation I just recently had with Steeve Leonard talking about his screenplay work on Radius. It’s just fascinating to see how writers solve problems and plot issues so creatively as they did in the movie Coco.
Heck, the screenplay wasn’t the only thing going for Coco. They also had some of the most amazing art direction I’ve ever seen. The character design, the sets, environments and backgrounds. The lights and the over all look? Really a fantastic movie from an animation and art design standpoint.
I happened to have the fortune of spending Dia de los Muertos in Lima Peru a couple years ago, and I was just in Haiti a couple days after their day of the dead celebrations. And the parades and the colors? It was pretty phenomenal. It is obvious that this particular day is a special one in the South American, Latin American and Caribbean communities. And it is also interesting to note just how important the dead are to these people, and how that played out in the story while telling a good moral overall.
And so to see a movie that captures the colors, the pageantry, the art of this particular South/Central American holiday was pretty spectacular. No wonder Coco is blowing it up in Latin America right now. During the movie’s second weekend it took in a total of $69 million in 33 international territories – making it a total take in of $171.3 million internationally since it opened. Which, includes $55.6 million from Mexico alone, which released back in October/November to coordinate with the Dia de los Muertos celebrations.
Coco did well because it had amazing writing, fantastic editing, glorious artwork and design, and the animation was beyond exceptional. It’s no wonder that Pixar is the greatest animation studios in the world (heck, movie studios in the world) and its because of just phenomenal writing. I highly recommend that you check this one out on the big screen. It was definitely worth it.