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Other members of Team Beat will be along soon to give their reviews of Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out”, debuting tomorrow. There was mention of a news embargo, but it looks like other sites are beginning to talk about the movie.

Since I paid $25 to see the Fathom Events sneak peek, I’m not really prevented from reviewing it as a fan, but I don’t want to rock the boat…

So here are some random “feels”…

• Disney isn’t marketing this movie very well. Right now, they should do two things IMMEDIATELY: 1) Push this as a great movie to take your father (and mother) to go see for Father’s Day. Yes, the movie centers around a 12-year-old girl, but the family dynamic is important. 2) Release a clip of Joy and Sadness meeting Bing Bong. He’s the breakout supporting character.
• Get there early, because, like every Pixar movie ever, there’s a short before the feature. This one is called “Lava”, and it rivals the Carl & Ellie montage from “Up”. The director wrote the music, and even performed it a few times on television. I won’t link to YouTube, because you should hear it first as part of the cartoon. (And you’ll probably get sick of hearing it from every ukulele player for the next five years.)
• Where does “Inside Out” rank among all Pixar films? Well, I’ve been a fan since watching “Tin Toy” back in 1988… I’ll place it up there with “Up” and “WALL-E”. It’s definitely the front-runner for Best Animated Feature this year, but there are a lot of contenders to come.
• The Fathom Event was good.  AMC Times Square screwed up a bit… First, they started handing out the swag (a lanyard with a secret online code, and a mini-poster) FIVE minutes before the show started, and with only ONE usher handing out stuff.  Some people didn’t get the lanyard, and for $25, well, the disgruntlement can be enflamed. They also had some nice jazzy marimba music as background music, but Disney had little video vignettes with each of the voice actors and their roles.  They didn’t turn on the audio until the previews began, and then we had to yell to get them to do that.
• The previews: The Good Dinosaur and Zootopia.
• Then there was a 15?-minute behind-the-scenes tour of the Steve Jobs Building at Pixar, guided by Pete Docter (the director) and Jonas Rivera (the producer) working a steady-cam. Yes, you’ll want to freeze-frame the movie, just to see all the goodies on the walls and shelves. While John Lasseter’s office is epic (and wait until you see his house!), the smaller offices of the staff are even cooler! Here’s hoping this film gets added to the DVD release.
• Afterwards, there was a nice live-streamed interview with Pete Docter and Amy Poehler in Sydney, Australia. (The Opera House makes a nice backdrop!) They took moderated questions from Twitter, which is something I wish Hall H would do.
• I didn’t notice many Easter eggs, but I didn’t really look for them because I was lost in the movie. John Ratzenberger plays “Fritz”. (I’m not exactly sure who that was.) There is also a reference to “The Good Dinosaur”, quite possibly the most blatant pre-film cameo of all the Pixar movies. No reports of A113 or Pizza Planet yet, although there is a good pizza joke.
• Stay for the credits.
• Oh, and it passes the Bechdel Test. In multiple combinations.

The first rendered image from Pixar's new short Lava" was published today in the "LA Times."

Pixar has announced their latest short film, "Lava," directed by James Ford Murphy, a studio veteran who has animated on the company's films since "A Bug's Life."

By Michael Welland It was a double-dose of adrenalin: watching a violently growing volcanic eruption while retaining a firm grip on my twelve-year old daughter to prevent her sliding off the rolling boat and plummeting into the turbulent waters of the Sunda Strait. The boat was a rickety old tub, the Sumatran helmsman grinning cheerfully. The volcano was Anak Krakatoa.

Published in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd and in LAVA...
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