Snow White and the seven emotions
Inside Out is the story of an 11-year-old girl's emotions. But almost 80 years ago, Disney had another movie that looked at feelings in a similar way
By Jay Stone
The near universal praise for the Pixar film Inside Out (98 per cent and counting on Rotten Tomatoes, and the demurrals seem pro forma) are partly due to the very audacity of the idea. This is an animated film about the emotions of an 11-year-old girl named Riley: how Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together — or sometimes at odds — to form a human personality in flux.
It arrives as a Disney film without a villain and without a princess (although, parenthetically, even the most mundane marketing department — and Disney’s is far from that — should find many opportunities for toys, dolls and other associated merchandise. One fully expects to see hordes of little Angers and Joys trooping to the house next Halloween.)
However, that’s the least of ...
A Magical and Mild Adventure in Valencia
An ancient city inside a new one beckons Jay Stone to the surprise-filled birthplace of paella
By Jay Stone
VALENCIA, Spain — We came here by chance, the way people used to travel when they were in their 20s and it was all about moving and a destination was just a name to drop, a place to rest on the road. We came in that spirit. We stayed for the paella.
It was invented here, in this bustling city on the south coast of Spain (the Valencia orange was invented in California). It’s delicious too, although I’m not the one to ask. It was delicious everywhere. I like to think I have good taste in movies, but I don’t have any taste in taste.
So, Valencia: magical, all the more so if you don’t expect anything except a place to stop 3½ hours from Barcelona because 3½ hours is about all you want to do. An old city surrounded by a new one: outside, there’s the famous City of Arts and Sciences — an IMAX theatre, an aquarium, a science museum, an arts complex all in ...
Dispatches from Abroad: The Gentle Yens of Girona
Jay Stone explores an ancient Spanish city to discover a slow parade of humanity on cobble stone streets and the prosthetic digits of Edward Scissorhands
By Jay Stone
GIRONA, Spain -- There's a great lassitude that settles over Spain on a Sunday -- or perhaps, that settles over the visitor to Spain on a Sunday -- that is somehow ideal if you wash up in Girona. It's a medieval city just east of Barcelona whose historic district, all cobbled streets and narrow alleys, were built circa 1000. Little wrought iron balconies are set in the stone walls, and I saw an older couple sitting at a bistro table, having lunch together and each looking at their own cell phone.
The stores aren't open, but the museums are free -- a mixed blessing -- and so you climb the steep steps behind the cathedral to the famous Jewish quarter, or El Call, one of the oldest in Europe. Once again, Jewish people have their historic roots on a hill all the better -- at least in this telling -- to come down ...