#now let’s see if this parody is too hyper specific for anyone to get it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

upontheshelfreviews · 5 years

Text

And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney’s original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it’s one I’m both anticipating and dreading. Fantasia isn’t just one of the crowning jewels in Disney’s canon, a landmark in motion picture animation, and second only to Snow White in terms of influential music and storytelling in the whole medium, it’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Discussing it without sounding like an old history professor, a pretentious internet snob, or a hyper Disney fangirl is one hell of a daunting task.

“Did someone say hyper Disney fangirl?! I LOVE Disney!!”

“I thought you only liked Frozen.”

“Well, DUH, Frozen is my favorite, which makes it, like, the best Disney movie ever! But Disney’s awesome! There’s a bunch of other movies I like that are almost as good!”

“And Fantasia’s one of them?”

“Yeah!!…Which one is that again?”

“The one with Sorcerer Mickey?”

“Ohhhh, you’re talking about the fireworks show where he fights the dragon!”

“No, that’s Fantasmic. I’m referring to Fantasia. Came out the same year as Pinocchio? All done in hand-drawn animation…has the big devil guy at the end?”

“THAT’S where he’s from?! Geez, that’s some old movie. Why haven’t I heard about ’til now?”

“Probably because you spend twelve hours a day searching for more Frozen GIFs to reblog on your Tumblr.”

“Ooh, that reminds me! I need to go post my next batch of theories about the upcoming sequel! Toodles!!”

“Thanks. Another second with her and I would’ve bust a gasket.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Anyway, it’s no surprise Sorcerer Mickey is what people remember the most from Fantasia, and not just because he’s the company mascot. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was the reason we have the movie in the first place. It began as a pet project between Walt Disney and renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski.

youtube

“Yep. THAT Leopold.”

However, between the upscale in animation and the use of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the cost grew too high to justify the creation of only one short. Over time more sequences featuring animation set to various pieces of classical music were added in what was initially dubbed “The Concert Feature”. Later it was wisely changed to the more memorable “Fantasia”. It works not only because it’s derived from the word “fantasy”, but because “fantasia” is a term for a musical composition that doesn’t follow any strict form and leans towards improvisation. Combine the two meanings and you get the whole movie in a nutshell.

And this leads us to –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #1: “It’s SOOOOOO boring! Nobody’s talking and nothing ever happens!”

You know, few recall that decades before Warner Brothers was known as that studio that made rushed prequels to beloved fantasy franchises and a hastily cobbled together superhero universe, it had humble origins in the music business; their Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts began as music videos made to sell their records. Disney’s Silly Symphonies followed in the same vein, though they focused more on pushing the envelope in animation technique and character resonance than selling music, as did the lesser known Harman-Ising Happy Harmonies.

And if that’s the case, then Fantasia is the Thriller of animated music videos. It’s the result of years of technological advancement and trial and error, all culminating in the flawless weaving together of visuals and some of the greatest music mankind has created to tell seven stories and elicit an emotional response for each one.

Let me repeat that: FANTASIA. PREDATES. THRILLER.

“And unlike Thriller, Fantasia has the advantage of NOT being directed by a man who literally got away with murder or involving an artist whose pedophilia accusations are still discussed a decade after his passing…at least as far as we know.”

By the way, if you’re watching the current version of Fantasia that’s available, do me a favor and pause the movie to watch the original Deems Taylor intros; while they’re shorter than the ones on the blu-ray, they have Deem’s original voice. All later releases have him dubbed over by Corey Burton because the audio for these parts hasn’t held up as well over time. Now Corey Burton is a phenomenal voice actor who’s done countless work for Disney before, but there’s a problem I have with him taking over these segments: One, he and Deems sound nothing alike, and Two, he makes him sound so dry and dull. Not to mention the longer intros practically spoil everything you’re about to see whereas the cut versions give you just enough to build some intrigue for what’s to follow.

youtube

Regardless of whichever one you’re watching, Deems gives us the rundown on what Fantasia is all about and lists the three categories that the sequences fall under.

A concrete story

Clearly defined images with something of a narrative

Music and visuals that exist for its own sake

And the very first of these parts falls directly into the last one.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Johann Sebastian Bach

Some hear this tune and attribute it as stock horror music, but for me it’s the start of a grand, dark, fantastical journey through realms of the imagination. While it is intended as an organ piece, this full orchestration blows me away. Capturing the orchestra in bold hues and shadows with colors specific to certain highlighted instruments was a brilliant move, setting the stage for what’s to come.

And if the previously referenced Bugs Bunny cartoon was any indication, the real Leopold Stokowski is one of the main draws to this segment. Stokowski’s claim to fame was that he ditched the traditional conductor’s baton and used his hands to guide the orchestra. His passion and restraint is plain for all to see, even in silhouette.

Ultimately Stokowski and the orchestra fade away into the animated ether. The idea behind Toccota and Fugue was to show a gradual transformation from the conscious world to the subconscious, providing a literal and figurative representation of what you see and hear with the music. That’s why the first animated images resemble violin bows sweeping over strings. Over time those distinct objects evolve into abstract geometric shapes.

Honestly, no amount of stills can capture what it’s like to watch this sequence play out. It’s a radically unique experience, almost like a dream.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #2: “It’s the world’s first screensaver/musicalizer!”

This is something I hear often from people (ie. the people making the complaints I’ve chosen to highlight). First, read the previous Thing. Second, Toccata is not so much about recreating a story as it is capturing a feeling. And yet a story isn’t out of the question. I always saw at as glimpses of a battle of light versus dark, heaven versus hell, albeit not as overt as the opening of Fantasia 2000. That’s the beauty of this segment. It’s all up for interpretation. You can let the images and sounds wash over you as if you were dreaming it, or attach whatever meaning you find.

And on that note (ha) –

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #3: “God, all these animators must have been so fucking high to come up with this shit.”

I tell ya what, if you’re one of those people who think that, take whatever drug is handy, grab some crayons or whatever you feel comfortable doodling with, and when you’re comfortably high, draw one full second of animation. That’s 24 consecutive drawings that need to flow, squash and stretch into each other realistically. It doesn’t have complicated; it can be a ball bouncing, a flower blowing in the wind, an eye blinking, but it has to work.

Not so easy, huh?

Classic Disney animators who lectured at art schools received comments like this all the time. While there were some like Fred Moore who would go for the occasional beer run on breaks, there’s no record of narcotic or alcoholic influence on the animators’ turnout. I’m pretty sure Walt would’ve fired anyone who turned in work produced while high because it’d be awful. Animation was still a fairly new medium at the time, and Disney was constantly experimenting with what it could do, which is why we got things like this, the Pink Elephants, and other delightfully trippy moments throughout the 40’s, not because of drugs. Isn’t that right, classic Disney animator Bill Tytla?

“Of course! I’ve never done drugs, and I never drink…wine.”

The Nutcracker Suite – Pyotr Illich Tchaichovsky

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Yawn. Nutcracker is SO overplayed. Of course Disney had to jump on the bandwagon with their version!”

Ironically, the extended Deems Taylor intro has him mention how nobody performs Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker; in light of its modern seasonal popularity, the sentiment is rendered archaic. True, the ballet wasn’t an initial critical hit and Tchaikovsky himself virtually disowned it, but much of its ubiquity is largely due in part to Disney adapting it for Fantasia. It eschews the title character in favor of a nature ballet portraying the cycle of seasons. Initial planning included the overture and the famous march featuring woodland critters, though they were eventually cut. Walt considered pumping scents into the theater during this part, but was unable to figure out how to do it naturally. If they had Smell-O-Vision that might work, but what scents would you have to scratch off for the other Fantasia segments? Wood resin? Wine? Wet hippo? Brimstone?

The sequence begins with The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the night a group of fairies dance like fireflies, gracing spring flowers and spiderwebs with delicately timed dewdrops.

“Any of you girls seen Tinkerbell?” “She ditched us to hang out with that obnoxious flyboy.” “Again?! That’s the third time this month!”

The scene is atmospheric with beautifully rendered pastel backgrounds. After the fairies comes The Chinese Dance performed by a group of little mushrooms. It’s a cute number, and just another that was parodied more than a few times in other cartoons – wait do those mushrooms have slant eyes? And they’re prancing around nodding like extras in The Mikado…

You fungi are lucky you’re so darn adorable otherwise I’d sic the self-righteous side of Twitter on you.

Dance of the Reed Flutes follows. Lilies gently float on to the surface of a pond before inverting themselves to resemble twirling dancers with long, flowing skirts. And since I’m not always one to take the easy route, enjoy this niche reference instead of “You Spin Me Right Round”.

youtube

A gust of wind blows the spinning lilies over a waterfall into some moody underwater caverns, where a school of unusually sultry goldfish perform the Arabian Dance.

Cleo, does Gepetto know about this?

A novel idea, using the basic swimming motions of a goldfish and their naturally diaphanous tails and fins as veils to resemble exotic dancers, though like other animated characters in a similar vein, this has led to some…”interesting” reactions from certain people.

Right, well, bubbles transition us into the penultimate movement, the Russian Dance. Thistles and orchids resembling dancers clad in traditional Russian peasant clothing spring to life in this brightly colored energetic minute. You’ll be chanting “hey!” along with it.

And finally, the Waltz of the Flowers. As a little girl I would often hold my own “ballets” to this scene, which mainly comprised of me in a ballet costume or fancy nightgown spinning around in circles for family members with this playing in the background. Top that, Baryshnikov.

Fairies similar to the ones from the beginning transform the leaves from fresh summer green to autumn orange, brown and gold. Milkweed seeds blossom forth and float through the air like waltzing ladies. This piece above all else is what really shows the beauty of nature. I feel more emotion watching the leaves pirouette in the wind than any plain live-action drama.

Fall turns into winter, and the fairies, now snow sprites, skate across a pond creating ice swirls while even more spiral down from the sky as snowflakes. The secret of animating these snowflakes was nearly lost to time. Several years ago a notebook by technician Herman Schultheis was rediscovered, revealing how many of the special effects in Disney’s early films – Fantasia in particular – were brought to life. The snowflakes were cels on spools attached to small rails from a train set that were filmed falling in stop motion and black and white, then superimposed on the final picture.

In conclusion, The Nutcracker Suite is a lovely piece of animation and music, and I’ll pop in Fantasia at Christmastime just to watch it. This was my introduction to The Nutcracker, and it’s an excellent and unique one.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Paul Dukas

The symphonic poem of the same name now gets a proper name with Mickey Mouse stepping in the title role. It’s impossible to imagine any other character in his shoes, but for a time there were other considerations.

“Nope. Too wooden.”

“Too angry.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re just too darn loud.”

As we all know, Mickey was given the part since his popularity needed a boost. He doesn’t talk here, and I know those who find his voice grating wholeheartedly embrace that fact, but what we’re given is proof that Mickey works just as well silently as he does speaking. Very few cartoon characters can pull off that kind of versatility.

And while we’re on the topic of sound, Walt was so determined for the sound quality to match what was happening on screen that he devised a system he dubbed “FantaSound”, where it would seem as though the music would move around the the theater instead of just blare out from one speaker.

You read that right. Fantasia is the movie that invented SURROUND SOUND.

But that’s not the only technological leap Fantasia is responsible for – this is the first time we see Mickey with sclera.

That’s the white of the eyes for those who don’t speak science.

Before Fantasia, Mickey had what we refer to today as “pie eyes”, a relic of the era he was created in. As the art of animation progressed, animators found it increasingly difficult to create believable expressions with two little dots. Fred Moore is responsible for the mouse’s welcome redesign. Mickey as the apprentice serves the sorcerer Yen Sid, named after his real world counterpart.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

Mickey’s craving a taste of his master’s power, so he borrows his magical cap after he goes to bed and enchants a broom to finish his work of gathering water. It’s fun and bouncy, though the part where Mickey dreams he can control the cosmos, seas and sky is something to behold.

“The power! The absolute POWER!! The universe is mine to command! To CONTROOOOOOL!!!”

But Mickey is jolted from his dream of ultimate conquest when the broom begins flooding the place. Unfortunately the sorcerer’s hat doesn’t come with a manual so Mickey doesn’t know how to turn it off. He resorts to violently chopping the broom to pieces with an axe. The animation originally called for the massacre to happen on screen, but was altered to showing it through shadows instead. I think it’s much more effective this way. The implied violence is more dramatic than what we could have gotten.

youtube

One of my favorite stylistic choices in Fantasia is what follows. The color is sucked out, drained if you will, mirroring Mickey’s exhausted emotional and physical state after committing broomslaughter. But it slowly returns as the broom’s splinters rise up and form an army of bucket-wielding drones. They overpower Mickey and catch him in a whirlpool until Yen Sid returns and parts the waters like a pissed off Moses.

“You! Shall not! SWIM!!!”

Mickey sheepishly returns the hat, and I have to give credit to the animators for the subtle touches on Yen Sid. He appears stern at first glance, but the raised eyebrow borrowed from Walt? The slight smirk at the corner of his mouth? Deep down, he’s amused by his apprentice’s shenanigans. Even the backside slap with the broom, while rendered harshly due to the sudden swell of music, is done less out of malice and more out of playfulness.

The piece ends with Mickey breaking the barriers of reality to congratulate Stokowski on a job well done.

“Hey! I didn’t teach him that!”

If you haven’t already guessed, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is easily one of my preferred sequences. It’s energetic, perfectly matches the music, and features my favorite mouse in one of his most iconic roles. I joke about the scene where Mickey controls the waves and the sky due to Disney’s far-reaching acquisitions in the past decade, but within the context of the film it’s one of the most magical moments. Some theorize that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an allegory of Walt’s journey to create Fantasia itself, and there’s some merit to it – Mickey’s always been Walt’s avatar after all, and here he dreams big only to wind up way in over his head. But you don’t need to look for coincidental parallels to enjoy this part.

Rite of Spring – Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is admittedly my least favorite part of Fantasia, though I don’t hate it by all means. Thematically it’s the furthest from the original work’s intent: instead of a pagan ritual involving a virgin sacrifice, we witness the earth’s infancy. I was never really into dinosaurs as a kid (I didn’t even see Jurassic Park until I was in fourth or fifth grade), and the thundering, threatening music put me off. I found it too long (twenty-two minutes is an eternity in child time), uninteresting, and dour compared to the other sequences, with the exception of one moment. I can appreciate it now that I’m older, though.

A solitary oboe echoes through the vast darkness of space. We soar past comets, galaxies, suns, and down into our lonely little planet still in the early stages of formation. Volcanoes cover the earth. They spew toxic gas, but their magma bubbles burst in precision with the music. Once again this is due to Herman Schultheis. He filmed a mixture of oatmeal, coffee grounds, and mud with air pushed up through a vent, and let the animators go to town on it.

The volcanoes erupt simultaneously. Lava flows and the ensuing millennia of cooling form the continents. But deep in the sea, the first protozoan life wriggles, divides, and evolves into multi-cellular organisms. One of them crawls up on to land, and finally we’re back in the time where dinosaurs weren’t just confined to zoos.

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #4: “Dinosaur inaccuracies…brain melting…”

True, most of the dinosaur and plant species here never shared the same period of existence, but try telling that to the animation studio or John Hammond. They mostly went for whatever looked cool and prehistoric regardless of scientific accuracy. Some of the designs themselves are a bit off, but the animators did their best considering how much we knew about the creatures in the 30’s and 40’s. Heck, we’ve only recently discovered that most dinosaurs were covered with feathers or fur, and I don’t see anyone harping on Jurassic Park for omitting that detail. Thank God Steven Spielberg doesn’t harbor George Lucas’ affinity for reworking his past movies with extra CGI.

Believe it or not, this scene was once considered the height of accurate dinosaur depictions on film, because nobody else had done it before with this level of research and care in animation. Without Rite Of Spring, we wouldn’t have The Land Before Time or Jurassic Park in the first place. Look at Land Before Time’s bleak, orangey atmosphere and the Sharptooth fights and tell me this didn’t influence it in any way.

The dinosaurs themselves have little character and, while fascinating to see how they might have lived, are not particularly engaging. Until…

youtube

Yes, when the king of all dinosaurs makes his entrance, bringing a thunderstorm along with him no less, all the others are wise to run and hide from him. I would hide under a quilt but still peek through the holes in awe. He snaps about throwing his weight around, but when it goes toe to toe with a stegosaurus? That’s when things get real.

This battle, by the way, is animated by Woolie Reitherman, who had a knack for bringing gargantuan characters to life. He was responsible for animating Monstro in Pinocchio, and was behind Maleficent’s dragon form in Sleeping Beauty.

Though what follows is far from triumphant. The earth has become a hot, barren wasteland. The dinosaurs trudge through deserts and tar pits, their fruitless search for water turning into a slow death march. Not even the mighty T-Rex can survive this.

California: present day.

Some time later, the dinosaurs are all gone. Only their bones bleaching in the sun remain. Without warning, a massive earthquake hits and the seas flood through, washing away the remains of the old prehistoric world. The sequence comes full circle as the lonely oboe plays over a solar eclipse, which sets on an earth ready to step into the next stage of life.

If Walt had his way, the segment would have continued with the evolution of man and ended on a triumphant note with the discovery of fire, but he was worried about the possible backlash from zealous creationists. And I don’t blame him for wanting to avoid a confrontation with that crowd.

“It’s bad enough he makes a mouse act like a people with his dadgum pencil sorcery, but propagandizin’ evil-loution in mah Saturday mornin’ toon box? That’s just plum un-okkily-dokkily!”

“…You wouldn’t happen to have a dictionary on hand, would you?”

“DICTIONARIES ARE THE DEVIL’S BOOSTER SEAT!!”

Subsequently, those edits made to Stravinsky’s score pissed off the composer so much that he considered suing Disney for tampering with his work. He opted not to, yet the experience turned him off animation for good. A crying shame; Stravinsky, apart from being the only classical composer alive to see his work made part of a Fantasia feature, was excited to work with Walt. The two deeply respected and recognized each other as artists ahead of their time. Who knows what else could have come from their collaboration if things ended better?

With that knowledge, it makes sense that one of Stravinsky’s most famous pieces, the Firebird Suite, was included in Fantasia 2000: perhaps on some level Disney wanted to apologize for how the finale of Rite of Spring was mishandled by making Firebird the grand finale (though knowing Stravinsky he would have hated the little changes made to his music there as well).

Following the intermission, the orchestra reconvenes and has a fun little jam session. Deems Taylor takes a moment to introduce us to the most important – but rarely seen – figure that makes Fantasia and most music in movies possible, The Soundtrack.

youtube

Once again, Disney does what it does best and anthropomorphizes what no one thought was possible. Think about it: giving personalities to animals is one thing, but they’ve successfully done the same for plants, planes, houses, hats, and here, sound itself. It may seem silly and out of place, but I think it’s brilliant and charming. The visuals it creates to represent different instruments are perfectly matched; some of them harken back to Toccata and Fugue. This, combined with the improv from the orchestra, is a good way to ease us back into comfort after the harshness of Rite of Spring.

Pastoral Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven

There’s a famous story about Walt Disney while he was pitching this segment. When met with complaints that it wasn’t working, he cried out This’ll MAKE Beethoven!” In a way, he was right. This was the very first piece of Beethoven I ever heard, even before the famous “da da da DUUUUUN” of Symphony #5. And as far as I know, it was for a good many Disney fans too. We still get a romantic depiction of the countryside as was the composer’s intent, but instead of an rural utopia, we see the Fields of Elysium at the foot of Mount Olympus. It’s home to a variety of mythical creatures from the golden age of Greece: fauns, unicorns, cherubs, centaurs and Pegasi.

If there was ever a Disney world I wanted to spend a day in, this would be it. It’s so innocent, laidback and colorful; it takes me right back to my childhood. A great portion of this sequence was used in my favorite music video in the Simply Mad About the Mouse anthology album, “Zip A Dee Doo Dah” sung by Ric Ocasek from The Cars. Whether that was my favorite because it featured Pastoral Symphony or Pastoral Symphony was my favorite because it was featured in the video I don’t know. There’s nothing that could ever destroy it for –

Oh son of a…

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #5: “RACIST. FUCKING. CENTAUR. EQUALS. RACIST. DISNEY… RACIST!!!”

Yes ladies and gents, that image is real. Meet Sunflower (or Otika, I’m not sure which one she is) one of the the censored centaurettes (for very obvious reasons). I’m of two minds when it comes to their inclusion. First off, yes, they’re crude and demeaning blackface caricatures that have no place in a Disney movie, let alone one of the best ones and in one of my favorite sequences. But my inner art/film historian that despises censorship feels that erasing these depictions is the same as pretending they and other prejudices of the time never existed.

Thank you, Warner Bros.

As time and the civil rights movement marched on, all traces of the Sunflower squad were removed from later releases of Fantasia. The downside to that was editing techniques at the time weren’t as high-tech as they are today; I was lucky to see a film print of Fantasia at the Museum of Modern Art in 2015 that must have dated as far back as the ’60s because she wasn’t there, but the cuts were very noticeable. Sad to say the amazing remastered tracks done by Irwin Kostal in the 80’s used a similar print because the shift in the music is very jarring at points in this segment. It wasn’t until Fantasia’s 50th anniversary that they were able to zoom in and crop the scenes that had Sunflower in them while recycling other pieces of animation over parts where they couldn’t get rid of her, eventually managing to digitally erase her from some of the film entirely (look carefully at the part where the red carpet is being rolled out for Bacchus on the blu-ray. Unless he got it from the Cave of Wonders, carpets normally don’t roll themselves…)

I completely understand the reasoning behind Sunflower’s removal, but can also see why animation aficionados would try to pressure Disney into bringing her back with each new re-release for Fantasia, possibly with one of those great Leonard Maltin intros putting everything into context like in the tragically out-of-print Disney Treasures dvds – though the chances of that happening are as likely as Song of the South being made public again (the Disney+ promo should have made that clearer when they claimed Disney’s entire back catalogue would be available for streaming, but I doubt the tag line “We have everything except Song of the South” would hook people). It’s an issue I’m very torn on. So if there was ever a chance that a version of Fantasia with a restored Sunflower was possible, either through Disney themselves or fan edits, my thoughts on it would be a very resounding…

The first movement of the symphony is “Awakening of Pleasant Feelings upon Arriving in the Country”, and this part does just that. As the sun rises and we get our first glimpse of the technicolor fantasyland. Pan flute-playing fauns and unicorns frolic with each other while a herd of Pegasi take to the sky. Again, going back to other notable movies taking cues from Fantasia, Ray Harryhausen carefully studied the movement of the Pegasi here when creating his stop-motion Pegasus for Clash of the Titans. They canter through the air as they would on land, but in the water they move with the grace of a swan.

And look at the little baby ones, they’re just too cute!

The second movement, “Scene by the Brook”, takes place exactly where you think it does. A group of female centaurs, named “centaurettes” by the animators, doll themselves up with the help of some cupids (and the aforementioned Sunflower) in preparation for mating season.

“”I used to like the centaurettes not just because they were pretty but because each of them having different colors could be interpreted as women of all colors hanging out together and finding love. But no, having Sunflower there confirms that they’re all supposed to be lighter-skinned ladies. Racism given context makes it no less of a pain in the ass.”

The male centaurs arrive and hook up with their conveniently color-matching counterparts. The cherubs help set the mood for their flirting interludes until they discover two shy, lonely centaurs (Brudus and Melinda, because I’m that big of a Disney nerd that I know their actual names) who haven’t found each other yet. They lure them to a grove with some flute music a la The Pied Piper and it’s love at first sight.

One of my favorite details throughout the Pastoral Symphony is that we keep coming back to Brudus and Melinda. They’re a cute couple, one of the closest things we have to main characters in this sequence, and it’s nice to follow them.

Our third movement is “Peasants’ Merrymaking”. The centaur brigade prepare an overflowing vat of wine for Bacchus, god of booze and merrymaking. Bacchus, forever tipsy, arrives backed up by some black zebra centaurettes serving him. Maybe they were considered attractive enough to avoid being censored.

The bacchanalia is in full swing with everyone dancing and getting loaded. But Zeus, who appears more sinister than Laurence Olivier or his future Disney counterpart, crashes the party with a big thunderstorm. I used to think he was a jerk for endangering his subjects just for kicks, but in light of recent revelations maybe he had ulterior motives.

“Feel the wrath of the thunder god, you fucking racists!”

“Come on, dad, you used to be fun! Where’s the Zeus turns into a cow to pick up chicks?!”

“He grew up. Maybe you should too, son. Now EAT LIGHNING!”

“The Storm”, our fourth movement, provides some stunning imagery against the torrential backdrop, from the centaurs being called to shelter to the pegasus mother braving the gale to rescue her baby.

Ultimately Zeus grows tired and turns in for the night, ending the storm. Iris, goddess of the rainbow, emerges and leaves her technicolor trail across the sky. The creatures revel in the effects it has on their surroundings, then gather on a hill to watch the sunset, driven by Apollo and his chariot. Everyone settles in to sleep, and Artemis, hunting goddess of the moon, shoots an comet across the sky like an arrow that fills the sky with twinkling stars.

Pastoral Symphony was the one part of Fantasia that always received the most derision from critics, but racist characters aside I simply don’t get the hate for it. It may be longer than Rite of Spring but feels nowhere near as drawn out. I love the colors, characters, and the calm, bucolic fantasy world it creates. This was my first exposure to Beethoven and the world of Greek mythology and I still hold plenty of nostalgia for it. I admit it’s not perfect, and not just for the reason you think. Out of all the Fantasia pieces, this is the one whose quality is closest to an original Disney short than a theatrical feature. It’s a bit more cartoony and there’s some notable errors, particularly when the baby Pegasi dive into the water and emerge different colors. Also, Deems and the animators flip between using the gods’ Greek and Roman names, and the stickler in me wants them to pick a mythos and stick with it. But for all it’s flaws it’s still among my very favorite Fantasia pieces and nothing can change that.

The Dance of the Hours from the Opera “La Giaconda” – Amilcare Ponichelli

Like I said before, Disney was a master of the art of anthropomorphism. And nowhere is this more true than Dance of the Hours. Animals portray dancers symbolizing morning, noon, dusk and evening – only they’re the most unlikely ones for the job. The characters of our penultimate act are as cartoony as any you’d see in a Disney short from the era, but what puts the animation above it is the right balance of elasticity and realism. The exaggeration is on point, but there’s enough heft and weight to the animals that I can buy them being grounded in (some semblance of) reality. The animators studied professional dancers and incorporated their moves and elegance flawlessly. Half of the comedy derives from this.

The other half comes from how seriously the mock ballet is treated. We’re never informed who the dancers will be, leading anyone who hasn’t seen this before to assume they’re people. The ballet itself is a parody of the traditional pageant, but the performers carry on with the utmost sincerity. It doubles the laughs when it comes to moments such as Ben Ali Gator trying to catch Hyacinth Hippo in a dramatic pas de deux or an elephant getting a foot stuck in one of her own bubbles as she prances around. The familiar lighthearted refrain of the dance provides wonderful contrast to the caricatures on screen, particularly if you recall its other most famous iteration beyond Fantasia.

No one ever told me Camp Grenada was this Arcadian or zoological.

Morning begins with a troupe of uppity ostriches in ballet gear waking up, exercising and helping themselves to a cornucopia of fruit for breakfast. They fight over some grapes only to lose them in a pool. Something bubbles up from beneath and the ostriches run away in terror, but it’s only the prima ballerina of the piece, Hyacinth Hippo. She prepares for the day with help from her handmaidens and dances around a bit. Then she lies down for a nap, but no sooner do her ladies in waiting leave than some playful elephants come out of hiding and dance around Hyacinth unawares.

Elephants blowing bubbles in a Disney feature…nah, it’ll never catch on.

The elephants are blown away by a gust of wind (must be a really strong breeze), and with the coming of night a sinister band of crocodiles sneak up on Hyacinth. They scatter at the sudden arrival of their leader, Prince Ben Ali Gator, who immediately falls in love with Hyacinth. Surprisingly, the feeling is mutual.

I’m calling it – first body positivity romance in a Disney flick.

The climax of the piece has the crocodiles returning to wreak havoc on the palace and pulling the ostriches, elephants, and hippos back into a frenzied dance which brings down the house.

No bones about it, Dance of the Hours is a comic masterpiece and one of Fantasia’s crowning jewels. And the moment it ended was always the signal for younger me to stop the tape and rewind it to the beginning, due to what follows making a complete and terrifying 180…

Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky / Ave Maria – Franz Schubert

At last we come to our final part, two radically different classical works that blend perfectly into each other. And brother, what a note to end on.

Composer Modest Mussorgsky passed away before completing his masterwork “Night on the Bare Mountain”, a tonal poem depicting a witches’ sabbath from Slavic mythology. His friend, the great Rimsky-Korsakov, finished it for him while adding his own personal touch. The result is some of the most iconic and terrifying music ever created, and the accompanying animation, with the exception of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is the most faithful to its source material.

The scene takes place on Walpurgis Night, which is the closest thing Europe has to a real-life Summerween (those lucky so-and-so’s), on the titular mountain. The mountain’s peak opens up revealing Chernabog, the Slavic deity of darkness.

Chernabog is a masterclass in design and form. It’s easy to mistake him for Satan himself – Walt Disney and Deems Taylor both refer to him as such – though considering he’s technically Slavic Satan, there’s not too big a distinction. Chernabog radiates power, terror and pure darkness from his intro alone. You can imagine him influencing all other Disney villains to do his will, essentially filling in the horned one’s hooves. Chernabog was skillfully handled by Bill Tylta, an early Disney animator with enough talent to create characters as diverse as Stromboli and Dumbo. Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula, posed for reference pictures in the early design stages, though Tylta ultimately discarded them in favor of some different inspiration – sequence director Wilfred Jackson as model, and Tytla’s own Czech heritage. He grew up with folktales of Chernabog, which served him well during the production.

“Soon, master. The one known as Jackson shall take up your mantle and we shall feast upon humanity yet again.”

Chernabog unleashes his might on to the sleeping village below and raises the dead from the cemetery. A cabal of witches, wraiths and demons gallop on the wind and take part in his infernal revelry. Yet they are but playthings to the evil being. He transforms the creatures into alluring sirens and wretched beasts, sics harpies on them, condemns them to the flames, and lustfully embraces the hellish blaze. It’s an in your face pageantry of pure malevolence that you can’t look away from

Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing #6: “This is too scary for kids!! What the hell were they thinking?!”

I think it’s time we made one thing clear: Fantasia was NOT made for children – or to be more accurate, not EXCLUSIVELY for children. While Disney movies are made to be enjoyed by both kids and adults, Fantasia is the only one who dared to appeal to a more mature audience, and Night on Bald Mountain is proof of that. It had the audacity to explore some of the most darkest, ancient depictions of evil in a way that no Disney feature has before or since. Most importantly, it’s not done for shock value like any random horror movie you could name. It’s meant to show the juxtaposition between the darkest depravity and purest good; combined with Ave Maria it makes for the perfect symbolic climax to Fantasia. Light versus darkness, chaos versus order, life versus death, profane versus sacred, and the quest to master them all are the themes that unify the seemingly disparate sequences, and this finale is the apotheosis of that.

I stated in my Mickey’s Christmas Carol review that Bald Mountain was one of my first introductions to the concept of eternal damnation at the tender age of…I wanna say four, five? It was easily one of the most petrifying things from my childhood, but at least I could avoid some exposure to it thanks to its position at the very end. Though now I adore Night on Bald Mountain for how bold and striking it is. Tytla’s animation, Kay Nielsen’s stunning demon designs, and Schultheis’ effects culminate in harmonious diabolical artwork that’s impossible to extricate from the music. It’s a shame Schultheis left the studio after Fantasia. He met a mysterious, tragic end in Guatemala, right around the time Bill Tytla left too as a matter of fact…

“He knew too much…about the secrets of animation, I mean. Nothing at all about das vampyr walking the earth. No sir.”

Yet at the height of his power, one thing stops Chernabog cold – the sound of church bells. Disney historian John Culhane saw Fantasia during its original theatrical run (lucky so and so…) and he recalled how much having FantaSound affected his screening: when the bells rang, he could hear them coming from the back of the theater and slowly course their way up front as their power grew. It was an awe-inspiring moment that took the Bald Mountain experience one step further into reality.

The bells and the rising sun drive Chernabog and his minions back into the mountain and the restless spirits return to their graves. In the misty morning a procession of pilgrims glides through the woods like a parade of tiny lights, and thus the Ave Maria begins. It’s one of the rare times Disney has gone overtly Christian. Maybe Walt wanted to get back into the God-fearing American public’s good graces after the sorcery, paganism, devil worship and evolution theory we’ve witnessed in the past hour and fifty minutes. It does relieve the tension from the previous turn of events.

The first pitch had the march enter a cathedral, but Walt didn’t believe recreating something people can already see in Europe. So instead they move through a forest with trees and natural rock formations resembling the Gothic architecture of a cathedral. It’s the stronger choice in my opinion. The implication speaks greater volumes than a specific location, subtly connecting nature to the divine. It’s difficult to make out most of the hymn’s words, but regardless it sounds beautiful, especially those final triumphant notes as the sky lights up over a view of the verdant hilltops.

“When the sun hits that ridge just right, these hills sing.”

And with that, Fantasia comes to a close.

Really, what else can I say about it at this point. I keep forgetting this movie came out in 1940. It’s virtually timeless, and a must-see for anyone who loves animation and classic film and wants to jump into either one.

Fantasia was a critical and box office success…sort of. Despite the praise and high box office returns for the time, it sadly wasn’t enough to make up for the cost of putting it all together. Like Pinocchio before it, the war cut off any foreign revenue. And not every theater was willing or able to shell out for that nifty surround sound so the effects were lost on most people. Then there’s the audience response, which is the most depressing of all. The casual moviegoers still viewed Walt as the guy behind those wacky mouse cartoons and called him out for being a pretentious snob, while the highbrow intellectuals accused Walt of debasing classical music by shackling it to animation. The poor guy just couldn’t win.

Fantasia marked the end of an era. Never again would Walt attempt a feature so ambitious. His plans of making Fantasia a recurring series, with old segments regularly swapped out for new ones, would not be seen in his lifetime. There’s been the occasional copycat (Allegra non troppo), a handful of spiritual successors (Make Mine Music, Yellow Submarine), and of course the sequel which I’m sure I’ll get to eventually, but through it all, there is only one Fantasia. And no amount of my ramblings can hope to measure up to it. Fantasia is one of those movies you simply have to experience for yourself, preferably on the biggest screen available with a top of the line sound system. I know it’s a cliche for Internet critics to name this as their favorite animated Disney movie, but…yes, it’s mine too. It opened a door to a world of culture and art at a young age. The power of animation is on full display, and it’s affected the way I look at the medium forever. Fantasia was, and still is, a film ahead of its time.

Thank you for reading. I hope you can understand why this review took me nearly three months! If you enjoyed this, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patreon supporters get perks such as extra votes and adding movies of their choice to the Shelf. If I can get to $100, I can go back to making weekly tv show reviews. Right now I’m halfway there! Special thanks to Amelia Jones and Gordhan Ranaj for their contributions.

You can vote for whatever movie you want me to look at next by leaving it in the comments or emailing me at [email protected]. Remember, unless you’re a Patreon supporter, you can only vote once a month. The list of movies available to vote for are under “What’s On the Shelf”.

Artwork by Charles Moss. Certain screencaps courtesy of animationscreencaps.com.

To learn more about Fantasia, I highly recommend both John Culhane’s perennial book on the film and The Lost Notebook by John Canemaker, which reveals the long-lost special effects secrets which made Fantasia look so magical.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be spending the rest of the month with my handy dandy garlic, stake and crucifix and pray Bill Tytla doesn’t visit me this Walpurgis Night. I suggest you do the same.

March Review: Fantasia (1940) And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney's original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it's one I'm both anticipating and dreading.

9 notes · View notes

davidjjohnston3 · 3 years

Text

1. Others' innocence can make us feel more alive and cleanly but we have sooner or later to 'cleanse the inside of your own cup' (Jesus).

2. I miss 'sis.' That's all. I'm not married at 36.5 but someone did say, 'as a sister.'

3. I listened to Sowon's cover of 'Happy' and wrote a letter to Taeyeon on Instagram that she said something nice to.

4. I have several wishes pace Pope Francis' 'Come Let Us Dream' in the Covid era. One of these is to move to Korea of course again, another to move to LA, and another to publish under the imprint of (Mrs.) Catherine Cho's literary imprint as 'Inferno' was terrifying to me in a good way and I too encountered both racism, antagonism towards introverts and quiet people, warehousing by TV, and other forms of evil and crime in the mental healthcare system from people who just want money or, worse in a way, fun and PRIDE. I also think now that the mental healthcare system in Milwaukee Conuty was designed to give nursing school graduates either an 'easy money' job or exposure to a new Nazi-like system pace abortion-culture under the Democratic Party (including at least one Asian sadly; Andrew Yang), in which the mentally abnormal are considered second-class citizens if not Hitlerian 'life unworthy of life.' My parents are Democrats incidentally and fully support this.

5. I am pro-life 100%; I was going to be aborted and my biological 'father in law' still wants to post-partum-abort me; I could describe the spiritual realization but it's anatomical as well as literally electric. I hope and pray the pro-life movement will be able to present a living paradigm whereby the value of orphan life can be demonstrated and God glorifide in a literal 'spirit of adoption' or at least a very good orphanage. This has been part of my dream or 'ghost' since at least 2010.

6. I was driving to see Bethlehem Baptist Church + Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis and felt a crucifying energy from the church; I also thought about Monica and the 'white garments' of righteousness and covered sin ('white as snow' - Isaiah).

7. I don't want to 'nuke the Johnston clan' but as I was brutally attacked by both my parents in a campaign involving widespread exaggeration lying to both biomedical professionals / sci-tech establishment as well as civil authority (police) I have written some notes and passages of a 'purple and gold' project, 'Johnston Family Promises; or How Easter Became April Fools,' which could be characterized as a parody of self-destruction, specifically self-post-partum-abortion by reversing the fact that medical doctor brain trust thought I'd be born on April Fool's but was actually born on Easter Sunday in Los Angeles, CA.

8. I just want a future at this point however as my biological 'family' turned violently against me and I am in the position of 'gathering in the summer' (Proverbs).

9. I thought, 'an authentic love'... I love Changrae Lee also but it took me a long time to understand the spiritual 'Requiem' sense of his best book, by far, 'The Surrendered.' Koreans I sometimes think are the one race or rather _ _ now taking the past seriously without throwing away the future. With Secretary Pompeo I feel America could fall in on itself or at least on people like me, including many vulnerable loved ones of all of yours, my Facebook friends.

10. On a lighter note I like (Ms. / Artist) Kim Taeyeon's 'Cover Up' - 'I can't cover up my heart.'

11. I still like Baskin Robbins Pineapple Coconut thoguh for some reason it makes me think of being a billionaire world-saving commerce-warrior in financial triller Michael Kim's 'Offerings.''

12. I gave the wrong things to the wrong people and made them worse; I expect to be judged by Moses as well as my former teacher-trainers and mentors for being 's/Sensei' who failed his students in both senses of fail (gave them F's and failed to teach them things that made them 'better'). It was a traumatic experience that made me feel demoted from EdAdmin that I had just been offered to wanting to assist-teach K4 or Spec/ExcepEd. That's what you get for 'adult education' / being honest with Boomers about your thoughts, feelings, and decades of study. I think Confuciu would say you can't teach constructively who have no sense of shame (old American whites), and moreover participate in a rape-culture including both literal rape, sex-traficking, university campus-culture, porneia,

13. I haven't yet had an EKG but could have experienced acute idiopathic cardiac distress from the Pfizer vaccine since too many beautiful women ages 11-80 all love me. I thought a while back at 36, 'How to use my last half of my life.' Then suddenly with pericardial effusion on my mind I thought, 'What to do with 3 months to 2.8 years.' I wanted to go to Korea; I saw a Servants of Christ video where she was in Korea walking by a river to 'I Need Thee Every Hour' a Christian hymn to Jesus about absolute dependency, 'most precious Lord.' I remembered Psalm 23 and a time I just wanted to be buried in a certain cemetery in Incheon. Some other things happened involving my marital future, 'Skinship,' but now I am hoping for at least 5-10 years as the acute issues have mostly settled down and I am a clever self-dietician. Honestly though with the state of healthcare in Wisconsin I thought about purchasing a needle myself for a pericardocentesis to drain the H2O.

14. I have one writing-project I might not complete but I feel a solid start that could / should be published about abortion-culture and based on 'Love in Color,' a popular song by a no-longer-pop-idol.

15. I still think about expositing American literature but suddenly 'The Old New World' means more to me; the old Midwestern novel, 'Winterlight,' 'My Soul at Night.' And, 'The Magnificent Ambersons,' destined love. I had a student in Korea who would be the card-carrying image of Lucy Morgan if they adapted it in addition to Mark Helprin's 'In Sunlight and in Shadow.'

16. I am (too?) afraid of the Cross of Gold. America getting rich. China's 'moderately prosperous nation' i.e. Get Middle Class or Die (and Take World w/ Us) Tryinng.' I want to be poor and poor-in-spirit except that I love some people who could use the money. That is part of why I think about Michael B. Kim.

17. I like green peas, peanut butter, and blueberries.

18. The best audiobook I read lately is almost holy to me, 'Inferno' by Catherine Cho but 'Forgotten God' by Francis Chan is also incredible. I listen to it while sleeping on audio and it always seems to wake me up at the perfect moment.

19. I finally figured out an 'audience' as well. If I could finally write a couple novels with a 'professional' utterance in addition to 'Love in Color' my 'caritas et amor' homage to a beautiful song and also something on the Covid era and old and young. Like Pastor John MacArthur, or with him / following him I just feel like the whole point of Covid was to give people a chance to do better by / with kids. 'We plant the trees; our children enjoy the shade' - a Chinese proverb that the orthodox preacher / shepherd John MacArthur cites nonetheless. The American Families Plan. Also even more (AUTHENTIC, non-guru-guff, non-fetishistic, non-trends-based) professionalization and humane policing and children's rights within the South Korean public and private schooling sectors.

20. I had one grand project as well called 'The Distant Lights of Seoul' that is kind of my take on 'In Sunlight and in Shadow' but it evolved in to something more personal that that's all... a trip I thought of taking, in the days when I was unsure whether to be the new or old.

21. I remember the most anguished summer of my life till now was 2003. 'Deep Inside of You' by 3EB. 'I would change myself if I could / I would walk with my people if I could find them / and I'd say I'm sorry to you.' Coincidentally I went on an 'icy-hot' date with a hyper-beautiful woman at the cafe-bar where Jenkins wrote 'Motorcycle Driveby.'

22. I made a 'partial audiobook' of the early Psalms - particularly 5, about God defending - and had a beautiful experience like reading to children.

23. I don't want to broaden myself out too much physically or experientially; I'm afraid of becoming mentally American. 'Leaving Babylon, Leaving America, Leaving Milwaukee, Leaving.' My homage to Madison Kwon Eunbi as well, theme-music 'Eraser.' But I have to be a better man to approach my new _.

24. My original 'Korea project' was called 'Transferring to Line Zero' and like many Millennial writers in 2010 I tried to sound like a Haruki Murakami narrator but my experience turned out to be more like Kazuo Ishiguro, Marcel Proust. I aimed for whisky but got wine. I wish I could write this as I know for whom. IDK if anyone cares though as Millennials almost all had 'these.' I just wish I could make something of it instead of seeming like 'Acute Fangirl's No. 1 Fanboy.' There wasn't a 'zero.'

25. I had a crush on Dreamcatcher JiU 'Lily Kim' I saw once in Chicago - 'prettier in real life' is a good way to zonk people out into falling in love with a picture - but I saw a picture of her in traditional Joseon garment and just thought, 'cordial neighbor.' That's all.

26. I used to write 'nuke Harvard' self-hyper-fanfiction about me v. the more customary winners and my ideal project is 'The Chinaman (or Chinese Poet) at American-Korean Thanksgiving.'

27. remembering my 2003 self / poet persona

akaka soru no

I thought about snow falling on velvet. I got in trouble in the neighborhood. I liked Red Velvet's 'Wish Tree.' I liked Wendy Son and Kim Yerim. A noble name, Son Seungwan, I'll say it once.

Maoists. I read 'Wild Swans.' I wanted to join you in your sadness and your beauty but I wasn't being Kawabata Yasunari. I don't want to generalize about my love for you but I don't believe in things either; Time disappears; mathematics inspires my disbelief; I think it can change.

'I love other people.'

What is it when parents grow old Do they go in to a new world They go to Heaven before us They know about being young

Wine, Elizabeth Strout novel 'Protestant endurance' in the old Midwest 'We are different from everybody'

The only question a bomb-threat at the school after 9.11 'Sospiro' fioritura In those days they were innocent 'I would take you seriously' (if I were a teacher) Now they try to be like New Yorkers I am not home

The poem that belonged to everyone flower a flower Can the passive-aggressive therapist Chinese girlfriend tea in the morning 'If I had to live with you'

the children of tomorrow where understanding ends require a world

a walk by the river i was old then carrying something i knew how to cook i knew how to live you sang 'dream' i said something like someone once said to me my old love contacted me via e-mail she said she had become materialistic and Republican she looked really good / happy married with kid after Covid-19 anaesthesiologist

28. Dov Danilov had abjected himself; he was known; on one cared. The only decisive or critical factor... There was that armored 'girlfriend of steel' or perhaps better-than-girlfriend, the trial by ordeal, the one-look judgmentality, but it was all the past. There was 'When You Are Old' and there had always been the presence of the Other like in 'The New World' with Pocahontas and John Smith; 'Who are you that haunts my dreams?' That was a gooood movie. He watched 'The Last Samurai' back in the day and didn't take it seriously but believed it contained good 'advices.' There was Manheim Wagner's 'Korea: How You Feel' that had a great photo that seemed to mean something about the author's feelings but the book was all about illegal narcotics and sex-trafficking. There was 'Brother One Fell' but it was all about masturbation and poor diet and illegal narcotics and what the Native Amerrian Indian shepherd-scholar hda called 'Mental Europeanness.' The shepherd-scholar called himself a 'sheep-rancher.' It was RU, 2005 autumn. 'Being known and ont cared for,' like HAndong from Dreamcatcher. Maybe, it was the beginning of the end of the nightmare. - I could eat again a little if I got another love-letter from a female student... or even another bouquet from a gay male student... Maybe I'll mrary a North Korean woman after reunification... Remember 'Honey and Clover?' - Good song. - It's an anime-drama. Originally it was a dorama. Pramodh liked it before BLM stole his soul and he death-threated me with Cannibal COrpse and hate. 'Moon River' on pianoforte.

- 'The Remains of DJ.' 'LA Dream.' 'Red Mansion Dream.' 'Pandemic of Honesty.' 'At the End of the Winter-Light; the Last of the Good Old Wisconsin Blue.' 'John Updike R

and I am not ashamed while my love is near me and I know it will be so till it's time to go So count the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again

'doctrine of unconditional evil'

29. My father acted in a really scary obsessive fashion toward me lately and now suddenly he is just eating and drinking.

30. Jesus Himself said in the Gospel not to curse your parents.

31. I thought something about 'Sentimental Education' lately.

32. A while ago I wanted to write or read 'stories about families.'

33. I want to return to my '2003' project that predicted bioweapons and stuff but not really.

If I were redoing it I might just make it about 'Honesty' and instead of magic assassins it would be the medical doctor charged with mitigating bioweapon magic damage and the FBI agent investigating the bad guys. Psalm 5.

34. Wanting to be the spiritual-intellectual successor to Bruce Cumings (hyper-meta historiography of the Korean War and, by extension, Covid, the world, Christ / CHristology, and the problems with non-Asia-based E. Asian Studies academicians or anyone who lacks Confucian scholar-gentleman / 'sunbi' / Scholar in Kingdom of Heaven sincerity). China buries corrrput intellectuals alive.

35. 'Final Offer' in Time (on Pres. Moon Jaein). 'Peace in Our Time?' Blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are the pure in heart.

36. IDK if it's worth saying but - dept. of Anti-Christology or study of Antichrist - the 'first world' as it used to be called by and large seemed to be trending towards Imperium. I honestly feel as if Barack Obama could be pulling the strings from within the CIA building and David Cameron adn Angela Merkel are in charge of all of Europe, while POpe Francis holds suzerainty of influence if not command-authority over the Spanish-speaking world. IDK if there is meaningful dissent outside of a few republic-nations such as Poland and South Korea, who paradoxically take on a posture of what Park Chunghee callde 'itnernational responsiblity' despite a history of atrocious suffering and monoethnic somewhat xenophobic traditional social makeup.

37. Flaubert's notes to his supreme masterpiece 'Sentimental Education'... I'll just say... How he taught Frederic Moureau to fall in love with Marie Arnoux; taught himself how to LOVE Marie both before the beginning and after the end of being 'in love' with this mother-paramour.

That said, I still remember the days when I had 'optimism' and someone said, '[woman] is happy because of you.'

38. I can't write more but do have specific goals, chiefly, master Korean and learn all the basic facts. Professionals and experts believe in facts; as my Russian Yale MBA friend used to say, 'I am a scientist.'

I wish I had a profession... 'literary criticism of life?' I am interested in 'the condition of fiction' and 'the logic of pulverization' but I just track John MacArthur. I need to reconstitute my body and mind then maybe...

Dreams of [doctoral degrees].

39. 2 Timothy, Acts 2, Thessalonians, Revelation, in the Covid era.

40. Dreaming of Bethlehem College and Seminary.

41. Dov Danilov had abjected himself; he was known; on one cared. The only decisive or critical factor... There was that armored 'girlfriend of steel' or perhaps better-than-girlfriend, the trial by ordeal, the one-look judgmentality, but it was all the past. There was 'When You Are Old' and there had always been the presence of the Other like in 'The New World' with Pocahontas and John Smith; 'Who are you that haunts my dreams?' That was a gooood movie. He watched 'The Last Samurai' back in the day and didn't take it seriously but believed it contained good 'advices.' There was Manheim Wagner's 'Korea: How You Feel' that had a great photo that seemed to mean something about the author's feelings but the book was all about illegal narcotics and sex-trafficking. There was 'Brother One Fell' but it was all about masturbation and poor diet and illegal narcotics and what the Native Amerrian Indian shepherd-scholar hda called 'Mental Europeanness.' The shepherd-scholar called himself a 'sheep-rancher.' It was RU, 2005 autumn. 'Being known and ont cared for,' like HAndong from Dreamcatcher. Maybe, it was the beginning of the end of the nightmare. - I could eat again a little if I got another love-letter from a female student... or even another bouquet from a gay male student... Maybe I'll mrary a North Korean woman after reunification... Remember 'Honey and Clover?' - Good song. - It's an anime-drama. Originally it was a dorama. Pramodh liked it before BLM stole his soul and he death-threated me with Cannibal COrpse and hate. 'Moon River' on pianoforte.

- 'The Remains of DJ.' 'LA Dream.' 'Red Mansion Dream.' 'Pandemic of Honesty.' 'At the End of the Winter-Light; the Last of the Good Old Wisconsin Blue.' 'John Updike R

and I am not ashamed while my love is near me and I know it will be so till it's time to go So count the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again

'doctrine of unconditional evil' - humans mistaking themselves for God the Father - abortion-culture - Pope Saint John Paul II 'Humana Vitae'

42. Ideas of Christianity versus praxis and parataxis of Christianity

43. I was fond of Becca on Xanga but not as much as 'Clover' People open so much they can't but close off like a French novel 'humanity-rule' though their psychology of women is 'unconvincing' Glenn Gould ate a lot of eggs he was a hypochrondriac I want to drink 'Delta Covid Winter Summer Wine' and think of Mary HK Choi 'Yolk,' Lear's Cordelia and the real one, caritas / a'ga'pe I hope I don't get kilt with a _ _ _

44. Side- / mini-project 'My Brother's Type' about anti-Asian racism.

45. Ideal YA novel / counter to all corrupt YAL books, 'Clover' from the Promise / Fromis song. It's beautiful, beauteous, 'fragrance from life to life.' 'I kept wishing for luck until I realized that which I wanted was happiness, yes?'

46. They were bored psychopathic Boomers; retirement had made them cannibal sociopaths. His mom was like Volumnia in Coriolanus. He didn't want to think about it. He remembered Shan by the Han River, 'Fair Love.' It was ten years ago; he weighed 25 pounds less but his mentality was the same. People were different. Children were different. In Wisconsin they evinced a... He was tired of being a bridge between West and East. No one was curious.

47. I approached something really intense and pure and holy - and absolutely specific - and can't back off or back down without harm to myself. This might be my last FBI.

48. I was 'boring guy.'

49. Summer rain.

50. That holiness... but also... CVA ('Charity edifieth')...

51. I want to read Korean poetry again as well. Better poetry than ever, I imagine, better people. 'Perfect Children.'

52. 'And When We Are Older' - A Poem for Someone about My Age

And when we are old it won't necessarily get easier or fall into place or smooth into bonhomie or grow delicate as papery exquisite autumn leaves like the face of Jennifer Aniston and sometimes at the gym my smaller shoulder-muscles push harder but they remind me in this cute, precious way of some kind knowing amid Cross and sword that ever valor is a risk and God has got his hour writ. I thought that by now I would know what it's like to be one flesh with a wife, to watch a daughter practicing pianoforte, play catch with a son in the yard of a house by New Jersey reedy ponds. That dream began in 1994 and there it stays, between the 'cello-clabbered music-room and gildered auditorium and still, in these institutions, nowhere to confess my love, nowhere to begin, just papers to plan on or wise. I used to love book-reviews, the language of dictionaries that could seem to get life so right, "Validity in Interpretation," the days when newspapers seemed to love me more than my own teachers, Colossians 4:6, editing sprinkled with salt, giving reason for hope, appropriate, apt, jeongdokhada. They get old and old and much is made of the things we can experience; sometimes I think that my dear friend quit Samsung too soon to know how to build his own team and I quit at least three jobs too soon and didn't stay in hot pursuit and now feel almost as if only my thoughts are as brightly alive with a love-light as your face once was. I get so lost at shopping malls, drowning; I don't get what anyone is up to. There was a Monsignor who composed or redacted this immense ethnography of all Korea but it must have broken his heart too, man who never took a wife, knitting red, his memory, the kind of person who arrives as I, watching Pompeo et al, in the hope of a benevolent ruler both forever and for the time being too... My friend used to say I could lead but I couldn't even shut down the snark-machine and Reddit had a field day with me and honestly maybe I've never loved anyone adequately. Let's be young a while more and though I didn't like this as a kid we can talk to the TV like at my grandparents' house long ago and again born on the new day, maybe we'll spend some time married.

53. 'Happy Days'

54. I miss the good K-dramas from Dramafever days though I don't watch television anymore... I wish I did just to rest my eyes... I miss 'Please Come Back Ahjusshi'... He's on the flying aerospace train to Heaven with his tears of contrition but decidees to return to Earth to delete his porn-collection for his wife and daughter surviving him... I deleted my biological father's literary porn collection ('daddy'-stepdaughter coercive / rape; adulterous housewife)... but he tried to send me to death and Hell.

55. It was like autumn in Korea this morning with the lamps and air-moisture; it was like Korean summer this early evening with August rain.

56. I want to regain my purity of literary style but hopefully God willing write something profitable / fruitful. I might just teach again for pay..

0 notes

fangirlingabout · 8 years

Photo

Entertaining to the MAX

As someone with an... approximate knowledge of the DC universe and more specifically the BatFamily (most of which being from littlenightwing), and as someone who just enjoys really funny comedies and great animation, I pretty much was doomed to love this movie.

But hell, even without all that “””bias””” what makes this movie so especially bitchin’ is how it succeeds at pretty much everything it sets out to do. Make a good follow-up to the Lego Movie? Check. Strike a great balance as a kids movie? Check Two.

Bring the BatFamily to the big screen again (FINALLY) in a way that can make general audiences fall in love with them? All checks. All of them, those checks are yours now.

Be a good spoof movie---a genre so dead it needed to be revived with little tiny lego defibrillators? A THUNDERSTORM OF CHECKS RAINING DOWN FROM THE HEAVANS.

Doing a Comic Book Movie

Adapting anything to film is magic trick and a half, but adapting comic books---90 years of them, for that matter---is a whole magic show. It’s no small feat to capture the heart of the characters and world and what makes it so beloved.

Add that on top of the magic you need to perform to make a good spoof movie, which takes that deep understanding and builds off it (ayyyy) in exaggerated, hilarious ways. Plus, like I said, the entire spoof genre has been left in the hands of the people who made the Scary Movie franchise, which has fallen so far from... well, I don’t want to say grace, but you get my point. There’s only been bad parody movies coming out in the mainstream for years now.

But if I’d trust anyone to manage both kinds miracles, I guess I’d have to give it to Phil Lord and Chris Miller! Even if you don’t know their names, you’ve probably laughed at their work (well, with their work): Clone High, Cloudy a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, (A few episodes of) How I Met Your Mother, (the pilot of) Brooklyn 99, and, obviously, the Lego Movie itself.

Basically, these are two writer/directors best bros who I’ve loved ever since I was young with Clone High because that’s exactly my sense of humour---and they’re still killing it to this day.

And thank god, they manage to nail this movie on so many levels.

What really rocks is how thoroughly they understand Batman’s corner of the DC universe---not just for the amazing, nerd-level-100 references from all sorts of Batman media, but because in order for the comedy to really work, they have to make a super-fan love for all things Batman infectious.

And it works. So, so well!

And the parody aspects of this movie work for the same reason. It’s like the old saying goes “it’s funny because it’s true.” Sure, it’s exaggerated for a punchline, but if it didn’t come from a genuine place to begin with that exaggeration wouldn’t be able to carry the movie.

The BatFam and Rogues Gallery

AND THIS IS THE BEST PART.

See, the BatFamily hasn’t come to the big screen aside from the mostly-straight-to-DVD-but-if-they’re-in-theaters-they’re-limited-release animated movies, which leaves legions of starving BatFam fans waiting for their favourite characters to even get a slight mention or blink-and-you’ll-miss-it background reference.

The Arkham games (and of course the comics themselves) are enough to keep them alive, but the fact that 1997′s Batman and Robin killed all possible BatFamily movies for basically 20 years means it’s been rough.

So, now we have the first real inclusion on the BatFamily! It’s a parody of them, but at least since it’s a good parody that does demonstrate some understanding of the characters and how meaningful their relationships are, it’s enough! At least, for now. My hope is that having a popular, awesome movie with some BatFamily members in it will open the door to even more BatFam to come!

Because look, I have to take this character by character for a second to really show why this could hopefully be the building blocks (AYYYYY) for something even greater down the line (or, great in a different way, I should say).

Let’s start with Dick Grayson as Robin. This Dick Grayson is mostly a parody of the original TV boy wonder, Burt Ward. Which works, even though it’s not an accurate portrayal of more modern incarnations of his character. Michel Cera somehow managed to really make this character endearing when he could’ve been pretty annoying, as high energy as he is.

The best comparison I can make for animation fans is, well, Wander, from Wander Over Yonder, but without the country accent. There’s an adorable beating heart always on display that makes him lovable---he’s even got some quieter moments thrown in there---and the way the lines are delivered never crosses that line into annoying-sidekick territory.

So, this Dick is a good Dick. He still serves the role even modern Dick Grayson did as Robin, to be the hopeful light in the dark knight’s world.

And see, if they took inspiration from lego Dick Grayson at all when adapting modern Dick, I hope they keep that idea intact---because no matter what incarnation of Dick we’re going for, his humour and kind lightheartedness even in the face of a dark world and immeasurable pain---that’s what makes him a wonderful son character for Batman.

Well, that and how much they love each other, obviously, but thankfully, that’s another thing this movie doesn’t skimp out on. Since its a comedy, the writers get away with Dick using the words “dad” or “padre” (dad) or even “batfamily” a glorious amount of times. So even if there’s since going to be a wait before we get to see a serious portrayal of their father-son relationship, it’s honestly enough to know some people in Hollywood actually know.

Barbara/Batgirl gets a great role as well. Not necessarily all points are stellar (the recent Killing Joke movie aside, I’ve been told Barbara and Batman don’t have a relationship that’s sexual in nature most of the time, so it’s just kinda... creepy; thank god they didn’t make them end up together in this movie), but it’s small in comparison to the awesomeness of lego Barbara.

Granted, I know much more about Dick Grayson than I do about Barbara (you know who to thank for that), but at the very least, I appreciate that her role in this movie is competent, well-accomplished straight-man and not damsel in distress, which even I know is so not Barbara (The Killing Joke is hard story to adapt without, y’know, using her as a plot device in kinda awful ways, so I’m just glad to see her not be used that way).

That’s the kind of thing I hope they’ll carry over when it’s time for a more serious Barbara story. In this movie, she feels a bit too much like Wild-Style from the first Lego Movie, and I would’ve loved to see even more of Barbara’s character and what makes her unique (again, this is something I need to learn), but yeah, definitely a step in the right direction.

Alfred’s had some great adaptions over the years in terms of movies, but I will say I don’t think it’s been acknowledged before what a father figure (and in turn grandpa figure) he is in the BatFamily. Good to see him get his due.

And I mean overall, there’s this whole other side to Batman, BatDad, that has been sorely missing from cinema. We’ve seen the brooding loner Batman done well, but there’s so many stories to tell when you bring in his surrogate family, and you can see that in this movie!

Oh, and the Joker?

Absolutely adorable. Which... isn’t something I’d normally advocate saying, but they really have fun with his and Batman’s relationship in such a great way. Protect this clown child please (again specifically this version).

And that’s not even counting the dozens of other rogues that get a hilarious cameo in this movie. It’s all so fantastic, I need to rewatch it just to get all the jokes involved with them because I was laughing so hard I missed some.

So it works as a (spoofed) BatFamily story, a comedy and a parody movie, and even just a really well done animated kids movie in general.

This is definitely what I would call a hyper-active movie---the jokes come hard and fast and don’t really stop---but it can also take it’s time for the characters (and hell, even for the comedy; long, quieter jokes that just keep going are always a risk, but like the sloth scene in Zootopia, the times they make that gamble it pays off).

Even just as an animated movie, look at this shit:

The photo-realistic Lego-based animation from the first movie combined with a neon colour scheme that ends up being so fitting for Lego Gotham... is bootiful. It’s some beautiful animation (and the comedic timing just makes it better)!

And the score? The score is always hilariously timed---every song choice is there for a specific purpose. That’s probably the best way to look at this movie: not a moment goes to waste.

Really, it’s a family of excellent elements all working together to make one hell of a whole.

51 notes · View notes

bowlsister75-blog · 5 years

Text

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The 24 Best Songs, Ranked From Great to Spectacular

Even without the songs, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would still be one of the best comedies on TV: a sharply insightful, wickedly subversive, riotously funny rom-com that is fully aware it’s a rom-com. But the show’s original songs — all 150-some of them! — have elevated it into something wholly unique and unmatched anywhere on TV.

RELATED STORIES

With Crazy Ex taking its final bow with Friday’s series finale (The CW, 8/7c) — no, we’re not anywhere close to being ready to say goodbye yet — we’re honoring four seasons of musical comedy genius by ranking the very best Crazy Ex songs from the entire series. To be clear, there are many, many worthy songs that it pained us to leave off this list. (Sincere apologies to the likes of “Maybe This Dream,” “F—kton of Cats” and, um, “Period Sex.”) But these are the absolute cream of the crop, the essential songs in the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend canon. And what’s great is, even if you’ve never seen the show, you can enjoy these songs as one-off musical comedy sketches. They’re that good!

So grab a Rebetzel’s Pretzel and join us as we waltz, tap and Soul Train our way down West Covina’s memory lane and look back on the very best Crazy Ex-Girlfriend songs from all four seasons. Hey, if we keep singing, the show can’t really end, right?

24. “No One Else Is Singing My Song” (Season 4, Episode 1)

Rebecca started out the final season in prison, and sang this mournful ballad about how alone she felt — not knowing that Nathaniel and Josh were feeling the exact same way. (And singing about it, too.) It’s one of the least overtly comical songs in the Crazy Ex songbook, but it packs a huge emotional punch, especially when the whole cast touches hands in a 12-way split-screen. (Even the creepy grocery guy.)

23. “I Could if I Wanted To” (Season 1, Episode 16)

Whoop-dee-frickin’-doo. Back when Greg was still an alcohol-soaked sourpuss — and looked a lot different than he does now — he delivered this Weezer-y anthem for cynical jerks everywhere, boasting about all the great stuff he could do in life if he actually gave two s—ts about anything. Like it, don’t like it, whatever… not like he cares.

22. “Santa Ana Winds” (Season 2, Episode 11)

This insanely catchy doo-wop ditty is a perfect example of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend finding laughs in a highly specific subject: the gusty Santa Ana winds that plague southern California each year. Here, a Frankie Valli-style vocalist — bravo, Eric Michael Roy — sings of the fierce winds of change blowing through Rebecca’s life, which bring with them “whimsy and forest fires.” Good luck getting this one out of your head.

21. “I’m the Villain in My Own Story” (Season 1, Episode 14)

Here, Rebecca goes the Disney route for a tune where she realizes maybe she’s not the beautiful princess in her love triangle with Josh and Valencia… maybe she’s the cackling witch. The music on this one would slide right into the soundtrack of any Disney cartoon, it has fantastically self-aware lyrics that touch on one of the series’ major themes… and Rachel Bloom’s evil witch voice is just impeccable.

20. “First Penis I Saw” (Season 3, Episode 7)

Donna Lynne Champlin has given us more than a few memorable tunes as Rebecca’s trusty pal Paula, but none can top this upbeat, ABBA-esque tribute to her first real boyfriend… and, well, his distinctive genitalia. (You never forget your first, right?) Bonus points for Paula and her bandmates singing into cucumbers and eggplants in the “Suggestive Vegetables” aisle.

19. “A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes” (Season 1, Episode 3)

Along with playing lovable dummy Josh Chan, Vincent Rodriguez III is one hell of a dancer, and he gets to show off all kinds of moves in this charming boy-band number, where he — well, four of him, really — reassure a smitten Rebecca that she can let all of her childhood traumas go. (They are licensed mental health professionals, after all.) It’s sneaky emotional, too; that moment where Rebecca hugs her younger self and dances with her gets us every time.

18. “We Tapped That Ass” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Josh and Greg team up for this snappy tap-dance number where they exchange notes about their, uh, intimate encounters with Rebecca. The lyrics are jam-packed with naughty wordplay (“On the ottoman, you took a lot of men…”) and double-entendres that we’re surprised made it past the CW censors. They even finish on her chest… of drawers, you sickos.

17. “Where’s the Bathroom?” (Season 1, Episode 8)

God bless Tovah Feldshuh. As Rebecca’s supremely judgy mom Naomi, the Broadway veteran unleashes a whirlwind of passive-aggression while visiting her daughter in this rapid-fire tune, demanding to know where the bathroom is while still dishing out backhanded compliments. (“You’re looking healthy/And by healthy, I mean chunky…”) She even judges Rebecca’s bathroom once she gets there! Anyone with a Jewish mother — or any mother, really — can relate.

16. “I Go to the Zoo” (Season 3, Episode 3)

We can’t stop giggling every time we think about this supremely goofy Drake-inspired slow jam about… Nathaniel’s love of going to the zoo? (Hey, it makes him feel better, alright?) The silky smooth beats are a strangely fitting accompaniment for Nathaniel’s ode to his beloved zoo animals. (“My favorite’s probably the cheetahs/But I ain’t f—king with no zebras.”) Just another hyper-specific, hyper-hysterical Crazy Ex tune that we’ll probably hum every time we go to the zoo from now on.

15. “The Sexy Getting Ready Song” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Right away, in the very first episode, Rachel Bloom let us know what to expect from Crazy Ex with this sultry, silly chronicle of all the plucking and scrubbing women do to get ready for a date. (The back-up singers are there to help Rebecca get into her shapewear, at least.) We couldn’t agree more with the rapper Nipsey Hussle (RIP), who has a cameo midway through: This is some “nasty-ass patriarchal bulls—t.”

14. “Let’s Have Intercourse” (Season 2, Episode 11)

Scott Michael Foster joined the Crazy Ex cast late as cocky corporate guy Nathaniel, but he made a great first impression with this Ed Sheeran-esque ballad in which he gets very specific about what he’d like to do with Rebecca. It’s not terribly romantic — he just wants to “see what [her] nipples look like,” really — but the admittedly gross lyrics make for a hilarious contrast with the lilting, sensitive-dude guitar. And the ballroom dancing’s not bad, either!

13. “Settle For Me” (Season 1, Episode 4)

A song for guys and gals everywhere hopelessly stuck in the friend zone, Greg tries to convince Rebecca to forget Josh and give him a shot with an elegant, old-school number complete with tuxedos and gowns. (“Like two percent milk or seitan beef, I almost taste the same!”) As with a lot of Crazy Ex songs, the buoyant music and snappy dancing help to mask the crushing sadness of the lyrics. So twirly!

12. “We’ll Never Have Problems Again” (Season 2, Episode 10)

Who’s ready to disco? This relentlessly peppy dance track is a hilarious examination of the comforting lies young lovers tell themselves about their future — “No more ups and downs/It’s just ups and ups and ups!” — and it also happens to be ridiculously catchy. Besides, any song that gives Heather an excuse to “Soul Train on outta here” is a keeper in our book.

11. “Friendtopia” (Season 2, Episode 6)

Most musical comedies would be happy with a note-perfect Spice Girls parody, but Crazy Ex had to take it several steps further: Rebecca’s cheerfully sinister girl-power jam is actually a full-on military manifesto, with her, Heather and Valencia plotting to take over the world. (“All agriculture will be diverted/Into making us rosé!”) You’ll never hear the term “squad goals” the same way again… and you better like watching Hocus Pocus.

10. “Remember That We Suffered” (Season 2, Episode 10)

In true Jewish mom fashion, this jaunty dirge is eager to remind listeners that the Jewish people have had a rough go of it for, oh, a few centuries now — so don’t enjoy yourself too much! It’s the perfect distillation of morbid Jewish humor, Tovah Feldshuh continues to be this show’s secret weapon — and bonus points for including the legendary Patti LuPone and her even more legendary voice.

9. “A Diagnosis” (Season 3, Episode 6)

One of the least comical Crazy Ex songs, but one of the most emotionally resonant, this triumphant showstopper sees Rebecca celebrating the fact that she’s been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after years of struggling with her mental health. We’ve been struggling right along with her, so it’s cathartic to see her so full of hope here, and Rachel Bloom’s vocals positively soar. A beautiful tribute to a major turning point in Rebecca’s life.

8. “Love Kernels” (Season 2, Episode 1)

We all know Rebecca could live for days off a single compliment from her beloved Josh Chan, and she puts that poignant desperation into song here with a Lemonade-esque torch song. It’s probably Crazy Ex‘s most sweepingly ambitious music video, with plenty of costume changes — our favorite is a tie between “sexy fashion cactus” and “hamster slurping from a water bottle” — but of course, it openly acknowledges how wildly expensive it must be, too. (Hi, Broom Darryl.)

7. “It Was a S–t Show” (Season 2, Episode 4)

Greg’s farewell lament to Rebecca sheds light on a frustratingly familiar romantic situation: They liked each other a lot, but they knew full well they were just terrible together. (“Chernobyl, next to us, looks like a campfire/Hurricane Katrina was just bad weather…”) Like many great Crazy Ex songs, it’s hilarious and heart-wrenching, all at the same time — and man, Santino Fontana can sing, right?

6. “You Stupid Bitch” (Season 1, Episode 11)

Crazy Ex has had four different theme songs, one for each season (we’re partial to Season 2’s “I’m Just a Girl in Love,” for the record), but this ballad is truly Rebecca Bunch’s theme song. Deeply scathing and cleverly meta all at once, Rebecca harshly chides herself for all of her many mistakes… and not for the first time. (Her audience knows every word!) It’s a stunning depiction of the self-hating voice inside all of us, and probably Rachel Bloom’s best vocal performance of the series to boot.

5. “JAP Battle” (Season 1, Episode 13)

Yes, Rachel Bloom can rap, too: This hilarious hip-hop showdown between Rebecca and her sworn frenemy Audra Levine — a pair of Jewish-American princesses, you see — is a treasure trove of cutting insults (in Yiddish, of course) and references to tony New York hometowns. Guest star Rachel Grate proves herself a very worthy opponent as Audra, and the mean-mug faces that Darryl, Paula and Josh make as Rebecca’s backup crew are just priceless.

4. “Don’t Be a Lawyer” (Season 4, Episode 3)

Burl Moseley’s Jim has been a background player for most of Crazy Ex‘s run, but he hit it out of the park with this spotlight number: a sizzling ’90s R&B throwback jam about the perils of pursuing the legal profession. The vintage fashions and dance moves are perfectly on point, and the lyrics are quite persuasive, actually: “The job is inherently crappy/That’s why you’ve never met a lawyer who’s happy!”

3. “The Math of Love Triangles” (Season 2, Episode 3)

This is probably the pinnacle of the classic Crazy Ex formula: Start with a spot-on recreation of a classic song genre — the ditzy-girl tune, a la Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — and add a brilliantly meta twist to it. Here, a dolled-up Rebecca wants to understand the elements of her love triangle with Josh and Greg, but keeps getting adorably confused by all the “man math,” and Rachel Bloom’s over-the-top breathy vocals make it all even funnier. Whee, a swing!

2. “Let’s Generalize About Men” (Season 3, Episode 1)

The genius of this Pointer Sisters-inspired toe-tapper is that it’s both a “yas, queen” girl-power anthem and a parody of those anthems, pointing out the flaws in painting all 3.6 billion men on this planet with the same broad brush. (“Let’s take one bad thing about one man/And apply it to all of them!”) It’s catchy enough that you could fool us into thinking it actually made the pop charts in the mid-’80s, and the twist ending, when Paula remembers that her sons are also men, is maybe the most brutally funny punchline of the whole series.

1. “West Covina” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Could Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s very best song also be its very first song? Yes, we believe it could. Rebecca’s dizzingly romantic ode to her new hometown — and the guy who just happens to live there — manages to set the tone for the entire series: delightfully clever (the visual gags at the start still make us giggle) and heartbreakingly earnest all at the same time. There’s a giddy, go-for-broke magic to it, and it all builds to a massive dance number featuring dozens of extras and one giant pretzel, as if to say, “You’ve never seen anything quite like this on TV before.” And they were right: We hadn’t… and we never will again.

Did your favorite Crazy Ex song not make our list? Sing it out in the comments below.

Source: https://tvline.com/2019/04/01/crazy-ex-girlfriend-best-songs-list-music-videos-watch/

0 notes

fesahaawit · 7 years

Text

10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)

What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.

Namely, the handful of new financial companies that were part of our yearly fintech competition I helped judge! It’s always so interesting to see how people use technology to solve our problems out there, and just like last year’s competition this one did not disappoint.

But first, gotta give it up to PT Money for organizing this amazing event each and every year (it was my 7th one attending!), as well as to all the other bloggers who volunteered their time to make it happen. If you’re a $$$ blogger or podcaster or just plain obsessed with personal finance, you NEED to come out to it one year and experience what it’s all about! I promise you will leave incredibly motivated or I will shut down this blog forever ;) (Or at least buy you a beer to cry into – hah)

So what happened at FinCon 2017?

Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)

Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)

Best selling author David Bach (of Automatic Millionaire fame) popped in to share his wild story on getting on Oprah for the first time, and how the Latte Factor is “not about the damn lattes!” Haha… Rebuking the hate he so often gets when people say they will never give up their coffees no matter how sexy compound interest is ;) He may or may not have also dropped a few F bombs on stage showing that he is definitely not one of the more stuffier financial “experts” out there. Super cool to run into him around 1 am on the last night too to talk shop! (Interesting fact: he’s fairly short)

Darren Rowse shared his story of how he became one of the world’s first professional bloggers when one of his camera reviews went viral over night. He’d later go on to start two majorly successful blogs, including the one most bloggers are familiar with and learn from: ProBlogger.com

Chris Guillebeau of The $100 Startup and The Art of Non-Comformity talked about how it’s perfectly okay to let a side hustle be just that – a side hustle! There’s no rule that you need to turn it into a full-time job if you’re perfectly happy with your current one. Just let it be your creative outlet while you bring home some extra side money! (I agree with this 100%!! Not all of us are born to run companies!!)

Cait Flanders held a presentation on writing Rockstar content that was packed solid which we think/hope went over pretty well! Interweaving the back story of Rockstar Finance and how it’s evolved over the years as well. (Cait curates it with me, and is one of my favorite bloggers on the scene)

A bunch of people from our community created a parody of The Office called The Floor which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise live musical performance by American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)

And lastly – we had one pretty damn fun Halloween party to wrap up the conference! Erik from The Mastermind Within said it best: “it was hilarious to see people with $1 million+ net worth’s singing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back”.” Haha… That’s how we roll! If you can’t live it up, what’s the point of all that money??

As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)

(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)

Other interesting gems pertaining to yours truly: I randomly got interviewed in the bathroom, and I was presented with the International Blogger of The Year award from UK’s SHOMO awards. Where I then made an acceptance speech that included “Long live the queen!” which I thought was pretty clever? ;)

Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!

As I mentioned, I was one of the two judges for it again this year, where our ratings made up for 50% of the votes with the audiences’ making up the other 50%. We awarded two prizes for the night – $1,000 for first and $500 for 2nd – and below are my honest opinions of each, along with what they do. I’m not getting compensated by anyone listed here, and there are no affiliate links included at all.

Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:

Agreeable (AgreeableApp.com) — Agreeable was one of my favorite apps who presented, and was built to help solve the problem of no shows whenever you go to meet someone off Craigslist or Facebook. Whereas currently you’re just $hit out of both luck and time when the buyer/seller doesn’t show up, with this app you’d actually get *paid* an agreed upon amount if anyone bails, ensuring that it’s in both parties’ interests to make the scheduled time. There were some privacy concerns I first had with this as it tracks both of your locations to confirm that the two sides made it to the meet-up okay, but after talking w/ one of the founders at a party afterwards I was impressed with their patent-pending solution to this. We’ll see if this puppy takes off, but I’m personally rooting for it to! (Also can be used for soooo many other areas in life too – imagine if Comcast or other services were forced to pay you if they never show up when they’re supposed to?? We’d all be rich! ;))

Birch Finance (BirchFinance.com) — This app was another killer idea, which I SWORE already existed but I guess not (a good sign that they’re onto something!). Basically, you tell Birch what credit cards you have and use, and then it’ll analyze them as you’re out shopping and tell you which ones to use to reap the *best* rewards, as well as *how much* you’ll get back by them, rather than you having to guess all the time. It’ll then show you other cards out in the market, and compare what would have happened had you used *those* cards instead of the ones you currently have. And since it’s all based on your specific transactions and spending patterns, you can see first hand exactly what your cards – or future cards – are worth to you. A pretty epic tool for any card hackers/lovers. (I’ll never use it since I’m a minimalist with just my one USAA card, but I’d be allll on it if I were in the rewards game!)

Budgit (BudgitApp.com) — Budgit is an automated budgeting and savings service that organizes your bills and spending so you can save for your goals. I tried real hard to figure out how these guys were different from all the other budgeting apps out there – and even posed the question during Q&A time – but even after doing so I was honestly still just as confused. They actually have this question posed word for word at the bottom of their website (“How is Budgit different?”) but the 3 answers given were “No ads ever”, “Hassle-free”, and “Secure and private.” Which I’m pretty sure most apps are?? All that said, as a budget guy I don’t think you can have *too many* apps out there spreading the good word, so I very much wish them all the luck and success as they can get. (PS: This app is not the same one as BudgIT)

College Backer (CollegeBacker.com) — These guys were pretty cool as they help get people to gift their child 529 contributions instead of more toys and “stuff.” Something I very much try to do every year too and rarely succeed! ;) And while like Budgit I couldn’t pin point how exactly this service is different than the others out there on the scene (there’s quite a few who let families and friends jump in to make this happen), I did like the general purpose of it and hope they take me up on my recommendation to pair these gifts with some sort of physical item too so the kids don’t totally hate opening up the gift of 529 funding, haha…

Honeyfi (Honeyfi.com) — Honeyfi is a new app *for couples* that makes sharing your budget and managing your money much easier together. Which I absolutely love! Honeyfi allows you to collaborate, link accounts, and even message each other at any time through the app so everyone in the relationship can be on the exact same page. There’s not many apps I can think of that focuses mainly on couples (actually, I can’t think of one?), so I’m really hoping this one takes off as I think they’re onto something good here… Budgets are even sexier when TWO people are involved!! ;)

KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others are doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.

Squeeze (Squeeze.com) — Squeeze is an app that helps you save by finding the best deals, promo codes, and coupons directly related to your current spending. It sounded a lot like the others in the field so I had a hard time putting them into their own special bucket, but needless to say you can’t have too many coupons in this hyper consumer world of ours… And as for branding, they absolutely NAILED it. Some of the other fintech names were pretty random!

Take Command Health (TakeCommandHealth.com) — These guys won my personal award for the best presentation, if only for the inclusion of photoshopped Trump and Obama pics littered throughout :) But their app was def. no joke. In a nutshell, Take Command helps you easily find the best option for health coverage by using big data to help source the best, and cheapest, health care options for you both on and off the exchange. They also shared the release of their small business feature which helps companies offer better and cheaper plans to their employees as well – something that many places are struggling hard with right now. So while the topic of health insurance typically doesn’t turn heads (at least for good reasons!), these guys had our immediate attention and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if they hit a home run with this.

Qoins (Qoins.io) — Do these guys look familiar?? They should! I featured them here last year the second I came across them because they’re the FIRST to finally apply “rounding up” technology to debt!!! Which is something severely lacking in our industry… And while I had to recuse myself from voting on this one since I was definitely biased (they donated $$$ to our Community Fund over at Rockstar Finance), I was beyond pleased to see them here and thought they gave a great presentation. You can find my review of them here (I was the first ever blogger to share them!) but in a nutshell they round up all your transactions to the nearest dollar, and then uses the spare change to help pay off your debt every month. It won’t clear all of it, but every $30 or $40/mo helps!

WizeFi (Wizefi.com) — WizeFi is a paid app ($8/mo) that helps organize your finances, analyzing everything from your assets and liabilities to your insurance and spending habits. Once hooked up it’ll then estimate your future net worth if you continue spending the way you’re currently spending, and then compare it to your future net worth if you follow your custom WizeFi wealth-building plan. It comes with a super slick interface and the focus on net worth of course turned me on, but at the end of the day not too sure that alone is worth the $8. Especially since it doesn’t physically *move* the money for you like Digit or Acorns does and still requires you to take action (which most people won’t). I was also turned off by the mentions of an affiliate program for customers to make more money, both in the presentation as well as on their website (it’s prominently listed as the #3 reason to sign up?!), even though I’m sure the founder meant well. Overall would have been better if you had the chance to test out a free version, with an option to upgrade later to “pro” or something similar if interested…

Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??

Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:

Birch Finance

Take Command Health

Honestly though, ALL of these guys came out winning as they not only got to pitch in front of tons of $$$ influencers and enthusiasts, but also landed on this illustrious blog here!!! Haha… Surely that’s worth at *least* $10.00 right? ;)

So congrats to everyone who participated. I wish I were smart enough to come up with my own money app! If you want to take a look at last year’s competition and results, you can find that here: Fintech Competition 2016

Next Year’s FinCon Event…

If you can believe it, plans are already in the works for next year’s conference! If you’ve always wanted to visit Orlando, Florida – now’s your chance! We’ll be partying it up with Mickey next year :) Learn more and pick up tickets here: FinconExpo.com/2018

So there we are – another great conference on the books :) THANK YOU thank you THANK YOU to everyone who came out and put up with me over the weekend! It was a blast hanging out with my 2nd family in the flesh, and I wish you all a most successful next year.

Special shout out to the following who really made me smile throughout: Chelsea Norton, Cait Flanders, Steve Adcock, Jim $, Shin, Bobby Lee, Pete McPherson, Latoya Scott, Fritz, Hélène, Hannah Rounds, the Tiller Team, Miss Mazuma, Optimal Finance Daily, John and Sharon Duffy, Shannon Austin, The Dumpster Dog, Miss Thrifty, Maria Nedeva, FIREcracker, and Romeo Jeremiah.

See y’all in another 11 months!

10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

0 notes

heliosfinance · 7 years

Text

10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017)

What up, y’all! Just got back and sobered up from our financial blogging conference, and thought I’d share some of the highlights from it.

So what happened at FinCon 2017?

Here are a few of the more exciting highlights… Because good luck telling social media people that what happens at FinCon stays at FinCon! ;)

Rapper Dee-1 crowd surfed while rapping his hit song, Sally Mae Back (Crowd surfed! At a financial blogging conference!)

A bunch of people from our community created a parody of “The Office” which was shown at our annual blogger award ceremony and was downright HILARIOUS. Then ended with a surprise performance from American Idol contestant Dalton Rapattoni! (It was all about the music this year, haha… Thx for putting it together, Scott Alan Turner!)

As for the best costume of the night? I gave it to this guy. Can you tell why? ;)

(full back story here – he totally shaved his head for this!!)

Now to the Fintech Competition, and the 10 new financial companies to watch out for!

Follow along and see if you can guess who won! :) In no particular order:

KINFO (GoKINFO.com) — KINFO is an app for DIY investors that brings together information from hedge funds, insiders, analysts, bloggers and other private investors so you can see what everyone else is doing along side you. Particularly bloggers which the founder seems most excited about as it helps put all of our personal recommendations into one spot for people. Though as many of you know mine would look pretty boring as it would only show one fund: VTSAX :) I’m not sure if looking at what others is doing adds more or less noise into the decision making process (probably more?), but then again I was influenced to go All In with Vanguard from my peers so it could prove to be a pretty helpful resource.

Alright… Ready to guess who won?? Any really stand out to you??

Here were the 1st and 2nd place winners after all the votes were tallied up:

Birch Finance

Take Command Health

Next Year’s FinCon Event…

See y’all in another 11 months!

10 New Fintech Companies To Watch Out For! (Plus Highlights From FinCon 2017) published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B