ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

#tbt

Space Jam 4K HD

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spacejam3Remember that time that Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny lead the most ridiculous rag-tag team of basketball players in a game for the fate of the world? It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since Jordan and the Looney Tunes joined forces to defeat the  Nerdlucks-turned-Monstars in a game of basketball for the fate of the world.

Back in 1996, Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick (the Santa Clause franchise) wrote a script that riffed on Jordan’s ill-fated retirement to baseball’s minor leagues with a collision that gave a Who Killed Roger Rabbit? -type vibe to basketball, aliens, and Jordan. Directed by Joe Pytka (whose real claim to fame is critically-recognized commercials for athletes like Tiger Woods and Jordan, sending over eighty commercials to Super Bowl weekend), the film allowed the world to see Jordan, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, and other NBA stars in a different light.

The film has the greatest soundtrack one could possibly imagine for a film from 1996, with Coolio, Steve Miller Band, and many more – including R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” – on the record. (The year the film came out, I was volunteering at a summer camp for homeless children – they demanded I play the song on repeat which meant fast forwarding the ‘B’ side song thanks to those things called cassette tapes!) In fact, the special features of this 4K HD release include the music videos of Seal’s “Fly Like an Eagle” and the cast’s “Monstars’ Anthem Hit ‘Em High.”

spacejamWayne Knight (Seinfeld) provides some laughs as Jordan’s bumbling publicist, but this mostly Jordan and Bugs Bunny working together. For this release, the commentary is by Bugs himself, with Daffy Duck and Pytka. The other special features include the featurette “Jammin’ with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan.”

If you’re a fan of ’90s music, Looney Tunes, or Jordan, this is one you’ll want to own. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t know I can sell it any more — it’s a classic! Now we’ll just have to sit back and wait to see how Lebron does with Space Jam: A New Legacy – and if we’re celebrating it twenty-five years from now.

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Alice in Wonderland: Finding Reason in Madness #TBT

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I’ll be perfectly honest with you. These last few weeks, or even months, have been challenging for me mentally, as I am sure they may have been for many of you. There seems to be so much pointlessness in the world. A virus that ravages the world without reason or discrimination. A seemingly pointless death coming on the back of so many other seemingly pointless deaths. Rioting that has led to what feels like pointless looting and destruction, of lives as well as property. When I came to work the other day, I find boards put up over the windows and massive wooden doors installed to lock over the automatic glass ones, as a precaution they say, and I struggle to find sense in it all. Everywhere I turn, there is a new madness in front of me, I feel.

I suspect Alice could relate… eventually. At first, the heroine of these 1951 Disney picture daydreams about a place where nothing makes sense. “In my world, everything would be nonsense,” she tells her already confused cat, Dinah, and that is what she longs for. For her, normal has become boring. She’d much rather the flowers and birds start talking to her than doing her schoolwork with her sister in the garden. So, when a White Rabbit runs by wearing a waistcoat and a watch and in an awful hurry, Alice dismisses her own forebodings (“Curiosity often leads to trouble”) and follows down his rabbit hole and into the curious world of Wonderland.

Immediately, nothing makes any sense whatsoever. Things that should be right side up are upside down, hallways get smaller and smaller, and doors are locked, and the key doesn’t appear until it is out of reach. Alice quickly finds herself bewildered and out of sorts. The locals are not much help either. They are more likely to exasperate you with pointless stories and inane ramblings.

Admittedly, the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter, as told by the twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum, is the best segment in the movie, but their advice upon meeting Alice seems less than helpful: “How do ya do and shake hands, shake hands, shake hands. How do ya do and shake hands and state your name and business. That’s manners!”

When she asks the grinning Cheshire Cat for directions, he answers, “Well that depends on where you want to get to.” Alice replies that it doesn’t really matter, so the Cat tells her “Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.” Pointless, right? When the Mad Hatter and his equally mad companion, the March Hare, while hosting a surprisingly entertaining tea party, offer Alice some more tea, she points out that she hasn’t had any tea yet, so she can’t have any more. “Ah, you mean you can’t very well take less,” responds the Hare. “Yes. You can always take more than nothing,” agrees the Hatter. Wait a second…that actually made sense.

In fact, most of the lines I quoted above made sense. Now, I am not saying that there are messages to be found in everything these zany characters say. Indeed, most of this movie is pure silliness. I am saying is that I sympathized with Alice as the further into Wonderland she went, the more chaotic and nonsensical it became. Similarly, the more I saw in the world, in my country, at my own workplace, the more chaotic and nonsensical it felt to me. Why were people doing what they were doing?

Alice never stops to listen to what the wacky Wonderlanders are saying that might make sense, but she does stop and listen to herself for the first time. She admits that she often gives herself ‘very good advice, but she very seldom follows it.’ I gave myself good advice that I knew I should follow: don’t judge things on appearance alone. But when everyone seemed to be going mad, I struggled to follow my own advice. It was only when I stopped looking and started listening to why people said they were doing what they were doing that I began to see the reason.

Alice eventually stands up for herself instead of just being lead from one circumstance to the next and when she finally meets the maddest Wonderland inhabitant of them all, the Queen of Hearts, a ruthless bully who sentences everyone to death without discrimination and finds everyone guilty before giving them a chance to prove their innocence, Alice calls her out for her tyranny and confronts her with courage. That kind of madness, rooted in injustice, cannot be tolerated, even in Wonderland. This, of course, leads to Alice finally escaping in the nick of time, with the angry Queen in pursuit.

I like to think that Alice gained a new appreciation for ‘normalcy’ once she reentered her own world. Maybe she appreciated ‘normal’ things a bit more, like her history lessons or her cat who can’t speak or wear pocket-watches and waistcoats. I know I have learned to appreciate ‘normal’ things recently, like a brief visit with my sister in the park (first masked face-to-face since March) or watching the fireflies doing what they do in my back yard on a quite summer evening. There is reason in these quiet and happy moments, just as there is reason in the chaos and conflict that is in our world, though it may not be clear at first. Sometimes we have to search for it, understand it and maybe even learn from it.

Alternative: if you can find it, the 1999 made-for-TV version is excellent, featuring an all-star cast including Ben Kingsley, Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Short, Gene Wilder, and Christopher Lloyd, among many others, and it also gives Alice a much more proactive role without turning her into an outright rebel as the 2010 Disney remake did.

Tin Cup: Hole in One? #TBT

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Ron Shelton once teamed with Kevin Costner to deliver one of the top-10 sports films of all time (and the second-best baseball film to star Costner) with Bull Durham. As a one-time minor league baseball player, Shelton was hardwired to tell that story, but he wasn’t done. He also wrote (and directed or produced) White Men Can’t Jump, Blue Chips, Play it to the Bone, and another sports-themed collaboration with Costner, Tin Cup.

Roy McAvoy (Costner) is working as a golf pro at a driving range in West Texas because he lacked the motivation to maximize his talent on the PGA Tour. When his former teammate David Simms (Don Johnson) and Simms’ girlfriend, Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), show up, Griswold to get a golf lesson and Simms to use McAvoy as a caddy, the plot thickens. McAvoy falls for Griswold, too, and challenges Simms’ pride by calling his ability into question on a 230-yard shot that McAvoy makes while the crowd at a benefit event watches. Simms fires McAvoy, and McAvoy decides to try and qualify for the US Open with the help of Griswold as his shrink and his buddy Romeo Posar (Cheech Marin) as his caddy.

Stereotypical sports moments galore! Sexy romance! Funny asides! Shelton’s formula is pretty much that of the correct chemistry into every sports fan’s heart, and Tin Cup is no different.

In between comparing golf to poetry (yep, that’s in here), McAvoy says things like, “If I had to do it again, I’d still hit that shot,” and Romeo says back, “Man, you’d bury yourself alive just to prove you could hold the shovel.” McAvoy is both deep (“When a defining moment comes along you define the moment or the moment defines you”) and shallow (“Well, if you can remove the sexual overtones and add a golf theme, then Romeo, I am your Juliet” to Romeo).

Of course, the golf isn’t bad either, thanks to golf “consultant” Gary McCord who supplied some of the more exceptional (the truth is always stranger than fiction) moments on the course, and coached Costner up so that he actually looks and plays like a golfer – even hitting many of the shots during filming. That’s the one thing that the true sports fan is looking for — the moment when the film actually captures the reality of the sport they love – and Tin Cup does just that.

Thanks to Warner Archives, fans can now own the film on Blu-ray. Putt away!

The Reluctant Dragon: Your Learning for Today #TBT

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Disney World is closed.  So is Disneyland.  Indeed, all theme parks and even most major studios are shut down for the foreseeable future.  However, that doesn’t mean you still can’t take a tour of Walt Disney’s animation studios from the comfort of your living room.  At least, their studio from the 1940s.  For that is what The Reluctant Dragon offers.  The Reluctant Dragon is the first in a series of collections of shorts, which were the only theatrical offerings from Disney through most of the 1940s. 

Surprisingly, this film is mostly live-action and documentary style, telling the ‘story’ of Robert Benchley (played with enthusiasm by…well, Robert Benchley) who comes to Walt Disney Studios in hopes of selling his book about a reluctant dragon to Disney himself as a potential animated feature.  However, he finds himself endlessly sidetracked throughout the studio and in the process, he (and we) get to see first-hand just how Disney movies were made, from storyboarding to sound recording to voiceover work and music and beyond. 

These live-action documentary bits are actually quite fascinating and never boring.  They offer a glimpse into Disney animation history as well as brief behind the scenes looks into the making of their most recent pictures, and as such, this is a good companion piece to Dumbo, Bambi and Fantasia, among others.  Sure, the dialogue is corny and a bit dated, but I appreciate the educational aspect that the movie is going for.

Interspersed throughout are three animated shorts.  The first, ‘Baby Weems’, is about a baby who is born as a super genius, who can talk and do complex mathematics and biology.  Thus, she is toured all around the world to be gawked at by scientists and politicians alike, much to the dismay of her parents, who just want a normal baby.  It is a cute short and unique in style, as it is shown mostly in storyboard form.  The second short features Goofy, trying to learn to ride the most uncooperative horse imaginable, aided by a less-than-helpful narrator.  This short is hilarious and worth watching – nothing more to say about it really.

The final short is about the titular dragon.  A small boy, hearing that a dragon has been sighted near his father’s farm, goes to investigate, having read about the fearsome fire-breathing monsters in a book.  To his surprise, this dragon is quite peaceful, much preferring composing poetry and playing the flute to ravaging the countryside and devouring fair damsels.  However, the villages have enlisted the aide of famed Sir Giles the dragon killer, and a fight to the death seems inevitable.  Can the boy find a peaceful solution that both the legendary knight and pacifist dragon can agree on?  You’ll have to watch the short to find out!  This short has the closest thing to a message out of the three shorts, celebrating a gentle spirit and cooperation vs violent conflict and assuming something is bad simply because we were taught that it was so.

There is a lot of fun to be found here and kids and adults alike can enjoy the colorful animation and delightful characters, as well as the more educational side of the story, which I personally found to be the most interesting.  It doesn’t take anything away from the magic and beauty of Disney’s animation, but rather enhances respect and admiration for the hard work and creativity that went into the making of some of their most beloved classics.  Be forewarned though: watching this movie may lead to your children trying to make ‘air-pockets’ so they too can talk like Donald Duck.

Dumbo: The Elephant in the Room #TBT

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Following the relative lack of box office success of Fantasia and Pinocchio and with the country on the verge of entering a World War, Disney needed to churn out something inexpensive and much shorter.  That little movie turned out to be the story of a young elephant with big ears who learns to fly.  I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a big fan of ‘Dumbo’.  Even as a child, it always struck me as, well, juvenile.  However, watching it today, I think it may be more mature than I remembered and the characters actually seemed to have a lot more depth.

Take Mrs. Jumbo, the mother of Dumbo, for example.  She is an elephant of few words (I think she only has one line of dialogue in the whole movie), but her actions continually speak louder.  She doesn’t care that her son has gargantuan ears – she loves him all the same.   The adorable scene where she is playing with him shows the bond is strong between them.  When the other elephants mock Dumbo and the human children are jeering at him, at first Dumbo thinks they are having a bit of fun, but his mom knows better.  She sees the cruelty before he does and protects him from it, even at the cost of her own freedom, in the case of the human bullies.  Incidentally, I’ve often wondered what Mrs. Jumbo did to warrant the VIP treatment from Mr. Stork.  All the other animals just got their babies unceremoniously dropped on them, whereas she got a whole song and dance routine.  She even had to sign paperwork.

Then you have my favorite character, Timothy the Mouse.  Timothy is the kind of friend every bullied kid in school wishes he had, who speaks up for him, who defends him in times of trouble, who tries to cheer him up when he’s down and constantly is trying to find ideas for how to help his friend make his way in the world.  His ideas don’t always succeed, but he never gives up and sticks by Dumbo through everything.  Indeed, his final speech when he berates the crows for picking on Dumbo is actually genuinely moving.  For the record, by the way, the crows are hilarious and have some of the best lines.  Their pun-filled song about seeing “An Elephant Fly” is a highlight and I never got the impression they were making fun of Dumbo, just laughing at the concept of an elephant flying in general.  After they learn about his troubles, they come to his aid and are one of the few characters to treat Dumbo with respect.

Indeed, while there are no villains per se, most of the side characters are cruel or bullying towards poor Dumbo.  Rather like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the other elephants shun him, all the while cattily gossiping about how all Mrs. Jumbo’s problems are the fault of her ‘little freak’ of a son.  Also rather like Rudolph (at least in the song alone, not the Rankin-Bass animated feature, where Rudolph does a lot more before the climactic scene), the circus Ringmaster reminds me of Santa, seeking only to exploit Dumbo because he sees a use for his ‘freakishness’, not because Dumbo has actually proven to be useful.

That leads me to Dumbo himself.  It is unusual for the lead character in any film to be mute, let alone the lead in an animated cartoon.  But mute Dumbo is – never a word does the baby elephant speak, except a grunt here and there.  Instead, every emotion is expressed through facial expression, and it is really quite effective.  Dumbo is a very sympathetic character.  You delight in his joys, such when he plays with his mom, and you feel his sorrow, such as when he is separated from her.  One of the saddest moments is when he hopefully approaches the other elephants, with a brief expression of happiness that they might comfort him in his loneliness, and then the dejected look on his face when they turn away from him.  Yes, Dumbo is an easy character to feel for and to root for.  

It goes without saying that the movie looks great, although as a less expensive venture, it is less textured than the likes of Fantasia or even Pinocchio. The best animated scene, in fact, is the trippy “Pink Elephants on Parade,” where Dumbo and Timothy get drunk (no joke) and have a bizarre series of hallucinations after which they wake up in a tree with no recollection of the event whatsoever (I figure this is how every ‘Hangover’ movie starts).  

So, as a work of animation, I wouldn’t count it among Disney’s masterpieces.  However, in terms of how it develops its characters in its short runtime (barely over 1 hour), it has surprising depth.  It may seem silly, but I only now in this viewing realized that the ‘magic feather’ didn’t actually do anything (and that the crows/Timothy knew this; it was, as they called it, ‘psychology’ or a placebo).  I see now that it was Dumbo’s confidence in himself that gave him the courage he needed to fly and prove to himself and the world that it was his differences that made him stronger.  It’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, even if he is a very small elephant, when he has the self-confidence to spread his wings, er, ears, and soar over the heads of the critics and the bullies and show them that a weakness can be overcome and made a strength.  That is a positive message to be heard by any ear, big or small.

Alternative:  I’m not gonna lie – I think Tim Burton’s 2019 remake is a superior film.  It has the weird Tim Burton atmosphere, but also many strong human characters that emphasize a lot of the themes I mentioned, such as overcoming your weaknesses.  I do think Dumbo himself is rather short-changed and it lacks the jovial crows and Timothy Mouse’s encouraging presence, but Michael Keaton and Danny De Vito are great and for older children, it has more spectacle and suspense.  A worthy reimagining.   

Fantasia: Chaos vs Peace #TBT

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In a bold move, Walt Disney’s 3rd animated film is a mostly silent concert feature, with several animated shorts or segments inspired by and featuring the music of prominent classical composers such as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and the like.  The movie is considered a high point in animation history and rightfully so.  However, I don’t want to talk about how the animation is brilliant, colorful, groundbreaking and a highlight of everything that makes Disney great.  Neither do I want to talk about how this is still one of my favorite Disney films and introduced me to the world of classical music at a young age, making me a lifetime fan.  I want to talk about a theme that has been on my mind these days and maybe on many of your minds too.  That is the theme of chaos.

There is a lot of chaos in the world today.  We all know the events, so I won’t go into it here.  One need only to turn on the news or even look at Facebook to immediately feel that sense of overwhelming chaos.  There is a lot of chaos in ‘Fantasia’ as well.  However, opposite to chaos is serenity, order, peace, hope even.  Watching ‘Fantasia’ through that perspective, these thoughts have come to my mind and I want to break them down segment by segment.

In the segment based on The Nutcracker Suite by Peter Tchaikovsky, we see the fairies of spring spreading the morning dew over the flowers and cobwebs of the field.  There is order and beauty to nature here, even as the fairies of fall come and turn the leaves to orange and gold, followed by the fairies of winter who cover the land in frost and snow.  The changing of seasons can be chaotic, as summer goes to autumn and the world seems dead in the heart of winter.  But there is order behind that chaos, as so beautifully illustrated here in the music and animation and in the fantasy idea that the fairies of the seasons are behind the scenes, orchestrating all of it.  Of course, we know Who is really orchestrating behind the scenes and that is what gives us hope, that winter will indeed turn into spring.

The most famous segment, ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, tells the story of a young apprentice, played by Mickey Mouse, who, being lazy and not wanting to do his job of carrying buckets of water for his master, the sorcerer, decides to put on the sorcerer’s magic hat and use his magic to reanimate the broom to do his chores for him.  Of course, the magic gets out of hand and Mickey finds himself in a chaos of his own making.  There is a lesson here about meddling in things outside of your experience and not trying to find an easy way out of doing hard things.  However, my thought here is this: once Mickey realized he was in a catastrophe, instead of turning to a higher power, here the sorcerer, to help him, instead he tried to fix things himself, which only made matters worse.  In the midst of this catastrophe, I feel it is important to remember we cannot fix things by ourselves either.  We must turn to the One with Authority to help us see it through.  In the end, the sorcerer had to come down himself and make things right.  We must also trust that eventually, He too will bring order to chaos, although, much like Mickey didn’t care for how it ended for him, it may not end in a way we like or expect, but we must also trust that He knows best.

‘The Rite of Spring’ by Igor Stravinsky is a chaotic piece of music by itself and the story the animators chose to go with it is no less chaotic.  It is the story of life itself, at least according to scientific theory back them.  Don’t go looking for a Genesis account here, or even one that scientists today would even agree on, I think.  The chaos here is all prehistoric, of exploding volcanos, massive earthquakes, tidal waves and behemoth dinosaurs roaming the earth.  The world of then, as depicted here, is in constant upheaval, not unlike the world today.  Change came swiftly then and with it a new calamity every day, so that survival itself became a challenge for those ancient creatures as they fought for resources, much like we humans seem to be battling for survival ourselves.  When the stegosaurus faces down the fearsome tyrannosaurus in a fight to the death, I sympathized him, because it feels that we are also facing a looming danger that threatens us and with little hope, it seems, of rescue.  There is no light at the end of this tunnel, as the end of this segment is rather bleak, what with the mass dinosaur extinction and all, but the comparisons of the world then to the world today are mainly what struck me here.

I won’t say much about the ‘Dance of the Hours’ segment.  Presented as a rather straightforward ballet, but with the absurdity of ballet dances that are not typically thought of as graceful, such as ostriches, hippos, elephants and crocodiles.   It is simply a delight and fun to watch.  However, the segment based on Ludwig von Beethoven’s ‘Pastorale Symphony’ struck an interesting chord with me. Here we see creatures of Greek mythology going about their normal lives: a family of Pegasus teaches a young one how to fly (my favorite part).  Male centaurs woo lovely female centaurs with the help of mischievous cupids.  Jovial Bacchus cavorts while drinking copious amounts of wine.  Then suddenly out of nowhere comes Zeus, hurtling thunderbolts at the merrymakers and causing quite a chaos that leaves everyone hiding in terror. 

The thought came to me that not long ago, we were those centaurs and fawns and Pegasus, just going about our business and doing our day to day lives, when it seems like out of nowhere, this thunderbolt came down into our midst, bringing a storm in its wake.  Sure, there were rumblings of this oncoming chaos, but it wasn’t until it was among us that we really saw it for the chaos it could bring.  How grateful I am that ours is not a whimsical God, like Zeus, just throwing bolt after bolt for no reason and finding delight in our fear and confusion.  He will not throw any lightning at us that we cannot handle, and He will be with us to help weather the storm, so when the sun comes out again, it will shine all the brighter.

The final segment of the movie has some of the darkest, most vivid and frightening animation ever put to film.  ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, with its fantastic score by Modest Mussorgsky, is a masterpiece of stark depiction of evil and Halloween-ish terror, in which the very Devil himself comes out of the mountain and summons all the ghosts and demons to revel with him.   Then comes Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’, which follows directly after, when the bright bells of dawn drive the minions of the night back into hiding and many pilgrims holding candles walk a path to a sort of cathedral while the heavenly chorus plays throughout.  It is a stunning depiction of the contrast of profane vs sacred. 

Sometimes, it can feel like the Devil, chaos personified, is having his day, or rather, his night.  This segment serves as a reminder that it is always darkest before the dawn.  Dawn is coming and the Devil, who sows chaos, fear and destruction, will be and indeed already has been defeated.  As the ‘Ave Maria’ lyrics say, we must embrace the Prince of Peace, and the hosts of darkness will fade and cower.

This is as theological as I will get when it comes to my look back at the world of Disney, but these are the thoughts I had while watching this movie and considering the events of the year so far.   This is why I chose to share all my thoughts on these Disney movies in this series, because I love the positivity these films bring and the good messages and ideas that can still be found.  I share them with you and hope you might find the same encouragement and inspiration in ‘Fantasia’ that I did.

Pinocchio: Little Wooden Head but a Big Heart

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I read the original Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian author Carlo Collodi when I was young at my grandmother’s house and remember being struck by how dark and surprisingly violent it is (fun fact: the first thing Pinocchio does to the Talking Cricket upon meeting him is squashing him dead with his shoe). Indeed, the fairy tale on which Walt Disney chose to base their second feature film can be grim and while Disney’s adaptation adds a lot of slapstick comedy and wit, it also manages to maintain some of the darker themes and more important, the morals, of that story.

We all know the tale: in this version, narrated to us by the Talking Cricket, here given the name Jiminy, elderly toymaker Gepetto, having just completed work on a marionette he’s called Pinocchio, wishes on a wishing star that the puppet might become a real boy, given that he is lonely and has always wanted a son. The wishing star turns out to be the Blue Fairy who comes down to his house to grant his wish. I like that her doing this is not some random act bestowed on just anybody, but because he is a good person, as she plainly tells him, “Because you have brought so much joy to others, to deserve to have your wish come true.”

“Little puppet made of pine, awake! The gift of life is thine,” she then says as she taps our wooden hero on the forehead with her magic wand and Pinocchio slowly makes his first awkward movements.

I also like the wording here, that life is a gift that should not be squandered, for if he ever wants to go from a reanimated puppet to actually being a real boy, he must prove himself worthy of that life, by learning to be “brave, truthful and unselfish.” Of course, being only alive a few moments, Pinocchio has no knowledge of these things, so Jiminy Cricket is appointed his official Conscience, to keep him on the straight and narrow, as it were. His definition of a conscience is still spot on, by the way: “That still small voice that people won’t listen to, and that’s just the trouble with the world today.”

So, from here, the story is a series of mishaps as Pinocchio is sent off to school with his trust Cricket and falls in with various ‘wrong crowds’ and has numerous misadventures, through which he learns several valuable lessons. When he meets the fox with the trustworthy name of Honest John and his sidekick cat, Gideon, he faces his first temptation and fails miserably. They offer him a chance at life on easy street, claiming that being an actor in stage will bring fame and fortune, or as they put it, “you can stop and buy out a candy store.” What little boy wouldn’t want to do that? Of course, the lesson here is not only don’t trust strangers, but also I think, how does the allure of fame tempt us today, when our face can easily be put on any Youtube video for everyone to see, and also it is important to listen to that voice in our head (in this case, Jiminy’s voice), telling us that something might be amiss.

His life on stage is short-lived, after the cat and the fox sell him to the nefarious puppet-master, Stromboli. He basically kidnaps Pinocchio and locks him in a cage, leading to a nice moment where both Pinocchio and Jiminy realize their shortcomings (let’s face it, Jiminy isn’t a very good conscience in this movie: he is frequently completely unaware of what is going on before it’s too late for him to do anything about it and he is also rather overly fond of the ladies, often to the point of distraction) and then the famous scene where Pinocchio tells lie after lie to the Blue Fairy about how he got in this mess, causing his nose to grow. Again, I like the message here, that you can tell as many lies as you want, but the more to pile on, the more clear it will become that you are lying, until it is indeed as plain as the nose on your face.

Then Pinocchio is conned again by the same cat and fox and finds himself on a coach to Pleasure Island, ‘where every day is a holiday and kids have nothing to do but play.’ Again, an easy temptation for a boy, or any child, really, although Pleasure Island seems to cater only to boys, what with all the smoking cigars, drinking beer, and wanton destruction (a number of things you would never see in an animated children’s movie today, not without a PG rating anyway). The idea I get here is one of peer pressure.

Pinocchio initially shows little interest in these things, until he sees his new friend, Lampwick, wanting to do them and, desiring to fit in, goes along with him. Maybe being bad is fun, he decides. Of course, the more the boys misbehave, the more they act like jackasses, until they quite literally turn into donkeys, leading to one of the most frightening sequences in the film. The transition of Lampwick from cocky, rude, and belligerent to terrified child who just wants his mama, while violently turning into a wild animal, is quite effective. By the way, just what are those strange black creatures that help the evil Coachman load the donkeys onto the boat? They certainly weren’t human. But I digress.

Throughout all this, Gepetto has been searching for Pinocchio high and low. It’s in the ‘low’ that he finds himself swallowed by a sperm whale, Monstro, and is now languishing at the bottom of the sea. I feel that Gepetto never really cares whether or not Pinocchio is a real boy or not, he still treats him like his son regardless and is willing to sacrifice everything to find him. Even while sitting in the belly of a whale, he wonders what’s become of the poor boy. I like that about him.

Once he finds out his father is lost at sea, Pinocchio finally gets to prove himself brave and unselfish, courageously diving head first into the ocean to find his father and selflessly offering to go alone, not asking anyone to risk their lives with him (Jiminy goes with him of his own accord). The underwater scenes are great fun and the subsequent rescue of Gepetto from Monstro is fantastic, a perfect combination of stunning animation, suspense and emotion, coming together in a whale of a scene. Yet, even in the face of a gigantic angry fish, Gepetto and Pinocchio are still selflessly looking out for each other, Gepetto urging his son to leave him and save his own life and Pinocchio very nearly becoming driftwood himself trying to get his father to shore.

The ending of the story is, of course, a happy one and Pinocchio has been judged worth of his chance to be a real boy through his courage and selflessness. All in all, this is a worthy successor to Snow White, and an all-around better movie, in my opinion. The voice work and character design is faultless, bringing Gepetto to kind-hearted and lovable life, and making Pinocchio, while initially a tad irritating, a cheer-worthy hero who learns from his own mistakes. Jiminy Cricket is hilarious, and I haven’t even mentioned the cute animal sidekicks, the endlessly innovative animated clocks in the toymaker workshop, or the numerous catchy songs, including the Disney staple, ‘When You Wish Upon a Star.’ Above all, I think the morals of the story come through clear and are still worthwhile points for children, and adults.

On a final note, I also find it interesting that, unlike in the original story, you never see any of the villains get any comeuppance. For all we know, Honest John and Gideon are still conning children out of going to school and the Coachman is still selling boy donkeys into slavery to this very day. That adds a layer of realism for me though (I know, realism in a movie about a talking puppet), because in real life, the villains often do go unpunished. They may do evil to you or me and may continue to go on doing evil, but their day of judgment will come, maybe not in our lifetime or any on this earth. Their deeds are not for us to judge. We can only judge ourselves for our own actions. May they be as brave, truthful and unselfish as Pinocchio’s, and that’s no lie.

Alternate versions: There are quite a few variations on this oft-adapted story, but a little-known version came in 1996, featuring the late Martin Landau as a sympathetic Gepetto and Jonathan Taylor Thomas (better known as The Lion King’s young Simba) as Pinocchio, stands out me. The special effects are quite good for its time and while some parts are decidedly strange, rather like an odd mixture of Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, on the whole it works pretty well. Plus it features songs by Stevie Wonder.

Shaft Triple Feature #TBT

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With the release of Tim Story’s Shaft from Kenya Barris’ (Blackish) script, fans of the legendary crimefighter can see what three generations of the first black hero on screen with Richard Roundtree, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jessie Usher. Just in time, Warner Bros. Archives has released the triple feature of Roundtree’s original three Shaft films from the early 1970s.

In the first eponymous film, private detective John Shaft is hired by a Harlem gangster to find his daughter; in the second, Shaft’s Big Score!, he tracks down a massive amount of money ($1.5 million today); and in the third, Shaft in Africa, he prepares to take down a human trafficking ring.

Each of the films shows Shaft as a symbol of black power and sexuality, strength and intelligence. There’s something strong about him, in a masculine way with both men and women, that proves to be heroic even if he’s not super interested in being heroic. Roundtree plays him with that panache in the midst of a blaxploitation film that showed up later influencing disparate media from Seinfeld to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, from The Simpsons to Django Unchained.

While there’s a sense that the character moves from a Chinatown vibe to a James Bond one over the first three films, they are more serious and gritty than the flippancy that has emerged in the newer films. We see the gravitas of Roundtree’s Shaft, battling baddies, wooing women, or quipping one-liners to the cops. He might be a man out of time looking back at the films, but at least you could tell who he was – there was no middle ground.

The Year of the Dragon (1985): Bringing the War Home #TBT

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Michael Cimino, of The Deer Hunter fame and Heaven’s Gate notoriety, shoots the gap between his Oscar wins for the first and the derision of his work for the second in Mickey Rourke’s The Year of the Dragon. While Rourke had collaborations with Steven Spielberg (1941), Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat), Barry Levinson (Diner), and Francis Ford Coppola (Rumble Fish) under his belt before this Chinatown-based crime thriller, his second work with Cimino proves to be an invasive character study into the heart of a man, showing off Rourke’s range in this Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray.

As a Vietnam veteran and well-decorated police captain, Rourke’s Stanley White shows up in Chinatown, instructed to clean up the new gangs and told to leave the old time gangsters alone. Instead, White barges in idealistically, bombastically, attacking anyone he finds breaking the law, with a notable exception: himself. Using illegal means and excessive force, White draws into complete war with Joey Tai (John Lone), an up-and-coming gangster of his own right. Before long, the two-sided vendetta is leaving bodies in its wake, but rather than deal with the validity of feelings or concerns, Cimino shows White maintaining his one-man war on crime.

White’s mantra seems to be a line from the end of the film, “how can anyone care too much?” but the audience is left with a torn apart life from a man with nothing left to lose. Surprisingly, the film seems to end tragically and violently, until a postlude scene shows that White hasn’t really changed at all, as he remarks, “Sorry. I’d like to be a nice guy. I would. I just don’t know how to be nice.” Ironically, the script by Oliver Stone initially ended with “If you fight a war long enough, you end up marrying the enemy.” This would have been more fitting – and also capped the racial tension that the whole movie exudes.

Without really delving into it too far, White’s racism stems from his time in Vietnam and inflects his war on crime in Chinatown, in a way that makes it much more personal than even the losses he’ll experience later. Surprisingly, in a film that could be brushed aside as an 1980s neo-noir crime flick, there’s more here about what it means to deal with our discrimination and experience than we would expect. Does it wrap everything up? Different audiences will find themselves more and less satisfied than others.

In the end, White rides out on his crusade, regardless of the costs. Somehow, he’s the only one left standing when the blood has been shed and the war is over.

Starsky & Hutch (2004): The Remake Revolution #TBT

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Before SWAT, Hawaii Five-O, MacGuyver, Lethal Weapon, and Magnum P.I. were remade as television dramas, studios seemed fascinated with remaking old television shows into slightly more offbeat films. In between films like I, Spy, and later films like The A-Team and 21 Jump Street, Starsky & Hutch took the old 1970s buddy cop show and twisted it, hard. Thanks to Warner Archive Collection, the Blu-ray allows audiences to dive back into a world where Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson are crime-stopping cops… sometimes.

Stiller plays straight-laced detective David Starsky and Wilson plays his new (criminally-infused) partner Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson. The two of them have completely different takes on how to combat crime, from opposite ends of the spectrum which might not even be in the same book of police procedural. Starsky is all rules and no nonsense, shoot first and write a report later; Hutch wants to soften every blow and maybe even make a little extra money on the way. But they’re still driving around in the red and white Gran Torino.

Tracking crime in fictional Bay City, Starsky and Hutch end up on the trail of crime boss and cocaine dealer Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn), whose politeness and violence comically clash. Feldman is pushing “New Coke,” a tasteless and odorless version of cocaine developed by Kevin Justsum (Jason Bateman). Snoop Dogg gets involved as informant Huggy Bear, while some peripheral characters have had bigger roles since and provide some spice on the side, like Chris Penn, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, Amy Smart, Carmen Elektra, Juliette Lewis, and … Will Ferrell.

Todd Philips, the writer and director who connects the dots here, was fresh off his Old School success, prior to his run with Borat, The Hangover films, and Due Date. But while the characters are ripped from the 1970s original and the film is set in the 1970s, this has a completely Philipsian feel, mashing the ridiculous and the mundane, the absolutely hilarious and the deeper-than-expected heart. Don’t expect to get any huge life lessons out of this one, but the overall package is significantly more than the sum of its parts.

Did I mention there’s a classic Gran Torino?