Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams (Netflix, 2024)

Inside Out 2 - Full Movie Review (Pixar, 2024), and Bonus Material about the London Soundtrack Festival (2025)

Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams is a boldly envisioned  anthology series that can be described as a winning mix between science fiction, psychological thriller and supernatural horror.

The seven part series focuses on a group of m ordinary folks, who just so happen to encounter strange phenomena that scare the living daylights out of them (and us).

The thing with these encounters, which take place between 1985 and 2024,  is that may hold the keys to the answer about the origin of our world and the imminent threat humanity is about to face.

Each episode is supposed to work as a stand-alone drama, while also being part of a greater whole. And I must say: I’m impressed. If you like spooky stories, you’ve come to the right place!

The first episode is called Old House and it tells the story of the super rich who face the horrors of growing old ‘No parent should be left alone by their children’), while the second episode, The Orphan, is about a poor married couple that adopts an orphan who can make a fortune in just six days. But on the seventh day, great danger awaits. ‘What’s the point of being rich when we die?’

It soon becomes clear that the thematic thread running through the different stories is rich versus poor, and the whole series is a commentary on the evils of capitalism. 

Who is Joko Anwar (1976) you may ask? Well, he is an award winning writer and director from Indonesia, who has been quite active for the last couple of decades.

He made a name for himself with the romantic comedy Janji Joni (2005) and the crime drama Dead Time: Kala (2007). In more recent years he is known for production’s like Satan's Slaves (2017) and Gundala (2019).

Anwar created Nightmares and Daydreams and wrote and directed the first episode episode, while overseeing the rest. The series also features contributions from directors like Tommy Dewo and writers like Tia Hasibuan.

The new series stars famous Indonesian actors like Ario Bayu, Fachry Albar and Marissa Anita, as well as other, lesser known faces.

With influences that run the gamut from a classic movie The Shining to the more recent Get Out, I would say this is that Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams is the best and most entertaining anthology series since Cabinet of Curiosities from Guillermo Del Toro.

INSIDE OUT 2

Overwhelming to the point of a mild panic attack, Inside Out 2 nevertheless offers a hell of an emotional journey, much like its main subject: puberty.

It also functions as a very decent sports movie, as teenage Riley is now a promising ice hockey player, who has dreams of making it big and over the course of a summer selection weekend badly wants to make the team of her new high school.

It’s fitting enough that the new Pixar movie always looked like it could be a winner. Even though the original Inside Out is now nine years old, the movie is still incredibly popular. And rightly so.

Inside Out mixed artistic inventiveness with a truly emotional story, about young Riley who is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco. After which her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school.

In Inside Out 2 we meet Riley, when she’s just been hit by puberty, which means that over the course of the movie she encounters all kinds of new emotions, like Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment.

Inside Out 2 is written by Dave Holstein and Meg LeFauve and directed by Kelsey Mann. It boasts the voice talents of Maya Hawke (Anxiety), Kensington Tallman (Riley) and Amy Poehler (Joy).

Inside Out 2 is set two years after the original movie, but what works in its favor is the idea that all the emotions on display are still very recognizable to the original audience, both young and old(er).

Coupled with the animation skills of Pixar’s best and brightest, this is definitely a follow-up worth seeing on the biggest screen available, the colors almost literally jumping from the screen at every possible opportunity.

The fact that it doesn’t quite hit the artistic dizzy heights of the first movie shouldn’t disqualify it from your must see-list. 

On the one hand, its very emotional, in the same way that puberty is or was for most of us. On the other it suffers from the same problem as numerous other sequels: there are so many characters, both old and new, that the movie at times simply feels overcrowded to the point of an emotional breakdown.

In the end the main conflict plays out, not so much on the ice, but inside Riley’s mind, between the original Team Joy, who are staging a comeback after being both blindsided and sidelined by the up-and-comers (sponsored by Puberty) of Team Anxiety, who are planning for Riley’s future, without having arrived at Maturity yet. 

I admit to experiencing some conflicting emotions, as the first Inside Out quite openly dealt with important mental health issues in a family friendly animation movie, while the gist of this movie seems to be that wanting to win at all costs is, well, very important too. 

Even though the movie also pushes back to this idea towards the end, it still left me a little curious about the intentions of the filmmakers.

Still, despite my reservations, Inside Out 2 is also a brisk and breezy movie, that barely crosses the 90 minute mark, never outstays its welcome but actually leaves you wanting more. And I’m sure that also means wanting to revisit the movie at some point for further analysis.

So, just as good is not the enemy of great, great is not the enemy of perfect, and in the end Inside Out 2 is, at least to me, a four star follow-up to its five star predecessor.

Disney made the mistake of sending Pixar movies like Soul, Luca and Turning Red straight to streaming. Elemental got Pixar fans back in the habit of going to theaters. After a slow start it legged out like a champ.

And now it’s time for Inside Out 2 to capitalize on the goodwill Pixar has once again built up. 

Here’s the trailer: 

Note: Inside Out 2 is released in most of the world later this week, with some other countries to follow in the coming months.

London Soundtrack Festival announced, headlined by Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore