Sometimes, the greatest movie is the one in your mind...

Over the holiday break, I saw three movies in three days: The King's Speech, Black Swan, and True Grit. All were excellent and highly recommended, though The King's Speech is my pick of the year.

I went to True Grit with Mom, and one of the preceding trailers started with the Houston contacting Apollo 11 on the moon just before a period of radio silence. Cut off from earth, the astronauts explore and then come across... AN ALIEN SPACESHIP.

Me: (to Mom) Holy crap, is this going to be Neil Armstrong fighting aliens!?? That is the coolest thing I have ever heard of! It'll be Apollo 11 crew being all badass and how they saved earth but there was a government cover-up! And they can get the astronauts to star as themselves in bookends! This is going to be the most amazing movie ever!!

Trailer Titles: FROM DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY

Me: (Crushing disappointment) Aw, piss!

Then a goddamned robot shows up.

Me: (to Mom) Aw, man, it's Transformers.

Trailer Titles: TRANSFORMERS

Me: >:(

Trailer Titles: THE DARK OF THE MOON

Me: I hate you, Michael Bay.

Best part of Waking Sleeping Beauty, or: Who's that mopey guy?

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a documentary about the "Disney Renaissance," where starting with The Little Mermaid, the animation studio had a great comeback in artistic, critical, and boxoffice responses. Well, being a documentary on animation, especially hitting with the nostalgic stuff from my childhood, this is basically a movie made specifically for me. It's very well made and while it stops in 1995 and doesn't explore the post-Lion King studio closings and all the flops and CGI misfires, it delves deeply into the tense rivalry between Michael Eisner, Roy E. Disney (Walt's nephew), and Jeffery Katzenberg (who would go on to co-found Dreamworks). Pretty surprising since it was produced by Disney and released by them.

It's also very revealing about lyricist Howard Ashman's contributions to the movies he worked on. It may just be the directors and interviewees fondness for him affecting their memories, but it really seems as though he was the key auteur behind Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast. The segment of the documentary focusing on his death from AIDS before the release of Beauty & the Beast is incredibly moving.

However, the greatest part of the film features archived video of somebody going around the studios and taping the animators goofing about (the guy behind the camera turns out to be John Lasseter). Then they come across this one guy all alone in his office working at his desk. He looks at the camera unamused, like he's spent the last two night in his office, hasn't had his coffee yet, and really wants the camera out of his face. Like that creepy, unsociable kid at college who's spent the last twelve hours on World of Warcraft and really just wants you to leave him alone.

It's Tim Burton.

P.S. If you watch the trailer in the link, you might think that Beauty & the Beast won Best Film at the Oscars. While it was nominated and won in several other categories, it lost... to The Silence of the Lambs.

Mwahahahaha.

It's Storytime! (featuring Baum's Ozma of Oz)

Hello children, today our story is from Frank L. Baum's third Oz book, Ozma of Oz. When we last left Dorothy, she had just been reunited with her friends the Scarecrow and the Tinman, as well as just meeting Princess Ozma for the very first time. We now find her looking for her newest friend, Billina the chicken.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin:

Without waiting to hear more Dorothy ran to get Billina, and just outside the door she came upon the Cowardly Lion, still hitched to the chariot beside the great Tiger. The Cowardly Lion had a big bow of blue ribbon fastened to the long hair between his ears, and the Tiger wore a bow of red ribbon on his tail, just in front of the bushy end.

In an instant Dorothy was hugging the huge Lion joyfully.

"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried.

"I am also glad to see you, Dorothy," said the Lion. "We've had some fine adventures together, haven't we?"

"Yes, indeed," she replied. "How are you?"

"As cowardly as ever," the beast answered in a meek voice. "Every little thing scares me and makes my heart beat fast. But let me introduce to you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger."

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.

"Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.

"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked.

"It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

"Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating."

"But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies."

"How dreadful!" said Dorothy.

"Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No, hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."

"I think you are a very good tiger," said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.

"In that you are mistaken," was the reply. "I am a good beast, perhaps, but a disgracefully bad tiger. For it is the nature of tigers to be cruel and ferocious, and in refusing to eat harmless living creatures I am acting as no good tiger has ever before acted. That is why I left the forest and joined my friend the Cowardly Lion."

"But the Lion is not really cowardly," said Dorothy. "I have seen him act as bravely as can be."

"All a mistake, my dear," protested the Lion gravely. "To others I may have seemed brave, at times, but I have never been in any danger that I was not afraid."

"Nor I," said Dorothy, truthfully. "But I must go and set free Billina, and then I will see you again."

-From Chapter 8, titled "The Hungry Tiger"

Sam can't have any cupcakes!

Despite being a fan of the gloriously trashy, over-sexed vampire soap-opera, TrueBlood, I wasn't interested in the comic based on it. But then I came across this cover of Sam, the shape-shifter:



Dog-Sam is Stains the cupcake-deprived Hypno-Dog!

July Re-cap: Super-short mini reviews

Books

• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley- A book I started in college but quit 3/4 of the way through because I found it too similar to McKinley's other Beauty and the Beast adaptation, Beauty, only longer and boring. Now it's been enough time between reading both of them, and this go around I found this enrapturing, quite slow and meandering, but a wonderful, rich novel.
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman- Listened to an excellent full-cast audio at work. I never read the third book in the trilogy so I decided I should revisit the first two. First read this one when I was 12 and it was mind-blowing. It more than holds up.
• Castle in the Air by Diana Wynn Jones- The Arabian Nights-flavored sequel to Howl's Moving Castle is a delight, very funny and full of whimsy. More reason why Jones is becoming one of my favorite authors.
• White Cat by Holly Black- I normally don't care for Holly Black's YA novels, as her female heroines are normally too mopey and unidentifiable, and they tend to have this pissed-off tone about them. Maybe it's a fluke, or maybe because the protagonist for this one is a boy, but I did like this, and I like the Curse Workers world she's created much more than her hard-assed Faerie world.
• The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson- Brilliant and often heart-wrenching story about a slave in a scientists commune in Revolution-Era Boston.
• Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern- Considering that it's based on Twitter feed, there's not much you can expect from this book, but it's actually a great memoir centering on Halpern's relationship with his ultra-crass father. It also becomes unexpectedly touching, as while his dad may be blunt, he does love the hell out of his family.

Movies

• Inception- Where's my spin-off with Arthur and Eames being ass-holes to each other??!!
• Hamlet- BBC/Royal Shakespeare Company production starring David Tennant, with Patrick Stewart as Claudius and the King's Ghost. As awesome as it sounds.
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox- Re-watched, still delightful. I love Wes Anderson's non sequiturs, though I'm sure most of the best random moments were ad-libbed.
• God of Cookery- <3 Stephen Chow. Best part: Roundhouse kicking that school girl in the face.
• That Hamilton Woman- The British Gone With the Wind with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Apparently Churchill considered it his favorite movie.
• Black Dynamite- "Your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!"
• Dinner for Schmucks- Whatever you're expecting from it, you're gonna get it. Am I the only person in the world who things that the French film this is a remake of is over-rated and pretty mean-spirited?
• Starman-  The closest thing John Carpenter has ever done to a romance film? Of course, it's a romance involving Jeff Bridges as an alien.
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- Was really not expecting to like this, but my first-impression of non-Pixar CG animated films tends to be wrong.
• Les Miserable (1998, Bille August, dir.)- Not very good, but I've been obsessed with Liam Neeson and Claire Danes lately.

Comics

• Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley- Awesome ending to one of my all-time favorite series. Surprisingly, it has a bit of an easier pace than it's manic predecessors, but it's still all the way boss. Can't wait for the movie.
• Fractured Fables, edited by Jim Valentino- not the best fairy tale-themed comic anthology out there, but the hits are pretty fantastic and the art's fantastic. Includes contributions from Jill Thompson (cute murderous sausages!), Terry Moore (disappointing and a little mean spirited), Bryan Talbot (a cool twist on Red Riding Hood).
• Secret Iditities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, & Jerry Ma- A really neat collection of comics that explores Asian Americans in comics and in historical and contemporary social constructs. My personal favorite is Gene Yang and Scottie Young's take on a Kato-like chauffeur who is the real muscles and brains behind a crime fighting duo.
• The Marvelous Land of Oz by Eric Shanower & Scottie Young- I'm not the biggest Oz fan, but I really dig Scottie Young's artwork. I'm also glad that this can expose more people to how messed up the gender-bending ending is!
• Pulse by Brian Michael Bendis, et al.- Got all three volumes on the cheap. Love, love Jessica Jones.
• Okimono Kimono by Mokona- Pretty random little book by one of the women who make up CLAMP. All about Mokona's love for kimono, with designs and tips on wearing them.

Television

• Avatar: The Last Airbender- Finished the entire series and, hoo boy, I can call myself a fan.
• True Blood- This show is out-trashing itself and I'M LOVING IT! (It's funny though that I'm looking forward to a Sam sub-plot while getting annoyed by Jason's storyline; normally it's the other way around.)
• Black Adder III- As wonderful as can be expected from a classic and much-loved BBC series, but I think most American audiences will be shocked to see Hugh Laurie as the ultra-foppish Prince Regent.
• Firefly- Why do I have a feeling that once I'm done with this show I'm going to be ultra-disappointed that they canceled it after only 14 episodes? I mean, I know that it happened over five years ago, but it doesn't mean that I can't still be glummed-out about it.

"You're waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away..."

Inception begins with Leonardo Di Caprio washing up on a beach. He wakes to see two fair-haired children playing in the sand. He is found by some armed men speaking Japanese. These men take him to a wizened old man who asks him if he's there to kill him. The guards display the only thing's Di Caprio was carrying: a gun and a toy top. The old man recognizes the top and starts to spin it... It is not until the very end that a first-time viewer will understand what this really means, an early example of all the complexities Inception holds.

There are so many things this movie gets right, I can only see it becoming one of the Great Movies, one that collectively sticks with us, becoming a part of our cultural make-up and that we always return to. It's a cerebral action movie that's brainy but not pretentious. One aspect of it that many seem to overlook is that it's premise is essentially a reverse heist-picture, where the group has to break in and leave something of great value. It's also a perfect example of using visuals to help enhance the story, not to over-compensate for a shoddy script. The characters are not completely fleshed out, but the actors are so compelling that their subtle character traits and flaws speak volumes. Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, and Cillian Murphy are as excellent as one can expect from them, but Joseph Gordan-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Marion Cotillard are the ones whose performances you remember.

It's a complex storyline, and it's ambiguous (oh, that brilliant final scene!), but not in a purposefully frustrating way a la David Lynch. I'm really excited about all of the theories that are emerging around this film. Many of them are going to be crack-pot ideas, but I've already heard some pretty cool ones: it's all a dream, all of it, from the very beginning, and Mal was right all along; or that it's all a metaphor for film making, Christopher Nolan's 8 1/2.

That said, the film can be left as it is on the surface, and really whether it's an excellent summer blockbuster or an art film, it succeeds as both. Unless something else trumps this, I'm going to call it the quintessential movie of 2010.

Hey, kids! LOL Cats!

First of all, I'm really enjoying the Prince of Power mini-series, having become a real big Amadeus Cho fan recently.

A highlight of issue #3 that dropped last Wednesday answers the question we all come across at time: How do you pacify the raging, lion-headed Egyptian Goddess of Destruction, Sekhmet?



Ah, the soothing, healing power of LOL Cats...

Toy Story and the Wonder of Pathetic Fallacies

It's kind of sad yet kind of appropriate that as I get older the only films that I really anticipate the release of are animated. While we are getting too much Disney and Shrek derivative crap, we are also seeing a lot of highly innovative films being made that are taking chances with the medium. Youtube is giving a lot of exposure (although often in violation of copyright) to animated shorts, a form once restricted to film festivals. Miyazaki and Brad Bird are respected as auteurs. Now, Toy Story 3 is one of the best movies I've seen in years.

Pixar is truly bizarre--no studio should hit all the right notes all the time. When their "worst" films are the charming and enjoyable Cars and A Bug's Life, it's almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop--what if their next film is a disappointment? 

The very first Toy Story came out when I was only 10, and it struck with me as one of these works that molded my developing imagination and tastes. (Don't worry, I would eventually discover that Randy Newman sang the same song over and over.)

Contrary to what most kid franchises would do, the children's ages have not remained static, and Andy is moving out and leaving for college. What is he to do with his secretly-alive toys? Keep them close at hand? Put away his childish things and enter adulthood unburdened? Give them away and cherish the memories? Hmm... maybe this is why I hoard things.

One thing that I had trouble with initially while revisiting the world of Toy Story was trying to figure what the toys' relationship with Andy was supposed to be analogous to in real life. Was it meant to represent childhood friends who grow apart? Parents who most say goodbye to child? Children who must leave home? The faithful to their deity? Then I had to stop myself, realizing that I had to stop over-thinking it in this one instance. In the verisimilitude of this universe, the toys' love for their owner represents just that. It made sense to me as a child, and there's no reason why it shouldn't now.

Pixar is pretty brilliant at keeping the story on a level accessible to children without being saccharine or crass, while also being enjoyable for  adults without any audience pandering pop culture references. Also, in many ways they subscribe to the same school of thought as Maurice Sendak in that they aren't going to gloss over the tough parts of life, giving kids enough credit that they can handle it. That said, Toy Story 3 has plenty of kindertrauma nightmare fuel. There's the red-eyed, screaming cymbal monkey straight out of Stephen King, a baby doll reminiscent of Boo Radley, and Mr. Potato Head using a floppy tortilla as a body. Then there's the increasingly hellish trip to the dump. I am normally critical at how Pixar lines up a series of separate obstacles during their finale, each more dangerous than the last (Finding Nemo is the worst culprit of this). However, the dump scene was brilliantly orchestrated. It was chair-squirmingly intense, and when they reach the Mount Doom incinerator is beyond heart-wrenching. The way such love, compassion, fear, bravery, and acceptance is perfectly conveyed with these characters is beautiful, proving that sometimes the great performances don't have to come from a living thing. The whole sequence is already cemented as one of my favorite cinematic moments.

Yeah, I have faith that if they decide to make more sequels, Pixar won't run the series into the ground. While I would get excited, this was a fantastic way to close the series. Like Andy, I've aged since the previous films, but the stories will stick with me.

Because Disney doesn't make movies for girls?

Hoo boy, this trailer is giving me a lot of conflicting emotions.


Who knows what the finished product is going to be like, but Disney's marketing team is trying to downplay this as a movie about a fairytale princess. I've noticed that over the last decade or so, their trend is that after they have a disappointment with a film, they don't try to learn from their mistakes but rather do something completely different. When Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Home on the Range didn't do well at the boxoffice, while Pixar and Dreamworks were doing fantastic numbers, they didn't pin the problem on bad scripts or unappealing plots--it was because they were traditionally animated. So then they come out with Chicken Little and Bolt, two computer animated film that are very much in the "animals have wacky hi-jinks" mode of Dreamworks and Fox Animation.

So when The Princess and the Frog doesn't do so well, it's not because they alienated a lot of their potential audience with all the racially insensitive crap during its early development. No, it's because it's a traditionally animated film for girls! Let's make our next one computer animated and make it about a dude! Also, calling it "Rapunzel" or even "Rapunzel Untangled" is going to alienate all the boys who want to see it. Let's give it a stupid, confusing title like Tangled.

Despite my grumblings, I'm hesitantly excited, because this movie does look beautiful. I remember drooling over the early Rococo influenced concept art, and the animator's attempts to replicate classic traditional animation is probably going to make this the prettiest computer animated feature-length film ever made. Flynn, the thief who the trailer tells us is the main character, does have some funny lines and Zachary Levi's bravado is going to be great. Plus, Rapunzel looks adorable and that little chameleon buddy is too cute.

Don't disappoint me, Disney! I've put you on notice