Ron (Zach Galifianakis) and Barney (Jack Dylan Grazer) in Ron's Gone Wrong.
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
As modern technology has taken over the world, a variety of movies and TV shows have tried to grapple with its effect on society. Those attempts have varied from the massively cheesy ’90s film The Net to more serious efforts, including the so-believable-it’s-scary series Black Mirror. Now comes Ron’s Gone Wrong, an animated film that offers a more lighthearted look at the issue.
Barney (Jack Dylan Grazer) is an only child whose family, which consists of his dad, Graham (Ed Helms), and grandmother, Donka (Olivia Colman), is not on the cutting-edge side of things when it comes to new gadgets. So Barney must look on in envy as the rest of his schoolmates have fun with B-Bots, a new invention from Bubble (a clone of Apple) that is not just an all-in-one entertainment device, but also automatically connects users with potential new friends.
Barney’s old-school family finally gives in to his desires for his birthday, but being frugal, they do a back-alley deal for a damaged B-Bot (Zach Galifianakis), one that malfunctions almost immediately upon activation in ways big and small. Naming it Ron, Barney tries to pretend the robot is just like everyone else’s, but it proves impossible to hide Ron’s flaws.
Written by Peter Baynham and co-directed by Sarah Smith, Jean-Phillippe Vine, and Octavio E. Rodriguez, the film makes a lot of humorous hay out of the glitches that Ron experiences. Whether it’s only being able to look up things from the first few letters of the alphabet, doing things that no other B-Bot is allowed to do, or having an off-kilter “face,” nearly everything about Ron is designed to elicit a smile at worst, guffaws at best.
The design and mission of the B-Bots makes them appear to be a mix between EVE from WALL-E and Baymax from Big Hero 6. The writers also seem to take more than a little inspiration from those films, although they mostly spare viewers the dark overtones found in those films. The message about society’s — and especially children’s — addiction to technology is strong in the film, although they stop short of advocating against its usage altogether, perhaps acknowledging that it’s impossible to avoid a tidal wave when you’re swimming in the ocean.
Instead of making technology itself be the villain, they settle on a tech executive named Andrew Morris (Rob Delaney), who’s focused on profits above all else. His presence is only intermittently effective, and then only because he’s the polar opposite of Bubble CEO Marc (Justice Smith), who seems to believe in all the good that technology can bring. Good versus evil is a simple thing to sell in a movie like this, not the shades of gray that color the ideas in it.
Ron’s Gone Wrong is a pleasant and inoffensive movie, but it never hits the fun, emotional, or intellectual heights as some of the best animated films. For now, its technological innovation is a fantasy; let’s hope it stays that way.
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Ron’s Gone Wrong is currently playing in theaters.
Only in Austin does recording in a tin can create excellent sound. Specifically, this "tin can" is a 1955 Spartan Imperial Mansion trailer, a spacious mobile home converted into a relatively cramped studio. But the unconventional setup is no match for producer and engineer James Westley Essary.
Essary and his videographer brother, Brantley, have been using the space to build up their inner circle of musicians, capturing intimate performances in professional recordings available on YouTube. Live From The Tin Can premiered its second season on April 15, 2024, and is looking forward to a long string of diverse performances to come. Right now listeners can enjoy Ron Gallo, David Ramirez, Vondré, John Calvin Abney, Angel White, and more on the YouTube channel.
First up this season was Worn-Tin (an amazing coincidence of a name), performing "Hard Ease," "Bitter," and "Kid Changed," a pleasantly lackadaisical series of alt-rock romps, somehow squeezing in two drum sets. Worn-Tin, like many other artists this season on the YouTube series, performed live at South by Southwest in March. The festival, along with the concurrent Luck Reunion, brought a wealth of artists to the Live Music Capital, so the Tin Can crew took advantage of the easy scheduling.
"South By's website is actually a great way to find out who was coming into town," says Brantley. "So we started thinking about things like, what is what is their sound like? What is their performance like, and will that translate into our space? ... [We] just started contacting managers: 'Hey, do you have a free morning, free afternoon? Want to come by?' The sessions only take about a couple of hours."
Although the Essarys are hoping to get more national acts into the Tin Can to boost views, their hope is that over time they can narrow their focus back to local artists. (The series premiere featured Austin band Kelly Doyle.) Beyond the view counts, these recordings are mutually beneficial; Artists don't just get exposure, but lasting high-quality recordings for free, and the brothers get to build a portfolio. Westley, who just goes by his second name in conversation, appreciates the stylistic challenge.
Producer and engineer James Westley Essary does the auditory impossible.Photo courtesy of Live From The Tin Can
"I get to create a little calling card, [and] they get a way to push their new record when they're rolling through town and on tour," says Westley. "As you put out records you get pigeonholed ... I want to make a punk record, and I want to make a metal record. I want to make a country record. So it allows me to be able to dabble in whatever I want — whatever we book in the studio."
Making these connections was Westley's main goal in creating the series during the pandemic. It'd been a loose idea at the producer's prior studio, with occasional shoots for social media. As we all remember, 2019 was not famous for its sense of urgency. But when the studio was "sold out from under" Westley in October, he got tired of hopping from one rental to another.
He bought the trailer in December 2019 and spent the following year working on it. The end of his work coincided with Brantley's desire to move back to Austin from Seattle, so the returning brother provided the property to park the trailer on. The rest was good, old-fashioned pandemic restlessness.
The Tin Can in all its metallic glory.Photo courtesy of Live From The Tin Can
"When you're on the road all the time, you're meeting new bands every day, because you have a different opener or something," says Westley. "And I was like, 'How can I bring that to me?' It's a lot of fun when there's not really any money involved. You're not dedicating a ton of time, necessarily, to it. Bands come here, they have a really great time, [and] it's really nice to be able to host them."
Of course, recording in such a small space has its challenges. Most of the solution was in arranging; not the music, but the musicians. Placing everyone just right minimizes the bleed of certain instruments into other microphones, and as long as the singer stays relatively still, the drums — the biggest culprit — mostly keep their sound to themselves.
Some issues are also fixed with slightly quieter playing, unintentionally creating a sort of sonic brand for the series. It's not all bedroom pop, but the combination of a cozy recording environment and slightly restrained volume makes for some homey performances. This also works nicely for Westley — isn't that happening a lot? — who says he usually prefers listening at home to watching in a crowd.
Still, live recordings add a certain spice to the music. Many music fans will attribute it to the organic mystery of musicians clicking together, but Westley thinks there's something else at play. There's no substitute for practice, and by the time musicians are making live recordings, they've probably played the song live dozens or even hundreds of times. That allows for improvements on the original ideas — sometimes ones that originated in the studio at the time of the first recording.
Ron Gallo squeezes into the Tin Can.Still from Live From The Tin Can
It's also an easy way to make additional income without writing more, he says. Brantley points out that live music has always been at the core of the business.
"Live music has been at the top for forever," says Brantley. "Now we've got artists selling out huge arenas. They're competing with the NFL; They're not competing with movies or TV as much anymore. ... So I love the opportunity to not just record live music, but also film it. You're getting a full experience of both the really compelling live recording [and] even more compelling video to watch them in their element — really playing it live rather than just in a box in the studio."
The next frontier for the Tin Can crew will be hosting live shows onsite. Westley will be in the trailer recording while the band plays outside, and eventually Brantley might start capturing video, too. Also down the pipeline are audio-only live recordings, so listeners can enjoy the tunes without relying on YouTube.
One episode featuring NOBRO from Montreal, Quebec, is out now, with more to come. Next up is Evangeline from Los Angeles. Follow along with Live From The Tin Can ("Like and subscribe," says Brantley with a smile) on YouTube.