TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

P.S. Fwiw, I have an import order for Disney blu-rays at less-than-outrageous domestic prices that I'm waiting to secure the funds for, and Robin Hood is on it.

[garbon]

You're a tool.

Your face is a tool.

What does he use it for? 

Wouldn't you like to know.

[Eddie Teach]

Only if this knowledge is rated PG.

[Ed Anger]

Ide needs to do Song of the South. I'm sure it's floating around on youtube.

[Kleves]

Watched the first couple of episodes of TNT's Mob City. Apprently its the TV show that Walking Dead stars go to when they die. So far so noir.

[Ideologue]

Ide needs to do Song of the South. I'm sure it's floating around on youtube.

I remember enjoying it when I was a kid.

I remember liking Tarzan a lot but disliking the Phil Collins songs.

YUP.  God, are the songs in Tarzan not only awful--and I'm the closest you're likely to ever see to a Phil Collins fan--but are they badly matched to the material.  Oh, did Tarzan's parents just get killed by a leopard?  Let's have a gentle song about motherhood.  Sure, that works.

In fact, the whole opening sequence is unbelievably bad, going from a sixty second quick-cutting montage of a shipwreck/survival/construction of a tree fort for the Tarzan family, to the horror of the natural world, to, upon discovery of the foundling by a female gorilla, a poopy diaper joke, with the half-eaten corpses of the baby's parents no more than four feet to the right and out of frame.  The baby giggles as if his parents have not just been disemboweled and smell of their own intestines is not presently festering in his own nostrils.  Sound filmmaking could have made this ironic; sounder still likely would have just avoided this ugly clash; unsound filmmaking gave us this, and it's clear they just wanted to have their tragedy and eat it to.  It's a real affront to God.  This all either should have been cut, or extended to ten minutes and given a Goddamned tone.

Then there's Tarzan's ape companion and pet pink elephant (ok, that's a big, big palette misstep, but whatever) who range from mildly annoying to mildly fun.  One thing in particular that really bothered me was the discussion between the (pink WTF) elephant family about pirahnas and their habitat.  They're "native to South America"?  HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW THAT?  How do you know what a pirahna is?  How do you know what South America is?

On the other hand, the worst problems are confined to the first ten-twenty minutes.  I enjoyed Tarzan himself a lot--he's brilliantly animated and of course the iconic character is very hard not to enjoy.  His interactions with Jane are truly magical; virtually everything between them is great, and there's even this split-second of sexual danger that comes over Jane's face when they first meet that's really quite well-done.  I wanted more of this weird romance, less goofy humor, and, for the love of God, shut Phil Collins the fuck up and write some fucking proper Disney songs, PLEASE.  Or, if you had to go nondiagetic pop, split the difference, go with what's worked for you, get the rights to Baltimora's catalog.  I'm sure it would have been cheaper than Collins; and while it's by and large just as inappropriate, at least that shit rocks.

It does represent a gorgeous debut for the Deep Canvas background animation technique; if sometimes the background elements wind up a little incongruous, it's more than made up for by the dynamism permitted the camera.  Great looking movie.  (Other than the pink elephants.)

Really, the material is almost all there already.  But watch the newest Disney picture, and it's clear that Chris Buck, co-director here and likewise for this year's Frozen, has not learned much at all in the intervening fourteen years about how to pace a story and where the focus of the story ought to be.

B

P.S. A rescored version would easily be a B+ or even an A.  Cut that line about South America, cold open on the dead parents, add in some more Jane (maybe cut the cartoon baboons hunting like pack animals), and we're talking Disney masterpiece, maybe.

[jimmy olsen]

The Sword in the Stone (1963). 

While amusing as always, this review was terrible.

[Ideologue]

The Sword in the Stone (1963). 

While amusing as always, this review was terrible.

I enjoyed Tarzan himself a lot--he's brilliantly animated

Ah, of course he is.  It was Glen Keane.  He was the lead animator on Ariel.  Any scene where she's particularly, awe-inspiringly emotively expressive?  Glen Keane.

[Valmy]

Ide needs to do Song of the South. I'm sure it's floating around on youtube.

I remember being bored as fuck with that movie.  You had to endure these uninteresting live action parts between the animated shorts.  They should have just made a movie with Brer Rabbit and company and skipped all the boring human characters.

[Ideologue]

Valmy doesn't care about black people.

[Valmy]

Valmy doesn't care about black people.

Not the boring ass share croppers in that movie anyway.  It was painful.

[Ideologue]

Dumbo (1941).  I was immensely annoyed when the parable of exploitation and intra-slavery dynamics was undermined by the idea that a mouse can sign contracts.  Overall, however, I was impressed with the terrifying World of Man, including our artificially intelligent trains and heinous attitudes toward other creatures in general and so-called "freaks" in particular.

Query: how many canonical Disney films are about some form of body dysmorphia, sometimes even amounting to body horror?  Pinocchio, Dumbo, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Tarzan, Frozen, the first half of Hercules, and Peter Pan if you read into it a bit... and that's just off the top of my head.  Tangled also possibly, but I haven't seen it; as far as I can tell Rapunzel isn't repulsed by her own hair.

Anyway, the pink elephants scene that is in the movie for no reason except it's 1)awesome and 2)brings it to barely feature length is an A+, but overall I must be true to myself and offer it only a very good, or B+, and then based principally on the strength of that single sequence.

Lilo and Stitch (2002).  OMG FAMILY MEANS STUFF.  I don't know whether my reaction to this movie means it's really manipulative or I'm just especially vulnerable to sentiment lately, but I enjoyed it a lot.  B+

[CountDeMoney]

I was immensely annoyed when the parable of exploitation and intra-slavery dynamics was undermined by the idea that a mouse can sign contracts.

Honestly, though...you've seen a horse fly, you've seen a dragon fly;  you've even seen a house fly, dammit.  But you be done seen about everything when you seen an elephant fly.

[CountDeMoney]

and Peter Pan if you read into it a bit...

But is that really body dysmorphia as much as it is a gender disordered Electra Complex?

[jimmy olsen]

Query: how many canonical Disney films are about some form of body dysmorphia, sometimes even amounting to body horror?  Pinocchio, Dumbo, the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Tarzan, Frozen, the first half of Hercules, and Peter Pan if you read into it a bit... and that's just off the top of my head.  Tangled also possibly, but I haven't seen it; as far as I can tell Rapunzel isn't repulsed by her own hair.

You're reaching there.