My Scrapbook: Chinatown from Movies R Fun

My Scrapbook

Chinatown from Movies R Fun
Illustration by Josh Cooley

Josh Cooley is an American animator, screenwriter, director, voice actor and storyboard artist, best known (so far) for for his work for Disney’s Pixar studios. He’s credited with designing the look of such films as The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), and Up (2009), co-writing the script for Inside Out, and directing the short film Riley’s First Date? and Toy Story 4, which won an Oscar for Best Animated Film. He’s since left Pixar (in March 2020), with plans to direct both animated and live projects.

But he’s had a little side project that finally bore fruition in 2014, when Movies R Fun!: A Collection of Cinematic Classics for the Pre-(Film) School Cinephile was published. This delightful subversive little tome, deliberately evoking the look and feel of the much loved Little Golden Books of childhood, features a collection of Cooley’s takes on iconic moments from such not-for-kids classics as Pulp Fiction, The Godfather and Silence of the Lambs, transforming them into something decidedly more child-friendly. Innocent, almost.

It’s a great little book to flip through; a pleasant little tongue-in-cheek Valentine to the movies. Among the films he covers are Chinatown (pictured), are Predator, Fight Club, Alien, The Road Warrior, A Clockwork Orange, Apocalypse Now, Psycho, Donnie Darko, and another of my favourites, The Big Lebowski.

BOOKS

• Cooley, Josh,
  Movies R Fun!: A Collection of Cinematic Classics for the Pre-(Film) School Cinephile | Buy this book | Kindle it!
  (Chronicle Books, 2014)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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