Live (barely) From New York, It's-a Me!

If you've never been to New York (like me, as of a week ago), you can at least imagine what it's like. It's probably the most filmed and recreated city in the whole of human history. In fact, having experienced Sesame Street, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man, Friends, Kimmy Schmidt, the Lego Marvel game, and 60% of rom-coms I felt like I'd accurately pieced together the bulk of what life was like there.

But my wife had been once before, and she really wanted to go back. And take me (Everybody: "Awww", in delight or disgust as you see fit). Now I've been in big cities before; Atlanta, Nashville, Seattle, and the Salvador Dali-esque streets of New Orleans, and I understood that while they mostly look the same from a distance they each tend to develop their own personality and quirks. So you can't really lean into 'if you've been to one city you've been to them all'.

At the same time though, I grew up in Louisiana around people who would not shut up about New York. The people! The shopping! The sites! The musicals! And I'd stand there, staring at them the way I'd later stare at fanboys who'd try to convince me that The Matrix was deep. So going into this three night stay at The Benjamin, I had legitimate doubts that I was going to feel the connection that had been over-over-hyped. But I was determined to answer one question as it pertained to people who were at least a little less cynical than me: What was the big damn deal with New York?

Here's what I learned.

Initial impressions

Our flight from Charlotte to Newark was delayed (side note: I believe it's Mayor Vi Lyles who does the welcome announcement in Charlotte's airport, and she could totally be a professional voice actress) and so we arrived in New Jersey around 10:30 at night. We got a cab from the airport's dispatcher, who really did not seem like she wanted to deal with us, and headed across what could easily have been a bridge to Gotham City.

Two things happened here. One, "New York, New York" from On the Town entered my head and stayed there for two days. Two, I turned into Hilary Duff as Lane Daniels trying to see through the cab window from every possible angle.

We arrived at The Benjamin, and still didn't know where The Benjamin was. There was a sign directly above us which we never saw because we were looking everywhere except directly above us, and even Siri had to draw in an exasperated breath before informing us that we were literally fifty feet away from the check-in desk.

We got our keys, a couple of bottled soft drinks on our daily ten dollar credit, and hopped into the fastest elevator I've ever been in that didn't have a lap bar; cheerfully oblivious to the $39 'hotel facilities' fee we were going to be charged each of the next three days. Now we needed to find dinner from somewhere, since COVID had shut down the hotel's kitchen.

Pizza -New York pizza. I'm happy to say that the famous New York oven baked pizza that I've heard so much about is even nicer in person. Some pizza parlors close at six, some at eleven, some at four in the morning; I can't tell you what the rhyme or reason behind any of it is. I'm just grateful that we were able to find something at almost midnight.

The oddest thing though was how comfortable I felt roaming the streets of New York by myself so late at night. I didn't feel like anybody was going to bother me. And interestingly enough there were a few points where I saw a woman walking by herself as well without the body language of someone on alert. It would take me a few more street strolls to fully understand the concept but simply put, New Yorkers mind their own business. This southern-born introvert has waited his whole life for this environment.

What We Saw on the Trip

1. The Central Park Zoo. Central Park is freaking huge and we only covered the south end of it. And they have a zoo. It's not a big zoo but it somehow still feels complete. Imagine going to a regular zoo and then taking just the highlights and editing out everything else. An aviary, snow leopards, a bear, some monkeys, a seal feeding, and a petting zoo (no elephants, damn it). At fourteen bucks, it was a good ticket; totally worth skipping the 4D Ice Age short.

2. The New York Public Library. Oh man, the architecture of this thing was beautiful. This was the old school library where everyone is quiet, librarians have to retrieve your books for you, and there are lion statues on the front steps (I never thought about it before, why do lions care about books?). I, jocundly, don't work in that kind of library, but I always love spending a few moment inside one whenever the chance arises.

3. The Hard Rock Cafe. It's kind of a tradition, whenever my wife and I are in a city with an HRC we have dinner there. This one felt like it was built from the ground to be a Hard Rock Cafe, as opposed to moving into a pre-existing space. I suppose even though it was a chain, the steak was officially New York steak, so I can check that off as well. Quick question, would any streaming service consider letting you just tap into their channel that plays music videos? They only seem to pick visually good ones.

4. The Rockefeller Center/Radio City Music Hall. Being August, and...you know...the middle of an ongoing pandemic I don't think we got the full effect. But we got the gist. FAO Schwarz was big, even if I didn't find anything I wanted to make room for in my backpack. I was a little disappointed in NBC's gift shop. During the past decade Saturday Night Live has changed. In addition to being the funniest it's been in years, the most recent cast has been surprisingly vulnerable. I would have bought just about anything with Cecily Strong's face on it, but all their merchandise was "More Cowbell", Stefon (a character I just never got), and generic things with 'Saturday Night Live' on them. It's always something.

5. Trash & Vaudeville. My wife loves fashion, so by proxy I've picked up on a handful of talking points. Ultimately it's not my thing, but if I had the money I'll be damned if this store wouldn't get me into it. There's an energy here where you can just feel the connection to Debbie Harry and My Shopping Addiction. I'm probably due for a midlife crisis; maybe I'll start dressing like an aging rock star.

6. Times Square. This was the heart of it all. I can't imagine what New Year's Eve is like here, but August 17th had the kind of party atmosphere I always expected, and never got, from Mardi Gras. Street dancers, music busses, a couple of mostly naked women, Batman and Deadpool posing together, and a short walk to flip off the Scientology center. I even got attacked by a homeless man who took offense to my COVID mask (a tidbit I'm peculiarly proud of), and adamantly defended by strangers. New Yorkers don't want you to interact with them, but they're really proactive when someone needs help.

What We Didn't See

1. The Statue of Liberty. It would have been nice but not worth the Lyft money, because she just wasn't on our way to anything we were looking to do.

2. A Broadway show. And I'll be honest, I'm not broken up about it. I love doing theater, but I've never been all that passionate about watching it.

3. Many kids or elderly people. Let's face it, New York is for people who don't mind walking. You've got to have stamina to survive there.

4. The subway. We just never had a reason to go underground; leaving me with the unanswered question, how does a city install a subway system? Do you assume you're going to need one before you add in the skyscrapers, or do you start digging and hope they're not as heavy as they look?

5. Individualism. All of my T-shirts have Nintendo logos or Disney characters on them, which probably identified me as a tourist since 99% of the New Yorkers I saw did not wear anything other than plain shirts or business outfits (with the occasional yoga wear). One single woman had her hair dyed an anime color. But aside from that, everyone seems to naturally want to blend in with everyone else.

6. Giant apes climbing buildings. Dude, what the hell?

What We Took Away

I'm a writer (amateur, yes, but shut up), so naturally I'm drawn to character. From my three days spent in what's esoterically known as the Big Apple, this is what I believe I understand. New York is a clock. It's the Big Ben of the United States. When New York decides it's time to fawn over Hamilton, the nation fawns over Hamilton. And everything in the city is in motion, and every wheel cog demands every other wheel cog respect that motion. It's the first city I've been to that had signs saying "No Standing Any Time".

It's a place for people who like to be on the go, grabbing hot dogs along the way and treating 'Don't Walk' as a caution light. You're a part of the city almost immediately; and you have to be or you're going to get run over. New York doesn't welcome you like Orlando, it just gets you moving.

But as quickly as New York makes you one of its own, I can't help but wonder how rare it is to succeed at whatever motive led you there in the first place. Did you want to be a fashion designer? A Broadway star? A CEO? I don't get the impression that the city cares if you make it, or how you feel about failing. I imagine you could be the best chef ever between two intersections and instantly become nobody when your card stops working at the bagel stand.

So I guess to close out without resorting to the cliché about visiting but not living there, I have to say that the city itself is a living, breathing titan that legitimately inspires awe. And for a brief time, it was a joy to be a single blood cell injected into its circulatory system going on the ride; killing my feet, getting my neck scratched, and becoming simultaneously wiser and poorer. But I don't think I would ever want to get to the point where that novelty becomes mundane.

Everybody's got the rhythm that works for them. For me, I can honestly say I love New York. But in small doses.

Looney Tunes: Back in Traction (Reflections, Reviews, and Revisions)

I am a huge Looney Tunes fan. I'm from the generation that didn't just grow up on them, we absorbed them. They were everywhere; comic books, TV specials, movies, and of course the never ending reruns of the classic shorts that just never seemed to get old.

In the early days of animation, the studios were all competing with Disney, as Walt's animation team had  risen to dominance. It was the creators of the Looney Tunes who first abandoned this approach in favor of finding their own voice, planting the seed of rebelliousness that Bugs and company have always embodied. To paraphrase people smarter than me, if Disney was classic music, the Looney Tunes were jazz.

It's that same rebellious spirit that's granted the Loonies (the word I've chosen to use) their post-Termite Terrace longevity but also made them a difficult fit for the long form storytelling of cinema, as their movies prior to Roger Rabbit had essentially been clip show excuses to recycle the shorts of the golden age. I mention Roger Rabbit because (curiously) every attempt to put Bugs and Daffy in a feature film since then have somehow obligatorily been a hybrid of animation and live action.

Perhaps the reason for this is because the Loonies by nature aren't meant to have character development, they're meant to be funny; and in their case funny is about seven minutes of pain and suffering and nobody learning anything until we do a palette cleanse and go again. Thus it makes sense to have a POV character to handle the film's plot from beginning to end so the animals can go back to trying to kill each other.

It's with this lens that I want to look at the unofficial film trilogy Space Jam, Not Space Jam, And Back to Space Jam, to figure out what went wrong, what went right, and what in theory Warner Brothers can do about it.

Space Jam

For me the 90's was a college degree that will never matter, a series of customer service jobs, and an overall sense of hopelessness. Visually, it's a tumbleweed rolling between Clerks and Reality Bites with the occasional espresso shot of joy from Kevin Conroy's Batman (I don't know if that's irony or just really sad). The then-younglings seemed to be having a much better time of it, with Spielberg's TV shows and an insatiable urge to zigazig ah.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, athletes became superheroes. I've always been on the geek side of jocks vs. geeks and we were never going to win with a dial-up connection, but we had a begrudging respect for the top tier personalities of basketball's "dream team" even if we couldn't tell you who they'd played for prior to the 1992 Olympics. It was only natural that a player of Michael Jordan's charm would go on to play himself in front of a green screen to the most 90's soundtrack ever Jock Jammed together.

So what can I say about 1996's Space Jam besides director Joe Pytka is a whiny bitch? Well, to summarize, the Looney Tunes live underneath the surface of the earth (in Hell maybe?) and Danny DeVito voicing a Danny DeVito knockoff decides we're overdue for a remake of The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. To WB's credit, they don't waste any time trying to infuse the premise with credibility; this film is just a theme park ride.

Stuff happens, some of it is smile-worthy, none of it feels particularly inspired; it's just dumb fun with a soundtrack. The problem is the Looney Tunes are not dumb fun, they're comedic art. Jordan is fine at playing himself but he's no Bob Hoskins, and the only way for him to get in and out of Bugs's anarchy is by removing the rabbit's teeth. These are Diet Looney Tunes, which raises a fundamental question for all three of these films: Does the person/committee calling the shots understand them?

In Space Jam the answer is a resounding no. First off, as mentioned previously this ain't Disney. These characters do not get along or cooperate for a common goal. One wonders if there was a draft of the script where DeVito's Swackhammer actually enticed the greedier Loonies over to his side in the first act. The second thing, Bugs Bunny is pure ego. He doesn't kowtow to anybody, even if his life depends on it. And finally there's Lola, who I assume started as sexualized fan art of Babs Bunny. The thing about Jessica Rabbit, and her precursor Red Hot Riding Hood, is the characters were sexy but they also had layers. Their respective creators took the time to at least answer the question for themselves "What does she want?". Lola apparently just wants to strut, which is fine if she's a running gag, but Space Jam is trying to pass her off as a new addition to the Looney Tunes cast. "Don't call me doll" isn't a character any more than if Bugs's whole shtick was his love of carrots.

So was there anything about the movie that caught my attention? Yeah, one scene. When Bugs and Daffy have to break into Michael Jordan's house to collect his gear there's a tiny bit of the lifetime of animosity between them. It's not much, Daffy just makes a couple of insincere grand bows to Bugs's orders. But the sense that Daffy's resentment is still tucked away in there is the one sign of life in the old bird. And in the movie. And where there's a spark...

Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Full disclosure, I saw this once in the theater and walked away thinking "Eh, that was okay," and didn't think much more about it. Until the next morning when my brain started replaying some beats from the movie; the frustrated Batman during the Roger Corman cameo, the scene in the Louvre, the moment Daffy Freaking Duck saves humanity from being turned into monkeys. I went back a second time and walked away thinking "This was actually pretty well done." Then a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, dragging my various coworkers with me. I've since decided that this movie is a gem.

With flaws, but all gems are. None of which derail the movie, they just stand out in a film that shoots for the moon and damn near hits it. The first is the self-consciousness of the jokes. As someone who's actively tried writing comedy I can tell you that when you worry you're not being funny enough you overcompensate by cramming as many jokes into your work space as you can. The one liners come desperately fast, and it's no wonder; when you're trying to match Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, and Mel Blanc, you're setting a Marx Brothers level bar (the good movies, not The Big Store). It's also worth acknowledging that the studio kept interfering with Joe Dante's direction, demanding changes that can't really be made that late into animation.

The other flaw is the human cast, which as I say isn't really a problem. Just...you know...not Bob Hoskins. Steve Martin's Acme Chairman could probably have used a test audience. He's good enough for an Austin Powers character, but we know what Martin is capable of; it's kind of late Steve Martin 'doing' early Steve Martin. Jenna Elfman is decent, but perhaps some coaching from Carol Burnett would have solidified the character she was going for. Timothy Dalton is quite funny, if underused. And Joan Cusack might be an actual cartoon character in disguise.

The wild card is Brendan Fraser, who has the thankless job of pretending the movie is about him. The short version: he's much better in the role than you think he is. Fraser is a subtle actor, which is easy to overlook if you're only familiar with his popular movies. Here the burden of convincing us of Back in Action's rules on the Looney Tunes (actors who play themselves) rests predominantly on his shoulders. Jordan played Jordan. Fraser plays DJ, an out of work stuntman who just lost his job before learning his actor-father is actually a secret agent while dealing with the always temperamental and recently fired Daffy Duck; and that's act one. And Fraser finds a way to make it all feel sincere while getting out of the spotlight of the real star. It's arguably the most generous performance I've ever seen an actor give.

The real star is Daffy. From the opening moments, this movie lets you know that it knows what it's about. Looney Tunes don't do 'heart' like the Muppets, it's just not their thing. But Back in Action allows the duck and the rabbit to dip their toes in a pool we've all wondered about: does Daffy hurt? Playing second fiddle is an enviable position to everyone except the one in that position, because right next to you is that damn first chair spot that no matter what you do you just can't crawl your way into.

The great Joe Alaskey voices both Bugs and Daffy and he infuses both characters with the whole of their long history together. Outwardly, Bugs is as much of a dick as he's always been, but behind the mallard's back Bugs is very defensive of him. Daffy wants respect, and he's never going to get it. It's not fair; it's comedy. In the end, nothing changes. Daffy doesn't get respect or resolution; hell, he's too self absorbed to even recognize that he saved all of humanity. As the audience, we know that Daffy is lovable, and he's working so hard to prove something that he doesn't have to. It's tragic in a way, but it's also comforting to see without question that Bugs knows what we know. No one can top Bugs, but Daffy is his equal.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

I want to start by talking about Don Cheadle. I've always thought he was a great actor, but I've never seen him go over the top. He is having so much fun as villain Al-G Rhythm, it's a contagious performance. Now with that said, for a movie with the freaking Looney Tunes in it, there's a real problem when the first thing I want to do is talk about Don Cheadle. In fact, I don't even want to talk about them next. Let's talk LeBron James.

I don't agree with any of the criticism James is getting about not being able to act. It's not to say that I think he can act; just that I've only seen him in this, and it's not a fair example. Green screen acting is hard. You need at least one of two things to not look completely like a dumbass, a director who can walk the actor through each performance beat or an actor who's skilled enough to ask the right questions. It's unreasonable to expect James to be the latter at this point in his Hollywood career, and I can't really gauge Malcolm D. Lee's directorial talent from his filmography (much less how much control he even had over the project). Suffice to say, James is serviceable. I wanted him to be better, and I still do, I'd like to see more from him. But I don't think he was bad, and I really believe he was trying, and in some ways succeeding.

The problem with this movie is the WB studio. I don't know what conglomerate calls the shots, but they understand their franchises as well as Michael Eisner understood Disney's. Essentially what we have here is about six executives worth of ideas and only one who gets it right part of the time. You know, pretty much a true to form follow up of the original. I will say I enjoyed watching it. Once. But like the original, I doubt I'll ever go back and revisit it. Why, you ask? Well let's pretend you do. Because it makes the same stupid mistake the original did and Back in Action didn't, it doesn't understand the Looney Tunes.

So instead of reviewing it, let me try story doctoring it. First off, open with Al-G in the serververse where he has the idea to allow WB franchises to intermingle. He sends it to the executives who turn it down because it seems like a stupid idea. That rejection hurts, so he tries to implement it anyway, by going to the Looney Tunes to test it out; and show that scene. They're all intrigued and head off to different worlds. But, being Looney Tunes, it's in their nature to f**k things up. So now Al-G has just taken an idea that nobody liked and made it harmful, thus making him both a sympathetic character as well as a potential villain.

He can't control them or get them to come back into their own world. So what might work? Space Jam sequel. He just needs a player. "LeBron, how would you like to test out our new technology and star in a new Space Jam movie? You'll actually play opposite the Looney Tunes in real time, not drawn by frames but performed virtually! kind of like a video game. Great! Let's do some screen tests. I'm gonna send you into various situations and you just kind of wing it, convince the characters to join your team."

From there it's about the serververse rewriting itself around Al-G's premise, probably making him more powerful but also locking him into the outcome of this basketball game. And it would give us more time to spend with the individual Loonies. Put Bugs in a world like Scooby-Doo where the rules don't favor him. Have him start playing along by dressing up as the monster but then have him start to forget who he is by adopting the new role (thus showing why this was a bad idea). Put Porky and Sylvester in a Final Destination movie (a la "Scaredy Cat"). Have Daffy battle Jim Carrey's Mask character (it's owned by WB, I looked it up). I mean, really go for it.

I don't know how it ends and I don't care, but doesn't that sound a lot more anarchic than what they did? Like the original, I enjoyed things about the movie. One of the few inspired choices was to have Bugs treat James as if he's an antagonist during their first meeting, because that's what Bugs is used to. Ultimately A New Legacy is bigger and noisier than its predecessor, but about the same in quality.

So What Should WB Do Next?

Besides turn the DCEU over to Bruce Timm and Paul Dini? Okay, the problem with handling the Looney Tunes isn't with the characters; they're timeless. Like all avatars for the soul of comedy they're the funhouse mirror that reflects on the world as it is, albeit distorted; there will never be a time when someone can correctly say that they're outdated.

But figuring out how to find our way back to that soul is a trickier approach. WB keeps trying, and once in a while they strike gold (see The Looney Tunes Show). But I think we can find a better strategy than throwing things at the wall to see what sticks; again, DCEU take note.

I want to tell a story that I love telling, and probably already have in another blog post. Later in his life Chuck Jones started making public appearances, and at one event a mom and her little girl went up to meet him. "This is Chuck Jones," said the mom to her daughter, "He draws Bugs Bunny." The girl quite firmly corrected her mother, "No, he draws pictures of Bugs Bunny."

This exchange stuck with Jones, and he took a little time to reflect on what the girl had meant. He realized she was right in the way that a child's wisdom always is. Nobody ever "created" Bugs Bunny. He existed, on some other unseen plane where he continues to exist. Periodically he reveals something of his personality and antics to those of a creative mindset, and it's the privilege of those artists to translate his existence into a form for the whole world to share. And it's with this understanding that WB's ideal direction becomes clear.

Double down on Lola.

A couple of reasons. One, the Looney Tunes as a whole has historically been a boys club and that element IS outdated. Two, we've already seen three different versions of Lola, in much the way that Jones's Daffy differed significantly from Robert McKimson's Daffy but they were still the same duck. And three, when my wife and I went to see A New Legacy there was a young woman in the theater dressed in Lola's outfit from the first movie; not the rabbit head mind you, but the unmistakable basketball uniform. As much of a non-character as she was in Space Jam, something about her connected with an audience. Almost like there's a new voice from that plane Bugs resides in, asking to be turned loose in our world.

So what I propose, all you decision makers who are never going to read this, is a half-hour cartoon series called Lola. Each episode is made up of three individual shorts, just like the old cartoons, that all feature Lola. Animation style can vary and there doesn't need to be any continuity, just give her a canvas to play on, to find her identity.

Imagine the possibilities just from having her interact with the other characters in already familiar situations. How would she deal with opera-diva Giovanni Jones from "Long-Haired Hare" differently than Bugs did? Would she focus more on humiliating him by redecorating his stage to look like a saloon and make him perform with an orchestra of banjoes? How would Elmer Fudd react to her? "Oh, I didn't weawize you wewe a wady," Would she take that as an insult and spend the whole cartoon demanding he shoot at her? What about Wile E. Coyote? Would she take an interest in his elaborate traps, even trying to help make them work without fully understanding their purpose? And what if she has a goal that comes into conflict with a 'winner' character like Speedy Gonzales?

There are always ways for the Loonies to evolve as times change and new issues come to the forefront. They're strong enough for a fresh take and some current risks. The main thing to remember, you don't go into comedy because it's safe, you go into it because it isn't. Give them their teeth and their dynamite and just roll with the carnage.

2020 Movie Wrap-Up: That Was the Year That Wasn't

I've tried about five times now to write this blog, but every time I pull it up I just get irritated. I think the months of social distancing has made me less motivated to write; despite being an introvert I do feed off other people's energy.

Well, let's  just get this over with then. The fragments of 2020 in film.

Birds of Prey

2016's Suicide Squad was a mess, but the one element nearly universally praised was Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. So while DC continues to throw things at the wall to see what sticks, they've given us a Harley-centric sequel-of-sorts. About half the movie is pure Harley, while the other half is everybody else. The everybody else half is passable, maybe even better than most of Marvel's Phase Two, while the Harley half is spot on in every way. In the end, I really liked this one. It's not solid but it leaves a good impression; essentially this is what I'd wanted Suicide Squad to be.

Fantasy Island

Man, people hated this movie, and frankly I don't know why. It delivers on its premise exactly as promised and manages to put its pieces together creatively. I can understand why someone simply wouldn't like the movie, but its reputation as the worst of 2020 is unjustifiable. If you tend to like Blumhouse productions I would say give it a whirl, and think of it as the shady prequel to the more fantastical television series that we're all pretending to have an attachment to.

The Invisible Man

Objectively I can say this was a very good film. This is abusive relationship gas-lighting pushed to its psychologically horrific extreme, and the movie is probably flawless in that regard. But in terms of personal preference, it was the wrong flavor for me. I'm picky about my horror films, and I really need a fun factor to balance out the brutality. This movie was not fun. Intense, incredibly well-acted, poignant, triple yes. But if you're as hyper-sensitive as I am, you'll find this a real endurance test.

Scoob!

You may have noticed by now that I'm a huge Scooby-Doo fan, and for that reason I found this movie unforgivable. Every studio wants their own MCU, and WB's ownership of the Hanna-Barbera library provoked this bait and switch attempt to launch a Scooby-Doo All-Stars reboot. Essentially they tried to make a Blue Falcon movie, a character that never mattered. And they know it, that's why they had to hide it behind a Scooby/Shaggy mask. I know 2020 has made me a bitter human being, but I'm glad this flopped.

Bill & Ted Face the Music

There weren't many spots of hope this past year, but the warm return of Bill and Ted was one of the fleeting moments where I was reminded of what it felt like to be in a good mood. The Bill and Ted series has always been a labor of love, and nowhere is that more evident than this final romp through innocent optimism. For the love of humanity please make a Billie and Thea spin-off because the world desperately needs another Hendrix/Mozart duet.

Soul

I loved the movie Pixar was trying to make here. Soul wasn't the Inside Out/Up hybrid it was aiming for but it  also wasn't the narrative noise of Toy Story 4. I'm thinking this story didn't start as a feature but as about three and a half shorts that happened to fit a theme. The rough edges separating each element are noticeable, and the film doesn't fully explore it's unanswered questions, but it at least delivers on its title. I think one trip to the script doctor was all it needed to be a Pixar A-lister.

Promising Young Woman

There were two routes this movie could have taken. The first would have been to display the psychological realism of how much damage rape culture does, the other would be a superhero-esque revenge fantasy that the trailers promised. The movie tries to take both, and unfortunately they pull against each other; the end result landing somewhere in the 'good enough' middle. It's a pity, because Carey Mulligan's performance and the ideas presented (the horrible reality behind 'bro code') deserved so much better than 'good enough'. Bummer.

Wonder Woman 1984

Damn it! This was supposed to be the one! *sigh* Okay, to be fair WW84 wasn't a bad movie, but it truly was a noticeable downgrade from the previous film that had us chanting "Give the DCEU to Patty Jenkins". Taken on its own, it's flawed (as you may have heard) but fun...perhaps more Tilt-A-Whirl than roller coaster. But we honestly needed this movie to be solid, and instead it felt like it was in the hands of a first time director. Or a director who had no experience with superhero films. Or, just, what the hell happened Jenkins?

So that then there is the freshly spoiled milk of a movie year that was 2020. It's been suggested to me that there's nowhere to go but up, despite four years of evidence to the contrary. You know what? Things aren't all right. The world is not doing well. And I don't feel like looking for a positive takeaway, or feigning hope, or trying to be funny. Show's over. Roll the fucking credits.

Editorial: The Reason Peach Keeps Getting Kidnapped

My library recently had its 6th annual Sci-fi/Fantasy Festival, and because of that thing that's ruining the world in 2020 (No, not that one. The virus.) we did it as a virtual con for the first time. As such I had the privilege of speaking on more panels than usual; Monty Python, cartoons, female comic book characters, and nerd-dom in general, just to name all of the few of them.

A couple of different times, the panels came back to the damsel in distress trope. We're all familiar with this. Most people's feelings on the matter range from irritation to indifference. I don't think anybody really defends it, at most we just kind of shrug it off as a lazy motivator. Because it is. I'm not sure when exactly rescuing the damsel crossed over from trope to cliche, but at this point we seem to respond to it with a collective eye roll.

Except we seem more tolerant of it in video games. Perhaps because game play is more important to us than legitimacy when it comes to platformers we're more comfortable accepting the 'get the grail' motive, and by proxy less willing to demand that the pretty princess be treated as more of a character than 'the grail'.

Again, because of that thing that's ruining the world right now, I'm unable to make my long awaited Nintendo Switch purchase that I finally have the funds for. So to get my gaming fill I'm stuck watching playthroughs online. I recently watched Luigi's Mansion 3, which involves a mass kidnapping of Mario, Peach, and a handful of Toads. Luigi to the reluctant rescue. He goes through rescuing the characters in succession; first the unimportant Toads, then his brother, and at last Peach.

It got me thinking.

If Luigi (and the player) had managed to rescue Peach first, would you have still been inclined to keep playing? Presumably we play games because we want to complete them, but if the game includes a rewards system does it disrupt the feeling of accomplishment if 'the grail' is obtained before the climax? There are some problematic implications when a setting as big as the Mario-verse continues to equate its most high-profile female character as the ongoing grail.

If you were to list Princess Peach Toadstool's characteristics, being kidnapped is invariably at the top of the list. And this trait tends to evoke some strong emotions among her detractors; gamers who believe the character sucks often cite this as their primary argument. To a point I follow the logic, but I feel the knee-jerk conclusion is unfair. I don't believe she sucks. I do believe she's the victim of a string of disservices to her character, starting with Nintendo itself. And I also believe there's a way to turn it around without fundamentally changing the core of her character.

So here we go.

What is Peach?

Looking at her through the eyes of feminism (which is actually a very good thing, in case you need a reminder) she's in an uncomfortable place in Western culture. In Japan, the role of the homemaker is thought of highly. A woman who maintains an aesthetic home and excels at entertaining her guests is viewed honorably, and Princess Peach reflects these ideals. In America, not so much. The fifties sitcom housewife is viewed with no small amount of disdain over here. The role has taken on an implied subjugation to a patriarchy, which doesn't sit well with anyone pro-career woman.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. The problem with the housewife was never about the housewife role itself, but with who was deciding it for whom. There's been an unfortunate backlash among the feminist circles towards women who genuinely want to be homemakers because of how much of an emotional button the concept is. It's easy to get stuck on this idea that 'homemaker' and 'feminist' are incompatible when this is simply not true. Peach naturally taps into this highly emotive debate.

Now in Super Mario 64, I think we all had a good time yelling "Eff you!" at the screen when after 90+ vertigo inducing stars Mario's reward is going to be a cake (by the way, what happened to the one she claims to have already baked that got him to the castle in the first place?). Most of us were hoping for a strip tease, but that's not who Peach is (at least not until Thousand Year Door).

From Peach's perspective, baking a cake is the kindest thing she can do. And Mario is less of an egotist than the people controlling him, so he's accepting of the sentiment in its purest form. Can you imagine if you ever rescued Kate Middleton and she rewarded you with a cake she baked herself? Do you think whine about the fact that it wasn't a Mercedes? No. You'd sit there and eat it and like it even if you choked on it.

And that's a character trait with Peach that usually gets lost. She's royalty (for some reason), she's not obligated to be kind. We'll get back to that in a minute, for now let's look at the lack of details surrounding her monarchy.

I don't know what Nintendo considers canon about the origin of the Mushroom Kingdom. I think Peach's father was mentioned one time back in nineties in one of the game manuals, so that may not matter. We're left with theories. Here's mine. The world in which the Mushroom Kingdom exists is closely related to a pagan setting; in conjunction with sprites and cognitive forces of nature. It's why so many rocks have eyes. The Toads are an evolved form of Mushroom in the same way that humans evolved from primates, although in a much tighter time frame. Peach could be any number of things. Perhaps she's a mushroom that's gone one step further in mutation to appear more human. Or perhaps her in tuned-ness with the natural world was an influence in why the Toads sprang up in the first place. For whatever reason, Peach never entered into a pre-existing monarchy, the political structure grew organically around her (a similar thing happened with Daisy in Sarasaland).

The plumbers incidentally are not mushrooms. I don't know if they came from New York or New Donk, but they represent immigrants who came to a better place with the intent of making an honest living.

Who is Peach?

It's telling about Peach's character that she would develop such a close friendship with a member of the working class. At the end of the day Mario's aspirations are pretty straightforward. He wants to do his job, go home, and relax. All of the heroic adventures are things he happens to fall into. He possesses a kind of 'It needs to be done, and I can do it' attitude that an empath like Peach would be drawn to. So why does she bake him a cake instead of build him a house? Probably because simple comforts would make him happier than luxuries would.

The relationship between Peach and Mario is one of the all time great aromantic romances. We, as the spectators, seem to spend as much time with them as they spend together, suggesting they more or less have separate lives. So in that regard I don't think they're technically an item, and neither seems to have any drive to push the relationship into something it isn't already. But they're fond of each other, and even platonically it makes sense why they would be the other's 'special one'.

And that brings us to the royal beast (not Daisy unfortunately). Bowser and Peach both wear crowns but their approaches to ruling couldn't be more different. Peach motivates her subjects by empowering them, while King Koopa threatens his into obedience. It's unfair to label the dichotomy as good vs. evil; more accurately it's love vs. fear.

Bowser is the delegated bad guy, but let's look at his story from his perspective. Whereas the Mushroom Kingdom is in touch with the innocence of nature, Bowser is rooted in the animalistic side. He's king because he's the biggest and strongest, things that the wilds value. In his mind Peach should be his, by virtue of the fact that he wants her, and the natural order dictates that the king should get what he wants.

Mario should be nothing more than a nuisance, and a lot of the games do a wonderful job at presenting this incorrect viewpoint from the big guy. Bowser projects his own views onto Mario, presuming Mario wants Peach the same way he does; at least once straight up accusing Mario of also wanting to kidnap Peach.

And here's where it gets tricky. Bowser views Peach as the grail. Mario does not. Oddly enough, the players tend to come away from the games playing as Mario, but viewing Peach in a manner similar to the way Bowser does. Now this would be nothing more than a curiosity if we weren't seeing real life examples of how this mentality can manifest itself in legitimately horrifying ways. A few words I can throw out there; incels and gamer gate.

Now I'm not suggesting a cause and effect relationship between Mario games and the #metoo movement. But I am sharing how taken aback I was when I first found out that, within this community I hold so dear, there continues to exist an underbelly of hatred towards women. I don't even understand it. My life's experience has coincided with the birth of nerd culture, and I can confidentially say, "Guys! This is what you've ALWAYS wanted. A chance to talk to girls without leaving your comfort zone. So what in the hell is the problem?"

It's a question I can't satisfactorily answer, and I don't think the wisdom lies in the Mushroom Kingdom. But what I can say is that Bowser, being an animal who kidnaps Peach and tries to kill Mario, still comes off as less of an asshole than how I've seen a lot of guys behave online.

Why is Peach?

It's difficult to determine where continuity begins and ends for a video game character with a thirty-five year history across multiple genres. How much of Peach's sass and aggression in the Strikers series is hidden fury versus situational showboating? Can her infamous "I'm your mama?" to Bowser Jr. be attributed to a translation issue or raise a serious concern about reproduction? And then there's the 'baby' versions of all the VIPs that even the X-Men timeline can't untangle. All of this is to say that if Super Smash Brothers has ANY legitimacy, Peach should technically be able to break herself out of any dungeon using only her hips.

The idea that Peach purposefully allows herself to be kidnapped is not a new one, but people all too quickly jump to the "sort of into that kind of thing" explanation. I would argue that there's a more plausible, and interesting, reason that doesn't shoehorn a kinky side into a character who really has never demonstrated one (Sorry, deviantartists). Not to worry though; I'm sure Daisy's first solo adventure is right around the corner, and you know she's got stock in Nintendo's old hotel chain.

Here's what I think is going on. You've got Peach's Kingdom (Princessdom?) in close proximity with Bowser's. From a monarch's perspective, Bowser has a certain usefulness, as there's a whole world out there of pokeys, boos, blarggs, and a freaking sun that doesn't even know what it's on about. Bowser brings a certain level of organization to all of these creatures. If he weren't so ineffective as a king that might create a bigger problem the chaos of the wilds, but as it stands Bowser is providing an unintentional service to the Mushroom Kingdom. They don't attack until he says to, which creates a predictability around the assaults.

Now that by itself is smart politics. There are other threats in the world(s) and Bowser's minions offer a line of protection from outside sources. When you factor in that Bowser feels...something for Peach that he may never fully wrap his horned head around, she herself is not in any real danger. Her reliance on Mario comes when Bowser gets overzealous but her status quo is never to crush Bowser entirely, only to keep returning him to a useful arm's length.

That may sound manipulative; and it is, it's politics, and Peach is a responsible ruler. But where she really shines is how she sneaks her rule-by-love approach into Bowser's rule-by-fear. Out of the four elements of alchemy, love is always represented by water. And with good reason, it's the most powerful. Displace it, evaporate it, it will always come back, adapting to whatever container it needs to fill. Meanwhile, given enough time and patience, a single trickle can reshape a mountain. And that's what Peach is doing to Bowser. As I said, Bowser is a brute. You can't teach him a lesson directly because he'll ignore it. If you want to see him change, it has to be so gradual that he doesn't realize it's happening.

How many times has Bowser shown up at the Mushroom Kingdom with a tennis racquet? How many towns full of goombas and koopas have sprung up in walking distance that look to Peach for inspiration instead of Bowser? This is why Peach allows herself to be kidnapped, because she cares enough to keep the process going. She may never see Bowser become selfless, but she's carefully nurturing a decency in him that he's unaware of. If Mario has to take on the role of her paladin from time to time, he's fine with it. But beneath the cheerful obliviousness and the hair flips, Peach has a genuine wisdom and empathy.

Did you ever play Bowser's Inside Story for the DS? The quick version: Bowser accidentally becomes a hero without ever realizing he's doing anything other than moving obstacles out of his own way. In the end, he's not entirely sure what the hell just happened, but he knows his actions wound up keeping Peach safe. And she thanks him by baking him a cake. You remember the "Eff you" we all yelled at the N64 when the game ended on that note? This time it brought a tear to my eye.

Book Review: Daphne and Velma: The Vanishing Girl

It never fails to fascinate me how much of a cultural impact Scooby-Doo has had over its 51-year-and-counting history. The fans don't just love the series, they're passionate about it. If you need proof (and you have no human decency) just pop into any message thread and ask "Which series was your least favorite?"; within minutes people will be lobbing their ascots and lavender pumps at each other.

So, YA novel Daphne and Velma: The Vanishing Girl by Josephine Ruby comes with the pleasure of, and responsibility for, a built in audience with predisposed emotions for the lead characters. In case you don't know, Ruby is a pseudonym for an as yet unidentified author (or authors). But even with no previous titles associated with Ruby, I'm happy to say the writing carries both the air of professional experience, and a love of the source material.

Scooby's more visual tropes don't translate well into written format, and Ruby is wise to make sure the story works as a YA novel first before selecting which familiar elements to throw into the mix. For example, the dog makes several appearances but only communicates through barking; thus grounding itself in more of a reality than we've seen before.

Minus a prologue and some scattered interlogues, the narrative alternates between Velma and Daphne's perspectives. The voices are distinctive; and unlike last year's (dare I say unwatchable?) live-action DVD movie which focused on these characters, the cornerstone of the plot is their conflict.

We've seen Velma's insecurities before, but here they're on display in full glory because sixteen year old Velma doesn't have a successful track record to lean into. She's confident in her mental prowess but she doubts her ability to follow through. From the opening paragraphs, you hear her voice. This is the seed that's going to grow into the woman who will stare down her hero Ben Ravencroft. At her core, Velma has an intellectual thirst for truth, and this is the period in her life where it hurts her with the most regularity; when she's alone.

On the other hand, this version of Daphne is a bit of a jarring flavor. She's much further from her familiar(ish) personality that the franchise can't ever quite nail down. This Daphne is a mean girl. Not unsympathetically so. A combination of circumstance and the fact that adolescence is a hormonal circus, this Daphne can't stop herself from erupting. It's a painful, sometimes literally tear-jerking character arc she goes on. And it's poetically heart-breaking every time she refers to herself as a monster hiding behind a mask.

If there's a weakness to the novel, it's that the mystery takes a back seat. I don't think it's a bad thing; I was happy spending the bulk of the pages getting to re-know these old friends of mine. If you're coming into it purely for the mystery elements you might find yourself having to flip through the first hundred pages before the vanishing girl actually vanishes. But that's not the heart of the book. Like the title reads, it's about Daphne and Velma before it's about the case of the week. As this series continues, I hope those priorities continue.

Final thoughts: Ruby is an author with a legitimate spark. She's willing to take some risks with the characters, and her ability to manage the fallout is admirable. The Scooby franchise doesn't have a rigid canonical timeline, so don't try to force this into one 'verse or the other. Ruby seems to take most inspiration from the Mystery Incorporated series, while possibly answering why Daphne thought she might be going to hell in the Supernatural crossover. It's a YA book, so there's some mild profanity that I'm kind of surprised the WB allowed, but nothing to make it feel not-Scooby. And there's a nice surprise appearance in the third act that I won't spoil here.

In the end, I recommend both reading the book and supporting the series. The second installment is due in July, and all signs point to this being a deeply satisfying journey.

Disney Princess 301: The Magical Millennial Tour

If you're just joining me, like the four random hits my blog has gotten from Singapore, one of my unofficial goals is to thumb through the entire Disney animated canon and giving snide reflections. As the princess lineup is the backbone of the studio's library I tend to devote more words to those films, and I've found it convenient to group them into threes. If you're not sick of my writing by the end of page, feel free to check out Disney Princess 101 where I cover Snowy, Cindy, and Thorny, and then head on over to Disney Princess 201 for Fishy, Booky, and...um...Jasminey. And on with the show!

For a corporate juggernaut like Disney it's impossible to reduce its turning points to a simple cause and effect.

Now just from that statement alone, I feel confident that I understand the company better than former CEO Michael Eisner ever did. He was a savvy businessman (which is not necessarily a compliment) but he was no artist.

The Animated Renaissance was to Disney what Iron-Man was to Robert Downey Jr.; a phoenix-from-the-ashes resurrection that carried box-office profits for an entire decade. The big three (Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine) were the foundation on which everyone from Simba to Tarzan reaped the benefits in terms of technical achievement and quality; and arguably Pixar. History remembers this as the Jeffrey Katzenberg era prior to the mediocrity with which he infused DreamWorks's library. But inside sources point to the late Frank Wells as the unsung genius behind Disney's survival and triumph. Whatever the spark was, Disney's soul exploded into the theater with a renewed passion...and then slithered onto the home video market with its half-assed sequel excuses.

By the time board members Roy Disney Jr. and Stanley Gold had had it up to Mount Olympus with Eisner oversaturating their supply of pixie dust, the Disney name was no longer synonymous with quality. Pixar was the new Disney, while Disney was slipping to trend chaser status (AKA New DreamWorks. Am I snide? I think I'm snide.). All of which brings us into the Bob Iger era and a return to formula; Princess Fairy Tales.

The Priceless and the Frock

Let's get this out of the way up front. Disney dodges the whole race issue, and I honestly can't blame them. The fallout from Song of the We Have No Idea What You're Talking About has no end in sight, why the hell would they want to launch that bandwagon against themselves (the Halle Bailey backlash is on you assholes, not the mouse). Particularly in a family film, racial inequality either has to be hit head on, like Zootopia, or relegated to subtext like it is here. Since this movie is ultimately about something other than race, I believe this was the correct choice.

My six word review: "Awesome! And a little less so".

As a love letter to the entire history of Disney animation, the film is amazing; talking animals, transformations, an ultra charismatic villain, a New Orleans setting (Walt Disney's personal obsession), swamp scenes (a nod to the Don Bluth period), a deconstruction of star-wishing, a Disney death that actually sticks, and a deliberate karate chop to the ugly step sister trope. It properly utilized all of the elements that Enchanted only checked off as it went.

Story-wise, Tiana's arc was wonderful, and deliberately adult. She was not the spoiled princess looking for love, she was a workaholic looking for autonomy. Her best friend Lottie got the traditional Disney motivator, and proved she was a better person not getting what she wanted. But the main problem with the film is that Tiana's story has to carry so much extra weight she's never able to really dance on clouds.

Sandbag #1: Louis, the alligator trumpeter. Everything about his character reads "Well, we designed him, and damn it we're gonna throw him in there!" He honestly doesn't help the plot and he's one of the reasons the second act in the swamp drags. Sandbag #2: Mama Odie, the voodoo priestess. She comes out of nowhere just to pad out the soundtrack. Either that or to balance out the way practitioners of voodoo are being portrayed in Disney films? Sandbag #3: and this one might have worked itself out by cutting the first two loose, Prince Naveen. If there was ever a princess who didn't need a man, it was Tiana; but the story requires it, so fair play. But directors Ron Clements and John Musker seem to forget what his role in the movie is. Naveen is all personality and narrow goals,  which is great if you're the villain or one of the scene-stealing side characters. But he's just too in love with himself to be a credible love interest for Tiana.

As for the villain, Dr. Facilier is impeccably animated and voiced (Keith David rules!), but he's strangely underused. His motivations feel a little first draft-y; he wants to rule New Orleans? Why exactly? And wouldn't he have had a stronger presence if he had a prior connection to Tiana? Imagine if instead of him tempting her at the end of the film it had been a first act encounter, where she turned him down and it ruffled his feathers. Like I say, Dr. Facilier's a great villain, but it's a missed opportunity to stand him next to the all time greatest.

Overall, I'm being needlessly hard on an otherwise wonderful film because I felt it held itself back with a few rookie mistakes. I care, and I know what Disney is capable of. If you really want to see them bring their A-game, look at the character of Ray, the lovesick firefly. He is not appealing, and the previews make him out to be a lowbrow comedic sidekick who's there just to keep the kiddies interested. But Jim Cummings does the unthinkable with his performance, he breaks your heart open. This ugly insect manages to spark a little more hope in you than you had before you popped in the DVD. And he does it with a legitimate Cajun accent (ball's in your court Streep). Disney magic? I'd like to say there's no such thing, but I really can't back it up.

Dangled

Rapunzel was inevitable but alas Disney felt they had to trick boys into going to see what's perceived as a girl movie, hence the prominent gap in the princess lineup doesn't get her own film named after her. Instead they placed the spotlight on hair. Yes, that's much more rugged, isn't it?

Age is kind of fluid in fairy tales, which extends to Disney adaptations. You may not have realized that Tiana was 19. Rapunzel is on the eve of her 18th birthday, but the two of them may as well be from different generations. While Tiana was a working woman focused on adult goals, Rapunzel is very much a girl. That's not a criticism, just a distinction. Her kidnapper, Mother Gothel, has actively prevented her from growing up, giving Rapunzel an anime-like imbalance of overdue emotional puberty. It makes her an interesting character study, but unfortunately that takes a backseat to...stuff happening.

I have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, the aforementioned stuff is quite entertaining on its own. Flynn Rider is a funny character. His lines are well written, and it's refreshing to see a male Disney lead also be the goofy sidekick character. And determinator Maximus is a cool horse, possibly the coolest horse Disney has given us (and they've given us a lot of horses). The problem is, it feels like they've come from a different story where they were the central focus. And I know it was the studio's intention to have the film be about Flynn as much as Rapunzel (again, because boys), but in this regard I think the film fails.

You can have a movie about two characters; think Toy Story. While Buzz Lightyear became more of a supporting character as the series progressed, the first film was about him as much as it was about Woody. But the difference is, Toy Story was a single story that Buzz and Woody were on polar opposites of. Flynn and Rapunzel are having two different stories competing for screen time, and it's a disservice to the character whose fairy tale it's supposed to be about.

It's been said many times that a story is only as good as its villain, which is obviously an oversimplification. But in the case of Tangled, it plays out both ways. Most of the script that focuses on Rapunzel and Flynn is spright; certainly enough to highlight just how drab the rest of the Kingdom Hearts III dialogue is. The bits with Mother Gothel feel more like dead weight, kind of a reversed Sleeping Beauty. Gothel's a well designed, and voiced, character, but once outside of her oppressive tower she's not that much of a threat. Disney's done so much better in the past, see Frollo's maniacal outbursts or Lady Tremaine's venomous seething. Better yet go all the way back to Queen Grimhilde from Snow White who had a similar motive, to restore status quo. It's not an inherently dramatic incentive but when it's given to someone as ruthless as the queen it becomes the stuff of nightmares. Gothel's more of a leash than a whip.

As for the music, I don't have a polite way of saying this: it wasn't Alan Menken's A-game. This is the guy who gave us the soundtracks to Little Shop of Horrors and almost the entire Disney Renaissance. And it's not like he's past his peak, check out both seasons of Galavant if you don't believe me. But the songs here are sub par. Not bad, but not Disney. Maybe good enough for Dreamworks.

So in the end I think it's overall a fun movie just not a disappointingly unrefined one. While The Princess and the Frog had unneeded padding in places, it's story flowed organically. Tangled feels assembled; no real padding, but trying too hard to cover bases that it doesn't need to. Rapunzel waited decades for the Disney treatment, and what she got was good...enough. But she deserved better.

Frosting

It was a moment. Three words: Here. I. Stand. Elsa slammed her foot to the ground. And the ice. Not just a collection of water molecules, and not just a sequence of computerized pixels, but a metaphor. Fear. That cannot be evaded. That cannot be defeated. The ice. Bent to her will. It was a moment that rippled through the film, through the Disney studios, through the audience, and through history.

Entertainment doesn't make things happen. It reflects on things that are already happening. Things we can barely understand because they're happening on an emotional level. Entertainment processes those emotions and gives us something tangible to hold onto while we try to figure it all out.

Frozen was released in 2013. It was seven years after 'Me Too' was first used as a phrase for surviving sexual harassment, and four years before it would take root in the mainstream. Two years prior Demi Lovato publicly revealed her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Three years later Trump's America would stick its fingers in its ears to the concept of empathy. All these events happened or would happen whether or not this film existed, but that ripple has stuck in our heads. We continue to feel it as we face the monsters both inside and out. It was a moment that we couldn't have realized then; all of us are Elsa.

As much of an icon as Elsa instantly became, her debut film has some issues; mainly the result of a ten year development process that still managed to feel rushed. Everything about Act One is great! The music comes out of the gate swinging, you have the emotional baggage, and the animation grips you in a way you don't consciously realize. But then "Let it Go" happens, and the problems kick in.

It's not a problem with the song; I know you got sick of hearing it after the first nine thousand times but it was played that much because it's that amazing. The problem is the effect it has on the story that Disney wasn't prepared for. The whole film is designed to be Anna's story, her complicated relationship with her sister as the primary arc. Originally Elsa was the movie's antagonist. She went through several iterations; villain, sympathetic villain, anti-heroine, probably one draft where you find out she'd been dead the whole time. But once the songwriters got inside her head Elsa could no longer be the object of the arc, she'd become the protagonist.

And therein lies the issue with everything after that one song, the movie is still determined to make it Anna's story. Oaken, ha ha, get back to Elsa. Kristoff and Sven, that's nice, get back to Elsa. Olaf's song, come on, just get back to Elsa. The trolls again? For the love of God, get back to Elsa! It's not that the film falls apart, it's just that we all can tell the movie we got is getting in the way of the much better movie we could have had.

In the end the movie is good enough. When it shines it really shines, making itself destined to become a classic. When it trips it only lands in the snow, nothing broken, just a quick brush off. You know you were affected by the movie as much as I was, even if you want to pretend you liked The Great Mouse Detective more. Nothing is perfect, and if it were I don't imagine it would be a lovable as a really good flawed journey.

More Frosting

I'd normally end the blog here, but as we're in between the theatrical and home releases of Frozen II, this is probably the best time to give the follow up a little attention.

To reiterate a couple of points I made in my most recent entry, this time around we really get to know Elsa as an individual (which was a wise move). We learn more about Arendelle's history, which isn't something I thought I wanted to know but it turns out to be intriguing. Everyone is a little older and a little more responsible, and the choices before them aren't so easy to discern the consequences thereof.

Anna manages to take a supportive role without getting pushed to the background, and with that shift comes some ideas that don't entirely get resolved. For example, she's angry with her sister for going off alone. Nothing comes of it, but the moment is still valuable. You get mad at people you care about. It's natural. And it's a concept that Disney films don't regularly incorporate. There's no life's lesson spelled out, just an implied "It's okay to feel."

As a sequel, Frozen II does what a sequel should do; raise the stakes, develop the sidekicks, and end in a place other than the beginning. Frozen II does all three (comparatively, The Jungle Book II does zero). The first film has a raw energy that the sequel can't replicate but the overall quality is more mature. It remains to be seen whether or not it carries a comparable impact to the original, but I give the makers credit for building a more sophisticated plot (sans any real villain no less. Brava!)

I'm confident that there will be a third film. If not, there will be something; a book, a streaming series, another Olaf-does-something-marketable short, in any case Disney isn't done with the ice rink and neither are we. I can only hope Elsa still winds up without a love interest, but the main takeaway is that the Disney Princess archetype has evolved from the passive damsel who only existed to bring out the characters around her.

Disney, like it or not, is the studio that has created the vocabulary we all use, and the Disney Princess holds a special place in that alphabet. More women are taking the reins in our stories and bringing with them an overdue layer of insight into how we, as the audience, process our own experience through them, and the men who are staying relevant amidst this transformation are the ones who've embraced this layer. I long for the day when we no longer have to consciously empower our princesses, letting it just naturally happen, but until then we can see that the process is advancing.

I'm proud to have the personal connection to Disney's legacy that I do, and equally proud to be neither a Disney-can-do-no-wrong nor Disney-can-do-no-right kind of guy. I criticize the company where I feel it's deserved, and I praise it where I feel it's earned. In the case of their Princess line, I feel they're doing some very good work. I look forward to seeing what the 401 course teaches us.

2019 Movie Wrap-Up

Another year, another three and a half blog posts for me: man I love working two jobs and having depression issues! Well, 2019 sure sucked. And considering 2018 set the bar so low you could roll on the ground and clear it- seriously dude, were you even trying?

But let's focus on escapism. The movies I saw this year were pretty good overall. Maybe I'm just getting better at choosing which ones to skip, but I had a fairly enjoyable movie run. In fact I think my biggest disappointments came from the movies I din't see (why did so many of you jackasses pay for The Lion King?). So as per tradition, let me take you on a tour of every film I saw and my one paragraph reaction.

Escape Room

This was almost a good movie. I'm a bit of a sucker for plots where people have to use their wits to get out of life or death situations, and this movie did so many things right. The characters were well fleshed out and the focus weighed suspense over gore. Moreover, unlike the Cube series that invariably influenced it, the horror element never overpowered all sense of hope. Unfortunately it tripped in the last act by revealing just a little too much about the organization behind the death traps, which makes me feel lukewarm about next year's sequel. But it's entertaining enough to be worth a rental.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

We're going to see several examples on this list of sequels not being quite as good as their predecessors, and I think it's worth pointing out why that is. The first Lego Movie had a major reveal that upped the emotional ante and it simply couldn't be duplicated. So that was working against the franchise. But pushing past the elephant, everything else about the film was on point; a stronger story arc for Lucy, a natural progression of (literal) world building, some delightful additions to the song library, and an ironically topical subtext about divisiveness. Despite the usual trappings of sequeldom, this film succeeded at everything it set out to accomplish. But fair warning: a third film is not likely to maintain that quality, so why don't we all just be happy with the gift as it is?

Happy Death Day 2U

I can't think of another franchise so skilled at bouncing around genres. Tree is back, and that's good because her hero's journey in the first movie made me want more of her. The sequel tests her resolve to continue being the hero she had the misfortune to stumble into previously. It's easier to do the right thing when your back is against the wall than it is when you're in the shadows facing a consequence-free choice between personal want and greater good. Even if the silly factor of the film occasionally gets a hair too pungent, Tree remains as engaging a heroine as any who wears a cape. It's heart that makes a hero, not power. Hey! Speaking of...

Captain Marvel

I just realized how good of a year it was for female figures in cinema. The box office might not accurately reflect it but 2019 had a substantial sampling of sisters doing it for themselves (See, boys? They're not so scary). So the MCU finally got on board with diversity and gave us the Superman movie DC seems allergic to. On the one hand, Captain Marvel didn't carry the cultural impact Wonder Woman and Black Panther did, but it did everything else right. Brie Larson brings all the fun, conflict, and humanity an overpowered character like Carol Danvers requires. Her 'getting back up' montage is something we all could stand to benefit from by internalizing. "I have nothing to prove," she declares. Damn right girl. I'd vote for you.

Shazam!

Okay, the back-to-back releases coupled with a perpetual dispute over which superhero is the legitimate Captain Marvel makes a comparison inevitable, so here's mine. If I have to pick, Shazam! is probably the better movie. But with that said, I've seen Shazam! once and I feel like I've gotten all I'm going to get out of the character, whereas I've seen Miss Danvers's debut twice and I'm looking forward to revisiting it; you tell me which is better. But on the merits of its own studio, Shazam! encapsulates everything that was missing from The Dark Knight Rises through the Zack Snyder period. Hope. A sense that things might actually get better if we work together to make them so. I really can't imagine where a sequel would be able to go, but Shazam! is an inpsiring beginning to end story about love and support.

Avengers: Endgame

I'll be honest, I was lost from the opening scene; I feel like I needed about twenty-one films worth of back story just to understand what was going on. Did anyone else even go see this one? It looked pretty expensive, I wonder if it even made back half its budget. Oh well, you can't win them all, I just hope the studio behind it had something else this year to absorb the deficit. But milking that joke aside, you don't need me to tell you that the most amazing thing about this film was that it pulled off the expectations plaguing it. Kevin Feige, the Russo brothers, and probably two countries worth of cast and crew created the cinematic equivalent of the planet Jupiter without it crumbling under its own weight. Flawed? Yes, it was a finale that probably needed another hour to effectively smooth out. But sometimes you just have to embrace the flaws and accept the wonderfulness the way it is. Wow, that's a sweet message, somebody should make a movie about that...

UglyDolls

I had a couple of pleasant surprises from the cinema this year, and this animated film was the biggest gem. At first glance it looks like The Diet Lego Movie, basically a feature length toy commercial with a soundtrack and hopefully a message about something uncontroversial. Yeah, that's all it is. Until you start paying attention to the lyrics by Glenn Slater and the script by Alison Peck (keep an eye on her career). The psychological effects of unrealistic beauty standards is a heavy topic for children to grasp, and indeed way too many adults. This movie isn't going to prevent the bullying and verbal abuse that all children will invariably face from their peers, but it just might plant a seed in their minds that gives them a handhold in adolescence. Special mentions goes to Nick Jonas's despicably abusive villain song "The Ugly Truth" and Janelle Monáe's brokenness disguised as pop sugar song "All Dolled Up". You know you totally ignored this one. Trust me, give it a chance now.

Detective Pikachu

Kudos to the team that did the first trailer, they made it look just bizarre enough to be intriguing. It's another Roger Rabbit template, this time with Justice Smith in the thankless role of actor who has to emote off of dead air. You might not notice but he's really good; Smith is destined to be a powerhouse in a few years. But the truth is, nothing matters until Ryan Reynolds shows up. Here's the thing about Reynolds: post Deadpool he could have a career spanning the next decade just by phoning it in, but he doesn't do that. His comedic timing is as solid as you'd expect, but he looks for those emotional beats as an actor. When he finds them, he swings right at the sweet spot. I've never cared about Pokémon, but I cared about these characters. I'm sure it was much more riveting for a Pokémon fan, but even with my mere passing appreciation for Mewtwo I left the theater in a very good mood.

Aladdin

Notice I skipped the live Dumbo? We really need to stop encouraging this. I waited until my library had it on DVD, and I think if I'd paid anything for it I'd be more honed on the weaknesses. But if you imagine you're watching a really good TV-movie version of Aladdin it has a certain charm. Will Smith is decent as the Genie, even though I don't think he's really doing his best. Mena Massoud fares better as Aladdin, adding a few more layers to the character. But it's Naomi Scott's Jasmine who ultimately hijacks the movie. Gone is the marrying-for-love angle, she's trying to understand the people her lineage is in charge of. It might have made for a better story to put her in as the protagonist, because in the fleeting moments where the movie manages to step away from the source material it starts to work. At least she finally got a solo, and it's a powerful one.

Dark Phoenix

I didn't hate it. Unfortunately that's the good news. The X-Men franchise has a special place in the history of comics to screen, but the party ended a long time ago. It's become brand loyalty now. Days of Future Past was probably the last chance to fix it, and that didn't really happen. Just let the horse retire with dignity before you beat it to death.

Toy Story 4

How many frigging times can we say goodbye to these characters? Going into it I felt like it was unneeded. Coming out of it I felt like it was unwanted. Too many story arcs without any particular one taking the focus, vital characters pushed to the background, and I don't know what everyone is on about but Forky is a Saturday Night Live catchphrase character. Pixar is becoming DreamWorks. I know it's a cash cow for Disney, but in terms of quality I'm beginning to wonder if the company really needs two animation studios anymore.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Ever since the Summer movie season extended from March to October, actual movies released during the Summer have had a dip in finesse. Fortunately Avengers: Epilogue rescued me from the July 4th weekend. Tom Holland IS Spider-Man; and even better, he IS Peter Parker. With a little less push for spectacle and more attention to character moments, Far From Home demonstrates how the MCU has plenty of room to mature (I mean it in a good way). Jake Gyllenhaal absolutely nails it as Mysterio, tapping into his natural charisma as a tactic. Michael Keaton's Vulture was scary because he looked it. Mysterio is scary because he doesn't. Poor Peter Parker, you just know these guys are going to be teaming up at some point.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

I love action movies, but I just don't connect with alpha-male machismo. I find those characters really have no heart, just a drive, and thus there's nothing for me to root for, making a movie with no tension. The Rock and Jason Statham are inherently likable action stars, but the Fast & Furious series reduces them to caricatures. The stunts are impressive, and I'm sure some very talented people put their lives on the line, but these movies just don't make it feel that anything really matters. It's just strange to me how the fate of the world can be at stake and still feel like nothing's at stake. Ultimately this isn't my series.

Ready or Not

Man, I wanted to like this movie, and I did to a point. Samara Weaving has a range and a real future in films. This comedy/horror about a bride marrying into a super-wealthy bat-shit crazy family had everything in place, and it did so many things right. Because of a pact with the devil, the family has to hunt (and evidently kill) their newest member before sunrise. It's a great set-up, and their incompetence with the antique weaponry gives the game a realistic feel (did you know it takes more than one arrow to kill somebody?). The problem is, at no point does the bride get to become the hunter, which is the whole point of a movie like this. She fights back, but she stays on the defense, and it's unsatisfying. I'd much rather go back and rewatch Happy Death Day.

Joker

I'm lying. I didn't see it. And I'm not going to. I've put it here because as someone who deals with a mental health disorder, I continue to be insulted that Todd "Society's-gotten-too-easily-offended-for-me-to-do-comedy-anymore" Phillips ever attached a mental health disorder to a character like the Joker and that so many people praised it. I don't care if it's good or if it reminds you of Taxi Driver, it's irresponsible. That's all I have to say about it.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Moving on to a happier subject; fantasy genocide. I love the Maleficent movies. I know they're far from perfect, but the character of Maleficent has always held a special place in my internal challenge of what is and isn't a villain. The arguably past due sequel to 2014's Maleficent is a bit plot heavy and probably chews more scenery than it can swallow, but it's a passionate ride. Angelina Jolie is back in the horns that she spent her whole career waiting to glue on, this time facing off against real life fairy queen Michelle Pfeiffer. These actresses shared scenes are sadly underused, but they count while we have them. Interestingly enough it's Elle Fanning's performance as Aurora that leaves the deepest impression as she's fully turned to the Mistress of Evil as her maternal figure and believes in her even more than Maleficent herself does. I doubt the franchise has a future, but I hope I'm wrong because I'll never get tired of it.

Charlie's Angels

I get it, nobody asked for this movie and nobody likes Kristen Stewart. I'll wait while you reiterate those two points a few dozen times. Dum de dum de dum. Okay, finished? Good. This movie was great. Popcorn flick great, but still great. Elizabeth Banks knocked it out of the park as an action director, and Kristen Stewart was electrifying. Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott (Princess Jasmine, remember?) round out the main cast in a suspense thriller that's tense and heartfelt in all the right places. Get off the bandwagon hate and give this one a look.

Frozen II

The first movie suffered from realizing too late that Elsa was the POV character we wanted. Frozen II sets out to rectify the error. This is very much Elsa's story, or ideally chapter two of its trilogy, and knowing the self fear she's spent her whole life struggling with makes the payoff all the more powerful. It's refreshing to see Disney tell a story with barely a villain in it, and the end result is the American version of a Miyazaki film (save for Kristoff's solo which could ONLY come from Disney). I don't know if really young kids will get much out of it, but the ones who aged six years along with the original should still be ready to stand in the five hour lines at the theme parks to meet Arendelle's royal family.

Knives Out

You've got to hand it to Rian Johnson, he took all the crap he got from Star Wars fans from two years ago and did something productive with it. The Agatha Christie whodunits are making a deserved comeback, and this story makes for a pretty tough act to match. Perhaps a bit more on the howdunit side, knowing the ending doesn't detract from the fun in getting there. Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is a welcomed addition to the private detective Who's Who, regardless of whether or not his accent is what he thinks it is. Soon-to-be Bond girl Ana de Armas makes a solid impression, and Chris Evans reminds us of his non-Steve Rogers acting range. This movie is a delight.

Jumanji: The Next Level

If you liked Welcome to the Jungle you'll like this, it's pretty basic. The surprises come from the human moments scattered throughout the playground. In the first film the kids were essentially The Breakfast Club archetypes. This time around we get to know them in ways that we didn't realize we wanted to. Dual-Danny's DeVito and Glover could easily have been thrown in as a mere shtick, but the film wisely utilizes their abilities as performers to layer their characters. It's Awkwafina who has the heaviest lifting thrown on her and she proves herself more than capable of stepping into the role(s) required of her. Jumanji: The Final Boss can't get here soon enough.

Bombshell

I don't think you need me to give you a movie synopsis, a testament to quality, or what kind of a chameleon Charlize Theron is. Instead, I'm going to single out one sequence; the scene where Margot Robbie as Kayla Pospisil (who's an amalgamation of several women who reported being sexually harassed by Roger Ailes) goes through the experience. It's brutal, and not in an over-the-top Lifetime movie way. It's brutal in its realism. John Lithgow wisely underplays Ailes as a man who matter-of-factly has power over Pospisil. The scene is carefully constructed. There's an easy discussion about what technically is and isn't happening, but in the end it doesn't and shouldn't matter. What does matter is he destroys her. I believe the arts and entertainment are important as a whole, but I rarely assign that importance to specific examples. I'm doing it now; this scene is important. If you're still unclear what the #metoo movement is about, this will explain it. And I truly believe it's a journey you need to take.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

And finally we have the end of the trilogy-trilogy. The suns set on Tatooine, the first last Jedi rises, and the last First Order strikes out. Frankly, I don't know what the hell everyone's problem is with this movie. Yes this trilogy had issues, namely the lack of a single show runner to keep Rian Johnson from killing off too many characters, but all things considered it's a satisfying conclusion to a saga that introduced multiple generations to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. It may take a while for the sandstorms to settle but I believe in time people will love the new trilogy for what it is, instead of resenting it for what it isn't. Final thoughts: Daisy Ridley is a treasure. Adam Driver is going to win an Oscar before 2025. And there will be episodes X-XII, hopefully without involving another Death Star. The Force was with us, so quit being such an Anakin.