‘Soul’
Not everything about Soul, Pixar’s new movie streaming on Disney+, works. But if you can swallow a few bumps in the road, you’re in for Pixar’s most ambitious feature yet. Featuring the voices of Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey, and directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, it tells the story of a middle school jazz teacher named Joe (Foxx) who dies right before his big music break. Determined to get back to his body before his gig, Joe ventures into the world of the afterlife—or is it the before-life?—where souls are being formed. The animation is gorgeous, the jokes are solid, and the moral of the story is my favorite Pixar message yet: Life should be about living, and not about a single “spark.”