Grey Weirdo's Retroflix Reviews

All art is Political - A review of "A Wild Hare" 1940 Dir. Tex Avery

2025-06-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

There is a tendency for the phrase "All art is Political" to cause arguments. Sometimes, I think it's people who are arguing in bad faith, and can more or less be ignored. Sometimes though, I do sense some actual confusion in some corners. So, let's assume good faith and make a genuine attempt.

I think when some people say "All art is political" some people hear "All art is propaganda" rather than "All art is reflective of the politics of the society in which it was created." That's certainly more accurate, but it's a bit of a mouthful.

Granted, some art is actually propaganda, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While the modern definition is generally understood to be some art that intentionally influences or even manipulates you into believing the ideas of one organization or another, the original idea behind the word is just to spread the idea. To propagate it in an intentional manner. But I am not discussing propaganda, just art that is reflective.

If you watch a lot of Soviet movies you can see how even the fairy tales are just existing within that worldview. Merchants are greedy and scheming, workers are noble, loyalty and community are valued highly. You almost never actually get explicit statements about how the motherland needs the proletariat to continue the fight against the west or to spread the message to the workers of the world. You do get a lot of people who want riches for the sake of riches depicted as bad people. People who fail to have community spirit are frequently the bad guys, but it's just part of the understood landscape. It's part of what you're meant to understand.

I have had a theory for years that disposable entertainment (pulp stories and topical shows, ect) provide a better context for how people viewed a period in history than all the documentaries in the world.
Because it's contemporaries talking to each other and just getting their thoughts out there. Something that was meant to be watched, read, or listened to once in the moment and then set aside are some of my favorite things. When something isn't created with the idea that someone may need to watch, read, or hear this later then it frees the artist to narrowcast like crazy.

Fred Allen was great form this because any time he'd go down to Allen's Alley, they'd ask the characters about one of the big stories of the week. So you can hear exactly what they were thinking the day it was happening with no other goal than to connect with the audience and make a joke. So not only do you get how people were feeling in the moment, with all the fears and uncertainty laid bare, but you could gauge the resentments and frustrations. Why isn't the economy better? Why is there still a housing crisis? When will my husband come back from the war?

With all that said I would like to talk about the Warner Brothers Short Feature from 1940 "A Wild Hare" which was directed by Tex Avery for the Merrie Melodies series. It's considered to be the first official appearance of Bugs Bunny, although there were earlier versions where the character was not quite yet Bugs. Further, I would like to take the time to try and explore what the political environment was as a piece of amateur cultural anthropology.

The cartoon opens in a forest, it appears to be autumn and Elmer Fudd is tip toeing through the forest while carrying a double barreled shot gun. He breaks the fourth wall to ask us to be quiet, as he is hunting rabbits and here we perhaps have our first few hints of the politics of the society that created this piece of art. Solo hunting is an acceptable pastime, gun ownership is permitted, private hunting is permitted. Depending on where in the world you live, these are not necessarily automatically things you are permitted to do. This is probably my own prejudice, but I always got the impression that shooting game was a group activity in England. Always seems to be in the detective and comic novels I read as a kid.

Elmer is dressed in what appears to be a pretty standard hunting jacket with brass buttons and pants as well as a shooting cap with the ear flaps tied up above his head. He also has a turtle neck sweater, high boots and what I assume to be red wool socks that have been pulled over the pants and then rolled down to avoid things getting into the boots. It may be that those are part of the boot, but the pants are definitely tucked in. The point here is that Elmer is likely not a subsistence hunter who has to hunt to get meat, but a recreational hunter. He is not wearing his every days clothes, he has specific clothes to wear while he engages in hunting. Granted, he may still be hunting to get meat as wild game like rabbit may not be readily available for purchase, but I suspect a middle class sportsman.So we have a society that contains a middle class, who hunt for recreation, and are allowed to own firearms and can hunt small game.

Depending on who you talk to, Elmer's speech impediment is intended to make the character more comic. So we may be dealing with a world where using a speech difficulty is used as a joke. I wouldn't put it past us, but I also know that in voice work there are limited ways to make an individual character. And while it may be a way of coding him I'm not sure I'm equipped to talk about that. Anyway, Bugs has a Bronx accent and at the time that was meant to indicate that he was a scrappy character who would tell you exactly what he thought and wouldn't take no guff. Considering later iterations would state that Elmer is a millionaire (who owns a mansion and a yacht), this sets up the class struggle between the working class forest animal and the rich hunter who only seeks to kill him and exploit his remains for food and possibly a small but attractive hat.

And you may be thinking "Aren't you reading too much into that?" Where as I say that the class struggle is the most obvious and easily recognizable part of the politics of this cartoon. The scrappy underdog who makes a fool of the person who can bring lethal force to harm them is a well established piece of popular entertainment. American audiences particularly made stars of smart-ass characters who could run circles around characters who were understood to have some amount of power over them.

These are things that would have been merely understood to the audience and I think for the most part they are still understood. While the short snatch of the song "The Fountain in the Park" that plays while Bugs' fingers try to act casual while grabbing the carrot may not be instantly recognized by current audiences, the implication are pretty clear. In many ways, almost you rarely actually see hunters wearing hunting caps with ear flaps, and almost never ones with ties (Velcro took over that job years ago) Elmer is still the Ur hunter for many of us. We understand that this is what a hunter looks like because we've all seen him dress like this for so long.

Bugs' first line "What's up doc?" is something that's thought to be individual to him. However, Tex Avery said that in Texas calling someone 'doc' was a common practice. Avery understood 'doc' the way people in other parts of the country might say 'buddy' or 'pal' or 'bro' whatever. However, it was not universally understood, because calling people went on to think "What's up doc?" was a BB original. This is similar to the Nimrod issue. Nimrod being a great hunter in from The Bible, but many people now think its a word for idiot because Bugs used it as an insult once. Everyone missed the biblical implication and thought it just meant dummy. This also tells you something about the people who received the cartoons and how familiar they were with biblical stories.

I have been writing this thing for a little while now, and I’ve only just gotten to Bugs’ first line. I don’t think it would help to examine every joke and the possible meanings behind them. However, I find it interesting that Bugs kisses Elmer once on the lips and once on the nose and neither carries the sting of homophobia. Yes, that a male character is kissing another is seen as a joke, and Elmer is annoyed and wipes his face off, but there is no panic. It’s clear it’s just being done to annoy in the vein of assumed intimacy. This may speak more about a level of discomfort that lands at “Just ignore this moment” but it’s never actually hateful about it.

The last joke has some interest to me though, because of how often the image behind the last joke is used. Bugs annoys Elmer to the point that Elmer leaves the forest ranting and raving to the sky. Bugs then says “I think the poor guy’s screwy” and then places his carrot to his face as if he were playing a flute. At that point the flute part for "The Girl I Left Behind Me" plays and Bugs sort of limps away in what would have been a pretty well understood reference to the painting The Spirit of ‘76. And I only bring this up because The Spirit of ‘76 gets referenced an awful lot in Warner Brothers cartoons.

It’s an image that was well known and understood to the audience that would be seeing this cartoon. The image is about the Revolutionary War, but it tends to be used in these cartoons as a sign of having overcome the odds. Even in the caricatured world of this cartoon, the patriotism and perseverance is carried through, albeit to make a joke. But the politics here are that everyone is behind the patriotism. The Second World War may have started, but America wasn’t part of it yet. There was a different variety of understood home-spirit patriotism in those days. Being cynical about America and the government would enter the lexicon until the post war period and in 1949 Bugs would go to war with America in “Rebel Rabbit”.

None of this is attempting to propagate and ideas, it’s merely telling jokes the filmmakers believed their audience would understand. But it can tell us something about the politics of the time and place. It can give us an idea of what the expectations were and how things were expected to work. And in that, it has politics, not intentionally injected but they are there nevertheless. And if you extend out from here, you can learn a great deal about the time from consuming it’s most disposable entertainments.

Cartoon Review: Lost and Found

2014-11-21T10:23:00.002-08:00

Lost and Found

Lost and Found (2008/ Dir. Philip Hunt/ Entertainment One and Studio Aka)
Here is the short version of this review: Go buy this, it’s excellent.

Now for a longer story. I have made it no secret that I love both obscure and stupid movies. I have never made it any kind of secret that I love dumb things. As such, I buy DVDs at the drug store, because you can get some really excellent train wrecks at the drug store. Like stuff where the star is slumming and the story is so bad that you think it must have taken out an orphanage when this thing went off the rails. Quite frequently, you can buy one for $6.99 or you can get two for $10, so I tend to get two. When I bought The Smurf Christmas Carol, I also got this. I should have reviewed this. I would have, but Smurf Christmas Carol sent me off the rails a little too hard and I had to lick my wounds.

It’s been a year, and now I need something beautiful and therapeutic, and this is it. When I grabbed this, I figured that at worst it would be a waste of time and a slight raise in blood pressure, at best it would be some harmless fun. What I didn’t expect was a perfect little jewel of a movie that made me say “Let’s watch it again.” when it was over. Friends, this is more than I could have hoped for, this is more than exactly what you want, this is exactly what you NEED. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it is my favorite cartoon from the last year.

Based on a book by Oliver Jeffers, Lost and found is a half hour CGI cartoon about a boy and a penguin. There is no dialogue, just a narration by Jim Broadbent. The story involves a penguin showing up at the boy’s house one day in his sea side town, and the boy trying to get the penguin back home. At first he tries to just get rid of the penguin, but finding he can’t he elects to get the penguin to the south pole. Because it’s a children’s book, they can actually do this.

The movie is unspecific in detail, deciding for a more universal tone. Anyone, from anywhere, can watch this movie and identify with the boy or the penguin. Although to be honest, it’s not until the end of the story that you actually are given the penguin’s motivation. It doesn’t matter though, because the animation and storytelling are so beautiful that discovering why the penguin came in the first place is part of what makes the whole thing so perfect. I don’t want to spoil anything, this being such a little gem, but suffice to say that the end of the story makes everything worth it.

I feel like I don’t recommend things enough, like I too often tell you things to stay away from, today is different. Today I am telling you to go and get this movie. Buy it, watch it, pull it out every autumn and make it an annual tradition. There aren’t many things I would unreservedly say people should watch, but this is one of them. If you haven’t seen this movie, or read this book, then go now. It’ll only cost you a tiny bit of money and even if you don’t like it, there will only be a few minutes of time lost to you. I think you will like it though, I think you’ll find it marvelous and charming. I think if you’ve reviewed as many Christmas Specials as I have, you need something like this to make everything right again. This is something I can just, simply enjoy, even if I’m thinking about it, there is nothing bad or cynical or hateful here, nothing to raise my blood pressure or make me crazy, just a sweet little story about a boy and a penguin, and the fact that I’m using it as a Holiday movie should tell you everything you need to know about it. You can get Lost & Found here, and if you want to read the book you can do that as well. . You should because Oliver Jeffers wrote a great story and could probably feed his family with the money. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this thing, go get it.

And great Cthulu is in it, how can you not love that?

Official Score:
91 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

My Horror Movie Quandary

2014-09-21T03:45:00.002-07:00

As we close in on October, it becomes that time of year to pull out all the old horror movies and get involved in Scary Movie Month. This is where I face my annual challenge. See, a lot of people watch scary movies to get scared... of movies. Which is something I don’t really understand. Not the desire, I’ve been in and around the BDSM community long enough to understand pleasure gained from discomfort, so I get that part. No I just don’t get the being scared part.

You see, I have never been scared by a movie. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been scared of anything, but certainly not a movie. I have been disturbed, or been shown things I don’t necessarily want to see, but never actually scared. It just never happens, nothing ever gets to me that way. I’m also bad company in a haunted house because I tend to look at the ghouls as they come out of the walls and judge them on their make-up choices. I know I’m perfectly safe, this is all for entertainment, and even if someone gets stupid I know I’m at least six times meaner than a sporadically employed actor is prepared to deal with on an average Tuesday night.

I’m not particularly fussed when safety is questionable either. I’m wary, because the person who is unaware of their surroundings is a victim waiting to happen, but I’m never afraid. Partially, again, I’m not the sort of person who just walks into an unknown alley and even if I have to for whatever reason I know that I’m at least four times meaner than most muggers are prepared to deal with on an average Sunday night.

This issue became such an issue for me, that I eventually had to come up with a formula so I could separate fantasy from horror. I don’t think many people would argue that fantasy and horror share a common wall, and sometimes the smells from one can seep into the room of the other. In trying to decide where to place things, or how other people might place them, I eventually came up with this idea.

If the powers of good can easily and readily assist the hero, then it’s fantasy. If the powers of good are helpless, or non-existent, then it’s horror. Gandalf can always show up on the back of an eagle, but The Turtle cannot help you. Now with something like the Elric series, you simply adjust your definition of “Good” to mean “On Elric’s side” and you’ve more or less got the idea. It’s not perfect, because by that logic Labyrinth is a horror movie, but if there weren’t exceptions, how else would we prove the rules?

This is actually a huge reason why I’m sort of uninterested in large swaths of horror. Gore flicks tend to bore the shit out of me. Oh, you’ve got sprays of blood? Bitch, I watch samurai movies, come back when it’s a geyser. You’ve got arms and legs hacked off? Second verse, same as the first! Pig parts loaded into a latex body mold don’t do much for me either. Any movie that relies on guts and gore over story or invention is going to bore me rigid.

I look at all horror as I would any fantasy or thriller. I get the same feeling watching Saw as I do watching Kiss the Girls, a deep and profound sense of loss for Carey Elwes ability to act. Seriously, he is TERRIBLE in both of those movies. What the hell happened? He was almost okay in Cat’s Meow. Seriously. But then, that movie had Eddie Izzard pretending to be Charlie Chaplin and if ever an actor was miscast...

What was I saying?

This is why I often can be found at the fun said of the horror aisle, with my copy of Creepshow and Corman’s Poe Cycle. If I go in for a serious horror movie I at least go for the really good ones. I need something interesting to watch, a story that can unfold, not just a treasure chest of jump scares and people screaming. The Blair Witch Project for example, I must have turned off four or five times while it ran on cable because it just didn’t work for me in the slightest. Watching annoying people bicker might be a horror movie to you, for me it’s Thanksgiving. Actually, I’ll admit on that on that it’s the found footage thing. Found footage can eat a dick. I mean, if I’m going to complain about bickering, what else is Night of the Living Dead, other than watching people bicker? Watching interesting people bicker about interesting things other than sticks tied up with string and where did the map go, comes the answer.

I know most of us here are grown ups, and most people aren’t really scared when they go to see a scary movie, but I have heard a fair amount of “these used to scare me and I watched them to conquer them and became them and now I’m not scared anymore.” and I hear a good deal of “these are literal fears, they’re metaphorical.” The example being no one is really afraid of the wolfman (or rather becoming the wolfman), they’re afraid of becoming something they can’t control. No one fears Pinhead, the cenobites just represent people who are more into BDSM than you are, and they want to show you all the fun. Only, somehow that’s supposed to be scary? I think? Help me out on this. Are the cenobites scary, sexy, or a monastic tradition that stresses community life? Even then though, I’m not particularly fussed by these things, so I don’t get the same effect. Not even the idea of kinky sexy monks can get my heart racing.

So in conclusion I would just like to say that Falco deserved way better than he got from the world.

So Why These Movies?

2014-08-08T16:43:00.002-07:00

So Why These Movies?

I was depressed the last two weeks or so, and I watched some movies. We’re not talking basic depression, we’re talking Allie Brosh depression. Stupid, pointless, meaningless, reasonless depression. You just sit there, fighting the urge to cry with every fiber of your being because that seems important somehow. I can’t say that everyone else has my reactions, but I can say that there were a few movies I watched and that helped. Not solved the issue, not cheered me up, but helped ease the stupid, pointless, random pain. I want to share with you the movies I watched, and the reasons I picked them...

Interview With The Vampire
A movie that is full of depression themes. Louis is clinically depressed, that cannot be denied with any truth. However, there is more to it than that. Louis is beautiful, and people want to have him be with them. The problem is, they want him to be as they want him, with little regard for how he feels about anything. He’s basically expected to just follow along passively and not get people down with all his complicated feelings and longings and being depressed and stuff.

I can identify with Louis, so I like the story a little more than some of the other people I know. Lestat is not a villain because he’s evil, he’s the villain because he’s selfish and stupid. He selfishly complains about Louis’s depression, and stupidly does stupid things to try and “fix” the unfixable. He tries grand gestures and then can’t understand why that doesn’t make everything all better.

This isn’t about “feeling better” or “cheering up” or even “not curling up under my desk and sobbing” at all. It’s about being able to have a moment where I can say “Yes, someone else has felt the way I do and they put it on screen.”

Speaking of which...

The Crow
Say what you like about Detroit not being as vast, as tall or as swank as the city depicted in the movie, it gets something right. If you are a man, living with issues, the patriarchal system has left you with only a few options. You are allowed to suck it up and be stoic, or you are allowed to be angry and take your rage out on deserving targets. I’m not sure there is another movie where those two sides are as well represented as The Crow.

The movie does manage to get to the heart of something else though. The stoicism falls away in a few scenes (Particularly the apartment scene with the ever underappreciated Ernie Hudson) and you can just see the utter and complete sadness. You watch the pain on Brandon Lee’s face, you can see him reaching down to something and bringing it to the surface in a very honest and personal way. It’s a movie that manages to say something, and be something, that I’m not sure everyone who was making the movie was aware of. They snuck it past the guards and gave us something we can hold onto. Here is a movie that understands that you feel trapped, that you haven’t really been given the equipment or the training to deal with this thing that has been laid on you. It also says it’s okay to explode and let all that rage out, which isn’t healthy, but I wouldn’t have been able to hear an alternate message at the time anyway.

Guardians of the Galaxy
An understanding of a different kind. Misfits have feelings, it’s okay to have feelings, even Rocket can have feelings. I’ve seen this movie twice this week, and I’m still processing some of it, but I haven’t been to see a movie a second time in the theater since Sin City and the last one before that was Schindler’s List. Everything wrong with so many comic book movies is addressed here, and Rocket says something that has been sticking with me.

Drax: All the anger, all the rage, it was just to cover up my loss.
Rocket: Oh boo-hoo. Everyone has dead people, that’s no excuse to make everyone else dead though.
I feel like that’s a one-line argument against Grimdark right there.

The movie surprised me by being a story that had some depth and a lot of feeling. I was expecting a fun, silly movie, what I got were characters I genuinely cared about developing in ways that made me feel better. Consider for a moment, that this is a movie where a raccoon cradles a stick and sobs. Now, consider that instead of being absurd, I’m sitting there going “Yeah. *sniff* You let it out Rocket. *sob* You cry if you gotta cry. *weeps* It's okay.” Again, I find something I can identify with in this movie.

Also, I’m going to be hard pressed to find something that fills me with as much joy as watching little mini-Groot dancing to The Jackson 5.

I feel like this list needs more on it, but these are really the only three movies I watched. I mean, I’ve had trouble sleeping lately and letting MST3K run in the background helps, but I can’t call that watching. I could end this by saying something like “What I can say is that a big part of the reason I think we like the movies we like is being able to identify with someone in the story. Or at least know that someone behind the scenes understands us.” but it feels silly to say something so obvious. Problem is, I don’t know how obvious that is and as depression makes you think everything you say is stupid anyway... it becomes kind of a problem.

Sad little film fest...

2014-03-15T21:22:00.004-07:00

I realized something. I only ever seen to watch Koyaanisqatsi and Silent Running when I'm alone, and it's like... midnight. And then it occurred to me that Goyokin fits that pattern as well. And The Dark Corner and Under The Cherry Moon too. And now I want to watch them all, in that order, and have the weirdest One-Man Film Fest in history.

This is why I can't be left alone unsupervised.

So I watched all of Zatoichi...

2014-02-04T21:21:00.003-08:00

I don’t have any children, I have cats. Specifically, I have one cat that is MY cat. This is going somewhere. So at Christmas, I decided to allow my cat to get me a nice present. She decided to get me the Zatoichi Boxset from The Criterion Collection. See, I don’t have kids, so Syd can’t get some something and put their names on it. I’ve got to go on Amazon for the cat, and find something she would think I would like, and buy it for her. Cats, as you may have heard, are lazy creatures. So that’s how I came to own most of the Zatoichi movies, I already owned recent films under the brand name (more on that later) and I acquired the latest and the one film Criterion didn’t put in their boxset (again, later) so I could have them all. I then decided to watch all of them during January. I watched all the original movies during January, but life got in the way for the last three films. I watched them during the first few days of February.

So what it is?
The Zatoichi movies are an action series that spanned both movies and TV. There are 25 movies in the original set of films (which were made in only 11 years) and then it went to TV for four seasons. Then, in 1989, one more movie came along. All of these stared Shintaro Katsu in the title role (all the movies had the name Zatoichi in the title) which means it’s really not the James Bond of Japan, since those losers drop out after four or five movies. Even Dr Who tends to get a new guy to be its lead after three seasons.

Who Is This Guy?
The main character is a blind masseur, who wanders from place to place, getting in adventures. It’s okay that he’s blind though, because he has a cane with a sword in it and Mad Skillz (with a Z damnit) that even Daredevil would find impressive. He’s also part of the yakuza, even though he’s not part of any particular group. Yakuza have a different relationship to mainstream culture in Japan than The Mafia have in America, evidently. Zatoichi is very specific about how things should be done, and has no time for any yakuza boss who works with a corrupt official or victimizes people who aren’t asking for it. He’s got no problem with gamblers and even tolerates thugs, but if they break The Rules, then they are toast. Thing is, he’s not very high ranking, the Zato part of the name indicates that he’s the lowest rank of masseurs. He’s supposed to be just one step above a beggar, he’s the lowest rank of the lowest legal profession.

What Surprised Me
What I found most surprising is that the series never started to feel stale. There was only one movie in the original 25 that I didn’t like and that was Zatoichi Meets he One-Armed Swordsman. Every other movie was great, and I really enjoyed each and every one of them. I was also a little surprised at the fact that it wasn’t the same thing over and over again. Certain themes cropped up, but there are repeated themes just within the Samurai movie genre as a whole. That a few things seem to come up over and over again wasn’t a failing of the movies, so much as the beat of their rhythm. That there were regular badasses for Ichi to fight, or that Ichi would guess the dice by the sound they made was just part of the movies.

The thing is, the stories at the heart of the movies was always something a little different, and they were actually developed. A local boss would have a scam, and he would have reasons for the scam, and the people who would be helped and hurt are generally shown and fleshed out within the movie. It would have been very easy for this series to get lazy, but I never felt like it did. I always felt like the movies had fully realized stories and characters that you could actually care about. And at the heart of the whole thing is a fantastic actor playing a really captivating role. Katsu is sort of amazing as Zatoichi, and he’s incredibly fast. There are several action scenes I had to watch over to really catch everything.

I was also taken aback at how modern the movies felt. They’re shot with a style that was less prevalent then, but is more so now. This was kind of a trendsetting series though, so it’s easy to see how this might be the case.

Thoughts
The first 25 come in such quick succession that it was like watching a TV show (which the series later became) but one where a little more time and money was lavished than the average show. It’s a really excellent series, and very populist. The poor people, the exploited masses, these are the heroes, while the rich are corrupt bastards. Ichi is a tough guy, and a sweetheart, so he was adored by yakuza and grandmothers alike. You can see how the series was as popular as it was, and why it gave Katsu the power it did.

The last movie (the 26th) came some 16 years after the previous film, and is so 80s it kind of hurts. The movie itself it fine, even if it comes off as Zatoichi’s greatest hits. The music is super 80s pop though, as is much of the rest of the movies. I liked it though, and it’s got no shame in standing next to its brothers.

Now, in 2003 Kitano Takeshi made a new movie, with himself in the title role. He’s often the star of movies he directs, so there was nothing odd there. And Katsu directed two of the original Zatoichi movies, so that’s okay. The movie was weird though, because it was very much a Kitano Takeshi movie and those two styles don’t naturally suggest each other. Also, while paying tribute to the originals, they are also sort of a parody as well. Several things are made jokes, while other things are followed along exactly as they should be. It was sort of the perfect mix in a world that grasped that kind of humor.

In 2008 a movie with a woman starring as Ichi (the blind swordswoman). This movie played the whole thing far more seriously, and had a plot that followed Ichi more than it examined the bad guys. The movie was different than any of the Zatoichi movies, but I felt like that was in a good way. It was inspired by the original, but it wasn’t a slave to it. It was also longer than any of the others. Most the Zatoichi movies clock in at under 90 minutes, this one went a full two hours.

Finally, at the end (and I’m exhausted by the way) come 2010s Zatoichi: The Last. To be honest, less said about that the better

The Greats Recap

2013-12-18T12:19:00.001-08:00

Great Series

Horror

Fantasy

Historical Movies

Crime Pictures

Sci-Fi

Westerns, Samurai & Kung-fu

A Serious Discussion of My Own Depression And Why “The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol” Is the Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen

2013-12-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

This isn’t going to be one of the fun reviews, with lots of screen caps and funny captions that people can put on pintrest. I’m going to take this thing to task, but not in a fun way. I didn’t even want to do it, but I came across something I wrote in a piece of fiction a few years back.
“If you have a talent, you're responsible for how, or if you use it. Letting it go to waste is as bad as misusing it.” And I have a talent for explaining why things are bad. As far as I can tell, I’ve never been able to convince someone that a movie is good, but I can convince them something is shit! Not an enviable position, perhaps, but I’ve got a talent and I’m going to try to use it for good this time.

I’ve decided we’ve got to talk about this, we have to have a conversation about this thing because it’s evil and wrong and if I don’t warn people, I might feel responsible later. Let me be frank about this, so that we don’t misunderstand things. This is not a fun little cartoon, it is harmful, it is DANGEROUS! You should not watch this damn thing, no one should watch this thing. This is less a review and more of a warning, because watching this could drive someone to suicide. I’m going to discuss this in personal terms, since that last sentence seem hyperbolic, so I’ll explain....

This starts off as the CGI Smurfs that came from the Hollywood movie a couple of years ago, but turns into 2-D animation. The CGI is frame story and the 2D is the meat of the story. I would have given them credit for that, but I was already against this thing by the time that happens. If you have depression, or love someone who does, then this is going to hit close to home. I’m going to encourage you to keep reading though. While I’m going to talk about this movie, I’m also going to have to talk about myself and Syd because you have to be given the background to understand why both of us started screaming at the screen and then just watched in disgusted silence.

Here is the plot, Grumpy Smurf doesn’t want to engage with Christmas, so the other Smurfs perform and intervention and via magic, Papa Smurf sends him a vision that reminds him about the spirit of Christmas. That’s the nicest I can make this nightmare of animation. The devil, as always is in the details. Now this is where we have to get personal. The closest I ever got to suicide was during Christmas. I wasn’t sad, or stressed, or having crying jags, or doing any of the “normal” things a depressed person is supposed to do. I was just simply... tired. Do you remember how Lestat describes Louis’s problem in Interview with The Vampire? “Life has no meaning anymore... does it? The wine has no taste. The food sickens you. There seems no reason for any of it... does there?” That’s where I was. I was simply tired and the idea of going on just seemed like so much more effort for no good reason. That the Christmas Season had done nothing to even pretend to lift my mood made things all the worse. And what with, what was it... five deaths that year? Six? A faltering relationship that finally crashed a few weeks later, I do sometimes think that physical and mental exhaustion was the only thing that kept me alive. I was simply too tired to work up the energy to kill myself. Had there been real pain, or if I had been able to summon up the strength, I would not be writing this today. I was no fun that year, and my attempts to celebrate was on autopilot. I simply no longer felt like playing along at one point.

What I’m saying is that I totally feel what Grouchy Smurf was going through in the first few minutes. Grouchy isn’t feeling the Christmas Spirit at the start. The CGI Animation is actually quite beautiful, I’ll grant them that. I don’t actually hate the design of the Smurfs, and it’s nicely detailed. Papa Smurf and a few other Smurfs are singing carols through the village, but when they come upon Grouchy’s house they find he hasn’t decorated. This moment of individualism is so shocking that the Smurfs glance up and the signing sort of dies in their throats. They’ve never actually seen someone not decorate. Now, I will grant, Papa Smurf runs up to Grouchy’s house, looking concerned. He knocks on the door and asks what’s wrong, looking genuinely worried that something may have happened. Everyone else sort of acts like douche bags. They remind him that they all decorate the Christmas Tree as a family, and that he always puts the star on top. They actually remind him that he’s quite into Christmas, and that he sheds his grumpy demeanor for the day of days. Not asking why he’s suddenly turned against it, no one’s actually that interested in anything outside themselves.

Now this is where it gets horrifying to me. Smurfette turns to Papa Smurf and says “Oh Papa. You need to do something. It just won’t be the same if we can’t all celebrate together.” Well thanks Smurfette, you’re concern for Grouchy is commendable. Oh wait, you didn’t show any! How fucking selfish! No one has yet bothered to ask why Grouchy is suddenly against the idea, no one is even showing concern for him. He needs to show up and celebrate, whether he feels like it or not, because otherwise IT WON’T BE THE SAME! Syd has also suffered with depression in a big way, and her worst time came during a confluence of events. Only, unlike me, she had fucking douche-canoes to contend with who were berating her for feeling bad at a time like this. Her sentence to boil it all down was. “Can’t you see how your suicidal depression is affecting me?” She was literally told to “Get a grip” at one point because she was “Bringing people down.” The fact that she almost didn’t make it through that winter alive doesn’t seem to matter, she was being a real drag man. Yes, I am still angry, why do you ask? And the lack of concern for why Grouchy might be feeling this way, the demand that he just fall into line like everyone else? Yeah, it brings it all back again.

So Papa makes a potion that he calls the Spirit of Christmas and that it’s ”designed to show one the true meaning of the holiday.” So again, Grouchy is just WRONG here. He’s forgotten the true meaning of the holiday. The fact that he’s personally sitting there, privately fighting for his life, combating a darkness alone... that’s his problem. He needs to be dragged into a celebration he cannot begin to feel part of, to be with people who only remind him of isolated he feels from them, and to be told throughout this event that is killing him to at least pretend to be happy for everyone else’s benefit. What an utter and complete group of selfish assholes! Grouchy gets the potion in his Smurf-Nog and it knocks him out, causing him to wake up in a 2D world that looks like the old Hanna-Barbara animation. It’s still done on computers, but they got the look of the animation down. If I wasn’t so outraged at the whole thing by now, I would have given them some major kudos. I guess I am now, so there you go. All about the silver-linings, me.

This is one of those productions where regular members of “The Cast” and inserted as the ghosts. Grouchy actually mentions that to him, this is Smurfette. She explains that she’s the Spirit of Christmas Past and that he’s lost the True Meaning of Christmas® and that their going to help him find it. We’re taken back to a past where Grouchy liked Christmas. He’s told that he enjoyed the holiday and “put your grumpiness aside” which again makes it sound like a depression is just something you can pick up or put down. It’s like how you can just stop having cancer on Christmas, so as not to inconvenience everyone. Maybe his mood really was better in the old days, but this isn’t last year, this is now. He’s another problem, actually reminding someone of this just reminds them of the big empty hole in their soul where joy used to live. He was probably just about getting by, ignoring the pain of no longer feeling like a part of the family by cutting off that joy and pretending he never felt that way and thus can lessen the pain by acting like the loss didn’t happen. And now he’s reminded that once he felt that way, and the wound of his own empty feels are ripped open again. THANKS FOR THAT GUYS!

Now we see the place where Grouchy is supposed to be a selfish dickhole, but even there I can sympathize. Grouchy wanted a hang glider. And year, a year, he didn’t get one. He just got what Papa Smurf gave everyone, a new hat. He asked Papa every year for the hang glider, and every year he just got the hat. And then last year, Jokey Smurf gave him a big hang-glider shaped box that just exploded in his face. This bullying just causes him to stop off and have a complaint that he never gets what he wants for Christmas. He throws the hat away and stomps off. Spirit Smurfette asks Now Grouchy if that’s the reason he decided to hate Christmas and he explains that you don’t want to get your hopes up just to see them dashed. To which Spirit Smurfette says “What’s there to be disappointed about when you have such a Smurfy Family?” One that he doesn’t feel a part of? One where his single wish for life is openly mocked by the members?

There is more going on here. There is a mantra among those who deal with depression, “Depression Lies.” You kind of have to hang on to that sometimes, because otherwise you can’t go on. You have to say to yourself, all the time, “NO! These people DO care about me. They’re not ignoring me, they just don’t know how to help.” And other such things. Is the hang-glider such a big deal? Well, if Grouchy is already feeling ignored and picked on, it becomes a symbol of the isolation. It’s the emblem of every negative feeling he has. Would the hang-glider really fix it? Probably not, but because Depression Lies, he feels the hole in his heart. He thinks it’s a hang-glider shaped hole, but who can tell what it really is? Again, this is a sickness, it’s a chronic disease and if Grouchy can’t get some kind of help, it’s going to turn out to be fatal. Hell, even with friends and family clustering around to try and help in whatever way they can, he’s only got a 50/50 chance. This isn’t some little moment of sadness, this is a lifelong condition.

So the bit with Smurfette ends and now the show gets reprehensible and more than a little bit dangerous. Brainy Smurf shows up as the Smurf of Christmas Present (wasn’t Smurfette the Spirit? Great continuity there guys) and shows Grouchy how his actions ruined Christmas for everyone. See, Chef had to put up decorations instead of baking cookies, which resulted in exponentially less cheer for everyone. Then Clumsy finds the star that Grouchy normally would put on the tree, he trips, the star going flying, and hits a bulb. This results in a Rube Goldbergian chain reaction of destruction that leads to all the lights exploding, the tree getting knocked over, catching on fire and exploding. Upon putting out the fire, the Smurfs gather round and Smurfette actually says “This wouldn’t have happened if Grouchy were here.” REALLY? Clumsy would have been prevented from tripping in any way, shape or form? He would have suddenly become Safety Smurf if Grouchy had been around? FUCK! Let’s be glad that Grouchy didn’t suddenly catch flu and was physically unable to come, or that would have apparently happened anyway. Claiming all of this is Grouchy’s fault is that “Can’t you see how your suicidal depression is affecting me?” BULLSHIT all over again. And now that he’s seen that he has, in fact, ruined Christmas for everyone and that it’s all his fault, and no one else’s, what choice does he have? You’ve added pointless guilt to his already crushing depression, making it his fault for not watching over Clumsy closely enough. These guys might not be equipped to prevent a suicide, but they do seem hell bent on causing one.

We then see how Papa Smurf makes the hats for each and every Smurf himself, and that he tries to make them to conform to the needs or desires of each Smurf. This is actually kind of touching, because we do see that Papa is maybe trying. He takes the hat he made for Grouchy and says that he made one that he knows Grouchy will love, if he just gives it a chance. See, I forgot to mention that he threw the hat from last year away, and that Papa found it and looked crushed over the event. He looks sad about it, and in this you see the one person in the whole village that isn’t so completely tied up in their own solipsism that they are unable to see the pain others are going through. I get the impression that Papa wasn’t sad to see his hat thrown away, so much as he can’t stand to see Grouchy in such turmoil. The problem of course is that Papa knows that he doesn’t have the tools to really help, he knows that there is something really wrong with Grouchy. I do actually get the impression that Papa really gives a shit, but that he feels powerless to help, due to the fact that 99 other Smurfs also need his love and support. Papa is in a tough place here, and he’s trying his hardest, but it might just be too late.

And now the special goes from horrendously bad, to even fucking worse. See, in the future (played by Brawny who keeps calling Grouchy “bro”) the entire village is destroyed and deserted. To replace the tree that was destroyed, they went to get a new one. Now the Smurfs claim that this was to try and cheer Grouchy up but they’re also just replacing the tree that was lost, let’s be honest. This was for them, not for him, they’d just use the fact that he wouldn’t be impressed to further shame him. He wasn’t impressed by the first tree, why would the second one cheer him up? No, this is for you, and you’re pretending it’s for him to further shame him for not being happy enough. When he finds out they never came back from their trip, Grouchy runs towards the woods. He stumbles and falls, to which Brawny says “Need to do more cardio, bro!” and I can’t define why, but that line just stuck in my fucking craw. Fuck you and your anachronistic jokes to make things sound hip but will only date them in three years. Fuck you and everyone who even looks like you!

And now we get to the worst part. All the Smurfs got caught by Gargamel and are now going to be eaten BECAUSE GROUCHY WASN’T SMURFY ENOUGH! You ruined Christmas for everyone by not pretending to be happy. It’s all your fault that everyone is going to die because you couldn’t just fake your feelings and play along for everyone else’s benefit. How very selfish you have behaved this Christmas. “Can’t you see how your suicidal depression is affecting me?” Grouchy even falls for it, expressing that he can change, he can make amends, he can set right what once went wrong and hope that the next leap will be the leap home. He does leap back to CGI at least. He then admits that he was wrong, that Christmas is a time for loving and that he shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in himself... you know... like every fucking other Smurf in this fucking village! It seems while everyone was sleeping, Grouchy got a new tree and put all the decorations to right... in four and a half hours. Fuck this special, fuck it in the ear. Papa gives him a new hat, and Grouchy jumps off a ladder upon realizing that his hat was made especially for him, and that Papa knew he wanted a hang glider. So yeah, the hat IS a hang glider and that’s supposed to make everything all better.

Well I’m sorry, it doesn’t. Having been down this road a few times, having people explain that my mood (and desire to be just left the fuck alone) ruined things for everyone else, despite trying to have these moods in private, you can go fuck yourself. It’s not my job to wrap the holiday in a warm red woolen blanket and pretend everything is just hunky-dory. My job is to try and survive a place and time that was filled with an unimaginable vast empty darkness, one from which there seemed no escape save for the final one. I’m sorry if that puts a damper on your feelings, but I’m really not responsible for you. I have a hard enough time being responsible for me. Telling someone that if they’re not cheerful enough, their entire family will be killed, is irresponsible, and it’s BULLSHIT!

Listen, you feel as bad as you have to feel. If you don’t want to engage, okay. I’ll offer you these three things. 1) I’ll be here when you want me. 2) I will not judge you for feeling the way you do. 3) There are things that can be done to help. I won’t say it’ll get better, it might not ever get better, but it might get manageable. And things can improve, it can happen. You can come to a place where it won’t hurt so much, or you won’t feel empty all the time. Where there’s life, there’s hope. If it gets that bad, if you just need to talk to someone, there are people who will listen. Until then, you just feel the way you feel, and don’t let someone else make you feel worse for already feeling bad.

Behind the curtian...

2013-12-05T20:25:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure kids... this review is having some problems. This special is makes me genuinely and legitimately angry. Like, red mist angry. Like, spitting nails angry. Now, I know, some people like it when I get angry, but I've felt lately that I've passed that phase. I'll still post the links for the Rudolph and Charlie Brown reviews, but I'm not sure I have it in me anymore.

On the other hand, the world needs to be told why this is making me angry. On yet another hand, certain events in the lives of some friends would make the review hit way to close to home. And yet, there is a truth to be told and a personal struggle to expose.

Sooo, yeah... I honestly don't know. You may end up reading about how The Bourne Identity and The French Connection TOTALLY count as Christmas movies come Sunday.

TV Review: Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

2013-12-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978/ Children's Television Workshop/ Dir. Jon Stone)

Friends, Interneters, Countrymen? Look, lend me your eyes okay? I come not to bury Big Bird, but to praise him. The good men do, may sometimes live after then, while what little evils the commited may be interred with their bones. So let it be with Big Bird. Many hath told you Henson was ambitious? If it were so, it was a magnificent joy; and Henson hath answer'd it. You all did love him once,--not without cause: what cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!--Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with Henson, and I must pause till it come back to me.

...

And here are the artifacts that the ancient scrolls spoke of!

Get past the ice skating at the beginning. Please, for me. It's going to be hard, since it's the opening 8 minutes of this 59 minute special, but I promise you it's worth it. Even the ice skating isn’t terrible. It's just the opening is so 70s, it kind of hurts and the music is very... late 70s kid's TV. Here's the thing though, the ice skating bit is actually kind of charming. You have Big Bird learning to ice skate, you have Bert & Ernie playing with Oscar, Cookie Monster and The Count... that's kind of groovy. The problem is you have these ice skating kids who are anonymous at best and baffling for their inclusion at worst. The skating Muppets are from an Ice Show that Sesame Street was involved with for a while. It was probably a good way to show off the ice skaters for people who could get to a show, but now is just mildly baffling at worst. The thing is, it’s all okay. It’s nice an inoffensive, and I see no problem with it.

Trying to get everyone in one cap is hard okay?

The main story, this is Sesame Street after all, starts after the ice skating is done. Oscar starts Big Bird wondering how Santa can get down modern tiny chimneys. After that story is initiated, we get the first real song (True Blue Miracle) and holy rusted metal Batman(!) this is an incredibly integrated show. I haven’t sat down and watched a kids show in a few years now, but I am shocked to see such an amalgam of genders and races in one screen. The most recent thing I watched on TV was a show about two white men, two white women and one sassy black man. I won’t mention that the black man was a thief, because they were all thieves on that show. ANYWAY! So Big Bird has a panic attack about Santa not getting down the chimney, and that he and his little friend Patty have to find out before the clock strikes or Santa Will cancel Christmas because OF COURSE SANTA WILL CANCEL CHRISTMAS! We’ve been down this road before, we’ve seen his desperation to shut the whole thing down. The thing is, no one ever counted on Kermit The Frog! Kermit, in a fantastic show of form and grace is determined to help by interviewing kids about how Santa gets down the chimney. Patty mentions she doesn’t know the answer, but this only delays Kermit about a millisecond because Kermit is the boss applesauce!

Because it mirrors a shot in Bourne Identity, that's why.

The show suddenly changes gears as we enter the dark phase of this show. Yeah, it’s Christmas, and we’re dealing with some lovers of the classics. Of course they’re going to do Gift of the Magi, OF COURSE THEY ARE! Bert decides to get Ernie a soap dish so that Rubber Duckie won’t keep falling in the tub. Meanwhile Ernie decides to get a cigar box for Bert’s paperclip collection. Bert was a dweeb man. A paper clip collection? I dated a pretty dweebie girl for about a decade and even she didn’t have a paperclip collection. And if anyone I ever met was going to have one, it world have been her. Anyway, I’m going to just focus on this story for the moment, otherwise we’ll get lost. So Ernie trades Rubber Duckie to Mr. Hooper for the cigar box and Bert trades his paperclips for the soap dish. Bert almost cries as he hands over this single most prized of all possessions.

I'm gonna make you an offer, you can't refuse.

Mr. Hooper works out what’s going on and gives the boys back their most prized possessions because in doing so he got the best present of all. He got to see that everyone got exactly what they wanted for Christmas. It’s heartwarming enough, but I really don’t like The Gift of the Magi. Me and O Henry just ain’t never gotten along. It’s a sweet enough idea though, and a good way to tell the story without giving us the moralizing that makes the original story so distasteful to me. Odd, this is the second time I’ve approved of a translation of a story I genuinely hate. Maybe I don’t hate it? Strange little trip, this blog has been. Hang on a second... (re-reads Gift of the Magi) NOPE! Hate that story. Hate, hate, hate!

God above, we have been blessed.

So allow us to move onto the next story. Cookie Monster wants to write a letter to Santa, asking for cookies (duh!) only when he first tries to write a letter he gets excited thinking about cookies that eats his pencil. Then he eats the typewriter shouting “Cowabunga!” A full three hundred years before anyone ever heard of a Ninja Turtle. When he tries to call Santa, he eats the phone. Cookie Monster is having kind of a bad night frankly. He eventually asks Gordon what he should do, like maybe he should give Santa some shaving cream or a necktie and is shocked to learn people tend to leave Santa cookies. He has a look on his face like “And now the snake has eaten his own tail!” that he carries for the rest of his run on Sesame Street. In fact, he’s so baffled by this that in a Marvel Style post credit sequence it is revealed that he ate the Christmas tree. How’s that for a shawarma scene?

Hey, Hulk, do you like shawarma? I don't know what it is, but now I want some.

Okay, but what about Big Bird? Well, as it turns out he decided to hit the roof. I would say that it’s the only place left in New York where he can smoke, but this is 1978. You could work over an incubator and smoke in ’78. Everyone smoked, I’m amazed there is no Flintstonesesque moment where he stops to smoke a nice pack of Winston Cigarettes. No, instead he’s going up there so he can catch Santa in the act and ask once and for all how he gets down the chimneys. Predictably, he falls asleep and misses it. What he also misses is that everyone on Sesame Street was looking for him.

Zzzzzzz

Yeah, his friend Patty notices that he’s gone and gets everyone worried about him. So they all go out into the cold, snowing night and look for him. The most amazing thing is when Maria, oh beautiful Maria, come to Oscar’s trash can. He makes some kind of smart ass remark and Maria just goes off on him. She’s all “You ever read the Bible Oscar? There’s this little passage I got memorized.” And he tries to do the whole “What?” thing and eventually it leads to Maria giving him the full blown “AND YOU WILL KNOW MY NAME IS THE LORD!” treatment before kicking his can onto the ground and sending him flying about fifteen feet for all the trouble he caused.

Have another whisky!

Have I ever mentioned I watch these things drunk? I often watch like... five specials at once and some of them you have to get pretty hammered to get through. And because I’m ADD and dyslexic, I also sometimes have youtube running because every once in a while I need to stop and be reminded of the world outside. Sometimes these things bleed together. I wasn’t even watching anything else while watching this, and yet I remember these things and when I watch the show again to get screencaps, suddenly those scenes aren’t there anymore. Where was I?

Pure Opulence

So Big Bird comes down stairs and they show him how Christmas came. He didn’t see Santa, but it came just the same. It came without answers, it came without facts. It came without commercials, cynicism or... tracks? Dear Dr. Seuss, this is way harder than you made it look. Gordon then explains to Big Bird that the thing that’s important isn’t knowing how Santa gets down the chimney, but rather that everyone is going to be together for Christmas. It does bother me a little that they answer to his central question is “Why do you want to know, and what does it matter?” but I’m going to put that down to Gordon trying to come up with something quick to keep Big Bird off the roof.

Where'd they get that tree in such short order?

I’m going to be honest, I rail against a lot of these specials for a very good reason. They try to fake sentiment, they deliver a ham fisted message, or deliver a message that is kind of hateful if you spend more than 17 seconds thinking about it. The message here is that it’s important to have people you care about, and who care about you. A secondary storyline delivers the message that giving of yourself is noble and that performing in the service of someone you love is greater than doing something for yourself. If I can’t get behind that sort of thing, then what kind of monster have I become? Luckily for me, I am prepared to give this a particularly high score. This is not nostalgia, I have spent the whole run of this blog proving that I am not a slave to the whims of nostalgia.

Official Score:
75 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

The “Why Did You Do That” Moment

2013-11-20T10:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a thing about movies, and stories in general. I like things to be logically consistent. I don’t need everything to follow real world rules for everything, but I need a touch of verisimilitude to run through the tale. It’s okay for Batman to run around with a cartoon bomb over his head and have to stop for a moment and say “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!” because it follows the rules the world has set. Batman doesn’t want to endanger anyone else, or even risk endangering them, so he runs away from anyone walking towards him when he tries to dispose of the explosive. Yes, to humorous results, but the ’66 Batman was a comedy after all. There is a consistent through line and I don’t find myself asking why he’s acting the way he is.

That’s one of the things that will always pull me right out of a movie, if the actions of someone make no damn sense. If I find myself asking “Why did you do that?” or “Why would anyone ever do that? Like, ever?” then I am pulled out of the movie and my enjoyment tends to suffer. I can get to a point where I’ll just start shouting my questions at the screen, which annoys some people because they’re enjoying the movie and annoys others because they hadn’t seen the problem until I mention it. I’ve ruined Batman Begins for at least two people I know because I pointed out all the problems I had with the movie and now when they try and watch it, all those problems leap out at them. For all Batman Begins did right, it’s loaded with “Why did you do that?” moments and they piled up so high it killed any enjoyment I had from the movie.

This can become a real problem for something that moves slowly, like Game of Thrones, where I’ve been informed that some of my “How does that work?” questions are answered. The problem is those problems are going to be addressed in book/season 4. Sadly, I am not willing to wait the 5 years it’s going to take HBO to get to that point. One assumes it will take as long to get to their 4th season as they did with Deadwood and The Sopranos.

Now there are ways around this issue. One of them is through simple lamp shading. In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise is trapped in a car that’s upside down in a river with guys shooting machine guns at him for reasons too complicated to go into here. In order to escape, he grabs a corpse, lights a road flare and sticks it in the sleeve of the dead man, shoving him down river. The soldiers shooting see the light of the red flare and start shooting at it allowing Cruise and Jeremy Renner to escape. Now, watching this I was saying to myself “How the hell does that work?” and about three seconds later, Jeremy Renner turns to Tom Cruise and in the first lines anyone has spoken since the flare incident says “How the did that work?” which leads to a conversation of all the questions someone might ask and Tom Cruise blowing it off saying he played a hunch that it might attract their attention long enough for them to get away. I laughed at the end of that scene because it was just after I had asked those questions that the movie addressed it. Ghost Protocol was great for that by the way, a smart movie that didn’t have to devolve into stupid exposition and plot movement based on questionable logic.

The other way is to deal with the issue simply and easily by having something not work and having the character say something like “Well, that didn’t work” or “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” which isn’t perfect in all situations, but it can help. Sometimes, it’s interesting mistakes made in the heat of the moment that can drive a story towards an unexpected conclusion. Just so long as it makes sense that it’s a heat of the moment mistake, or a logical idea, or something that could possibly be planned. Bat-Shark Repellent only works in a comedy where the joke is “Yeah, right, he has Bat-Shark Repellent in the helicopter for just such an occasion.” Anywhere else, and you’re left asking “Am I really supposed to believe that Q knew damn well Bond would need an inflating jacket or a buzz-saw wristwatch?” Bond is rarely questioned as all the gadgets get used and as such lead to the answer “Well, he needed them.” Except we do question it later, at least in some small way.

Not everyone notices these things, some people never see the problems I do until I point them out. If that helps them enjoy a movie/book more, I shouldn’t complain, but sometimes it really bugs me. I keep wanting to demand why they didn’t notice the problem, why it doesn’t affect their enjoyment, how can they just let so much crap slide. Of course, the answer is that people are bothered by different things at different times. Lots of people don’t get how I can enjoy the Batman TV show, particularly given its incredible flaws in logic. I’ll only state that A) The flaws in logic are sometimes the point of the joke and B) Those do bug me, but I forgive a joke that fails when there are henchmen doing Brooklyn accents so badly that you wonder if they actually know that Brooklyn is a real place and not some made up shit like Narnia or Belgium.

World War Z mini-review

2013-06-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

So we saw World War Z and I actually liked it. I read the book about a year ago (maybe more, hard to tell these days) and I liked that too. I recognize that the movie is not the book though, it's sort of inspired by the book.

It's not a bad little zombie movie, but it's only tangentially based on the book of the same title. That didn't bother me, because if they really did exactly the book, it would be either an anthology of stories, or a Ken Burns Documentary. Either of those could be interesting, but would fail to catch the summer blockbuster crowd. I did miss the Battle of Yonkers, and some of the more interesting concepts and ideas went the wayside. I think they want a sequel, and if they get one they'll do some of the later half of the book stuff. It really felt like someone wrote a global zombie movie, then someone pointed out the book existed, and they bought the rights to the book to cover their butts. I say this because some five writers (including Brooks) are credited in the opening titles. It felt like this went through a LOT of re-writes, and the internet says I'm right about that one.

Shall we do bullet points? We'll try for spoiler free...

Forget the book, this isn't the book. If you can divorce yourself from the book, you might enjoy it.

The family story didn't work for me after the first act, but it didn't hurt things either.

The movie made running zombies interesting to me for the first time.

The suggested solution to the whole zombie thing is... actually pretty interesting.

Oh man, then you sort-of kind-of tried to set up for a sequel, and I'm not sure that's gonna work babe.

Because of a scheduling issue we saw it in 3D, which is... whatev. Didn't hurt, didn't help.

Can I be the only one who heard that speech about Mother Nature being a serial killer and perked up thinking "Oh! So some of what J. Michael Straczynski wrote made it to the screen!" as that speech was unraveling? I can't say that was for certain his work, but it sounds like him.

ALSO! Alternate title for this movie "Ain't Shit Gonna Go Right For Brad Pitt Today."

Noir Needs Context

2013-06-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

There is a genre, called Film Noir. It’s awesome stuff. Depending on who you talk to, it’s either a shooting style filled with shadows and somewhat stark camera work, or it’s a story style. As a story style, its hallmarks are usually agreed to be crime, moral ambiguity, social isolation, the attempt to be a good person and a search for some kind of justice. There is also something about women in the form of femme fatales, and the corruption of authority figures, but we’re going to get to that at a later date. Go watch The Dark Corner or The Big Sleep some time, you’ll see what I mean. Or maybe you won’t, because I’ve noticed that a lot of people who make another connected genre haven’t seen the awesome or are unable to replicate it. They clearly see the good man in a hard world and nothing else. See, there is a genre called Neo-Noir, and it kind of sucks. Technically, neo-noir is just later day stuff, made after a completely arbitrary cut off date.

There are problems with Neo-Noir though, and for me they’re pretty big. Problem number one is context. See, most of these movies were made in the post war era of the 40s and 50s. So, they exist in a world where Doris Day was tearing up the charts and blowing up the box office. America was kind of exuberant about having punched Hitler in the face and won World War II single handedly with just good old fashioned Know-How! We were busy having Technicolor romantic comedies, and an economic boom, and white picket fences, and everything was rosey and there would never be hippies, or punk rock, or even a president who wasn’t so white he was practically phosphorescent.

Now of course, a lot of that wasn’t true, and some people knew it. They rejected, or simply weren’t allowed to be part of this new world. That world existed, but they couldn’t have status in it. And you kind of have to understand that Doris Day was doing her thing while these movies were being made. When Humphrey Bogart was playing a detective who leaned alone and unloved in a doorway, he was existing in the same movie world as Doris Day was, he just didn’t get more than a moment in the light. Social Isolation is a big part of the classic film noir, but you need a connected world to be isolated from. There is also a world of art, of beauty, of light haired girls tripping lightly through fields of wildflowers and having nothing worse happen to her than a bit of a grass stain when she and her lover go for a tumble on the ground. These are all things that exist in that world, they just don’t exist for the hero of a film noir.

That’s one of the major problems I have with Neo-Noir, they often lack context. The make the detective the everyman, instead of the outsider. Watching Bladerunner, Momento, Year of The Dragon, Miller’s Crossing, Se7en, or Bound (that list can go on and on) you are never given to understand that this isn’t the entire world. There is no art, no music, no theater, that isn’t slave to the dark, gritty, greasy aesthetic that’s being manufactured. There is quite frankly, no outside for our hero to be looking in from. Everyone lives in Gotham City and it’s horrible all the time, filled with awful people who are mean spirited and/or weak. Even with long form TV shows like Deadwood and Game of Thrones, it’s just horrible people, living in a horrible world, where all sorts of horrible things happen to everyone, all the time because it’s all so horrible and if that pretty girl I mentioned earlier tried to trip through the daisies in one of these shows she’d have been raped and murdered by now.

It’s odd, because the makers of these movies seem to have grasped the emotions behind the isolation, but without the context of the brighter world it makes them just another cog in a terrible world. Failing to understand that Sin City is a funhouse mirror, they seem determined to come as close to reality as they can. The problem is that a seedy underbelly has to be the underbelly, it can’t be everything or your world makes no sense. Most of it comes off as posturing, the image of the tough guy shot through a child’s filter, through lack of understanding why people need to be tough. It’s as if they understand so little of how the world works, that they imagine it must all be corrupt and awful, which is why they’re childish fantasies about monye and power haven’t become true yet. Maybe that’s what they’re going for, to show that the whole world is awful and you have to be an awful person to contend and get along.

If I may posit an objection, that is utter, complete, and total bullshit.

It’s nothing more than a bullshit attempt at the same sort of mass-marketed ultra-conformist non-conformity garbage that they tried to feed us in the Post-Grunge era of the 90s and it was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now. Only now they’ve added a layer of sleaze to let the people who are taken in by this crap to believe they’re somehow clever and seeing past the glitz and understanding the world better because instead of fighting and trying to rise above the mud, they’re slamming themselves in face-first. There is art and light and joy in the world and if you raise your head up from your attempts to sink deeper into the mud than your neighbor (because the good mud is at the bottom), you will notice a whole world of light and beauty and joy.

That’s not to say that there isn’t good Neo-Noir out there. Brick is a masterful example of showing the real world. A segment with one of the few adults in the movie trying to find something for the hero to drink while he eats some cereal is both funny and contextual. Veronica Mars is another good example. The context of the real world is often see on the edges of the show, even though the show itself focuses on the dark side of the world they’ve built for obvious reasons. Both those products contain the social isolation, they contain the mistrust of authority figures, the world having a seedy underbelly, the moral ambiguity, and the good person looking for justice. They also have an understanding that there is more to the world than this little patch of dark and shadow, which is important because otherwise you can’t go on.

Context is always important to me, I will always look for the context of the world a story exists in. If the world contains no good, it is has no possibility for the good guy to win, then it’s no more interesting than a world where you know the good guy will win no matter what. Neither situation works for me. The world where we will always fail is as bad as the one where we always win.

Maybe one or the other story works for you, maybe you get into the constant loss or the constant win. Maybe you like the predictability of it all. I don’t, it doesn’t work for me. When I can predict things before they happen on the screen/page, I tend to get angry. I’m usually already bored, which is why I’m thinking and predicting what’ll happen next. We’ll talk more about that next time.

Iron Man 3 review - In bullet point form!

2013-05-03T18:35:00.001-07:00

1. I liked it! I really liked it. It might be the best Iron Man movie, but I'll have to watch the first one to make sure. Still, very good. Shane Black knows what the he's doing.

2. The tone is darker, more serious, but it's still a light hearted movie you can take the kids to see.

3. What the hell is it with Shane Black and Christmas? SRSLY!

4. This had a way better roll for Pepper than anything else the character has been in.

5. I think some people suffering from PDST (or atleast major anxiety issues) can point to this movie and say "Yeah, that's what it's like." without having to worry about things being triggery. The end of The Avengers is his trigger, the rest of us don't need to worry.

Minor spoilers below the cut...

7. Tony spends a lot of time out of the suit in this one. Old comic book movie fans may share my annoyance at that. They made it work, it's a major part of the plot, but it still irks me a little.

6. The only thing that bothered me was when they got the suits at the end. I was all "You mean you could have called another suit at any time?" and Tony's all "NO! Not at any time, only when it was funny!"

8. I didn't even know Guy Pierce was in this movie, that was a shock.

I had an idea

2013-04-23T13:33:00.001-07:00

I had an idea this morning, that I should have a film festival of movies with years in the title, silly idea, but I had it. This is what I would be watching, but I have to get the movies first.

1492: Conquest of Paradise

1900

1911

Gold Diggers of 1933

Gold Diggers of 1935

Gold Diggers of 1937

1941

Back to 1942

1984

2001: A Space Odyssey

2010: The Year We Make Contact

2012

2046

Movie Review: Goyokin

2013-04-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Goyokin 1969/ Toho/ Dir. Hideo Gosha

For reasons of my own, I was watching some heist movies. I like a good heist flick, and there aren't enough of them. There are lots of heist flicks, but only a few good ones. I had gone through the usual line-up of movies, and after I had exhausted my supply I still felt the need to go once more into the heist film vault. So what I did was examine what you need for a good heist movie. That led me to this Japanese samurai movie set in the 1800s. As opposed to a French samurai movie set in the 1460s I guess? Well, some samurai movies are set during the 1600s, that seems to be the two times we generally get. During the early days of the Tokugawa shogunate or just before the Meiji Restoration, which is the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Soooo, during the Tokugawa shogunate. You know what? Forget this part! I've already said shogunate way too many times.

Why do I call this a heist movie and not a samurai movie?

Badass Supreme!

You can reset this movie in present day Michigan, and it would basically work the same as it does set in 19th century Japan. You may want New York or Boston, but we're going to go with Michigan. Actually, you want a small town outside Traverse City, but that's not important right now. What's important is that all you need is the impression that some officials can be bribed and that some guys just can't be bought. This is a heist that could have happened just about anywhere and at just about any time. Sure, some of the specifics would have to change, but the basic story is told on the back of most any direct to DVD movie you want to mention.

Meanwhile, at Stately Wayne Manor

The best way to describe the movie is to ascribe things with the role they would fill if the film took place in America... or whatever amuses me most. My site, my review, my call. So, we're going to call the main character Samurai Robert De Niro, because that's the actor I think would have played this role. Not current De Niro, but De Niro in his heyday. Late 70s and early 80s De Niro. The rest will come as we go along, but you get the idea. Besides, I have a long admitted problem with Chinese and Japanese names. They all just sort of mix and meld together in my mind because they don't sound anything like names we would use in the west.

Like a mid-90s music video.

So here is the basic scheme, here is the thing everyone wants to get. Silver and gold is mined on an island, and for argument's sake we'll say it's Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. The gold is then loaded onto a boat and shipped to (say) Chicago. The most dangerous part of the journey is the part where they have to go around the little peninsula that's just north of Traverse City, as I said before. This is (in the movie) a treacherous bit of water and has become known as a ship graveyard. It's so important you understand all of this that it's explained in some narration before the movie even gets started. Like most heist movies though, this is actually terribly unimportant because it's just a standard device to hinge the plot around. Of course you need to understand it, but as far as the movie goes, it could be diamonds or a team of trained leopard seals or pre-release copies of the latest Taylor Swift CD.

This laugh totally doesn't look fake, right?

There are many interesting story telling elements used in this movie. Part of the story is told in flashback, everything that isn't part of the current event of the heist, everything backstory, it's all shown in a series of flashbacks that are specific to the character. This helps the first third of the movie click along nicely without really slowing things down too much. There is a lot of set-up to unpack, and it would be tedious trying to fully assemble the narrative only to have to do it again. The movie neatly sidesteps the problem, allowing us to be drawn into the tale and hinting at the full story until all is revealed and we can move forward.

This is just a shot of Hottie McHotterson, lookin' hot.

The movie proper opens with a young woman returning home after an absence to find her village deserted. She comes to the conclusion that evil crow spirits took all the villagers away, and it becomes a local legend. She becomes The Woman What Was Done Wrong. Now let me stop for a moment and express a concern. You should probably watch this movie, if you like samurai movies or heist movies, you should see it. I'm not ten minutes into the movie and I'm already going to say the word "Spoilers" because I think that I've already given you enough to know if you're interested. If anything I've said so far has peaked even a hint of interest, go seek the movie out and watch it. Anything I say after this is going to damage some of the drama and I don't want to do that. Your first viewing of a movie is important, and something like this contains a lot of mystery in the first half. I'm not going to recount the plot piece by piece, but in my discussion I am going to spoil some things.

I was in my office, when she walked in...

Okay, having said all that... Three years ago the officials of Traverse City found that the boat containing the gold and silver from Beaver Island hit a rock and the money was recovered by the villagers on the peninsula. Instead of thanking them and going on their way, the local cops proved how corrupt they were by slaughtering the villagers and keeping the gold. They had reasons, Traverse City is broke and can't pay its debts. Loosing Traverse City to the state would mean some 600 samurai (cops? whatever) would be out of work and unable to get more work. What are 20 fishermen when you consider all the people that would have their lives ruined if they didn't do this? Well, Samurai Robert De Niro didn't agree. He thought it was wrong, but instead of ruining the guy in charge (his best friend since childhood and brother-in-law) he decided to leave. He left the faith and ran off to Chicago to live in poverty and silence.

Just a fleshwound.

The problem is, that in the three years that have passed, all the gold has been spent. Now they want to recreate the accident and get more of the gold. All of this would be bad, but not "Movie Worthy" if not for one thing. See, someone (not the best friend) decided that Samurai Robert De Niro knows too much and that he needs to be silenced. So they send Some Guys after him. A Samurai Robert De Niro was about to sell off his sword and give up forever, Some Guys find him. Isn't that just perfect for a movie of this kind. Here he was, seconds away from giving up his guns, when trouble reared its ugly head. Because this is Samurai Robert De Niro and not some punk, he dispatches the Some Guys and even has time for a flashback before doing the last one in. He was all ready to give up, when they came looking for him, and he decided it was time to take care of unfinished business! It's that kind of movie.

Momma said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this my momma said.

Except it's not that kind of movie. This is more than that, it's got a flair of filmmaking that you couldn't get in a cheap knock-off. You get to know about Samurai Robert De Niro, and about The Woman What Was Done Wrong, and are even given a chance to sympathize with The Best Friend if you want to. I haven't even gotten to the Han Solo character, the one who seems to only want money but turns out to be much more than he presents himself to be. Except, having set up the movie, that's where I kind of stop talking about it in terms of plot. At this point, I'm only interested in talking about it in terms of what the movie means.

FIRE!

This is a movie about honor, about The Code, and about how some people talk about it and other people live it. The guy playing Samurai Robert De Niro did several movies in this vein, which he was perfectly suited for. He did a lot of work expressing the idea that the whole samurai thing was a load of BS and that the real deal was the guy who wasn't accepted as the societal norm. Samurai Robert De Niro is a guy who is conflicted by his sense of loyalty, his wish to see the innocent saved and his desire to be a decent person. He doesn't want to kill anyone, he doesn't even want to see the idea of samurai society continue, he just wants things to go be okay even though he knows they will never really be okay ever again. Three years ago, his eyes were opened to the basic hypocrisy of his world, and he hasn't been able to close his eyes since then. He believes that the code of Bushido is total BS, just something the bad guys are hiding behind. The irony in that, of course, is he represents the code it perfectly.

I'll be honest, I have no good joke.

One also can't escape the fact that after a lengthy set up, the second half of this movie is just a pretty kick ass action movie. Sure, one with a soul and a reason, but an action movie none the less. Not just an action movie either, but one with a hero that is as tough as a whole box of nails. This guy is really rather familiar to any action fan of the 80s, because he's one of those heroes who was pushed into a corner and finally has to kick ass in hopes of being left alone. If done in America, I think this would be a much different movie, probably involving all criminals instead of a group of officials that have gone corrupt.

Just check the badassery

What can't be denied is that this movie takes place during a cold part of the year, probably winter. You rarely see movies like this, where there are big action sequences taking place during a blizzard, with bonfires as the only light or heat. You don't see sword fights where characters are blowing on their hands to keep their fingers from getting too stiff, where you can see the that the actors are shivering from the cold. I always love a movie that doesn't just take place in California weather. You don't get that too often, and I love it when it does happen. As a piece, this is a great movie and you should watch it.

Official Score:
78 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

Movie Review: The Black Cauldron

2013-02-26T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Black Cauldron (1985/ Disney/ Dir. Ted Berman & Richard Rich)

The Black Cauldron made basically no splash when it came out, much to Disney's dismay. Also, to the dismay of people like me, who sort of wish Disney had kept up with what it was doing. If you remember, the early 80s were a period of interesting experimentation for Disney. Granted, most those experiments were box office flops, but they were at least interesting and some of them were even good. This is an example of one of those experiments that was actually sort of good. Not great, I didn't say great, but it is good and it contains things you rarely saw at the time.

Gurgi is love.

The basic story is so basic that it makes you feel sort of stupid for getting involved. An assistant pig keeper (not even a full time guy, just the second banana) gets the full Joe Campbell experience here. It's practically Star Wars, but without a Kenobi figure or a Han Solo. That's not bad, but you do sort of feel that you've been here before, even if this is the first fantasy movie you've ever seen.

Did I forget to mention that the pig is magic? Well, it is.

That's sort of appropriate though, since it feels like there are things lifted from other productions all over the place. The animation has a sort of Don Bluth feel, except he had long since departed from Disney by this time. You do feel like the rats and the people are very Secret of Nhim-ish though. The dragons feel like they're a knock-off version of Maleficent. There are monsters highly reminiscent of the critters in Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. And of course, the story if Joe Campbell formula #102. Does any of this make it a bad movie though?

Odd? Is the princess supposed to save the farm boy?

No, it makes for a good movie. The main character of Taran goes through a complex development, as does the secondary character of Gurgi, whom I deeply love. Gurgi could have been another annoying side character, a Jar-Jar Binks before there was a Jar-Jar. However, Gurgi is way more interesting and goes through an actual character arc before the end. The Princess Eilonwy is less complex, sort of being along for the ride like Fflewddur Fflam, but they're not characters without merit in the film. Even The Horned King is a threatening and serious villain, something lacking in many a Disney film. Why he's not considered one of the better Disney baddies is beyond me, must be because no one saw this movie. Change that, go get a copy and watch this thing.

This is the weapon of the Jedi Knight.

Another reason I love this thing? No songs. It's not a musical at all, it's a straight up fantasy movie and for that reason it holds up a lot better than The Great Mouse Detective, which we also just watched. Both of these were made just before the Disney Renaissance, and it sort of shows. They feel like the last breath of an old company, while Little Mermaid feels like a new group that has exploded onto the market with something to prove. Even the styles of animation between the two eras are different. I don't begrudge the Disney company their Renaissance, because they tried to do interesting things after it, but they've never gone so deep into novelic fantasy again and that's kind of sad. If they did The Black Cauldron now, I think the audience would be much more apt to go with them on the ride, but it would also be a more polished movie... and might have songs. Maybe it's best that we leave that chapter closed then. There is a 25th anniversary edition of the movie on DVD, and you can watch it for $2 on Amazon, but there doesn't seem to be a Blu Ray yet, which is disappointing.

Let's see Vader do something like this! HORNED KING IN THE HIZZOUSE!

Official Score:
67 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

The Great VEWPRF Death March – He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

2012-12-18T04:41:00.000-08:00

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985 Dir. Bill Reed & Ernie Schmidt)

No lights

(PART ONE)
I wasn't going to review this cartoon. I mean I had planned not to review it. I have a piece ready for the 24th where I explain what didn't get reviewed and this was part of it. In fact my talk about how I'm not reviewing this cartoon was the opening paragraph. I'm going to have to re-write that bit it seems. I'll tell you what changed my mind though, I told Syd that I wouldn't be reviewing this and her little face just crashed. She was really looking forward to having me take He-Man and She-Ra to the woodshed for their effrontery to the magic that is Christmas. I would rather have to watch this dumb special than to disappoint her, so let me just crack open a fresh can of cola (ahh… sweet, sweet caffeine) and let's do this!

LIGHTS! Sadly the program won't show where the star is, but its right over the A

This came from the 80s, when a lot of Saturday morning and afternoon cartoons got their own holiday specials. Sometimes they would be called Christmas specials, but just as often they would be called Holiday. I do know that there were a few cartoons that got their first real trial at entertaining kids from these specials. Alvin and the Chipmunks had a special in 1981 which really led the way for the 1983-90 cartoon show. This was actually the opposite though. He-Man was technically done with production at the point that this show was debuted for it's one and only major viewing. The makers had already shifted to She-Ra which is why a lot of this special takes place on Etheria, or so I thought. (It seems to be more Eternia here. I guess I was wrong about that.) A short note on the DVD, I found an Easter egg on the main menu, above the A on there is a start shape, and if you click it you get the palace decorated in lights as I have here.

Seriously baby, once you go plant, you never go back.

Well, shall we start? It's winter on Eternia, which means that the stock background images have had badly drawn snow hastily laid over them. We're told that this is not a Christmas celebration though, but a birthday. It seems that this is going to be the first time the twins (He-Man and She-Ra (or Adam and Adora) are twins you see) are going to be together to celebrate their birthday for the first time. We know this because king Randor and Queen Marlena (why the hell do I know their names without even looking it up on Wikipedia?) discuss how it's their birthday and how Adora's friends came all the way from far off Etheria to help them decorate. As a result we see lots of the He-Man and She-Ra characters standing together doing things. This includes Moss Man who is totally trying to mack on the winged queen chick who's name escapes me (for which I am very glad) in the corner there.

Well! Someone knows how to work that green housedress thing.

Even though it's winter, Adora doesn't see the need for pants and keeps working that leotard hot pants outfit for all it's worth. She-Ra was supposed appeal to girls, and evidently teach them to dress like whores. If you watch carefully, you can kind of see why Cos Play has taken over our generation. Most the guys I know can't even have a twitch below deck unless they see a girl dressed like something from a fantasy role playing book cover, a cartoon or in a pinch a comic book.

"I look like the fickin' Burger King!"

Deciding that it's time for the 'As you know Bob' talk to start, queen Marlena (who has quite a pair of perky knockers for someone with two fully grown children) mentions Christmas and he husband of 25 years doesn't know what she's talking about. Okay, quick back-story here. Queen Marlena was an astronaut from earth who crashed on Eterina, noticed King Randor checking out her frankly kickin' bod and decided that it would be better to live as a queen than to argue with NASA over funding for the next 20 years. I still haven't checked Wikipedia for a single word of this. I think I now know why no one from my generation can tell you when the Magna Carta was signed, or even what it is, all the room in our heads is filled with Me-Man's mother's back story. Anyway, the point is that she looks more like He-Man's girlfriend than his mother. NO! The point is that Randor has been married to her for 20 years and talks about Christmas as if it's never once come up.

Track Adam's eyes, he's looking at those meaty thighs and powerful buttocks... and that's okay!

While everyone else is decorating, Prince Adam (who would prefer the title queen) and Man-At-Arms are putting together a little rocket ship to spy on Skeletor. They do this while Adam is wearing a pink vest and lavender tights. Duncan (man at arm's name) is dressed in some sort of kinky yellow armor and all green tights. They do this while wearing furry underpants. Now I'm not saying they're gay, but I am saying that they're very comfortable with their bi-sexuality. This will be the only "Adam sure is swishy" joke to appear here I think, and I'm only doing it because there is a law stating you have to mention it once in every review. Actually, I think I'm compelled to mention it three times, I'll have to check.

Eternia's Angels

So they walk off and Orko, the most annoying character in either series, decides to go check out the little spy shuttle. Why a ship which clearly is meant to be a spy drone needs a cock pit is beyond me, but it has one. Orko gets in turns on the rocket, sending it into space, then we break for commercial. Orko then flies through the opening credits when we come back, which has the most annoying music. Imagine, if you will, the She-Ra music. Then imagine that after the opening fanfare, the music becomes jingle bells for a moment and then goes back to the She-Ra Music. My ears are currently bleeding.

He-Man's favorite position is the forced chair squat.

Then Skeletor notices the ship, which is now in the atmosphere again and demands that they catch the rocket. The problem is, and is always the problem with Skeletor, that he put Two-Bad in charge of the controls of his ship. Like all other two headed characters in fiction, this one bickers with itself constantly. I wouldn't put someone who disagrees with themselves for the sake of doing it at the controls of my evil whatchamacallit ship. This means that they can't really get the ship.

I admire his ability to look her right in the eye. Cause seriously, those are some perky boobs she has there.

Since the show has been going on for four minutes now, it's time for He-Man to show up. They see that Skeletor is trying to nab the sky spy on their big screen and… why do they need a separate spy rocket if they can already tell what Skeletor is doing by looking at the big board? Excuse me, I need to go get a bottle of Excedrin. So Adam whips out his big sword and says the magic words, takes off his clothes, gets into kink gear and has fake tan sprayed all over him. He then runs off and Adora's next line is that her brother might need some help. They only mention that these two and brother and sister about 87 times during the 45 minute episode, one assumes to drive home the fact that they WON'T be screwing. I think the fact that Adam is clearly gay and He-Man is his alter-ego designed for Friday night cruising would have made that clear enough but they have to stress it anyway.

Well, nice to see women's outfits were as practical then as they are today.

So He-Man goes flying off in a little sky scooter of some kind to try and save Orko. He leaps into Skeletor's ship, one presumes looking for a booty call, and twists the claws on Skeletor's ship, slashing them with his big, thick, sword. He-Man gets wrapped up in some of Skeletor's bondage gear on the outside of the ship, but strangely doesn't say the safe word. She-Ra shows up, and she reminds the crowd that she and He-Man are bother and sister, which He-Man confirms. While they do this, Orko decides to use magic. Nothing good ever comes from Orko using magic. His magic ends up ending him into space. Skeletor is so ticked he sends his team of four shooting out of the ship with one parachute between them, which shows how budget cuts can really make things hard for people.

Animated upskirt! You keep being classy Filmation!

Orko shoots off into orbit, being followed by He-Man and She-Ra. Now she's on a winged horse and he's on some sort of crotch rocket ship, yet they're in space. I thought for a moment we'd see sweet death and head's exploding. No such luck. Fortunately, no one knows Orko is in the ship, which means he's going to die out there. The show begins to perk up as Orko starts to crash, sadly he survives. Long story short, he's landed on Earth and meets a pair of whiny kids. These kids are so dumb that they think a phallic shaped rocket is a flying saucer. It's a flying DILDO kids, get your shapes right! The kids tell Orko all about Christmas, but not before ramming their self-centered views about the world down his throat. "Everyone knows that Christmas is!" declares the boy, whose name I refuse to learn. The kids try to explain what Christmas is all about, and then we fade out because no one will actually tell anyone watching what it is. Evidently, we're supposed to KNOW what Christmas is and if we don't our neighbors should burn us at the stake.

Look at those eyes, she's clearly tripping the light fantastic.

For reasons I can't understand, the people of Eterina decide they need to get Orko back. They need to use the Deus Ex Machina beam to retrieve Orko, but Duncan's beam won't actually work without a crystal that isn't on his planet. What kind of dip powers a quickly thrown together way to get someone home while powering it with a crystal he can't even get? They need to go to Etheria to get one of these crystals. These people are just plain stupid, but hey, stock footage for a transformation scene! Re-use running animation! Talk about Santa! My urge to kill is rising! Kids must have just been really hyped up about seeing this show on at night because the content is crap!

And here we have... hommina, hommina! Why didn't I watch this show as a kid?

Anyway, She-Ra goes to Etheria and talks to a mermaid that is… well it's disturbing. I mean were they just laying out old issues of Playboy for the model sheets? Hottie McMerslut tells She-Ra that she has to fight the Beast Monster to get the needed crystal… or some such gibberish. I'm having a little trouble understanding the faked accent which might be Romanian with a mix of Scottish or might be just plain crappy. Hottie McMerslut tells She-Ra to keep the monster busy while she flounces around like a teen aged boys late night fantasy. They get the crystal and She-Ra gets attacked by some sort of robot or something. I'm a little lost at the moment, I've been watching the whole thing with care, but I have NO idea what the hell is going on right now. It's like the Transformers just came in for a guest shot. Evidently they're called the Monstroids and are the enemy of the Manchines. I'm out of my depth here, I never watched She-Ra because round house kick panty flashes where never my thing.

Wait... the sword had to be on fire to cut through a plastic bubble? How did she set the sword on fire anyway? Metal doesn't burn!

They get the Deus Ex Machina beam working and Orko has to remember to walk towards the light or something. He tells the kids about it and they all walk into the light like Carol Anne. Why Orko standing in the light was important I don't know because the ship, the tree, the kids, and the half a ton of garbage was taken with them. Adora tips her hand as to why Orko is tolerated by calling his name and letting him give her a big kiss as his first act. Orko starts to explain what happened, but we don't want to hear it so they cut away to some asteroid in space.

She's a princess and he's a floating blue torso, but they love each other.

So… um… evidently the kids create a disturbance in the force because Horde Prime feels it. He says there is a new spirit of goodness that has arrived on Eterina. This cloud of smoke with eyes then sends for Skeletor and Hordak. Who is Horde Prime? Beats the hell out of me. I was around for this stuff, I've watched this show twice, and even I don't know what the hell is going on. No, wait, 1985. I didn't see this the first time because I was busy being in A Christmas Carol at Meadow Brooke. Okay, I feel justified in being totally lost now.

So... is that Horde Prime's hand or what's going on here?

In fact, I am so lost I'm calling a snack break! This has gone on for a while and I think we all deserve a cookie. You go eat cookies, I'll read Wikipedia. You can tell me what kind of cookie you had in the comments. I hope they were good cookies. This is why I didn't want to do this silly thing, I knew this would happen! Now I have a two-parter on my hands! Oh well, can’t be helped.

"Little kids? What am I going to do with them? I'm gay, not a child molester!"

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS (We don't really have sponsors but this is an easy way to not have to re-write this review)

(PART TWO)

Yeah, I just used any old transition shot for this.

You know, the look like some kind of fantasy based Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

Does everyone remember where we were yesterday? We had a pair of kids, whose names I refuse to learn, transported to Eternia by Orko's mistake. This means that Horde Prime feels a disturbance in the Force. Good feelings have come over everyone or something. Now, I asked who the hell Horde Prime was and Wikipedia said this…Horde Prime is a fictional character in the cartoon series She-Ra: Princess of Power. He is the ruler of the intergalactic Evil Horde. He is only seen surrounded by green smoke. His true form has never been seen. A metallic arm comes out of the cloud of smoke when he is outraged or angered. Horde Prime has a son named Prince Zed who calls Hordak his uncle. This suggests that Horde Prime may have once looked like Hordak before his transformation. Well, that clears up everything!

Queenie is still smoking in the green dress I see.

So Okro has been explaining everything that's been going on to the king and queen. The little blonde girl's only concern is that they make it home in time for Christmas. Man at Arms says that might be a bit tricky as the magic crystals for his transport beam conveniently need a few days to recharge. The girl starts to freak out, but Queen Perkytits calms her down by telling her that they'll just mix the twin's birthdays with Christmas so that she only has to buy them one present. The little blue eyed monster though just brings up more problems. What about Santa? Will he be able to find us? Kid! If I've learned anything it's that Santa will find you, and he'll get you! Adam asks "Who's Santa?" and Orko, fresh on his conversion, acts like every new convert and insults Adam for not knowing about Santa. He then stitches a big red D for "Dipstick" on Adam's pink vest and then add an S for "Sodomite" as well. Orko always has been kind of big on hypocritical morality though, I mean look at all those morals he gives when most the time he's the one that screws things up.

You can really see the wheels in his mind turning as he focuses on her bright red lips can't you? It's all so disturbing! Also, in this drawing Adora looks like a badly drawn Jennifer Saunders.

So… Horde Prime is ticked because the spirit of Christmas has landed on Eternia. This bothers him because… um… he's Jewish! Yeah! And, uh, being Jewish he hates having this holiday rammed down his throat every year. Okay, truthful it's because good will is bad for his reign somehow. He explains his problem to Hordak and Skeletor, who being bickering like an old gay couple. Horde Prime brings down the boom and tells them that who ever gets rid of the Spirit of Christmas first gets a big prize. Yeah… Horde Prime just put out a hit on Robbie Coltrane. That… um… that's a joke that'll make more sense when the Blackadder's Christmas Carol review gets published.

What Skeletor didn't understand was that when Hordak called him "Boneface", what he meant was "I love you!"

So the kids are busy whining and some characters from She-Ra try to entertain the kids with some magic and then… oh another ellipse/pause moment. You know something has to be bad to make me do this ellipse thing and pause so much. I would say *sigh* or something, but the ellipse seems less annoying to me. Anyway it's a song, and the kids clap, but they do so off beat. They just put in a clap sound when the animated kids hands go together, which destroys any bit of rhythm this song might have had. And the kids can't sing, so now my ears are bleeding again. And while this is going on, Orko is dancing and smooching some owl looking thing behind Adora's back. Also, they reuse about 4 second of dancing animation 4 times so that we get 16 seconds of dancing and a full understanding of cheap animating.

OOoooookaaaaay! This got really gay, really quick.

After the song mercifully ends, Hordak shows up in a penis shaped ship and kidnaps the kids and Orko. Why do they need to snatch Orko? No idea! Hordak takes the kids to Etheria, because they have more backgrounds for She-Ra at the moment. The Monstroids show up again and nab Hordak and company. The Monstroids take the kids for reasons I don't understand. They tell Hordak and company to scram, which his minions do, complete with running in place for a second and having that squeaky cartoon running sound. They leave the kids to the Monstroids, and take off.

This is possibly the most disturbing screen cap of them all!

He-Man and She-Ra go see a Vegas showgirl who can see all... or something. I've been watching this closely and I only have a vague idea of what the hell is going on. He-Man and She-Ra with the constant reminders that they're brother and sister go to save the day. The Manchines then show up and release Orko and the kids from the clutches of the baddies. They all then get on some kind of anthropomorphic car which takes them away from the monstroids for about 3 seconds before they get caught.

Or possibly a penis shaped helicopter is more disturbing.

She-Ra and He-Man then shot up, remind everyone that they're brother and sister, and begin the pwning we've been wanting to see from the start of this. And then She-Ra's sword becomes a rope? WHAT THE FRICKING HELL? Swords become ropes here? The fighting then really gets going then more of the Manchines show up. There is no explanation why this side if considered good and this other side is bad, beyond one being cuter than the other. There could be lots of social political reasons for this war, but our incestuous brother/sister team just goes with which ever side looks like they could be put on a Burger King cup. Skeletor sneaks in and grabs the kids while no one else was looking and takes off with them.

Um... could you two both stop trying to look up my skirt? It's really creeping me out. As is the talk of being the filling of a twin sandwich.

Skeletor slows the heroes down a bit, but that doesn't help because he has to have a dogfight with Hordak. Skeletor and his quarry crash, which I say makes these kids bad luck charms. They've crashed nearly every ship they've been near. He-Man and She-Ra notice that Skeletor have taken the kids, remind everyone that they're brother and sister so them screwing would be wrong (so… very, very wrong, an yet they want to, you can tell) and go to save the day. Skeletor decides to start the kids on a death march through the snow. The kids however tell him to have mercy because it's Christmas, which is a season or love, caring and joy. They then collapse from exhaustion and frost. Skeletor gives them new coats, and all the sudden they're fine, which proves they weren't doing that bad in the first place.

A car, person, robot, thing. Sometimes satire is useless.

The puppy that the girl took is also cold, but Skeletor tells them to leave him. Skelly feels bad about the puppy and goes to pick it up and save its miserable life. Evidently, Skeletor feels something is coming over him and he doesn't like it. The kids tell him it was nice and he keeps complaining that he's not nice. He then grills them about Christmas, not understanding most the fine details. Skeletor then saves the kids from a snow beast that turns up from nowhere. There are cartoon sound effects and… this thing is going to turn into a Hanna-Barbara cartoon any second now.

Skeletor’s tough guy image just went down the toilet.

Everyone turns up at once in someplace very not wintry and starts arguing about who is going to take the children for the weekend. Very unchristmas like fighting the breaks out, He-Man and She-Ra remind each other that they're siblings and it would be ever so wrong (but oh so right) for them to go down to the river side for a quickie, and with some tongue lapping from the puppy, Skeletor then suddenly starts fighting on the side of right and good. Evidently the Christmas Spirit over took Skeletor and made him want to save the children, which he does. Horde Prime's ship crashes, but instead of giving him a finish blow everyone just sort of takes off and then the twins throw him into space. Skeletor doesn't understand why he saved the day and it's explained that he's feeling the Christmas spirit. He complains that he doesn't want to be good, She-Ra tells him it'll wear off soon and everyone does a 'hands on hips laugh' at old Skelly.

It's sad when one of the participants has an onscreen attack of "I can't believe we're doing this stupid thing!"

So then the party starts and everyone with a model sheet is shoe horned into one big almost entirely unanimated drawing, even the super sexy merslut is brought in for the occasion. They send the kids home, cursing their unlearned names for causing so much trouble. Adam, dressed as Santa walks around for about three seconds before Adora rips off the beard and reminds him that they can never really be together because he's her brother and that's where the show ends. Not good, but mercifully shorter than it could have been.

He's so humiliated, he was the chief bad guy once, now look at him.

OH WAIT! There is a little moral bit at the end too. Adam and Orko admit that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but it's always there even if you don't. They remind the watchers that they will never escape Christmas, that it stalks you at every step and you might as well just give in now. They then talk about presents and decide to end it all in a suicide pact or possibly genocide. Genocide seems more likely.

And so you see Orko, by crushing the unbelievers, we strengthen the power of our god that much more.

I have this idea that this was the first He-Man dvd that was put out there. I could be wrong though. There are a pretty good amount of features considering it's a Christmas Special and they usually get sweet F.A. There's a documentary, a montage of morals and a music video which will scar you for life if you watch it. I suppose this wasn't so bad in '85, but now it's really so lame it hurts. Also, it gives me a pretty good idea where our twisted views about women came from. I mean have you noticed every woman here is not only about 22 (at a maximum), but also stands and dresses like a supermodel at a costume ball? Of course maybe on Eternia and Etheria they have to in order to attract the tiniest bit of attention from the boys, who are giving off an darn powerful gay vibe. No wonder my generation is so confused.

In case you were wondering where guys get their odd ideas about women.

Cartoon Review: The Christmas Orange

2012-12-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Orange (2002/ Bardel Entertainment/ Dir. Ian Freedman)

So here we have something so obscure that I may be the only person who actually bought the DVD. Not only am I the only owner of the DVD in America, I bought it 10 years after the product came out. And I only bought it for a few dollars, on a whim because I'd never heard of it and reviewing things that say "Christmas" on them is a thing I do. So I decided to give it a try. Given the product was only $6, given that it was a one shot for Canadian TV, and given that it was 10 years after it was first broadcast, I wasn't expecting to find a huge amount about the cartoon. It's based on a book, that's what I found out. It's not a bad product, we'll get that out of the way for starters. I'm not sure how good it is though. Let's examine The Christmas Orange...

...yeah.

For starters, this is clearly a production that was animated on computers. I'm not sure how obvious it looks in the screen caps, because I haven't made them yet (Oooo, now you know my process) but in motion it's very obvious. So the animation looks a little cheap as a result, but the art style is charming and delightful, so it matters less. I'm willing to give them a few animation cheats when the drawings themselves look nice. As far as that goes, it's a pretty well produced cartoon, but not stellar. However, the credits tell us that about a half dozen trusts and agencies gave money to the producers, so we can pretty much be sure that this was made on a shoestring. As such, I feel like a cad mentioning that it looks a little cheap. Particularly when the cheapness is covered up with a layer of charm. They worked within the constraints and made a pretty good product.

I will not make a joke about a boy's first orgasm here, that would be base and crude.

The story is a little basic, but it's okay. A kid named Anton Stingley is born on Christmas, and on his 5th birthday works out that there is more going on that day than just his Birthday. Of course, having been made to feel the whole town was celebrating his birthday all those years gave the kid a pretty strong sense of entitlement. Upon learning that he was only getting gifts half as often as everyone else, he decides to work up and epic 65 page Christmas list. When he wakes up on Christmas Morning, Anton (now age 6) finds only an orange. So he decides to sue Santa.

Alas poor Yorick!

There you have, more or less, the basic plot and the first problem. OF COURSE the modern holiday story is going to involve a court case, because we've all grown so much more litigious these days. Only, we haven't. What we actually have these days is groups pushing the law to its very limits and people using the law to make sure that those groups don't go over the limit. We're actually less litigious than we were 100 years ago, it's just different people have access to lawyers about different things, but no one wants to hear that. They only want to hear that lawyers have made the country sue-crazy, even if it isn't true. So yeah, playing up a story that would have felt relevant in 1995 maybe? When the media hype about the sue-crazy culture was at its peak? Maybe. Now? Feels dated before the digital ink on the non-existent cel is dry.

Any lawyers reading this, do you get spotlights in the courtroom?

Without getting into it, the court case is just a time waster. Santa is being accused of a breach of contract (despite a list of requests not actually being a contract) and everyone kind of turns on him because they all had at least one instance where Santa disappointed them with a gift that didn't turn out so well. Santa sadly drops his head and walks away, admitting defeat and announcing his retirement. Of course, at this point the whole town turns on Anton, blaming him for everything. Fickle town this. And may I say, heavy thing to lay on a kid. I kind of hate the town of Bleeksville for this, but whatev.

I think in Law and Order this is where we'd hear the "Chung Chung!" sound.

So during the trial, it came out that Anton had 1806 toys that he'd never even taken out of the packaging. This made him a lavished upon 6 year old, and meant he was being an entitled brat. However, at this point in the narrative, it means that he has one gift for each person in town. He then proceeds to hand out all the gifts because... CHRISTMAS! Quite frankly, this feels more like a checklist of ideas to me than a coherent story. He's learning the true meaning of Christmas and stuff, but it doesn't really do or say very much. It feels like it's to no end, because everyone else in town is going to be a douche sucker anyway, why bother? Why not just burn down the town and shoot anyone who manages to escape? For one little boy? No one else learns anything, and they're all in need of a lesson. Anyway! Anton meets an old man at the end of his personal journey, and says he gave away everything but the orange, he then gives the old man the orange and while I know I make this joke a lot... The orange then starts to sparkle, the music swells and he turns into Santacus Prime.

You thought I was joking?

Santa and Anton then fly off into the night, delivering oranges to everyone in Bleeksville and... that's the end really. It just sort of drops off at that point and ends. Syd liked it, I feel more ambivalent. On one hand, it wasn't actually offensive, but it didn't really say much either. The legal angle was tired before this thing hit the screens, and the writer had almost no understanding of how law worked anyway. However, they didn't actually beat you over the head with the message, and the art style was nice. I can't recommend this too highly, but I won't say it was actually bad either. You might want to watch it if you hang out at my house sometime.

Official Score:
11 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

Cartoon Review: The Fat Albert Christmas Special

2012-12-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977/ Filmation/ Dir.Hal Sutherland)

Doing holiday specials is a tough gig. Quite often, they're produced as a fast buck idea. Something to throw at the screen during December, and if possible, break up the McDonald's Commercials a little. Most the specials I have seen, and I've seen WAY more than I should, fit into this category. Particularly existing properties, like the Smurfs or He-Man, fit this mold.

...

You know what? We're not going to mention another holiday special for the rest of this review. I'm going to show my hand early and just say it. This is good. I don't want to taint that by comparing it to something less good. If it's really good, it should be able to stand up on its own without putting something else down. And I think this is good, and I think it goes beyond a cynical cash grab, and I think it might really be worth your while.

Stately Wayne Mannor

To start with though, how does a show like Fat Albert even get made? Well, there was a brief flirtation with black culture in the 70s, and another one in the 90s. The 70s one was focused on city dwelling. You suddenly got shows like Good Times, and The Jeffersons. It wasn't a perfect situation, but it gave some strides for a while. Fat Albert was part of that, but with a difference. Fat Albert taught a lesson every episode, and it had educational advisors, and it was the herald of a new kind of kids show... or was supposed to be. Basically, it just became a sort of template for He-Man and the idea of a non-white on that show sent shudders down people's spines. When it was on though, it was a good show. The animation could be a little rough at times, but it at least had heart. I may be talking through nostalgia/the special I just watched. Let's talk about that shall we?

Every girl's crazy for a Sharp! Dressed! Man!

So... there's a laugh track on this cartoon, that's distracting. At least it should be, actually it only jumped out at me once or twice and then I got over it. Okay, there's a laugh track, and I've dealt with it. It also contains characters that even at the time of transmission were becoming anachronistic stereotypes. The styles and fashions were set in stone in 1972, and it was now 1977 and people just didn't dress like Rudy anymore. Once you get over that though, and allow the whole thing to be a warm blanket of "Old Stuff" and actually get down to the story, it's actually pretty good. The only thing is that there are elements that will blindside you if you're not careful. It's not that it gets really deep, because there isn't time for that, but it does get heavy.

We would like to talk to you about the Church of the Forgiving Hand...

There are three main stories going on in here. The first is a simple tale in which the gang's clubhouse is threatened, the second is a family doing the whole Nativity Re-Enactment bit and the third is... we'll get to the third because it's the one that smacked me in the side of the head. The boys are rehearsing a nativity play they intend to put on for their families. The rehearsals are interrupted by Mister Tyrone, who looks like a black Ebenezer Scrooge. Now, his outfit might strike some as a bit silly, but I grew up near Detroit. Elderly black men dressed like this man is dressed, right down to the top hat, well into the middle 80s. Tyrone owns the junk yard where the gang has their clubhouse. Said clubhouse is about ten feet by eleven feet on the outside, but contains a grand ballroom and a 700 seat theater inside. Fat Albert is a Time Lord because he's got himself a TARDIS!

Wow, she got Betty Davis eyes.

After hearing that Mister Tyrone intends to destroy their clubhouse, the second story shows up. A little kid named Marshal comes to the club house and in an exposition dump, explains that his mother is about to have a baby, that the job his father came to town to get fell through, and that they have nowhere to stay. Fat Albert welcomes the family into the clubhouse, sends the father and Bill off to get help at the hospital, and goes to talk Mister Tyrone into not destroying the clubhouse. Tyrone agrees, provisionally, not to destroy the clubhouse if Fat Albert stands outside his shop in a Santa suit and gives out small gifts to lure in customers. During this time, Bill and the father get told that they have to go to the City Hospital because of a lack of insurance. Seems that the City Hospital is on the other side of town, and if your job didn't happen to be there after you moved your family, then you're screwed. This was in the days before the laws that said emergency cases like this had to be taken. These days, the baby would be born in a hospital and the family would just have to worry about the fees later.

Saddest! Santa! Ever!

During this time, the gang finds Fat Albert working outside Tyrone's and angrily confronts him. Upon hearing that Fat Albert is handing out free stuff, the gang descends on the table in a miniature riot. Tyrone finds them and blames Fat Albert for the kerfuffle, firing him and declaring he's going to tear down the clubhouse as soon as he can get a bulldozer up to the place. It's at this point that Mudfoot Brown (The old man the kids know) shows up and starts to give Tyrone hell. Even Fat Albert tries to defend Tyrone for a moment, mentioning that he misses his wife who died. Mudfoot starts to tear into Tyrone, who tries to walk away but is yanked back. Mudfoot starts to his Tyrone hard about his behavior saying "What do you hink Martha would say, if she could see you now?" To which Tyrone replies "Life hasn't been worth much since she's been gone." And unmoved, still righteous with anger and needing to hammer the point home Mudfoot responds with "No. You haven't been worth much since she's been gone. You only got one chance left." and... this is still a kid's cartoon right? I mean, we just looked into the heart of an angry old coot and found a man whose life was shattered by the passing of the only person that made it worth anything. If they show could have been longer, I would like to have seen a little more of this story. One more scene with him looking over pictures of the good times or something. Sadly, time restrains us.

So what do you think? Do you think God stopped the bullets?

The gang reunites with Bill, and they discover that the baby won't wait. Rudy and Dumb Donald (what ARE these names?) go to get the doctor while the rest of the gang goes to the clubhouse. Now during this time, Marshal has been on his own and finds a starving puppy that he literally throws a bone. When he and the dog comes to the door of the clubhouse, he over hears his father complaining that he doesn't know how they'll make it with another mouth too feed. He goes on to say that he can't even make enough to feed Marshal. Marshal hears this and decides to cut out, to spare his parents the extra pain of having to feed him. He doesn't tell anyone, he just sort of fades into the snowy night. That's a complex bit of selflessness, one that anybody who grew up in a struggling family can understand. Again, this is a heavy bit of emotion for a kid's show. Marshal continues on his journey, and is found by the gang, who then try to convince him that his parents would be poorer without him than with him. Sadly, they lose him again when he slips away, leaving them in no better circumstances than they were before.

Okay, I can TOTALLY explain this.

When they get back to the clubhouse, they find that the baby has been born, but that Marshal is still missing. Tyrone then bangs on the door, which leads everyone to assume that this is indeed the end. Russell grabs Tyrone's leg and begs him not to destroy the clubhouse or at least not to send the baby out into the cold. What they don't know, but I think we do, is that Mister Tyrone has suffered a transformation. Mudfoot opened the Autobot Matrix of Tyrone's heart and he had become Tyronus Prime, so cue Stan Bush. Tyrone announces that A) He'll get the family to the hospital in his car, B) He has connections that could get Marshal's father a job and a place to stay, and C) He would never dream of tearing down this little baby's historic birthplace. Yes my dears, Cthwalkkan* can be saved!
*Cthwalkkan is a Welsh solstice festival from the 6th Century BC that was abandoned when even the Welsh agreed that it was a stupid name.

I have gazed in to the Palantír Mithrandir and seen our destruction.

And that's just where it ends. Tyrone looks up and asks "How am I doing Martha?" and we get the exterior shot of the clubhouse in its junkyard. I'm going to say it, this is far better than it has any right to be. It should be a cynical cash in, but it's not. There are some heavy themes, and for the most part they're dealt with fairly well. If I have a complaint, it's that the whole thing goes by a little too quickly. They should have been afforded an hour, but they were clearly subject to the whims of the network. That's okay though, it works well enough. I can deal with this, it's well thought out and doesn't just appeal to a sense of stupid nostalgia wrapped up in shiny paper. So many of the holiday things I've reviewed make no sense when thought about logically, but this one holds up pretty well.

Official Score:
71 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

Yeah, I got nothing left.

Cartoon Review: The Snowman

2012-12-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

The Snowman (1982/ TVC London/ Dir. Dianne Jackson)

This is a cartoon for which I have no nostalgia. I only saw it for the first time last year and was so exhausted that I fell asleep during part of it. If I can offer an untainted perspective on any holiday movie, this HAS to be it. I only bought it because it has a tremendous reputation. The fact that it came on a DVD with The Nuttiest Nutcracker had nothing to do with it. I still haven't watched that second feature, mainly because I watched the trailer. But we're talking about something that I've been told by English and Canadians is the height of their VEWPRF season. So I bought it and watched it, and now I shall write my review of that movie. How did I think it help up? You'll have to wait and see...

Cute kid.

Many of you know that I have an unquestioning love of any animated program that moves beyond the polished look of paint and cel. As this movie is animated with colored pencils or crayons on what I assume is paper, I already loved it before the thing really got underway. Quick check says it was on celluloid, so they were on cel, but with crayons so that helps. I don't much care if the story is good or not, I love this thing and will hold it to my bosom. The fact that there is no voice acting is an interesting choice as well. Technically, there is one line in the opening of the film explaining that this is a childhood memory, but that can be ignored. The film itself only exists in pantomime. Evidently, the book is also just a series of drawings, so that makes it a nice touch.

Least specific TV program. Like... ever.

I'm not going to recount the movie for you, because this isn't that kind of review. You're grown-ups, and you can find it on youtube, or buy the darn thing. It only costs a couple of bucks and it's not worth my time describing every moment of the cartoon. There isn't a lot of insanity to talk about here, and there isn't anything for me to talk smack about. At the very worst, this cartoon is inoffensive and dull. At it's very best, this is a charming and delightful fantasy cartoon about the magic of the holidays and stuff. However, I can't go on record saying that I love it as much as many of you might love it.

BUNNIES!

Here is the bad, so we can get it out of the way. It's kind of boring. The events feel a bit padded, and while none of them on their own are problematic, when taken as a whole it feels like it goes on just a bit too long. And, I'm just gonna say it, what the hell is Santa doing in this movie? Talk about coming on for a paycheck. He's not really needed and doesn't add much to the experience for me. Minor complaints? Yes, you're right. However, I haz dem. The movie doesn't work as an unquestioned masterpiece for me, and there it is.

Um, I can't help but notice the ground has gone away.

Now! Having said that, let's talk about the good. I've already touched on the animation, which is delightful, but I want to talk a little more. The aerial scenes are fantastic. Every time the camera flies over something, you feel like you're actually flying over it. The scenes with the motorcycle contain some nature scenes of heart wrenching beauty. When the two begin flying, I forgive everything animation has ever done to me. I forgive The Smurfs, I forgive Charlie Brown, I even forgive Twas the Night Before Christmas. This little section makes everything I've been through worth it. If this exists, then I will allow all the things that hurt me to exist as well. This is my reward for all those bad cartoons.

Nah! No one will ever see the radiation, we can drop the nuke.

That being said, the song "Walking in the Air" is a bit on the nose. It's one of those describing what's happening on screen sort of things like in Black Dynamite. Yeah, didn't think I could link these two products, did you? You owe me five bucks. The music is beautiful enough that I rushed out to Amazon and bought the soundtrack the night I watched this for the first time. As much as I teased Walking in The Air a moment ago, I genuinely think it's a truly beautiful song. The rest of the music works very well with the rest of the production and I find it to be one of those products that comes close enough to perfection for me to give it a pass on the things that don't work. I won't discuss the ending, because you need to decide about that one for yourself.

Official Score:
70 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

Yes, let's just leave with that image.

Cartoon Review: The Smurfs Christmas Special

2012-11-26T18:27:00.000-08:00

The Smurfs Christmas Special (1982/ Hanna-Barbera/ Dir. Gerald Baldwin)

It wasn't supposed to be like this. My first holiday special review in two years... it was supposed to be a momentous occasion. It should have been filled with joy, and laughter, not this. I said some time ago that I was sort of done with reviews that only amounted to complaints. I mean... look, The Avengers happened and we're liking things because we like them again, not because we hate them and want to imagine we're superior to them. I want you to know, I started this with the purest of intentions. Sadly The Smurfs Christmas Special did not hold up.

There is no way to properly summarize this, no way to discuss it on its merits, or play on the themes. Mostly, because I have no idea what happened. The best I can hope for is a synopsis, going down the line point by point. Maybe, together, we can reach and understanding. Just remember the mantra "I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks!"

Oh hell, this is as good a cap as anything.

Okay, so, for starters? I suddenly realized how much our generation must have tortured our parents. That "La, la, la" song they sing is INTENSELY irritating. I never noticed before, but sweet monkey jesus, that is an annoying song. The Smurfs are decorating for Christmas, and one Smurf is trying to get everyone to listen to him play the trumpet. No one wants to listen because they're all doing something else and are too busy to listen to him. He's probably got a name like Harmony, but I'm going to call him Jazzy Smurf. No one cares about his music, I assume they'll all get told about how Christmas is a time for music or some crap, but it's a terrible sound he's making. This is really bad sounding. Also, if I might say... the animation is terrible. You can see where they just dragged a cell with a drawing across the frame. You can see the edge of the cell as it's dragged along. That's not the only part of the animation that's bad, but it's the most notable. This whole thing feels rushed.

NEW BACKGROUND!

Another thing that feels rushed is the so called story. After two minutes with the Smurfs, we go to a pair of humans that are called... Thing 1 and Thing 2. You don't care, they're non-entities. They hear about Santa for a moment, and won't THAT come back into play later? Oh and Gargamel is in this thing. His castle is covered in snow, which is interesting. These specials that have established shows always interest me because at ANY other time they would be the exact same drawing. Because it's Christmas (nominally) we get a land covered in snow. Suddenly, new establishing shots that you'll never see again! Gargamel isn't on screen long, just enough to establish that he's in this thing. And then we get, I have no idea who this guy is. He's a baddie, he's got some wolves, he's a thing. Who is he? I have no idea, and I've watched this thing to the end like three times now. Still have no idea what happened. Reading over my review, it sounds more coherent in written form than it does on the screen.

Please don't beat me.

Now we go back to the Smurf Village and for a moment it looks like there will be some drama. It turns out Smurf Blackstock ate the Last Walnut and as such the Smurf Pudding cannot be completed. CAN CHRISTMAS BE SAVED? Well, yes, yes it can. There was never any problem, we'll just pop down to the Piggly Wiggly and get another one. Yeah, Poppa Smurf decides to go ask a squirrel for a loaner and comes back in two minutes. Good thing he got that together, there was ALMOST some drama for a second. He's only gone long enough for a scene with G-Mel trying to make a potion to pass. The potion is pointless, because it doesn't work. The squirrel gives them the walnut, and the pudding can be completed. Well... that was almost dramatic for like 3 seconds. Well, there is the sled accident. Yeah, there is a sled accident and that's a cause for drama right? That won't be sorted in like 15 seconds will it?

Meanwhile, at Stately Wayne Manner

Thing 1 and Thing 2 get lost in the snow because their sled over turned and now Grandpa won't open his eyes. Well, this got dark quick. Killed grandpa already did we? Good God Damn and other such phrases, we have achieved murder! Awesome. Gargamel declines to help them and we get a 30 second bit with their uncle complaining about how they're not around. He also mentions that Grandpa ain't dead, which is sad. He's never seen on screen again, so he WAS dead, but they changed it by adding a line so as not to scare anyone. Then 2 seconds of the Smurfs walking through the forest singing their "La, La, La" song. No, not kidding. Just two seconds of them walking. Just long enough to get "La, La, La, la, la, la." out and then it's back to Gargamel who gets visited by... Evil Prince. Not kidding, it looks like they drew Prince and made him evil. Right down to the little red corvette he drives up in and everything. There is no little red corvette in this show. That would have been interesting though.

Under this hood, I am totally wearing a Raspberry Beret.

This character has no name. He has no back story, no motivation, all we know is that he's a bad guy and he wants to kill the kids because their uncle is a do-gooder who keeps getting in the way of his evil schemes. I am in no way joking when I tell you that this is all you get. The guy makes Gargamel look like a small time twerp, and is super-evil, but we know nothing else. He tells G-Mel to get the kids for him, and then vanishes. Then the uncle and G-Mel meet and there is some gibberish about 10 gold coins, but I'm not going into it because I really don't want another dangling plot thread when we're only 10 minutes in. Okay, if he finds the kids, the Uncle will give him 10 gold coins so he decides to double cross Evil Prince and turn the kids over and then there are wolves and commercial break, but as I haven't been kidnapped by Ninjas, then you can't force me to review a commercial so there! HA! That is how you do a run-on sentence kids.

SIT your five dollar ass down, before I make change.

When we come back from commercial, Thing 1 is singing Silent Night while the wolves close in. While people say that music sooths the savage beast, in reality this is a tragic tale of why you shouldn't sit around singing Christmas Carols while wolves are about to munch on your guts. Now I would like to report that Thing 1 and Thing 2 got eaten and we can leave that plot line like all the other abandoned plot threads this thing has turned up so far. Sadly, this is the one they're actually gonna go with. So the wolves are about to eat the kids and then... oh how I wish Optimus Prime would roll out to the sound of Stan Bush and put an end to all these wolves. "The wolves must be stopped, no matter the cost." Something! Anything. Look Optimus Prime took out most the Decepticons in 20 seconds! He could take these wolves. Also, how awesome would that be? The Smurfs team up with the Autobots to take out Hordak once and for all? WOOOO! YEAH! 80S!!!!!

G-Mel is dreaming of my special.

Think about it, how cool would that be? Even if it's gotta be Poppa Smurf, let him come flying in with a pair of nun chucks, screaming the ancient Battle Cry of the Smurfs. Brainy standing behind him saying "Poppa Smurf says the path of the righteous man in beset on all sides by the evil man and Poppa Smurf says you will know my name is the lord!" and Smurfette comes flying in with a Xena yell and a leather mini skirt... HOW AWESOME IS THE SPECIAL IN MY HEAD?! I can't even begin to tell you how the special in my head turns out after Duke turns up and punches Cobra Commander. No, not that Duke, I mean of course THIS Duke. I have a fantastically twisted cartoon in my head m'loves. You'd rather watch mine, with all it's twists and double crosses. The sex scene between Snake-Eyes and Prince Adam Alone would be worth it. Because friends, all you get is Poppa Smurf running up and saying "No! No! These are our friends." and the wolves are all like "Oh snap Poppa Smurf. We didn't know they was with you. My bad." AND THAT'S IT! They listen to the kids' story about... oh crap that's right.

He does have a red hat, and a white beard, and a thing for children.

The kids think Poppa Smurf is Santa Claus. Everyone else calls him Poppa Smurf, he never claims to be Santa, but the kids think he is. These kids are just plain stupid. Now, while they've got all this going on, and the kids are scared and alone, the Smurfs give them all the presents in Smurf Village. Why? No idea. Thing 1 wants to open all the presents and then... and then... there are no words to describe this song and all evidence of it has been scrubbed from the internet. The song goes like this... Goodness makes the badness go away. Goodness makes you happy every day. Badness cannot start, if there's goodness in your heart. Goodness makes the badness go away. and then it's just repeated, over and over and over. The children 'sing' the song with the Smurfs because goodness makes the badness go away. And then, in direct contradiction to the song, G-Mel catches the kids.

So yeah, where's your god now?

Evil Prince turns back up, and takes the kids from G-Mel. It is entirely possible that Evil Prince is actually Hoard Prime, I'm just saying. Evil Prince gives G-Mel a map to the Smurf Village, with a magic spell to allow him to destroy the village. He says the spell and turns the village to a smudge mark on the forest. He then tries to sell Evil Prince out to the Uncle, but is found out by Evil Prince less than 10 seconds after telling the Uncle where he is. So why couldn't the Uncle see him and the kids coming? Why couldn't the kids yell? Does goodness really make the badness go away? What about Scarecrow's Brain? And why has Evil Prince been drawn a different way every time he's turned up? Seriously, he's drawn slightly differently, with different facial hair and head shape every time.

Make your own Johnny Cash joke here!

Anyway, Evil Prince makes a burning ring of fire. He goes down, down, down and the flames a getting higher. Then Evil Prince's face changes again and the ring of fire is burning and there is evil and Poppa Smurf says the only way to win the day is the mount a full frontal assault... of love. And then? Evil Prince says he's a Sexy MF and that burns the fire brighter. Then Skeletor saves the kids and says he doesn't want to feel good, and Charlie Brown gets his tree. Then they sing Goodness Makes the Badness Go Away, getting the kids and even G-Mel to sing at which point Evil Prince vanishes. Yeah, he just fades out. It's as if he has been caused to cease existing out of sheer embarrassment. It doesn't even begin to make sense, I am... I mean... OKAY! Let's review...

There was a Smurf who was going to perform a solo...
...
...
...uuuh
...
And then goodness makes the badness go away. It wasn't supposed to be this way, it was supposed to be a nice trip down memory lane. Skipping down the Christmas, with some hot cocoa wait for us at the end. Instead, I can't escape the Death March. We're not gonna make it. We are the fell servants of the retail beast, and The Emerald Partition holds us in its dark thrall. There is no escape, we shall all be eaten. Game over man, game over! Where, if I may ask, is your Camo Ninja now?

I'm right here baby!

CAMO NINJA! YOU CAME! Holy crap, Camo Ninja, am I glad to see you! It was horrible, there was a special that made no sense, and plot threads went nowhere, and the villain kept being off model, and Brainy Smurf was all "Poppa Smurf has been chewed out before" and... and... and... it was awful!

The hell? Why is he glowing?

This is one of the least coherent twenty minutes I have ever sat through. The kids claim Santa saved the day, but the Smurfs village is still screwed. Every house has been destroyed and Poppa Smurf reminds them all, as they freeze to death in the snow, that they have no presents, pudding or tree before remembering that their warm beds are also gone. Priorities! Poppa Smurf haz dem. So what do you suppose happens then? Jazzy Smurf and the Fresh Smurf play the smurfing solo and then he glows and that makes everything smurfalicious and even brings back the smurfing village because of the Smurf of Smurf or some smurfing smurf. How does it happen? NO IDEA! No, that's cannon. Even Poppa Smurf says "I dunno, shit happens, ya know?" This thing was utterly and completely... I have no idea what I just watched for the third smurfing time. In a way, I'm glad there is no message, we got a lot of messages in the early 80s. To be honest, lots of them were really shoe horned into the narrative and made little to no sense, and this thing already made little to no sense on its own. There wasn't really much of a story, the characters were empty ciphers and... and... And goodness makes the badness go away. I am completely baffled, and my head hurts, and I want the badness to go away. Send some goodness.

Official Score:
-15 Degrees on the Graffiti Bridge Scale.

You gots some 'splainin' to do!

Skyfall Review (In Bullet Point Form!)

2012-11-21T16:13:00.002-08:00

Short Version: I liked it, but with some reservations.

1. It feels like this movie was written for Brosnan. Or at least, like they started with a Brosnan script. Not in a bad way, not necessarily, but it feels sort of early in Craig's run for people to be accusing him of being too old for this shit. Also, ALL the computer talk is straight out of 1999.

2. It's interesting that in 22 minutes they told more of Bond's backstory than they did in 22 movies. As a result, Bond feels more like a complete character than he ever has before.

3. I was apprehensive about the inclusion of Q, however I was willing to see what they'd do. Bond and Q - together, they fight crime. He's a near perfect foil for this Bond, and the fact that Syd and I spent 10 minutes talking about his little "Q" mug proves they did something right.

4. The CGI Komodo Dragon was jarring and distracting, as was the CGI breath. I think because that was the only CGI in the movie, it really stood out.

5. Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Superman, Luke Skywalker, Black Dynamite, James Bond... anyone here NOT an orphan?

6. At one point, six to eight ~~blackmen~~ terrorists in black leather carrying machine guns come to a house in Scotland to fight a blue eyed hero and I turned to Syd and said "This just turned into a Jack Higgins Novel" and then it turned into Home Alone.

7. Bond didn't go into any kind of Gay Panic, instead he goes with it. I liked that. I'm not sure how to interpret his comment, but I don't think it matters. Either he's cool enough to play the guy, or he has played both sides of the field at one time or another. I don't much care, they both work for me.

8. Can just ONE bond girl live in one of Craig's movies? It was interesting the first two movies, but Bond's dick is clearly the Harbinger of Doom. 20 minutes after getting funky with Bond, you die. It's like The Ring or some shit.

Some Spoilers now follow...

9. I dug that this was personal for the baddie. Stealing water, or having a laser gun in space are fine things for a baddie to do, however it was nice to have the whole thing be about revenge this time.

10. Bond has a hard time getting back into shape after his near death experience. That gave the film far more depth than I had expected.

11. It was a little too reliant on tropes from Nolan's Batman movies. Someone, I forget who, said it was a Bond remake of The Dark Knight. I can't say about that, but I recognize the tropes.

And the biggest Spoiler of All...

12. Why kill M? Wouldn't it have been even more interesting to say "You can kill all the bad guys, and save the day and solve the case, but we're still replacing you" because that's what was going to happen with this movie. She was over. If she lived, it would have come out that Silva was basically her creation. Politically, she was toast. The situation could have saved MI6, but M was burned. It would have been more interesting to me to see her live and face the forced retirement. However, I think Writer Reasons got in the way. They had to break with Judy Dench, so they killed her character.

Grump!

2012-11-16T11:11:00.001-08:00

Holy Crab Cakes! I've not written a review for this month. Remember when I did them once a week? Yeah, me either. Work ate my life, and one day we'll have a discussion about depression when mixed with ADD. Enough of that though, allow us to discuss the subject of today's review. As I've said before, Thanksgiving is tough for a reviewer. There aren't many things out there because Thanksgiving is only a set holiday in America and Canada. As a result, you can't ship the special to Europe like you can with Christmas, so there is less value in producing it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating in this, let me tell you that the last time I was in France, half the shows on the tube were American. Our chief export to the world is cultural and no one wants to hurt their potential market. As a result, I've either reviewed all the Thanksgiving fare worth reviewing, or I can't get screen caps because my dvd player and the Simpson's Season 2 discs aren't getting along. So I'm kind of at loose ends now.

In the past, I would have suggested a raft or two of films you could watch when you had the four day weekend, but I feel like I've shot my bolt on that one too. If I'm going to give you movies to watch, I'm going to give you a real essentials list that will inform and educate while entertaining you. I don't really want to do counter programming right now, because I'm not in that mood. I don't know what to do and time is running out.

I could finally unleash some of my more bizarre fan theories at you, like how Interview With the Vampire and The Big Lebowski are essentially the same story told in different ways or how Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a remake of The Wizard of Oz. I've got one that states that all the slasher movies from the 80s are in the same universe as Hostel and that they moved from providing an avenue for spree killers and adjusted as the market moved to give a place for torturers as well. There is even the really crazy one I have that says the entire James Bond series from Connery to Brosnan was the career of one guy and it's an unbroken continuity.

What I'm saying is "Give me a minute" because this is going to take a little while.

Wreck it Ralph Review - In Bullet Point Form!

2012-11-09T21:02:00.003-08:00

I liked Wreck-It Ralph, let's talk a little.

1. I thought the opening short was too good. I thought it might diminish the feature. It didn't, but it was an utterly charming little bit of animation.

2. Going to have to buy this on DVD so I can catch all the little jokes and references they threw in.

3. "She has the most tragic backstory of all time." That line killed.

4. They did their homework. Even if the people who worked on this are all about my age and as such are gamers from when I was gaming, they did their home work. There are a lot of gags, references, and an overall understanding of how video games work here. These guys knew what they were doing.

5. Most the jokes were funny, most the characters were interesting, most the story works really well.

6. Some of the characters move like their video game counter parts would move. They have no middle animation they just go from their hands out, to their hands raised, just like 8-bit.

7. The one human gamer we really see was a girl... BUT GIRLS DON'T GAME! my mind=blown!

Now, below there will be spoilers.

8. The main villain was a surprise to me, but it shouldn't have been. I mean, he was only telegraphed from the first 5 minutes of the movie.

9. The romance didn't surprise me, but I liked it.

10. I liked that they only really visit 3 games for the main plot. More than that, and I think it would have devolved into joke-game fan service. One racer, one first person shooter and one retro game, that's enough.