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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Lands Of Life And Death In Pixar's 'Coco'

Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) in the new Pixar film <em>Coco. </em>
Pixar
Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) in the new Pixar film Coco.

Pixar writes about a lot of critters — robots and bugs and toys and fish and so forth. But Coco is about, first and foremost, a kid. Twelve-year-old Miguel wants to be a musician, but his relatives are firmly against it because of a long family history nobody likes to talk about too much. Eventually, this sends him into the Land of the Dead on the holiday Dia de los Muertos.

The film is passionate about depicting both Miguel's life in Mexico and his wanderings in mythical worlds, and its sharp visuals and attention to detail gave us a lot to talk about — as did its emotional heft, which might have led to some crying. Just some.

Follow Shereen on Twitter, and come back on Friday for what's shaping up to be quite a lively episode, in which our friend Gene Demby joins us to talk about Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.