#maurice the jungle bunch

[otherkinotd]

Today's otherkin of the day is Maurice, who is tigerkin 🐯

[animationismycomfort]

❗️WARNING❗️ FOR THE THOUGHT OF TECHNICAL CANNIBALISM (nothing actually graphic but it does put the idea of a character doing so and I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable so just in case) SLIGHT MENTION OF CHARACTERS POSSIBLY EATING OTHER PEOPLE IN CANON

y’all ever thought about how junior ad Maurice probably have ate other animals before…..

and probably will continue to do so..

[the-plot-blog-thing]

For Fun: Here's My Favorite Disney Songs That Were Deleted/Changed In The Final Film (Part 1)

Hi, I'm The Plot MacGuffin. If you know me, you know I'm a massive fucking Disney nerd. And because I'm never satisfied, I often go searching for Disney rarities and behind the scenes stuff whenever I can. And fortunately, since Disney never throws anything away, sometimes demos or full recordings of deleted songs from their films slip through the cracks. (occasionally with visuals to accompany them). This list will take a look at some of my personal favorite songs, or just the ones I find interesting.

Of course, probably the first and most famous deleted song is the "Soup" sequence from Snow White. It had already been mostly animated before being deleted. They apparently still tried to find places to use it, even reuse it in another movie down the line, but then never did.

The "Clair De Lune" sequence from Fantasia was fully animated and scored, but ended up being cut for time. The animation was reused for the "Blue Bayou" segment of the later film Make Mine Music. Eventually, it was restored to Fantasia in the 90s, but current versions just list it as an extra feature.

Alice in Wonderland was in and out of development a bunch of times, and songs and plot points were introduced and cut like crazy. A more dedicated Jabberwocky sequence and a song for the Cheshire Cat were cut. They explore both in this short documentary below.

The songs in The Jungle Book were originally meant to be written by Terry Gilkyson. However, he wanted it to be closer to the tone of the original novel, which Walt Disney wanted to move away from. The Sherman Brothers were then brought on to write the new songs for the movie, but the one song Gilkyson wrote that remains in the final film is funnily enough, "The Bare Necessities". Gilkyson's other songs were a bit of a slog, but that one obviously stood out. The original version below was certainly well...something. (Sung here in this demo by Thurl Ravenscroft of "Tony the Tiger" and "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" fame)

"The Chimpanzoo" was meant for Mary Poppins. It tells an...interesting story, but was probably wisely cut. I think the Sherman Brothers may have tried to reuse it in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but I could be wrong there.

Onto the Disney Renaissance, Ursula's song was originally more of a tango. Composer Alan Menken released this demo for "Silence is Golden"

Both "Fathoms Below" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" also had whole lyrics cut from the final film that explain more of the characters and their relationships

The most famous deleted song from Beauty and the Beast is "Human Again". The song shows Belle and the Beast's relationship progressing as the objects get excited to be saved from the curse. The song is sweet, but its original version was meant to be almost 9 minutes long. It just raised too many questions over how long Belle was in the castle, and where Maurice and Gaston were as it seemed a full year passed. It was replaced by the much more compact "Something There" in the final movie.

However, the song was later reused in the Broadway version to help pad the show, and was later reanimated and voiced into the original movie (albeit abridged) for the IMAX special edition. Most current HD versions edit this out however. I like the song, but "Something There" basically covers the same info much more efficiently.

To Be Continued In Part 2!

[beepbeepdespair]

ok. ok i just came out of the jungle bunch 2 in cinemas. please, please watch it. trust me on this one. it's fantastic. gonna do a bit of excited rambling under the cut so don't open it if you intend to watch the film lmao

ok so the ONE thing i wanted from this film was some cute gilbert and batricia and MY GOD did we get it. i see you clinging to her when the airship's going down gil. i see you 👁👁 and DID I HEAR HER CALL HIM SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF GILLY-POO? i fucking can't. she is his weakness. he can be vain and he can obsess over his machinery and he can throw out as much sass as he wants but as soon as the situation involves batricia he melts. i want to cry

talking of cute couples. i did not expect to get as attached to maurice and camelia as i did. and can i just say the disability representation in this film was fucking on point??? now im not an amputee (i am disabled, undiagnosed for fuck-the-government reasons but it's pretty certain) but i was so pleased with the way they handled camelia

of course they showed compassion for how it happened but it didn't feel like she was treated as different or wrong, they found clever ways for it to give her an advantage (for example the stun dart hitting it and when they installed a firing mechanism in it), it didn't feel like box ticking and it really felt like maurice loved all of her, including her disability, not despite of it. when he put his flipper in her wooden hand. fucking beautiful

and the jokes. the humour. the kraftwerk reference. arnold schwarzenegger as a beaver. france taking the piss out of itself. almost swearing. perfect

and finally. uh, girl power??? camelia the girlboss, being a strong and independent woman but not being depicted as cold or rude because of it. her saving maurice and batricia saving gilbert a couple times. gilbert fucking begging batricia on his knees. the film making it VERY clear that sexism is not okay. just *chef's kiss* all of it

god i hope they make a third one. and also i need to find the first one and the tv show in english because when i discovered the show in france i did not understand a word lmao

edit: ok no actually i have more to say sorry. for a kids film the way camelia lost her arm was fucking brutal??? you're telling me that in a robbery gone wrong her arm was blown off, leading to her father abandoning her because he felt like he didn't deserve her anymore, leaving her with little but a new arm..... my god. and "i felt like i didn't deserve to look after you" i am on the floor sobbing

another edit: OH GOD ONE MORE THING. im sorry the LOOK on gilbert's face when he realised he'd been used via those competitions to help finish the formula. send this tarsier to therapy jesus fuckin christ. tragedy enjoyers eating well today

also i thought it was very clever how subtly social and political commentary was slipped in there. a showcasing of the dangers of swallowing capitalist ideology, and the whole 'evacuating your home because it's been blown up, with someone trying to charge you for the tents you will then have to live in' is just........ yeah.

[givemegifs]

[riceli]

BANNED CLASSICS

Banned Classic Books - banned in various countries, time periods, etc. Non-fiction, children's, modern, etc.

How many have you read?

1

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

2

The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)

3

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

4

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

5

The Color Purple (Alice Walker)

6

Ulysses (James Joyce)

7

Beloved (Toni Morrison)

8

Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

9

1984 (George Orwell)

10

Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)

11

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

12

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

13

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

14

Animal Farm (George Orwell-1945)

15

The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

16

As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)

17

A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)

18

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

19

Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)

20

Song of Solomon (The Song of Songs, also Song of Solomon or Canticles, is one of the megillot found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim, and a book of the Old Testament.)

21

Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

22

Native Son (Richard Wright)

23

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ( Ken Kesey)

24

Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)

25

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway)

26

The Call of the Wild (Jack London)

27

Go Tell It on the Mountain. (James Baldwin)

28

All the King's Men (Robert Penn Warren)

29

The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien)

30

The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)

31

Lady Chatterley's Lover (D. H. Lawrence)

32

A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)

33

The Awakening (Kate Chopin)

34

In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)

35

Sophie's Choice (William Styron)

36

Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)

37

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles

38

Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs)

39

Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh)

40

Women in Love (D.H. Lawrence)

41

The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer)

42

Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller)

43

An American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)

44

Rabbit, Run (John Updike)

45

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

46

Candide (Voltaire)

47

Sons and Lovers (D.H. Lawrence)

48

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Haley and Malcolm X)

49

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown)

50

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

51

Howl ( Allen Ginsberg - a poem)

52

Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman)

53

Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)

54

Our Bodies, Ourselves (a book about women's health and sexuality produced by the nonprofit organization Our Bodies Ourselves (originally called the Boston Women's Health Book Collective)

55

The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane)

56

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

57

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell R. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin)

58

Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert a Heinlein)

59

A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)

60

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

61

Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak)

62

The Crucible (Arthur Miller)

63

Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

64

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

65

Arabian Nights (Richard Francis Burton & Geraldine McCaughrean)

66

Gullivers Travels (Jonathan Swift)

67

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

68

Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)

69

Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe)

70

A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'engle)

71

Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson)

72

The Chocolate War (Robert Cormier)

73

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)

74

Harry Potter (J. K. Rowling)

75

The Giver (Lois Lowry)

76

Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

77

The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

78

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

79

The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)

80

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (lMark Twain)

81

That Was Then, This Is Now (S.E. Hinton)

82

The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman)

83

Charlotte's Web (E. B. White)

84

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)

85

The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein)

86

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S.Lewis)

87

The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum)

88

James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl)

89

Grimm's Fairy Tales (Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm)

90

The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Anderson)

91

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (Alvin Schwartz

92

Winnie-The-Pooh (A. A. Milne)

93

Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)

94

The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka -1915)

95

Frankenstein (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

96

The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

97

The Well of Loneliness (Radclyffe Hall)

98

All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)

99

The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)

100

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

“A book banned” sounds like a joke.

Are people a bunch of idiots that have to be controlled by some System that decides what can be read and what can not?

It is ridiculous.

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Bambi (1942)

In the early 1920s, Austrian Felix Salten began working on his best-known novel. Salten, a prominent Jewish author, was an avid outdoorsman who closely observed the habits of wildlife in the Viennese countryside. His experiences led him to write Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which became a bestseller in Europe. It was a bestseller in the United States, too, but Salten’s work had somehow been recategorized as a children’s book when exported across the Atlantic. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) producer Sidney Franklin (1942’s Mrs. Miniver, 1942’s Random Harvest) purchased the film rights, but he experimented and failed to find a satisfactory way to adapt Salten’s novel. Frustrated, Franklin handed the reins to Walt Disney. While Disney took on this new project, the Nazi Party banned Salten’s novel – claiming it to be, “a political allegory of the treatment of Jews in Germany.”

Salten, who soon fled for neutral Switzerland (never to return home to annexed Austria), may have inserted some such allegories, but that is not his novel’s primary intention. In one of the novel’s most memorable passages not present in the Disney adaptation, Bambi’s father shows his son a poacher’s corpse – another human has shot this poacher. In realizing humanity’s fragility and its sameness to the animals of the forest, a frightened Bambi, while examining the poacher’s body, declares, “‘There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.’” Salten’s novel and the 1942 Disney adaptation directed by David Hand are about the inevitability and universality of death – subject matter not exclusive to children.

Bambi was slated to be the second animated feature by Walt Disney Productions (now Walt Disney Animation Studios). Due to production delays, narrative confusion, aesthetic difficulties, and especially the Disney animators’ strike of 1941, it is the fifth and last entry of the studio’s Golden Age. Whether because of or despite these delays, Bambi seems an outlier in the Disney animated canon. It bears scant artistic resemblance to any of its predecessors or successors. To the bewilderment of viewers who believe that a great movie requires plot, Bambi dispenses of such notions. If conflict appears, it is resolved immediately – with one continuous exception. As Walt Disney insisted on the animation being as realistic as possible while retaining anthropomorphic qualities, the True-Life Adventures series (1948-1960; fourteen innovative nature documentaries that continue to influence the subgenre’s narrative and visual grammar) remains Bambi’s closest cousin in the studio’s filmography. Bambi – wildly innovative, underappreciated upon release and today – completes a consecutive run of five animated features for a Golden Age. Rarely matched today are the standards set by those five films.

This film is a coming-of-age tale; more specifically, it is about a male fawn’s experiences and observations on the natural life cycle. It begins with Bambi’s birth and concludes as Bambi inherits his father’s role as Great Prince of the Forest. This animated Bambi is less pedantic than Salten’s book, which focuses on Bambi’s survival lessons from the other woodland creatures. Instead, story director Perce Pearce (1940’s Fantasia, 1943’s Victory Through Air Power) and screenwriter Larry Morey (primarily a lyricist; 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) adopt a free-flowing episodic structure where Bambi lives life innocently, with violence puncturing through the idyll rather than being omnipresent. We see him befriend the rabbit Thumper and skunk Flower, learn to observe his surroundings before grazing in the open meadow, and play in the snow and on the ice come his first winter. There are comic misunderstandings and warnings about men, neither of which dominate the film.

Bambi also takes time, for a minute or a few, to avert its concentration from its protagonist to other animals. In a less disciplined film, these decisions might undermine the film’s goals – in this case, to portray nature as faithfully as possible within the bounds of a loose narrative. But each of these scenes focused away from Bambi either strengthen Bambi’s characterization, the liveliness of the forest, or the film’s messaging.

A handful of scenes including the elderly Friend Owl introduce us to Bambi and his mother as well as those adolescent, animalistic romantic tinglings he calls “twitterpation”. Friend Owl moves the film forward in ways that abided by the censors at the time, as well as introducing concepts to Bambi and friends in just enough time that is necessary. The most graphic moment during the first scene featuring the hunters (who are never depicted, aurally or visually) does not concern Bambi and his mother, but a few nameless pheasants. Covered in shadow by the long grasses, one of these pheasants speaks of the impending danger, and the audience hears the terror in her tremulous voice. Flying out of the underbrush in a desperate attempt to flee, she is shot by the hunters, and drops to the ground. The frame shows the pheasant’s corpse, but does not linger. This is the only depiction of a dead animal in the film – contrary to the recollections of many viewers. For younger and older viewers alike, this scene emphatically communicates the dangers that Bambi’s mother has warned about, priming the audience for what is to come, and doing so without sensation.

It leads directly to a scene that has become a sort of childhood rite of passage. The death of Bambi’s mother in a later scene has traumatized multiple generations of viewers – intrepid, timeless cinema. As Bambi and his mother are grazing on early Spring grass in the meadow, the latter senses movement and pokes her head up, turning her head realistically as if on a swivel. Her eyes are wide, unnerving. She looks straight at the audience; this would be the stuff of fourth wall-breaking comedy in any other context, but here it is almost inquisitive. Bambi is one of the few Disney canonical films in which what is happening off-screen is equally (if not more) important than what the audience is seeing – something most evident here. The film stubbornly fixes its perspective on the deer and the snow-blanketed backgrounds that emphasize how exposed they are. They flee. There is no cover as the editing becomes more frantic, closing in on the deer’s terrified faces as they rush back to the thicket. A shot rings out. The film’s score – a constant presence throughout Bambi until now – decrescendos from broadening string lines to a chorus vocalizing pianissimo (mimicking the wind-blown snow drifts), and disappears completely when the Great Prince of the Forest appears.

The Great Prince is obscured by the falling snow.

“Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

Silence. Stillness.

Bambi sheds but a single tear. He walks away with his father and, mirroring his deceased mother, looks towards the audience – this time, not in accusation or inquiry, but faint hope. Cynical viewers label this scene as anticlimactic due to Bambi’s lack of expression. But the filmmaking preceding it – a combination of the editing by Thomas Scott (1939’s Beau Geste, 1948’s So Dear to My Heart); the compositional decisions by composers Frank Churchill (Snow White, 1941’s Dumbo) and Edward H. Plumb (1944’s The Three Caballeros); the attentive character animation by artists too numerous to single out here; and the moody lighting and brushstroke textures to the backgrounds set by Tyrus Wong (1956’s Giant, 1969’s The Wild Bunch) – helps justify Bambi’s reaction. Some of the most important, at times traumatic, moments in life are silent and still. There is just enough pathos here without being anticlimactic or maudlin, or to be patronizing towards young viewers.

And yet the next scene shows Bambi grown up, in the middle of Spring, at play. There is no allusion to the tragedy on-screen a few minutes prior. The filmmakers are not minimizing Bambi’s trauma or nature’s violence, but saying that life nevertheless continues. There is growth, the acceptance of grown-up responsibilities, romance, love, child-rearing. Stags – like Bambi and the Great Prince – mate with does, but do not participate in the lives of their fawns. Unlike other Disney films where animals assume greater anthropomorphized qualities (1967’s The Jungle Book, 2016’s Zootopia), Bambi’s naturalistic approach contradicts any application of human norms and values onto its animals.

For years, this meant struggling to animate wildlife – especially deer. Rendering deer in appealing ways is difficult, due to the shape of their face and the positioning of their eyes on either side of the face. In the end, the animators went with character designer Marc Davis’ (Davis also led the character design of Thumper, Flower, and Cruella de Vil from 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians) outlines: maintaining realistic deer anatomy, but exaggerating the face with a shorter snout and larger eyes. The Great Prince’s antlers proved most infuriating due to the intricate perspectives in animating them. When the animators resolved that they could not animate antlers from scratch, a plaster mold of deer antlers were made and was Rotoscoped (projecting live-action film onto an image for an animator to trace it) the film’s animation cels.

But the most remarkable contribution to Bambi comes from Tyrus Wong. Wong, a Chinese-born American artist, established the look of Bambi’s painterly backgrounds. Based on landscape paintings from the Song dynasty (960-1279; a Chinese historical period when landscape painting was in vogue), Wong’s concept art caught the eye of colleague Maurice “Jake” Day. Day, a photographer, illustrator, and naturalist, spent weeks in Vermont and Maine, sketching and photographing deer and the woods surrounding them. His sketches, however, were deemed too “busy”. By comparison, Wong’s concept art – using pastels and watercolors – is impressionistic, deeply atmospheric. Disney, impressed by Wong’s work, appointed him to be lead production illustrator, and instructed the other background animators to take inspiration from Wong’s concept art. Wong’s lush backgrounds have graceful dimension (a hallmark of Song dynasty landscapes), seemingly extending the forest beyond the frame. A brushstroke implies dimensions to the forest unseen. Wong’s sense of lighting – whether soaking in sun-bathed greens or foreboding black-and-white, blues, or reds – helps Bambi smoothen otherwise abrupt tonal shifts.

Nevertheless, history downplayed Wong’s enormous contribution to one of the greatest animated films ever made. The studio fired Wong shortly after Bambi’s completion as collateral damage from the aftermath of the Disney animators’ strike – by the terms of the agreement with the strikers, Disney recognized the animators’ union but would lay off a union-approved equal ratio of strikers and non-strikers. Wong later found work as a Hallmark greeting card designer and a production illustrator for Warner Bros. Retiring in 1968, Wong was contacted by Disney to serve as a sketch artist for Mulan (1998) – Wong declined, stating that animated films were no longer a part of his life. Only within the last decade has Wong, who passed away in December 2016 at 106 years old, received due recognition for his contributions that his on-screen credit does not reveal.

Perhaps inspired by his meetings and collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski and music critic Deems Taylor for Fantasia, Walt insisted on a film score to be present across Bambi’s runtime. Composers Frank Churchill and Ed Plumb take inspiration from the Silly Symphony shorts made prior to Snow White – Bambi’s score and soundtrack occasionally blends with the sound mix and it liberally uses “Mickey Mousing” (the synchronization of music with actions, most notably footsteps, on-screen). With the writing team periodically revising Bambi, Churchill and Plumb waited until the final structure of the story was set before composing the music. Transcripts from the Disney Archives also reveal an emboldened Walt – again, perhaps inspired by his experiences from Fantasia – to insert his own preferences in how the music should sound. Walt, a man who once professed that he, “[didn’t] know beans about music,” was more musically articulate than he had been before Fantasia, and was unusually influential in the film’s orchestration. In the end, the Churchill and Plumb score is largely framed by the opening credits number, “Love is a Song”.

Love is a song that never ends. Life may be swift and fleeting. Hope may die, yet love's beautiful music Comes each day like the dawn.

In a few short stanzas, the composers begin a score that falls silent only two times: when Bambi’s mother mentions “man was in the forest and when the Great Prince of the Forest appears shrouded in snow. If one did not already associate it with the actions of the film’s characters, Bambi’s fully-orchestrated score sounds like a lengthy, motif-filled tone poem that can be heard in a concert hall. Listen to the string harmonies supporting the “Love is a Song”-vocalizing chorus during “Sleep Morning in the Woods/The Young Prince/Learning to Walk” beginning from 4:19-5:20. That sort of harmonic density would not be out of place in a late Romantic-era concert hall. Occasionally, that tone poem of a score gives way for the limited musical soundtrack like “Little April Shower” – the film’s best song, and one where instruments and vocalizing humans serve to simulate the sound of rain and wind. Bambi contains some of the tenderest music, reflecting the film’s thematic content, in the Disney canon.

Upon release, many critics and audiences found Bambi a step backward for Disney, caring not that the studio’s namesake and its animators agonized over its realism. Disney had upended the moviegoing world’s expectations with Snow White and spawned competing studios looking to replicate that alchemy. But in doing so, the studio also coded audience and critic expectations that animated film should only be fantastical. To strive for realistic animation to reflect nature was, “boring” and “entirely unpleasant” – for these critics (who say nothing about how animation can guide emotion), animated fantasy was innovative because it bent reality in ways live-action cannot portray. Echoing the most vehement criticisms hurled towards Fantasia, Bambi’s then-contemporary naysayers implied that even attempting to animate nature realistically and ignoring fantasy would be a pretentious exercise. In columns and tabloids, the American media also devolved into a mud-slinging debate over whether Bambi – because of its off-screen portrayal of humanity – defamed hunters.

By similarly contradictory logic, animated film in 1942 was mostly perceived as children’s entertainment – an attitude that has been dominant ever since, and one that yours truly tries to discredit with exasperating frequency. With no other rival animation studios attempting anything as ambitious as a Fantasia or Bambi, gag-heavy short films from Disney and its competitors contributed to these widely-held views. With World War II underway, the dissonance of expectations would only escalate. American moviegoers, though wishing to escape from the terrible headlines emerging from Europe, North Africa, and Asia, believed animated films too juvenile for their attention. Bambi – a dramatic film intended for children and adults – faltered under the burden of these wartime contradictions. It would not make back its production costs during its initial run.

This commercial failure, on the heels of the animators’ strike, cast a shadow over Disney’s Burbank studio and on Walt himself. Walt would never publicly admit this, but he believed he had been too focused on animated features. So much of his creative soul and experimental mind had been dedicated to the Golden Age films, but at what cost? The critical and commercial triumphs of Snow White and Dumbo were offset by Pinocchio’s (1940) budgetary overruns and the headline-grabbing negativity (by music and film critics) that financially drowned Fantasia and Bambi. Internal divisions that led to the animators’ strike nearly destroyed the studio; heavy borrowing from Bank of America resulted in runaway debt. Walt – spiritually and physically – would not be present for the rounds of layoffs (mandated by the agreement with the striking animators) that almost halved the studio’s staff after Bambi’s release. He accepted a long-standing offer from the Office for Inter-American Affairs to embark on a goodwill tour of South America to help improve relations with Latin American nations (as well as collect ideas for future animated films).

Bambi remains a sterling example of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ artistic daring. The film pushes realistic animation as far as the technology of its time can. It does so not only for the sake of visual realism, but to reinforce the profound emotions it has evoked for decades. The film’s tragic dimensions are legendary, oft-parodied; yet this does not (and should not) define it. Almost eighty years since its debut, Bambi’s reputation continues to be mired in the contradictions that first greeted its release. There are some who still believe that animated cinema, by its nature, is specifically for children. And by an extension of that thought, some believe tragedy has no place in animated cinema. What a limited view of art that is, an underestimation of humanity’s capacity for understanding.

Bambi concludes the Golden Age of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Since its departure from theaters, moviegoers have rarely been treated to animated cinema of equal or greater maturity – let alone from Disney itself. The artistic cavalcade of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) resulted in five consecutive films resembling nothing like the other, but all united in ferocious innovation. The central figure of this Golden Age, Walt Disney, was personally involved in each of these works; the end of this so-called Golden Age comes as he stops dedicating himself so completely to the studio’s animated features. In their own ways, each film helped define what animated cinema can be and who it is for. That debate remains fluid, one where the principal interlocutors learn from or disregard the lessons of this Golden Age.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the seventeenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Wizard of Oz (1939), Mary Poppins (1964), and Oliver! (1968).

[teddyoutready-blog]

Summer movie to watch from @shoutfactory Kids! Interesting story about penguin 🐧 Maurice who decides to follow his mom’s footsteps & protect Jungle with his team The Jungle Bunch! They encounter so many challenges, never underestimate your enemies! 🎥 🍿 #movie #TheJungleBunch #animated #French #series #Canada #Dvd #release #summer #summermovie #play #imagine #jungle #shoutfactory #shoutkids #Canada (at Canada) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1NAmz4AP3E/?igshid=1vm865tccwdds

[luisaaronopez]

The students started gathering fruit for their dinner. They had fun tossing the fruits in a basket made of leaves. Thomas is still having trouble trying to cut down at least one fruit from the tree. He's throwing his sword at the fruit, hoping to knock one down. "This is impossible." Thomas sighed in disappointment. Angel sees Thomas' sad face. She walks over to him. "Hey Thomas, I'll help you knock doen a couple of fruit." Angel said while slapping Thomas' back lightly. "Oh Angel! I didn't see you there. And I do need some help." Thomas said in a slightly desperate tone. "First thing you gotta do is look for a thin branch that has fruit hanging on it, once you find one, its not the fruit you need to hit, its the branch. It works wonders." Angel motivated Thomas. Thomas looked for a thin branch with fruit. He found one but was nervous. He looked at Angel, she nodded to him. Thomas took a deep breath and threw his sword at the branch. The sword actually chopped the branch and fell to the ground. Angel giggled "Not what I expected but hey, at least you brought 5 extra fruits. You did great!" Angel congratulated Thomas while lightly punched his shoulder. Thomas rubbed his shoulder as Angel left. He stared at the broken branch he chopped down with a sincere smile. As everyone was ready to cook the fruit, a voice said "Boring." Everyone turned their heads, it was Venus and Jeff. "Fruits? Pa-lease, fruits aren't gonna do you any good in a savage jungle like this." Venus said in a mocking tone. "B-b-b-but Venus, fr-fruits a-are good f-for you." Jeff stuttered. "Jeffy, this is a jungle of savage beasts. Meat is often the main course here." Venus said with a devious grin. "But if fruits exist here, that means there should be herbivores here too." Mi kindly said. "I'm not a picky eater. I'll eat anything from slugs, cockroaches, algae, and metal." Doll randomly shouts. Everyone looks at her. "Its part of my nature." Doll whispers in embarrassment. "Anyway, the fruit is almost done. Who wants to try some?" Mi asked everyone. "C-can I have s-some?" Jeff asked. Venus stepped in front of Jeff and crossed her arms. "Hmph, Jeff. I'm surprised you wanna eat fruit. Especially with them." "Well...they're not done yet, these taste much better if they're cooked." Mi said in a sheepish tone. "Oh no, I'm not helping ya'll cook that baby food. I'd rather eat slugs and roaches than eat fruit. Even though I never had any in my life but I am NOT eating fruit." Venus said as she turned her head away. "Wait... you've never eaten fruit?" Angel asks Venus. "Mind your own business okay?" Venus snarled. "OOOOH! You're missing out, now is the time to try it." Angel shouts. Everyone agrees. "Twy it! Twy it! Twy it!" Blossom chants. This was too much for Venus that she snapped. "WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK!?" Venus shouts so hard that she summoned her fire powers. The flames burned the branch that Thomas chopped down and started a campfire. "Thank you Venus." Mi giggled. "HEY! That wasn't fair!" Venus whined. "It wasn't but you weren't exactly fair either." Doll corrected Venus. Venus couldn't argue no more, she just crossed her arms and looked away. "You're welcome then." Venus mumbled. As they were having their dinner, Jeff stopped and looked around. Angel sees the worried look on his face. "What is it Jeff?" Angel asked. "W-we're n-not a-alone..." Jeff trembled. "Jeffy, there's nothing living here. The thing about meaters, I made all that up so we didn't have to eat fruit. Its just you, me.....and everyone else." Venus tried to reassure Jeff. "Hey look more students!" Doll shouts as she points at the strange figures hidden in the bushes. "M-m-more st-students?" Jeff stutters. The students all stand up. The figures emerged from the bushes. "Aww, cute kitty monkeys!" Blossom squealed at the sight of the creatures and wants to hug them. Blossom got close to them. One jumped out of the bushes and was ready to pounce on her. Then a black panther came out of nowhere and pinned the creature to the ground. "Aaron! Take Blossom to safety, we'll take on these things!" Angel commanded. Blossom hopped on the panthers back and he jumped into the trees. "Why are all animals named Aaron?" Venus asked Angel. "Its a cool name!" Angel says as she's pulling out her bow and arrow. Then the predators came out of the bushes. They were led by a bigger and bulkier predator with a scar in its eye. "That must be their alpha." Angel whispered. "Wow! These must be a rare subspecies of a bobcat." Thomas said as he's getting his sketchbook. "For crying out loud! Put that away and get your sword!" Venus yells at Thomas. "Oh, oh, right, right!" Thomas blushes as he pulls out his sword. The predator alpha slowly creeps towards the students. The students are preparing for the attack. Then the alpha screeches. Everyone covered their ear due to how ear piercing it sounded. Then a bunch of predators jumped out from the trees. "Its an ambush!" Mi shouts Angel summoned arrows to appear and shot them at each predator. But some were hard to hit since they keep hiding in the trees. Mi could use her sun powers but its night time so she really has to use her katana. Doll however uses the moons power for her telekenisis. She summoned small crescent moons and slashed each predator. Jeff was so scared that he was shooting all over the place with his Bolty Gun. Sadly he still missed. The predators were about to pounce him from above the trees. Venus shot fireballs at the predators to prevent them from harming Jeff. The predators yelped in pain. Venus wrapped her arm around Jeff and said "We make a good team don't we?" "If y-you s-say so." Jeff blushes. Thomas was fighting only one predator. He just kept swinging his sword around. He finally caused damage to the predator and it fell to the ground. Thomas smiled in satisfaction. But the predator quickly got back on its feet and grinned as if it were taunting Thomas. Angel was having a fight with the alpha. Angel has ran out of arrows. She tossed her bow to Thomas and says "Hold this for me, I'm gonna wrestle this predator!" "You are insane!" Doll shouts "Thank you!" Angel said with a mischievous grin. The predator alpha was impatient. Its hunger was getting worse and Angel was looking tasty to it. Angel jumped on the predator and wrestled it. The predator alpha lunged at her. It swiped its claws on Angel's arm. The other students cringed at the sight of Angel's scratch marks. Angel can no longer wrestle, now that she can only use one arm. Angel sees one of her arrows on the ground and tries to get it. The predator alpha landed on top of Angel, preventing her to grab the arrow. Thomas knew what Angel was planning. He ran towards the arrow. Then the smaller predators chased after Thomas. The other ran beside him to keep the other predators away. "Thanks everyone!" Thomas said. "Anything for a brave knight." Mi said with a smile. Thomas got to the arrow and shouts "Quick Angel! Catch!" Thomas throws the arrow to Angel. Angel caught the arrow and started stabbing the predator with it. The predator alpha made one last screech until it collasped. The other predators all fled in fear now that they have no leader. Everyone was exhausted from the fight. Angel walked over to Thomas and says "Thanks Thomas." "Its no biggie, you helped me earlier. Its the least I can do." Thomas blushed. "Already, I was expecting a longer battle." Doll said in a disappointed tone. Everyone looks at her again. "I truly apologize, its just that I was expecting more." Doll says like if the fight was too anticlimatic "Duh, this is supposed to be easy. Its the first challenge after all." Venus said in a rude tone. "Oh yeah...why did you help us anyway Venus. It seems that you DO wanna hang out with us." Mi said with a mischievous look on her face. "I fought with you guys because I was bored okay. Lord Maurice rarely has any fun things to do on the cheap island. I'm so leaving now. Come on Jeffy dear." Venus said while dragging Jeff. "Its b-been f-f-fun guys, I h-hope we s-see you s-soon!" Jeff said while waving. As Venus and Jeff disappear. Angel says to everyone "Now that we completed this challenge, we should go get some sleep." "I agree." Thomas nods. And so the students head to the fortress to go get some sleep because the next day, they'll need the energy for their next challenge.

[daniellaux429]

Fake Movie Poster: Fantasia 3000 by me!

Here is my fourth in a series of fake movie posters for movies that I personally would LOVE to see made someday! This one also has quite the lengthy explanation....

My favorite movie of all time is Fantasia – it is a masterpiece of filmmaking, animation, music, & most importantly imagination. One aspect I really love about it is that it’s a collection of a whole bunch of different stories, with each one set to a different piece of classical music. In doing this, it creates a formula that can work for future movies that lets the storytellers at Disney unleash their imaginations. Funny enough, that was Walt Disney’s original plan; he wanted Fantasia to be an ongoing series in which new segments would be created every few years or so. But sadly, because of monetary reasons & because of WWII taking place shortly after the original Fantasia’s release, Walt had to scrap this idea…

…That is, until many years later, when the storytellers & animators of the Disney Renaissance learned of this initial plan, & they decided to help make this lost dream of Walt’s a reality. Thus, at the tail end of the Disney Renaissance, they released the follow-up titled Fantasia 2000. While it wasn’t as good as the first film, it was still a solid Disney movie & it proved that the formula I mentioned earlier works. But since Fantasia 2000, Disney hasn’t tried to continue using this formula for great cinematic art. I think they did a few of shorts intended for a future Fantasia project titled Lorenzo, Destino, & The Little Match Girl, but nothing much besides that.

Thus, I have decided that if I ever get the chance to pitch a movie idea to the people at Walt Disney Animation Studios, I would pitch to them a third entry in the Fantasia series for the independent film market. For consistency reasons (even if it is a bit gimmicky), I would call it… Fantasia 3000.

Here is my plan for the movie:

Segment 1: Les Toreadors by Georges Bizet – In keeping with tradition, the opening will be a surreal & beautiful visualization of music. It will involve a square shaped mass with triangular arms conducting an unseen orchestra, all the while the environment shows off various colors, shapes, lights, & other surreal imagery that matches the music & intensity as it plays.

Segment 2: Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens – This segment, more or less, is an adaptation of the original French poem. On a Halloween midnight, the Angel of Death arrives to a graveyard on the back of a grey horse & begins to play a violin. Immediately, ghosts descend down from Heaven & skeletons rise from their graves, & they all perform their dance while the Angel of Death plays. When dawn approaches, all of the dead return to their afterlives & the Angel of Death rides off.

Segment 3: The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II – This segment is one centered on love & romance. In a very dull & colorless enchanted forest, we see a group of fairies hanging out by a pond, & a troop of brownies marching off into the forest. One of the fairies & one of the brownies stumble into each other, & right away there’s an immediate infatuation. As the two of them dance & act playfully with one another, the magic from the fairy’s wand begins bringing color back to the enchanted forest. It ends with the whole forest in bright colors, the other fairies & brownies cheering, & our two leads kissing.

Segment 4: Symphony No. 40 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Instead of bringing the original Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment from the first Fantasia back, I decided to instead tell a new story with Mickey Mouse in the lead. It will star Mickey as the keeper of messenger pigeons in a Medieval castle, & one day he finds a message from an evil wizard threatening to destroy the castle. Mickey goes to warn the king, & after showing the king the message, the queen takes Mickey to a secret room where an enchanted sword is kept, & she gives the sword to Mickey. Right on cue, the evil wizard & his giant stone warriors march through the kingdom (spotted by Donald Duck as a guard with a spyglass), & though the king sends soldiers to fight, they are easily defeated. Soon, the wizard storms into the throne room, but Mickey jumps in to save the day, as the enchanted sword deflects the wizard’s magic & destroys the stone warriors. After an intense showdown, the wizard’s staff is destroyed, he is turned to ashes, & shortly afterwards Mickey is knighted by the king & queen.

Segment 5: Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson – This is a shorter segment that illustrates a tradition that takes place in Europe every Christmas. It shows Saint Nicholas riding a sleigh pulled by a reindeer through a winter forest decorated with Christmas lights & candles, until he eventually arrives in a European village where he is greeted by the townsfolk, makes his way to the town square where a big Christmas tree is waiting for him, & he delivers toys to the children.

Segment 6: Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 by George Enescu – This is a segment that’s essentially a condensed retelling of my future book The White Elephant. It tells the story of a big elephant in the jungle of India who, despite his friendly nature, is ostracized by the other snootier jungle animals. But then he comes across a clumsy crane who fell from the sky, & after reviving it, the two of them become friends & do all sorts of fun activities together like eating fruit, playing in flower petals, splashing around in a waterhole, & so on. Eventually, a small fire breaks out in the jungle, & it’s up to the elephant & crane to save the day, which they thankfully do & are hailed as heroes.

Segment 7: Bolero by Maurice Ravel – This segment, inspired by the robot artwork of Matt Dixon, tells the story of a robot who is dropped onto an alien planet, & goes around exploring all the different alien biomes & coming across various alien species along the way, until the robot eventually finds an abandoned shelter on a mountainside & makes it a new home.

Segment 8: The Scott Joplin Medley (Bethena, The Entertainer, & Maple Leaf Rag) – In this segment set during the 1920’s, we see an African American man & a beautiful Irish immigrant woman going about their morning & their jobs, until they both come across a flyer on a fence asking for vaudeville performers. The night of the show, at first they’re billed as solo performances, but soon the two of them decide to do an act together, & they succeed in winning over the crowd.

Segment 9: The New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák – This segment, which will probably be the longest, tells the story of a little girl with a sad school life who suffers from social rejection & bullying. But then one day, she arrives home to see a present from her godmother waiting for her, & it ends up being a plush leopard. Immediately, she loves it! The next day, she imagines the leopard is alive & real, & it of course shows great love & affection for her. Then, they go outside & imagine themselves playing all sorts of grand adventures together that include time traveling to see dinosaurs, being sheriffs in the old west, being superheroes who fight bad guys, & even doing other fun things like taking pictures of each other & eating cookies together. At the very end, we see the little girl’s mother watching from the window, as she sees her daughter playing with the stuffed leopard, & she smiles. As you can see, this is based very heavily on the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, & if I could, I would’ve made this an adaptation of the comic. But because Watterson is extremely protective of his work, the only thing I can do is make up a new story using heavy inspiration.

Segment 10: Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – For the final segment, the story starts with some mighty dragons flying above the mountains. Then it goes to a baby dragon witnessing all of this, & with its mothers help, it learns to fly in the sky, until eventually seeing a great big valley & all sorts of different dragons doing various different things.

Of course, in between every segment, we’ll have ONE celebrity master of ceremonies discussing each segment in as dignified & classy as possible, with Mickey Mouse himself showing up before & after his segment. As you can see, my poster is sort of a mish-mash - the visual aesthetic of the conductor on the podium is taken straight from the original Fantasia, while each image representing each segment is based on the design for the original poster for Fantasia 2000. The tagline is "The encore begins, the legacy continues", emphasizing its spot as part of a grander film series. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fake poster, & hopefully someday it will become a real movie!

[putthison]

eBay Roundup

There’s a lot of great menswear on eBay, but to find the good stuff, you have to search for hours. Which is why we do these roundups, so that our readers can find good deals easily and quickly. For those looking to get an extra round-up each week, subscribe to our Inside Track newsletter. We not only cover the best of eBay, we also list each week’s store sales.

Any time you see a bunch of cool vintage gear and Cooperstown ball caps, you know Jesse contributed heavily. Today’s roundup has a funky striped Abercrombie & Fitch cardigan and vintage tweed. I also dig the dressing gowns towards the end of the post. 

To find more menswear on eBay, try using our customized search links. We’ve made them so you can quickly hone-in on quality suits, excellent dress shirts, fine footwear, good jeans, workwear, contemporary casualwear, nice ties, great bags, and well-made sweaters.

Suits, sport coats, and blazers

Funky striped vintage tweed sport coat, 40 (pictured above)

Blue striped Jay Kos suits, 41

Gray striped Alan Flusser suit, 42

Brown checked Paul Stuart tweed sport coat, 42

Tartan Abercrombie & Fitch sport coat, 42

Maurice Sedwell gray suit, 42

Outerwear

Funky textured double breasted coat, 38

Red Jay Kos sport coat, 42

Brown Sulka topcoat, 42

Brown J. Press field jacket, L

Green Ralph Lauren bomber jacket, L

Indigo Post Overalls workwear vest, L

"Sentinels of Safety" Chippewa jacket, 44

Sweaters and knits

Brown cashmere W. Bill crewneck, S

Gray Alan Paine Shetland crewneck, S

Navy North Sea Clothing shawl collar cardigan, 38

Abercrombie & Fitch sailboat sweatshirt, L

Brown knitted Paul Stuart button-up, 42

Red Southwestern style Ralph Lauren sweater, L

Sutherland striped Abercrombie & Fitch shawl collar cardigan, L (pictured above)

Green cashmere Braemar sweater vest, L

Gray St. Andrews v-neck sweater, L

Gray North Sea Clothing crewneck, 44

Shirts and pants

Tan suede Ralph Lauren shirt, S

Blue glen plaid Cordings shirt, 15.5

Yellow Abercrombie & Fitch sport shirt, L

Vintage Banana Republic safari shirt, XL

Box weave Luciano Barbera button-down, XL

Shoes

Ralph Lauren bluchers, 8

Ralph Lauren split toe bluchers, 8 (pictured above)

Ralph Lauren suede shortwings, 9.5

Paraboot tan suede chukkas, 10

Brooks Brothers black cap toe boots, 10

Paraboot split toe boots, 10.5

Alden shell cordovan saddle shoes, 12

Ties

Navy Sulka woven tie

Navy dotted E. Marinella tie

Red Holland & Holland feather motif tie

Blue wool striped Howard Yount tie

Navy Holland & Holland dragonfly tie

Green Austin Reed tweed tie

Superhero Paul Stuart necktie

Misc.

Bunch of suspenders

Viyella over-the-calf socks

Civilian Conservation Corps ring

Tan duck cotton fabric

Sterling silver salt-and-pepper shakers (1, 2)

Navy self-striped Bonsoir dressing gown

Red batik fabric

Antique stationary cabinet

Vintage-style Cooperstown ball caps, (1, 2, 3, 4)

Eric B. & Rakim 45rpm record

Lyn Collins 45rpm record

Deakin & Francis jungle motif cufflinks

Four Vices cufflinks

Gray cashmere Sulka dressing gown

Derek Rose pajamas, various sizes

If you want access to an extra roundup every week, exclusive to members, join Put This On's Inside Track for just five bucks a month.

[animationismycomfort]

does anybody else think Maurice’s og backstory is pretty cute or

cause he’s an egg cruelly thrown away from his tribe as a warning by the people enslaving his kind to get in line or suffer the consequences also probably assumed dead and is thought of as a great tragedy by his kind only to actually be traveling through the ocean and washing up near a jungle where he then hatches and comes face to face with a tiger this tiger then claims him as their son and raises him to the best of their abilities this ends up with him thinking he’s just a weird looking tiger(his parent even as a gift to him gave him his stripes)he then grows up and ventures off on his own when he’s old enough to then when he’s relaxing in a lake have an egg bump into him this egg then hatches to reveal a striped fish who he claims as his son

like it’s super adorable when you think about it

[mydustcollector]

The Jungle Bunch to the Rescue虎皮萌企鵝

虎皮萌企鵝是一部法國動畫，第一次看就被色彩鮮明的畫風吸引了，最早的版本在2013年的時候出版 ，現在應該有100多集了，很多國家都可以看到 。由於電視劇很受歡迎，所以也出了電影版本。

故事的主角是Maurice ，一隻被母老虎養大的企鵝 ，是史上最笨拙的武林高手 ，他的職責就是維持森林裡的公平正義 ，就像他的老虎母親一樣 ，但他的挑戰才正要開始，本來平靜的森林受到了邪惡無尾熊率領的笨狒狒大軍侵襲 ，他要怎麼做才能維持森林的安全呢?

Maurice的同伴還有彈塗魚，青蛙，蝙蝠，金魚跟黑猩猩

反派大軍 ，其實我有點搞不清楚最中間跟小隻的是甚麼

[layarkaca-21]

The Jungle Bunch (2017) Maurice may look like a penguin - but he's a real tiger inside! Raised by a tigress, he's the clumsiest kung-fu master ever.

[downordic-blog]

The Jungle Bunch

Maurice may look like a penguin - but he's a real tiger inside! Raised by a tigress, he's the clumsiest kung-fu master ever. Along with his friends, The Jungle Bunch, he intends to maintain order and justice in the jungle, as his mother did before he. But Igor, an evil koala, wants to destroy the jungle once and for all—helped by his army of silly baboons.

The.Jungle.Bunch.2017.FiNNiSH.WEB-DL.720p.AC3.5.1.x265-PELiMiES Read the full article

[comiccrusaders]

MOVIE REVIEW: The Jungle Bunch

MOVIE REVIEW: The Jungle Bunch

In the Jungle there are heroes and those heroes are called The Jungle Bunch.  Maurice looks like a penguin, but when his egg washed up on the shore of the Jungle, he was rescued by a retiring hero Tiger called Natasha.  She loved him for years and Maurice followed in the family business to create the Bunch.  The old nemesis of Natasha and her team, an Evil Koala, has returned from exile and plans…