TGWTG User Blogs

"KEEBLE!"

 

Before we start this review I want people to understand that this is a Children's movie. Any errors or statements I make are purely for the benefit of those that take a "realistic" view on things (which for the outrageous movies, believe me is tough).

So, let us begin. Max Keeble's Big Move (made in 2001) is made by Walt Disney Pictures (another Disney movie that I felt was better as a Disney Channel Original Movie). Though one can easily get it confused with the zanier channel called Nickelodeon. I seriously think Disney Channel was trying to keep up with Nickelodeon's "gross-out factor" and more "out-there" TV shows and movies. But, that is a whole different subject and this isn't SimonW's Television Channel Reviews. So, on with the movie!

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"She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes, she'll be coming round the mountain when...she...COMES!"

 

Yes, this is the last line (sung) in the most ridiculous ghost movie I have ever seen called The Haunted Mansion (made in 2003). Made by Walt Disney Pictures, this movie is made after a ride of the same name in Disneyland. So, let me get this straight...they made a movie based off a ride that was made before the movie came out??? Yes, that is basically the concept of where the movie's origins came from. It is rated as a "Fantasy" movie. Despite the fact it has ghosts (I would call this a "kiddie horror" movie if anything else), which people would assume would be supernatural and bordering on the "Science-Fiction" genre. But, no, it is under Fantasy, though who the fuck knows why when there isn't the faint whiff of magic anywhere! What a load of CRAP!

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The Last Animated Comedy?

By Ali Adamjee

 

Yesterday, I watched "Bee Movie" for the first time. It was part of an Animation Weekend I had, renting three movies from Netflix. I rented Cars, Ratatouille, and Bee Movie. And the Seinfeld effort ended up being my favorite of the three. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Pixar flicks. Cars is one of my favorites of recent years, and I had a great time with Ratatouille, but those two seemed kind of light on the humor... as have quite a few of Pixar's efforts. But Bee Movie was played as a straight comedy, and I really appreciated that. I like to laugh. I like to be entertained when I watch a movie. Not to say that the Pixar movies are not highly entertaining. They are. But seeing lots of jokes and laughing like anything at Bee Movie made me really think about animation today.

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By several requests, I have decided on my first musical film review. I will review Mel Brooks' The Producers. The review should be up within the next 2 weeks. To see the video, check out my youtube account. www.youtube.com/Modyman. Keep sending in other musicals you would like me to review and I will eventually get to them. Thank you again, and I look forward to all your feed back when I release my first review.

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Sequels are very interesting things. Most of the time, they're either VERY VERY good, or DISGUSTINGLY terrible. Usually a sequel works if it manages to further advance the plot and development of the main characters. For example, a movie like The Dark Knight worked because it gave more depth to the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne and added more elements to the world of Gotham.

However, a movie like Resident Evil: Extinction or Spy Kids 2 just makes you hang your head in shame. If the original was bad, why would Hollywood feel the need to make another one? Well, the obvious answer there is money, but I won't get into that.

Now...there's a fine line between a good and a bad sequel. Yet, it seems like there's different subgenres for a "bad" sequel. Its almost as if theres a few different kinds of "bad:"

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9.09.08

Yo.



In 1908, E?mile Cohl produced a minute of filmed animation. The short captured the essence of drawings done by the popular vaudeville caricaturists of the time, and showed what could be done with the medium. It was called, “Fantasmagorie”, and it is considered by many to be the first cartoon. Flash forward a century and the market driven by computer animated films in America alone could float a couple of third-world countries’ economies for a year. What Walt Disney made popular with his mouse on a steamboat birthed a cinematic history that rivals that of even live action film. And, like live action movies, the time-consuming process of filmmaking hasn’t stopped producers from releasing both heights of expression and the dregs of marketing failure, and everything in between. Some animated movies have gained fan bases that lack all reason when it comes to their cartoons of choice; and there are some films that simply fall through the cracks or miss out on the popular glow. This could be due to a lack/abundance of quality, marketing failures/successes, or stupidity on a multiple of fronts.

Looking through the history of animation for this list was both heart meltingly sad and heart meltingly painful, as various titles brought images of rabid overexposure and dusty DVD cases to mind. Only one film per production company/developer was admitted here, as much as I would love ripping into the sorted Disney archives. Sit back and enjoy, and welcome to the “Top Five Most Over and Underrated Animated Films of All Time.”

Over #5: Akira (1988)


Akira started a revolution in anime viewership in America, arguably the very beginning of the “otaku” fan base of manga reading and pocky munching. I say arguably because for something so proliferated into cinema culture, not a lot of people have seen the flick. Perhaps it’s due to the changes in anime style rendering older movies archaic in some eyes, but if you are going to tout the sheer mind-blowing originality of a picture of any stripe, make sure you have actually seen the movie first. I do not doubt the footprint of Otomo-san’s expose on post-apocalyptic youth culture, I just notice that the latest generation reaping the benefits of Katsuhiro’s work spout off when the title is mentioned, hailing it as a proverbial second coming of awesomeness, without going through the hassle of watching the bloody thing. It’s critically hailed, but blindly obsessed over by its ignorant worshippers to the point of glaucoma. So, despite its quality, it’s on the list.

Under #5: Ferngully, The Last Rainforest (1992)


This is what Captain Planet tried to be; entertaining to a wide agerange, but still getting a strong and powerful message across. It ranks low by descending into lame territory a bit too often (Robin Williams rapping, for instance), but it must be noted how well it integrated the destruction of Natural  forests with an engrossing tale of woodland fairies displaced by the cutting down of their residential trees. The art style was lush with a vibrant, but not cartoony palette, and the character design was rich and detailed, especially for the Disney-dominated 90s. The ending was as sappy as one would expect, but for all its worth, the film is overlooked in the era of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. If it aspired to a stronger script, it would have been higher, but were it stands; it’s as strong as a redwood.

Over #4: Toy Story 2 (1999)


The worst film produced under Pixar, the best insult any film could ever receive, the sequel to the first all CG motion picture couldn’t fall back on the new-technology smell of its predecessor. So the film’s narrative was the only real sword in its inventory, and unfortunately, the blade had noticeably dulled in the 4 year break in the franchise. The original’s screenplay received praise across the critic board for its surprising sophistication and charm, whereas the sequel hung from more than a few clichés and tired plot points, despite getting the same adoration. The nametag was enough to get the film a sizeable amount of cash and a rabid fan base to match. For its credit, the voice casting was wonderful and the animation still stupendous, but coming fresh from a now practiced computer design team, the film felt no more than an extension of its original. Not a bad thing, if it had been released conjunctively with Toy Story 1, but we as an audience got used to better from Disney’s greatest partner.

Under #4: Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)


I hold Hayao Miyazaki-san among the highest in terms of attention to story and animation detail, and I need no more evidence than this gem, released our way almost a decade after the Japanese premiere. The story is one of the simplest in the Studio Ghibli archive, and by far the simplest on this list, but that’s what sets this masterpiece apart. It managed to make an ambling tale of a girl witch’s one-year rite-of-passage from home into an enthralling and emotional story that even young boys could watch after wrestling. Hayao made the smallest details sing, the way the spatula sounded as it scraped along a stove top, the way a character’s leg muscles showed effort and resistance as it peddled the first mile on a bicycle with a stubborn chain. It’s because Miyazaki-san continued to evolve this banal yet magical insight into such astounding pieces like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke that this little candid chronicle is left in the dust.

Over #3: The Lord of the Rings (1978)


It’s not because of Peter Jackson’s trilogy that I look on these films with such venom; they were bad long before New Line took the risk on Tolkien’s books. Ralph Bakshi used a new technique called “rotoscoping”, where live actors are shot on film, and the frames are traced onto animation cells. The reason this never caught on was because it made the stars of this waste-of-a-budget look like clay models with Down syndrome. The hacking of J.R.R.’s three book, thousand-plus page set into a two-movie deal was terrible enough, but giving the orc horde a musical number killed any weight the films could have held. The film was so unimpressive that the distributors refused to fund the sequel to finish the story, despite the financial success the film eventually received. I suppose we all should be thankful that this movie brought back interest in Tolkien’s work, but when the present-day fans claim this cartoon filth to be superior to the modern live-action films, the bile is too hard to ignore.

Under #3: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)


Placing Claude Frollo on my Top Ten Disney Villains list reinvigorated the love of this Disney classic, and after revisiting it online and on DVD, I find it necessary to include here. Sure, it stood on the majority of Disney stereotypes: a hero “just wanting to belong”, some sidekicks existing solely for comedic relief, and more musical numbers than would ever believably happen. But this film, more than any other in Walt’s database, took time setting up these archetypes so it could play with them later on. Character morality shifted on a dime, you could see exactly where the villain turned to immorality, and the main character does not get the girl, in fact he watches her chose another man. It practically parodies the nature of the Disney film, for once in its kid-friendly color-vomiting history the hero, out of his good-naturedness, gives the girl up to another for her happiness. A great soundtrack always helps too. Hunchback drowned under the swell of the bigger budget, more popular melodramas Disney pumped out, just like Quasimodo, the victim of a biased popularity contest.

Over #2: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)


I love this movie; it holds a place in my heart nothing can touch. It’s hands down the best stop-motion film ever made (not that there’s much competition) and one of the greatest musicals in history. But enough cannot be sad for the visceral rape of the film we are subjected to on a daily basis. Side-by-side during the rise of gothic and “emo” popularity, kitsch stores like Hot Topic have made a butt load capitalizing on the film’s quasi-dark motif by plastering its images on anything that ink will stick to, not to mention releasing all matter of useless knick-knacks bearing Jack Skellington’s morbid mug, from mint tins to key chains to armbands to colostomy bags. The film, instead of standing for innovation and creativity, epitomizes the “safe gothic” subculture. Where it’s cool to pretend you read Poe and cut yourself in between trips to Trader Joe’s in your mom’s SUV. It’s ass-lancing to associate the beauty and eloquence of Burton’s production with the trivial fads of an identity-less generation, but most of the magic that the indie gem had is buried in black eye-liner and angsty, poorly written poetry.

Under #2: An American Tail (1986)


Anyone that has seen this movie will most likely reflect on how good it was. But nostalgia, that which often enhances those films of our youth, dumbs this one down to just another decent cartoon. You remember laughing when the child actor’s voice cracks as he tries to sing “Somewhere Out There,” and how lame it was that Fievel and his family always passed each other by THAT much. You forget the political commentary that surrounded the retelling of the forced assimilation that new immigrants to America went through. You have to be retold of how tearjerking it was to hear the little mouse say “pah-puh” after failing to find his father in the New York fog. And you have to stumble across clips on Youtube to remind you how good the animation was for its time. It was by no means a perfect film, often succumbing to moments lamer than those in Ferngully, but the greatest qualities of this picture are lost as lesser movies are escalated to the point of perfection. It’s the unfairness of memory, tossed in a bargain bin.

Over #1: Bambi (1942)


This was the first movie I ever saw, and even the newness of cinema and the excitement of a child couldn’t make this movie entertaining. What do you actually remember from this movie? I’ll tell you, four phrases: “BURD!” ”You can call me flower…if you want to,” “your mother can’t be with you anymore,” and “twitterpaited.” When you fill in the blanks, you realize how lethargic this flick was. Lacking the Miyazaki ability to make the simple beautiful, the film totters along with no definition, never going anywhere and never gaining any substance. It doesn’t have the musical beauty of Fantasia’s quieter numbers, nor does it have the effortless emotion of The Fox and the Hound. And, if what a middle-aged furry tells me is true, it turned all who grew up watching it against hunting so deeply that Bambi’s mom is a stronger pacifist symbol than Gandhi or Mother Theresa. Even the sexual innuendos that Disney animators are infamous for weren’t given the insidious efforts they are now, leaving all sorts of queer subtext lazily bare for repeat viewers. Thumper is a masturbation reference, who constantly winds up under Bambi’s ass during their ice-skating montage, and the owl bobs his neck erotically when talking about mating … bloody hell! Nostalgia has made this film more gilded than Bush Jr.’s first inauguration speech, and it effortlessly steps atop its place as the most overrated animated film of all time.

Under #1: The Prince of Egypt (1998)


Powerful soundtrack, history-drenched animation, and some of the strongest voice acting ever recorded, Dreamwork’s “The Prince of Egypt” just happens to be about Moses. It takes a lot for a person who laughs at the Christian doctrine to connect with one of their most lauded fables, but storytelling without preaching goes a long way. Keeping the plot character-centric rather than a philosophical examination lets the story itself take center stage, and proves to be both epic and personal. The most negative criticism the film received was using the “child’s medium” of animation to convey such a serious story. It told one of faith in a time when all “cartoons” aspired to do was make kids laugh, inject some adult humor for parents, and cash in. Character design references Egyptian hieroglyphics with its angled limbs and long faces, but also takes leaves from the older African American style, far beyond the skin pigment. All characters move with weight and reactions CG films have yet to correctly capture. The special effects were great for the time, but it’s the soundtrack, with its bare emotion and grand orchestral themes, that makes the film a masterpiece. Most remember this movie as a hackneyed religious re-telling of no special value, despite each frame’s fine details. The title doesn’t even suffice at times, “the animated Moses movie” usually required to job minds. The film was on the cusp of animation style conversion, released by a company that flopped its last few animated movies, and it made Moses black, so it’s not a surprise that, though the film was a hit when it came out, it was quickly forgotten, occupying the dark void between the “good old days” of 2-D animation and the barrage of 3-D animation today. It takes a repeat viewing with the sound turned up to relive how emotionally affecting the tale is. And for that, it’s the most underrated animated film of all time.

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The product of a souped-up video editing program and humor, spanning from sharp sarcasm to goofy randomness, Snow White Remix is a 12-part personal project I did myself and uploaded on YouTube, which netted favorable reviews, despite fears that I may have violated many a childhood (but no worse than what Hollywood does).

Now, I'm playing for a tougher audience; an audience that cares about their memories of youth, but no matter. Part of being a writer/creator of anything is having people on one side saying "You rule!" while the other side says, "You suck!"

 I present parts one to four of this piece to be watched and critiqued (just copy and paste to the address bar if you can't click on it):

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I'm gonna say this right away so no one gets confused: This is not a review of the movie. If you wanna know what I think of this film, I'll sum it up like this -- I like it.

 

This is gonna be a real short blog. Normally, I say that before I start typing and it ends up over a thousand words, but I mean it this time. Really!

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Anime has a lot of negatives within its many genres, subgenres and traditions and some of these are generally not even a fault of its own.

Take for example, dubtitiling. This is when an anime distributor gets lazy and releases a DVD with English and Japanese audio, but only releases subtitles for the English sound track. This means you have to watch the Japanese dub with the subtitles for the English dub, which means there's sections with dialogue and no subtitles, subtitles with no dialogue, American slang that looks out of place and in some series gratuitous swearing that wasn't present in the original. All these combined render the Japanese dub unwatchable for regular watchers of anime, and ultimately ruin the purchase if they didn't like the English dub. Manga entertainment released the entire second season of Naruto with dubtitles, and thus I missed a good chunk of the story.

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6.23.08

 

Yo,

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I started a response to The Other Guy's blog entry, but it was getting too long. I'll just put my thoughts on it in here.

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Yeah, the first true Disney classic. Understandable

2. Pinocchio - This isn't surprising, either.

3. Bambi - Hell yeah. I'm still in awe of some of the work in this movie given when it was made and the process. I was truly pissed when they started fucking with this work of art in DVD releases. Leave it the fuck alone, I'll stick with the VHS version. It doesn't need to be revamped and digitally altered.

4. The Lion King - This is the main reason I started writing a response. I like the Lion King, but it's just so easy to make fun of it. It's supposed to be Disney's first completely original film, but it's so far from original.

"We'll take Kimba in his exact form and call him Simba. Wait, don't make him white! We'll make it more realistic. Then we'll take Bambi's main plot points and throw it in there, but change everything to a jungle setting instead of a forest. Let's go down the list: Open with the birth of the prince of the fore... jungle? Check. Parent that spent the most time with him is murdered? Check. Fast forward to early adulthood and he's reunited with childhood flame? Check. Struggle with a big fire and a fight scene at the end? Check. Repeat the circle with the main character acting as the king and the love interest having his children to finish movie off? Check. Throw in some Hamlet and we'll call it done."

I know that The Lion King is very different from Kimba: The White Lion, but some similarities are just too big to ignore.

5. Fantasia - This was mind-blowing. I saw this as a kid and thought it was extremely cool, but a little boring. In response to The Other Guy, it wasn't Disney's only attempt at more mature art film. There's a short film called Destino that I think any fan of Fantasia should check out. It was supposed to be a collaboration between Walt and Dali, but it wasn't finished until recent years. Still, the animators did a good job and some of the scenes are breath-taking.

6. Toy Story - It's ground-breaking, so I get it.

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So the AFI has finally hit rock bottom and done a Top 10 list of ... uhhh... Top 10 Lists. For nostalgia's sake, the animated section jumps out to me. So here's a few thoughts on their picks...

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves -- this is the least surprising of them all. It's inclusion on the list is a given, and its place at #1 is understandable (in that I understand the AFI's reasoning for it, even if I wouldn't put it in the first slot). The animated film genre, as a whole, owes everything to this movie. It was the first of its kind, won a special Oscar (the only one Walt would get for an animated movie), and pretty much set the standard for every Disney movie since. Love it or hate it, this is the Eve to the animated movie.

2. Pinnochio -- I generally don't understand this decision. I discussed it with That Guy and he noted that he at least liked it because it got away with a lot of weird shit that you just can't get away with nowadays (kids smoking cigars and drinking, white slavery, kidnapping, children turning into donkeys, child-death). I also accept the fact that it's become a cultural Disney icon (who can think of Disney without that damn cricket belting out When You Wish Upon a Star?), and set up the Disney philosophy: dream hard enough and your dreams will come true (which we all know is COUGH COUGH bullshit! COUGH). But does that make it the best or simply the most well known?

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Edit: Wow, am I an idiot. XD Thanks to x33 for the info, and man, I can't believe I copy and pasted TWICE. Yeah, bear with me as I learn all this. :P

 Last night, the American Film Institute had their annual list celebrating some aspect of movies. You know the routine; top movies, top romances, top stars, top thrillers, top quotes. Last night, they had something different; selecting the top ten movies across ten different genres (frankly, I think they're running out of ideas). These were animation (although the great Brad Bird, and I agree with him, says animation is an ART FORM and not a GENRE), fantasy, sci-fi, sports, western, gangster, mystery, romantic comedies, courtroom drama, and epic. This is bit of a breakdown on each catagory, and what was right and wrong. Please feel free to diss me all you want for anything you disagree with, as I'm gonna be doing a bit of dissing all my own. :P Seriously, keep the comments nice and to the point.

ANIMATION: For starters, completely dominated by Disney, but considering they've held the monopoly for the last 70 years it's kind of hard to blame the AFI here, and as it's purely American, anything from Japan or Europe is out of the question. But what about a nod to some of the independent, subversive animators out there? Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth, Bill Plymton, Richard Williams? And why not Nightmare Before Christmas (Disney, still, but so very much unlike anything Disney has ever done)? Why not Iron Giant? Or heck, if you want to use an old, old movie, why not the Fleischer Studios Gulliver Travels? Aside from Shrek, a safe bunch of kid friendly choices. Hell, they studiously avoided the one truly most groundbreaking animated film of all time - South Park.

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Some fairy tales weren't originally written to entertain children before they went to bed. No, some were written to scare the shit out of kids so they would never even consider misbehaving. Others simply weren't for kids at all. I knew a few of them by word of mouth, and I decided to do some research and find out what I could dig up on more. As it turns out, sometimes the princess isn't saved at the end after all. Sometimes she's still saved, but she goes through even worse shit afterwards. Some of these are still pretty tame, some aren't. Regardless, I think these are the top 10 classic fairy tales that were orginally disturbing:

 

 

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