Disney Live-Action Trudge: Maleficent (2014)

Of all the movies I have lined up in this marathon, Maleficent was the one I was most dreading, it wanted to make a villain more sympathetic, it completely changed the story from the original, and if I look at the timeline, I actually think this is the movie that got the Disney Live-Action remake trend started. I mean we glare at Alice in Wonderland a lot, but I think if this movie failed then the trend would not have really begun, because after this movie, every year had at least one live-action adaptation or remake or sequel. I pin the blame for all of them on the success of this movie, so it should not be any surprise that this is the movie I was the least willing to watch. At the very least, Alice in Wonderland had a potential hook to it, and wasted it but that's already been talked about, the very concept of Maleficent irritates me.

You know that Maleficent's name sounds very close to "Malevolent" right? So, why was THIS the villain they wanted to give a tragic backstory to and make sympathetic? The character whose name is literally an off-shoot of a synonym for evil, is the one they thought could be redeemable? It boggles my mind, like I know the whole "What's in a name?" line, but like, this is a very glaring issue for me, you don't name someone "Maleficent" and make them a hero, unless you're doing some serious subversion like Nimona did. I guess this is also a subversion, but it's not a very good one. I mean, why not just have Maleficent be a nickname, a name given to her by her enemies, give her any other name? You're more than willing to change the names of the other fairies, why not change hers and still make her name technically be Maleficent? And you really want to know the most infuriating part of this movie? It's actually okay.

Yeah, I was shocked, this movie is... okay. Like, as a movie it is competently made, the writing is fine, couple nitpicks with the story, but like overall I can't say it's a bad movie, just a bad concept. I think if they made original characters for this movie there would be less stigma around it, and I could see it working a lot better. A lot of my problems are that these aren't original characters, like change everyone's name, change the title to "The Real Evil" or "The Dark of Light" or something and I'd be absolutely down. Maybe that would have hurt revenue somewhat, but even then I could see it being a big cult movie if it didn't do so well.

I think what really got to me was the three fairies in this one, terrible parental figures really piss me off, so making the fairies into squabbling, incompetent disasters just annoyed me a lot more. It also didn't help that Maleficent "The Mistress of All Evil" was essentially just a trickster in this movie. All throughout the movie, all she does is just play tricks on the fairies, like you're a powerful fairy and you just play tricks on people? Granted that is pretty accurate Fae behavior but that isn't really accurate Maleficent behavior. It just reiterates my point that I think this movie would have been a lot better if these were original characters and not caricatures of iconic characters that we know and love. Also just gonna say it, Angelina Jolie does not give half the performance that Eleanor Audley gave in the original, the scene where she curses Aurora just feels off and not as powerful.

I also kind of hate what they did with King Steffan, not the whole "Make him the real villain of the story" part, I understand that, but the whole... "Make him a villain" at all part. I mean, this is a villain redemption story, on some level, why did it need a real villain? Like, if Maleficent can be redeemable, why can't the king? Is it because we hate royal hierarchies? I don't know, it just doesn't sit right with me that there had to be a "real villain" in this story at all, like I'm totally not on his side, the movie does a good job of making him the bad guy, but like... maybe I didn't really want a bad guy.

I should talk about the rest of the movie, but honestly there really is not a lot to talk about. It's just okay, kind of generic, but ultimately okay. I really do feel like if Disney made the bold choice to make this an original I.P. it could have lead to a decently big franchise, like imagine it, a dark fairy who was wronged by humans, growing attached to the child of the human that wronged her and bridging the two worlds into one, frankly I'd love to see other stories that could spawn from that, imagine that as the premise for a TV series, or a series of novellas, or a comic series. I think they did hamper the potential of this movie by tying it to the Sleeping Beauty property. I'm not a big fan of the original Sleeping Beauty, I think it is that era's equivalent of Frozen, but if I had to pick I think I do prefer the original, it's an iconic fairy tale and it didn't need all of this. Overall though, I can't say this is a bad movie, as a movie it is perfectly decent, but as a concept, I hate it.

Also, this movie did not need a narrator!

The Misty Green Sky (2016) - "Amateur Hour" is a Compliment to this Thing

 

How do I even start this review? No, seriously, how do I even start it? The amount of movies out there is so vast, so numerous, that you're going to come across something that piques your curiosity, and the chances of you coming across it in the wild is slim. So, when I first heard of this movie on Letterboxd, I knew it was something I had to check out, and when I came across this movie on Tubi, I knew I had to watch it and give it a review. I do love finding obscure, under the radar, practically ignored or forgotten movies, because they're usually a special kind of bad that you just don't get from your typical mainstream blockbuster. Especially in the realm of animation, you don't need a large budget to make an animated production, but it does help quite a bit, and we've seen cases where the production just was not completely there, the Hercules & Xena movie I reviewed way back when being a very notable example, to the point where it is my benchmark for movies that I feel are "so bad they're good". I frankly did not expect anything phenomenal, or even really that good, but this movie, my goodness this movie has exceeded my expectations, it may actually be worse than that Hercules & Xena movie.

What is the plot of this movie? That is a very good question, an excellent question. From my understanding, a young woman by the name of Emma Dante wants to find some answers about the planet she lives on... maybe? At first, they build up a sort of mystery about the planet she lives on, then almost out of nowhere they start hinting that she wants to be the wife of the person that "runs" the planet, only to reveal a deeper conspiracy about the planet and it's relationship with Earth. Frankly it was difficult to follow any kind of plot in this movie because there were just so many scenes that go nowhere. There's a scene in the opening where Emma is looking through the ruins of an old village, and for no reason we cut to a dog. This dog isn't even attacking or chasing after Emma, it does not appear after it walks off screen, we just get a shot of a poorly textured dog running towards the camera because... reasons. There is an entire filler scene of a robot playing some piano program and it serves no purpose for the plot, there is a scene where Emma comforts a friend of hers that establishes something that is fairly inconsequential, really this movie might as well just be two different movies chopped up and sewn together in random places to make something that vaguely resembles a functioning plot if you squint at it.

It also doesn't help that the only character we really get is Emma, sure we have other characters, but they only exist in the movie for one scene at the most, so we're only following Emma, and she's not an interesting character, and I think on some level the writer knew that because... Well this movie is kind of sexist. Every female character is either dressed in a skin-tight outfit, or is scantily clad, Emma spends most, if not the entire second half of the movie in nothing but panties and some kind of sports bra. One character even only had nipple coverings to cover her chest. Like, I appreciate some sex appeal, but when I watch a movie I do want a little bit more than the characters to look attractive, I want them to have... y'know, actual character. Honestly, I don't even think she's that attractive, and that is entirely to do with the animation.

You know, I'll give that Hercules & Xena movie some credit, it was 2D animation, and bad 2D does not look nearly as bad as bad 3D animation. The character models all look generic, like they were made as part of a basic starter kit for some game design or 3D animation software. Outside of outfits and hair, the female characters don't really have any identifiable differences, and Emma floats to get in and out of a ship, I'm guessing it's some kind of futuristic technology, because someone does walk onto a ship at the end of the movie, but it is not established. Facial animations are the worst I've ever seen, even worse than Silver Circle, lip syncing is completely off, character actions don't always match what they're supposed to be doing, like one character is supposed to be crying, but her face does not convey that emotion at all. Also, a few scenes are literally pitch black, the stock fire effects don't mesh with the rest of the movie, and several scenes are just coated in terrible effects, like that Robot Piano scene I mentioned early, it's just filled with visual effects, and a Mighty Joe Young reference because... reasons, and towards the end there is a flashing light effect that may be too much for people with epilepsy or other light sensitivities. Frankly, there is not enough time to go over every single animation error.

If only the voice acting and music were any better, but nope. The voice acting is all amateur, and in this case I think most of it can be blamed on lack of proper direction. It really does sound like the director just got his friends to record some lines in their bedrooms, and one of the recording mics was very obviously a lower quality than the others, which says a lot because the audio equipment sounded very low quality. I'm pretty sure YouTubers at the time had better microphones. It doesn't help that the music is also very stock, like I wouldn't be shocked if the music for this movie was from Kevin MacLeod, though then again I might be because his music is actually more interesting. Music cues are also generic, and I know I've heard a lot of them in other places, plus, some of them are just misplaced. Like there some tense music cues that build-up to what should be something shocking, startling, worrying, but no they just build up to nothing. That is not how music cues work!

So, this movie is really bad, right? Without a doubt, this might actually be the worst movie I've ever had to watch for this blog, it is the perfect double whammy of a bad movie, poorly made and lacking in any good or enjoyable qualities, which kind of makes it the perfect movie to watch for a bad movie night. Honestly, I'm torn, there is a level where I can recommend this movie, I mean it is up there with Hercules & Xena or The Barbie Diaries as a movie that is perfect for a bad movie night with friends to just laugh at, but at the same time I kind of want to recommend other bad movies instead, those Goodtimes Entertainment and Video Brinquedo knock-off movies, some of the Disney direct to video sequels, there are way better movies to watch for a bad movie night, so even on that level I can't recommend it. I mean, I cannot give it any other rating than Avoid. Tubi is full of weird stuff, explore it at your leisure.

Autism Awareness Month; the characters I relate to

I think the most difficult thing about being an autistic person really is just going through life in a society that was not intended to aid those with neurodivergencies of any kind, I remember having meltdowns in classes and not being able to deal with them properly because not only did I not know how to solve the problem, nobody who worked with me did either, probably just assuming I was fussy and ill-tempered, never knowing what spurred the meltdown, never knowing how to control it, going through school like this was probably a big contributor to why I hated myself in later years. What made it harder was that it really felt like I was the only one going through these experiences, none of my friends or classmates were like me, if any of them were autistic they masked really well, and I didn't have many fictional characters that I could escape from reality with. It felt like I was alone, and it wasn't until I met my friends in Art College that I truly believed that I wasn't alone, and it was around that time that I started to really understand what autism really was, and how to better control myself, and identifying it in my favourite characters.

In recent years, I'd like to say we have been getting better. Social media has allowed people to share their experiences and that can help many people recognize neurodivergent behaviors in others, but social progress is only as fast as people are, and there is still a lot of progress to be made.

Autism is media has never been portrayed very well in my opinion, at least, not with characters that are actually stated to be neurodivergent. Rain Man is a movie I refuse to watch because of how I feel the portrayal of neurodivergent people is, Forrest Gump is another movie that, while I do like, is kind of in the same category. Then we have the stereotypical side of it, the non-verbal people, the obsessive compulsive, always making some noise and ridiculously intelligent to the point of being almost silly, and that's the better side of the stereotype. I'm not saying that people like this don't exist, but they aren't the autistic characters I want to see, honestly, I actually think the best Autism representation in media, actually comes from characters who are not even confirmed to be neurodivergent and are just heavily implied or coded to be.

For this post, I wanted to list off some characters in media that I really did relate to, even if they were never stated to be autistic or even implied to be. Feeling like there wasn't anyone else like me in the world was hard for a kid and teenager, and when you couldn't really explain those feelings because you never knew you had those feelings, it makes it harder, and I hope this post can reach out to others, to look into their favourite characters. Here are six characters, that I have found I've gelled with a lot, and have found traits of autism within them.

1. SpongeBob SquarePants

I'm gonna start with one that, most people already know is probably autistic. SpongeBob has been seen as autistic for many people, even Tom Kenny has made comments about it. I think a large reason that SpongeBob has been such a beloved icon is because so many kids related to him, and still do. SpongeBob is the Pee-Wee Herman of the 2000s, playful, childish, just loves to have fun. I think SpongeBob was also a lot of kids first exposure to autistic coded characters, I mean, SpongeBob has very defined special interests, hyperactivity, and doesn't always get social cues. I think it's partially because of SpongeBob that autism is becoming less stigmatized, lots of kids identifying with SpongeBob and learning that what they thought autism looked like, wasn't entirely accurate. When I was a kid, SpongeBob was one of my favourite characters because he was silly and full of nautical nonsense, but as an adult, he is still my favourite because I see a part of me in him, that part of him that can name every Jellyfish and knows the Krusty Krab employee guide front to back is not that different from the part of me that can name all the Muppets and knows some songs so well I can sing them without the music. SpongeBob is a reminder that it's okay to be silly with the things we love, and to that I drop on the deck, and flop like a fish.

2. Boober Fraggle and Wembley Fraggle

Really any member of the Fraggle Five can be on this list, and while I love all the characters equally, when it comes to relating to them, I find myself relating a lot to the timid Boober and the indecisive Wembley. Boober is someone who very clearly has sensory issues, disliking excessive noise, and loves the calm repetition of monotonous tasks, like doing the laundry. He too also has special interests, notably in medicine, superstitions and cooking. For a lot of autistic people, it can be tough to really come out of their shell, I know it was tough for me for a long while. Thankfully, Boober has a couple really close friends that can show him that it's not so bad outside of the comfort zone, friends like Wembley.

Wembley is almost the exact opposite of Boober, while Boober loves the quiet, it is implied the Wembley likes noise more, often singing to himself, which I also do a lot, and he's even the siren for the Fraggle Rock volunteer fire department. Wembley is a lot more active than Boober is, and it can come off like he is stimming. Where it's tough for some autistic people to come out of their shell, for others it's a bit easier, and I think having both Boober and Wembley be very autistic coded, but both very different kinds of autistic it important. Actually, Boober and Wembley remind me a lot of my friend and myself, with my friend dragging me to new experiences and pushing me to exit my comfort zone, and I much preferring to stay in calmer, quieter spaces, but also loving to share my niche interests. I also very much relate to Wembley's indecisiveness, sometimes I am just a Wembelin' fool.

3. Pretty much everyone from DuckTales 2017

I can't quite remember at what point I watched DuckTales and thought to myself "Webby is very clearly autistic", but that little thought led me to a very important realization; practically every major character in DuckTales is autistic. It was actually a fun little thing my family and I did while watching the show to ascribe character traits from the show to each other. Throughout the whole show, little things are shown that don't necessarily state the characters are autistic, but do hint at it. Pretty much everyone in the Duck family stims one way or another, Dewey does his little dance, Scrooge twirls his cane, Donald used to sing, it's all right there and all real ways that people often self-stimulate.

As an aside, I know terms like stimming and self-stimulate sound a little dirty, let us please be adult about this.

If I had to pick the characters I relate to the most, Webby is probably up there, her board of McDuck family connections is honestly not to dissimilar to a Duck Family Tree I made and posted on Tumblr. Huey is also up there, his love for learning things, and his tendency to put things in his mouth when he's stressed or angry (I have bite marks on my 3DS), Dewey does a lot of physical stimming which I also do a lot of, Donald has emotional outbursts, which I'm sure many autistic people can relate to and also relate to it getting them in trouble. Some of the side characters can be a little on the stereotype side, Violet's first impression does give off the "Emotionless and intelligent" stereotype, but as the series goes on she is shown to be a lot more excitable. Boyd is also kind of a take on character types like Data or Spock, the non-human autism representation, which I personally don't have much issue with, especially in Star Trek, but I get why others do take umbrage with the trope, however DuckTales gets away with it with the episode Astro-B.O.Y.D., which pretty much gets this story type down perfectly. One of my favourite bits is in the season one finale where, to distract Magica De Spell, Huey asks her how her magic works, and Magica does actually seem eager to explain for a little bit.

I think DuckTales was not just the show that got me into comics, but it was also the show that made me really learn to identify autistic and neurodivergent traits in my favourite characters. Frankly, I can't thank the crew behind this show enough.

4. Dr. Julian Bashir

Star Trek and Neurodivergence representation has been... rocky, in fact most people would argue that Star Trek's disability representation has always been rough. I already talked about the trope of the non-human character being the most Autistic coded, and on some level, Dr. Bashir does fall slightly into that category. If you are not familiar with Deep Space Nine, I will give you a spoiler warning now, I am going to spoil Dr. Bashir's backstory and a some of his character arc. Honestly, if nothing else, you should take this as a sign to watch Deep Space Nine, it is arguably the best Star Trek series, The Original Series and Next Generation are the most popular, but the writing and acting of Deep Space Nine is just top notch.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Dr. Bashir is a human, but not entirely so, he was genetically engineered as a child, this enhanced his physical and mental prowess. As he himself claims, "Everything but my name was altered in some way". This gave Julian some baggage, and not just emotional either. I feel like a lot of autistic kids can relate to feeling like they're not good enough for their parents, like they're a disappointment, I think that is ultimately what I relate to the most with Bashir, but there are some other traits of his that do code him as autistic. At the start of the series, it's clear he doesn't quite get social cues, except maybe for Garak's, but that may just be wishful thinking for me (Garashir OTP), and he is very excitable. Later in the series, it's even revealed he still has his childhood teddy bear, pretty much a comfort item. A lot of his arc is about his relationships with his friends, Miles, Garak, Dax, and it does feel like this is a natural arc for this character to have.

I should mention the... other augmented characters that appear in Deep Space Nine, honestly I think Steve Shives discussed why they don't work quite as well. I don't hate them personally, but I have to admit my experiences are different from other peoples, so I can't really say much more. Though maybe most of it was the episodes they were in and not necessarily the characters themselves.

Bashir is probably the weakest representation on this list, remember this show was made in the late 90s, but I still think he is an important one for me, and if nothing else, I got to talk about my favourite Star Trek series, so win-win in my book.

SPOILERS END

5. Basil of Baker Street

Well, I should end with another very recognizably neurodivergent character. I really should get into the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, but The Great Mouse Detective is a fairly good substitution. Basil is excitable, eager to share his observations, very much not entirely comfortable with physical stimuli, and gets quite emotional, and when I say that, I want to emphasize that I don't mean he has emotional outbursts, I mean that when he feels and emotion, he feels that emotion. When he feels Ratigan has in fact got the better of him, he's not just sad, he is destroyed, when he's mad, he's enraged, when he's happy, he's practically overjoyed. I did hint at this in my original review of The Great Mouse Detective, but it does bear repeating that a lot of the way that Basil acts are heavily autistic-coded.

To add to that, I'm hearing a lot that other people are identifying autistic traits in Sherlock Holmes himself, which makes me curious, did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle know what he was doing when writing the character? When writing the original Uncle Scrooge comics, did Carl Barks know that Scrooge's hyperfixation on money gives him some autism coding? I wonder if a lot of this coding is intentional, or if they just pick character traits they associate with these kinds of characters.

To wrap this up, I want to give quick shout-outs to Ray Stantz from Ghostbusters, and Nimona. Ray Stantz would have made this list, a lot of his character is just Dan Aykroyd, but I got lazy. I also would have loved to put Nimona on this list, but Nimona is arguably more trans coded than autistic-coded, so I'm not going to argue who should have the rights to identify with Nimona. Frankly we should all stan the Gender Fluid Neurodivergent Monarch, and I hate using the word "stan".

I don't want this blog to come off like "You must identify with these characters, because I do", because I don't think all neurodivergent people need to identify with the same characters. Frankly, I don't even think they need to identify with solely neurodivergent and neurodivergent-coded characters. Having a whole spectrum of characters we like, can relate to and inspire us is a good thing to have, even if we don't look or sound or even act like the characters, but I digress. I wanted to highlight some characters I could identify with, and hopefully this will help someone identify these traits in them, and their favourite characters.

With how more widely accepted and known neurodivergencies are becoming in this world, on the one hand I am kind of bitter that I never really got a lot of the acceptance that other people now are getting, but on the other, much bigger hand, I am very happy that we are becoming more educated on this topic. We still have a long way to go, don't misunderstand me, but the fact that we're even getting there at all is amazing, and I hope I can help others on their journey in some way.

This is the part when I say that Autism Speaks is a terrible organization and you should not donate to them.

Tom Sawyer (2000) - Really bland, but mostly harmless

 

I have said before that there is a hierarchy to movie releases, that you have movies released in theatres, then major streaming releases, followed by minor streaming releases, then Direct-to-Video releases, Television movies and finally movies released onto YouTube. I suggest this hierarchy as like, levels of ignorable for critics and audiences really, not necessarily about quality or how respectable they are, lots of direct-to-video releases exist, and just by sheer volume some of them are going to be good. This is really how I observe the kinds of movies other critics talk about, that they tend to focus on movies that were given theatrical releases, or movies on streaming when they have a ton of buzz about them. I feel like I was one of the only critics who tried to watch the Larva Island Movie when it was released onto Netflix, but I know I'm not the only one who watched movies like Duck Duck Goose or Next Gen. It makes me wonder why some movies just don't get much attention, do we just have a stigma about smaller movie releases? So, I'm going to take this time to take a look at a smaller scale release, the 2000 direct-to-video Tom Sawyer movie by MGM.

The story is an adaptation of the classic Mark Twain novel. I only vaguely know of the book in the sense that it is a pop culture icon, so whether or not it is a good adaptation, I can't say. Tom Sawyer is a rambunctious young man who becomes smitten with a young girl named Becky. Also, he and his friend Huckleberry Finn are looking for buried treasure, while a criminal by name of Injurin' Joe (Nice save there guys), is also looking for said treasure, murdering a man and framing another in the process. It's mostly the scenes with Joe that I find the most interesting, because they get fairly dark and intense, but most of the first act is spent with Tom cooing over Becky, and chunks of the rest of the movie are spent with Tom's Aunt and brother, and his friends, and frankly, I just don't find any of them interesting characters. Even the scenes with Joe, they do go somewhat dark, showing him actually kill a man, but it's a tame killing (Ain't that an oxymoron), the man gets thrown into a gravestone and we don't get to see the impact, we don't even get a dark joke that he was thrown into the grave he was just mourning at. It's scenes like this that make me want to respect the movie, because it's clear they did want to tell a respectful version of the story, but the rest of it... eh.

I think a lot of that is down to the characters, because I just don't find them that interesting. Tom is Bart Simpson, he is rambunctious and trouble-making, but ultimately a decent kid beneath it all. Huckleberry Finn is sort of the idiot best friend character, Becky is the southern lady, but is also that "non-girl" girl, she's into arm wrestling and adventure, and I've seen every single one of these character types before. Honestly, Joe isn't even that interesting, he's just your standard snarling crook, and I swear any character like Tom's brother is immediately a character I will despise. I feel like a lot of this isn't really the movie's fault, Tom Sawyer was published in 1876, about one-hundred and thirteen years before The Simpsons aired their premier episode in 1989, but the trope is called "Seinfeld is unfunny" for a reason. I've seen these characters before, and this movie does not really do much different with these tropes. At least the voice acting was alright, but as much as I love Betty White and Kevin Michael Richardson, these weren't the best roles for them.

Frankly, the animation is not much better. Full disclosure, I found an uploaded version of this movie on YouTube, so the visual quality was not gonna be the highest, pro tip for anyone getting into media review, ease of access and quality tend not to go hand in hand. Regardless, the animation was... okay. Frankly, there is not a lot to comment about it, the animation is serviceable, it's... it's mid, the animation is mid. The whole movie is completely, absolutely, agonizingly mid! The characters? Mid! The story? Mid! The animation? Mid! They should have called this movie "Mid Sawyer", it's so mid I wouldn't be shocked if this was actually Illumination's first feature, everything about it is mid. The music especially, I skipped through a lot of the songs, but the opening song was repetitive, and it cut out for a brief moment to some Arabian Music, because it was for a dream sequence and that is what Tom was dreaming at the moment, I hated it when it happened in the Pink Elephants song in Dumbo, I hate it now. I'm not even really a big country music fan, actually no, I'm not a big fan of post fifties country music from male singers, and the main characters are voiced by country stars. This review was really tough to write, because what can I say about a movie that is absolutely mid?

Okay, well there is one thing I can really talk about; Is this movie a good introduction to the classic Americana story? To answer this question, I have to ask myself if I would have liked this movie as a kid, and I have to say... maybe? I can easily imagine myself fast forwarding through several of the scenes to get to parts that would have interested me a lot more. I can't say it's made me more interested in the book, but it hasn't made me any less interested either. It's harmless, just really bland. If this is something you think your kid might be into, it's better than crap like Duck Duck Goose, but as for watching it on your own, meh, I don't think I can really recommend it all that much. At the same time though, it's not really a movie I recommend avoiding on any level, it's just a movie that I feel only really gets watched by people babysitting kids. So, I don't recommend it, but if it's available to watch somewhere, I can think of worse movies. I can also think of much more interesting ones, and frankly, I need something much more interesting to review next.