Monday, March 18, 2024

Elemental (2023)

Jack and I enjoyed this Oscar-nominated Pixar animated feature, about the elements, with anthropomorphized fire and water becoming close despite the dangers of touching each other. Leah Lewis and Mamadou Athie provide the voices of the star-crossed lovers Ember and Wade, respectively. Support comes from Ronnie Del Carmen and Shila Ommi as Ember's parents Bernie and Cinder, Catherine O'Hara as Brook (another water), and Wendi McLendon-Covey as Gale, representing the element air. Earth gets short shrift here.

Director Peter Sohn drew upon his family history of immigrating from Korea to the Bronx and opening a small family business. The script writers are John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, and Brenda Hsueh, and the story credit goes to them and Sohn.

As usual, I'm streaming the soundtrack as I write, this time by Thomas Newman, one of my faves. He used a lot of East Indian themes and instruments and it's a fun listen. It's on Apple Music, Spotify, and probably others.

Lewis was last blogged for The Half of It, Athie for The Front Runner, McLendon-Covey for Hello, My Name Is Doris, O'Hara for Temple Grandin, and Newman for A Man Called Otto.

Del Carmen has worked at Pixar for 24 years, as a writer (Inside Out, more), artist (Coco, Up, Ratatouille, more), and voice actor on this, Inside Out, Soul, and one other. Ommi is new to me.

Sohn directed one other feature after voice acting and working in the art department for dozens of projects. This is the feature screenwriting debut of all three writers, who started off in television. Hoberg and Likkel, who are married to each other, co-wrote lots of TV episodes, including ten of My Name Is Earl and one of Better Off Ted (both are among our favorites). Likkel also worked on three episodes of Rugrats (another fave) and Hsueh's resume includes one of The Afterparty.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are dog paddling, averaging only 73%, but its audiences are burning up at 93. We streamed it on Disney+ (they own Pixar now) on March 8 after one of our granddaughters said she liked it.

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