A clever 2nd helping of 'Inside Out'

 Pixar carries the central idea behind the original Inside Out movie -- mastering the art of emotional balance -- over to Inside Out 2, but the number of emotions in play proliferates.

 Don't be misled. This isn't a case of sequel bloat. Now 13, Riley -- the character around whom the story revolves -- enters adolescence, a reliable platform from which to expand the palette of emotions the movie transforms into characters.

  The original characters -- Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Sadness, Phyllis Smith) and Fear (Tony Hale) -- return but they must make room for newbies that include Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulos).

  New voices and clever visual strokes (making the stream of consciousness literal, for example) add to the movie’s pleasures. Ditto for a depiction of a Sar-Chasm.

   The story centers on a weekend long hockey camp to which Riley (Kensington Tallman) has been invited. 

   A familiar question arises. Will Riley try to win favor among the camp’s most popular player (Lilimar) or will she remain loyal to her two besties (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green and Grace Lu), both of whom will be separating from Riley in the fall. They'll be attending a different high school.

  Visually, Pixar employs a mixture of cartoon simplicity, technical prowess (great displays of ice skating), and whimsical asides, a brain storm that’s depicted as a real storm, for example.

  Mostly, the story focuses on tensions between ever-0ptimistic Joy and frantic Anxiety, an orange-colored character that resembles an exploding turnip.

  Some of the characters add cartoon flourish, notably Bloofy (Ron Furnches), an all-blue variation on Goofy, and Pouchy (James Austin Johnson), a helpful fanny pack containing items that figure into the plot. 

    The competing tendencies vie to determine which of them will take control of the brain console that guides Riley's behavior -- or will Riley be able to make her own decisions?

     As expected, an instructional message looms. Riley must preserve the qualities of character that defined her childhood while accepting the characteristics that emerge during her teen years. Can all the forces that rumble around her psyche get along?

   In all, this second helping  — delivered under the direction of Kelsey Mann — keeps faith with the spirit of the 2015 original while offering fresh perspectives, a welcome change for a sequel.

A comedy about a 50th birthday

Amy Poehler makes her directorial debut with Wine Country, a comedy about six friends who gather at a home in the Napa Valley to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of their number. When you watch Wine Country, it will be difficult not to see that the women on the screen -- a group that includes Maya Rudolph, Paula Pell, Rachel Dratch, and Ana Gasteyer, as well as Poehler and Emily Spivey -- are having a good time. That impression may result from the fact that some of these women evidently made a similar trip together in real life, which is where Poehler got the idea for the movie. She even makes room for old pal Tina Fey, who appears in a drop-in role as the owner the house the women have rented for their weekend celebration. Poehler makes sure that each of these women has a highlight moment with the best delivered by Pell, as the group's gay pal, and the always enjoyable Rudolph, as a woman who's secretly worrying about a possible health issue. Dratch portrays the self-effacing woman whose birthday the group is celebrating. The movie also includes a visit from a tarot card reader (Cherry Jones) and a cameo from TED Talks star Brene Brown. Jason Schwartzman signs on as Devon, the chef and chauffeur who comes with the rented house and who spends hours making paella for the group. The women are characterized in ways that reflect someone's idea -- actually screenwriters Spivey and Liz Cackowski -- about what might be on the minds of 50-year-old women: aging, careers, marriages, and relationships (or the lack of them). You won't hear anything resembling the kind of discussions that rely on high-flying bouts of imagination. More amusing than uproarious, Wine Country's cast sells this slender movie, which includes the usual "serious" counterpoint that seems to have become part of every comedy. The story resolves predictably, but the actresses who gather in wine country give the movie its kick -- not a major kick, but a kick nonetheless.

Tina Fey, Amy Poehler get lewd

A little more wit would have been welcome, but there are enough laughs to keep Sisters humming.

When a couple of guys make a movie that spends most of its running time chasing lewd laughs, we're almost never surprised. In fact, we more or less expect that comic actors such as the overexposed Seth Rogen will find new ways to push the envelope of propriety.

But women?

That's another story, even after movies such as Bridesmaids, which added a bit of raunch to the female comedy mix.

In what amounts to a small but revolutionary step, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have not only pushed the envelope, they've tried to rip it to shreds with Sisters, a comedy about two siblings who wind up throwing a wildly uninhibited house party that gives the movie its comic crescendo.

As far as plot, that's pretty much all there is.

The party happens during a visit the Atlanta-based sisters make to their parents (Dianne Wiest and James Brolin), who still live in Florida, where the sisters grew up.

Once in Florida, the sisters begin to revert to their adolescence. In the case of these two, it's a relatively short trip.

The party is supposed to undermine a deal the parents have made to sell the family home to a young, upwardly mobile couple. Despite the fact that they haven't lived there for a long time, the sisters refuse to let go of the house in which they grew up.

As you might expect, the folks at the party have too good a time, so much so that the house is wrecked. Don't consider that a spoiler; it's not just that the house is wrecked, it's how and who does the wrecking that leads to the movie's laughs.

Sisters was written by SNL's Paula Pell. Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) handles the directing chores, but the whole business is inconceivable without Fey and Poehler -- and even they can't make every joke work. Sisters is a bumpy affair.

Mild attempts at characterization are made: Fey's Kate is a mom with a disapproving teen-age daughter (Madison Davenport) and not much talent for hairdressing, which is unfortunate because that's how she tries to earn a living.

Poehler's Maura is a do-gooder who can't pass a homeless person without offering help. To the extent that Maura has a character arc, it involves dropping her reserve and emerging as a hard partying demon.

Maya Randolph has a nice turn as a former high school classmate of the sisters who feels superior to them. John Leguizamo plays a former high school chum who seems happy despite the fact that his life has gone nowhere. John Cena portrays a heavily muscled drug dealer, and Ike Barinholtz appear as a handyman who arouses Maura's not so latent desires. As a nerdy partygoer, Bobby Moynihan starts at a high pitch and becomes even more manic.

I have to confess that it took me a while to adjust to the low level of humor Fey and Poehler have adopted in their third joint outing after Mean Girls and Baby Mama.

But these are two funny women, who are so heartily committed to this comedy, you might as well surrender -- at least until something a little smarter comes along.

A mind can be a minefield, too

Pixar's Inside Out offers a creative look at the way emotions operate in the mind of an 11-year-old girl.

It's hardly surprising that Pixar, the pioneering studio that helped make computer animation a part of our cultural life, has produced an extremely creative movie. Sometimes, it's good that our expectations are met, and this time, Pixar hasn't let us down.

A long way from disappointments such as Cars 2, (2011), Pixar's Inside Out tells a story based on the idea that we all have a variety of voices rattling around our heads, the constant conversation that represents one of the last bastions of privacy.

In Inside Out, director Pete Docter (Up) takes us inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl, showing us how she reacts to a major and very stressful development in her life.

The story revolves around a big adjustment Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) must make. In search of a business opportunity, Riley's parents (Diane Lane and Kyle McLachlan) move from what Riley sees as an idyllic Minnesota town to San Francisco.

Forced to adapt to a new school, a new urban environment and a house that's in need of substantial work, Riley's head goes into spin cycle.

That's hardly a novel idea, but what's unusual about Inside Out is the imaginative way that Docter brings Riley's conflicts to life. He creates characters that represent Riley's major emotions, and allows one or the other of them to take over her mind as circumstances change.

These "inner" characters have self-explanatory names: Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith).

You get the idea: The story takes place both inside and outside Riley's head. We see how Riley's emotions react to shifting circumstances. Should we be surprised that Anger raises its voice?

At one point Joy and Sadness leave the control room (the place from which all the emotions are governed) and have adventures inside Riley's mind, encountering great banks of long-term memory archives.

When Joy and Sadness leave the control room, Anger, Fear and Disgust take over. Not a happy occurrence.

Docter's animated feature has a welcome undertone of psychological realism: Sadness can interrupt Joy, and the movie smartly riffs on the way memory works.

At one point, the story dredges up a memory of a nearly forgotten imaginary friend of Riley's named Bing-Bong (Richard Kind). Maybe she forgot about him when she became involved in hockey, her favorite sport.

Visually, Pixar's computer geniuses keep pace with the story. There's plenty to keep the eye busy, but the real message here has a salutary grace.

In order to function, Riley doesn't need to abandon Anger, Fear and Disgust; she must learn to find the harmony that makes room for all her emotions while preserving her core values.

That may sound a bit pat, but -- as we all know -- it can be easier to balance a check book than to balance our emotions.

Don't believe me? Just ask Anger and Disgust.

More men who've yet to grow up

If Matthew Weiner, creator of the landmark TV series Mad Men, accomplishes nothing else in his life, he will have earned a place in showbusiness history. Unfortunately, Weiner's first foray into big-screen entertainment isn't nearly as daring as his TV work. The major revelation offered by Are You Here are end-of-picture scenes in which Zach Galifianakis appears beardless. Other than that, you'll find only traces of Weiner's brilliance in a story about Ben and Steve, two friends (Galifianakis and Owen Wilson) who are going through separate crises. Things come to a head when Ben's father dies, and leaves him a ton of money, much to the dismay of Ben's more responsible sister, played by Amy Poehler). As it turns out, recently departed dad was living with a younger woman (Laura Ramsey), who attracts Steve's eye and who's stuck in full earth mother mode throughout proceedings. Questions arise: Will bipolar Ben finally start taking his meds? Will Steve, who works at an Annapolis TV station as a weatherman, ever set aside his glib, irresponsible ways? Neither Ben nor Steve is exceptionally interesting, which means the only reliable pleasure in Are You Here stems from some of Weiner's clever dialogue. It seems clear that Weiner wanted to do something that would be both funny and meaningful. I hope, in his next effort, he's more successful. This bromance takes few unexpected turns.