SAUSAGE PARTY

If you go by the movie Sausage Party, eating meat is murder, eating vegetables is murder, and sometimes using objects is murder -- so I suppose there's not much for humans to do.  In any event, this raunchy comedy takes the animation trope of inanimate objects coming to life and has a bizarre, sometimes cruel, and often stereotypical take on it.

At Shopwell's Supermarket, all the food (and many of the other products) are alive, talking (usually cursing) and moving when no humans are around.  The food stays in its packaging, hoping the Gods (humans) will purchase the food, taking it to the Great Beyond (outside the store) for an eternity of bliss.  A sausage named Frank (Seth Rogen) and his hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda Bunson (Kristen Wiig) look forward to when they can be together out of their wrapping, with some not-so-subtle sexual suggestions.

A cart crash (and Saving Private Ryan parody) leaves Frank and Brenda stranded in the store.  They try to make their way with the help of: Teresa del Taco (Salma Hayek), who has more than a passing interest in Brenda; Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton), who sounds and acts like Woody Allen; and Kareem Abdul Lavash (David Krumholtz), who sounds and acts like a stereotypical Arab.  For a villain, there's a literal Douche (Nick Kroll) out to get Frank and Brenda -- and who compensated for a leak by cannibalizing liquids from other products in the store.  Frank learns what happens to food from an Indian bottle of liquor named Firewater (Bill Hader), while Frank's slightly shorter sausage friend Barry (Michael Cera) finds out the hard way the torture and brutality of cooking.

It's... kind of hard to know what to think about Sausage Party.  There are a lot of funny voices in the cast, especially Nick Kroll's obnoxious villain.  ("Come at me, bro!")  The movie also has some fun with animation tropes, whether how food and Gods/humans can communicate or the final showdown.  And this is one movie that isn't afraid to go offensive.  (If you think a sex scene between a sausage and a bun is wild, that's nothing compared to what happens at the end of the movie.)  But the movie also goes for a lot of easy food puns, and it's very hard to ignore that virtually every foodstuff is an ethnic caricature: the potato is Irish, tequila is Mexican, the Jewish and Arabic foods argue and fight about control of their aisle, and so on.  And the end of the movie tries to be meta but pretty much fizzles out.  I laughed and chuckled during Sausage Party, but it feels like it's trying too hard to be crude and politically incorrect, which sometimes feels like it's trying to shock more than entertain.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

INSIDE OUT

One of the questions we all seem to ask at times is: What's going on inside a person's head?  Pixar attempts to tackle this with Inside Out, their latest animated movie that personifies emotions and their interactions with the world.

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is a happy young kid.  She lives in the midwest, enjoys playing hockey on a frozen lake, has lots of friends, and goofs around with her (unnamed) mom and dad (Diane Lane, Kyle MacLackhan).

We also get to see what's inside Riley's head as well.  Her brain is run by five emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), the de facto leader and perpetually optimistic and chatty; Sadness (Phyllis Smith), a sad sack who sees the negative in everything; Anger (Lewis Black) a literal hothead whose easily riled up; Fear (Bill Hader), a perpetual worrier; and Disgust (Mildy Kaling), the part of her mind who dislikes things and also critiques fashion.  They take turns operating a control panel that determines Riley's actions, create memories (glasslike orbs the color of the dominant emotion at the time), and at the end of the day the memories get dumped into long-term memory.  There are also core memories: a few special memories that power Riley's "Islands of Personality," such as Goofball Island and Family Island.  Everything seems perfect and, as Joy cluelessly wonders, "What could possibly go wrong?

 A move.  The family moves to San Francisco, and everything that could go wrong does.  The new house is dreary and in the middle of a crowded street.  Dad is too busy doing business on the phone to play with Riley.  And the moving van keeps getting delayed, leaving Riley with none of her stuff and sleeping on the floor.  This situation is matched with chaos inside Riley's head: They discover that Sadness can turn memories sad/blue bu touching them, and when Joy tries to keep the core memories from being infected, Joy, Sadness, and the core memories all get sucked out of the control panel and into the distant memories.  Now Joy and Sadness have to try and get back to the control room, along with Riley's imaginary friend Bing Bong (Richard Kind), to make things right again.

There's a lot to enjoy in Inside Out.  This movie has a terrific visual imagination (from the glowing emotions to the nightmares and abstract parts of the mind) and lots of great voice talent.  (Lewis Black was born to play Anger.)  There's plenty of humor for both kids and adults through the movie (love the unforgettable chewing gum jingle!) and some heavy emotional hits near the film's end.  Inside Out is another hit for Pixar -- and an example of a summer movie that's smart and funny as well as visually stunning.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch