<i>Coco</i> Is Among Pixar's Best Movies in Years

Well, that’s more like it. As someone who has written at some length about the decline of Pixar Studios since its acquisition by Disney, I am especially pleased to be proven wrong, even if only intermittently. The studio’s latest release, Coco, is one such occasion.

Though Pixar has never acknowledged as much publicly, its cinematic philosophy (and business model) has shifted notably: Where the studio once aspired to excellence with every single picture—Pixar President Ed Catmull wrote an entire book—it now seems content to roll out a few profitable, sequels for every genuinely original feature it unveils. (To put it another way, the studio has shifted away from “creativity” and toward “inc.”)