First Impressions: Encanto (2021)

 

I think it's fair for me to say I didn't really have high hopes for Encanto. I don't watch trailers, or at least I try not to, so I had no idea what Encanto was going to be like going in, I thought it was going to be another Disney magical adventure flick, another movie that had the elements of Frozen and Tangled and Raya, with some okay songs, cute jokes and animation that looked good on screen, but really needed the Theatre to show it off.

So, I think it is also fair to say that Encanto surprised me, in fact it really surprised me. It surprised me so much, it may actually become my new favourite movie in the Disney animated canon, and honestly, Disney's modern animated movie output has been, well I would not say mediocre, it has been floundering a bit. Frozen was fine, Big Hero 6 was derivative, Zootopia wasn't anything special, Ralph Breaks the Internet was cute, Frozen II was okay and Raya and the Last Dragon and I have a complicated relationship, not that any of those movies were bad, but I can't say I really loved them. I loved Encanto.

What really surprised me was the music, and yeah, it was Lin-Manuel Miranda so it was going to be good, but holy cow I did not expect every song to be fun, memorable and enjoyable. Seriously, think about it, every song in this movie was fantastic, I can't think of any duds, and they didn't have the obvious big pop hit, they didn't have the "Why Should I Worry?" or the "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" or the "Let It Go", each song was just as spectacular as the last and I really want the soundtrack, in fact, if I find it I am totally getting it on vinyl, it's that good.

I was also invested in the characters and their arcs, I won't give away too much, but this story relies on how well written these characters are, how strong they are and how well they work off each other. I don't think I loved an ensemble cast in a Disney movie since... oh jeez, Robin Hood? The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh? Like, every character I either loved immediately, or grew to love and not just like, or tolerate, but full on, "if these characters had a series of shorts I would watch them" love.

One thing I also got to bring up is the animation. Yeah, it looks good, it looks great, the colour palette is lush, vibrant and lively, and when it needs to it can get dark and grey, but there was this one moment towards the end, and all I had to say when I saw it was "That's beautiful", not "That would look better in the theatre", not "That looks nice", full on "That's beautiful", I don't think I've said that about a Disney movie in a long time, really I don't think I've said that about any modern animated movie in a long time.

I mean, what is there not to love about this movie? It looks great, the characters are all fun, it can get very tense and one scene even made me feel the anxiety and tension. The cast was perfect, the music was fantastic, I'm really hoping that when I come back to this movie, my reaction stays the same, because I would hate for this movie to be another Frozen, where the flaws become more apparent the more times you watch it. I really want this movie to be as good as it was on first viewing because it was just so good. Hands down, my favourite Disney movie in a long time, and a definite High Recommendation.

First Impressions: Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021)

 

You know, I completely missed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series when it was big. I dunno, I just never thought the books would appeal to me. To be fair there are a lot of other book series I missed out on when they were big, I didn't read Harry Potter until like, Cursed Child was still brand new or something, and I still have not read The Hunger Games, and I have no plan to. Either way, I'm new to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I never read the books, I never watched the original movies, I've seen a few discussions of it online, but otherwise, I am unfamiliar with this franchise.

So, my initial thought is, am I the only one who is sick of the middle/high school stereotype of "Everyone is either a loser or a bully"? Because I am absolutely sick of it. This may just be because I am a 2000s kid, but my middle and high school experience is very different from the ones that media liked to portray it as. Yeah, I was never the "popular" kid, but I had my own cliques to hang around with, in fact that is kind of what happened, people just stuck around with their own cliques. It was nothing like the way media portrayed it as. Maybe it's an age thing, maybe it's a culture thing, maybe it's both, but I'm just sick of it.

Something else that bugged me was the mouth movement, I guess it was just that I didn't mesh with the style, but something about it just looked wrong. That being said, the rest of the film looks nice enough, very stylized to look like the book designs. Honestly, it makes me wonder if this is Disney's response to Captain Underpants. I mean four years is about standard for an animated project, and from what I'm reading the production of this movie was a little bit hectic, but it would not shock me if Disney kept this project alive because it could potentially be Disney's own Captain Underpants. Sometimes I wonder if Eisner really left the company.

Something else that really bothered me was the voice acting for the mother, it did not sound as high quality as the rest of the cast. It was really distracting, you go from a high quality recording to what sounds like a muffled home recording. Now, I'm unfamiliar with most of this cast, and they don't do too bad of a job in this movie, but something about the mother's audio really distracted me. What else was distracting was the length of the movie, it's not even a full hour long, and yeah I reviewed movies that were shorter, but it still surprised me that this movie was only fifty-eight minutes. Like, two minutes more and you'd get a full hour. With just under an hour, it makes me wonder why they didn't just chop this up and make it a mini-series. I mean, it's already kind of like a mini-series with different segments with their own main plot, it could have worked. Again it could be a production thing, but this should have been a miniseries.

Okay, for the full opinion on this movie, I kind of found it unwatchable. I did not find it that funny, and I did not find it that relatable. I found Greg to be kind of a pain of a character, like he says he wants his position in life to change immediately and I just can't muster up any kind of sympathy. I get that he is supposed to learn and get better, but I didn't want to see him get better, I wanted to get the movie over with quicker. Honestly, that is just a good summary of all my issues with this movie as a whole. It's not funny, not relatable, I hated the lead character, I didn't even think the ending was that satisfying, and a lot of things about it really distracted me from really enjoying it. Maybe I'll give the live-action movies a go someday, and see if they're better.

Isn't that just the worst way to discover a movie? Like, you watch something that you don't like, and like, almost out of spite look up the original stuff just to see if it was better. Like, that's not a good way to be introduced to something even if it ends up being good. Still, I can't recommend this one, maybe if you're a bigger fan of the books you might find something you like, but as for me, watching it just made me upset. So, I don't think this movie is one of the worst I've seen, it's still pretty bad.

Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) - Was it worth all the acclaim?

 

December, 2018, one of the most anticipated movies of all time was released into Theatres. This is rather strange when you consider that this was an animated feature, and a western animated feature at that. Yet, everybody that was into animation was excited for this movie, and everyone loved it. One of the highest rated animated films on Letterboxd, ninety-seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes, eighty-seven on Metacritic, best animated feature at the Academy Awards and African-American Film Critics Association, swept the Annie Awards, best Animated film at the British Academy Film Awards, Best Animated Feature Film Award at the Golden Globes, and so many other awards that it would just be a waste of time to name them all. Fifth highest grossing animated feature of 2018, and forty-seventh highest grossing animated feature of the 2010s. It got recognition and people loved it. Three years later, after all these years, was all of that praise warranted?

Miles Morales is a normal everyday kid, he's at a school he doesn't like, he is embarrassed by his dad, and he's awkward around some of his classmates. While hanging out with his uncle Aaron he is bitten by a radioactive spider, and he freaks out, especially since he also witnesses the death of the real Spider-Man and gets caught up in one of Kingpin's plots. However, by some freak accident, he is able to learn the ropes thanks to the help of some other Spider-heroes who similarly got caught in Kingpin's plot and dragged into Miles' universe. It is your standard superhero origins plot with the twist that he is helped by multiple alternate universe heroes, mostly Peter B. Parker and Gwen Stacey, but the film also has Spider-Noir, Penni Parker and Spider-Ham. I don't think this plot is going to really surprise you if you know the beats, but it's well written and flows well enough for that to not be an issue.

Okay so... I am not a big comic reader, I love Tintin comics and I am not unfamiliar with comic books, but I feel there is a large learning curve to them and they feel like a big commitment, so I am not going to go into a lot of detail on these characters. Overall I enjoyed them, Miles I feel has a more realistic arc of someone learning to be a superhero, he's in over his head, he gets anxious, he goes through the pains and prides of it all. The real key to his character is that, while he's trying to be Spider-Man, he only really gets it right when he incorporates his own identity into the persona. Peter B has a cute arc of his own which gets tied into his mentor relationship with Miles. I feel like they tried to give Gwen her own arc, about accepting friends after her tragedy, but I don't really think they pulled that off too well. Side characters are also really fun, Aunt May was fun, the other Spider-heroes were charming and Miles' family were really loving and caring. I do think Kingpin was kind of a bland, generic menace. Yeah they gave him a goal and a backstory, but I can't really think of any moment I was really intimidated or even that entertained by him. I quite liked the other villain of the movie, Olivia Octavius, she was the one with the more entertaining moments.

I gotta give some special credit to the voice acting, Shameik Moore did a wonderful job as Miles and I loved the fake voice he put on at the end as Spider-Man as to not give away his identity to his father. I think the rest of the cast was perfect, I took one look at Mahershala Ali and I thought "Yep, that was Aaron", it was like casting Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp, and Brain Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Velez were perfect as Miles' parents, Lily Tomlin was almost unrecognizable as Aunt May, seriously how do I always fail to pick out her voice in a movie? John Mulaney and Nicolas Cage were also very perfect as Spider-Ham and Spider-Noir respectively, and the late Stan Lee made a posthumous cameo in this movie, one of his last.

Now let's talk about the animation. When I talked about the 2017 DuckTales series, I said that it looked like a comic brought to animation. Well, this movie is that, but with the budget of a cinematic venture. It looks really good, and it goes beyond the stylized characters and settings. The colours really pop, even when the entire screen is full of neon colours, it's all so beautifully done. I am a bit more forgiving towards 3D animation than some others might be, I don't think every 3D animated film could have been done in 2D, or at least done as well in 2D. While yes, this movie would look a lot more like a comic book if it was done in 2D, it would also have looked very different. Imagine this movie looking like 2017's DuckTales and you might start to see why 3D was the right choice for this movie. I also have to mention the use of different art styles for the different Spider-Heroes. Spider-Ham looking more cartoonish with brighter colours, Penni Parker being in a more anime style, and Spider-Noir being in a thick black and white colour scheme. Yet, they never felt too out of place. I think everyone agrees that the animation is the main selling point of the movie, but is that the only reason to see it?

Going back to the question I posed at the start, was this movie worth all of the acclaim it received? While I will not argue that this movie is perfect, because I don't think it is, I do think that this movie did earn all of the praise. While the animation is amazing, the movie does not sell itself on animation alone as it also has a well-done story, likeable characters, an excellent voice cast, and some really well done scenes and moments that stick in your head. I really have to give it to everyone behind this movie, it was a risk, sure comic book movies are getting more recognized now-a-days, but this was a comic book movie with a minority lead and was an animated movie from Sony Pictures Animation following a string of not so great releases. The fact that it was not only good, but also as good as it was, honestly do I even need to say that this movie is a High Recommendation? Is it perfect? No, but it is recognized as it is for a damn good reason.

Editorial: DuckTales 2017 (TV First Impressions) (SPOILER FREE)

 

So, as of writing this I have just finished the 2017 DuckTales reboot series. The date is Wednesday, November tenth of 2021. For a family activity, my family and I watch some episodes of a TV show or a movie every Wednesday, something I want to watch. We started with Fraggle Rock after I got the complete series on DVD, then we watched a couple movies, and then we began the 2017 DuckTales series, as I started watching it as it was airing, but never got around to finishing it. Now, that it is all on Disney+, I have to ask, is this series any good? And more than that, is it a worthy reboot to a series as iconic, beloved and important as DuckTales?

YES!!!!

Okay, before I get ahead of myself, let's break it down into both questions. Starting with the easy one, is it good on its own? To which I have to say that yes, it is spectacular on its own.

Being a cartoon in the 2010s, DuckTales is a much more serialized show than the original was, and depending on your taste in cartoons, this can be a good or bad thing. Personally, I do lean towards the more episodic cartoons, because it is nice to have something to put on and not have to worry about continuity or call-backs, let's face it, some of us just don't have the time or energy to commit to a serialized show. However, I think the serializing was done rather well here. For the most part, the serialization is really only to tie in to a greater story arc towards the end of the third season, and aside from a few callbacks and minor characters that comeback, you can watch almost any random episode and follow it pretty well. I think Season 3 is the only time you can't do that, but even then it's mostly for the final twelve or so episodes. Still, I would say you got to start from the beginning of this show, and you might as well, you're most likely not watching it as it airs anymore, right? Right?

Still, story is useless if the characters are bad, and these characters are so lovable, so interesting and so amusing to watch. The triplets all have their own personality traits now, each a trait that can be represented in both their Uncle Scrooge and their Uncle Donald. Huey, like Scrooge, loves adventure, but also cataloguing the unknown and finding the truth, but like Donald is very prone to emotional outbursts and wishes for a more orderly schedule. Dewey, admires his Great Uncle Scrooge's fame and notoriety, and wishes for something similar, but like Donald can be a bit of a cheesy showoff. Louie admires Scrooge's wealth and fortune, but like Donald would rather take things easier, thought for Donald it is mostly because of stress rather than laziness. Speaking of which, Donald actually features in this show. Donald is probably my second favourite parental figure in animation, second only to Iroh from Avatar. Still, the list of characters keeps on going, Scrooge is just as fun as he was in the original show, Mrs. Beakley is a no-nonsense but loving person, Launchpad is still the big hearted dimwitted goofball we know and love, and with a bunch of extra Himbo energy. Plus, we get a bunch of more obscure characters from the comics like Gladstone Gander, Cousin Feathry, The Phantom Blot, and returning characters with new twists on their personalities like Fenton who is an eager young scientist at work, Gyro Gearloose who is cranky and foul-tempered (no puns), but a genuinely good person, and Magica DeSpell, who is just that perfect amount of vile that you just love to see. Glomgold is also a total man-child in this show, and I absolutely love it, he's just so fun to watch.

I think the only character that doesn't work for me is Doofus Drake, who is a very creepy and really uncomfortable to watch, most episodes that focused on him were usually my least favourites. However, they more than make up for that with the addition of plenty of new characters, like Lena, Violet, B.O.Y.D., Mark Beaks (Who is also just deliciously vile), and the introduction of a character very important to the duck family. (Yes, you probably know who it is, but I don't want to spoil it). However, my favourite character of the show has to be Webby, who is very excitable, eager to try new things, and also really kicks ass! She is a specially trained fighter, but they also don't forget that she's a little kid, and kids are excitable and emotional, which she is as well.

On top of all of that, there are a lot of callbacks to not just the Disney Duck Comics, and the original show, but also to other Disney properties, and let's just say, for a Dis-nerd like myself, spotting them all became an adventure in and of itself.

To top it all off, we have some absolutely amazing animation. One of the defenses I've heard for the Rise of the TMNT artstyle is that it emulates the comic style that the Turtles originated from, which is true, from the first few episodes I saw, it looked like a comic book brought into animation... Done badly. DuckTales also tries to emulate the comic book style of its origins, but does so successfully. You can see the comic style in the way the buildings are drawn and colouring and shading, but also with the title and how it's stippled to mimic the way a lot of old comics would be coloured. On top of that, I didn't notice any serious or awkward animation flubs, which is not to say there are none, but just that they weren't noticable.

So yeah, as a show on its own merits, it's fantastic, hands down one of my all time favourites. Yet, as with any reboot, sequel or spin-off, we aren't just looking at it on its own, we are looking at it as a reboot, sequel or spin-off, and how does this fare as a reboot?

Honestly, I think it's a lot better than the original series. Sure, the original isn't bad, and having watched a few episodes myself between episodes of this show, I can say it holds up a lot better than most eighties cartoons, but let's be real here, the show has aged. Now, aging is fine, it is a natural part of life for humans, most animals as a matter of fact, as well as wine, cider and cheese, and DuckTales, for the most part has aged fairly well, not exactly a fine wine, but still very well. A lot of the original shows short comings can be attributed to the original comics, as the triplets were still thought of as one entity to many of the people working on the show, in fact, in the comics they were thought of as one entity so much, that when they had to draw one of the three on a chair and the other two on the floor, they would draw one triplet on the chair, and three on the floor, an artist flub that fans have taken to calling, Phooey Duck!

However, in other places the original show has aged rather poorly. These is a lot of stuff that would not be rather PC by todays standards, not that the depictions of natives are all negative, but even the more neutral ones are very "of their time".

Even still, comparing the two shows is just sad. The Reboot is better in almost every way, and it really is not fair to the original. It's like comparing the original 1966 Grinch special to the 2018 Grinch movie. Like, yeah, on its own the 2018 movie isn't awful, but when you compare it to the original, it's just lesser in almost every way. Back to DuckTales, the artstyle is better, the characters are better, the writing and adventures are better, it really is no comparison. By all means, watch the original, but if you start with this series, lower your expectations a bit.

Really, I think that is all there is to say, on its own it is a fantastic show, and as a reboot it improves on the original in every way. So, really what else is there to say? High Recommendation!

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979) - An enjoyable, but outdated way to enjoy classic shorts

 

It's weird to think in the era of streaming services and independently created content that there was ever a time that you had to hope and pray that the movie or show you wanted to watch was going to air on TV that night. Home media didn't really take off until the 1980s, so what was someone supposed to do then? Well, someone at Warner Bros decided to take some of the classic Looney Tunes segments and put them into a movie. However, this wouldn't be any old compilation movie like the Fantastic Animation Festival movie from 1977, this was going to have some semblance of a narrative. Even still, in the age of Streaming and DVD boxsets, is a movie like this worth coming back to?

Much like with the Fantasia review, there really is not much else to this movie other than a collection of shorts with a few wrap-around segments. However, unlike Fantasia, the wraparounds do give this movie somewhat of a narrative. Essentially, we drop in on Bugs Bunny, as he talks to us about his life, which are shown as various Looney Tunes shorts. These range from shorts starring his cohorts, to shorts all about him. I will talk about the segments, but not as individually as I did with Fantasia. There are a lot of shorts in this movie, and I have varying opinions about them. So, other than any new segments and the ending segment, most of the Looney Tunes shorts I'll be talking about in groups.

The first segment is, from what I can tell, an original segment about the history of chases. It's told as you'd expect a joking cartoon character to tell a joking history. It's not that funny, and is rather slow. Probably due to the fact that at this point, everyone behind the Looney Tunes was much older, although I will give credit that there may be some actual true information in this segment. See, sometime in the early 2010s, researchers discovered that when lit up in certain ways, some paintings in the Chauvet Cave would actually form the illusion of movement. So, in a sense, this segment was correct that animated pictures began on cave walls. I find that kind of amusing, but then again I am a media history nerd.

After this we get out first Looney Tunes short, "Hare-way to the Stars", this short has some cute gags, but I don't think this was the best short to start off with. Thankfully, after this we get three Daffy Duck shorts in a row, starting with "Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century", an all time classic short, "Robin Hood Daffy", which is funny even in this shorter state, and "Duck Amuck", one of my all time favourite animated shorts. I've talked about this one before, so if you want my detailed thought on it, here's a previous post to check out.

Next are three shorts that focus on Bugs dealing with a more intimidating adversary, starting with "Bully for Bugs", a great short, but maybe not the best way to start this stretch of shorts. The rest of the three also feature Daffy, so maybe if they reversed the order of these three, it would have worked better. Our next short is "Ali Baba Bugs", which I am skipping right past because I don't want to get into a discussion over whether this short is problematic by today's standards or not. It was never one of my favourite shorts in the first place, mostly because of its ending, I never really found it that funny. Thankfully, the next short is "Rabbit Fire", which is probably my favourite Bug and Elmer short.

Our next three shorts start off on a bad foot, because it starts with "For Scent-imental Reasons", a Pepe Le Pew short. I never liked Pepe Le Pew, I never really found him to be that funny, not that there weren't some neat gags in his shorts, but the main joke was never that amusing. Next is another shortened cartoon, "Long-Haired Hare", which is still funny in this shortened form. Along this theme, the next short is the iconic "What's Opera, Doc?" one of the most recognized, beloved and remembered Looney Tune segment out there. I like it fine.

The final Bugs Bunny short is "Operation: Rabbit" which is the perfect segue into the final portion of this movie, the Road Runner shorts, which are just played as one big segment. They include a lot of the iconic moments from many of the shorts, such as the Bat-Man's Outfit from "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z", the Earthquake Pills from "Hopalong Casualty" and a couple trampoline gags. Road Runner cartoons were always my favourite of the Looney Tunes shorts, so I do really like this big mesh of iconic and hilarious Coyote gags.

Other than all of that, there are the wraparound segments, which don't really serve to tell jokes, but more to introduce each short. All in all, these were fine, but that brings us to a very interesting point. These are the reasons you would want to watch this movie nowadays, because we can get the full version of all these shorts on multiple different DVD releases, so the question remains, are these wrap-arounds worth it? Honestly, I would say no. Though I love a lot of these shorts, a part of me just wishes I was watching the shorts separately rather than the movie. I have a couple Looney Tunes compilation DVDs, and I think I'd get just as much entertainment out of them as I did from this movie. So, how would I recommend it?

As a movie, I'd probably put it in the Slight Recommendations category. Someone might really like seeing this laid back and more casual kind of Bugs Bunny. Then again, we don't spend much time with that Bugs Bunny, we spend a lot of time with the classic shorts, and that is the movie's biggest problem. There is no need for it anymore, we can get the entire series run on DVD now. Remember, this was made before home media really took off. In a way, it's very archaic and a relic of a bygone era where we couldn't just put on our favourite episode of our favourite show with the click of a button. If you are a collector of all thing Looney Tunes, you might have this in your collection, but even then I don't think it's worth watching. Grab a compilation DVD and enjoy.

First Impressions: Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021)

Hey, a new first impressions. Yeah I'm still not super comfortable going to movie theaters, so first impressions have been really slow. However, let's do another one, and let's talk about something else that is near and dear to my heart, The Muppets.

I haven't been the biggest Muppet fan as a child, which was mostly due to not having access to a lot of the material. Nowadays, The Muppets are one of the things I can point to as pushing me down the path of becoming an artist. The Muppet Movie was a life changing experience for me, and The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of my all time favourite movies. That being said, I am not super fond of more modern Muppet material. A part of it is that I don't think the magic is the same, but it could also be that the writing is not as good. So, while I was interested with the new Muppets special, I'll admit, I did have some reservations. How did it all end up?

First and foremost, the original Muppet magic is, I don't want to say gone, but I don't think there is a better word for it. A lot of people would say it was all Jim Henson, but the reality is, especially for people my age, Jim was not a big part of the Muppets. Yes, he was the main guy behind it, and he did build a lot of the puppets, but he also had Jerry Juhl to write for him and a myriad of other amazing performers to bounce off of. Just like the Muppets themselves, there was no One person to make the magic happen. With most of the original team dead, Jerry Juhl having passed in 2005, or have left or been fired, there is no way the original charm of The Muppets can be recaptured. That being said, I think this one came close.

I think this special did a good job in focusing on Gonzo and Pepe, partially because I myself have a bit of trouble really jelling with Matt Vogel as Kermit, but also because it really lets us look into Gonzo's character. I think a lot of us relate to Gonzo because, even in a group like The Muppets, he is an outcast. We know that everyone is a Frog, Bear, Pig, Chicken, Rat, Eagle, Frackle or Gofer. Gonzo has always been described as a "Whatever" or a "Thing", and so when we get to look closer at our favourite Blue Weirdo, it allows us to connect better with him. This is why, while "Rainbow Connection" is my favourite song from the original Muppet Movie, "I'm Going to go Back There Someday" is my favourite scene.

I will also admit, some of the gags made me laugh. I liked the joke Uncle Deadly made regarding King Henry VIII, I think I laughed harder at that one than I was meant to. While I don't think it was as funny as Muppet Treasure Island, come on that is a high bar to reach in the first place. Actually, that is kind of the biggest issue with the special, not the only issue, but the biggest one. No matter how good it is, we will, either intentionally or not, compare it to the previous movies and shows. So, is it as funny as Treasure Island or Great Muppet Caper? No. Is it as heartful as The Muppet Movie or Muppet Christmas Carol? No. If you're expecting it to be, you're not going to enjoy this special as much.

On the topic of problems, while I enjoyed the humour of this special, I will say they did run some gags into the ground. The screaming goat especially became less funny with each use, honestly the same could be said for all the running gags. I was also expecting a bit more from the advertised cameos, I get they're cameos, but they literally just showed up for one song they don't even sing, and then show up at the end to deliver one line. If you want my advice, watch this before you watch the new UP series on Disney+, let Ed Asner's final role be that. I also kind of saw the end reveal coming, but let's be real, there weren't a lot of prominent human characters here, so the choice was pretty slim pickings.

Honestly, I kind of wish this was longer, give us more time to focus on Gonzo's fears, give us more time with the cameos, both human and Muppet kind. There were a few lesser known and forgotten Muppet cameos in this special, which was a nice touch. However, I do have to admit that as a special, it was fine. Maybe it would not have worked as a full movie, especially because, again, Jerry Juhl and a lot of the original Muppet cast are not with the series anymore. I will say that this was the best of the Muppet works done without them. I could not get into the 2011 series or Muppets Now!, but this, I could enjoy. I do recommend it for some spooky fun.

Monster High: 13 Wishes (2013) - Nothing special, but harmless

Well, it's the October month, and that means spooky scary fun and also spooky silly fun. Last year I didn't end up reviewing any kind of spooky movie, I got a copy of The Thief and the Cobbler earlier and I really wanted to talk about it, and I also looked at the Recobbled Cut that same month. So, this year I thought I'd make up for the lack of a spooky review by taking a look at a Monster High movie... Goodie. Well, hey I enjoyed My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I have a soft spot for Jem and the Holograms, and I've watched Ruby Gloom growing up, so maybe this won't be so bad. Also, if you're wondering, I chose 13 Wishes because it is the one I am the most familiar with, in the sense that it was the only one I knew existed and vaguely what it was about. Thanks online internet video game reviewers!

Plotwise it is about the younger sister of Clawdeen Wolf, Howleen (As an aside, I hate these names) finding a magic lantern and summoning a Genie, who gives her thirteen wishes. You can  probably tell where this goes, but to the movie's credit, they do twist your expectations a little bit. First off, this genie has an evil shadow doppelgänger, which is not a part of genies that I have seen before, but also is that while Howleen does begin to make selfish wishes, she actually does start by trying to make others happy. It isn't until she gets bullied by others that the shadow genie begins to manipulate her into using the wishes selfishly. It's actually kind of clever, or it would be if the bullying was more than two sentences. Otherwise, you know what you're going to get with this plot, character gets ultimate power, uses it unwisely and almost puts a great evil in power. The plot is nothing that special.

I think that is my biggest problem with the movie, or should I say, special. Yeah, this would be another "Technically" review, but the movie is over an hour long. Despite that, it really is not written or edited like a movie. Most movies would hold on shots or let scenes linger to really let the weight of the scene take hold, they can do this because they have a rather lengthy time limit to really experiment with. A television show does not have this time to play around with, so emotional scenes have to be done differently. The ending conversation between Pearl and Amethyst in the Steven Universe episode "On The Run" would probably have been written differently if it was for a movie. This movie is not really written or edited like a movie and more like an extended television episode, which I'll be honest, is only a problem if that is not what you're expecting. I hear people complain that some movies based on shows are "Just an extended episode" and I usually never see that, well, now I think I know why, those movies are still written and edited like movies.

Character wise, well... I mean they aren't bad. The main cast are friendly and want to help people, which is nice, Clawdeen is very much the "Big sister", but she doesn't really remind me of my brother like the sister in "Whisper of the Heart" did, in that she doesn't come off like she's trying to be a controlling figure in her younger sibling's life. Gigi the genie is kind of bland, honestly so is the villain Whisp, she's just kind of your basic villain. Howleen is a high school girl, probably freshman, maybe sophomore, I'm sure some Monster High fan is gonna correct me on that one. I dunno, the characters to me never seem to go beyond the basic characteristics that we expect of characters like these. I will say, I do like one of the background characters, just a dude with an eyeball as his head, it's like if someone from The Residents was a cartoon character, and I adore it.

I also have a few criticisms with the voices. For the most part the actors do fine, I never heard a flat read or a bad take in there, but a few of them out on rather generic accents, and Draculaura's voice is clearly pitched up a little, like other people noticed that right? I just found it really distracting. Otherwise, again the voice acting was fine. That is also my opinion of the animation, it isn't bad, it's smooth and has some appeal to it, but television quality 3D animation is never going to look as good as it could.

Really that is the best thing to take away from this review, this is a television movie, and it feels like it. On some level I do have to admire the fact that they didn't try to emulate a theatrical experience. I think if you go into this movie knowing what you're gonna get, you might have a good time. Nothing about this movie is that special, but it isn't terrible, as a whole I can recommend this is a certain type of audience. Hey, there is nothing wrong with a movie that is made for specific audiences. If you want a silly spooky something to put on this Halloween, well I'd recommend other things first, but if you want to try something new, I don't see the harm in this one. I may only slightly recommend it, but it's still a recommendation.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986) - A cute, but also risque kids movie

The 1980s were an interesting time for kids movies. This was the era that Don Bluth was making his movies in, and Disney was also releasing a lot more movies with darker or heavier themes. This seems to have died in the nineties with the Disney Renaissance, personally I pin the blame on how bad The Black Cauldron turned out, but after that mess was released, they made The Great Mouse Detective, which didn't begin the renaissance, but did it put Disney on the right path?

The movie follows Olivia Flaversham who is found by Dr. Dawson and they both find famous detective, Basil of Baker Street to find her father, who has been kidnapped by a servant of the wicked Professor Ratigan, who has a particularly villainous scheme to become ruler of all of mousekind by replacing the Queen. Plotwise, I gotta say it was all rather tight. It flowed really well and at no point was I ever confused about where the plot was going. Every location was gone to for a purpose and the movie does explain why they're going there. I don't think there is really anything here that pads out the plot, even during a seemingly superfluous musical number, they do slip in something that is plot relevant. It is very well done, no plot holes, no confusing parts, probably one of Disney's most well written plot lines.

I do have to add though, this movie does have some moments that are... not as child friendly as kids movies today would be. There are some scarier moments and there is a scene with a character is dressed in typical showgirl attire, yes... showgirl. The movie's opening would probably be scary to some young kids who aren't expecting it. I would say to not show this movie to anyone younger than seven. It is definitely a movie for older kids and parental guidance.

Character wise, I really like the characters here. Basil is eccentric and enthusiastic, thinking about it, he kind of reminds me of something... plus it is clear he isn't very social. Could he be... oh well. Olivia is also very cute, the way she mimics Dawson occasionally is just adorable. However, the character that steals the show is absolutely Professor Ratigan, who is delightfully devilish, and skirts the line of suave and sophisticated baddie, to blood-thirsty brute. A lot of this has to do with the voice performance. Vincent Price does an absolutely delightful job as the villain, just the epitome of slime and vileness that is his voice. The rest of the cast do an excellent job as well, Barrie Ingham and Val Bettin, even some of the smaller roles had good voice work, even if I could tell one of the voices was Alan Young.

Now animation is where the movie really shines. Of course, being a Disney animated feature, it looks brilliant. I would say that some of the faces looked a bit unsettling, but I think that it was done on purpose, to show that Basil can be as crazy as Ratigan. However, I think the most impressive thing about the animation is the incorporation of CGI. While this wasn't the first of the Disney animated canon to incorporate Computer Generated Imagery, and I don't think it is the best incorporation either (Let's be real it is hard to top that one shot from Beauty and the Beast), the CG is still really well done here. It is really obvious, but the cel shaded look of it makes it blend in better than say, the cave of wonders from Aladdin. Otherwise, the rest of the animation is well done, no obvious problems and a really good colour palette.

Overall, I quite enjoyed The Great Mouse Detective. While I don't think that it is one of Disney's greatest, I can admit that it was a cute and fun little movie that had a little bit more of a risque side to it. I think I enjoyed the characters the most, they were engaging to watch and putting them into this really well woven plot and really good animation made this movie a very enjoyable. I didn't mind the darker and more adult moments, I don't think it is the most extreme in that regard, but most of the other dark kids movies of the era were more emotionally dark like An American Tail or more intense like The Secret of NIMH, so I would advise parental guidance when putting this on for kids. Still, it was an enjoyable movie, I can give it a solid recommendation rating.

Whisper of the Heart (1995) - Corny, silly and a total mood movie.

 

I've looked at animated movies from Japan before, but never from the most well known studio, Studio Ghibli, and there was a reason for that. I wanted the first Studio Ghibli film I reviewed to be one that I held close to my heart. I also wanted it to be a special occasion, and while fifty reviews may not seem special, it means a lot to me. So, I want to celebrate by looking at one of my all time favourite movies; Whisper of the Heart.

I feel like Whisper of the Heart gets overshadowed a lot by the other Studio Ghibli movies. When talking about all of them, it's always Totoro, or Spirited Away, or Kiki's Delivery Service, Grave of the Fireflies, Princess Mononoke, or something else. I think most animation fans have that one Studio Ghibli movie that they feel is overlooked by the big names, which is why I wanted to look at Whisper of the Heart first. A large part of why I do this is to shine a light on movies some people may not have checked out, so if you haven't looked at Whisper of the Heart directed by Yoshifumi Kondō, should you?

To describe the story would be difficult, not because the story is complicated, at its core, the story follows Shizuku Tsukishima and follows her as she decides what she wants to do with her life. It is a simple story, but it is so compact and so much happens before the one hour mark. I will say that some of these things don't really get completely resolved, or at least, they're resolved in small and quiet ways. There is a character in the movie that has feelings for Shizuku, but Shizuku's friend has feelings for him, but his friend has feelings for Shizuku's friend. While this plot point does get resolved, it isn't really sent off with much fanfare, it's just kind of over in a couple sentences. Strangely, this doesn't actually make the plot rough or sloppy, and I think I know why. This is probably the best example of a slice of life movie I have ever seen. Think about it, lots of situations in life kind of just stop short at the end. This movie exceeds at that idea, and I feel like this is something that Studio Ghibli captures in a couple of films.

Speaking of which, this movie is corny. It can be corny, silly and really awkward. Normally I would be critical of these scenes, but again, that is life. Life can be awkward, corny and silly. I guess that doesn't really encourage people who hate awkward and corny moments, trust me I get it, but I don't think these scenes are unwatchable. I don't know, maybe I personally relate to the weird kid that shows off their writings to anyone even if it is... really cringey. God why didn't any of my high school teachers slap me upside the head?

Character wise, we have to start with Shizuku. Shizuku Tsukishima is, in my opinion... One of my all time favourite fictional characters. Top five hands down. There are not a lot of characters I feel I can really relate to, but I can really relate to Shizuku. I was probably a couple years older than her when I first saw this movie, but we were both students that enjoyed writing, and while we often found our work to be corny or cringey, we both tried to push ourselves, and we both were still wondering about what we wanted to do with ourselves. Even without all of that, I enjoy her cheer and optimism, but she isn't totally optimistic, she has her outbursts of anger, she gets overly emotional, she has self doubt. None of this distracts us from the fact that this is the same character that excitedly followed a cat into an antique shop though, it really does feel like we are watching a real person. Shizuku is also a total mood character for me and it is awesome.

To round out the other character, Shizuku's parents are... fine, maybe a bit unrealistically lenient, but not too bad. The old man who runs the antique shop is very warm and friendly, Shizuku's sister reminds me too much of my brother from when we were younger to really like, and Shizuku's friends are very realistic, poking some fun at her, but also being concerned for each other. You can see two of them go from playfully having some fun to being concerned for Shizuku, just by the expression of their faces. The only other character to really note is Seiji, and I'm going to be honest, I only ever came across a character like this once, and that was Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars, a character you just started off wanting to punch in his smug, git face, but by the end you actually kind of like.

I think the dubbing cast did a great job too. I know I should have watched this in the original Japanese language, but, come on The Dread Pirate Roberts himself voices the coolest cat ever! In fact, this cat was so cool, that The Cat Returns was made, and I am convinced it was entirely to give us more of Carey Elwes as the Baron.

On a technical level, this movie is beautiful. The animation, well it is Studio Ghibli animation, so it is really good. Characters are well designed and I didn't notice any errors. What is more interesting to talk about thought is the music, or the lack of music. One of my Twitter mutuals, PowerLoud Girl made a tweet a while ago calling Studio Ghibli movies a form of ASMR, and yeah I totally get it. Studio Ghibli movies do tend to be a lot quieter, and in this movie, often the only background noise you get is literal background noise. Echoing footsteps, the sounds of bugs, even some bits of dialogue, which you can make out more often than not. I think that is a really nice touch. When there is background music, it can be really good, and I think the best example is the music in the antique shop. I think it's a harpsichord, but correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever instrument it is, it really does sell this scene as being right out of a fantasy story.

On some level, I really should hate this movie. It is slow paced, corny and awkward, and has a very compact and hard to outline plot. That being said, I love the atmosphere of the settings, I love the character relationships, I love Shizuku's character, I love the animation, I love the Baron, I love a lot of this movie. Upon a critical viewing, this movie does have some flaws, but I don't think they are movie breaking. I really do think this is a movie that anyone who wants to go into an artistic field should see. This movie almost, defies being reviewed by my typical style, and I am super glad I saved it for this occasion. It is one of my all time favourite movies, and I highly recommend it.

Storybook Classics: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1986) - A poor and really dull telling of the famous gothic story

You know, I haven't done a "Technically" in a while. The last time I did that was looking at the 1960s Christmas classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. A "Technically" is a review where the movie is less than an hour long, but is more than 40 minutes. 40 Minutes is the minimum time required by both the American and British Film Institute for a film to be considered "Feature Length", so it's the minimum requirement I use for these blogs. I tend not to review these movies often because, well they're usually more television specials, but sometimes, they're just to much of a curiosity to pass up. Case in point, this adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1986. Literally I just found the DVD in a sales bin and thought, "This looks like it would be an interesting watch.", and then I bought it. The question is, if you find the DVD somewhere, is it worth it?

I'm actually very unfamiliar with the source material since, unlike the last review, this is my first exposure to the hunchback story, I never read the book, and I never saw the Disney adaptation from 1996. So I am not going to comment on this as an adaptation, though I personally doubt that being a good adaptation would really change matters.

I really couldn't tell you the plot of this movie, but I'll try. Frollo is an archdeacon at Notre Dame who becomes infatuated with the... hmm... well in less PC times we would have said Gypsy, Esmerelda. He sends the hunchback bell ringer, Quasimodo, to kidnap her I think, which gets him arrested by the guard Phoebus, and most of the movie is focused on Esmerelda and Phoebus's relationship. Esmerelda gets put on trial for the murder of Phoebus and Quasimodo has to save her, honestly I do not really care. This movie is super boring. Overall I guess the plot doesn't flow too badly, but that doesn't really mean anything when the viewer is nodding off every couple of minutes.

The characters are not very deep. I mean it would be very tough for this movie to copy the deep and complex character of Disney's Frollo, especially in the 1980s, but at least do something a bit more than make him a lying jerk. His ultimate plan is to have Esmerelda in the cathedral to purify her, which I guess could be metaphor, but this Frollo is so flat that I do believe he just wants to convert her to Catholicism. They try to flesh him out by giving him the interest in alchemy, but it doesn't really amount to much. Quasimodo is your basic henchman good guy, Esmerelda is your basic pretty girl damsel, Phoebus is your basic good looking good guy. Yeah, this was probably made for TV in the late 80s, but it isn't like cartoon characters of the 80s were devoid of personality and quirks. I found myself not really caring about these characters.

Although, the voice work might have also played a part in that. The voice actors for Quasimodo and Frollo put on these really annoying voices, and the voice actress for Esmerelda was kind of dry and emotionless, just kind of "Reading the lines" sort of feel to the performance. Every other voice is mostly just a generic sounding voice, so it really doesn't sound like the actors are giving this their A game.

The art style in this movie is, legit, not that bad. It looks detailed and gothic, but not in that German Expressionist sort of way, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and a lot of that is helped thanks to the duller and more muted colour palette, which really does add to the visuals. That being said, the visual quality of the movie is pretty bad, and I have no clue as to why, no seriously I am baffled because I have never encountered this problem before. See, I watched the DVD release from Genius Entertainment and the quality looked on par with a typical VHS tape. I'm not kidding, it even has that white noise sound that most VHS tapes have. I have no idea why this is the case, my best guess is that the master reel was lost and they resorted to a back-up or recording of the program, and that is my most generous guess, I haven't ruled out the possibility that the original master was junked (For those of you who don't know, "junking" is why a lot of classic Dr. Who episodes are completely lost) or even that the original master was this low quality in the first place. The one thing the movie had going for it, and it's still ruined by something.

Yeah, I kind of just phoned this review in. Really, this movie is just really boring, with poor voice work, bland characters, a rather generic musical score, and it's also just really unfunny, and it tried to be funny. While the art style is really good, it really is not enough to save this movie. If you do end up finding it in a discount bin somewhere, I say leave it be, I can not recommend this film at all, and I'd say it's so boring, that you might as well just avoid it all together.

Well, it's my fiftieth proper review next month, I should do something special for the occasion.

First Impressions: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

So, Raya and the Last Dragon finally got out of Premier Access. Yeah, this one was a bit late, but Disney's decision to put films on Disney+ behind a paywall is legitimately one of those things I can criticize the service for. Like, we're already paying for the service, why must we pay extra to see a movie? I could have bought the movie on DVD but I wasn't gonna shell out forty bucks for this movie. Still, it is embarrassing how late I am to the punch on this one, but at least I have an excuse, I still need to cover The Mitchell's Vs the Machines and I have no excuse for why I'm late on that one.

So, Raya and the Last Dragon is... fine. It is perfectly fine, not a bad movie, I don't think it is anything spectacular, but it was fine. Yet, it is undeniably a Disney movie.

I think I should talk about what I did like about the movie, and there is a bit. There were some moments that I did enjoy, some scenes I thought were really well done, and actually took me into the movie a lot more. I don't think these scenes will really get up there for my favourite movie moments, but like, that is comparing to some of the timeless masterpieces which I don't think is really fair to this movie yet, a wine does have to age before it becomes fine after all. I also did like the design of the dragons, I don't think they're my favourite dragon designs, but they are unique, I don't see a lot of furry dragons... don't take that out of context.

I think the main story elements like the plot, characters and world building are all fine. The performances were good and the animation was not bad. I feel like this is one of those movies where a home release really kills it, some of the scenes, even ones I really liked, probably would have been better on a giant screen with surround sound in a specifically engineered room to optimize the viewing experience. In other words, this is a theater movie, through and through.

I guess it does make sense to make more of these "Theater movies" now since home theaters are becoming a reality and televisions are getting bigger and bigger. The thing is though, while these movies look and sound great in a theater environment, the same cannot be said for home environments, or travel environments, or really any place you might watch a a movie that is not the theater. Once in this movie I thought back to Abominable, which I liked, but had to admit a lot of that was because I did see it in the theater, it was a movie that needed the big screen and completely encompassing audio to mask what was, ultimately a rather simple story. I do feel Raya is, at the very least, in the same category of films, where they mostly live off the experience in the theaters.

Of course, I also can't deny that this is a Disney movie, through and through. Now, I love Disney, I literally have to stop myself from just going through every single Disney movie in a row on this blog. I grew up with Disney movies and TV, and at least a quarter of my favourite movies were made or owned by Disney. I do love Disney... but they have an undeniable formula, they love to hit on familiar beats and you do catch on quick. If there is a trope or cliché that people are familiar with in Disney movies, chances are it appears in this one. This does include the fast talking comic relief, who... I mean, it kind of was cool that she was also the powerful McGuffin of the movie, but I still didn't find her that amusing. Really I didn't find the movie that funny, I only laughed at one moment, but this isn't a comedy, it's an action/adventure movie. The fight scenes were okay, the editing on the first one was terrible, but overall they weren't bad, just not my favourite moments.

Though, all of that being said, I may be looking at this movie with bitter eyes. Yes, I am a critic so I should be able to slide personal stuff aside, but firstly, screw that nonsense, I am a person and my opinions can not only change, but also be swayed by outside influences. I want to embrace that, but secondly, I want to be totally fair to this movie, I want to lay my biases out in the open because I want to be fair to every movie I look at. So, let's talk about Nimona.

Salt in the wound here, as I am still a bit upset about the cancellation of Nimona, and it really was not this movie's fault that it came out during that whole debacle. I also don't want to make it seem like Raya is the only movie that Disney released recently that is covered by that particular shadow, the newest release of Cruella did bring up Nimona once more, for me at least, but it still is really upsetting that Disney released this movie behind a paywall around the same time they cancelled a movie that lots of people were excited for. I kind of went into this movie expecting a typical Disney affair, and I got a typical Disney affair, which is not the movie I needed in Nimona's place.

Yet, all of that having been said, Raya and the Last Dragon is still a fine movie. I don't think it is a bad movie, I think it is fine. If you have kids, they'll probably enjoy it more than I did, if you love everything Disney puts out, you should probably get some help, but you'll enjoy it more than me as well. I think most people will enjoy it more than me, I can admit when I am off the ball. There were some scenes I liked, and I do think the message of unity is very pertinent in this moment of history, though I'd also recommend watching Fraggle Rock for that message. Overall, I may be casting some unnecessary glares at this movie, I may unfairly bring up an issue that is not this movie's fault, and I may not think it is particularly great, but I would be wrong if I did not on some level recommend it. It is fine, it is a passable movie that will do more for other people, I'll admit that.

The Adventures of Tintin (AKA: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn) (2011) - A fine adventure for fans and newcomers alike

So, I said I was gonna try and review older movies this year. I am not backing out of my promise, I am still going to try and review movies from the 1990s and before, but I think I should be allowed some leeway here. Especially since 2011 was ten years ago, my does time fly. I figured since I had the opportunity I should give this movie a go, especially since I am a big Tintin fan. When I was a kid, there was this channel called "Teletoon Retro", it was pretty much Boomerang for you readers with Cartoon Network, it played all of the old kids shows and is where I first discovered such wonderful shows like Fraggle Rock, Rocket Robin Hood, and of course, The Adventures of Tintin. After that I read some of the comics, and I really love them. They're definitely my favourite comics and I kind of wish someone took the license and made more of them, I dunno maybe Dark Horse or IDW, but regardless, given my enjoyment of the franchise, how does the movie hold up?

The plot follows Tintin, an English reporter, as he tries to figure out what makes a model ship he purchased so alluring to others, a model ship that gets him kidnapped, introduces him to the drunkard Captain Haddock, and takes him to the Middle East to find the secret that these model ships are holding. It's kind of an amalgamation of different Tintin comics, The Secret of the Unicorn most notably, but with elements of a few others. Overall I do think that the plot moves along solidly, being an adventure/mystery movie I feel both elements are done very well and in keeping with the comics, well sort of.

Watching this movie, it really does highlight the differences in expectations between comics and cinema. Comic audiences don't typically expect long, epic chase sequences, thrilling and exciting action scenes. This is because of the fundamental differences between the comic and cinema mediums. Comic books are not very long, sure you have graphic novels and manga, but other comic books, especially the serialized ones, like the superhero and Tintin comics, are rather short affairs. For the most part (From my bare minimum of research so feel free to correct me in the comments) Tintin comics are 62 pages long, with a few exceptions, notably the first book which is 141 pages long. Even so, the amount of action you can convey is limited, so a chase scene would need to be a handful of panels, a page at most if you can get away with it. With cinema, that handful of panels to a page can be translated to two to five minutes maybe, so you can get away with some of the flowing camera work and more... outlandish elements that this film gets away with.

I am rather split on the action scenes in the movie. The chase seen in Bagghar was pretty well done, if a bit more destructive than I think would happen in a regular Tintin comic. The crane duel between Haddock and Sakharine though, that was just stupid. I'm also not a huge fan of the camera flow in the chase scenes, maybe that is just a me thing.

I think this transitions decently well into the animation which... is a mixed bag. On one hand, the movie looks incredible. The lighting and the textures almost made me think this film was shot live action, which can be a problem, you know this is animation, but I think the characters were exaggerated enough to make it not too realistic. In fact, that character design is really good, Haddock looked just like a three-dimensional, more realistic version of Haddock would look like, Thomson and Thompson looked great, but on the other hand I think they erm... well reduced Madame Castafiore's size a bit, and gave her a different nose, and as for Tintin, some of his facial expressions looked really off to me, that may just be a me thing, but some of his looks just gave an uncanny valley kind of vibe.

Character wise, they're all the same characters you know and love from the original comics. Tintin is a curious and determined fellow that tends not to go down without a fight. Captain Haddock is a drunken excitable man of action, and Thomson and Thompson are the same bumbling police officers they were in the comics. They included Madame Castafiore in the movie as a bit of fan service, personally I would have also enjoyed to see Professor Calculus as he is one of my favourite characters. Overall though, the characters have largely been unchanged, and the voice cast did a decent job as well. Andy Serkis was really good as Haddock, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg worked great as Thomson and Thompson, even if they probably only got the role because of Hot Fuzz, let's be honest. I think my only real complaint is Jamie Bell as Tintin, but that is definitely a me thing. See, I grew up with the 1990s animated series, which (if you were an English speaker like me) had voice actor Colin O'Meara as Tintin, and that obviously not at all British voice is the voice I most associate with the character. Again, totally a me thing, and Jamie Bell did an excellent performance, I'm just used to the voice I grew up with.

Over all The Adventures of Tintin was a fine movie. Unlike Coraline, it does translate what I liked about the comics to the big screen. I really should stop being so mean to Coraline. Anyway, while I do have my issues with the movie, it had some good action scenes, a solid mystery, faithful characterizations, and had some genuine moments of good humour. I think whether you're a fan of the comics, or are a newcomer to the series, you'll get something out of this movie. While I don't think it's one of my favourite movies, I am glad I saw it. Solid recommendation. Maybe I should try to find the other Tintin movies as well.

Editorial: A statement

 This is just a brief statement.

Recently on Twitter, The Guardian made the hot take that Shrek was not a good movie. Someone else went further and made the statement that most kids movies were terrible, even naming things like Up and Wall-E.

This is the type of view that I am fighting.

I predominately look at animated movies because of the stigma that is attached to animation, but I now realize that this stigma goes beyond animation, it goes beyond film, it goes beyond art itself. This is a stigma attached to children.

This stigma is that children do not see or understand quality, they see marketable characters, pretty colours and toilet humour. Yes, these things do appeal to kids, not to every kid, but to lots of kids. To deny that is to deny that people still watch The Simpsons or Family Guy, we may not like to admit it, but it is true. That being said, children can see past marketability, pretty colours and toilet humour. Kids can see depth, kids can see nuance, kids CAN SEE QUALITY.

If I can use myself as an example, I was about twelve years old when The King's Speech came out, might have watched it at thirteen. The King's Speech is not a kids film, it is a historical drama about the British monarch King George VI during a time of trial for him. I first watched it at thirteen at the youngest, and it is one of my favourite movies of all time, and I knew it back then as well.

I was also incredibly young when I first watched "First Blood", "Terminator 2" and "Tombstone" three more of my favourite movies. Quality films, and if I were a dumb kid that didn't see past "entertainment value" First Blood would have bored me to tears, Terminator 2 would have bored me to tears, and I could not take my eyes off that move at first.

The biggest insult there is, is to equate being a kid to being stupid. Kids are a lot smarter than most adults, because kids are naturally curious, willing to ask any question. Adults love to stamp that curiosity out of their head, putting them in an unstimulating environment that is rife with bullying and terrible people that forces them into an outdated system that values them on their ability to regurgitate information rather than learn information.

I want to make it clear; Anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, that disregards kids films or any other media geared towards kids, has no respect for kids or the media they claim to love. Movies made for kids are still movies, video games made for kids are still video games.

I want this stigma to stop. I do believe that kids media should be respected, but beyond that, kids need to be better respected. The idea that kids will accept shoddy quality because their kids is wrong. The notion that you can put little effort into a kids movie is equally wrong.

My goal with this blog is to make animation a more respected medium, and I want it known that while animation doesn't just mean kids movies, the two do go hand in hand often.

That is all I have to say about that.

Editorial: My favourite Live Action/animation mix movie

 

Live action mixing has been a staple of animation pretty much since the beginning. In 1900, a man named J. Stuart Blackton filmed himself drawing a face on some paper and interacting with it. Pulling things off the paper and putting them back. Like wise, some of the earliest shorts were forms of live action mixing as well, with Disney's earliest short films being the Alice Comedies (As pictured above) and the first warner bros short technically being another live action mix, Bosco: The Talk Ink-Boy. Live action mixing is a part of the industry, and it would be dumb for me to ignore it completely. That being said, most mixes are mostly animated characters in live action worlds, so I do hesitate to talk about them on this blog. That being said, I really wanted to talk about my favourite of these movies.

Released by Disney in the 1980s, it features a man trying to solve a mystery and having to be sucked into an animated world. It was groundbreaking for its effects, has a loving fanbase and may just be the greatest movie Disney ever released, that's right!

Yep, my favourite Live-Action/Animation hybrid is not Who Framed Roger Rabbit, although that is also one of my favourite movies ever, but for my money, my favourite is 1982's TRON.

TRON is just an incredible movie, being one of the first movies to really create a new world in CGI. Even though by today's standards the effects are really bad, they still add a level of charm to this movie. People forget that if there was going to be a world inside of a computer in the 1980s, it would definitely look like this would, with that sort of plasticy, gummy looking CG. Even taking that out of the picture, the movie looks amazing, there are plenty of shots that look like album covers for prog rock bands, maybe something like Yes or Rush, maybe even Tool.

Really I'm a big sucker for historically significant pieces of media, I love looking at media history. Movies, Animation, Video Games, Music, I love it all.

TRON was a very ambitious movie for its time, as CG was not really used for such big projects. There were computer generated shorts, but a lot of them were more experiments to see what was possible with this kind of technology. Not to knock the importance of shorts like 1968's "Kitten" or 1971's "Metadata", but they weren't mainstream cinematic movies. There really wasn't any movie that really surrounded itself with CG at the time.

Keep in mind, this predated a lot of the movies that Disney would put CG effects in, predating The Great Mouse Detective, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Really, this might have been the catalyst for other CG effects for Disney. Then again, I could just be talking up this movie too much. It isn't like this movie was really appreciated at the time. It was a bit of a box-office flop and wasn't even recognized for best visual effects in the Academy Awards, with the 1982 award going to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Then again, it isn't like the Academy is really known for either foresight or being right about anything.

I think most people view the movie as an effects over story or characters kind of movie. Personally, I can't really agree with that. Yeah, the story is a bit weak, but that is kind of the thing with a lot of adventure films, the story does tend to take a backseat to the locations. TRON doesn't really do this, it does not forget that these guys have a mission and need to get to the destination. One of my friends did mention that the movie felt a bit confused as to who the protagonist really was, but I never really felt that way. While we do focus on one character a lot, I don't think the movie ever forgets that this is still the other characters story.

So, now the question really comes in; Does this movie technically count as a Live-Action/Animation hybrid? To which I have to answer... it depends on how you see it? It is still live action people interacting in an animated world, but unlike Blue's Clues, there are really only two characters that are fully animated, a minority in the movie. Still, a majority of the movie is set in this animated world, and the most memorable scenes are in there too. So, while some may not consider it to be a true mix, personally I think that just enough is set in an animated world to count.

This really wasn't a review, it was just kind of me talking about one of my all time favourite movies. I've been watching a lot of movies lately and I was just kind of in the mood. I dunno, maybe I'll talk about my all time favourite movies in a separate blog someday. Until then, go see TRON if you haven't already, and if you want to know my thoughts on the sequel... I haven't seen it in years, but I remember not liking it all that much. Maybe someday I'll give it another go.

Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977) - Weird, bizarre, over-stimulating... and one of a kind.

I'll be honest, for the most part I try to avoid reviewing movies I don't actually own copies of, there are exceptions of course, but generally if a blog has the "Review" tag, that typically means I own a copy. I can really only think of two instances where I decided to review something despite not owning a physical release of the movie. The first was "Duck Duck Goose" which was a Netflix original and then there was "The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut", which I don't think has a physical release. Well, I am going to add another film onto that list, and what a coincidence that I mention The Thief and the Cobbler because this movie was also directed by Richard Williams.

I think Richard Williams is in that grey zone where people know him and his work, but he isn't a big name like Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki or even Ub Iwerks. He's done a lot of fantastic stuff and I really think all of his work is worth checking out just for the animation alone. However, I do have to look beyond the animation and see if the movies have more to offer, so, for no real reason whatsoever, I just felt like it, let's take a look at the 1977 box office flop that is Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.

In a small room lives a group of dolls, which include Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy, owned by a young girl named Marcella. One day, Marcella's birthday, she gets a new doll from Paris named Babette. Unfortunately, one of the denizens of Marcella's playroom, a pirate in a snow globe named The Captain, kidnaps the French doll and Ann and Andy have to rescue her, coming across bizarre and nonsensical locations and characters along the way. So yeah, this is a pretty typical animated adventure flick, and much like Yellow Submarine, it's more focused on the locations than the plot. That being said, the plot is... not exactly very clean. They kind of just randomly appear in locations, literally one character pops out and chases them into a different place, and after that we find the Captain's ship and see that Babette is now the captain and... I guess in the long run it isn't a messy plot, it is easy enough to follow and is, at its core, easy enough to understand. I guess I'll give it a C grade for plot.

Animation wise, well it's a Richard Williams production, the animation is wonderful. Now, I watched a 35mm Film transfer from YouTube, so the quality may have been affected by that. That being said though, the animation is energetic, fluid and smooth. Raggedy Andy's movements during his song number, when he is twisting himself all over was almost hypnotic to watch, and The Greedy is just beautifully animated, always morphing and melting. In fact, the animation may be too energetic. There is always something moving and it can be a bit over-stimulating. There are times when it does slow down and keep everything subdued, but lots of the song sequences and The Greedys scene have lots of movements and while it kept me interested, it was also really exhausting. It's all amazing animation, but it really can be overstimulating.

The audio can be overstimulating too. Looney Land especially is over-stimulating to the nth degree. Everything is laughing, so many sounds play out and the music is going, and it gets too much too fast. In fact, most of the audio in this movie is mixed. On the one hand, it does have some nice songs, "No Girl's Toy" is fun and a lot of people seem to like "Blue" and "Rag Dolly", which aren't bad, but this movie has the same problem, the exact same problem as the Steven Universe movie and Arlo the Alligator Boy. Too many songs that aren't spaced out enough. At least the songs aren't too bad, though a lot of them are very unnecessary. It also doesn't help that the singing voices aren't always great. While Mark Baker does an excellent job as Raggedy Andy, a performance that lots of viewers have literally fallen in love with, Didi Conn's Raggedy Ann is... Well, she can't exactly hit a lot of the notes the songs require her to hit, which is probably why people remember "Rag Dolly" over her first song "What Do I See?".

The characters are for the most part, very simple. I don't know if that is really a criticism or not because most of these characters are not really major, The Greedy is gross and a big eater, the Camel with Wrinkled Knees is lonely and miserable, Leonard Looney is unforgivingly annoying, Looney Land's King is small and angry, no character really gets a lot of... well character. Even our leads, Raggedy Ann and Andy have rather basic character. They weren't completely boring to watch, they weren't ever unengaging, so for characters I'd give this movie half marks.

In fact, I'd say this movie as a whole deserves half-marks. It's not paced very well, its plot isn't very fleshed out, the songs are too numerous and too inconsistent in quality, the animation and audio can be over stimulating, the characters aren't very complex... But this movie is one of a kind.

I know I brought up Yellow Submarine, which I do think is a better movie, but Yellow Submarine did not have this level of animation, this level of bizarre stuff happening, this level of "I don't even know what to describe". It's like Yellow Submarine dialed up to twelve. So, on some level I can recommend this movie and can even see people enjoying it. It's definitely one of a kind, and worth seeing at least once. That being said, it still has plenty of problems that can make watching it a more negative experience, so if the problems sound too much for you, I don't think you're going to miss a whole lot. So I can't fully recommend it, but I thankfully have a rating for films like this. I think this may actually be the perfect example of a "Slight Recommendation".