Day of the Dead Celebration

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2017)

I saw "Coco" starring the voices of Anthony Gonzalez-Criminal Minds:Beyond Borders_tv, The Bridge_tv; Gael Garcia Bernal-Mozart in the Jungle_tv, Desierto; Benjamin Bratt-Doctor Strange_2016, 24:Live Another Day_tv and Edward James Olmos-The Blade Runner movies, The Green Hornet_2011. This is an animated Pixar/Disney movie about the Mexican Day of the Dead, aka:Dia de los Muertos. They even use Mexican mariachi style music in the credits-beginning & end-when they show the Disney logo with the fireworks going off. The theater I was at was also showing it in both English & Spanish versions. Anyway, Anthony plays a little 10- 12 year old boy that loves music, both playing guitar and singing, just like his idol, Benjamin. But his whole family does not allow music in the house-because of a great great grandfather that was a traveling musician and left his family to pursue his career-and forbids Anthony to participate in any form. FYI: The title character of Coco, is the daughter of the a fore mentioned traveling musician, who is now Anthony's great grandmother. Anthony decides to borrow the guitar of Benjamin from his tomb-who died in an accident while he was on stage-but stealing from the dead sends Anthony to the land of the dead, where he meets Gael, an old friend of Benjamin, who promises to help Anthony find Benjamin in the afterlife. Edward is a character called Chicharron. The animation is really amazing, especially when they show the culture and traditions of the holiday. Some, I knew about-like the photos and mementos of the departed being displayed in little shrines-but others, I was unfamiliar with-like the animal spirit guides in the afterlife. There is a 21 minute short film called 'Olaf's Frozen Adventure' that is shown before the movie-I'm sure that it is just an early promotion for the next Frozen movie, but it was enjoyable-there are a couple of new songs in it. It's rated "PG" for thematic elements and has a running time of 1 hour & 49 minutes. Although it is definitely aimed at a Hispanic audience, you don't have to be Hispanic to enjoy it-I did. I would buy it on Blu-ray.