Movie: #Oscars Coco (2017) #Animated Feature Film

Thoughts I had while watching the movie:

Best Disney death EVER: Crushed by a bell.
The colors. I love the colors!
I love that this touches upon the culture of Mexico. With the president making horrible remarks about folks from Mexico, I am glad that this shows their beautiful culture AND it is a positive that it is an Oscar nom for the Mexican people.
The spirit animals!! Their color is amped up a bit more! OMG LOVE
I want to learn more about all the subjects: Mexican mythology, culture, the Day of the Dead – everything!
Alex loved the spirit animals. We had to look up the names.

I would HIGHLY recommend this animated feature for my friends and for their children. The colors, I just cannot say enough about the colors in this. I loved the music. I now want to plant the orange blossoms in my yard!! Makes me think of the orange flowering tree that used to be in my Parents’ yard….

IMDB Synopsis: Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer.

Starring:

Trailer:

Additional Movie Info:

It received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97% Fresh. It received a Rotten Tomato audience rating of 95% liking it. Average Rating: 4.6/5 with a number of User Ratings: 21,922.

Movie Reviews:

Specs: Release date: 21 November 2017 (USA) / Runtime: 105 minutes / Budget: $175-200M

IMDB Trivia:

The orange flower seen throughout the film is the Aztec marigold (known also as the Mexican marigold or the Cempasúchil). The flower is used in the tradition of Dia de Muertos in México to guide the deceased to the living.
When Miguel is walking down the streets at the beginning of the movie, you can spot piñatas of some Pixar characters: Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Mike Wazowski, Destiny the Whale Shark, Mr. Ray, among others.
The orchestra conductor for Ernesto de la Cruz’s musical show “Sunrise Spectacular” is a caricature of the film’s composer Michael Giacchino.
In Brazil, the title name was changed to “Viva”, for the original title “Coco” could easily be mistaken by the Portuguese word “cocô”, which translates to “poop”. But the word “coco” without the accent in the letter O, means the fruit of the palm tree of which coconut water is extracted
In the movie the spirit of Frida Kahlo identifies Dante as a Xolo (Xoloitzcuintli dog), which is a nice tribute to the real Frida. During the mid-20th century the Xolo breed began to decline in popularity. Frida and her husband, Diego Rivera, helped to save the breed by including the Xolo dog as part of their art. Thanks to Frida and Diego, the breed became known again to the world.
The Santa Cecilia graveyard is named after Saint Cecilia, the Catholic patron saint of musicians.
Miguel’s grandmother and great-great-grandmother both frequently take off a shoe and hit people with it to ensure their cooperation. In Mexican culture this kind of shoe is known as “Chancla.”
Despite the film’s predominantly Latino cast, John Ratzenberger, long considered Pixar’s good-luck charm, continues his streak of appearing in every one of the studio’s feature films. In Coco (2017), he plays a ghost called Juan Ortodoncia. He is the skeleton who is allowed to cross over to the land of the living because his dentist remembers him.
When Miguel and Héctor arrive in Ernesto de la Cruz Plaza there is a scene of people celebrating and lighting fireworks; at that moment, on the right side of the screen there is a poster for Pixar’s Incredibles 2 (2018).
Since Ernesto De La Cruz had such a large impact on Miguel, he named the stray dog “Dante” after a horse in one of De La Cruz’s movies which can be seen and heard at De La Cruz’s house party on the projectors.
Pixar’s 2nd film to focus mostly on cast members with a specific ethnicity, in the case of this film being Mexican. The first one was Brave (2012), which focused mostly on actors with a Scottish background.
The counter when Hector goes through the gate reads 1138 – a number that comes up many times in the Star Wars universe and George Lucas’s movie THX1138
As in most Pixar films the number “A113” (referencing the classroom at Cal. Arts where most animators have studied) appears on the door to the Customs office in the Land of The Dead.
The song that Mama Imelda and Ernesto de la Cruz sang towards the end of the film is called “La Llorona”, a classic and anonymous Mexican song. One popular interpretation of the song is about a singer feeling trapped by this woman (La Llorona) who has fallen in love with him.
When Miguel plays ‘Remember Me’ to Mama Coco, in a desperate attempt to get her to remember her father, she joins in at almost exactly the same point she did when Hector sang it to her as a young girl, earlier in the film.