Hello there, my friends of the t-internet variety.
How be you be? I be fine.
Well, you may ask, where the hell were you this week?
Eh, I was working on a show for the Fringe Festival. Went well. Took a few days. Whaddayawant, blood?
Anyhow, what did I see this week. OK. What did I see…
“Who?”
“That’s them.”
Townshend adapted the story into a musical, the rights of which got picked up by Warner Bros, which had just swallowed Turner Feature Animation whole, along with most of its animators. One of those animators was a likely lad named Brad Bird, who has worked on some animation in his time and is generally understood to know what he’s doing. Bird was put in charge of adapting Townshend’s musical, which he did by making it…not a musical. ‘Kay. Regardless, when it was screened for test audiences the response was absolutely ecstatic. Unfortunately, Warner Bros had neglected to prepare any kind of marketing campaign for the movie because Quest for Camelot had tanked so badly the year before. This had convinced the excecs that audiences weren’t going to go see animated films that weren’t made by Disney.
Goddamit Warners. Quest for Camelot didn’t tank because audiences wouldn’t take a punt on non-Disney animation. Quest for Camelot tanked because sometimes God pays attention. So of course, released into theatres with zero publicity The Iron Giant crashed harder than a giant alien death machine falling from the sky. In the years since, it has become one of the most critically beloved animated American films of the 1990s. Does it live up to the hype? Let’s take a look.
Jiminy Christmas, hard to believe we’re already halfway through Shortstember. I’ve honestly been having a blast with these reviews and I hope you have too. The downside of focusing on only one short per decade, though, is that we’re now halfway through the twentieth century and I’ve already missed two chances to talk about Bugs Frickin’ Bunny and the Goddamn Looney Tunes and that shit ain’t right. The Looney Tunes series of shorts and its sister series Merry Melodies began in 1930 and 1931 respectively, as a naked attempt by Warner Bros to ride Disney’s coattails in the wake of Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies Shorts. In case you’re wondering, the different between Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies originally was that the ‘Tunes were in black and white and the Melodies were in colour (kinda, Disney had Technicolour exclusively at the time) and certain characters were exclusive to each (Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny both started out in a Merry Melody despite now being the quintessential Looney Tune characters). By the forties though, both series were being done in colour and characters were freely crossing over from one series to the other and there wasn’t really any appreciable difference between the two. So, if I say “Looney Tunes” from here on in, just assume I’m talking about a Warners Brothers short that could have been either a Looney Tune or a Merry Melody. Makes no difference. They’re all beautiful, man.
Hi guys. Iron Man 3 review is going to be a little late this week. Ms Mouse has been a little under the weather and I’ve been busy running back and forth between the abandoned tractor in the meadow bringing her medicine from the local cabal of genetically engineered rats. Hope to have it ready for you by Monday. Thanks for being so understanding, Mouse out.
So, Unshaved Mouse has been shortlisted to the final 13 and I need your help to validate my existence for another year! Below is the button for voting. It’s a one time dealy and voting ends on August 23rd. Thanks guys!
CHAPTER 14: THE PROMISE
“I…” he paused for dramatic effect “have a theory.”
“What is your theory, Virgil?” she asked.
He was sitting on a rocky outcrop a few hundred feet outside the city limits, staring at the glinting black
mountains in the distance that erupted from the earth like solid night.
She had her back to him, and stood bent over with a black, charred stick in her hand, writing words in the
fine grey sand.
“You may not like this theory.” he warned her.
“Oh really?” she noted, not looking up “Is it controversial?”
“All the best theories are.”
“Go on then. Shock me.”
“My theory…” he said turning and walking towards her over the outcrop, and nearly tripping over a jutting
rock “…is that you are absolutely insane.”
He stood and looked at what she had written. Words stretched off in a good thirty foot radius, variations of a
single sentence repeated over and over again.
STRANGE DAY TO GREET ANOTHER
STRANGE WAY TO SEE ONE OTHER
STRANGE GREY TO MEET OLD LOVER
STRANGE WAY TO SEAT A PLUMBER (This one had been crossed out with repeated angry strokes.)
“Really?” she said, looking up with genuine puzzlement “Why’s that?”
Virgil decided that if she had to ask the question, she was beyond help.
“You do realise.” he said “That the more you try, the less sense it makes.”
Marie gave an angry grunt and threw the stick down. She reached for the bottle of Red Marie that she had
left half buried in the sand and was about to raise it to her lips when Virgil grabbed her wrist.
“Hey.” he said “Enough for one day, day don’t you think?”
She looked at him for a second, and the nodded.
He nodded in return and let go of her wrist.
Quick as a flash, she had raised the bottle to her lips and drunk.
Never pick a fight with an Australian. Lesson. Fucking. Learned.
This one hurt, folks. Space Chimps manages to encapsulate so much of what has gone wrong with 21st century animation that I almost feel like if I burned the DVD all those sins would just evaporate as the spell was lifted. It’s awful, but it’s awful in so many different ways at once that it has inestimable value as a teaching tool. I feel like you could teach an animation course on what not to do based on this movie alone. This is the first movie by Vanguard Animation that I’ve reviewed on this blog as I’ve not had the unalloyed pleasure of viewing Valiant, Happily N’Ever After or Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back….
Sorry. When I typed that last one I felt an ice-cold shudder and had to go check that all the doors and windows are locked. Anyway, Vanguard is at the rearguard of modern American animation and was founded by John H. Williams who is, as the DVD cover is quick to remind us, one of the primates who brought us Shrek. And I have one question. What the hell is Shrek? Shrek? Sounds like an Eastern European currency. Boris bought a red cabbage and a bottle of vodka for three shrek.
Highest grossing animated film of all time you say? No, doesn’t ring a bell.
CHAPTER 12: HOOK-HANDED COYBOY
A new recruit to Mabus’ army, fresh from some howling battlefield and now standing shivering and quaking in the presence of the king of New Gomorrah, being given the old “You stand in the belly of the beast…” speech would naturally have a great many questions.
What is this place?
Why am I here?
What should I do now?
Once the reality of his situation had sunk in, our new recruit would find himself beset by slightly more mundane questions;
Where can I find food?
Where shall I live?
Are there others like me in this city I can join for my own safety?
Can I survive here?
In time, all these questions would be answered, some more suddenly and brutally than others.
But perhaps the one question that would never be answered for most of the men and women conscripted into Mabus’ crusade was this:
What the hell is up with all the scorpions?
Why are there scorpion banners hanging from archways and nailed to walls? Why is there a scorpion on the back of every Gomorran talon? Why the Red, Blue, Black and Green Scorpions?
The answer to this, Cole knew, was no great secret. It was simply not widely known.
The reason was that when Mabus’ father, Gedi, had needed to choose a totem to represent his house, he had chosen the scorpion. The House of Gedi had been one of the smaller houses in Babilu, but still wielded a considerable amount of wealth and influence. By choosing the scorpion as his symbol Gedi was displaying to his enemies an animal that was small, but could still be lethal to much larger creatures should they be foolish enough to anger it.
To be the Golden Scorpion, Mabus had once explained to Cole, was to be the physical manifestation of the will of the House of Gedi. A shining, invincible, seemingly godlike avatar.
To be a Black Scorpion, on the other hand, meant something different entirely.
The Black Scorpions had, before their dissolution at least, acted as Mabus’ secret police. It had been their unenviable task to keep tabs on the innumerable guilds, secret societies, mobs, gangs and fraternities that had sprung up like weeds in the fertile soil of Mabus’ army. If any particular organisation seemed to be becoming a little too powerful, more often than not the leaders would be paid a visit in the night by a close friend who they had trusted implicitly, and never wake up.
But the Black Scorpions were gone now.
And it was time for something else to replace them.
“Wait here.” said Cole
Isabella looked around nervously, brushing the handle of a dagger with her thumb over and over.
The hallway, dank, dark and stinking, looked deserted. But then, in Gomorrah, it was the people you couldn’t see who were the ones to keep an eye out for. The fact that there didn’t seem to be anyone here did nothing to reassure her. Every step they had taken since leaving Mabus’ throne room to this ten storey tenement building just north of the Combat Tower, Isabella had been unable to shake the feeling that they were being followed. She glanced nervously to where Cole was dragging his finger lazily over a grimy, brown-stained wall.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, and it felt like the hundredth time.
“Ssshhh.” he whispered “Got ya.”
“What?” she turned to look at him, only to see that he had been talking to the wall, not to her.
With a low, dreary moan, the wall was sliding to one side, revealing a dark passageway.
“Let’s go.” said Cole.
They disappeared into the opening, and seconds later the wall slid shut again.
“What is this place?” Isabella whispered, her keen eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness of the room.
“Hang on. I gotta find the light switch.” said Cole, talking over his shoulder as he felt along the wall “Every tenth building in Gomorrah has one of these rooms. They’re safe houses, for any Black Scorpion who’s cover his blown and needs to lie low. He can hide out here, live off rations for weeks if he has to. There’s a weapons locker under the bed. A radio to call into the Blue Room for rescue, or just to listen in to see what’s going on outside. More importantly, only the engineers who built it, and the Scorpion assigned to it knows where his individual safe room is. And only one man in the entire city knows where all of them are.”
“Mabus?”
“If Mabus knew about this place, do you think we’d be hiding out here? Nah, I ordered these to be built, never told Mabus.”
“You knew you might need to hide from him?”
“No, actually. I just never told him. Mostly because I thought he wouldn’t care. He told me to build him a spy network, and I did it. He never really asked how. But we’ll be as safe here as anywhere. We can stay here while we look for Joriel. Then we are getting out of here, and we are not even stopping to shake the dust off our shoes. There you are…”
His hand touched the light switch and the room was thrown into a sickly green haze.
Cole turned and froze.
“Oh you’re smart Joe. Got it all planned out. But let me ask you this: How fast are you?”
Isabella’s eyes stared at him, terrified, over the arm that was wrapped across her face. The silver muzzle of a Colt single action Army was pressed to her neck.
And the eyes that stared at Cole over her shoulder were as pitiless as they were desperate.
Cole almost burst out laughing. Of all the safe houses in the city, he had chosen the one containing New Gomorrah’s most wanted citizen; Ezekiel Holtz, the man who had raised the riot with Thomas, and shot Mabus himself. For a mad second, Cole considered how capturing Holtz might just be enough to put himself back in Mabus’ good graces. But he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to him. They were getting out. That was the end of it. At least, they were if could convince Holtz to let Isabella go.
“Hi Holtz.” said Cole as nonchalantly as he could.
unshavedmouse 