‘Inside Out 2’ and Pixar’s Mount Rushmore Movies

Paramount stalls, Sony buys Alamo Drafthousethe week's business

Bad Boys: Ride or Die 2024

Cited alongside Anyone But You as evidence Sony has done better in theaters lately than most studios, which the hosts read as context for why it bought a theater chain.

Anyone But You 2023

A recent Sony theatrical win; the hosts frame the Alamo deal less as monopoly than as a marketing experiment for a studio that has bet on theatrical and licenses out its streaming.

Madame Web 2024

The Sony misfire named in the same breath ('the Madame Web of it all') as the counterweight to its recent theatrical hits.

‘Inside Out 2’the big Pixar sequel

Inside Out 2 2024

Directed by Kelsey Mann (Pete Docter, now Pixar's chief creative officer, produced but didn't direct), written by Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein. Riley turns 13 and hits puberty at hockey camp as a new emotion, Anxiety (Maya Hawke), seizes the controls. Returning: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan; Tony Hale replaces Bill Hader as Fear and Liza Lapira replaces Mindy Kaling as Disgust; Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Paul Walter Hauser are new. All three find it funny and clever but a step or two below the original. Sean calls it the Pixar film that most appeals to adults over kids; Amanda pegs it as the best 'therapy art' of the last five years, minus the jargon; Charles loves Anxiety as a character and a piece of drawing. The suppressed-character bit (Bloofy, voiced by Ron Funches; Pouchy; a Street Fighter-style video-game crush; Deep Dark Secret) reads to them as Pixar catching up to Wreck-It Ralph and the Spider-Verse films.

Inside Out 2015

Pete Docter's original, which won Best Animated Feature. Amanda wept at Bing Bong and admires how animation can render an idea you couldn't shoot with people; Sean rates it high second-tier Pixar. Charles takes the contrarian line: his bottom rung of Pixar, and the start of the studio's creative midlife crisis.

Pixar's Mount Rushmorefour films, four presidents

Toy Story 1995

George Washington: the founding blockbuster, the studio's first film and the one everyone agrees starts the whole thing.

Ratatouille 2007

Thomas Jefferson: chosen for ingenuity and ideas. It's a rat who cooks in Paris, a movie about purpose that also flatters critics. Amanda's number one Pixar film.

Finding Nemo 2003

Abraham Lincoln: the second most popular pick, the traumatic opening and mass appeal that raised the emotional bar. Charles's case: the movie that made the culture start expecting Pixar to tell it something about itself.

The Incredibles 2004

Teddy Roosevelt: popular enough to be 're-elected' (Incredibles 2 made $1.1 billion), a transition into the modern, superhero-dominated era. Brad Bird's work-versus-family story, read as both progressive and traditional.

Lance Oppenheim on ‘Ren Faire’

Lance Oppenheim on

Some Kind of Heaven 2020

Oppenheim's debut feature, shot in The Villages retirement community in Florida while he was still in college. Started as a short he kept expanding. He admits he kept telling financiers he had enough footage before he did.

Lance Oppenheim on

Spermworld 2024

His other 2024 feature, about independent sperm donors, a subject that's vast and mostly lives online. Inspired by Bringing Out the Dead's idea of helping others as a way of searching for your own redemption.

Also mentioned raised along the way

The state of Pixar Toy Story 2Toy Story 3A Bug's LifeMonsters, Inc.CarsWALL-EUpBraveFinding DoryCocoOnwardTurning RedElementalThe Good DinosaurIncredibles 2

Disney and the rest of animation The Lion KingAladdinSnow White and the Seven DwarfsFrozenMoanaEncantoThe Super Mario Bros. MovieDespicable Me 4Wreck-It RalphSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

At the theater Killers of the Flower MoonGlass OnionAndrei RublevPurple RainSaw XAquaman

In passing Uncut GemsThe GooniesSingin' in the RainMary PoppinsThe Sound of MusicTop Gun: MaverickTransformers: Dark of the MoonTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen

In the Lance Oppenheim interview Lawrence of ArabiaMidnight CowboyChinatownAlmost FamousVanilla SkyJerry MaguireCrumbOn the BoweryDemonloverBringing Out the DeadLost Highway

Next week: the 2002 movie draft The Lord of the Rings: The Two TowersY Tu Mamá TambiénChicago

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV House of the DragonTalk the ThronesHouse of RThe Midnight BoysThe WatchTrial by ContentThe BearDancing With the StarsRen Faire (HBO docuseries)Bar RescueHerman's HeadBlueyBlue's CluesPaw PatrolOne PieceJujutsu KaisenDemon SlayerA Charlie Brown Christmas / Peanuts specials

Video games Street Fighter IIFinal Fantasy

Books The Day the Crayons QuitOscar Wars

Web / other media Ringerverse (YouTube channel)

Ads White ClawOlipopAMC / Nicole Kidman spot