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monkey-network · 2 years ago

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Good Stuff: The Super Mario Bros Movie

A fan shouldn't always sugarcoat it. Even if you get something you never figured you'd ever want but appreciate a lot, that doesn't mean a bias should bury any deeper feelings. What I'm getting at is Illumination's Super Mario Bros Movie can be so awesome and it was worth going to the theaters to see personally, but I can't get over the crippling flaw it has to say it was as great as I could say now. Better to be honest now than get increasingly unfulfilled later. First, though, I gotta give the props where they are due.

First, Bowser was The Best in this and I want him

For real, the animation was what I waiting for this whole time, no problems here. The film is fun. If it wasn't fun, that means Disney would've made it and it'd never come out anyways because of "creative differences". Illumination I found can make animations that are really bouncy fun, and it's best shown here. Plus the characters look incredible, DK especially, and there are moments where, in the best way, it felt like a cutscene from a video game I would want to play. Not to snipe at the Sonic movies, but this is seriously what I've wanted from video game movies since... Angry Birds 2? Like enough with the hybrid live-action crap, make a cartoon if the sourced game is about a CARTOON universe. "You mean like Ratchet & Cla-"

We do not... talk about that one.

This leads to something tricky I had in mind to discuss, and that's "faithfulness". Not long ago I watched the 1993 Mario Bros movie, a fiasco that one can argue was unfaithful to most of the source materials even with the few things they got right. Did we get something more suitable here? Well, I definitely wasn't annoyed with the fucking stupid discourse surrounding Peach's characterization and Mario's voice that's for sure. Many will cite this as having a great fuckton of references but I enjoyed the liberties they took whether or not they were references. The fact it starts out in Brooklyn made me already smile but the final act had my booty jiggle with unhinged glee. There's some corniness to it, especially with the certain musical needle drops they do, but even then it felt like they reveled in the corniness of those moments. This made me believe Nintendo and Illumination were looking to just make it excitable and enjoyable regardless of what fits where. It pains me though, knowing that there is that crippling flaw I mentioned at the beginning because while this film was fun, it went by fast. Ludicrously so... disjointedly so.

It was the Apex Cinema Speedrun, if you will

Many negative reviews claim this has a very thin plot and I honestly didn't consider that a wholly bad thing. A thin plot doesn't mean it wasn't cohesive or focused, or that there weren't any arcs to be had. The real problem comes in that certain moments don't feel earned when we barely get any time to cherish them. The pacing of this was kinda atrocious, the tight runtime truly being a detriment behind ideas for characters getting brought up well only to have shallow payoffs. Peach and Luigi especially had something about them I wanted to see more of, but before you got to see the plant blossom, they keep chugging and you're like "Ah, that's it?" They didn't need to spell everything out but let the characters breathe.

Bowser and DK felt like the exception

If this was the only movie we ever got again (knocking on wood), the fun of it all would soon subside for increased disappointment in the long run. I could say "This needs more movie" as a compliment, but that would mean I was fine with what we got. The live-action film, batshit as it was, felt consistent with everything it wanted to show and tell whether or not you saw the director's cut. That's why it became a cult hit, you remember how batshit it was. I genuinely enjoyed the film, but even with its many stand-out moments, it's gonna be hard to remember this film as much as I want to.

Except for Lumalee, I don't ever wanna forget them

I won't tout this overall as mid or "playing it safe" because they did so much right with this. When I say they stuck the landing with the Mario brothers themselves, that genuinely got to me. When we got the adventure, I relished the adventure. Like for the love of god, give me more of all this PLEASE! However, I won't give it a pass and call it perfect just because it tickled the Nintendo fan in me. Illumination's great when it comes to being in the moment, that's why I stopped hating on them, but in terms of their films having staying power this being a Mario film is carrying it hard from being a potentially forgettable one. For me, this is the movie adaptation of the Super Mario Super Show I never knew I wanted but looked forward to and felt was worth it. At the same time, my mind is fighting my heart strong knowing this Mario movie could've definitely been stronger. My final say is that it's a 6/10 movie with 10/10 moments. If you're looking for fun, this delivers no doubt, and don't let this review stop you from calling it a personal masterpiece.

What matters is that Mario finally made the Range

#The Super Mario Bros Movie #The Super Mario Bros. Movie #super mario movie #super mario bros movie #mario movie #Illumination #Nintendo #animation #movies #reviews #Good Stuff

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full-of-roman-angst-trash · 4 years ago

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A Prince’s Room

Part 2

Concept by @yeet-ceit

TW: Unsympathetic Sides (Except for Roman), Perfectionism, Self-Doubt, Cursing, Arguing, Injury? (Roman gets slapped). If I missed any, pleased tell me and I will add it.

Pairings: None

Word Count: 1807

Roman wants to be perfect. No, he needs to be perfect. And part of being perfect is being a good friend. Roman loves the other sides. He loves them more than anything in the world. Even more than Disney and musical theater. His friends are the main reason why his still holding on. He doesn’t want to lose them. He can’t lose them. He won’t survive if he does.

So, to make sure he doesn’t he takes notes. He writes down ways to make sure he’s constantly improving. Any bad habits that the others point out or flaws he writes down and tries to fix.

The lists went on and on. Hung up on the walls of his room to make sure he always remembers. And as time goes on, more and more is added to the list. Every small addition getting him one step closer to perfection.

Remember to keep your voice level normal. Don’t talk too loudly.

Stop being so dramatic, you're taking too much attention away from the others.

Don’t be too confident, it comes off as cocky and no one like someone that’s too cocky.

Don’t rant about your interest for too long it gets annoying and boring.

Don’t be selfish, no one likes a selfish person.

....................

The chart came along a few months later.

Roman had already been taking notes on how to please his friends however he decided to reorganize his notes into a chart. Each side had their own section containing list of what they liked, disliked, what cheered them up, and what upsets them.

Logan

Likes: Crofters, astrology, coffee, books, teaching, silence, human anatomy, schedules, deadlines, Thomas being productive, debating, constellations, being listened to, law, learning, classical music, poetry, Sherlock.

Dislikes: Being ignored, unnecessary emotions, sweets, dumb people, someone being too loud, childish movies, games, being behind schedule, illogical decisions, jokes, unrealistic dreams.

What makes him happy?: Stargazing, writing, meeting deadlines, winning debates, telling random facts, rapping, his onesie, reading, being left alone, being called cool, teaching.

What upsets him?: Being treated as a joke, being teased, being reminded of his mistakes, making mistakes, being ignored or overlooked, losing a debate, feeling dumb.

Patton

Likes: Cookies, drawing, cure animals, compliments, happy songs, seeing his friends happy, t.v shows, helping others, singing, dancing, playing dress up, stuffed animals, gifts, holidays, baking, sweets.

Dislikes: Screaming, loud noises, getting stuff thrown at him, blood, weapons, violence, seeing his friends injured, sad movies and stories.

What makes him happy?: Cuddles, movie nights, being showered with affection, cookies, drawing, karaoke nights, talking about his emotions, playing games with his friends, helping others, his onesie.

What upsets him?: Seeing an animal die, seeing people in pain, being forced to grow up, seeing his friends in hurt, not being able to help someone, disappointing someone, letting Thomas down, letting his emotions control him.

Virgil

Likes: Candles, alternative music, spiders, his hoodie, Tim Burton films, My Chemical Romance, headphones, fidget cubes, staying up late, drama shows, bats, knives, collecting pins.

Dislikes: The ocean, sudden loud noises, cheesy pop music, people that are too optimistic (except for Patton), someone being mean to his friends,

What makes him happy?: Doing makeup, painting his nails, listening to music, Patton’s baking, playing with his pet spider, meditating, watching murder myterious, watching Disney and Tim Burton movies.

What upsets him?: Being put on the spot, being called evil, being treated like an innocent kid, being called a darkside, being called a disorder rejection, talk about serious topics such as suicide and self harm.

Remus

Likes: Gore, blood, mud, fighting, collecting weapons, deodorant, musicals, inappropriate jokes, Fleischer Studios, pranks, dancing, mythical creatures, things that glow in the dark, random t.v shows, horror movie, slime, candy, octopus, skirts, crop tops.

Dislikes: Cheesy love songs, rules, normal food aside from fast food, birds, learning, shaving, reading, romance movies/shows, backstabbers, lying, shaving cream, showers, losing fights.

What makes him happy?: Dissecting stuff, fighting, pranking others, dancing, singing, coming up with outfit ideas, punching stuff, playing with slime, reenacting horror movies, inappropriate jokes, hanging out in his trash can, being pet, Shrek, eating deodorant, someone doing his makeup.

What upsets him?: Being abandoned or left behind, being told he isn’t good enough, being compared to me, seeing Janus upset, seeing Virgil upset, being told to shave.

Janus

Like: Snakes, philosophy, Greek mythology, sewing, horror movies, mystery books, murder documentaries, self care, sleeping, warm baths, weighted blankets, debating, law.

Dislikes: The cold, when someone takes his hat, dumb comedy movies, eagles, action movies, unnecessary violence or gore, close minded people, liars, sharing secrets, being vulnerable.

What makes hims happy?: Massages, weighted blankets, cuddling, hanging out with Remus, acting, having debates, seeing Remus and Virgil playfully argue, watching murder mysteries, singing.

What upsets him?: Being called evil, being ignored, seeing Remus or Virgil upset, Thomas not taking care of himself, being replaced, being left behind, people not understanding him, someone making fun of his scales, taking off his gloves.

....................

“Come on pussy! Let’s just march into his room, what’s the worse that could happen?”

“Language!” Patton quickly scolds Remus.

“What if he’s in there and he screams at us for barging in?! What if he gets really mad and chooses to get physical!? What if we see something we don’t want to!? What if he’s asleep and he get mad that we woke him up!? What if-”

“Virgil,” Logan interrupts the panicking side, “Your anxiety is causing you to catastrophize. Please, take a deep breath and try to filter out your cognitive distortion.”

The anxious side nods and takes a few deep breaths to calm himself.

“Now, I would like to add that I personally believe that Remus’ plan isn’t the worst idea ever and is currently the best one we have.” The logical side states.

“Well, while I love to agree with Remus, he is wrong in this instance,”

Remus smirks widely, “Awe! Thanks Jany~ You’re too generous~”

The deceitful side rolls his eyes, “Let’s just go.”

“Fine,” Virgil stands up, looking rather done with everything.

The rest of the sides stand up as well and begin to make their way to the prince’s room.

Once they make it to his door, Remus immediately just breaks the door down and lets himself in.

“Surprise!”

They walk in, greeted only by silence.

“He isn’t here?” Patton mumbles to himself.

“Doesn’t look like it. Let’s not go then.”

The other sides nod and start making their way out. Well, everyone except for Logan.

The logical side instead gets distracted by a paper stabled to the wall. He walks over to it and reads it to himself. Once he’s done reading his looks around the room and notices all the papers on the wall. As well, as the lack of theater and Disney merchandise.

“Wait, doesn't Roman’s room look,” He pauses to search for the right words, “Wrong?”

The other sides stop walking and looks around.

“Now that you mention it,” Remus mumbles, “His room has changed a lot since I last saw it...”

The other start reading through the endless papers of tips to improve himself and advice.

Suddenly Patton stops in front of a chart titled “Duties”

He slowly goes over it and buy the time he is done he is fuming with rage.

“What the hell!? Guys come look at this!”

The others go over, slightly amused and concerned.

Each of them take turns analyzing the chart.

Roman had spend his day at the Imagination. After the whole wedding accident, he’s been stuck in a very toxic place and well he thought a small guest might help. So, he left early in the morning and began his guest. He hadn’t meant to stay there for as long as he did but he lost track of time.

“Kiddo, we have a lot to talk about,” Patton mumbles in a passive aggressive tone.

....................

As the tired side starts approaching his room, he notices that all the either sides are gathered outside his room. Once he’s a bit closer, Virgil is the first to notice him. To his shock though, Virgil rushes to him and slaps him

“Roman, what the fuck!?”

Roman stands there shocked for a few minutes before looking at Patton, expecting to hear him scold Virgil. Instead however, Patton just look away from him.

“ANSWER ME!”

“I-...” Roman bites his lip to hold back the tears in his eyes, “I-I don’t understand... W-what did I do....?”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING!?”

The prince-like-side flinches and looks down.

Remus puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, "Let me handle this.”

For some reason, Roman thought that Remus would be on his side. He thought that if anyone understood what he was trying to do, it would be his brother. Or that his brother would at least explain what happened and let him tell his part of the story.

So, he looked up with a hopeful expression.

“Don’t look at me like that. What the fuck is wrong with you!? If you think we were such a hassle then why did you stay friends with us!?”

Any hope that Roman had immediately leaves his body, “I-I... I never said that! Where is this coming?!”

“DON’T BULLSHIT ME, ROMAN!” Remus summons his morning star, “WE SAW THE FUCKING CHART! SO, WHAT!? WE’RE NOTHING MORE THAN “DUTIES” TO YOU!?”

The usual confident side is now frozen in shock. They weren’t supposed to see that chart. They weren’t supposed to see his room at all. If Roman was being honest, he could understand why they took the chart the wrong way. The name of it wasn’t exactly the best but it was all he could think of while actually making it. Now though, he wished he would have pushed himself to think of a better name.

“N-No! You got it all wrong!” He is now crying, flinching away from his brother, “I was just trying to make you guys happy!”

Remus scoffs and puts his weapon away. He walks away from Roman and returns to Janus’ side.

“Whatever, Roman.”

His knees give out and he falls to the floor in defeat.

“I would greatly appreciate if you keep your distance from Patton and I from now on. If you fail to do so, I can’t exactly guarantee that I will be nice. Goodbye Roman.”

“Fucking pussy.” Remus throws out.

And just like that Logan sinks down with a crying Patton.

“And I thought I was the snake,” Janus adds, looking at him in pure disgust.

Then, they’re gone.

For a few seconds Virgil stares at the broken prince in front of him.

“You really are an idiot.”

He looks away from him and sinks down with a scoff leaving the weeping prince on the floor.

Alone.

....................

#my writing #unsympathetic light sides #unsympathetic dark sides #unsympathetic virgil #unsympathetic deceit #unsympathetic logan #unsympathetic patton #unsympathetic remus #unsympathetic sides #tw perfectionism #perfectionism tw #tw cursing #cursing tw #tw arguing #arguing tw #tw self doubt #self doubt tw #tw slapping #slapping tw

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queen-of-my-goofball-army · 3 years ago

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"You finally got into the music! Do you get my joke, because your head is, it's in the tuba

Tiana, she is my Evangeline

All you need is some self control to build yourself a brand new start" (Prince Naveen, Princess And The Frog.)

Now I had an anime one *planned* for today but those plans got derailed in favor of doing something that not a lot of people would know about me unless I had told them. That little known fact about me being, my favorite Disney prince, and my favorite Disney male character that they've ever made period end of argument, is Prince Naveen. He was the first Disney prince that had an actual character arc. One that made sense for his character. He had to learn what actually working hard meant and how to love somebody else that wasn't himself.

While there have been funny and comedic Disney princes before and since him, there were always fleeting funny moments. I might have a slight bias for goofball idiots but in my defense that's just the type that I was diagnosed with eventually. While Naveen is a lot more collected than most of my other favorite male characters that doesn't mean he's out of the woods on being a goofball. I have a lot of favorite moments in the film but one that I always love rewatching multiple times whenever I watch the movie is when Naveen goes through all that trouble to mince and *try* to propose to Tiana. Even though he fumbled around the subject it was obvious how much he cared about how much he cared. To me that's the core of his character, he's a goof but he just cares so much about the people in his life.

I also love how gentle he is with Tiana. One of my other favorite moments is when he's teaching her how to dance. She brought out a total different side to his personality one that was able to grow from there. What started off as a little sprout when he saved her from the hunters with guns grew until he was actually able to work his ass off to help her achieve her restaurant. If everything hadn't have worked itself out the way that it did and he didn't have the money you know that he would have gotten two jobs and paid for the extra money for her. He would have surprised her with the restaurant that she's always wanted.

Even prior to finding out what he really wanted out of life he was still a good friend to those around him. His friendship especially with Louis is one of my favorite things in the entire film. He's a smooth talker who has to refine his talent for the gab to get himself out of precarious situations growing up in. The biggest adjective that I can think of to describe Naveen is fun. He's all about having a good time whether that be with Tiana or with his friends.

Growing up I always had a really big soft spot for Naveen. Not many of my other friend's understood since 90% of them were always Tangled fans (I do love Eugene but Naveen has always been just special to me.) It was the first time that I truly had a "crush" on a Disney character. I still have this deep unabashed affection for him even twelve years later. I can always count on his antics to bring a smile to my face on a bad day. Princess And The Frog has been my second favorite Disney movie ever since I first saw it in theaters and this probably won't be the last time you hear me talking about it.

#princess and the frog #prince naveen #favorite disney characters #favorite disney prince #comfort characters #comfort crush #day 21: comfort husbandos

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nitrateglow · 4 years ago

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My bottom five new-to-me movies of 2020

2020 sucked. So did these movies. Before I do my customary top 20 favorite movie discoveries list, I wanted to share five very special new-to-me movies that were painful to watch. Forgive me if it all sounds like ranting. It probably is.

(And remember-- if you like any of these movies, that’s fine. I am not attacking YOU. I just didn’t like a movie. I know this is a stupid disclaimer to put on a list of opinions, but combing the venomous old IMDB message boards has me on edge a bit lol.)

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

Whether you love the sequel trilogy or hate it, everyone pretty much agrees this movie was a mess. I thought no movie could have a more structurally unsound screenplay than The Crimes of Grindelwald, but Rise of Skywalker gives it staunch competition. It creates a new artform from making things up as the plot requires: new powers for Rey, new Macguffins to pursue, new motivations and backstories for characters.

I admit I dislike The Last Jedi. I dislike it a lot, actually, and it appears JJ Abrams did too from the amount of retconning he does here (Rey isn’t nobody! Honest, guys!). But you can’t backtrack THAT much. Either plot out your entire trilogy before shooting the first film or play fairly with the cards you were dealt by the filmmakers of movie two.

If anything, these movies have become a cautionary tale about not having a plan when making a movie trilogy. Now, George Lucas didn’t really have one either when he was making the original trilogy, but in that case, he wasn’t even sure the first movie was going to be a modest hit, let alone the biggest movie of the 1970s. He had an excuse and did well enough finishing the trilogy. Here, Disney knew there would be sequels, they knew they had a hungry audience, but they chose to just wing it and the results are just-- so disappointing, especially given the talented young actors and lovely special effects they had at their disposal.

The more I think about it, the more poetic the image of Palpatine hooked up to a life support system/crane is. The best ROTS can do is riff on earlier, better movies and hope our affection will make us overlook the awfulness.

Artemis Fowl

Outside of Animal Crossing, Artemis Fowl might have been the only entity to benefit (if only slightly) from the pandemic. I cannot imagine it would have been anything but a box office bomb had the theaters been open.

Artemis Fowl feels like it should have come out in 2003-- not just because the books were more prominent then, but the whole style of this film in general. In 2020, it’s positively anachronistic. The whole thing is a joyless attempt at dipping from the old Harry Potter well, with a bit of Spy Kids thrown in for good measure. Beyond that, it’s so poorly done as a whole. I have never read the Artemis Fowl books, but I watched this with a friend who has and his head near caught on fire. Apparently, it cuts out everything that made the books cool, like the protagonist basically being a kid version of a Bond villain. Here, he’s anything but that: he’s the usual bland child protagonist surrounded by a cast of slightly more interesting characters. Josh Gad seems to be the only one really trying. Judi Dench shows up and somehow gives a worse performance than whatever the hell she was doing in Cats.

I was actually shocked Kenneth Branagh of all people directed this. I generally like his films, even the less successful ones like his musical adaptation of Love’s Labors Lost. Even the uninspiring live-action Cinderella remake he helmed is at least pretty to look at-- Artemis Fowl has neither brains nor beauty to recommend it.

Bloodline

This film was intended to jumpstart a career comeback for Audrey Hepburn. This decidedly did not happen. One has to wonder what she saw in this sordid material in the first place. Maybe she really just wanted to work with director Terence Young again? Or she thought this would be a good, more modern take on her screen persona? I have no clue. All I know is that Bloodline is one of the worst big-budget Hollywood movies I have ever seen.

No contest: this is Audrey Hepburn’s worst movie. Hate on Green Mansions and Paris When It Sizzles until the stars turn to ash-- at least there was some fun camp value in them. The plot in Bloodline makes no sense, going into unrelated digressions that lead nowhere (did we really need that extended flashback about the dead father? or the subplot with Omar Shariff’s two families?). Oh and then there’s the awful sleazy snuff film subplot that’s also poorly developed and goes nowhere. Hepburn is game, but she can’t save the sinking ship. The best she can do is be charming in a terrible 70s perm.

Luckily, she made the underrated They All Laughed two years after this cinematic fecal matter bombed, so at the very least, Hepburn’s big screen swan song was a film worthy of her presence. (Hint: there will be more about that movie on my top 20 of the year list!)

Halloween III: The Season of the Witch

You all have no idea how excited I was to see this. All the mentions of it on Red Letter Media made it sound like deliriously entertaining schlock. I mean, it’s a movie in which the villain sells cursed Halloween masks that turn children’s heads into bugs and snakes! That sounds awesome! Instead, the movie is badly paced and boring: the main characters are uninteresting and the plot takes an interesting premise then does.... nothing with it. Nothing whatsoever. The second act is the cinematic equivalent of treading water. In fact, so little happens, that the filmmakers squeeze in a pointless sex scene between two character who have all the chemistry of a lit match and a bag of M&M’s.

The thing that annoys me most about this film is that it killed off a great concept: that all of the future Halloween films would be standalone stories centered around the spookiest time of the year. Unfortunately, this movie botched itself so badly that people often think the absence of Michael Meyers was the problem. It wasn’t: it was the absence of a good story.

Blindsided

This is probably the most watchable movie on this list, but that’s not saying much. A bloodless ripoff of Wait Until Dark, Blindsided is an unimaginative thriller with no thrills, humor, or interesting characters whatsoever.

The whole film is just repetitive. The situation doesn’t slowly boil to something horrific, the threat presented by the villains doesn’t escalate, there are no interesting interactions between the characters: no, here the underdeveloped protagonist is interrogated, tortured and/or sexually harassed, tries to escape, is recaptured, rinse and repeat for ninety minutes. I admit there’s some clever resourcefulness on the part of the heroine in the last scene-- but it’s basically just Wait Until Dark’s climax (down to the twist with the villain finding an alternative source of illumination for crying out loud!) without the emotional payoff that comes from slow-burn pacing or the fantastic performances, so even that’s a letdown.

I thought the movie might at least be saved by Michael Keaton as the main criminal mastermind since he’s shown he can be a great villain in other movies (if they had remade Wait in the 80s, he would have been a perfect Harry Roat Jr.), but even he seems to be phoning it in here. Beyond a scene of attempted cat murder (I’m serious-- the bad guys are so incompetent they can’t even kill a cat), there’s not even anything so bad it’s good to enjoy. Blindsided is just dull and by-the-numbers.

#thoughts

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staczak91 · 4 years ago

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Stacy’s Top Ten Movies

I was gonna save this for my 200th post, but I think I’m close enough now. And, besides, I’m gonna be a little busy the next few days, so don’t know when I’ll actually get to my 200th post.

This is in no particular order. I’m so bad at ordering top tens. But, yup, here it goes.

Back to the Future

Of course, I have to start with this one. My new favorite movie! And the one that finally toppled my favorite movie for years and years: Spider-Man 2. I knew it would happen one day, I just didn’t know what movie would do it. Of course, I love the rest of the trilogy too, but number one remains my number one. It’s almost a perfect movie and the characters are A+! Which brings me to my next one....

Spider-Man 2

What a sweet superhero movie and sweet movie all around. I can literally gush about Peter Parker and MJ all day. The movie isn’t flawless. The ride is a little bumpy. But the emotionalism and sincerity shines through until the end.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Again, I love the whole trilogy, but Fellowship is the best of them all. The movie moves at a brisk pace with nary any fat in sight. It makes you love hobbits and elves and Aragorn (especially) and is hands down one of my favorite movies ever. It started my love of movies at a young age when I first saw this in theaters in fifth grade. And had my first real crush on an actor with Elijah Wood. Those dreamy, blue eyes....

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

So, I don’t really like the prequals or the new movies. But the original trilogy: yes please! Although I love the whole trilogy (Return of the Jedi being my least favorite), this one takes the cake. It isn’t as fun as A New Hope, but it’s directed and written better, and the characters are all drawn much better. Hands down! One of the best.

A Hard Day’s Night

This might seem like the odd one out, but John, Paul, George and Ringo have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mom first introduced me to the Fab Four way back when, and my life has never been the same since. Although I love Help! as well, A Hard Day’s Night is just the better movie. Funnier, moves at a brisker pace, and really shines a light on all four boys. I love them with all my heart,

Catch Me If You Can

Funny story: I didn’t want to watch this at first. But, now, here I am, gushing about this movie. I first saw it sometime in middle school or high school and fell in love. It’s tongue-in-cheek humor, sincerity and action-oriented script took me for a ride. And hand down, Leo’s best role ever! So underrated.

The Lion King

Let’s please not talk about that horrible remake. The original will always have a special place in my heart. It’s a movie full of heart. And my favorite Disney and animated movie. Simba, you go! In all seriousness, though, this film is a mini masterpiece.

Hot Fuzz

A little violent? Yes. But worth it to watch this masterpiece. Fun fact: I met Simon Pegg in college and told him how much I absolutely adored this movie. One of my best times. Still, though, if you want to watch something funny, heartwarming and just plain cool, watch this movie. It really is the best of its genre.

Casablanca

This one’s a real oldie, but it definitely has to be on here. The first time I watched this was for school and I was bored with it. The second time, though, I was hooked. It’s such a classic, and if you haven;t seen it before, do yourself a favor and watch it. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

The Princess Bride

Last, but certainly not least, of course this movie has to be on here. Funny, heartfelt and such a joy to watch,it always brings a smile to my face. Which reminds me: I haven’t watched it in awhile. I should really rewatch this movie at some poitnt.

So, there you have it. My top ten. I wish I could have talked about more movies, but these are my all-time favorites that I can just watch over and over again. Hope you enjoy the post!

#top ten #back to the future #bttfi #spider-man #spider-man 2 #lord of the rings #fellowship of the ring #star wars #empire strikes back #the beatles #a hard day's night #catch me if you can #the lion king #hot fuzz #casablanca #the princess bride #movies #movie #bttf

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liskantope · 4 years ago

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Some briefer(?) reactions to major Disney films 1989-1998

I consider the Disney Renaissance (around the period I refer to in the above title) to have been the last official leg of my chronological journey through major Disney features through Disney+ (for this one I need to mention that I’m excluding CGI animated ones on this journey, except when I feel like watching them on the side). I logged some thoughts on the films I watched in the two earlier legs of the journey here and here, where honestly I intended my notes to be short and not turn into full-blown mini-essays for each movie. Those posts turned out to be major timesucks and I can’t afford that now, but I thought I’d jot down a hodgepodge of reactions and just be briefer and sloppier about it. I feel like I have overall less to say about this set of films anyway, since they’re pretty much all very high-quality and are talked about extensively in the cultural discourse much more than films from Disney’s earlier eras.

As I was still trying to stick to taking one day for each year in the Disney Studios timeline and major film production by Disney picked up pace a lot at the start of this era, I wound up doing a rather intense marathon of one full Disney movie each evening: over ten evenings (corresponding to the years 1989 through 1998), I watched the ten movies The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Mulan. I would have watched Tarzan the following evening, but I had very recently sort of re-seen it when it came on Netflix -- I didn’t see it for the first time until an outdoor event near the end of grad school not that many years ago; I didn’t bother paying full attention on seeing it the second time a couple of months ago and couldn’t much get into it on the second viewing.

The thing about the ten major animated Disney movies on this list is that, while I can’t say I love all of them, the uptick in quality is dramatic right from the start and never wavers. Every single one of these films just seems objectively better than Pete’s Dragon, The Fox and the Hound, or Oliver and Company. This will help me be a little shorter-written when talking about them, as it’s easier to expand on specific criticisms than to wax on about how great something is.

[EDIT: Okay, these still turned out pretty long and more on the polished side. Guess I’m just not that capable of being brief and sloppy.]

The Little Mermaid, 1989

Although we didn’t have the video at my house growing up, I somehow knew The Little Mermaid quite well; I guess I watched it quite a few times. I went a gap of many years before seeing it again in college (I’m fairly certain that my college girlfriend and I watched it together, in fact). My reaction at the time was that although it was well enough done with good music, the story was terrible. This was right around the time I watched a performance of Once on This Island, a musical based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid” on which, of course, the Disney movie was based. I thought the tragic tale told in Once on This Island was beautiful and scorned The Little Mermaid for cheapening it. In fact, my opinion was quite scathing in the way that my opinions more often were when I was younger. So I was a little wary on watching it again.

I’ve mellowed out since my college days and don’t hate the story quite as much now -- in particular, I can’t really blame Disney for Disnifying a mature tragedy into a more lighthearted tale with a happy ending -- but I still think it’s kind of bad. We’re back to Disney princesses (I think for the first time since my first round of Disney films?), this time with a Disney princess who had goals that didn’t involve meeting her prince, until she actually meets him and every other interest, including staying in the world she grew up with where to which all the people who ever loved her or knew her are confined, giving up her voice, and drastically changing her physical form. And this is all for a prince character of flatly generic personality who is superficial and dim-witted enough that he only knows his true love by her voice. (I don’t understand why this isn’t the Disney Renaissance-era film that routinely gets criticized for being anti-feminist rather than... a certain other one also on this list.) Also, while King Triton isn’t by any means a flat character, his sudden turnaround at the end and almost lightheartedness at saying goodbye to his daughter presumably forever doesn’t quite feel right.

I was very surprised at how much I’d completely forgotten among plot events and certain scenes in the movie. For instance, as the action neared the climax, I really had no memory of how Ursula would be defeated and watching it didn’t jog my memory.

This is the first of several films on this list where I noticed a sample of what I’m starting to think of a set of 90′s sitcom/romcom tropes, in this case the situation of the romantic leads courting very publicly with all the other characters watching and cheering it on and working behind the scenes to help it happen. This shows up again in Beauty and the Beast and (to a slight degree) Aladdin below.

Great music of course, even slightly better than what I remembered. Fun fact: you know that “Part of Your World” song, almost certainly the most widely popular in the film, the one that musical theater kids at my (and maybe your) middle school always used for auditions? Apparently it was almost cut from the film, mainly because it was shown to a test audience of little kids who all fidgeted and got visibly distracted.

The Rescuers Down Under, 1990

I don’t have too much to say about this one, the first Disney sequel ever. I had only ever seen the first Rescuers before and, as my previous set of reviews indicates, didn’t particularly like it, but came in to this one a little more optimistic since some consider it better than its predecessor. They aren’t wrong -- this movie was similar to The Rescuers but better, I think. Although the villain was just as forgettable, the setting was far more enticing (at least to someone like me who has never been to Australia and thinks of it as exotic), and the dynamic between the main mouse characters was more engaging. Here we have another subplot that somehow reminds me of a 90′s-ish sitcom/romcom, with the aborted marriage proposals and a love triangle -- not that love triangles hadn’t featured in movies for decades, but something about how this one was done felt distinctly more modern.

Beauty and the Beast, 1991

Ah, this is not only one of the Disney movies I saw the most as a kid but one which has only grown on me as I’ve gotten older -- I consider it one of the most groundbreakingly beautiful of the animated classics ever made, one of my very favorite Disney productions of all time. We got the video when I was only five or so; I remember distinctly that it came out on home video (right after coming out in theaters) right around the same time that 101 Dalmatians came out on home video and that my mom explained to me that she was choosing to buy Beauty and the Beast instead because of its superior music. She was right about this -- not that 101 Dalmatians has bad music, but it’s hard to measure up to Alan Mencken’s masterful compositions for Beauty and the Beast. For me it solidly ranks in the top three Disney movie soundtracks ever, one of the others being that of Mary Poppins and the third being from an easily-predictable film later on this list.

I’m pretty sure I remember watching portions of this movie every morning for weeks before leaving for kindergarten (this is what makes me think we got it when I was five), and I continued to enjoy it throughout childhood. I next watched it when I was much older, but I can’t remember exactly when. During college I got hold of the soundtrack of the musical, which since has been one of my favorite musical soundtracks to listen to. I never actually got to see the musical until last December when it was showing in my hometown, and I thought it was excellent. Interestingly, there were a number of scenes that I assumed had been added for the musical but I had actually forgotten were in the movie -- unlike with certain Disney musical films *ahemMaryPoppinsahem*, they didn’t take many liberties with the musical except to add a number of new (very good) songs.

Leaving aside the top-notch music and exquisite animation, the story in my opinion is one of the most beautiful and distinctively memorable stories Disney has ever told, not to mention entertaining without every being silly or over-the-top. It speaks of compassion, drawing out core goodness from an ugly exterior, and the fact that, to quote the enchantress from the start of the tale, “beauty comes from within”. Belle is also, to my mind, the most feminist Disney protagonist ever to be seen up to that time, which is why I get super super annoyed that so many people point to this movie loftily shouting “Stockholm Syndrome!” I feel it’s kind of inevitable that I quickly address that here, even though I’ve brought it up on this blog several times before. (Also, for an excellent takedown of the “Beauty and the Beast is a sexist story because Belle has Stockholm’s Syndrome” take, see this video essay of Lindsay Ellis.)

When watching the musical last winter I kept an eye out for justification for the Stockholm’s Syndrome take that I might not have remembered and couldn’t find any, but it pains me to admit that I did find a smidgen of justification, for someone determined to be a bit uncharitable, in a particular bit of dialog from the movie. I don’t recall it appearing with quite that wording in the musical, although it’s entirely possible that the musical has those exact same lines and I just wasn’t being observant. Here it is:

BELLE: What did you say?

BEAST: I release you. You’re no longer my prisoner.

BELLE: You mean... I’m free?

BEAST: Yes.

BELLE: Oh, thank you. Hold on, Papa. I’m on my way. [tries to hand mirror to BEAST]

BEAST: Take it with you. So you’ll always have a way to look back... and remember me.

BELLE: [in sweet, deeply moved tone] Thank you for understanding how much he needs me.

So okay, maybe Belle comes off as showing just a bit too much unqualified gratitude here, an oversight that the writers circa 1990 clearly should have avoided in case diagnosing female characters with Stockholm’s should ever become trendy twenty-something years later. But this could be remedied by a quick rewrite of the dialog in that one scene; it’s not as though the whole plot has to be changed away from its inherently misogynistic nature.

And that’s all I want to say on that one aspect of this absolute gem of a Disney production. Despite a few minor issues I noticed, such as Maurice being a little too innocent and helpless, and it lacking my very favorite line from the musical (“Belle don’t you recognize the beast within the man who’s now before you?” at the end), Beauty and the Beast comes about as close to perfection as it gets.

Aladdin, 1992

Although I didn’t see this major blockbuster hit when it first came out -- it was probably considered a bit too intense for me at kindergarten age -- this is the first time that I was aware on some level that a particular Disney movie was a new release. (One of my few sharp memories of kindergarten recess was a boy standing on a stump or low piece of playground equipment making proclamations to passersby for minutes at a time that alternated between, “You are a street rat!”, “You were born a street rat!”, and “You will die a street rat!”, and how this made me consciously contemplate the concept of present/past/future tenses for the first time.) When I saw it, I loved it -- it was clearly the most exciting animated movie out there. At some point in childhood I thought it was bested by its sequel, but a few years later as a teenager I decided that the tightly resonant plot of the original Aladdin made it the best Disney movie ever. I’ve definitely mellowed out my opinion on this, as Aladdin certainly has flaws and some other features are more deeply meaningful to me as an adult, but I still hold up Aladdin as one of the greats. I saw at least parts of it as an adult on TV and saw it very recently prior to getting Disney+ when it appeared briefly on Netflix, but I was perfectly happy to rewatch it yet again on Disney+ the evening after watching its predecessor as Aladdin is fun and entertaining every time.

In this animated production we have finally topped The Great Mouse Detective in terms of animated action. We have topped most movies that ever came out prior in terms of a manically funny yet also soulful character in Robin Williams’ role as the genie. The story is excellent, apart from having only one female character, and my being bothered just a little by the slough of magic tricks dominating the action towards the end -- I tend to prefer universes where magic requires scholarly study and careful training (e.g. The Black Cauldron) rather than “genie points his finger at you and now you have the ability to point your own finger and make anything happen that pops into your head”. The sultan continues the trend of old man characters who are portrayed as helpless and infantile -- in this case, even more intensely, since the sultan has none of Maurice’s brilliant smarts. But I’m mostly nitpicking here -- Aladdin is well deserving of its high status in the history of Disney.

The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993

I was very glad to finally get a chance to see this movie, because I clearly remember knowing about it from the time it was being advertised back in 1993, and I heard about it during my entire childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Although it seemed that most of my friends had seen it growing up, it didn’t look much like my conception at the time of a “normal movie” or even normal content, and so I don’t recall ever asking to watch it. But my recent-day self recognized that it’s quite a classic and was curious to see it.

I don’t regard The Nightmare Before Christmas as one of the really great Disney productions, but I strongly admire how original it was (particularly for its time) in every single aspect, including use of claymation, overall aesthetic, intriguing characters, and story. It was also fun to see what seems to be the only Disney musical that is done in the style of opera, that is, where the entire story is told in songs without any extended non-musical dialogs. And the songs are quite good in their own way, too. I don’t particularly want to see the film again, but I might not mind getting a soundtrack of it.

The Lion King, 1994

This is the first Disney movie -- and I believe the first movie of any kind, in fact -- that I went to see in the theater. I remember it as a powerful and sometimes overwhelming experience, but as a movie I overall liked even as young as I was. This is remarkable especially considering that much of the story feels more adult in nature than almost any other Disney animated feature.

What can I even say about this one? I think the general reaction to watching it is almost unanimously shared. My impression is that what its creators were going for, more than anything else, was epicness, and they succeeded in a way that had never been done through animation before. Apparently the entire (incredibly epic) opening number was shown as the trailer -- a questionable move, but understandably it got people very excited about The Lion King’s release.

One of many particular things that makes The Lion King stand out is the profound darkness of its main villain, perhaps the most chilling that has ever appeared in Disney. An argument can be made that not only murdering a major protagonist halfway through the movie but convincing the child that he’s to blame is the most evil act we’ve ever seen from a Disney villain. I’ve seen it pointed out that it’s vaguely ableist to give the villain an ugly scar and even make it his name. Some have suggested that they should have made the villain the handsome and strong one and given the scar to one of the heroes -- Simba or Mufasa -- instead. I’m definitely sympathetic to this point of view, and I totally agree that Scar shouldn’t actually have been someone’s name. However, without getting bogged down into something that could be a lengthy post all on its own, I strongly feel that in a way it adds to the depth of our villain’s depravity through the backstory that it implies. And by the way, his ending is probably my favorite out of the fates of all Disney villains.

The music also follows the film’s ethos of being as epic as possible (well, with the exception of a couple of the songs, but they were still fine songs). “The Circle of Life” and the instrumental music propel The Lion King’s soundtrack to possibly the very best in all of Disney.

To be sure, this movie does have more flaws than I remembered. As I said, Scar is a terrible name to give any of the characters, especially in a story where everyone else’s name comes from Swahili. Pumbaa is basically just one big fart joke. (Although, I give the writers major credit for managing to switch the tone to accommodate fart jokes within like five minutes of Scar confronting Simba over Mufasa’s death.) The video essayist Big Joel has pointed out interesting things about the story and made some rather troubling points about it, although to me that almost just makes the film deeper and more thought-provoking rather than actually worse (I see the Chronicles of Narnia this way). But overall, The Lion King has well earned its high rank on the list of highest grossing films of all time.

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At this point in Disney’s history and my childhood, apparently I decided that I didn’t care to see new Disney films coming out because I was content with watching my old favorites over and over, and anyway I was getting older and discovering that non-Disney movies could be quite entertaining as well. Therefore, I didn’t see any of these last four until adulthood, even though they all came out when I was still a kid.

Pocahontas, 1995

I was glad for the chance to finally see Pocahontas for the first time, unfortunately not before hearing countless references to it as being Problematic while I would have preferred to go into it completely uninfluenced by popular opinion. I had actually seen songs from it and Disney books of it as a child and it didn’t interest me at all. On finally watching the film, I found that I got what I expected on both counts: it wasn’t terribly interesting or gripping, and it doesn’t really pass the muster of today’s higher standards of responsible storytelling about colonialism.

All that really sticks out at me looking back (after some delay in writing this post, so that it was over a month ago that I watched this) is that the plot felt a bit atypical in two ways. One, a character, who is neither a protagonist really nor a villain, is killed off around halfway through -- a daring move that The Fox and the Hound chickened out of doing, but I shouldn’t have been all that surprised given that Pocahontas’ very predecessor did this with a protagonist in a much bigger way. And two, the story ends sort of anticlimactically: I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed when a big Disney animated feature doesn’t end with a lot of action, despite realizing that this more peaceful kind of ending being a reasonable alternative is basically the entire point the story wants to make.

The songs are sort of meh, at least by the high standards of Disney movies of this period. Nothing more really to say on this one.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1996

Here is another movie that I had never gotten around to seeing before, despite having been somewhat more interested in it than I ever was in Pocahontas. And this turned out to be the main breakout attraction on this list, as I found it nothing short of spectacular (save, perhaps, the music, which was “only” quite solid, maybe not spectacular).

I would nominate this for the award of most mature movie among all the animated features included in this journey. I would almost say its ideal audience is adults, not children. It showcases an abusive relationship with enough intricate care to be worthy of analysis through abuse discourse on Tumblr. It displays lust and sexuality in a way that I don’t think I’ve never seen anywhere else in Disney animation. Its violence and political undertones are quite dark. It examines religion deeply (which is as far as I know unique in Disney), and the capacity of religion to bring out both the best and the worst impulses in humanity is exposed. Its main villain is one of the more multi-layered ones. It treats physical handicaps and deformities in quite an honest way and subverts expectations with its love plot.

Perhaps the only thing one might reasonably criticize this movie for is the characters of the gargoyles, which are clearly present to lighten the tone a bit so that the film isn’t entirely heavy and austere. But I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised -- I think the gargoyle stuff could have been executed in such a way that may have made the whole film sag, but instead they were done just right: the gargoyles are depicted as being animated only in the mind of Quasimodo. This means in fact that in a way, they actually implicitly add some gravity to his situation. (Consider that in a more typical Disney film there would have been some sort of cheesy sentient animal friend instead whose existence would not have been confined to the protagonist’s imagination.) Here I’m going to choose to ignore the fact that the gargoyles do seem to interfere in the final battle with some explosives, a possible inconsistency which is minor enough to be glossed over.

Anyway, I think before I unsubscribe from Disney+, I might just give this one a second watching.

Hercules, 1997

Although I never saw this one growing up, I did get talked into watching it by my college girlfriend who had been fond of it growing up. I distinctly remember not caring much for it when I saw it with her. My reaction at this later stage of my life is basically the same. There’s something about the animation style that I find subtly grating and distracting. And there’s something about the story itself that feels like way too light and cartoony a take on ancient Greek mythology (although it’s not like the ancient Greeks had a particularly heavy or dark mythology, and what else could I expect from Disney, really?). I guess that stories that are so explicitly centered around a young man’s quest for hero-hood and being godlike just don’t speak to me that well, and I didn’t find any of the characters that appeared to be especially memorable or engaging.

I did like the muses and enjoyed their singing but can’t say I love any of the musical numbers. So, I respect the effort and earnestness and general respect for ancient Greek culture that went into Hercules, but my overall reaction is still meh.

Mulan, 1998

I had only seen this movie once before, during a trip with some grad school friends back some years ago. One of my best friends at the time, who was with us on the trip, highly recommended it as pretty much her favorite Disney movie as she especially liked father-daughter stories. At the time, the film didn’t make a particularly strong impression on me, although I could recognize its quality. Watching it again on Disney+ has given me a deeper respect for it as having quite a good story and characterization, fine animation, and pretty decent music. I like both Mulan and Mushu as characters, and I enjoyed their dynamic.

I guess it’s telling, though, that I don’t really have all that much more to say about it. Maybe I don’t relate closely enough, maybe the movie didn’t imprint itself on me at an early enough time in my life, maybe I don’t engage that well with any plot that involves organized warfare, I don’t know. But I think I can only really like this film on a more dispassionate, intellectual level, rather than feeling touched in any kind of resonant way by it.

I think it’s interesting to note that Mulan is actually pretty rare among Disney protagonists in having two parents who survive through the entire story. And that moreover, despite it being billed as a father-daughter story to me (and I’m not denying that it is somewhere at its core), Mulan never directly interacts with her father except at the beginning and the very end.

Anyway... since watching all of these, I’ve been watching the more recent major films sort of sporadically: The Return of Jafar (a favorite of mine at some point in childhood, but with maturity I can now see why it was direct-to-video), The Emperor’s New Groove (quite good, better than expected), the first half of Home on the Range (about as bad as I expected, hence my quitting halfway through), WALL-E (as good as I remembered from when it came out when I was in college), Enchanted (one of my favorites, not on Disney+ so I got it through... other means), The Princess and the Frog (a real treat, slathered with Louisiana flavor), Tangled (sweet but nothing outstanding), Frozen (one of my favorites from seeing it in the theater; however I had never seen the first ten minutes which makes a major difference!), and Frozen II (which I had been sorry to miss in theaters last winter, a bit of a weird story but not bad and absolutely the most stunning animation I’ve ever seen). And, of course, Belle’s Magical World, the infamous mid-quel to Beauty and the Beast; this was not a major film but I just had to see if it was as legendarily bad as people say and, yes, it was.

I’m very glad to have been able to get a break from Netflix by taking a tour through the main history of Disney -- including many childhood memories, would-be childhood experiences, and more modern things from my adulthood -- thanks to Disney+.

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jgroffdaily · 5 years ago

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It took until Frozen II for Anna’s reindeer-loving boyfriend, Kristoff, to enjoy his first solo number, and when that moment comes in the animated sequel, audiences are in for a surprise. The true-blue ’80s ballad titled “Lost in the Woods” is a wild departure from the classic musical-theater numbers and Oscar-friendly ballads that make up most of the Frozen soundtrack, and no one was more surprised about this shift than Kristoff himself, Jonathan Groff. “In the moment they handed me the song, I couldn’t believe that they were going to go there,” he said. “I found it personally—and even when I still watch the movie—to be truly shocking when it starts. Like, Oh wow, we’re doing this. Okay, here we go.”

The song, which is available online today, is paired with even wilder visuals in the movie and gets a reprise over the credits performed by ’90s alterna-rock gods Weezer. Groff and Frozen II songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez took Vanity Fair behind the scenes of Kristoff’s big emotional solo.

For some Frozen fans, this Kristoff song is even more hotly anticipated than Elsa’s next big earworm. The cast of the original Frozen was stacked with talented theater stars like Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Santino Fontana, all of whom got a chance to flex their vocal cords…except Groff. A Broadway star and Glee darling at the time, Groff was left with only a snippet of a ditty called “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People.” When Groff went on to debut the role of sassy, petulant King George in Hamilton, the retroactive dismay over his Frozen role only grew. “We are ashamed,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez joked, “and will be for the rest of our lives, that he didn’t sing in Frozen.”

“Oh, it was so sweet that people were more upset that I didn’t sing than I was,” Groff said. “It was really sweet that people would express that to me all the time including Kristen Bell who was like, ‘Well, you need to sing more in this movie.‘”

A challenge in Frozen was that Kristoff was a rather gruff, solitary figure, not exactly prone to break out in song and express himself. Even as Frozen II loomed, Groff says, “I couldn’t personally imagine how they were going to get a mountain man to sing. The first one, okay, he’s got a lute, he’s singing a ditty with his reindeer, I buy that. I totally buy that. But how are they going to get Kristoff to sing? I couldn’t even imagine it.” Neither the Lopezes nor Groff wanted to just shoehorn in a song that didn’t make sense for the plot. And, in fact, there was an earlier version of a Kristoff song that didn’t wind up working at all.

“We had originally written a song for Kristoff called ‘Get This Right,’ which was about him putting this huge amount of pressure on himself and it was totally a comedy song, but it kind of fell on the ground for many reasons,” Anderson-Lopez explains. Over the course of the film, Kristoff is trying (and repeatedly failing) to propose to Anna. “[He’s a] a guy that spent his entire life alone in the woods so much that his only friend is a reindeer that he even provides the voice for,” Groff says. “And then in parallel, Anna is a girl that spent her entire life inside the castle walls without ever having any social interaction. It’s like these two socially awkward people come together and of course there’s this inability to express the feelings, and how do I do this, and I want to do it right but I don’t know quite how to.”

For someone as self-consciously closed off as Kristoff, the Lopezes found inspiration in, of all places, karaoke. “There’s nothing better than a man feeling his feelings in a real way at a karaoke bar,” Anderson-Lopez says. “I’ve seen a lot of drunk dudes singing Journey at karaoke,” Groff adds. “And it’s ‘funny’ question mark? There’s also a level of necessity for expression. And Queen is a part of that. Queen was so theatrical and big and when you do something that’s theatrical and big like that and it’s sung by a man, it gives boys the opportunity to really be theatrical and express themselves.”

Kristoff’s unique relationship with his reindeer, Sven, allowed the Lopezes even more musical leeway here. The song is a quasi-fantasy sequence where Sven and a number of other reindeer—also voiced by Groff—provide the backing vocals. This particular element was a stroke of genius from the animators who suggested to the songwriters that they might have some fun with a full supporting reindeer chorus. “That allowed us to go to that stacked Queen-meets-Chicago kind of place,” Anderson-Lopez says. “Bobby laid down like 18 different tracks and then Jonathan Groff did them 18 times. So not only is this a solo for Jonathan Groff, but it’s actually 18 Jonathan Groffs. We gave you 18 Groffs.” Anderson-Lopez is hoping this gift will finally get them off the hook with grumpy Groff fans.

To get Groff in the mood on the day of recording, the Lopezes went down a YouTube rabbit hole of ’80s power balladeers including Bryan Adams. “I don’t think we listened to Journey or Michael Bolton, but it’s like that kind of energy,” Groff says.

For the Lopezes this kind of musical departure presented both a risk and a thrill. “We had never done this before,” Bobby Lopez says. “But where the distorted guitars kick in. I mean, come on. That is the quintessential moment of the ’80s and it just seemed to be perfect.” But the duo were even more delighted by the visual surprises the Disney animators came up with based off one little scribbled note on their lyrics sheet: “Feel free to take this to an ’80s video kind of place.”

“The brilliance of the animators can’t be overstated,” Groff says. “When I saw the hair flip and the singing into the pinecone. The Queen references to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with the reindeer, the sort of emotional walking, even like the supertight close-up on the face. I just lost my mind.” It’s a tonal departure from some of the more earnest musical moments elsewhere in Frozen but Groff suspects that added element of comedy might make the flood of Kristoff’s emotions go down easier, especially with young boys watching Frozen II.

“Normally you’re seeing the girl pining over the guy singing an emotional ballad,” he explains. “And in this one Anna goes off to go on a huge adventure and they’ve inverted it. Now it’s giving the boys the opportunity to feel their feelings and sing about whatever is going on for them, which is so potentially exciting considering how many kids are going to be watching the movie.”

Though it wasn’t written with a rock band in mind, the stacked harmonies of “Lost in the Woods” also makes it perfect fodder for the Weezer cover treatment and that version plays over the film’s closing credits.

#jonathan groff #frozen 2 #!#press #interview #robert lopez #kristen anderson lopez

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basementsushi · 4 years ago

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Cinderella - movie reviews

Movie: Cinderella (1950)

Would I recommend: Yes - it’s another classic that’s still quite enjoyable today!

Had seen before: Yes (but couldn’t remember it)

Main movie, prequel, sequel, or midquel: Main movie

Theater or straight to video: Theater

Keep reading below for fun facts, my thoughts, and origin details (contains spoilers)!

Also further below are my reviews for the sequels!

Thoughts:

Why do all the mice and birds have clothes? BIRDS DO NOT NEED SHOES

Cinderella’s rant at the clock tower truly shows the universal hatred of being woken up by a clock in the morning

Cinderella certainly has more attitude than I remembered! It’s wonderful

I can’t help wondering why the prince’s baby portrait shows him as a blonde, and from a toddler on he has black hair

What’s going on with the fever dream bubbles? What was in that tea…

I love how much the mice care about Cinderella, they truly do everything they can to help her prepare for the ball

There’s a lot more humor in the movie than I remembered - a lot of it is a bit subtle, I think some may have just gone over my head when I was little

I love the prince’s attitude (hiding a yawn while meeting some of the ladies, and rolling his eyes at the step-sisters)

The king is a bit creepy, he’s so obsessed with having grandkids, to the point that he says some of the ladies must have potential to be great mothers (before correcting himself to say wives)!

It’s wonderful that Cinderella is so appealing to the prince because she’s not fawning over him or his position - he first notices her because she’s admiring the palace beauty instead of trying to gain his attention, and becomes more fascinating with her later when he realizes she’s interested in him (she doesn’t even know he’s the prince at the time!)

While spending time with the prince why does Cinderella splash her GLOVED hand in the fountain?

The poor grand duke.. He may be my favorite character, he’s so sweet and trying so hard. I feel so bad when he’s so panicked about telling the king Cinderella has disappeared (though of course he’d be panicked, the king threatened to kill him if anything went wrong!)

Another reason to love the grand duke - he is literally the only character who acknowledges the very real concern that the slipper may fit many women!

I have noticed that Cinderella wears a black choker both with her ball gown and with her wedding gown. I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

Fun facts:

Cinderella’s prince is the one known as “Prince Charming”

While the Brothers Grimm wrote a tale about “Cinderella”, the Disney movie draws inspiration from Cendrillon (Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper), a tale by Charles Perrault, first published anonymously in 1697 in Paris (over a century before the Brothers Grimm tale, which differs in many ways) - for my research I read both versions, and highly recommend you do the same! The movie stays mostly true to Perrault’s tale, though personally I prefer the Grimm version.

Cinderella was originally going to be a short, but the ideas were too complicated to fit, so instead they made it into a movie

Origin: (Cendrillon, or The Little Glass Slipper, Charles Perrault tale) In this tale a gentleman, who had an incredibly sweet and good daughter from his first wife, married again, this time a haughty woman with much pride. She showed these traits almost immediately after the wedding. The step-mother disliked the man's daughter, especially since her goodness made her own daughters pale in comparison, so she made the girl clean and do the most horrible of tasks and sleep on a horrible straw bed, while her daughters had only the finest of things. The girl dared not tell her father, for he was completely under the influence of her stepmother.

Her step-sisters began to call her names, among them Cinderella, because she would sit among the cinders and ashes.

It then was that the king's son announced a ball, and that many young ladies were invited. The step-sisters were quite excited to attend, and spent much time planning their appearance, and Cinderella, in her goodness, helped them prepare. On the day of the ball Cinderella saw them off, then began to cry. Her godmother, who was a fairy, saw her crying and came to see what was wrong. When Cinderella told her she too wished to attend the ball she said that she would make it so.

She had Cinderella bring her a pumpkin, six mice, a rat, and six lizards, which she transformed into a fine, gold-gilded coach, fine horses, a coachman, and footmen. When Cinderella asked her about a dress she touched her with her wand, transforming her rags into cloth of gold and silver, covered in many jewels. Her godmother warned her before she left to leave before midnight, when everything would transform back into what it was before.

When Cinderella arrived all were stunned by her beauty, and admired her grace when they saw her dance. A fine meal was served, and Cinderella surprised her sister's by sitting near them and giving them some of the fine fruit the prince had given her (they did not know it was her). Shortly before midnight she returned home, and when her step-sisters returned home they told tales of a beautiful and kind princess who had been in attendance.

The following evening she attended again, dressed even more magnificently. She was having such a wonderful time she nearly forgot to leave before midnight, and had to hurriedly flee as the clock began to strike twelve. In her hurry she left a glass slipper behind, which the prince found. By the time she returned home she was once again in her dirty clothes, with the exception of her single glass slipper.

A few days later the prince announced that he would marry whomever could fit into the slipper. Many tried, including the step-sisters, but no matter how hard they tried none fit. Cinderella, watching all this amused, said they should see if it fit her. The gentleman whom the prince had set agreed she should try, as the prince had given him orders to let everyone try.

The slipper fit her perfectly, and her step-sisters were astonished, even more so when she pulled the matching flipper from her pocket. At that moment Cinderella's godmother came in and touched her wand to Cinderella, dressing her in things more fine than she had ever worn before. Her step-sisters, now recognizing her, threw themselves at her feet begging forgiveness. She raised them up and embraced them, forgiving them completely.

Cinderella was taken to the prince, and after a few days they were married. Cinderella, in all her goodness, gave her sisters homes in the palace as well, and that same day matched them with lords in the court.

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Movie: Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002)

Would I recommend: Yes*. You can definitely feel the ideas/influence from when this was going to be a TV show, it feels closer to three separate episodes rather than one overarching movie plot. *Overall it’s not as good as the first movie, but if you enjoyed the first and want some silly stories about events that take place after this may be a fun watch.

Had seen before: No

Main movie, prequel, sequel, or midquel: Sequel

Theater or straight to video: Straight to video

Keep reading below for fun facts and my thoughts (contains spoilers)!

Thoughts:

Cinderella is still rocking a choker with all of her gowns

Ball gowns are Cinderella’s Clark Kent glasses - with a gown on everyone immediately recognizes her, with no fancy gown she blends and no one recognizes her as the princess

I like that Cinderella questions many of the customs at the palace - that she shouldn’t make her own breakfast, that people can’t just choose where they sit at dinner, or wondering about essentially same colored napkins - it’s quite relatable

WHY DOES PART OF THE PLOT INVOLVE JAC BECOMING A HUMAN

There are color changing strings of lights at the Spring Festival - historical accuracy be darned

The fairy godmother needs the get “bippity boppity boo” embroidered on her sleeves or something, it’s her only spell and she still manages to forget it half the time

Well the movie has mice romance sub-plot, now all it needs is the kitchen sink… [edit from later in the movie: LUCIFER AND POM POM? That’s it, they’ve covered every possible love sub-plot]

Quite a 180 from the first movie, I actually am liking Anastasia (one of the step-sisters), and the other begins to seem better as well

Fun facts:

This was originally going to be a TV series, but it got cancelled, and the ideas adapted into a movie instead

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Movie: Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007)

Would I recommend: Yes - it’s certainly a fun sequel to the original, I’m finding myself debating whether I like it or the original better, and honestly, I think this one might be winning!

Had seen before: No

Main movie, prequel, sequel, or midquel: Sequel

Theater or straight to video: Straight to video

Keep reading below for my thoughts (contains spoilers)!

Thoughts:

I’m not 100% sure, it’s pretty subtle, but I think from the opening song this movie takes place a year after the first one

Lady Tremaine is so much more evil in this one! It shows in her use of magic too, hers is green, while the fairy godmother’s and Anastasia’s are white/blue

I love how much more independent and clever Cinderella is in this one - she’s taking control of her life, a true fighter!

SHE WEARS A SIZE 4.5? What is she, a fae?

Aww, Anastasia reminds the king so much of his wife (who I can tell through inference as passed away)

It’s amazing how some genuine kindness and care changes Anastasia’s personality and outlook, I sympathize with her so much in this movie - it really shows how much she just wants to be loved and appreciate for who she is

Good prince, questioning the weird animal interactions

OMG the prince is dramatic as heck, when told he was forbidden to take another step down the stairs he just yeeted himself out the window instead

#cinderella #movie #movie review #charles perrault #brothers grimm #sequel

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crosbytoews · 5 years ago

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the disney renaissance films, ranked

9) tarzan (1999)

let me get a few things straight: 1) i like this movie! and 2) it has the second best soundtrack of any disney movie

however i’m not sure i even consider this a renaissance film. i think its animation is weak compared to the other renaissance flims. i don’t love the story either.

what i do find interesting about this movie (other than the excellent soundtrack) is how dark it is. it’s pretty violent for a disney movie, especially when the villain, clayton, accidentally & graphically hangs himself. most other disney films show the villain vaguely falling to their death, but not this one!

8) aladdin (1992)

okay i feel really bad about ranking this film so low, but it’s just not my favorite. i LOVE the character of the genie. he’s one of disney’s best characters. however i don’t find aladdin himself that likable! and i hate abu! not a fan of jafar either!

a whole new world is the only standout song on the soundtrack. there’s no standout animation. jasmine deserved better.

7) pocahontas (1995)

i am pocahontas defense squad. at this point in the list, i truly enjoy all the movies.

let’s get the obvious out of the way: this movie is problematic. they absolutely should not have based the main character off a real person. but i think overall it’s less problematic than you might think: the movie makes it clear that the english were greedy and stole land. they did not make most of them out to be favorable. the romance between pocahontas and john smith is very... questionable (especially the part where pocahontas magically learns to speak english?) but the fact that john smith sails away at the end makes me feel a little better.

so now let’s get a few things straight: 1) the animation is BEAUTIFUL 2) there are many standout songs on the soundtrack, including colors of the wind, just around the riverbend, and most importantly, SAVAGES PART 2 3) meeko is genuinely hilarious

also quick fun fact: this movie came out shortly after the lion king. the walt disney company was expecting pocahontas to be their big movie and devoted most of their resources to this movie instead of the lion king. well let’s just say the lion king outperformed pocahontas at the box office

6) hercules (1997)

this is the first movie i saw in theaters! so here’s what i like about this movie:

a great story! a god living on earth, not knowing he’s a god, presumed dead by his god parents? the drama of it all!

AMAZING soundtrack. the muses add an element to the soundtrack disney hasn’t done before. some of the best music of any disney movie. my favorite is i won’t say i’m in love.

lots of color in the animation! i love a good colorful movie.

hades is one of disney’s best villains. disney managed to make him likable but not sympathetic. this is a different approach than many of the other disney movies at this time

5) hunchback of notre dame (1996)

i am OBSESSED with this movie and let me tell you why:

first and foremost, it is so dang dark! the movie starts out with judge claude frollo trying to drown a baby in front of a church. so there’s that. frollo ends up “raising” quasimodo and just emotionally abusing him. quasimodo is like: i’m ugly :( and then frollo burns down paris because he wants to fuck esmeralda. many believe this movie wouldn’t have been made today because it’s so dark. however disney was so successful at this point they were just like *shrug emoji* let’s release a movie about catholic guilt.

the soundtrack is amazing. it’s so dramatic! hellfire is one of the standout songs just because it is so messed up. this entire movie is so messed up. i love it

4) the little mermaid (1989)

there she is! the movie that started this all! disney was producing straight trash until our man men ron clements and john musker came to save the day and directed this fine film.

like i said, this is the movie that kicked off the renaissance era. it revived the idea of a disney princess. it revived the idea of an animated movie with a strong soundtrack. it revived the idea of putting effort into producing quality animated films! the importance of this film cannot be stated enough. along with colorful animation it has a great soundtrack. under the sea is one of my favorite songs ever.

3) mulan (1998)

one of my all time favorite movies. perfection. mulan is such a strong character. probably my favorite main character from any disney movie. her story has such a strong feminist message.

the animation? beautiful! the villain: legitimately so scary. the animal sidekicks?: i would die for them.

the songs in the movie are so so beautiful. reflection and i’ll make a man out of you are two of the most iconic disney songs. lea salonga and donny osmond knocked this out of the park. my only gripe is there should be more songs.

anyway “the greatest gift and honor is having you as a daughter”

2) beauty and the beast (1991)

honesty hour i like mulan better BUT this movie is just so so important to disney history. this was disney’s time to prove itself. the little mermaid was excellent but could they do it again? turns out they could!

this soundtrack is so special to me. it was the last thing howard ashman composed before dying of complications from aids. he never got to see the final product. every song is perfect.

the animation is beautiful. the character design!!! the animators did an excellent job with lumiere, cogsworth, and mrs potts. the managed to make gaston so hot.

now for some fun facts: disney had been thinking about making this movie since the 1930s. they sat on this one for a long time. i’m glad they made it at the time they did, when they had the budget and talent to make it truly special.

an unfinished version of this movie was shown at the new york film festival. even though the animation wasn’t complete, it got a standing ovation. that’s how great this movie is.

1) the lion king (1994)

not just my favorite disney movie, but my favorite movie of all time. i love this movie so so much. i watch it like once a month lol

what makes this movie so compelling is the story. simba lived for so long thinking he was responsible for mufasa’s death!!! the amount of tragedy and drama is unparalleled. my favorite scene is when rafiki find simba as an adult and is like “he lives in you” omg the drama

however this movie manages to be humorous as well, thanks to timone and pumba. they aren’t introduced until like 30 minutes into the movie but manage to make the biggest impression. i would die for them

the soundtrack is by far disney’s best. my mans elton john knocked it out of the park. every song is a bop. the instrumental music playing in the background is insane. it’s so dramatic/perfect

lastly, THE ANIMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it’s unparalleled. it’s so colorful. the animals are drawn beautifully. the backgrounds are jaw dropping. i cannot get over it

***rescuers down under was not included on this list for reasons that should be obvious

#disney #tarzan #aladdin #pocahontas #hercules #the hunchback of notre dame #the little mermaid #mulan #beauty and the beast #the lion king

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twistedtummies2 · 1 year ago

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Fifteen Days of Disney Magic - Number 15

Welcome to Fifteen Days of Disney Magic! In honor of the company’s 100th Anniversary, I am counting down my Top 15 Favorite Movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios! Today, the countdown begins in earnest! My first entry on the countdown is a package full of fun! Number 15 is…Fun & Fancy Free!

For most people reading, this is likely going to be a surprising pick. While not by any means an atrocious film, “Fun & Fancy Free” is one of the more overlooked features in the Disney canon, and is also often regarded as one of the more confusing. Yet in a weird way, it’s insanely fitting this is the first film to start off this countdown. “Fun & Fancy Free” was released in 1947. It was one of several “package features” Disney produced during the wartime and post-war era. During that time period, it was harder for Walt and the team to make feature length movies, for multiple reasons. The solution was to take various short subjects and string them together into anthology film releases. In the case of this feature, there are two separate stories: one is the well-known “Mickey and the Beanstalk,” which is…exactly what it sounds like. Preceding this is another short entitled “Bongo,” the story of a circus bear who runs away into the wild. (This short was based on a story by Sinclair Lewis.) Both segments were originally planned as standalone movies in their own right (“Bongo” was even considered as a potential sequel to “Dumbo”), but the constraints the studio faced meant they had to be turned into two approximately half-hour-length short subjects, strung together by a framing device in this film. The framing device in question focuses on Jiminy Cricket, as he visits the home of child actress, Luana Patten; it is here that the first short is narrated by singer and actress, Dinah Shore. Jiminy later follows an unknowing Luana to a party hosted by old-time comedian and famed ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen, who tells the second story. While the film is not by any means terrible – if it was, it wouldn’t be on this countdown – I will concede that it is, in several ways, quite dated. Parts of this movie have simply not aged well. This is arguably most visible in the framing device: it’s the cause of most of the confusion for people watching the film. (For just one example, I can’t count how many times people talking about the film ask, “What’s with the weird puppet guy?” when they are introduced to Edgar Bergen in this movie. It’s a question that makes me feel physical pain, I swear.) Combined with the fact that the whole movie is, overall, rather simple and sweet in nature, it’s not surprising that it lacks the popularity of tons of other Disney movies. So, one must ask…why is this in my Top 15, and why would I say it is so perfect to start us off? Well, the reason I love “Fun & Fancy Free” so much is very simple to explain: I grew up with it. This was actually one of the first Disney movies I ever owned as a kid, and I watched it over and over again. It’s influenced me in a lot of ways, and while I recognize its issues…I still find myself revisiting it time and time again. It's a perfect film to start off this countdown because, as I said yesterday, most of the movies on this list are older Disney films: things from the pre-Renaissance era, most of them made when Walt Disney was still alive. Most of the Disney films I watched as a kid were older ones I had on VHS, such as this one.

My family rarely went to the movies to see a lot of the newer releases (at least as far as my memory can recall), and even when we did…to be honest, those one-time events did not leave the impact on me you’d expect. I don’t remember what the first Disney film I saw in theaters was. (I think it MIGHT have been Mulan, but I am not sure.) What left an impact on me were the movies I was able to watch frequently on videotape, and later DVD. And while I certainly had a lot of the newer films, gathering them as they came out – like Pocahontas, Hercules, Tarzan, and so on – the older ones were there, as far as I can recall, practically from the moment I left the womb. Even when they weren’t, they certainly felt like they were! This is also probably why a lot of the modern era movies aren’t in my Top 15: they’re even more recent, and while I HAVE seen many of them in theaters or via streaming, and I have revisited several of them more than once…it’s not the same as a movie you’ve been watching and cherishing in your heart since you were perhaps seven years old, sitting at your Aunt’s house, holding a plush bunny as you stare in wonder at the television screen. THAT, dear friends, is what “Fun & Fancy Free” is to me, and that is all it needs to be in order to make my Top 15. Several other features to come will be very much the same. The countdown has only just started, people! Tomorrow we continue with my 14th Favorite Disney Film! HINT: Two Fabulous Characters for the Price of One.

#disney 100 #disney 100 special #list #countdown #top 15 disney animated movies #fifteen days of disney magic #number 15 #fun and fancy free #bongo #mickey and the beanstalk

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gojira007 · 4 years ago

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Movie Meme

Took me a bit of time, but I was tagged by @bunnikkila to list my nine favorite movies, and since I can’t help but be ridiculously verbose about that very topic, you can see them all under the cut 8D

As for who I tag? Well, as always with the caveat that you are free to ignore if you don’t wanna, I’ll go with: @elistodragonwings @kaikaku @donnys-boy @robotnik-mun @sally-mun @fini-mun @werewolf-t33th @cviperfan and @wildwoodmage

and don’t worry, if you DO go for it, you don’t have to get as Extra as I did about it XD

9.)

Look, the meme is about Favorite Movies, not necessarily the BEST Movies, OK? And for the most part this list consists of films where that division is less meaningful in terms of how I evaluate the other movies on here. But in this specific case, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”, which is ultimately not all that different from the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ TV show it spun off from and thus not particularly impressive as a work of Cinema Qua Cinema, makes the cut primarily because it’s a movie I know so well and have enjoyed so often that I can practically recite the whole thing to you by rote; I quote it all the time in my day-to-day life, I think about it often when I need a little smile, and it’s also become my favorite tool for introducing newcomers to MST3K as a whole since it was designed with a slightly broader audience in mind than the more willfully-eclectic series. And given how much I love MST3K As A Whole, that’s an especially strong factor in its favor.

8.)

Looky looky, @bunnikkila, we (unsurprisingly) have a pick in common! I’m sure this is the one and only time THAT’S going to happen on this list. 8D

Y’know, nearly thirty years (and one fairly useless remake >_>) later, I think the thing that impresses me about “The Lion King” is just how much it is still able to grab me emotionally. Some of that is unquestionably tied up with how strongly I associate this movie with my family, all of whom it became very special to as a Shared Experience. But I also don’t know of a lot of people who haven’t had that same emotional experience with it, and that to me suggests there’s more going on here than just Nostalgia. The mixture of Shakesperean plotting with Disney’s signature strength of Character, for one thing, granting the movie’s story an Epic Scope that never forgets the emotional inner lives of its cast. The music for another, not only its instantly-iconic song-book but also its memorable score, armed with both Big Bombast and Gentle Sentiment. And the unforgettably gorgeous animation, rendering every last element of its world with believable naturalism and strongly-defined personality. All of it, together, makes for what I still personally consider the Crowning Achievement of the Disney Renaissance.

7.)

I think, if I had to name the thing I find most lacking in far too many modern Action Movies, it’s Clarity. They all tend to lard their plots up with a bunch of unnecessary contrivances and complications in hopes of making themselves appear more clever than they actually are, and all it usually does is just dilute the impact of the whole thing. “Mad Max: Fury Road”, by contrast, is all about Clarity. I could sum up literally its entire plot in a paragraph if I wanted, because it is basically One Big Chase Scene from start to finish, never really deviating from that structure for more than a few minutes at a time. And that, combined with its exceptionally well-crafted Action Sequences, means that the full weight of its visceral power hits you full force every time. But don’t be fooled; that simplicity is not to be mistaken for shallowness. Indeed, precisely by getting out of its own way, knowing exactly what it wants to do and why, “Fury Road” also delivers a story that is, in spite of what you might guess, genuinely subtle and smart. Every character is immediately unforgettable and compelling because their role in the story is so well-considered and their personalities all so stark. The world it crafts feels at once fascinatingly surreal and yet All Too Real at the same time because even its most Fantastic elements are ultimately just grotesque reflections of things the audience knows only too well. And most of all, it tells a story with real, meaningful Themes that are deeply woven into each of its individual elements, such that the whole thing is deeply satisfying emotionally, but also piercingly Relevant in all the best, most affecting ways.

6.)

Oh look, another pick I have in common with @bunnikkila! This must be the last one, right?

But yeah, this is just a legitimately great movie, at every level, in every way. Stylistically, it is one of the most radically inventive things to have ever been made in the world of Western Animated Movies, gleefully mixing together a vast array of Aesthetics and Techniques that are at once viscerally distinct and yet coherently connected, all rendered with a fantastic eye toward the world of Comic Book Visual Language that keeps finding new and extremely fun ways to play with that instantly-recognizable iconography. For that alone, I would call it one of the greatest triumphs of 21st century animation. But then, on top of that, the story it tells is one that is simultaneously Arch and self-aware, delivering some of the most fantastically hilarious punch-lines imaginable more than a few of which are at the expense of the very franchise it is working within...but also entirely earnest, sincere, and emotionally affecting. It is, at once, a movie that manages to be about The Idea Of Spider-Man in its totality while also being about just one kid coming to grips with who he is, what he can do, and what his life can be. I don’t know that I can remember the last time a movie so immediately and unmistakably marked itself as an Enduring Masterpiece, but “Into the Spider-Verse” absolutely pulled it off.

5.)

Ordinarily, I would cheat and give this slot to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in its totality. But somehow, the fact that this is about “FAVORITE” movies instead of just what we think the BEST one is compels me to narrow it down to just one. And if I had to pick just one, it would be the first of the three, “Fellowship of the Ring”. It’s not necessarily anything that the other two movies get wrong, either. All three of the LotR movies possess many of its keenest strengths, after all. For a starter, there’s the keen understanding of how best to adapt the source material without being enslaved to it; capturing many of its most iconic moments while cleverly tweaking elements to make them more cinematic, knowing what scenes to focus on for the sake of more clearly focusing the emotional through-lines of the story, and knowing what scenes, no matter how good on the page, ultimately don’t fit to the shape the adaptation has taken. There’s also its pitch-perfect casting, each and every actor doing a fantastic job of embodying the characters so well that even as your personal vision of them from the books may differ radically from what is on-screen, they nonetheless end up feeling Right for the part and a strong, compelling presence. And there’s the deft visual hand of director Peter Jackson, who knows exactly how to craft a Middle Earth that feels at once lived-in and real but also Fantastic and magical. “Fellowship”, for me at least, thus wins out mostly because it has the good luck of being adapted from the strongest of the three books, the point at which the narrative is at its most unified and thus has the strongest overall momentum. But also because so few movies have so swept me away with the sense of stepping into a world I have always dreamed of in my mind’s eye, and that’s the sort of thing that can only happen at the beginning of a journey.

4.)

Now here’s a movie that is literally sown in to my very being. It’s the last movie my mother saw in theaters before becoming a Mom. I grew up watching the “Real Ghostbusters” cartoon all the time and playing with the attendant toys; I had a “Ghostbusters” Birthday Party when I was, like, four years old. It has been my annual Halloween Tradition to get myself a big Cheese Pizza and watch this movie for about as long as I’ve had disposable income to myself. There is, quite literally, no point in my life where I don’t remember “Ghostbusters” being a fixture in it. And as a nice bonus? It is, legitimately, a Genuinely Great Movie. I realize that isn’t quite as universally agreed upon these days as it was even a few years ago (thanks, Literally The Worst Kind Of Virulently Misogynist Assholes lD; ), but I still feel pretty confident in saying this one really is That Good. I still find basically every one of its jokes hilarious; even now I could quote just about any one of them and get a laugh. I still find its central premise, What If Exorcism Was A Blue-Collar Business, a brilliant, almost subversively clever one that takes The Supernatural out of the realm of The Unknowable and into a world where even you, an ordinary person off the street, can in fact fight back against it. I still think it’s one of the all-time great examples of how to balance Tone in this sort of High Concept Genre Bender, by allowing The Story to be played relatively straight while allowing the comedy to flow naturally from the characters’ reactions to that story, allowing its Ghostly aspects to land as Genuinely Scary (or at least Worth Taking Seriously) without getting too Stern and Serious about it. And I still listen to that unforgettable Title Song all the time! So yeah, even if I could be more objective about it, “Ghostbusters” would almost certainly make this cut.

3.)

And so we come to the third and last pick I have in common with @bunnikkila, not coincidentally a movie that played a key role in solidifying our friendship, as bonding over our shared love of it was a big part of how we got to know each other on deviantART waaaay back in the day <3

By 2008, I really didn’t think it was possible for a movie or comic or TV show to really become “part” of me anymore, the way things like Sonic the Hedgehog or Marvel Super Heroes or Some Other Movie Character Who Might Be At The Top Of This List had. And then “WALL-E” came along and proved that to be completely, utterly wrong. I didn’t just love this movie, I was inspired by it, to a degree of strength and consistency that I’m still not entirely sure has yet been matched. And to be sure, some of that is undoubtedly because the movie had already basically won the war before I’d even bought my ticket; Adorable Robots In Love is something like My Platonic Storytelling Ideal, after all. But even setting that aside, “WALL-E” is a movie where even now I can’t help but be keenly aware, and gently awed, at the beauty of its craft; indeed, watching this movie in a theater did a lot to make me better understand why movies work on us the way they do, because I left that theater chewing so much on every last one of its elements. Its gorgeous animation, the way it conveys Character through Actions more so than language, the dream-like quality of its musical score (even as i type this i get teary thinking about certain motifs), the clear and meaningful way it builds its theme and story together so harmoniously, and the particular perspective it takes on our relationships with each other, with our environments, and with our own technology...all of it speaks to me deeply and profoundly, and it’s no coincidence that I have seen this movie more times in theaters than any other on this list (twelve times, for the record, and I still remember each and every time XD).

2.)

This one needs no personal qualifications, to my mind. Yes, I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to it for having seen it relatively young with my brothers and being deeply moved by it then, but it’s not at all like the kind of Nostalgia I have for “The Lion King”. “Princess Mononoke” is just flat-out, full-stop a complete Masterpiece, not just my personal pick for one of the single-best animated films ever made, but one of the best films period. It’s almost difficult for me to put into words how great this movie is, certainly in a way that hasn’t been repeated to death by thousands of other smarter people, because no one of its elements quite answers the question of why it is so great, to my mind. Yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous with a design sensibility that brings Ancient Mythology to life so vividly that its influence can still be felt today (The Forest Spirit alone has been homaged all over the place). And yes, the music is hauntingly beautiful, at once capturing the gentle rhythm of nature but also the elegiac tone of Life Moving On. And yes, the story is an incredible mixture of the Broad Mythic Strokes of an Ancient Legend grounded in all too human Emotions and Ideas about the balance of nature, the full meaning and cost of Warfare, and perhaps most important of all, about how we determine Right and Wrong when everyone involved in a conflict is fighting simply for the right to survive. But all of those things add up together to something even greater than a simple sum, because each one isn’t just good in its own right but because each element so perfectly reinforces the other. And even having said all that? I really could just carry on singing this movie’s praises. Just...an absolute masterpiece, top to bottom.

1.)

I don’t imagine any of you are terribly surprised at this, right? I almost feel like it’d be redundant to explain my love for this movie, given how self-obvious I imagine it is to basically everyone who knows me Literally At All. But heck, I’ve rambled on this long, why not go all the way? Because the thing of it is, “Gojira” (to be clear, the original Japanese movie from 1954 rather than its American edit, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” from 1956) doesn’t just top the list by being a Great Movie. Though to be clear, it really is. Flawless? No; there’s a reliance on puppetry that even for the time can be a bit chintzier than the movie can really afford, in particular. But brilliant, even so, a heart-wrenching example of Science Fiction Storytelling As Allegory, one that, in a rarity not just for its own genre but indeed for many movies in general, very meaningfully lingers on its deepest, darkest implications. Many a film critic has pointed it out, and it remains true: the stark black-and-white photography heightens the sense of Implacable Horror at the core of the story, and the way the central Melodrama, a tragic love triangle that carries with it many aspects of Class Conflict and Personal Desire VS. The Collective Good, ties back into the main story is truly beautiful in its elegance and emotional impact. Still, for me personally, it tops the list, now and always, because it is a movie that affirmed something for me, that the character I had fallen in love with as a child convincing his family to watch a monster movie with him on television to prove his seven-year-old bravery, really was as genuinely as powerful and meaningful a figure as I had always imagined him to be.

#movies #meme #gojira007

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violethowler · 5 years ago

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A Farewell To The Clone Wars

Yesterday was the end of an era

After 11 years and 104 days

After a theatrical movie, a novel, a comic miniseries, 8 incomplete story reels, and 133 episodes

After 49 hours and 12 minutes of incredible, heartbreaking, beautifully animated television….

Ended, The Clone Wars have.

I watched all of the existing Star Wars movies on DVD when I was a kid, but I was never particularly enamored with them the way that others are. And then in August 2008, I went to the local movie theater with my grandmother to see an animated movie that – while I didn’t know it at the time – would chart the course of my future for years to come.

While a lot of the general Star Wars fandom looks down on the theatrical Clone Wars movie as weak and lackluster, 11-year-old me loved every minute of it. I’ve been obsessed with animation my entire life, and around 2 years before the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I had just begun to explore the world of animation outside of my childhood Disney bubble, diving headfirst into SpongeBob and Avatar and Codename Kids Next Door. Whenever I saw commercials for an animated movie playing in theaters I would beg my family to take me to see it. It didn’t matter what the movie was actually about, all that mattered was that it was animated and I thought it looked fun.

So, when I saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars in theaters with my sister and my grandmother, I loved it. I enjoyed the movie so much that when I learned there was going to be a TV show following the movie, I was ecstatic. From the moment that the first episodes of Season 1 aired on Cartoon Network a few months later, I was hooked. From the very beginning I refused to miss a single episode. From middle school all the way through high school The Clone Wars became the axis around which almost all of my entertainment consumption revolved.

I started reading more Star Wars books and comics from all over the timeline. The Thrawn trilogy. Darth Bane. Fate of the Jedi. The Old Republic. Lost Tribe of the Sith. I devoured every piece of Star Wars media I could find as this show awakened in me an appetite for all things Star Wars. Whenever my parents asked for gift ideas for my birthday or Christmas, at the top of my list would be the latest season of The Clone Wars on DVD. Every summer I trawled the internet looking for news from Star Wars Celebration or San Diego Comic Con about the next season – trailers, clips, plot details, whatever I could find.

When the show was initially cancelled following the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, I was devastated. This show had such a staple of my life that the idea that it wasn’t going to be coming back hurt. As I started looking around at online Star Wars fandom to find someone, anyone, who felt the same way that I did, I discovered #SaveTheCloneWars, and joined the campaign. Through that first year after the plug was pulled, I wrote to Disney asking them to continue the show. I signed fan petitions and made posts on Facebook. It was my first real engagement with the wider online fandom.

Then came The Lost Missions and the Clone Wars Legacy releases – Crystal Crisis, Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple… Having more Clone Wars stories helped soften the pain of the show’s loss, but the story still felt incomplete. Hearing about future arcs that had been planned for the show only added to the sense of incompleteness, knowing that there were more stories we didn’t get to see. When rumors had begun circulating about an animated Star Wars show set post-Clone Wars, resolving unanswered questions of The Clone Wars was at the top of my wish list for a future Star Wars show.

When Rebels was announced I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t want to get attached to a new set of characters when the loss of Ahsoka and Rex and my other Clone Wars favorites still felt so raw. After Dave Filoni and the production crew of Rebels posted videos introducing the crew of the Ghost and the core cast of Rebels I reluctantly became more interested, I still was cautious about investing my time in this new show out of fear that it too would be ripped away from me without a proper conclusion just like The Clone Wars was.

So, when the final episode of Rebels’ first season confirmed that the mysterious Fulcrum was none other than Ahsoka Tano I was out of my seat cheering. There were still questions I needed answered about what happened to her after she left the Jedi Order, but the fact that she was there, back on my TV screen once more, was a relief. And when I watched the first trailer for Season 2 a month later, the words “My name is Rex,” made me scream and cry. I was overcome with tears of joy knowing that not only would my favorite Jedi be appearing in Rebels but my favorite Clone Trooper as well.

By the time Rebels’ first season had ended, I was getting ready to graduate from high school and planning where I would go to college in the fall. Taking art electives in high school, particularly a computer art class during the airing of Season 5, made me appreciate just how beautiful the show’s art style was, and when the time came for me to plan where I wanted to go to college, I chose schools that had programs for animation. I had originally wanted to be a game designer because of Kingdom Hearts, but The Clone Wars made me realize that the passion I truly wanted to make a career out of was animation.

I continued to follow Rebels as I went off to college, and by the end of Season 3 – with Maul dead for good, Ahsoka MIA, and Rex and Hondo as the only major Clone Wars characters left on the show – I had gotten attached to the Rebels characters as well. I was just as invested in their fates as I was for those of Clone Wars characters like Rex and Hondo. Season 4 finished airing at the end of my junior year, and the knowledge in the final five episodes that Ahsoka had not only survived her confrontation with Anakin at the end of Season 2 but that she was still alive years after the events of the original trilogy had me crying tears of joy as I went to sleep.

The trailer announcing the return of The Clone Wars had me in tears for hours. Long had I been dreaming of the remaining stories of this show being released in some form. I would have been content with more novels and comics like Son of Dathomir and Dark Disciple, but to have the show return in animated form was a miracle I had given up hope for years ago.

But within the last twelve months, my interest in Star Wars cooled.

I was never the biggest fan of the movies. Revenge of the Sith was my favorite because in the absence of a proper conclusion it functioned as a de facto finale to The Clone Wars. I enjoyed the original trilogy, but they weren’t movies I considered my favorites. I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in theaters and cried on my first viewing of both films, but on repeat viewings the magic of them faded and I lost interest. While I could understand why other fans liked them, there was a spark that was missing from most of the movies released under Disney that prevented them from really having any staying power for me.

And then The Rise of Skywalker came out and completely shattered any expectations I had that Disney really knew what they were doing with the franchise. Where before I was willing to trust that there actually was a plan because of how precisely Rey and Ben Solo’s arc followed the path of the Heroine’s Journey across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, now I realize that what I initially believed to have been a carefully planned narrative arc was most likely JJ Abrams planning to set up a conventional Hero’s Journey which Rian Johnson used to try and tell a Heroine’s Journey instead. And even if there was a plan for Rey and Ben Solo that got screwed around by behind the scenes conflicts, there was clearly no plan as far as Poe and Finn and Rose were concerned.

For months after this, I started questioning and doubting my love of all the canon Star Wars media. How could I enjoy anything in the Original and Prequel trilogy eras knowing that all the hard work of dismantling Palpatine’s empire would be undone in order to rehash the same plotline with new characters and no concern given for whether the audience could follow what was happening or why these events and character decisions mattered if they hadn’t read every comic and novel and played every video game connected to this era.

Since the last trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars went up on YouTube, I vacillated between enthusiastically sticking to the shows I loved regardless of my problems with the film saga, and abandoning the franchise altogether and gifting my Clone Wars and Rebels Blu-Ray sets and associated novels to my college friend who had just gotten into Star Wars.

And then ‘The Phantom Apprentice’ Happened.

Ahsoka and Maul’s two-part duel in the throne room and the rafters of Sundari reminded me of everything I loved about The Clone Wars in the first place. The animation. The art style. The music. The attention to detail on every character and in every detail. The tragedy of what was to come. On my third re-watch of the third-to-last episode of Season 7, that was when I realized that despite my problems with the Sequel Trilogy, despite the many flaws in the writing of the Prequel movies, I could never give up on The Clone Wars, or on Rebels. These two shows have meant too much for me to ever walk away from either of them.

I have cried at least ten times in the last five days watching the final two episodes of The Clone Wars. The final of this incredible series was such a gut punch even though I knew what was coming and who would survive. I had and saw so many ideas about what the last episode would include. Would their be a montage of all the Jedi who survived Order 66 as a mirror of the death montage in Episode III? Would Ahsoka and Rex receive Obi-Wan’s recorded message from Rebels warning surviving Jedi to stay away from the temple?

But in the end, none of those things happened. The focus of the episode remained on Ahsoka and Rex. Their escape from the ship. The tragedy of their inability to save the other clones. And ending with a shot of Vader finding the ship some time later, all these symbols of the Republic buried beneath the winds of time as the empire rises. It was bleak and depressing and when the credits rolled I was holding back tears. But looking back on the entire series and the era of the war, knowing what was coming, there was no other way I could have expected it to end. The audience already knows that this is not the end, but Ahsoka and Rex don’t know that, and so the finale of The Clone Wars reflects this. The pain and despair. The tragedy and confusion over what will happen next. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite all the movies I’ve watched; the comics and novels I’ve read; the video games I’ve played; very few things in Star Wars canon or Legends have been able to match the magic of The Clone Wars in my heart. I have never truly been a Star Wars fan so much as I have been a Clone Wars and Rebels fan. The novels and comics and movies I enjoy are an extension of my love for the shows, but the shows will always come first. The characters these shows introduced have stuck with me more than any characters from the movies ever has. Clone Wars made me love Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme and Yoda, but to me, my Star Wars favorites have always been Ahsoka, Maul, Rex, Ventress, Fives, Hera, Zeb, Thrawn, Sabine, and all the rest.

So, I just wanted to say thank you to Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Lanter, Catherine Taber, James Arnold Taylor, Sam Whitwer, Nika Futterman, Dee Bradley Baker, as well as every single person involved in bringing this show to live for all the hard work and passion you have poured into this series. Your work on this show shaped the person I am today, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

May the Force Be With You.

#star wars the clone wars #clone wars season 7 #thank you dave filoni #the siege of mandalore #victory and death #farewell to the clone wars #tcw spoilers #clone wars spoilers

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queen-of-my-goofball-army · 4 years ago

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Favorite Voice Actors

For those of you that know me, you know that my number one special interest is cartoons and the people that voice my favorite characters. Studying my heroes and watching them in interviews became a favorite pass time of mine. A lot of my friends thought that it was really weird and they stopped talking to me because of it. For a long time before I got diagnosed as having aspergers I talked forever about it. I think that both bored and confused people. For me, I love voice acting because anybody can be anything. You can watch a show and years later be like I know that voice it’s insert name here if you’re like me. True, certain actors have something that is brought to every character (I can think of one prime example later on down the list) but it is always about the heart that they put into their characters.

10. Charlie Adler: I’ll admit that I am mostly a fan of him due to the amount of work that he has done and the quantity. This man was the voice of Cow, Chicken and Big Red guy in Cow and Chicken. True, this show was past my time (and if it wasn’t I feel like it would get the Fairly OddParents treatment where my parents would forbid me to watch it.) When I listened to his episode of Talkin’ Toons I found his story’s really interesting and compelling. I can only imagine how much work and effort went into all of his characters in that show. To develop one character is one thing but to be able to switch between them like a deck of cards is a completely different thing. I did however watch a lot of Brandy and Mr. Whiskers when I was younger!! Growing up with that show and hearing him play Mr. Whiskers brought me a lot of joy when I was sick at home and for that I will always be a huge fan of his voice and his work.

9. Jim Cummings. If I were to say that one voice actor had a ton of versatility it would probably be him. I was a major Tigger fan when I was growing up. Not just that but I loved Raymond when Princess and The Frog came out. He is actually my mom’s favorite voice actor. But I also loved CatDog when I would see that on reruns, I grew to love Darkwing Duck and countless other shows that he leant his voice to. Studying voice acting and the people that do it has led to me finding some things out that I would rather not. Especially when I found that he wasn’t actually the nicest person in real life. But, to me that doesn’t matter when it comes to this list. He is here because so many of his characters made my childhood just a little bit happier. When I was thinking about favorite voice actors I considered two things, personality and character content. This one is here just for character content.

8. Bob Bergen: I reblogged a post a long time ago with this man at the helm. What he can do every time I see him do it blows my mind. Bob has been the voice of Porky Pig since pretty much Tiny Toons back in the early 90′s. He has stated that there have been some others but when I think Porky this is the name that comes along with it. Watching him do his thing is something that continually blows my mind. Listening to his life story on Rob Paulsen’s podcast Talkin’ Toons is something that inspired me more than anything. It’s this story of persistence and resilience from a young age. He is one of the few voice actors that actually got to talk with Mel Blanc when he was fourteen. I love his genuine heart and the ability that he has to jump into his character full force. Porky was a big portion of my childhood and I grew up laughing at his “silly” stutter. It wasn’t until I got older and learned that the stutter is an actual art form that I learned something entirely different.

7. Richard Horvitz: Most of you that know me might be surprised at this rather seemingly low placement for somebody that I greatly admire. I mean he was Invader Zim and Billy from Billy and Mandy for crying out loud!! I just bought a print for the man but really when I thought about it, he hasn’t really inspired me as much as my top six have. I love his sense of humor and his love of musical theater but he hasn’t taught me anything life altering. I think that he is hands down the funniest voice actor in Hollywood. I could listen to him make jokes forever and just talk in his voice but at the same time he is so other worldly and knows so much about the craft that it inspired me that way. He is as most of his fans joke “the dad voice actor” complete with dad jokes. I love Invader Zim so much, the show has helped me through a lot of loneliness and emotional moments in my life reminding me to keep laughing at life’s craziness. I also love Moxxie from Helluva Boss. All in all Richard is a fabulous man and actor. He has helped me figure out the kind of person that I wanted to be and I owe him a lot of laughter hours.

6. Greg Cipes: Can I talk about probably my OG hero for voice acting? When I was six I spent a lot of time in front of the television watching the original Teen Titans. My favorite character was Beast Boy his character that he played. When I say that BB changed the way that I think about my life that is not an exaggeration. He was one of the first characters that made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. Growing up I had to fight people for his validation. It seemed like nobody loved him as much as I did. Cut to me in middle school I’m a bit more grownup and I start channel flipping. I wind up on Nickelodeon and see the reboot of Ninja Turtles. I figure I’ll watch it and see what all the hype is about. I hear Mikey open his mouth and instantly I get this rush of my childhood coming back. It was one of the first times that I made the connection between voice actor and character. Greg taught me so much vicariously through his character. He taught me about fun and laughter, about the importance of feeling lonely doesn’t mean that you’re alone in the world and even if you’re the goofball that doesn’t mean that’s all you have to be. The fact that he is such a relaxed and genuine person only adds to the admiration of this vegan beach bum.

5. Corey Burton: This is a very personal hero of mine. It’s one that I hold very close to me because of one thing. As far as I know, there have been very few voice actors on the autism spectrum. Corey is the only one that I have ever found. He’s the man that actually surpassed every expectation and said screw live performing it makes me anxious I’m going to get my experience through something that I know I’m good at radio. So he does radio and becomes really good at that. Then he goes to cartoons. He does Dale in Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers with a certain feminine icon of mine. He gets Ludwig Von Drake and has been that voice actor since the original DuckTales. Then he hits the peak, he was Mole in Atlantis Lost Empire a big budget Disney movie. I am so often inspired by my top six favorite voice actors. They are the ones that took me by the figurative hand and told me hey you can do get through whatever it is that you are struggling with. It just takes a little bit of laughter through the bad times, and an optimistic attitude that things will slowly but surely get better. Corey was the one that actually got himself to the top of the mountain and got to say that he did it. I admire that about him so much because for a while I thought to myself “Hey, he did it so can I”.

4. J Michael Tatum: In terms of anime voice actors, even though I love a great many, only one has ever remained of legend status. It comes yet again with a rather personal story. I was 17, lost and a little bit confused. I knew that I was ace but I had no idea how to tell my parents. It was around this time when I was getting back into anime due to Yuri On Ice, Space Dandy and Princess Jellyfish. I decide what the hell I’m going to watch some panels of my favorite voice actors for anime haven’t done that since I was thirteen. I had always loved Tatum as Kyoya Ootori in Ouran High School Host Club and France in Hetalia but other than that I didn’t know very much about him. I looked up panels for him and came across one for Florida Anime Con filmed that year. In it, he talked about being gay a lot. It implanted a seed that would inspire me. If he could be out and proud then why was I stoping myself? It might sound silly or stupid to some but to me it changed everything. From that moment on I loved everything Tatum. It led me to discover my love for Rei in Free, Okabe in Stein’s Gate and many other countless roles of his.

3. Tom Kenny: This man right here, he is the OG voice actor special interest of mine. He is the first name that I remember hearing because he did so much for Nickelodeon showing children how he did his most iconic voice. Who is that iconic voice you may ask yourself? Well it’s Spongebob flipping patties Squarepants. If that alone doesn’t put him at this spot then I don’t know what does. Like so many children in the early 200s I spent a good chunk of my childhood with me and my parents on the couch and this show on the television screen. You want to talk about legacy? This man voiced his way into the hearts of millions of children across the united states. I remember the first time I saw his actual face. I was flipping through channels and I saw this man on Nickelodeon. He had a goofy smile on his face and I figured what the hell I’ll give this a watch even though it’s not a cartoon. Then he started talking he introduced himself as Tom Kenny. Then he starts doing Spongebob. My five year old mind was blown. I never forgot his name ever since. Every time I would watch Teen Titans and Mambo would be on that episode I would be like “Oh that’s Spongebob’s voice actor”. It was that moment that changed everything for me. I have never looked back from my main special interest ever since. He has helped me through so much. Whether he be my favorite exorbitant yellow sponge, or Dog on CatDog, or Lazlo on Camp Lazlo part of me will always be with Tom Kenny. Keep making children happy Tom you’ve been doing a great job so far.

2. Tress MacNeille: Hoo boy this is a big one for me. For those of you that haven’t ever been around here before and don’t know the name of my character on my icon her name is Dot Warner (the Warner sister) and this is her voice actress. I hope that she changes your life and inspires you as much as she has mine. When I was nine I had an incredible fourth grade teacher. She showed us Yakko’s Nations Of The World for geography class. She also encouraged us to watch the rest of the show because it was full of educational songs and humor. I went home that day with on thought in mind. I wanted to watch the rest of that series. I go home and I make one distinction, hey that Warner sister I can kind of talk like her a little bit if I try hard enough. It was a little bit harder back in those days and I talk a lot more like her now with the reboot out in the world. This is the first and only impression I can do. I can do Dot and that’s it. And to me that was what mattered I didn’t need to be able to do anybody else. There aren’t a whole lot of woman voice actress’s that can keep working. All we have is Tara Strong, Cree Summer and the one and only goddess Tress MacNeille. Tress has helped me out so much in my life. I have never been the most confident person alive but from a young age hearing her absolutely smack down the actors of her brother’s in the show (Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell) something about that inspired me. It was around this point in my life that I learned I can speak my mind and just not give a hoot if anybody feels the same way that I do. I can make my opinions known to other people. I was sixteen when I made that discovery and Tress was there for me all the way cheering me on in her Dot voice. I owe a lot to her and I wish that she was more active on social media so that I could have the opportunity to thank her for everything that she has done vicariously for me.

1. Rob Paulsen: If you were surprised by this, we probably haven’t talked before. At least not extensively because my dog do I love this man!! He has inspired me more than any other and he is not just my favorite voice actor but I consider him my ultimate hero in life. Where do I even start with him? There have been so many moments where I’ve fallen in love with one of his characters. I suppose one should start at the beginning. As I mentioned with Tress, my introduction through Animaniacs was Yakko’s Nations Of The World. This moment it changed everything for me because this was the first time that I could actually remember seeing Rob do a role. Yakko was the first cartoon character to actually make an impact on me. It was the first time that I ever loved a character that deeply. It was also the first time I ever made my own character to pair up with a canon character not even knowing that I was doing it. Ever since then a part of me has known okay that’s what Rob talks like. Now thanks to Tom Kenny I can recognize him in other places. And recognize him I did. From there I found that he was Carl on Jimmy Neutron, Mark Chang my favorite character on Fairly OddParents and countless other roles that we could be here all day for. As I mentioned, I was in middle school when the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were originally airing. When I watched that first episode, Donatello sounded really familiar to me. So I waited to the end credits only to find out that holy hell that was Rob!! The same person that played my favorite fast talking older brother. I found out about his fight with cancer a few years after it happened. This is when he went from favorite voice actor to hero legend status. He fought his way out of hell so that he could continue to sing “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Heidi, Jamaica, Peru” until the end of his days. Reading his book changed my life forever as it gave me insight to not just the man who made me laugh, cry and cry laughing listening to his podcast but that same man had a whole ass heart and soul that he put into every character that he did. I find it really hard to explain what he means to me. He’s my hero, the one that made me laugh when I was a sad and lonely elementary schooler and the one that continues to bring me back to my childhood every time I see him in a show. I don’t feel the compulsion to give strangers hugs very often but if I ever met Rob I don’t think that I would be able to stop myself from giving a hug and just telling him thank you. Thank you for making my childhood and the childhoods of countless others much better than they would have been without you.

And that’s it folks!! Whew that’s a lot of me rambling but I feel a bit better now. Finals preparation week has officially started for me and I just wanted to give myself this big ol’ boost of serotonin before I went into it.

#Voice acting #Charlie Adler #Jim Cumings #Bob Bergen #Richard Horvitz #Greg Cipes #Corey Burton #Michael Tatum #Tom Kenny #tress macneille #Rob Paulsen

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belleofhell · 5 years ago

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So @jake-marshall didn’t technically tag me but I’m doing this anyway bc I like talking about myself and movies I like. Here’s seven movies I consider to be comfort movies!

Peter Pan

I could really pick just about any animated Disney movie from up to the early 2000s and it would be a comfort movie for me. Anything from The Rescuers to Beauty and the Beast to Lilo and Stitch. But Peter Pan has got to be the comfiest for me ❤️ At the ripe old age of 4 Peter Pan was my first crush and my favorite game was to pretend to be Wendy and make my mom play every other character and I’d get mad when she didn’t have her lines memorized like I did lol. Wendy and Peter are just Peak Romance for me and I love them. I’d kind of like to write a book using the Peter Pan characters/universe and I’ve got some ideas but we’ll see if I ever get around to it lol. Fun fact! My tattoo was almost Peter Pan related but I switched to a rose instead.

How to Train Your Dragon

I’m trying to incorporate movies that came out when I was a variety of ages rather than just choosing a bunch of movies that came out before I was born even though it is SO tempting to do that. I think I was 11 or 12 when httyd came out? That was such a crazy time in my life and not everything was good but I remember the night I first saw this movie so well and at least for that night everything was good. I was with new friends on the roof of a car at a drive in. This is probably the first movie I saw with Charly, who I’m still friends with today. What’s not to love about this movie? The dragons! The characters! The story! Everything is wonderful! I also loved the other two movies and even kinda got involved in the fandom after the 2nd one but the 1st movie will always be the best.

Life of Pi

I’m such a nerd for animated moves and they’re by far my favorite but there’s a few live action movies I love and Life of Pi is one of them. Although I’m not really religious now, I grew up in a really religious family and somewhere around my teens I got really fed up with religious movies. They always seemed so fake and trying too hard to be inspirational. I first saw Life of Pi when it was assigned to us in a film studies class I was taking as a sophomore in college. And oh my god it’s how you do a religious movie right. This movie is stunning from start to finish and and heart wrenching in the best way. I guess it’s kinda weird to call a comfort movie heart wrenching but hey sometimes you need your heart to be wrenched.

My Hero Academia: Two Heroes

A couple years ago my brother introduced me to mha and we started watching it together. I didn’t really get into it until the 2nd season when things really started picking up and now it’s definitely one of my top favorite anime. Most of the time when my family goes to see movies we typically are all interested in the same movies so we all go together. When Two Heroes came out it was a really fun opportunity for just me and my brother to go out and see a movie. I love superhero stuff so much and this movie is just so much fun.

Harry Potter

I can’t really pick a single movie from the series since the whole thing is so comforting to me. This is turning into Oversharing Hour but it’s almost 5am as I’m writing this one so fuck it!! My sister was diagnosed with really really bad Multiple Sclerosis back when I was in high school. Most people can live a pretty normal life with MS but her’s is bad enough that she has to live in a nursing home and she’s pretty confused all the time. She loved Harry Potter and still does. I didn’t really get into Harry Potter until after she got sick, which is something I regret everyday, but seeing her smile when I give her Harry Potter socks or something equally silly makes me so happy. So when I watch a Harry Potter movie, not only do I get to enjoy a world and characters I absolutely love, but I get to feel a little closer to my sister too. ❤️

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I love me some superhero shit and Spider-Man has been my fave superhero since I was a kid. Peter Parker is such a huge comfort character for me in any version. Marvel, Sony, comics, cartoons, whatever. You could probably call any Spider-Man movie a comfort movie for me but I decided to go with spider-verse bc it’s just so good. So, so good. It’s beautiful to look at and a wonderful story with such fun characters and I just love seeing Peter as a sad middle aged man.

Birds of Prey

I saw this movie in theaters three times. Three times. I love it so much. It has to be one of the craziest, funnest movies on the planet. I’m in love with every woman in this movie. I’m just hopelessly gay, really. I love antiheroes and I love ladies and I love creatively choreographed fight scenes and this movie has plenty of all of them. It’s great if you want to turn something on and not think for a while but it’s also great if you want to actually sit down and think hard about it bc there’s plenty to dissect if you feel like it. The protagonists are great, the antagonists are great, the aesthetic is great. Everything is great.

There we go! I think that’s seven! I tried to pick a large variety of different types of movies but I’m now realizing I picked a lot of superhero stuff lmao oh well. I guess that’s accurate to me. Superheroes and animation.

If you managed to read this massive wall of text all the way to the end congrats! And thanks for tuning in I guess lol. I tag anyone who happens to see this and feels like doing it!

#peter pan #httyd #life of pi #bnha #hp #spiderman #dc #sydney speaks #my post

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