Inside Out

Wow... I sure liked this! I'm pretty sure, in fact, that this is my favorite Pixar movie! I always like thinking about the interior of the mind, and this is the most creative visualization of the functioning of the mind I've seen yet! Emotions, imagination, dreams, imaginary friends, brain development, all of it accounted for in a fun, understandable way! This must have been an incredibly challenging project to get right. When I first heard about the film, my heart fell, because it shares a lot in common with my great unfinished game Ordinary, which is a puzzle game based on six emotions (fear, love, joy, sadness, anger, and confidence) used to drive a choose your own adventure romance story (also the first Schell Games patent!). But watching Inside Out, it's a different enough concept that I have no worries about overlap.

Really, I liked everything about this -- the concept, the writing, the voice acting (best acting Amy Poehler's ever done, I think!), even the weird rendering shader that makes the emotions look kind of like muppets. Unlike Tomorrowland, it had a solid grasp on the hero's journey, and also made the most of Pixar's famous rule-based storytelling... (I *love* rule-based storytelling... so many delicious rules...) I'm so glad they made this! You go, Pixar!