Editorial - A for Artificial

The 2020s has been a wild year for entertainment, and one of the wildest controversies to occur is the rise of A.I. generated art and animation. Ask any artist about A.I. Art and they will have some opinions, and since it is now seeping its way into animation, if it hasn't been already, maybe now is a good time to discuss why A.I. art is, and I'm being as polite as I can, absolutely worthless and should not be a thing anybody supports.

I don't think I need to explain what A.I. is, right? It's artificial intelligence usually programmed to perform one single task. Scan videos to see which ones aren't suitable for our website, beat Super Mario Bros without dying, make products to these specifications. They're simple programs designed to run a simple and repetitive task. How they work is very... complicated, but basic coding boils it all down, "If this, than that", so imagine an A.I. designed to monitor a firepit and kill the fire when something non desirable gets to close to the pit, like a piece of plastic or a soda can. "If clear, than fire. If not clear, than no fire." Over time, that A.I. would need to take other things into incorporation, and that's where it would get complicated, but that's my understanding anyway.

So, why is A.I. art a bad thing? Well, let's talk about what art is, and I mean that seriously. Ultimately, I believe that art is a form of communication, communicating desires, communicating stories, communicating ideas, communicating feelings, sure we have art that serves a purpose, but beyond that, it is primarily, in my belief, to serve as a form of communication. Think about it, think of the layout and décor of your personal space, what does it say about you? How does it convey your personality? Is it full of collectibles? Is it organized and clean? Why are the walls coloured the colours they are, and would you change them? These are all the elements of art that is made to communicate, and what it's all trying to communicate is very personal to the artist.

How would Pink Floyd's The Wall have been had Roger Waters' life turned out differently? If Syd Barrett never had to disappear from the face of the Earth, if his father never died in war, if Thatcher was never elected? How would the story of The Wall change? How would Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood have changed if Fred Rogers never turned on the TV? or if a different program, one that he didn't despise, was playing? How different would James Rolfe's life be if he never had a Nintendo Entertainment System? You look at all these pieces of art and what they're communicating, themes of pain and isolation, themes of kindness and love, themes of childhood anger and nostalgia gone sour, and you think about how the artists personal lives were influencing their work.

You don't get that with A.I., it's not personal, it's not communicating anything about what the artist feels or thinks. Sure, someone programmed the A.I., but that's not the same thing. The artist can't tell the A.I. to make something like they would, because that would destroy the purpose of the A.I., an A.I. could write an album about Thatcher era England and comparing it to Nazi Germany, but then any of the details inspired by Roger Waters' personal life and experiences wouldn't be there, and it'd be completely different. It's easy to assume it'd be the same, but that is hindsight talking, because The Wall was released in 1979, so it's easy to believe it wouldn't be different when it's become such a big piece of modern day culture.

So, okay, it's not personal, but corporate art does exist. Art that doesn't communicate ideas, but more serves a function. Okay, what function does A.I. Art serve? And no, "To look pretty" isn't a valid reason. I have seen posters that look pretty, but I never bought them because they weren't posters I wanted. I do have posters that look pretty, but they're also for things I like, Pink Floyd, The Crow, Daft Punk, Steven Universe, so even though the art may not communicate itself, it still communicates something about me. Now, think about all the other types of Functional Art, architecture, cooking, automobile design, landscaping, they all serve a purpose that A.I. art does not.

So, what purpose does it serve? Maybe it makes Art more accessible to people? Then you realize, there has never been a point that art has never been accessible to anyone, not to make and not to see. People have been using random things they've crushed up to paint cave walls, paint their faces and dye clothes for thousands of years, potentially even millions. Anyone who has access to a tool to make a mark with, and something to mark on, can make art. A stick and some sand, a pencil and paper, a keyboard and computer, and everyone can see all manner of art nowadays, thanks to online places and social media. People will say, "I can't draw" or "I can't write like you", and the truth is, they've probably never tried, because it's the old saying, "the master has failed more times than the student has even tried."

So it fails to communicate any real ideas, it fails to serve any real purpose, and it fails to make art more accessible because art never was inaccessible to anyone. So, why do people like A.I. art? Well, personally, and I must stress I don't know anyone else to who thinks this, but I think it's because people want art, but they don't want to pay people for it. A.I. gives people a chance to have art for themselves without having to deal with an artist who "Has other commissions on hold", or "Needs to pay their bills", or "Doesn't do NSFW", because nobody sees a worker as another person, they're just servants to others. The person behind the counter at the coffee shop doesn't have their own life, they only exist to serve the person ordering the coffee and pastry, they don't really exist outside of the coffee shop do they? It's the same with artists, they don't really exist outside of the Twitter-sphere, even though Twitter is where a lot of people, including artists, talk about personal things and beliefs.

A.I. art is an issue, and beyond allegations of art theft and plagiarism, it's a problem because it has the ability to take the value away from traditional artists. Imagine, why would someone pay $500 for a piece of fan-art, when an A.I. could do it for $25? I've always been worried about A.I. taking our jobs and nothing coming quick enough to replace them, and A.I. art really gets to the core of that fear, if people can't rely on making art for a living, when all the jobs are gone, what can we do? At this point, I'm almost on the side of A.I. taking all our jobs, because when the corporate fatheads realize that we need money in order for them to make money, they'll panic and probably all drop dead, but that's wishful thinking. I don't think I need to say this, but A.I. is troubling, in a world where, "In Gold We Trust", we need to replace the jobs we're filling with A.I., before the only people with money are the people who never spend it.

Silver Circle (2013) - A Mediocre piece of Found Lost Media

 

Something I didn't get the chance to talk about recently has been Lost Media. Especially since the 2020s, so far has been incredible for Lost Media discoveries, in 2022 alone such pieces as the 1982 Macy's thanksgiving day parade footage, Quantum Quest, the 1964 Jeopardy pilot and the Sesame Street episode with Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch were found and that's barely scratching the surface. So, with all the exciting discoveries of lost media being found, I thought I'd take a look at a piece of lost media that has since been found. Silver Circle, an animated thriller from 2013 that saw a limited release in theatres before releasing on several now defunct digital platforms. As of November 29, 2021, a LostMediaWiki user uploaded a copy of the movie to MEGA, making the movie public, so special thanks to flashfire42, but was the effort worth it?

Okay, normally I pose a question like that and then get on with the review, but I just want to say, good or not, it is a good thing this movie is available. There are very few pieces of media that I think really should stay lost, and most of those are like, footage of horrible deaths and atrocities, yeah the Lost Media community has its share of weirdos and sickos. Any piece of art or media can give us a good glimpse into the culture and beliefs of the artist and/or the era they were creating in, so I'm glad that this movie is available as of now, even though it is really, really bad.

The movie follows a federal agent named Jay Nelson, as he investigates an arson, meeting an attractive woman named Zoe Taylor while asking some questions. However, the investigation is a bit more than it seems. It's a standard mystery thriller, with one small, itty bitty detail, it is hugely libertarian. This is a... topic I don't want to touch, since my own political beliefs are complicated, I'm not even going to try and discuss this movie's political beliefs, just know that one of the main criticisms of this movie is the political stance, whether or not that is fair is... a question for another day, I'm just stating the fact that this movie is based in libertarianist politics. The plot isn't bad, it's just not wholly interesting. I guess I should talk a little about the politics of this movie, especially since this movie got an endorsement from Ron Paul, but like, what can I really bring up other than saying, "it's there"? The movie makes commentary about inflation and the worth of the American dollar, and it just kind gives off the vibe that this movie was made for the message before much else.

Characters are... mixed. On the one hand, they're pretty generic and boring, but on the other hand, they do have some small quips and jabs that are, not exactly realistic, but makes their interactions a bit more believable. It would probably be more believable if most of the dialogue didn't come off as exposition, plain old boring ass exposition. I guess it wouldn't sound so much as exposition if the voice actors were better than okay. I swear mot of the male characters have the same or similar sounding voices, and some are given annoying accents. The performances themselves aren't bad, but they aren't special, they're just your standard, "Doing what's asked of me and not much else" kind of performance

The Animation is bad, almost mockbuster quality, but with the attempt to make it look cel shaded. Characters move in an uncanny way that is too natural to be a cartoon, but too mechanical to be human. Environmental details literally only exist as part of the texture, leaves on the ground don't move when something moves over them. On top of that, for a dystopic future, I'm not really seeing much of the "Future", like I get this isn't like a Star Trek, Blade Runner or Red Dwarf style future, but like, even The Terminator had some futuristic elements to it, this movie's future doesn't even have smartphones which were a thing back in 2013, they've been a thing since the 2000s. Every synopsis I can find for the movie says it's set in a dystopian future, and I see a lot of the dystopian, but it just looks like a dystopian current day setting. Character models are ugly, with weird lumps and bumps all over their faces, I guess to indicate facial structure and age, but it just looks ugly, and the facial animations, I mean you could pause this movie at any random shot and get a weird, hilarious or uncanny facial expression. I haven't seen facial animation this bad since that Hercules and Xena movie I reviewed back in 2019.

Ultimately, while it is good this movie is available for people to watch, I can't really recommend anyone watch it. It's not offensively bad, it's just kind of averagely boring. It has some moments of amusement, and I think it could be interesting to the right audience, but for any casual viewer, it's not that great. Not very interesting characters, mediocre at best plot, bad animation and okay at best voice acting. I can't really imagine anyone really changing their political beliefs over this movie. It's kind of the perfect example of something that is a political statement before it's art or entertainment. This is not one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it's pretty bad. If you're an archivist, it may be worth digging up, but for anyone else, save the hard drive space for something else.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) - Another Jewel in the Crown of Pixar

 

You know what just hit me? I really haven't been talking about Pixar on this blog. Outside of the Toy Story marathon I did in preparation for Toy Story 4, and the occasional First Impressions, I haven't talked Pixar that much, and that is a darn shame because Pixar is easily one of my favourite animation studios ever. Pixar literally revolutionized animation with their Computer Graphics and stories that spoke to both the children and adults in the audience. These were the movies that carried Disney through their post-renaissance era and eventually the kind of movies Disney would end up making. Pixar is a really important part of animation history, so I thought it would be a good idea to review one of their movies this time, and since I'm still celebrating getting three-quarters closer to the big one-double zero reviews, let's look at another one of my favourites, Monsters, Inc.

The story focuses on two monsters, Mike Wazowski and James Sullivan, otherwise known as Sulley. They work at, what is essentially a power production facility in the monster world, which is a clever piece of worldbuilding as their world is powered by the screams of children... that sounds really horrible when I say it like that. The two are the top of their workforce, but then Sulley finds a door on the scare floor while working late and accidentally lets a child in the monster world, which is really bad considering this world is afraid of children and sees them as dangerous, deadly and toxic. Sulley and Mike now need to return the child without raising suspicion, but they soon find that there is something much more sinister at work than them. The overall story flows really nicely, you can see how the events lead into each other, and it's pretty genius how they set up the laughter plot point, I will say the reveal is okay, maybe a bit too subtle, but after a couple viewings you do get to notice things like the careful wording of Waternoose when Mike is explaining the situation to him. I don't think it's the best reveal in a Disney or Pixar movie, but it is not the worst.

While I'm on the subject, one thing I want to mention is the ending. I think the ending to Monsters, Inc. is one of the best endings to not just any animated movie, but any movie period. It's a really touching ending, especially when you consider the characters. The characters are really well written for this movie, they don't talk like cartoon characters, they talk like real people, with real quips and backtalk, almost to the point where, even though I hear John Goodman and Billy Crystal, I don't see them, I see their characters. This is a contrast to performances like Jeff Bridges in The Last Unicorn or Orson Welles in The Transformers movie, where I could only picture the actors in the recording booth. You have Sulley, a humble and hardworking guy, and Mike, a narcissistic but generally good person. They're both likeable, but not perfect. I don't think I really appreciated Mike as a character until I watched TheRealJims' YouTube video about the movie. It really made me appreciate the movie in a new way. On top of that, the rest of the main cast is also entertaining, Randall is perfectly sinister and slimey, Mr. Waternoose is authoritative and seemingly friendly, and Roz is just... a perfect character. On top of that each monster has a very unique design, many of which I don't think I've seen in other monster media.

I think animation wise, this is easily one of the best looking animated movies of the 2000s. The character design alone, you can see almost every hair on Sulley, and you can almost feel the scaly texture of Randall's skin. To be fair, most of the environments this movie takes place in are pretty bland, when you think of a monster world you might think of something much more stylized like Nightmare Before Christmas, or Aah! Real Monsters, but I don't really mind the more mundane environments, the interesting and unique monster deigns more than make up for the more mundane world. On top of that, when this movie wants to get visually interesting, it gets visually interesting. The climax of this movie is easily one of the best and most exciting animated climaxes in cinema, and the reveal of the massive door storage area still amazes me to this day. Major credit to the animation team behind this movie.

Ultimately, I don't even know what else to add without stealing lines from other reviews. I mean, Monsters, Inc. is fantastic, and easily one of my favourite Pixar movies, definitely on the same level as Up and Toy Story 3. The story is well written, the characters are likeable, the voice acting is excellent, and the animation is superb, it really is incredible that Pixar was capable of hitting peaks like this early in their history. Really, this is another movie, I really doubt that you needed me, or really anyone, to tell you how good it was, it's one of Disney-Pixar's most popular movies, getting a prequel movie, and a spin-off series on Disney+ which... not really something I'm into, but that's not important. At the end of the day, Pixar really is one of the best animation studios around, and Monsters, Inc. is just one of their many amazing movies that any animation fan must see, if they haven't already. Really, do I even need to say I give it a High Recommendation?

Editorial: Netflix... yep, this again...

The irony is sickening, last year I was almost nothing but positive about Netflix. Their animated film output last year was phenomenal, to the point where I actually said, or at least implied, that I was happy Nimona was being put on Netflix. Well, guess what everyone is saying now, that Netflix is a bad service with bad business practices and doesn't deserve Nimona. Okay, fair is fair, I don't think anyone actually said the first part and I've seen only one person say that last bit, but you get my point, right? The year was 2022, I had little bad to say about Netflix and finally decided that they may be turning over a new leaf, and not even in the next year, literally during the same year, everyone began turning on Netflix. Why is that?

Admittedly, my disdain for Netflix has always been from a movie-goer perspective. Netflix seemed to have the strategy to place their name on any pile of garbage and hope that enough people watched it to earn a profit. Pets United, The Larva Island Movie, Duck Duck Goose, and lest we forget about the poorly marketed dumpster fire that is Cuties. Even when Netflix released a good movie, like Arlo the Alligator Boy or Klaus, I mean I liked those movies, but I wouldn't say they're some of the greatest animated movies of all time. Klaus was good, but it wasn't as good as Treasure Planet or even something like Felidae. Maybe it's because 2022 was so devoid of anything spectacular, that I was giving heaps of praise to Netflix for producing so many unique kinds of movies. Apollo 10½, Wendell & Wild, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, very unique movies that were different from most of the rest of the 2022 line up. This however, completely ignores the other aspect of Netflix, the shows.

Netflix played host to a variety of different types of shows, and being in the animation community, lots of people gravitated towards shows like Dead End: Paranormal Park and Inside Job, which a lot of people really liked. Inside Job stands with a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7 Rating on IMDb, meanwhile Dead End: Paranormal Park stands with an 86% audience score, a 100% on the "Average Tomatometer" (BTW, that looks like it should be pronounced Tomay-TOM-itter), and a 6.9 on IMDb. Granted, none of that is a measure of quality, but it is a measure of popularity, and these shows were clearly popular. You don't get a 91% if you're not popular on some level. So clearly, Netflix would see these ratings and think to give both shows more seasons right?

Oh my goodness, if they actually thought that, one; I wouldn't be writing this, and two; you wouldn't be here. Netflix decided to cancel both shows because... actually I don't know, but I'm sure it's a stupid reason, because of course it would have to be, it's Netflix. This is the streaming platform that thought that Vanguard's movies were good investments, I don't think there is a single brain cell working at the executive table at Netflix. Cancelling these two shows, despite their popularity, is like Disney cancelling DuckTales... oh wait... Disney did that too... and that's why we're stuck with the divisive finale. Oh ho.

All of that however, is just the moist pork and asparagus cake compared to the salt and vinegar frosting that is Netflix's password sharing policies. According to DiscussingFilms, Netflix has introduced a new method to keep people from being happy, forcing users every 31 days to log in on a home Wi-Fi network, or else have the account blocked. Now, does Netflix have the right to implement this? That's not the question, the question is "how is this a good idea in the first place"? All it's going to do is make even less people use Netflix. There are plenty of users who use a shared Netflix account because they can't afford their own, or are spending their money on another service, or they're, you know, trying to buy basic necessities because they get paid so very little. Netflix seems to be under the impression that when it comes to decided whether someone wants to have food or Netflix, they'd choose Netflix. The reality is, if someone had to choose between food, rent, utilities and Netflix, Netflix would literally be the first thing to go, because who the actual Hell would choose getting to watch Duck Duck Goose when you have no food, no shelter and no electricity to watch it with?

The irony of it all makes me sick, but I guess at the end of the day, a string of quality does not support the heavy weight of awfulness. Netflix's disrespect to animation, complete buffoonery of password sharing deterrents, and selection of awful, awful "Netflix Original" movies, really does mean that at the end of the day, the joke was on me. Giving Netflix any amount of slack was a joke at my expense, and I should not have been at all surprised when people began saying things like "Netflix doesn't deserve Nimona". because at the end of the day... they're right. Nobody deserves Nimona really.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) - A Fun and Bizarre Disney Classic

 

I think everyone knows Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The classic Victorian era children's novel, not unlike A Christmas Carol, has been a popular story for adaptations, parodies and reimaginings since the birth of cinema. It's hard to think of someone who has not heard of this story, in any form, be it the original book and its sequel Through the Looking Glass, or from the American McGee games, or even the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit", one of my personal favourite songs of all time. Arguably the most popular version of the story is the 1951 Walt Disney animated feature. This movie followed the success of Cinderella, and has become one of Disney's most beloved properties. I don't think I really need to ask why.

Alice is a young girl who is being taught a history lesson, but she loses interest and wanders off, finding a peculiar White Rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch. Following this rabbit leads her to Wonderland, where she keeps trying to follow the White Rabbit, but ends up coming across many strange, kooky and curious characters. Of course, this movie does have some differences from the original Lewis Carroll book, many of the scenarios that Alice finds herself in end in completely different ways in the book, but I don't think the changes are that egregious for this movie. The changes they made fit the tone of the story they're telling, which is still undeniably the story of Alice in Wonderland. It kind of fits in with other adaptations from Disney, like Winnie the Pooh or Pinocchio, where the books and movies are two distinctly different from each other, but the themes and tones and enough of the story beats are still in tact that the changes in the movie are not all that upsetting, unless you're a book purist, in which case, learn to have fun.

On top of that, it's not like Alice just randomly stumbles into all the scenarios, she has a set goal in mind. She comes across the Tweedles after following the White Rabbit, she notices the Caterpillar's hookah smoke after being kicked out of the flower garden, the Cheshire Cat directs her to the Mad Hatter and March Hare. This does give the movie some sense of structure and cohesion rather than a movie like Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure, which I also liked, but the story was not that movie's strongest aspect. Overall, I can say the story of this movie is straightforward and not very rocky, a solid A grade effort.

Of course the characters are what makes this story iconic. We all know these characters and the voices associated with them, Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, Jerry Colonna as the March Hare, Pat O'Malley as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Bill Thompson as the White Rabbit, Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, and may we never forget the great Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat. The voice talent is superb, everyone's voice matches the characters perfectly, and topping them off is Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, and she does an equally amazing performance, so much so she actually reprised her role as Alice in the Kingdom Hearts video game and House of Mouse in 2002, there are very few characters that symbiotic with their actor.

As characters, everyone is pretty good. Alice in Wonderland is a weird story where everything is an antagonist, but not really a villain. I know the Queen of Hearts is grouped in with the Disney villains, and she is probably the most evil character in the story, but not everyone is all that helpful. Even the characters that are helpful have a nastier side to them, the Door Knob almost taking joy in Alice's predicament, the Caterpillar losing his temper with Alice, and the Cheshire Cat, clearly a trickster archetype. All of the craziness and antagonistic behaviors are all balanced out by Alice, who is curious and playful, but also has her limits. While I don't know if this movie has Disney's best characters, I can definitely see why they've remained iconic, and why whenever someone imagines Alice, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter or Cheshire Cat, it's usually these versions of the characters people think of.

Now, let's talk about the animation. First off, it is amazing, but not the actual animation itself, it is fantastic, but pretty standard for Disney. What wasn't standard for Disney at the time, was the effects, the lighting and the colour palette. The lighting in this movie is fantastic, environments darken to highlight certain parts of the location, or to emphasize a mood. Plus, seeing the Cheshire Cat fade away is always a cool treat. The colour palette is a perfect blend of visually interesting colours, but not anything that is eye bleeding or too unappealing. You'll never forget that this is a bizarre fantasy world, but it's not too out of the ordinary. This is one of the movies that the entire group of Disney's Nine Old Men worked on, and it shows, these were THE animators at Disney and are some of the most respected names in animation. Les Clark, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Woollie Reitherman, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were masters of animation and having them all work together for this movie is just phenomenal.

Alice in Wonderland is easily one of those movies that every animation fan needs to see at least once. It's easy to think that it's only worth seeing because it's a Disney movie, but given the movie's fantastic visuals, excellent vocal performances and settings and characters that we still associate with original stories today, it's hard to think of a reason to pass this movie up. Truly an excellent movie and one of the highlights from the Silver Age of Disney. What more needs to be said?