(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
Unshaved Mouse?
Yes? Who are you?
I’m Court Appointed Attorney Antarctica. I’m to represent you at your trial.
Give it to me straight. What are my chances?
Don’t worry about it. I actually think we’ve got a very strong case.
Really?
Sure. See, Comrade Crow may have taken over but it’s still your blog. And the only way he can change the name of the blog is if he can prove you’ve failed in your duty as a Disney reviewer.
Wow! That’s great! He’ll never be able to prove that!
Just relax. I’ll have you out of here before my icecaps melt.
This is a lawyer!
All rise for the Honourable Judge Claude Frollo!
Has the prosecution prepared a statement?
Indeed, your honour. Comrades! For too long we have languished under the yoke of this detestable rodent!
UP YOURS CROW!
He claims to be a reviewer of Disney movies, and yet not one week ago he devoted an entire post to non-Disney animated films!
Your honour, my client has repeatedly proven his loyalty to the Disney canon. If this is the best the prosecution can do I feel sorry for them.
His views on Disney movies have frequently been contrarian, laughable, or just plain idiotic!
… Swanpride?
Objection, your honour, who here DOESN’T hate Aristocats?
Sustained.
Very well, I shall prove the Unshaved Mouse is unfit to review Disney movies. Mouse, tell the court which do you prefer; Fantasia…or Fantasia 2000!?
Oh. Well, on balance I’d say I probably prefer Fantasia 2000.
…
Your Honour, I cannot in good conscience defend my client. I urge you to find him guilty.
Wait what?!
I recommend death by fire ants. Kill this sick freak!
Where did you get your law degree?!
WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR SOUL!?
Okay, yes. It’s not a popular opinion but let me explain why. And then I will accept the court’s judgment. Agreed?
The court accedes.
Very well.
NO! KILL HIM NOW!
I just came to this blog because I was told there were Disney reviews here and I have no fucking idea what all this bullshit is.
New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.It’s right up there at the top.
So a few months back I let slip that Hunchback of Notre Dame is my personal favourite Disney movie. But did you know that there are animated movies out there that weren’t created by Disney? My hand to God, it’s true. In fact, there are so many that I was actually able to throw together a list of my favourite non-Disney animated movies. Understand, I make no claim that these are the best non-Disney animated movies, just that they are the ones that have wormed their way into my tiny, blackened little mouse heart.
Gay Pur-ee
# 10 Gay Purr-ee, 1962, UPA
UPA are very much an also-ran in the history of American animation. They had the misfortune of trying to compete in the realm of feature length animation against Disney, and in the realm of theatrical shorts against Warner Bros. Also their most successful character was Mr Magoo.
Ha! He’s BLIND! Oh that is too fucking funny!
UPA, never able to compete with Disney in terms of money and animation quality, pioneered the technique of limited animation. But whereas later studios (cough, cough Hanna Barbera cough cough) would use this technique to flood the airwaves with cheap, awful, awful, lousy, just the worst cartoons, UPA deserve respect for turning limitation into a virtue. UPA took a minimalist and very visually striking approach to their animation, and that’s probably exemplified best here in this movie, one of only two full length theatrical animations the studio produced. The story is pretty simple. Mewsette, a naïve white farm cat, grows bored of her life on an idyllic Provencal farm and leaves for the glamour of 1890s Paris. There she falls into the clutches of the diabolical Meowrice who pretends to school her for high society whilst secretly grooming her as a mail-order bride (really). Fortunately she’s rescued by her loyal, spurned boyfriend Jean-Tom, and they all live happily ever after. Yeah, not exactly Tolstoy. So, why do I love this movie? Well, as I said, UPA were very good at compensating for their less than stellar animation by being visually striking. Take a look at this scene, where the animators depict Mewestte in the style of the great painters of the period.
Another point in its favour is some really strong musical talent. Judy Garland voices Mewsette and was able to rope Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg into the project as songwriters. You probably haven’t heard of them. They just wrote the songs for some obscure little thing called The Wizard of Oz. Real nobodies. I don’t want to oversell it, it’s not really a great movie. But there are moments where it rises to greatness.
***
#9 Twice Upon a Time, 1983, Korty Films, Lucasfilm
Where to start with this one? TUAT is probably the most “cult” film on this list. It looks like nothing else ever made. The dialogue is mostly off the cuff jibber-jabber by a cast of improvisational comedians. There are around three different versions, and if you try to show the original theatrical version then producer John Korty will most likely sue you. The plot is…there’s a dog who’s actually every animal and a Charlie Chaplin lookalike and they have to go into the real world to stop the king of nightmares from freezing time…or something…it’s really, really weird but also hilarious and kinda has to be seen for yourself.
***
#8 Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004, Studio Ghibli
Ohhh…I’m going to catch hell for this one. Yes, there is only one Studio Ghibli film on this list and it’s this one. And I know what you’re wondering; Why this and not Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies or Tales from Earthsea? (Okay, you’re not wondering that last one). Honestly, I can’t really say. Most of Miyazaki’s films are like a gorgeous toyshop that everyone is allowed into except me. I’m like the starving urchin with his nose pressed up against the window, able to appreciate the beauty of what he’s seeing but just not able to get that incredible emotional high that his movies seem to instill in other people. Moving Castle was the first Miyazaki movie to make me feel like a Miyazaki movie is supposed to make everyone feel, where I was finally allowed into the toy shop to play. Also it has Christian Bale doing the Batman voice and that never gets old.
***
#7
The Secret of Kells, 2009, Cartoon Saloon
A little national bias here, maybe, but I like to think that even if this wasn’t a hometown success story I’d still love this movie. Tom Moore and his Cartoon Saloon studio set out to make a “European Miyazaki”, drawing on Irish history, Celtic mythology and monastic art to create something that looks and feels unlike anything being made either in the States or Japan. Its also benefits from some A-grade Irish acting talent (Brendan Gleeson and Saoirse Ronan to name a few) and a surprisingly nuanced examination on the nature of faith, as both something limiting and isolating and as something joyous and inspiring. And it’s final scene, where the ancient artwork of the book of Kells is fully rendered in animation has to be seen to be believed.
***
#6
Kung Fu Panda, 2008, Dreamworks
My natural Disney-snob instincts notwithstanding, I will give Dreamworks their props when I feel props are due. And this one is definitely prop-worthy. It’s really no great mystery as to why this movie works; it’s a Kung Fu animated comedy with amazing Kung Fu, great animation (seriously, Dreamworks upped their game so hard with this one) and it’s funny as hell. It succeeds at everything it sets out to do. Just, a great, fun flick. Also, saying “skidoosh” will cure whatever ails ya.
Toy Story 3 is the worst reviewed of the trilogy, only garnering a miserable 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I respect this movie more than any other in the Pixar canon because I know as a writer the absolute hardest part of the trade is endings. Finding a way to cap a story in a way that is satisfying unexpected and earned is the greatest challenge any writer has to face and more often than not we fail. Toy Story 3 manages the almost unprecedented feat of being a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy (seriously, think about it. Sequels that are better than the original are fairly common but how often does a threequel manage to be as good as the first two?). But more impressively, this movie takes its characters and the audience about as low and as dark a place as you can conceive, to the very lip of the inferno itself. Towards the end, I was so swept up and invested in these characters and so convinced of their peril that I actually thought Pixar was going to do it. I thought the movie would end with the toys holding hands, one last gesture of love and solidarity in the face of pitiless oblivion, and then they’d be gone.
Now.
Considering that we actually go from that to one of the happiest most, satisfying endings I can remember seeing and that it in no way feels like a cheat or a cop out? That, my friends, is truly masterful filmmaking.
***
#3
Batman: Under the Red Hood, 2010, Warner Bros Animation
Ooookay. So, this will take some explaining. Alright, keep in mind this is a list of my personal favourites, I’m not going to make the case that this movie is better than Toy Story 3. And yes, I am aware that I have nominated a Batman animated film as one of my favourite movies and it doesn’t even have Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. Yes. I chose this over Mask of the Phantasm. Mock me all you want but I shall be heard. I have chosen this movie not simply because I think it’s a great Batman story, but because right after endings, twists are the next hardest thing to do well as a writer and this movie has one of the best twists I have ever seen. Seriously, if I ever teach a writing course, I will use this movie as a text on how you do a twist right. So let me set the table, and it goes without saying after here be spoilers.
The movie begins several years in the past, with Batman racing to save Robin (Jason Todd) who’s been caputred by the Joker. So far, so predictable. The trick is, this time he fails. Joker beats Robin to death with a crowbar and then blows him up because Mr. J is not known for understatement. Years later, a new criminal appears on the scene called the Red Hood, who starts systematically wiping out the Gotham criminal underworld. Batman methodically puts the pieces together and realises that the Red Hood is none other Jason himself, back from the dead (superhero heaven has no pearly gates, only revolving doors). Batman becomes consumed with guilt, convinced that Jason has come to enact vengence on him for letting him die. He finally confronts him in an abandoned warehouse and tells Jason that he’s sorry…and then this happens.
Okay, so if you couldn’t watch the video let me sum up. Jason tells Batman that he forgave him a long time ago and that he knows he did everything he could to save him. What he’s pissed about, however, is that Batman didn’t kill the Joker because of it. The Batman comics have a very set routine. Every so often the Joker escapes from Arkham asylum, hatches a new scheme, kills a bunch of people, gets stopped by Batman, gets locked up, rinse lather repeat pretty much every few years since the forties. And of course after reading enough Batman comics you’ll find yourself screaming “For the love of God JUST KILL THE BASTARD!”. Jason essentially becomes the personification of the frustration here. Why don’t you just kill him. And finally, we get an answer that actually makes sense. Because Batman knows that if he were ever to lost control like that, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Which…kind of implies that he’s one bad day away from a killing spree and probably not the best person to be engaging in a life of vigilantism but, fuck it, it makes sense.
So why does this twist work? Well, on a technical level it’s nearly flawless, it makes sense given everything we’ve seen up until now, and doesn’t require any of the players to act out of character. It doesn’t contradict the facts as we know them. But at the same time, it’s completely unexpected because at no point are we led to believe that there is a twist (unless it’s that the Red Hood is Jason and we find that out fairly early on). Because Batman assumes that Jason’s motive is revenge, because he views everything through the prism of his own guilt, we do too. Batman is such a a hyper-competent, all knowing hero that we never stop to consider that maybe he’s wrong. And lastly, it works because it’s hugely emotionally satisfying. The desire for forgiveness is one of the most powerful emotions there is. When Jason tells Batman that he’s forgiven him….my feels, as the say on Tumblr.
***
#2
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 1988 , Toucstone Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
I trust I don’t have to justify this one? Great casting, gorgeous animation and a hilarious whip-smart script from an age when movies could be entertaining and still be about something (and you could ride the trolley for a nickel and young people showed you respect dagnabbit). Twenty five years later and the live-action-animation integration in this film has still to be bettered. And of course, the scariest villain that was ever snuck into a PG movie. Do you remember Judge Doom? When he killed all hope you ever had of a good night’s sleep? And he used to TALK! LIKE!!! THIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS?????!
ULTIMATE BAHIA!
***
#1
A Scanner Darkly, 2006, Thousand Words
Keanu Reeves plays “Fred”, a narcotics agent who’s been observing a drug dealer named Bob Arctor and his circle of friends to trace where they’re getting their supply of Substance D, an insanely potent drug that’s going through the American population like a dose of the salts. Trouble is, Fred has become so messed up from using D that he doesn’t realise that he actually is Bob Arctor. This was Robert Linklater’s second rotoscoped film after Waking Life and it’s probably the greatest adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel ever filmed, and yes, I’m including Blade Runner in that. The rotoscoping is a trippy, alienating effect that really puts you into Fred’s queasy, shifting worldview. But it’s not just a head trip, this is a beautiful, deeply compassionate film that gives a sympathetic and very credible portrayal of the horrors of drug abuse, no mean feat considering the drug in question is fictional. It also helps that many of the cast like Robert Downey Jnr and Winona Ryder know whereof they speak. And it’s not all misery either. The movie isn’t afraid to wring some very, very funny comedic mileage out of the paranoia that starts to affect Bob and his friends.
But the laughs don’t last long. From the moment the movie begins we know this won’t end well. A Scanner Darkly is a movie that takes place after the last battle has been lost. There is no more freedom, no more choice. There are only the corporations that will get you hooked. If not on D, it’ll be something else. At one point Bob asks his girlfriend “are you an addict?” and she just replies “We all are”. And yet, even in hopelessness, this movie finds beauty. And maybe that’s enough to get by.
“This has been a story about people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. I loved them all. Here is a list, to whom I dedicate my love:
To Gaylene, deceased
To Ray, deceased
To Francy, permanent psychosis
To Kathy, permanent brain damage
To Jim, deceased
To Val, massive permanent brain damage
To Nancy, permanent psychosis
To Joanne, permanent brain damage
To Maren, deceased
To Nick, deceased
To Terry, deceased
To Dennis, deceased
To Phil, permanent pancreatic damage
To Sue, permanent vascular damage
To Jerri, permanent psychosis and vascular damage …and so forth In memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; There are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The “enemy” was their mistake in playing. Let them play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.”
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
So as I sit here in my small, dank COMFORTABLY APPOINTED DISSIDENT CONTAINMENT RECEPTACLE, forced to eat NOURISHING RATIONS FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL and being brutally beaten about the head with THE BRILLIANT INTELLECTUAL REVELATIONS OF MARXIST THOUGHT I’ve had time to think. Mostly, or course, I’ve been darkly plotting what I’m going to do to that BENEVOLENT FATHER OF THE PEOPLE COMRADE CROW, ALL HAIL CROW! once I NEVER ESCAPE. But I’ve also been thinking about Tarzan. What happened to Tarzan? Why is it that no one seems to remember this movie? If I walk into a room and randomly sing the first few lines of “Hakuna Matata” or “Part of Your World” chances are that the whole room will join me for the chorus. “Two Worlds”? Crickets.
Why did this movie leave so little trace on pop culture? Well, it wasn’t really that popular when it came out, right? Wrong. This thing opened at Number 1 and outgrossed Mulan, which had already been seen as a major return to form for Disney. And it’s not like the critics were leery of it either, this thing got crazy good reviews: 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. So why has this movie, like me, been largely forgotten? Part of the problem, I think, is that by the turn of the millennium Disney had become a victim of its own success. In America, from the late nineteen thirties to the mid nineties Disney was pretty much the only studio making top-tier feature length animations. Sure, challengers would occasionally arise (the Fleischers in the thirties and forties, UPA and Hanna-Barbera in the sixties) but for most of that half century the only studio willing to risk the massive investment of time and money that is involved in making a feature length cartoon was the mo’fuckin House of Mouse. And don’t forget, most of the movies that we’ve covered on this blog were not all that successful financially. Even the really big hits like Sleeping Beauty cost so much that their massive box office takes were a Pyrrhic victory. Disney made most of their money in merchandising and the theme parks, which meant that smaller studios that didn’t have the luxury of owning theme park were content to leave the feature length animation pastures to Disney. But then, something happened. With the advent of new computer technologies, producing a full length animated feature went from being impossibly expensive and prohibitively time consuming to merely hugely expensive and massively time consuming. Disney capitalised on this, and in one the whitest hot streaks in movie studio history, ushered in the Renaissance. These movies were huge, some of the most successful of all time. Suddenly what had previously been seen as a white elephant was now one of the most profitable genres in the business. And why was that?
Disney created a market where animated features could be hugely successful and now they had to contend with a host of rivals, some of them mighty intimidating. There was Pixar of course, who released Toy Story 2 the same year as Tarzan, and were now well on their way to being one of the most critically lauded studios in cinema history. And then there was Dreamworks, run by former Disney boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose ruthlessly commercial movie making would produce three of the biggest grossing films of all time. And that’s not to mention the dozens of smaller rivals that sprang up in the wake of Disney’s early nineties successes. Heck, it’s gotten to the stage where it seems like anyone can release a full length animation. Even these idiots!
And I this is why I think Tarzan doesn’t stick in people’s memory. Not because it isn’t an awesome movie (it is) but because it was released in a time when Disney were no longer kings in their field. Pixar had taken the crown of critical darling, DreamWorks the crown of commercial money-making animation powerhouse (or they would with the release of Shrek a few years later). Tarzan came at the tail end of the Renaissance, overlapping with the beginning of Pixar’s reign and it just got lost in the folds. So let’s take a look at this thing, before the guards come and shackle me GENTLY to the wall and begin PLAYTIME WITH FRIENDLY DOGS who will brutally LICK my FACE while a DEDICATED SERVANT OF THE GLORIOUS REGIME OF COMRADE CROW, HAIL CROW! shoves THE GLORIOUS TRUTH OF THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION up my OUTDATED BOURGEOIS WORLDVIEW. This will probably be my last review. And God help me, I’m writing it on toilet paper.
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
Hello internet! Man, I don’t know about you but I’m back, feeling well rested and ready to review some goddamn Disney movies! Who’s…
…with…
…me…?
Santa Claus, Lex Luthor and Asian Nixon? But they’re mortal enemies!
Okay, is it just me or has the blog gotten…sorta…Communisty since I’ve been gone?
Comrade Mouse, how’s it hangin’ dawg?
Gangsta Asia?! What’s been going on around here?! Why does my blog look like May Day in Red Square?
I’m now Comrade Gangsta Asia. And your blog is the people’s blog now thanks to the glorious socialist revolution we had in your absence. Um…for rizzle.
Alright look, you can be a communist character or a gangsta character but not both, you’re not fleshed out enough to support two defining traits.
Yeah, this is really hard.
Second, who staged a communist uprising on my…why do I even need to finish that sentence?
Privyet, Mouse.
Oh heeey Comrade Crow. Look, I know I haven’t been featuring you much on the blog in the last…
Silence! As a remnant of the old regime you are considered an enemy of the blog. Take him away!
Dammit. See, this is why you have to be careful of offending communists. They tend to hold a grudge. Disney learned this the hard way when they financed Kundun, a biopic of the current Dalai Lama that kinda portrays China in a negative light. You know, like Ike always gets the short end of the stick in movies about the life of Tina Turner. So anyway, China heard that Disney had been talkin’ smack and didn’t think that China would hear it.
Yes, Hollaback Girl is about Chinese international relations. That songs has layers, man.
Suddenly, Disney found itself frozen out of what was rapidly becoming the most lucrative movie market on the planet. China only allows a limited number of Western films to be screened there each year and if you think Disney isn’t willing to bend over so far that its lips actually touch its own anus just to get a sniff of a chance of a shot of that market…well, you haven’t really been paying attention.
“Hello, Fan Bingbing? I’m just calling to let you know that China’s strength and prowess fills me with joy and contentment.”
“But of course, Mr Stark. China is well aware of its greatness. NOW DANCE!”
But back in 1997, Disney decided on a slightly more dignified way of currying favour. Mulan originally was going to be a short, straight to video animation called China Doll, about a poor Chinese girl who’s rescued by an Englishman and taken to live happily every after in the West. And that, from the offensive title to the paternalistic premise, pretty much sounds like the worst fucking thing ever. It was Robert D. San Souci, the children’s author and sometime Disney consultant, who suggested instead making a movie version of the Ballad of Hua Mulan (not to be confused with the Ode to Fa Mulan). You can read the poem here, it’s quite short and also pretty amazing. It’s a 1500 year old poem that simply and unabashedly makes the case for gender equality, depicting a young girl who goes off to fight a twelve year military campaign in place of her aged father, wins honour and prestige and returns home at last, revealing to her astounded comrades that she was a woman the whole time. So, we have a Disney movie that not only is going to delving into depictions of a non-European culture, but also dealing with the issue of feminism. Race and gender? Well surely this can’t go wrong?
Well…no. Actually. It didn’t.
You know, I’ve been doing this a while now and if I’ve learned one thing it’s this: Every movie has its defenders. No matter how little I, or the general consensus, rate any Disney movie, there will always be someone to fight its corner. There are Pocahontasfans, Black Cauldron fans, Aristocats fans and even Three Caballerosfans. Well, maybe “fans” is not the right word for that last one.
“Almighty Rooster, hear our prayer.”
Conversely, on the other end of the scale, no matter how highly a Disney movie is ranked and rated and praised, there will always be someone who doesn’t think it’s all that. I know people who don’t likeLion King, Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Hunchback…hell there are some sick fucks who don’t like Beauty and the Beast! But…not for this one. Honestly, I have never met or spoken to a single Disney fan who does not absolutely adore Mulan. Do I agree?
Fuck yeah I agree!
Sorry, you may have wanted me to string you along until the end of the review before revealing my opinion of this movie but…really? The fact that I composed a goddamn ode to the main character didn’t tip you off? Yeah, I love this movie, and I love Mulan herself, without a doubt the most badass character in the Disney canon. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the story of Mulan, or, as I like to call her; The Death Who Walks.
Yeah, I’ve been getting this question a lot (oddly enough, always with the same mocking supervillain laughter). So, will I be reviewing Pixar’s Disney’s You Take It! No, You Take IT! Okay fine Disney’s Planes. Hmmm…tough one. Will I be reviewing the tossed off, cash-in, almost direct-to-DVD spinoff to what is, without question, one of my least favourite animated movies of all time?
And while that is soooooo tempting, I think we’re all forgetting the rules. Remember, back when I embarked on this little saga all the way back in the mists of prehistory? Your grasp of archaic, 2012-era English may be a little rusty so let me sum up; No live action films, no straight to DVD movies and no Pixar films. Only the canon classics.
So, can’t. Love to. But can’t.
Also, that movie is not getting my money. Not when there’s less morally questionable enterprises to be giving my money to. Like blood diamond smuggling cartels. Or NAMBLA.
The 25 Things the Unshaved Mouse would do before reviewing Planes.
1) Desecrate a stained glass window.
2) French kiss a skunk.
3) Skunk kiss a Frenchman. (Don’t google it)
4) Act disrespectfully to a lady.
5) Kick a dog that wasn’t asking for it in some way.
6) Take a ball to the groin.
7) Take a groin to the balls.
8) Eat broken glass.
9) Eat Philip Glass.
10) Eat broken Philip Glass after a horrific plane crash where he broke every bone in his body and I had to eat him to survive and also his body was full of broken glass from the crash.
11) Get in a plane with Philip Glass.
12) Hire The Coachman as a babysitter.
13) Puppets. Just…puppets.
14) Stop using the phrase “Screw off”.
15) Say “Candyman” five times in a mirror while watching the video from The Ring while simultaneously having sex with Pinhead’s wife.
16) Marathon Pocahontas, Aristocats, Black Cauldron and Three Caballeros in one sitting.
17) Defenestrate a monk.
18) Tell local ex-IRA hardman Kneecaps “They call me Kneecaps because of all the kneecaps I’ve smashed” Malone that he looks “kind of English” today.
19) Michael Eisner was right. Traditional animation is no longer viable and it’s time for us all to just accept that CGI is the superior technique. Is a thing I would rather say than review Planes.
20) Review Planes. Yes, you read that right. I hate it so much I would rather review Planes than review Planes.
21) Climb into Rush Limbaugh’s house in the middle of the night and, while he sleeps, tuck myself in between two layers of flab, spending the night cocooned within him, slowly soaking in his sweat and odour.
22) Waxing of the barse.
23) Pistol whip a ferret.
24) Let you, my loyal readers, down in any way.
25) Unless not letting you down means reviewing Planes, in which case you can screw off.
In conclusion, no. I will most likely not be reviewing Planes. I will however, be reviewing Mulan, so I look forward to seeing you on the 5th of September.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get antsy waiting for the fifth to roll around so here is something I threw together with my friend, the incredibly talented Jeda DeBrí and my equally talented wife Aoife O’Donoghue. Yes, we do video here now! Like a real internet!
Okay, so now that I’ve lured you back to the blog I have to confess an ulterior motive. Let’s be honest with ourselves here. There’s no use fighting it. You feel it. I feel it. There’s something between us. Always has been. But I’ve been hurt so bad before. I just don’t know if I can trust someone again, to let my barriers down and let a community of internet commenters into my heart. What’s that you say? How can you prove your love?
Well…there is one thing, but…
No. I could never ask you.
What’s that? You insist?
Well…
So you remember I told you that I’d been nominated for the Blog Awards Ireland 2013?
Oh dear oh dear, did I leave this old thing lying around here again?
Well it turns out that I’ve also been nominated for Best Blog Post. (Twice technically, theSong of the South and Black Cauldon reviews both got nommed.) This one works a little differently from the other categories. You vote for your choice (you can vote once a week) and then at the end of the week the 5 posts with the fewest votes get eliminated. This goes on every week until there are only ten left, and the winner will be announced at the Blog Awards on 12th October.
So please. If you have a moment, pop over and vote here for Song of the South for Best Blog post. (I don’t want to split the vote, and honestly, the SOS review is the one I’m more proud of.) So go, exercise your democratic right and vote. Otherwise the terrorists win. By which I mean the other bloggers. Who are terrorists. Nah. I’m kidding. They’re great, it’s all in good fun and may the best man win. They’re not terrorists.*
Thanks guys.
*No, seriously. They hate our freedom. It’s us or them.
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
***
Pff. Hercules. What a poser. You want to talk about impossible labours? Try writing a comedic review about a comedy while looking after a sick baby, fighting off a stomach bug, grappling with unreliable internet connection and only three days to write the review because you’re going on holiday. Now there’s a challenge. Especially if it’s a good comedy. And I’ll admit, this is a funny movie. Maybe it’s just because it comes right after three of the most serious movies in the canon (yeah, Lion Kingis light-hearted in places but nothing that has that death scene gets to call itself jovial) but fair is fair, it goes for the yuks and it gets them more often than not.
Production started in 1994 under the directorship of Ron Clements and John Musker, the directing team behind The Little Mermaidand Aladdin, the movie it most closely resembles. In fact, if I had to describe Hercules it would be, “Aladdin, but more.” Actually no, it would be “Aladdin, but too much.” Hercules sees Aladdin’s celebrity voice actors, heavy emphasis on comedy, deliberate anachronisms and pop culture references and raises the stakes like a wild-eyed gambler in a saloon who won’t listen to his wife pulling at his arm and screaming at him not to bet the farm, Lawence! The end result is that…that…
Aw hell, I can’t hold it in anymore…
ONE YEAR BITCHES!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Sorry, where were we?
Oh right, Hercules. My point is, while Aladdin is overall a very fun and light movie, they still treated the story as something that mattered. You care about Aladdin and Jasmine, and while the genie might seem like a joke dispensing machine, he does actually get some quite affecting character beats.
I’ve been chopping onions, shut up.
Hercules though? The whole thing just comes off as such a lark that it’s kind of hard to give a damn about anything that happens. It’s an easy film to be entertained by. But not really an easy film to care about.
This represents Disney’s first foray into actual mythology rather than fairy tales, literature or legends. And no, a legend and a myth are not the same thing. In fact, let’s do a quick crash course on terminology (please let me do this, this is literally the only time my degree in Folklore has had any, even slightly, practical use).
Okay, so a fairy tale (or as folklorists prefer, a wonder tale) is set in a faraway place, a long time ago. It’s not about a real place, and it’s not about real people. It’s a fictitious tale told purely for enjoyment and usually has fantastical elements and magic and what have you. A legend, while also fictitious, takes place in a real place and time and features real people. So, for example, Washington chopping down his father’s cherry tree is a legend. It never actually happened, but Washington was a real person and it’s set in a specific time and place, Colonial America. Finally, a myth is the remnant of a now extinct religion. Hercules is a myth because both he and Zeus were once genuinely worshipped as gods and the tales featuring them had the weight of religious belief behind them. Myths tend to be taken more seriously than legends or wonder tales and while wonder tales tend to be considered universal (which culture gave rise to Cinderella?) myths remain very closely linked to their native culture. This may explain why this movie is absolutely loathed in Greece, where its, shall we say loose, interpretation of the Hercules stories enraged the Greeks.
Whoah whoah whoah, hold the phone. The Greeks were pissed off about something?
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
***
Hey, you know what I love? Long, angry flame wars. By which I mean, I do not love those. At all. I bring this up because…while I know that I don’t have anything to worry about (the followers of this blog were, after all, recently voted Nicest Commentariat on the Internet)…
There was a whole ceremony and an award presented by Tom Hanks and a crazy party after…did I forget to tell you guys?
…but nonetheless I’m a little nervous going into this review. Hunchback, man. People feel…”strongly” about Hunchback. There are those who will loudly and passionately proclaim this to be the unacknowledged masterpiece of the Renaissance, the best thing Disney ever did. And then there are the Hugo loyalists, who think that the movie is an absolute disgrace to the source material, the perfect case-study for the abominable practice of Disneyfication. And then there are some who don’t have any particular fealty to the source material and just hate it as a movie. My friend Moira, (bracketsandampersandsyoureadnow) has often told me she just finds the whole film to be downright nasty and unpleasant.
So, which camp do I fall into?
Alright, let’s be honest here. This movie has problems. Serious problems that run right to its very core. The source material, The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, quite frankly is not suited to being adapted into a Disney movie. Not because it’s dark, although it is. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Disney can do dark. It just can’t do bleak. Now, full disclosure, I haven’t actually read the novel…
Yeah. That’s right. I didn’t read the 200,000 word 18th century French novel to research my silly little cartoon blog. Scandal.
…but it ends with Frollo being flung from the cathedral by Quasimodo, Esmerelda being hung and Quasimodo mourning beside her body until he slowly starves to death.
Coupled with that, the book is an often scathing critique of religious hypocrisy and extremism…right?
“Hm? Uh…sure, why not?”
And that’s something that Disney is just not cut out for. So we get changes like Frollo being a judge rather than the Arch-Deacon of Notre-Dame which leads to all kinds of plotholes and general silliness. These two forces, the dark source material and the sunny demands of the Disney formula are constantly pulling this movie in different direction and often threaten to tear the whole thing to pieces.
And yet…and yet…
When it works? When the emotional power of the story comes together with the gorgeous visuals, the near flawless animation, some great voice work and an absolutely spine-tinglingly excellent soundtrack by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz?
Guys, when this thing works? It SOARS.
And it’s brave too. I mentioned the laicisation of Frollo (and you know what? Fair enough. Catholic parents shouldn’t have to deal with a Disney movie telling their kids what’s wrong with their faith any more than Aladdin should have a screed on the depiction of women in the Qur’an) but notwithstanding that, this movie goes to some pretty dark places. And in its portrayals of sexual obsession and prejudice it’s remarkably honest and unvarnished. And that’s really Hunchback all over. It’s a weird, misshapen, sometimes ugly thing on the outside. But inside it has such beauty, and heart and courage…it’s kind of like…um…
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
***
“We’d been working it on it for a couple of months and then Jeffrey calls a “breakfast meeting”. And in the meeting, we have the whole crew from Pocahontas and Lion King. And Jeffrey said “Pocahontas is a home run! It’s West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet with American Indians! It’s a smash hit! Lion King on the other hand, it’s kind of an experiment, we don’t really know if people are going to want to see it.””
Rob Minkoff, Co-director of The Lion King.
Guys. You know me. I’m not a hatchet artist. I don’t enjoy tearing movies to pieces. I didn’t start this blog because I wanted to take cheap shots, I did it as a cynical promotional tool to advance my writing career because I love this gorgeous, hilarious, deeply weird gaggle of animated films we call the Disney canon. And I know a lot of you have been looking forward to seeing me feast on this thing’s entrails like a rabid boar but I honestly cannot think of anything more dispiriting to write and unpleasant to read than one long, unending rant.
So…
I’m laying down a few ground rules right from the start. Think of these as handicaps to give this movie a fighting chance so that it doesn’t just turn into a complete bloodbath.
I’m not going to mark this movie down for its inaccurate portrayal of Indians, Native Americans, American Indians, Amerindians, Native Peoples…
These guys.
Not that the movie doesn’t get a lot of things wrong (I have it on good account that it does) but it’s not like I’m an expert so I don’t really feel qualified to call the movie out on its failures in that regard. See, the thing is…it is damn hard to write a portrayal of Those Guys in any medium that doesn’t end up annoying somebody. There are just so many stereotypes and tired tropes floating around that it is almost impossible to write a character that doesn’t fall into at least some of them. (Actually, if there are any Native Americans or people of Native American ancestry reading this I would be very interested to know if there are any portrayals in TV or movies that you feel actually got it right. Let me know in the comments.) I am under no illusions that by deciding to make this movie Disney wasn’t setting itself up for a lose/lose situation.
Having said that, let’s be clear: They FUCKING LOST.
I’m not going to mark this movie down for its historical inaccuracy.
It’s a cartoon. Not a historical document. So I don’t particularly care that Pocahontas is not twelve and John Smith is not a forty year old ginger. I will still mock this movie like the dickens for comedic effect, but it’s not going to have an impact on the final score.
I’m not going to mark this down for failing to address the issues of genocide, forced relocations, slavery et al.
It’s a movie set in 1607. Short of one of the characters getting their hands on a time machine, how can the movie address events that wouldn’t happen decades or even centuries into the future? Granted, it hangs like a big black hanging thing over the entire movie, but that’s more history’s fault than the film’s. Besides. Do you really want to see a Disney movie that gave a realistic depiction of the Jamestown settlement? (Answer: No, no. Not even a little. No.)
I’m laying down these rules because, honestly, if this movie was good? If I cared deeply about the characters? If I was entranced by the story and thought the script was witty and emotionally satisfying? If I loved the art style and didn’t find the songs insufferably smug? None of the above would matter. You think I care that Mulan is set in the wrong dynasty or that Jungle Bookmakes no reference to India’s struggle for independence from British rule? Not a bit. So if it doesn’t matter to me when the movie’s good, why should it matter when the movie’s bad?
Oh yeah. The movie’s bad. Really bad. Like, a failure on all but the most technical level. Technically, it’s fine. The story structure is pretty much text-book. The animation is largely excellent if joyless and devoid of any real inspiration. But this thing is dead inside. It’s like someone killed a Disney movie and staged a macabre puppet show with the body. It’s the worst kind of formula driven, corporate movie making trying to hide its soullessness behind a vague veneer of empty New Agey spirituality. And it’s dumb. It’s really dumb. There are dumb movies, and there are smart movies and the great earth is big and rich enough for both but one thing I cannot stand is a dumb movie that thinks it’s smart.
So. How came we by this travesty?
Being Irish, I know a thing or two about booms and busts and when I read about the giddy optimism that was bubbling through Disney by the mid-nineties I can’t help but feel a little twinge of Celtic Tiger PTSD.
True story: Where I live was right in that thing’s crotch.
Under the guidance of the Katzenberg/Eisner/Disney triumvirate the Disney animation studio had gone from being a financial liability to a money making machine. Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdinand Lion King. One after the other.
“HEY! WHAT ARE WE, INVISIBLE?!”
Four of the biggest animated movies, hell, four of the biggest movies of all time in a six year span. Couple that record box office take with equally record breaking VHS sales and merchandising and you are talking about a billion dollar enterprise. I wouldn’t be surprised if years later it turned out that the real reason Katzenberg left was that Eisner kept cheating during their daily money fights. And, to their credit, Katzenberg and Eisner made sure plenty of that money got to the people who made it all possible. Suddenly, the animators’ parking lot was filling up each day with Bentleys and Jaguars. Generous bonuses were being lavished all around and the animation wing had a brand new state-of-the-art office building built just for them. But there was a cost to all this. Whereas the animation studio that Walt Disney had founded would slowly and methodically work on one film, release it, and then start on the next, Roy Disney had decreed that a new full length animated film would be released every year. As well as working on Pocahontas, the animation studio was finishing off Lion King, prepping for Hunchback of Notre Dame and working on A Goofy Movie and Nightmare Before Christmas. This massive workload resulted in long hours, stress and more than a few ruined marriages. And the toll wasn’t merely psychological either. Watch interviews and footage of the Disney animators of this period and you’ll see a lot of people rubbing their wrists, flexing and unflexing their fingers, squinting…we don’t normally think of artistic fields of endeavour as being physically gruelling but animation can put an absolutely brutal toll on the human body. Then of course there was the tragic death of Frank Wells, a huge psychic shock to the company made worse by the ugly fallout and Katzenberg’s departure from Disney.
It’s not possible to recount why Katzenberg left without getting into a lot of “he said she said” bullshit. From what I can gather Katzenberg’s version of events was that Eisner promised Katzenberg the position vacated by Wells but then withdrew the offer because he was jealous of how Katzenberg was getting all these press accolades for having turned things around at Disney. Eisner, for his part, says that the position was Katzenberg’s for the taking if he’d just waited a while and not been lobbying for it so soon after Wells’ death. Did Katzenberg resign? Was he fired? Don’t know, honestly don’t really care. The point is, halfway through production of Pocahontas Katzenberg had left Disney vowing revenge.
“Fools! I shall destroy them all!”
I think all these factors, the over-work, the shock of Wells’ death, the sheer weight of expectation to keep the gravy train on the tracks and the bad blood caused by Katzenberg’s departure all combined to make Pocahontas a thoroughly miserable experience for the animators to work on. I have no proof of that, maybe it was an endless merry go round of delight, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. There is a sense of joylessness that pervades this thing, like everyone was just gritting their teeth and thinking of the paycheck.
(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)
***
When The Lion King came out in 1994 I was eleven years old, and starting to develop an interest in movies that extended beyond just watching them. I remember reading a lot of the newspaper articles that came out before, during and after its theatrical run (and there were a lot them, I think we sometimes forget that this movie was an almost Jurassic Park level cultural event). One of the things I remember reading about this movie was that it was the first animated Disney movie not to be based on an existing story. That may strike you as surprising, considering that it’s pretty much cemented in everyone’s mind now as “Disney’s adaptation of Hamlet”, and even Disney themselves have pretty much owned that assessment. But the origins of this movie are a lot hazier than that. From what I can gather, Lion King began in the eighties from a conversation between Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy Disney and Peter Schneider (president of Walt Disney Feature Animation) that boiled down to “We should do a movie set in Africa.” “You know what, we should do a movie set in Africa.” From that conversation the movie took a long and often deeply weird journey to the big screen (in some alternate universe, there’s a version of this movie where Scar is a baboon, Rafiki is a cheetah and ABBA provided the music.) So many different theories and suggestions and accusations have been flung at this movie that its true creative origins may never really be known.
Just who is Simba? Hamlet? Moses? Joseph son of Jacob? Is he the young Jeffrey Katzenberg, overcoming his own insecurities and self doubt to become the king of the animation jungle? Is he Roy Disney, the heir trying desperately to escape the titanic shadows of his uncle and father? Is he Jesus?
Keyser Soze? The Third Man? A tin of yams? Kobra Kommander? Barbara Streisand? A previously unknown species of raccoon? Seventh US Vice President John C Calhoun? STOP ME IF I GET IT!!
But the “Lion King as Hamlet” story is the one that’s stuck, and for good reason. I don’t just mean the obvious similarities in plot. Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play, and the one usually proclaimed as being his best. At well over five hours, you will almost never see the entire text performed fully, meaning that every production cuts and trims the play to create a new version that best reflects the artistic vision of the director and cast. In this way, every production of Hamlet is unique. Some will focus on the relationship between Hamlet and his father. Some focus on his love affair with Ophelia, turning the play into a romantic tragedy. Still others will excise almost every other character and focus on Hamlet’s inner turmoil, turning the play into a psychological study. There are as many potential Halmets as there are stars in the sky. This is because the play is about, well, everything.
Shakespeare took a relatively simply story, the Danish revenge tale Amlethus, and within this finite framework staged one man’s contemplation of the entirety of human existence boiled down to the one single, terrifying question embodied in the play’s most famous line. Those six little words that we’ve all heard so often that their true power is often overlooked.
To be. Or not to be.
Is it better to be alive, or dead? To exist or to not. To be something, or to be nothing. It’s the single most important question. It is, in fact, the question that must be answered before any of the others can even be considered.
If Hamlet seeks to ask the first question, Lion King can be said to ask the second. Obviously this is a Disney movie, so the answer to the first question will always be “To Be.” Disney is all about optimism. Hope. Good triumphing over evil, no matter how powerful or malevolent it is and notwithstanding its ability to turn into a gigantic monster at the end of the third act. So once you’ve answered “To be”, what’s the second question? Well it’s the question we all deal with every day; “How do I live my life?” The Lion King is about finding your place in the world, represented in the movie as The Circle of Life, a natural and harmonious order that is only kept in balance when everyone meets their responsibilities to themselves, to the world and to their fellow creatures.
Oh, are you reviewing Kimba the White Lion? Oh wait…
Taran…
TAAAAAARAAAAAAANNN! TAAAAAARAAAAAAANN!
Oh God, are we actually doing this?
Fine.
Yes, this movie has long been accused of being a ripoff of Tezuka Ozamu’s manga and animé Kimba the White Lion. And frankly, I find the entire idea preposterous. Why would Disney, the greatest animation studio in the world, need to steal from a relatively obscure children’s cartoon from the sixties? But fine, let’s see the so called “evidence” for this supposed theft which I am sure is not at all compelling in any way.
Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that someone in Disney who was working on the Lion King was familiar with Kimba the White Lion and snuck that in as a visual reference. And you know what? That’s fine. It’s called “an homage” if you’re feeling arty, or “a shout out”if you’re keeping it real, man. You may call it theft, but film makers do it all the time. The Untouchables recreates the “pram on the steps” scene from Battleship Potemkin but no one’s suggesting that Brian De Palma should write Eisenstein a cheque. Which is good, because Eisenstein is dead and De Palma has been having a pretty bad run lately and probably doesn’t have a lot of cash to spare.
Ozamu totally stole that scene from Warner Bros anyway.
What else ya got? Well, the name surely? Kimba. Simba. I mean, what do they think we’re stupid or something? Disney obviously changed that one letter of the name so we wouldn’t realise that this is a remake of Kimba the White Lion!
BEEP! Wrong answer.
As I’m sure quite a few Disney fans and Swahilis are screaming at the screen right now, “Simba” is Swahili for “lion”. The Disney animators learned quite a few Swahili phrases when they went on a field trip to Africa to research the film, and they ended up working these phrases into the movie. Well…then where the hell did Ozamu get “Kimba” from? Not a clue. TV Tropes offers the theory that Ozamu was going to name the main character Simba but changed it because there was a popular soft drink of the same name, and then goes on to say that that theory has been disproved and that the real reason is “complicated and doesn’t make much sense” and leaves it at that.
Don’t you play coy with me, you little tease.
The ripoff story actually began (as so many problems in this life do) with Matthew Broderick. When originally offered the part, he misheard and thought that they’d said “Kimba”. Being familiar with the old cartoon he then proceeded to run his mouth off saying that he was doing a remake of Kimba the White Lion . He later said: “I kept telling everybody I was going to play Kimba. I didn’t really know anything about it, but I didn’t really care. I’m kind of an asshole like that. Also, I have the genitalia of a mosquito. I don’t mean that they’re small (although they are). I mean that I actually literally have the reproductive organs of an insect.”
It must be true. You read it on the internet.
The case for ripoff gets steadily weaker after that, ranging from the somewhat plausible (okay, both father lions have a wise baboon friend) to the pretty lame (of course the hyenas are comedy relief villains in both, THEY’RE FUCKING HYENAS) to the just kind of pathetic (Here’s Kimba running! Here is Simba also running!). The only other compelling piece of evidence is a very early piece of concept art depicting a white lion cub playing with a butterfly.
Okay. I am willing to entertain the theory that at some point, very early on in its production they considered making this movie a Kimba remake. But here’s the thing. That’s not the movie they made. If Disney released this movie in its current form as Kimba the White Lion they would have been in contravention of the Trade Descriptions Act. Because, a few similarities here and there notwithstanding they are nothing alike. In the areas where it really matters, characters, plot, dialogue, animation The Lion King is completely its own movie. Its art style is totally different from Kimba (I’d get into Ozamu’s shameless aping of Bambi but he’s not on trial here). And as I said in myAladdin review, what’s in it for Disney? Why would they hide the fact that the movie they made was a Kimba remake if that was actually what they intended? To stiff Ozamu out of the money for the rights? Please. After Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin Disney had more money than your average sultanate. Jeffrey Katzenberg could have gathered up a few million from the back of the couch and paid for the rights. He certainly would have if there was any reasonable chance that Ozamu could have taken Disney to court for IP theft. No. What we have here is one possible visual homage, the coincidences that will inevitably arise between two pieces in the same genre using the same setting and Matthew Broderick running his big stupid mouth off. I find the accused…
unshavedmouse 