Jason catches a sneak preview of BIG HERO 6

And you'll never believe me, because I didn't write this up until after it was released! Anyway, this was a special screening at Pixar for employees, friends, and families--I was a friend.

First up was the short FEAST, a delightful wordless story of a puppy who makes a best friend who feeds him really, really well. Until that man meets a health conscious woman and the feast pizza, french fries, bacon, eggs, etc...turns into meals of brussels sprouts garnished with a single leaf of cilantro. So the moral right there is that vegetarians ruin everything! But the movie continues, and there's actually a much better ending, with a much better moral.

And then BIG HERO 6. This movie won me over in the opening scene introducing the setting as the port of San Fransokyo, a Japanese-infused city by the bay where the Golden Gate Bridge sports Torii arches and our hero, Hiro, hustles underground bot-fighting rings. He's a young genius, but hasn't applied himself to anything worthwhile since his parents died, although his aunt encourages him to join his brother Tadashi at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. There Tadashi is part of a group of robotics wizards (and one stoner-ish "science fan.") Tadashi's big project is Baymax, a rotund, bouncy, medical robot and the second hero of the film. After some unfortunate events leading to a major loss (possibly this generation's "Bambi's Mother gets shot") and an introduction of a truly frightening kabuki-masked supervillain, Hiro supplies Baymax with armor, weapons, and some new programming to become a fighter as well as a healer. And the rest of Tadashi's team joins in to form a sextet of heroes to fight the kabuki-man. Exciting action, real pathos, good comedy. I know this is a kids' movie, but I hope it's okay that I just grinned like a kid most of the time.

Total Running Time: 114 minutes
My Total Minutes: 371,859