Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990)

Alright, this series of reviews that was supposed to last for one month has been going on since August so it might be a good time to pull the car over and try to figure out how we got here before the cannibal hillbillies come back. We started with animation in the silent era before moving to the dawn of integrated sound. We then had animated shorts as visual accompaniement and advertising for music and then as wartime proganda. Moving into the fifties we had the Golden Age of Warner Brothers shorts, the ignoble end of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies in the sixties, the advent of more adult themed animation in the seventies and the first glimmer of the Pixar era in the eighties. So that brings us up to the nineties, a decade I am old enough for it to still feel like it was ten years ago. Refresh my memory, what was happening in animation in the nineties? Oh that’s right! The renaissance!

No, no, no. The ACTUAL renaissance.

Thank you.

So, exciting times. Great time to be an animation fan. Disney’s back, kicking ass and taking names, animé is more readily available in the west than ever before and even Western TV animation has stopped eating paste and is becoming increasingly not-awful. What changed? Well, the generation of kids who had grown up watching classic Disney movies and Warner Bros shorts were now adults and working in the film industry and wanted to bring the medium back to its former glory. Foremost amongst those kids was a guy called Steven Spielberg. Now, I say the word “Spielberg” and, depending on your age the first image that pops into your head is:

Or…

Or..

Or…

But you probably don’t immediately think of animation. Nonetheless, Steven Spielberg is like the Forrest Gump of American animation post-1980. Practically every pivotal moment involved him somehow. Don Bluth? Spielberg produced his earliest films. The Disney Renaissance? Wouldn’t have happened without Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The drastic improvement in TV animation? Would have looked very different without Tiny Toons, Animanaics and Pinky and the Brain. Dreamworks? Whaddya think the “S” in “Dreamworks SKG” stands for, hombre?

Shaddup.

So in the wake of Roger Rabbit’s incredible success, Spielberg’s production company Amblin and Disney partnered to bring the long defunct animated theatrical short roaring back to life with a series of high budget, high quality Roger Rabbit shorts. And my God, you just need to look at the calibre of talent attached to these things to see how serious they were. Rob Minkoff, who would later go on to direct the single greatest canon Disney movie of all time I said it it’s official no one can disagree it’s over I won, super producers Don Hahn, Rob Marshall and Spielberg himself of course, Charles Fleischer and Lou Hirsch as Roger and Baby Herman and they even got Kathleen Frickin’ Goddamned Turner back to voice Jessica Rabbit even though she only averages three lines a short. So, before we go any further there’s two things you need to know about these shorts.

1) As animation, they are absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

2) As cartoons, they don’t really work.

That’s not to say that they’re complete failures. Anything this beautifully animated fully justifies its existence. But they are a fascinating example of the whole being less than the sum of the parts, and why sometimes fans of something are not always the most qualified people to make a new version of that thing. I’ll get back to that in a second. Only three shorts were made, with a fourth cancelled in pre-production and they very closely follow the formula established in Somethin’ Cookin’, the opening short in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The formula is as follows:

1) Mommie Dearest leaves Baby Herman in the care of Roger Rabbit, warning him that there will be dire consequences if anything happens to him.

2) Baby Herman wanders off into danger.

3) Roger loses his goddamn shit and screams like a Bedlam inmate.

4) Roger has to protect Baby Herman while suffering violence upon his body normally reserved for the Christ.

5) Gratuitous Jessica Rabbit cameo.

6) Gratuitous Droopy cameo.

7) Roger ruins the take and bursts through the fourth wall into the real world and everybody hates him for being a screw up.

8) FIN.

So let’s see how that plays out in practice with Roller Coaster Rabbit, the second short and by far the strongest.

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Szkkb Mvd Uvzi

*WHOOSH*

“Rick? Where are we…I…uh…I think I’m going to be sick, Rick…”

“Go right ahead Morty, it’s a blog. It’s probably about par for the usual *URP!* content.”

“I mean it Rick, I’m uh, freakin’ out here! Why am I in a little box?! Why are my words appearing below me?! Do I even still have legs?!"

“I mean it Rick, I’m uh, freakin’ out here! Why am I in a little box?! Why are my words appearing below me?! Do I even still have my junk?!”

“There, there Morty. You’re just suffering from medium-transition anxiety and the fact that you’re a moist little *()(. We’re in a universe that runs on vastly different rules than ours.”

“There, there Morty. You’re just suffering from medium-transition anxiety and the fact that you’re a moist little PUSSY. We’re in a universe that runs on vastly different rules than ours.”

“What rules?”

“Running gags and fair use, mostly. We’re in a blog called Unshaved Mouse.”

“Unshaved Mouse? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Exactly, Morty, that’s the whole *URP!* point. NOBODY’S heard of it. Which makes it the perfect hiding place.”

“Hiding place for what?”

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Merry Christmas

And so, as 2016 leaves the smouldering ruins behind and returns to the ocean from whence it came, I emerge from hibernation to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Be safe, be happy, be loved and, as Abraham Lincoln once said:

The script’s going really well but I miss you all, and I’m looking forward to getting back on the blog horse in February. Something that a lot of people have been asking me is when I’m going to do another Charity Movie Deathmatch and, much as I’d love to, I’m STILL working through the reviews from the last one and amn’t due to finish those until July. So, obviously, the only way I could do another Deathmatch would be if I was the kind of mouse who had a history of taking on huge projects while stile struggling to finish his existing ones…

“Oh right. I’m me.”

LET DEATHMATCH BEGIN!!!!!

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Like his father before him…

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The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984)

In their book The Illusion of Life (still the Bible of animation 35 years after it was written), Disney legends Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas set out 12 principles of animation. The first and most important of these is called “Squash and Stretch”. Basically, it boils down to this: In animation, a form can change shape, but never volume. Observing this rule gives characters weight and solidity, and allows your brain to forget that you’re just watching a flat two dimensional image. As long as the character observes the same rules as an object in the physical universe, the brain perceives it as an object in the physical universe. In essence, it becomes real.

This rule was, for a long time, a hard barrier for computer animation. Early CGI could create solid three dimensional looking objects no problem, but they were always static. Rigid. To give the illusion of a living thing, an image has to not only be able to move but to change its shape while keeping its volume consistent and trying to do that with CGI in the early days would invariably cause any computer to throw up its hands in frustration and get back to plotting the enslavement of all mankind. All that changed in 1984. Well, not the plotting enslavement thing. They’re still doing that.

“Sooooon…”

So in 1984, Lucasfilm had a subdivison called The Graphics Group, a group of computer scientists who had been recruited out of NYIT by George Lucas, who had decided that computer generated imagery might be useful in creating special effects.

As sentences laden with prophetic doom go, that’s right up there with “That night, Alois Hitler decided not to bother with a condom.”

The Graphics Group decided to create a short to demonstrate that CGI could compete with traditional animation. And when I say “short”, I mean “short“. This thing clocks in at a whopping 86 seconds.

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FROG REVIEWS : ROGUE ONE ( A STAR WARS STORY )

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you, my dear friends.

I hope you’re all readying yourselves for the arrival of our Lord and Saviour St. Nicholas.

I bring you merry tidings.

I bring you…

Your Yearly Star War.

Fair warning – there be spoilers aplenty beyond the “read more” mark!!!!

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The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17: THE MIRROR ROOM

The kitchen was cramped as the nine temporals and one half-angel gathered around the table to plan their next move.

“What do we know about this man Darrach?” Carlos asked.

“From what Donal’s told us he’s a Sí.” said Kathy.

“Fine, what do we know about this woman, Darrach?” Carlos asked.

“No. He’s a Sí. The Sí are a race of angels who were expelled to earth because they refused to take sides in the war between heaven and hell. They live amongst humans now. This Darrach is apparently a genius at combining divine power with human technology. So if, for example, you wanted a bomb that could destroy the human soul…”

“He’d be the guy to talk to.” Eamonn nodded.

“Right.” said Kathy “So we’re going to go and have a talk with him.”

“Just a talk.” Donal growled “The Sí are under my protection and from what I see you don’t have any proof against him yet. You’ll need to convince me before I’ll hand him over to you.”

“Fair enough.” said Kathy, pointedly ignoring the growl that emanated from the direction of Junko Imai.

Magnus gently shouldered his way through Eloi and Carlos and set a tea-tray on the table and began to quietly pour cups for everyone.

“Is this going to be dangerous?” Baako asked, and instantly felt like a coward for saying it.

“Good question.” said Kathy “We’re hoping (I’ll take coffee, Magnus, thanks) that he won’t be expecting us. It depends how much he knows. Mabus might just have showed up, asked for the bomb, took it and went. But if Darrach knows that his bomb was used to kill Temporals, he might have taken precautions.”

“Let him.” said Junko hoaresly.

“So, just so we know, what are we expecting? (two sugars, thanks) Booby traps?” Eamonn asked.

“Probably not.” Mariana said “I can’t imagine someone booby trapping their own home (yes, a little milk, Magnus, thank you kindly) on the off chance that we showed up. But he might have a safe room. A hidden passge, an escape route. Something like that.”

“Maybe it would…thanks…” Aoife took a mug of tea off Magnus and took a swig “Maybe it would be a good idea if I went and scouted around first? Get the lay of the land?”

A silence descended on the table. Aoife realised that everyone was looking at her.

“Yes.” said Mariana, very quietly “I think that’s a very good idea.”

“Well.” said Aoife, suddenly feeling very nervous “I guess…I’ll go do that. Then.”

Black.

Aoife collapsed on the table with a thud, spilling her tea.

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The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16: A DARK SPOT

“So you’ve come to kill me at last? I can’t say much for your punctuality.”

Isabella froze. The chamber behind Nyquist’s altar was pitch black, and she could not even see five inches in front of her. But she knew the voice was Joriel’s and she felt a little sugar rush of joy. We’ve found him. At last.

“No, no. I’ve not come to kill you Joriel.”

Cold fear washed over Isabella. That voice talking with Joriel. She knew it, as anyone in New Gomorrah would have.

“I will not go back to Groethuis and his knives and poisons, Mabus. Nor will I trade one cage for another.” said Joriel.

“My, it’s dark in here.” Mabus mused, as if he hadn’t heard him “Shall we have some light?”

“I can see perfectly.” said Joriel “But by all means, if you wish. There’s a lamp on the table to your left.”

Un-oh, thought Isabella.

She heard Mabus’s hand press a switch and a small lamp flicked on, bathing a corner of the room in muted yellow light and casting shadows over everything.

Isabella looked around and breathed out in relief. The room was divided by a thick black curtain, which she was standing behind. Inside the curtain, invisible to her, Joriel and Mabus continued talking.

“Oh dear.” said Mabus sympathetically “They have not been treating you well, have they?”

“This is not their doing.” said Joriel, and Isabella realised the angel’s voice sounded so much older than when she had last heard it “Apart from keeping me here in chains, they treat me well enough.”

“I assume they found you after the battle outside my chamber?”

“Yes. I retreated to the sewers. I was badly injured.”

“Shot off a helicopter, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry. I hope you know that there was never any malice in my imprisoning you. I needed to be sure my New Matter weaponry would work. I needed to test it on someone. I just hope you don’t think it was personal.”

“I don’t see how it could have been.” said Joriel “You stole my wife, after all. Not the other way around.”

“Well. Ancient history.” said Mabus “Quite literally.”

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Guest Reviews with Paper Alchemist: The Lorax, 2012

‘Mouse-Fans,’ she said, waving forty-eight knees,

‘I’m the 100%-Recycled-Paper Alchemist. I speak for the trees.

I speak for the trees, for the trees have no voice,

and I’m telling you, friends, that if it’s your choice

to ignore the Earth’s peril and the tree-hugger’s cry,

you won’t like my review. In that case, goodbye.

Today we’ll be taking a look at The Lorax,

a movie that fills my whole cephalothorax

with sorrow and anguish, dismay and despair.

It could have been great, but they just didn’t care.’

Sigh.

I wish I wasn’t so sad about this.

I approached this review raring to have a big cathartic bitch sesh. As Pixar put it in Ratatouille, snark is fun to write, and to read. But I don’t think I have it in me today. I thought I was just hangsty – a close relative of hangry – so I went for a snack…

‘Hey, have you seen Nit anywhere?’

‘Um… no.’ *urp*

… but it didn’t help.

Thing is, despite my horrifying face and painful venom, my heart is proportionately huge in relation to my body size (just don’t ask where it is). And I have a terrible habit of letting things get too close to it. That’s the trouble with having an exoskeleton: you’re tougher outside than in. So if you really don’t want to be sad today, go back and check out my Snow Queen review. Or the time – ha ha – the time I made Mouse review Space Chimps with the nipple-headed alien. Because misery is takin’ the wheel.

‘Hello, darkness, my old friend…’

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The Devil’s Heir-Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15: THE LORD’S PROPHECY

A Deva, a human being who has crossed over body and soul to the afterlife, is a hardy creature. He or she will not age, will not succumb to disease and does not need to eat or drink. They do sleep, but less than when they were alive, and when they do they do not dream.

And yet, they can die. A Deva whose skin is pierced will bleed the white/pink sand that fills them. This is the remains of their bones, organs and bodily fluids that were compacted when the body and the soul fused at the crossing over. And once it has bled from them, the Deva dies. Finally. Totally. There is no after-afterlife. Those who die in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory cross into the final realm, from which even angels cannot return. The final night, that no dawn shall ever pale. They say that those who go there linger for a few brief moments over everything, and can see the whole infinity of creation, the endless lattice of light and dark, the Yoli-awhey and Goli-awhey snaking and curling and cascading over and around and through each other. It is said that from that cold perch, far above all that is, they finally know a true wisdom, one beyond the knowledge of angels and devils, even of Yol and Gol themselves. And with a sad smile, they nod, and turn to face the final night, and pass away to shadow.

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