Soundtracking: Toy Story 2

by Chris Feil

No one uses music to trigger instant tears with such sudden velocity as Pixar does. The “Married Life” sequence from Up, Coco’s “Remember Me” gaining depth through repetition, the reverence for youth that defined the entire Toy Story series with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”.

But the first time Pixar went for the emotional jugular in a way that felt like a definitive part of their musical brand was to come in Toy Story 2. The sequel introduces us to Jessie, a cowgirl compatriot to Woody, filling space as a collector’s item instead of being cared for by an adoring child. But the film offers a standalone musical montage of Jessie’s former life as the prized possession of a girl named Emily, one who slowly and painfully outgrows her to the sound of Sarah MacLachlan and “When She Loved Me”.

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Today's birthday suit: Hugh Dancy

Happy 44th to Hugh Dancy today. He's currently onscreens as charming lothario trouble in Late Night (2019). Remember when ginger mom & son Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne had a Dancy sandwich, twelve years back? Good times...

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Watch at Home: Beach bums, doppelgangers, euphoria, and giant little ones...

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's available to you now to screen at home. It's a big weekend all told in terms of titles suddenly available

New on DVD/Blu-Ray/Rental
• Beach Bum -the latest from Harmony Korine. I hated it but Murtada kinda liked it as you probably heard on the podcast
• Giant Little Ones - underseen drama about the confusion of sexual fluidity in the coming-of-age years
• Hotel Mumbai - well reviewed terrorism drama starring Dev Patel and Armie Hammer
• Under the Silver Lake - David Robert Mitchell's bizarrely indulgent noir, equal parts tedious and memorable, his follow up to the incredible breakthrough It Follows
• Us - Jordan Peele's horror blockbuster with terrifically inventive performances from the whole cast.

iTunes deals and streaming roulette after the jump...

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Introducing the Panel for "Smackdown '01"

Thanks for all your last minute votes for the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 2001. The Smackdown and its podcast companion will be up this Thursday so let's meet the panel after the jump...

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The New Classics - 20th Century Women

Michael Cusumano here to thank you for making this post part of your own personal Mike Mills film today. I'm honored.

image via "books in movies"

To watch a Mike Mills movie is to continually ask, “Why don’t more people make movies with this much freedom?” 

His films deploy everything from news clips to rotating narrators to archival footage from a century ago. The screenplay will jump backwards in time, skimming through the characters’ biographies, or forwards to glimpse the details of their death. The focus can zoom in to the most granular details or out to encompass the entire cosmos. I doubt he will ever make a film that doesn’t include a shot of the stars. At least I hope he doesn’t... 

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