Coming into 2015, Pixar Animation Studios was having a creative dry spell. Since 2010's
Toy Story 3, Pixar released
Cars 2,
Brave, and
Monsters University. While all of those films did make over $190 million, they were not as revered or in the same ballpark as Pixar's other classics such as
Toy Story,
Finding Nemo, or
The Incredibles. 2015 changed things for Pixar- not only did it allow
The Good Dinosaur to come and go, but it saw the release of
Inside Out.
Inside Out is a children's film, yet it's so thematically rich and unbelievably creative that it automatically vaults itself into the discussion for one of Pixar's all time best. The film helps explain complex concepts to children while not diminishing story or characters and still remains interesting and wonderful to adults. The movie also makes you cry at the death of imaginary pink elephant made out of cotton candy. I think
Inside Out is a work of brilliance and you can easily see why it's the Oscar front runner for Best Animated Film.
Yet as good of a film as
Inside Out is, I don't think it touches a candle to Charlie Kaufman's
Anomalisa. I have
Inside Out as my 6th favorite film of 2014 at 3.5 stars, but
Anomalisa is solidly in my top five at #3 with 4 stars and could very easily move up to #1 as the longer I think about it the more I love it.
Inside Out is a great animated film,
Anomalisa is a great film period.
