The Land Before Time (1988)

You know the thing about the dinosaurs? It’s really, really sad when you think about it.

These beautiful animals lived for millions of years and then one day, literally one day, their world turned into a flaming hell and they died horribly. And they never understood why.

I was thinking about that a lot as I sat down to re-watch Don Bluth’s third film, The Land Before Time, and the last one he made before parting company with Stephen Spielberg. On one level, this is the least personal of Bluth’s early, pre-sellout films and the one that he had the least real affection for. Whereas Secret of Nimh and An American Tail were true collaborations, The Land Before Time seems to have been the point where Spielberg (and new producer George Lucas) really took the reigns and Bluth was more just the guy who animated what the execs wanted. Story-wise at least. Whatever you think about him as a film-maker, Bluth had a tendency to stamp his work very strongly and it does still very much feel like one of his films in terms of atmosphere, if not necessarily subject matter.

This feels like it came from Spielberg. Is that just me?

Bluth’s films are famously dark and melancholy and I think that’s why this one works.

More than any other movie, this one captures the essential truth that any story about dinosaurs is a tragedy.

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“We burned the forest down.”

Do you want to know how I got these scars into writing about movies?

My college had its own version of “The Onion” where I made my bones writing utterly run-of-the-mill edgy early 2000’s college humour (i.e. the kind of stuff that would get me cancelled today so fast it would break the laws of physics) and my editor asked me if I’d be interested in trying my hand at writing a movie review. And the very first movie I ever reviewed for them (if memory serves) was none other than The Dark Knight. And now you know my gritty origin story. And, if you are old enough to remember my earliest reviews (DON’T GO BACK AND READ THEM DON’T YOU DO IT I SWEAR TO GOD) you’ll remember that this movie was a BIG deal to me and those early reviews are chock full of references to it, even when they weren’t relevant or funny. Which was all the time. I see that now.

So, as you can imagine, I approached this one with a great deal of trepidation. Is it really as good as I remember?

No, actually.

In fact, in many ways, it’s better.

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“There are the hands that made us. And then there are the hands that guide their hands.”

So, how did we get here?

The MCU fell from grace the way Hemingway’s Mike Campbell went bankrupt, slowly and then all at once.

I think we all felt it, didn’t we? At some point this year, probably in the summer when Barbenheimer was in full swing, there was a moment when all of us who had still not disembarked from the hype train took a look at the MCU and said “nah, I’m done”.

And you probably have your own explanation for why that is. Endgame was the peak and it’s all been downhill since then. Superhero fatigue. Bad writing. Too woke. Not woke enough. Too much CGI. Martin Scorsese dropping truth bombs. The pandemic. Whatever.

But ultimately, I think the real reason was just…time. The studio execs currently running around trying to figure out why audiences aren’t flocking to their superhero movies anymore are like surfers wondering why the tidal wave they were riding faded away into the ocean.

Guys. It was a wave. That’s what they do.

Granted, it was a wave like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Depending on when you consider the modern age of superhero movies to have begun (the first X-Men movie maybe?) we’ve been riding this wave for over twenty years with some of the biggest box-office numbers of all time. But, it really was just a bigger version of every other Hollywood trend, be that “make everything like the Matrix” or “make everything like Transformers” or (if you want to go old school) “make everything a Western”. And trends never last. That’s why they’re called “trends”.

And I’ve been burned enough times before to know not to make any big predictions. Maybe these last two years were just a brief blip in an unbroken streak of cinematic dominance that will stretch on to the death of the universe. But, right now, in the waning hours of 2023 it sure feels like the MCU is done. And I’m okay with that. And I don’t regret my time with it as long as I can pretend Thor 4 doesn’t exist.

Because, even if we got nothing else of value from this series of films, James Gunn got to make the Guardians trilogy, and I wouldn’t deny him that for the world.

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The summer of the soul in December

I swear to God, I wrote the end of year wrap up for 2022 last week, time is going too fast make it stop make it stop…

Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, how are you all? How’s every little thing? Merry Christmas.

2023 was…a year. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. Swings and roundabouts.

October saw the release of my second book, Knock Knock, Open Wide to polite, restrained acclaim. I must take the opportunity now to thank Alex Grecian and Brian Evenson for kindly providing blurbs, and oh my God, BIG thanks to Clay McLeod Chapman who was an absolute LEGEND promoting the book online. You should check out his novel What Kind of Mother, it’s a heartbreaking story of loss set in the backwoods of Virginia with terrifying yet symbolic crabs. Mouse recommends.

And, of course, if you were kind enough to support me by picking up a copy, you have my eternal thanks.

Anyway, this year’s reviews:

In 2023 I reviewed 1 Canon Disney movie, 3 MCU movies with another to follow before year end, 1 animé, 2 live action movies (I’m counting Dark Crystal as live action and not animation because it is), 4 non-Disney canon animated features, 1 TV series, 1 Bats versus Bolts (it lives again!), 6 Batman movies plus the Gotham Knight series of short films and one weird essay that was supposed to be a review of Inherit the Wind but turned into me having an existential breakdown over the impossibility of knowing objective truth.

This was definitely a year when I pulled back from my usual staples of the MCU and Disney Canon but…Jesus, can you blame me? Not a hot take, I know, but whenever I have a bad year I will remind myself that at least it wasn’t as bad as Disney’s 2023. Holy shit what a dumpster fire. And we’re not done yet.

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You were supposed to be the Chosen One!

So, as a Disney reviewer and fan am I disheartened or saddened by this sudden, catastrophic reversal of the company’s fortunes? No, not at all. It’s a massive, rapacious corporation that doesn’t care in the slightest about any of us and thinking it’s your friend will get you eaten alive like that dude in Grizzly Man. If you do find yourself feeling sympathy, watch the Oh My Disney! sequence from Wreck It Ralph 2  to remind yourself of the rather sickening hubris that brought them to this point. Or, indeed, just watch any of their recent output. But the other reason why I’m not worried is because we have been here before. The canon always goes through highs and lows. They’ll course correct and come back stronger than ever. Happened after the second world war. Happened after the death of Walt, happened after the end of the Renaissance. Sunrise, sunset.

Anyway, my never-ending quest to clear my review backlog has reached some of the weirder and grungier items on the menu and this, combined with the aforementioned pant-shitting of two of my regular series, meant I honestly did not review that many good films this year. Best film?

Well spoilers, but yeah, it’s going to be Guardians 3. 

Worst film?

Holy moly, spoiled for choice. This year had no less than FOUR new entries into the Hall of Shame which I think may be a record? And while a fair man might say that Freddie as FR07  was the worst film I’ve seen this year, I am neither fair, nor a man. I fucking hate Thor: Love and Thunder and I want to get one more kick in the goolies before New Year.

And on that happy note, thanks so much for reading and commenting. You guys are, as always, the best.

Nollaig shona daoibh go léir,

Mouse.

 

Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

What was it about the seventies anyway?

I’ve reviewed a few animated films from this decade by this point and they are all (with the exception of the Disneys) weird as balls.

But I get ahead of myself. I’m going to let you in on a little behind the scenes secret. Ever since this mouse escaped the rat race and started writing full time, I’ve actually had less time to devote to this blog with work starting on most posts a mere few days before they’re scheduled to go live. This can be a problem when I starkly under-estimate just how much there is to research on a given movie and go plummeting down rabbit-holes

And my oh my, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure is less a field full of rabbit holes than a giant hole with occasional bits of field clinging to the edges. But okay, a little background.

So waaaaay back in the 1910s an American named Johnny Gruelle patented a doll that he named Raggedy Ann and then wrote a series of stories starring her, which were such a success that Raggedy Ann became possibly the first bona-fide modern American toy fad. And, of course, as Jane Austen herself once said “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a toy franchise in possession of a fortune must be in want of an animated tie-in.” And boy howdy, did Raggedy Ann manage to get some impressive talent over the decades. For starters, there was a short series of Fleischer cartoons that were (naturally) as charming and well made as they were horrifying.

No context for you. None.

There were also two television specials produced in the seventies by Chuck Mofawkin Jones. But, without a doubt, Raggedy Ann’s most famous foray into the world of animation was 1977’s Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure which is…well, it’s something.

Here’s what it’s like. Imagine Hasbro want a new Transformers movie. And the director they initially tap dies and so they bring in a replacement; David Lynch. And now Optimus Prime is dancing with a backwards talking midget in the red lodge. That’s kind of what happened here.

Lynch in this instance was Richard Williams, who we’ve had our dealings with in the past. One of the best animators to ever work in the medium, period, Williams was shanghaid into making a glorified toy commerical and decided to use that opportunity to have the time of his life. This film is basically Williams and some of his most talented animator friends (Betty Boop co-creator Grim Natwick, future Genie animator Eric Goldberg and Art “I created Goofy and sued Walt Disney for unfair labour practices, took him all the way to the Supreme Court and lived to tell of it” Babbitt to name a few) having a ball on the dime of the good folks at the Bobbs-Merril publishing company.

But is it a good movie? Well…

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Disney(ish) reviews with the Unshaved Mouse: Planes

Well. That was anti-climactic.

I feel like a knight who’s been on a quest to slay a terrible dragon for a decade only to arrive at the top of the mountain and find the dragon’s around the size of a chicken and died several years ago from old age.

In the early days of this blog I built up Planes as a personal bete noir, a movie I would never, ever review because it represented the worst of crass, merchandise driven movie-making for both Disney in particular and animation in general.

Oh my. How innocent I was. How innocent we all were.

But after years of the absolute garbage I have had to sit through for you people (love you all) it is with a heavy heart that I must report that Planes is…fine?

I mean, it is aggressively mediocre, don’t get me wrong. But, given the state of Disney’s output at present, there’s something refreshing about a movie that manages to hit a solid C.

In fact, I would say it was one of the most safely boring movies I’ve seen all year were it not for the fact that it’s set in the Cars universe and therefore is, as all movies in that benighted franchise are, weird as fuck.

flysenhaur

WHAT KIND OF LIFE DOES THIS POOR CREATURE HAVE?!

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(Not a review of) Inherit the Wind (1960)

This map is wrong:

That’s not to say it’s bad.

It’s very useful.

It’s informative.

It is even, when you take a step back and consider it, quite beautiful. But it’s wrong.

The continents aren’t that size relative to each other. Not even close. Of course, you could use a different projection that shows them the correct relative size, something like this:

But now all the continents’ shapes are distorted nearly to the point of being unrecognisable.

Every 2 dimensional map of the world is wrong because, obviously, the world is not flat (I swear to God if anyone starts shit in the comments…). Ultimately, any attempt to render a three dimensional sphere as a 2 dimensional rectangle is, well, a lie. It’s an attempt to simplify that will always lead to distortion one way or another.

I love historical films. I hate historical films.

This was going to be a review of Inherit the Wind.

It became something else.

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Bats Versus Bolts: Movies that had virtually nothing to do with Andy Warhol

These movies are terrible. I’m so glad I watched them.

Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula are in many ways the best candidate for a Bats versus Bolts  that I’ve done yet. Not only are they by the same director and share many of the same cast, but they were made practically concurrently by the same crew.

Also, when I lie to myself and pretend that there’s some kind of high-minded artistic goal behind this series beyond me getting to talk about vampires and monsters, I like to think that each BvB pair says something about the time they were created in. That is absolutely the case with these two films which are not only seventies movies, but some of the most seventies movies I have ever seen.

These films were directed and written by Paul Morrissey, one of the more fascinating film-makers I’ve come across doing this blog. A member of Andy Warhol’s inner circle (we’ll get to that) he had a front row seat to the drug-soaked bacchanal that was the sixties New York arts scene. Morrissey is fascinating to try to pin down in terms of his politics. A self described right-wing conservative and staunch Catholic…who was also something of a trailblazer in terms of trans representation in film and a body of work that lends itself quite easily to Marxist readings with a consistent portrayal of the aristocracy as a shower of evil degenerate parasites. Like I say: interesting guy. 

Note, I did not say maker of good films.

Anyway, Morrissey claims that the whole idea to make monster movies came about, appropriately enough, from meeting Roman Polanski. Polanski apparently suggested that Morrissey would be the perfect person to make a 3D Frankenstein movie, which honestly I would take as an insult. Morrissey didn’t, however, and arranged a shoot in Italy, filming both Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula back to back. Or, as they were known in the U.S.; Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Why were they called that? Oh, that’s very simple.

Lies.

the-lies-rage

It was just a marketing tactic. Warhol let his friend put his name of the movies to boost the alogorithim. They actually used the same trick for the Italian releases, putting a famous Italian director’s name on them to claim Italian residency which actually got the production in serious legal trouble in Italy.

The resulting movies are Morrissey’s critique of the sticky, shame-filled, bitter and angry come down from the Free Love era that was the early seventies.

That makes them sound a lot more classy and high brow than they actually are.

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Frankenweenie (2012)

In 1984 Disney took a punt and gave one of their young animators, a skinny pale young-feller-milad named Tim Burton some money to make a live action short and recoiled, in horror, at what he wrought by tampering in God’s domain. It’s a truly terrifying film, and even looking at the poster has driven me quite mad. Oh yes!

It’s called”Frankenweenie” but he’s not a weenie dog he’s a bull terrier and no one ever mentions that am I MAD I MUST BE MAD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, it’s a rather charming if ludicrously cheap and cheerful little short about a boy named Victor Frankenstein who uses lightning to bring his beloved dog back to life. And Disney took one look at it and said “Dark? Weird? GOTHIC?! We never expected this of YOU, Tim Burton!” and fired his ass.

Fortunately, the short brought him to the attention of Paul “Pee-Wee” Reubens and Burton’s career was off to the races. Flashforward a few decades and Disney have finally realised that they quite like this Tim Burton character and he’s settled into a groove as one of the most reliable nipples from which they milk their never-ending stream of content. And what better way to mend fences than for Disney to pony up the money for a lavish, stop-motion, feature length do-over of Frankenweenie?

Do you need me to send you a picture of a weenie dog or are you assholes trolling me?

Now, I’m a pretty big Burton fan all things considered but his late period collaborations with Disney have been the absolute nadir of his career. But, can this return to his roots shoot a few volts into his long dead artistic drive?

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