My original plan was to write the next part of my look at Jack Nicholson, but I want to rewatch “The Shining” first and that became complicated because I think it would be interesting to look at “The Shining” and “Dr. Sleep” as well. I spent too long thinking about that idea and not enough time actually watching either film so that hasn’t progressed any further. In the meantime, I watched “Coco”.

“Coco” is a spectacular film. It was my first time watching it and I’m really not sure why. Over the last few years, I haven’t seen a couple of Pixar films. I think it’s to do with cinema times. I generally go to see films at night and I don’t think they schedule as many animated films for that late. Shóna has started working full time now so maybe now that we have our weekends back we’ll be a bit more flexible about when we go to the cinema.

“Coco” looks fantastic. The colours are brilliant and the backgrounds in every scene are wonderfully detailed. At the time, I didn’t feel like the music was great, but now I think that’s probably unfair. Not every animated film can have a soundtrack like “Moana”. I think I just had higher expectations for a film where music was a part of the storyline. I think that’s my only complaint and I think that’s not so much a complaint as a separation between something being really good and something being perfect.

The storyline itself is great fun and I really liked Miguel as the main character. There’s a real goofiness to the humour which I enjoyed. I think there’s some suggestion that the shoe making family is based on an actual family and Pixar haven’t admitted that. It’s important to give credit for ideas, but the family are one of the best details to the film. Their workshop and home has a kind of a compound feel which works really well with the idea that they’re trying to keep music out. There’s a real siege mentality to it. I think the idea of presenting the Day of the Dead to kids is a nice idea. I think it’s a nice relationship with death, focused on celebration and memory. Kids’ films have so many lessons about all kinds of shit that they shape the way people develop so dealing with death is as valuable a lesson as any.

So that was “Coco”. Good times for sure. My mission for this week is to get back to my Jack Nicholson piece and keep up with my songs of the day.