My Top Ten Scooby-Doo Stories

It's been about a week since Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery was released, but I've only just managed to track down a copy of it. And what can I say? It was a bit of a bizarre entry in the Scooby canon. Any time the gang has a 'We meet somebody famous' episode, there's always the threat of too much time having to be allotted to the guest stars. And while KISS did admirably well for a new generation of audience (who probably has no idea who they are), the story was a bit of an oddity.

At the risk of spoiling it, a good chunk of the story is spent in a chemically induced hallucination, i.e. a drug trip. Totally not kidding there. Nobody deliberately takes drugs but the trip is there, in all of its family entertainment glory. If you're watching it with children you'll probably want a heads up for the conversation that may and should happen afterwards. But hey, that's rock and roll.

As for the rest of it, the animation is as stunning as the past several direct to DVD movies have been. The gang all gets their moments. And the combination of classic KISS songs with a prerequisite Scooby chase scene through the world's trippiest amusement park certainly rivals the bulk of music videos created today.

Overall, it's a decent film. If you're into KISS, definitely go for it. If you're really into Scooby like I am, then also go for it. If you're only kind of into Scooby then there's better stuff out there.

What kind of other stuff? Well, I'm glad I pretended you asked. Scooby-Doo has a 46 year and counting history of shows, movies, specials and miscellaneous appearances including the epic fan fiction Scooby-Doo's Unsolved Mystery written by yours truly, which happens to be available on this very blog site through this link. But let's say you only kind of like Scooby-Doo and you don't want to have to peruse through the whole library yourself just to find the good ones. I'm happy to say that you're in luck, because after a painstaking couple of minutes I've complied a list of ten Scooby stories that I feel just have something 'special' about them.

10. Scooby Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005 DVD)

This video was part of the second wave of Scooby DVDs, heavily influenced by the What's New, Scooby-Doo? series. I simply adore the TV show, but I have to say that most of the movies from this period felt like episodes that were needlessly padded out to fill an eighty minute plot. And this one is really about the same as the ensemble around it if it weren't for one detail; the use of Velma.

It's hard to talk much about it without spoiling the plot (an aspect of Scooby-Doo that has become surprisingly important in the recent decades). But I will say that there is a point in the film where the gang believes Velma has been killed.

It's a Scooby movie, so the handling of it doesn't become overly heavy handed, but it is in there. And the image of Scooby howling for her is still a bit haunting. When you think of Scooby-Doo as a franchise you typically remember the slapstick chase scenes set to peppy music and the plethora of tropes that have entered the population's vocabulary; and those elements are important to the series. But at its core, Scooby-Doo is a kid's franchise about facing something unpleasant and overcoming it. And this video shows a poignant side to Mystery Inc. in demonstrating how they deal with death.

9. Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy (2014 DVD)

You may remember last summer when this video stirred up a little controversy over Daphne's dress size ballooning into obesity. I think people made a bigger deal out of it that it was, but there were still a few bits that were worthy of concern. Obesity, and the way people whose bodies are obese are treated, are very important issues. It's possible that Scooby-Doo may have tapped into them a little deeper than they were prepared to handle. It's a fair discussion, but at the end of the day it's still Scooby-Doo. We don't exactly hold Fred Jones accountable for teaching kids about trespassing.

Moving past that, the best Scooby-Doo stories are the ones that could not have happened to any other protagonists, and Frankencreepy requires the Scooby gang be present. It's a double dose of homage to both the classic Universal film as well as the classic Scooby adventures. Once again Velma is at the center of the story, but the rest of the gang all have subplots targeting something about them personally. What can I say? It works a hell of a lot better than that damned 2002 live action movie.

8. Bedlam in the Big Top (1969 episode)

I really wanted to include a classic episode on this list, and Bedlam was the one that stood out the most.

Watching the old Scooby-Doo episodes is a bit like revisiting the classic Doctor Who series. It takes a bit of resolve to get through them. But here we are in the very first season, in a time before musical chase scenes and when Shaggy still actually had a bit of a spine. This was when Scooby-Doo was developing its own vocabulary and template. You can turn to What a Night for a Knight, Hassle in the Castle, or A Night of Fright is No Delight for better examples of a typical Scooby-Doo caper but Bedlam in the Big Top features a unique idea that I would love to see revisited. Namely, the fiend who coerces the gang into putting themselves into danger.

I have a theory that the quality of a Scooby story correlates to whether or not Daphne matters. And while this episode didn't exactly give her any development, she at least had some screen time. And there was something about the way Ghost Clown brought out a smile in her as she was being hypnotized that has always stayed with me. You have to wonder what kind of darkness she actually carries in her.

But the payoff in the episode is Shaggy. As a child I had very few characters I felt like I could relate to, and by default Shaggy was my guy. The Ghost Clown had already put Scooby on the trapeze and Daphne on the tightrope, but when he sent Shaggy into the lion's cage I felt this rare mix of concern and excitement. It was more than a little gratifying to see that Shaggy is the one who figures out how to defeat the clown at the end.

7. E-Scream (2006 episode)

What's New, Scooby-Doo? is probably the apex of the Scooby series. It seems like every one of its 42 episodes found a different trope to deconstruct, and it never got old. Clearly this show was created with a multi-generational audience in mind, as some of the mysteries are surprisingly sophisticated. You can't look at an episode like The San Franpsycho without wondering how the production team managed to cram a back story, a guest voice, multiple red herrings and three chase scenes into a mere 22 minutes.

Fred steals practically every episode, with veteran Frank Welker finding that sweet spot between no-nonsense leader of the old series and the buffoon of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. Mindy Cohn has taken over as Velma and also find the perfect blend of classic enthusiasm and humor-potential snark. But it's Daphne who gets the most needed makeover. Grey DeLisle-Griffin's background in comedy invariably had an influence on the way her character was written. To this day Daphne's personality has yet to be nailed down, but DeLisle-Griffin is clearly having fun fleshing her out.

I could recommend just about any mystery in this series, but it's the finale episode that really breaks the mold. To say anything about E-Scream would ruin the fun. Suffice to say, it's telling just how vital each member of Mystery Inc. is to the show's dynamic; in that you can end a series with the dog's name in the title on a Velma-centric episode and it still feels right.

6. Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost (1999 DVD)

I'm sure there's a reason they sometimes put an exclamation point after Scooby-Doo in the titles of these things and sometimes don't.

This one came out on the heels of Zombie Island, which was really the home video that revived the whole franchise with an impressively animated foray into real supernatural occurrences. Witch's Ghost takes it a step further by bringing in Tim Curry as Ben Ravencroft, introducing the Hex Girls (who should have had a spin-off by now), and upping the ante of the Scooby formula. Twice.

First up is a romantic angle between Velma and Ben (wonder how that works out). Then of course there's the central mystery, which is spaced out carefully. And just when it feels like things are wrapping up there comes a bonus act. Again, it's hard to talk about the film without spoiling it. But it was an instant classic when it was first released, and it still works as a holiday tradition anywhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving; kind of unique.

5. Night of the Living Doo (2001 special)

Scooby-Doo has been parodied by everybody. Even House of Mouse did a nod to it on at least one occasion. But nothing has quite the gusto of Scooby and the gang lampooning themselves. There was a famous Johnny Bravo episode involving Mystery Inc. which escalated into one of the all time great chase sequences, but that was a showcase for Johnny Bravo first and foremost. Night of the Living Doo is pure Scooby.

David Cross is particularly brilliant flip-flopping between comic and straight man depending on the situation. Gary Coleman tries so hard to be the unwanted voice of sensibility. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy appears out of nowhere. And of course there's Mark Hamill, because Mark Hamill. It's the Scooby and the gang at their most irreverent.

It's a testament to just how strong these characters are that they can parody themselves and never stop being themselves. Hanna-Barbera created the show and followed it up with at least half a dozen Scooby clone shows, and none of them (Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, etc.) ever matched the iconicness of the original team. But when you can do self-parody and still walk away, that's pretty versatile.

4. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013 series)

Yep. The whole damn series. Sorry, but that's the way it goes when you ave an overarching plot that spans 52 episodes.

It wasn't their best series, but it was probably their ballsiest. There are certainly weaknesses. Fred's obsession with traps almost comes across as a fetish, and one that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. There's the animation shift in style, which honestly just takes some getting used to. And then there's the teen-aged relationship drama which got in the way more than it didn't. Velma and Shaggy dating? We all knew that wasn't going to end well.

But at the same time, this was the series that got to break the rules. When someone's feelings were hurt, you felt it. There wasn't a wisecrack that restored the status quo. When it was funny, it was What's New, Scooby-Doo? funny. But when it got serious, it got dark.

Season 2 in particular really took off the gloves. Bad things happened to good people. Tragedy struck. Likable characters were killed. This isn't your father's show about kicking the Creeper in the kneecap.

But this was ultimately Scooby's show. It was a fascinating character study to watch the cowardly Great Dane throw down the gauntlet when he was pushed over the line; and he was. There's an inner badass lurking beneath all of the whimpering and jumping into Shaggy's arms. If the cosmetic issues of the series kept you from giving it a chance, I'd really like to encourage you to try it again. There's a real gem in Crystal Cove.

3. Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001 DVD)

Okay, full disclosure: this is the lamest mystery the gang has ever taken for-freaking-ever to figure out. But that's not the point of this one. It's all about the romp through the virtual world, featuring (count 'em) three musical chase scenes.

The gang arrives via invitation to the anonymously named State University where their friend has invented a machine that transfers living matter into computer data a la Tron. Of course he uses this global changing technology to create a Scooby-Doo video game. But an evil virus that looks a little like Freakazoid's mannequin enters the real world and does some truly, unforgivably inconvenient things to the SU campus.

And here's the fun factor from the get-go. We know it's a real virus and not some janitor in a virus costume (?) which means Shaggy and Scooby get to dole out the biggest first act beating they've ever inflicted on the main villain. It's kind of gratifying.

Inevitably the gang winds up being pulled into the virtual world where they have to play through each of the ten levels of the game, collecting the box of Scooby Snacks that has been hidden about twenty yards away from their entry point. It's not a very good game. And while the 'anything goes' fantasy world is never fully realized, it still proves to be a lot of fun.

And then comes the final level where it really gets good. The gang encounters virtual versions of themselves, and Daphne (in probably her first real moment of character development) shows a subtle sign of not getting along with herself. We have a few surprise cameos from former monsters (What is it about the Creeper that makes his appearance so cool?) and multiple victories for the entire cast. And, oh yeah, the culprit turns out to be exactly who you think it is.

2. The Scooby-Doo Project (1999 special)

This was a series of about one minute segments parodying The Blair Witch Project that aired on The Cartoon Network and was then compiled into short film format. At the time Blair Witch was all the rage, and everybody was doing a send-up of it, but Scooby was the best.

The Scooby gang were all the 2D style drawings set to a live action background and a real Mystery Machine. The then-current voice cast all reprised their roles from Witch's Ghost including Frank Welker as Fred, B.J. Ward as Velma, Scott Innes as Shaggy and Scooby, and the much missed Mary Kay Bergman as Daphne.

This is an example of a parody that outdoes its source material. First off, the running time manages to hit all of the important beats of the movie without feeling rushed; Blair Witch should always have been a short film. Second, the insertion of the Scooby gang into the story somehow feels right. It would be harder to accept Fred and Daphne in a Paranormal Activity spoof, but Blair Witch was meant to be. Third, as funny as this is, it's also kind of creepy. To the best of my knowledge, this is Mystery Inc.'s only official venture into dark comedy. Their fate is left ambiguous.

1. Scooby Doo! Stage Fright (2013 DVD)

Okay, so why this one? What sets this above the rest of Scooby's misadventures? To begin with, the production team started with an inspired idea, take a classic horror story like The Phantom of the Opera and combine it with a (mostly) current pop culture phenomenon; in this case the American Idol craze. That's solid enough for a Scooby story, but then they got ambitious.

What we are treated to is a complicated plot borrowing quite a number of ideas (a famous Agatha Christie mystery comes to mind) carefully woven together. I can't risk spoiling the journey, but Stage Fright is one of their most cleverly crafted mysteries to date. And they still found time to work in a narrative that could only be a Scooby-Doo story.

It may be an overstatement to say this film has everything, but for the life of me I can't think of what they could have left out. Fred gets some Batman: the Animated Series styled action. Daphne gets some Meg Ryan. Shaggy and Scooby remind us that they do in fact have sleuthing abilities. And Velma gets all the best lines. The humor is sharp. The chases are choreographed. And we even have a couple of new songs to showcase the singing talents of DeLisle-Griffin and Welker.

The short version, Stage Fright is the new bar for Scooby's production staff to aim for, and it's going to be a tough feat. Just know I've got a box of Scooby Snacks here and I'm prepared to start distributing them.

Editorial: Who is Monty Python?

It was this time last year that the five remaining members of the Monty Python troupe presented their farewell performances at the O2. And while their body of work under the name 'Monty Python' essentially ended with 1983's The Meaning of Life, the team has continued to endure in various forms for over 45 years now. Acknowledging founding member Graham Chapman's death in 1989, the Monty Python team has actually existed longer without Chapman than with.


So what is it about this group of comedy scholars that just seems to continue to feel 'currently active'? Even in a performance of Spamalot involving nobody of the troupe, it still feels like Mr. Python is present and irrepressible as ever.


When you look at The Rolling Stones, a band that has been together since 1962, it somehow doesn't feel like the n factor that made them The Rolling Stones is present anymore. In the same way, The Beatles ended when they ended, a full decade before John Lennon's death. Monty Python is a curiosity that continues to thrive, even in spite of its own creators trying to shut it down.


To figure out how this strange creature keeps kicking, it may be necessary to understand what Monty Python is; no easy task. You could probably pose the question to a single member of the troupe twice in one day and get conflicting answers. You can't really nail down the Python anymore than you can nail down a solid definition of comedy, but that doesn't mean the attempt would produce nothing of value. So let's look at it.

The Larch's Seeds

You could make a case that much of Great Britain's current comedic sensibilities are a direct byproduct of World War II. When you look at the programmes which resonated so loudly in Europe that we heard it here in the States, there is a noticeable preoccupation with death. Perhaps this was also a reflection of the British Empire's decline, but when you look at the classic Doctor Who serials, there is a lot of death that nobody reacts to.

When you tie these elements into the teenage rampage of the sixties leading into Beatlemania, it's almost like watching the phoenix emerge from the ashes. Whatever rebelliousness was happening in British culture at the time also coincided with the emergence of television, a medium seeking out voices.

David Frost, a man who probably deserves both the praise and criticism he receives, inevitably emerged as the very face and personality of television. The Frost Report tapped the veritable Who's Who of British comedy writers who would go on to become the vital organs of the entire generation of comedy as we know it, including the future Pythons.

Eric Idle once identified John Cleese as the 'head' of Python, and Terry Jones as the 'heart'. Much of the creative tension between those two forces produced the epic flavor of surreal comedy that gave us the name Monty Python; absolute nonsense, yet somehow effectively defined by what the beast felt like it was.

Oxford vs. Cambridge

On the one side you had the Palin-Jones sketches, comprised of Oxford educated friends Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Their style tended to be right brained, with a strong sense of visual presentation, and a lot of off the wall ideas. Jones would go on to direct the Python films, and it was his passion for the overall feel of the show which molded the individual episodes into their own 'thing'.

What you can recognize the most in the Oxford boys on the Myers-Briggs scale is an overwhelming sense of intuitiveness. The Palin-Jones team could easily be credited with giving Monty Python his childish delight, be it innocent or naughty. Like a child, there is the thrill of discovery; a belief that if you peel back the layers of reality and let the silliness run rampant, the world will undoubtedly become a somewhat more amiable place.

That optimism was not present among the Cambridge chaps. Both of these men were taller, and had the look of the authority figures Monty Python would be lampooning, and perhaps by unconscious effect their sketches tended to be based on the humor of adulthood. Graham Chapman and John Cleese wrote sketches very verbally (well, Cleese did), concise and carefully structured. In Cleese's account, any sketch that started with an ordinary situation and ended with people screaming at each other was a Chapman-Cleese sketch.

I find this dichotomy in Monty Python to be particularly fascinating. Unlike the Oxford team, who welcomed a sense of chaos in its harmlessness, the Cambridge team seemed to show a genuine fear of that x-factor. Their beast behind the veil wasn't a whimsical creature, but a destructive force that could barely be contained.

There are legendary tales of Cleese and Jones locking horns. Probably each man represented an insurmountable obstacle to the other. But some wonderful things happened during that clash.

The Bridge Troll

I don't think Terry Gilliam would mind the title.

Gilliam was in a unique position, in that he never had to submit anything to the group for approval. He simply did whatever he needed to do to fill the time which had been allotted to him for an episode. Gilliam's animations may very well have rescued Holy Grail from losing the audience's attention span.

Terry Gilliam, with his college aged American sensibilities in the sixties, had a spirit of anarchy (which seems to continue into his seventies). There was probably no comedian more equipped to serve as the bridge between right brained Oxford and left brained Cambridge.

His animations may have represented (in its purest form) that stuff that made Monty Python who he is. It's significant that many of the crude cutouts Gilliam used were taken from respectable paintings and then crammed into a meat grinder. There was some real envelope pushing violence Monty Python got away with on television because of Gilliam. It was almost like a stream of raw material that flowed between Cambridge and Oxford; that creek where the Pythons came to play.

So I Became a Waiter

There's a reason I've saved Eric Idle for last. When you think of Monty Python, you probably remember the dead parrot, the silly walk (Cleese-Chapman contributions), the Spanish Inquisition, the Lumberjack song (Jones-Palin sketches) and the Gilliam animated title sequence(s). What of Eric Idle?

There's Nudge, Nudge of course and a majority of the Python songs, but it's a fair question (on the surface) to ask how needed Idle really was to the overall quality of the comedic entity. Well to skip a bit, I'm of the opinion that the whole reason Python worked the way it did was because of Eric Idle.

Watching several post-Python interviews with the surviving members, I keep hearing Idle being referred to as the most philosophical of the Pythons. So what the hell does that mean? Translated into comedy, Idle was the one who truly understood timing. His contribution came in the form of an intuitive ordering of structure; cutting this sketch off here, bringing this linking bit in, cutting to the animation and so forth. When the other Pythons spoke straight into the lens it was like they were speaking to the camera. Idle's eye contact felt like he was actually addressing the audience.

The Circus needed a ringmaster to actually function, and Idle may have taken the role on more selflessly than any other ringmaster in entertainment. Unlike David Frost, who was a master of looking like he had written the jokes he was telling, Idle really wrote his monologues and really understood the ambiguous reptile named Monty. In essence, Eric Idle served as the link between the chaos and the audience, and the pieces of Monty Python would never have held together without him.

And Now the Punchline...

The question of who Monty Python is remains on the table and it is doubtful anyone will agree with my answer, but here it goes. I believe Monty Python is the soul of comedy. Comedy existed well before the lads got hold of it and will continue to exist for as long as the human psyche has flaws. There was a living energy that flowed through the great comedians long before history was written down. It flowed through the Marx Brothers and the Muppets and the Satellite of Love. But in the late sixties, through the brilliance of six comedians in their top form who were touched so deeply by the muse, comedy was given a name.

And it had a much nicer liberty bell bong to it than Bunn, Whackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot.

Poetry Slam: With Six You Get an Apology

It's funny in a way, when I started this blog my intention was to go through the past couple of decades of stuff I'd written just to compile it all into a central location. But then I had to start doing reviews, and having opinions, and...well...you can see how it's been turning out.

Still, I thought it might be slightly fun and mostly stamina testing to look back on where I've come from as an attempted writer. Which mean I'm digging out the high school notebooks with all of the teenage angst ridden light verse.

In ninth grade, my English teacher assigned us a choice of poetry projects, and I opted to write a parody of a famous poem. I went with Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I'm not strong enough to reprint my version here, but I credited the snow themed stanzas to another Frost poet named Misty.

What I learned about poetry, was that the conciseness of it allowed one to feel a sense of accomplishment over a completed half page of content. Over the next couple of years a few other opportunities to fulfill an assignment by poem presented themselves, and I dusted Misty off each time.

Writing through a fictional persona gave me a sense of freedom to be a little less judgmental of the end result (and it shows), but it also granted me a sense of quantity in developing a kind of style. I started off trying to write purely humorous pieces, or 'light' when the humor seemed absent from them. But as I was in my late teens and heading into the dreaded adulthood (combined with then-unrealized chronic depression) Misty became kind of the voice for any kind of expression I was able to find for myself.

Here is a little bit of what I wrote back then.

Opening Night

This is probably the first poem I wrote where I wasn't still trying to tie Misty to Robert Frost in some capacity. I have it listed as a 1989 poem which probably places me in spring of my eleventh grade year, right after we performed Hello, Dolly!.

No golden trophy compensates

A soul's undying feat

To strike the set undaunted,

To repel a roved repeat.

No silver medal inundates

The final chorus bow.

No blushing ushers rush to dab

The tired, furrowed brow.

Within the one who speculates

On finalized accord

And mocks the common dissonance

Is found the true reward.

I'm noticing two trends here that still affect my writing today, as well as my perceived 'quality' of writing. One is my gratuitous use of vocabulary words, even if they don't necessarily fit the context properly. The other is my basic love of internal rhyming.

When It's Over

This one is from 1990, following the Teen Theatre production of Godspell for which I was called upon to act, sing, dance and be crucified. It was probably the most intense stage production I've ever been a part of, having gone into it knowing literally nobody else in the cast and working so closely with them for as long as we did. After the production ended, it really felt like I was going through a breakup, and this poem (containing no fewer than three references to the soundtrack) was my way of giving the show an epitaph.

Last week I went out walking.

What else was there to do?

All the stress was over.

The tribulation through.

I stood beside a stream

Which flowed without a cause.

My memories were cluttered

With loneliness and flaws.

Day by day I came there

With willows by my side

Until I heard some laughter

And watched my grief divide.

I turned to find the laughter.

Whose joy could sing so free?

And as I turned I realized

The laughter came from me.

Neurosis

Yep, learned a new word in my high school psychology class. I must have still been hung up on Godspell where I opened this one with the beatitudes. Aside from that, I don't think anything really inspired this one except that I was a teenager, and as such I felt that the world around me was already functioning without a clear place for me.

Happy are those who are gentle and soft

For theirs is the bread that will leaven.

Happy are those who are heckled and scoffed

For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Happy are those who are blind to their pride

For they are the ones who will see.

But what of the smile that's been wounded inside

With a rage disallowed to be free.

Yes, why is the world so determined to laugh

That it won't take the moment to cry?

Why do we bend our emotions in half

When they grant us the passion to fly?

Look at the pills we consume to escape

Being buried alive by repression.

Bribing a doctor to listen and gape

Brings us further in debt with each session.

Why must we wait for the angels above

To lift all of our stresses away?

All we require is someone to love

With no superficial display.

I want to care for a soul who is grieving.

No cover, no shield and no fee.

I want the world to have trust in believing.

But who gives a damn about me?

I know. It's so cute the way I've figured it all out, isn't it?

It's really interesting to me now to see the negative opinion I clearly had back then about therapy and mood stabilizing prescription drugs. For the record, I've seen many therapists since then, and I currently take depression meds. Also, my rhyming hypothesis about only needing love proved to be a bit unfounded, as I learned the hard way. Ginny (my wife, in case it's not self-evident) is the best thing that has ever happened to me. But within the first year of our marriage, my depression hit full force, and I wound up spending some time in a psych ward, where I learned quickly that antidepressants were not going to make me any less me. It turns out the depression was actually doing that.

Regardless, I'd like to mention that this poem was a bit of a milestone for me, in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever written an obscenity down. I'd avoided swearing for the first fifteen years of my life before finally starting to dabble with the 'television acceptable' words in tenth grade. But having written this poem DOWN (and in PENCIL no less) there was definitive proof that I was no longer the squeaky clean Cherub I used to be. I've gotten very versatile with profanity since then.

Song of the Spyre

We're still in 1990, but I've graduated by this point and I'm not exactly looking to the future with hope.

I don't know why I came up with this spelling of the word 'spire', but I wanted to create an alternate variation on the muse/guardian angel concept, possibly imagining the Spyre of the poem as Misty herself. By this point I was imagining her as new age goth-type, even if that wasn't a thing that had quite caught on yet. But she'd come full circle, what with me borrowing from Robert Frost again; although this time I'm not being humorous. On purpose anyway.

For the record, the last three words in this poem are yet another deliberate callback to Godspell.

Two roads in wood diverged, and I?

I just kept walking toward the sky.

And with the junction far behind

I pushed the two roads from my mind

And made a pathway of my own.

So wearily I went alone.

The endless trail proceeded dry

So much I had to sit and cry

Until a Spyre heard my plea.

She took my hand and walked with me.

And on we journeyed into night

With sky lit black and stars lit white.

She, to my ease, did not away

But sang instead, "You'll never stray

Alone in this horizon wide.

I'll always be there by your side."

Debbie Kicked Me

I really have no explanation for this one. Just know I'm three years into college, and it's inspired by an actual event.

One day, while I was thinking, rather casually, of anything that struck a chord in my imagination I discovered that my mind can operate in any fashion that I want.

And while I wandered in a daze of windows leading nowhere, candlesticks, and astroturf, and run-on sentences, I felt a sudden added pressure to my thigh that made my body jaunt.

I whirled around to face the culprit. Maybe I was loitering and someone in the building had the order to evict me.

But soon I came to realize, the only thing which had occurred was (did you read the title?) Debbie kicked me.

I'll never truly understand her reasoning for this. Perhaps her body had been taken over by a demigod.

I'd find it rather odd if this were true. But on the other hand, I guess I also find her rather odd.

I originally had the intention of continuing this poem into an epic about the various people in the world I'd look forward to kicking myself. But even my muse that had set this thing in motion jumped in and suggested I cut my losses and walk away from this one.

Star of Love

Last one for this blog. I'm still in college here, but every once in a while I've taken to trying my brain at songwriting, despite my lack of skill with any instrument. I obviously can't include the music that's meant to go with the lyrics here, but the song is meant to be sung as a kind of lullaby.

If I ever get In Vanessa's Room pulled together, this song will most definitely be on the roster (You can read more about that here if you're interested). Good night!

Star in the night

Dances set in flight

Whispering abound

Laughing to the ground

Glittering

The clouds and trees

And glistening the lake

Softly sighing

Through the breeze

That drifts into a wake

Star of love

You smile above

I'm gazing from below

Imagining

The distant worlds

You know

Shine on me

Your mystery

So far away you seem

But lay your head beside me while

I dream

Light in the sky

Reflections soaring by

Reaching for your hand

To be carried to another land

Swirling in

A lost design

Where rainbows chase the rain

Chanting muses

Still benign

For whether cast or vain

Star of love

Releasing dove

The magic that you bring

I wish upon you

Hold me in

Your wing

Play with me

In fantasy

And show me how to fly

And let me dive beside you from

The sky

Stream slumbers deep

Clowns and angels weep

Oceans everlast

But the dreams vanish fast

Time is still

But surging on

With visions out of sight

Shattered crowns

Can barely don

The mourning of the knight

Star of love

The wonders of

The streak

Of falling glow

That dimly trails

The journey where

You go

Think of me

In memory

The one who loves you free

But don't look back

There's nothing left

To see

A Good Game is Rare: The Rise and Fall of Monkey Mountain

Back in the SNES era of videogames there was a friendly/heated rivalry with Sega. It was the non-sports enthusiast's alternative to My Team vs. Your Team. This being the days before the internet, the rivalry was sorely limited to outlets like the magazine letters column and game store banter, but it was definitely there. My favorite example was on the underrated SNES game Uniracers, which would garner you a protest from the programmers if you dared try to use the name 'Sonic' as your avatar.

Suffice to say, Mario emerged as the mascot with the better career, and it looked like he was going to be unstoppable during his N64 period. But then Nintendo backed out of their deal with Sony and their disc based system. Sony, being understandably angry, decided to release their hardware anyway, and the Playstation was born.

The Nintendo/Sega rivalry carried over into the next generation, intensified by bad blood. For example, Sony's whole marketing strategy with Crash Bandicoot was to have the costumed character calling out Nintendo from the parking lot with a megaphone.

To make matters worse, Squaresoft had been one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows on the SNES, with the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, and the much beloved Super Mario RPG. But Sony worked out exclusivity with Square, which led to the Playstation only Final Fantasy VII (and this unprecedented love affair with boring, brooding Cloud Strife).

The N64 started hurting very quickly. Super Mario 64 was available right out of the gate, and was awesome. And Wave Race to this day remains the greatest jet ski game in history. But Zelda got delayed for over a year, and Nintendo's third party developers really had trouble with the cartridge-based system. The game library was noticeably sparse.

And then there was Rare.

Nintendo's primary ally in the nineties may very well have kept Nintendo in business. I've always wondered why Nintendo turned down the deal to buy out Rare completely going into the Gamecube. When you think of Rare, you think of the Rare of the nineties. And this week's blog is my personal experience with the game company from the United Kingdom who could do no wrong.

Until they did.

Every Secret of Monkey Island

We really have to start with the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. They had some hits prior to that, notably the Killer Instinct franchise, which for me (merely tolerating the one-on-one fighting genre) was random button bashing and a bunch of noise and B. Orchid. But it was the return of the iconic ape that really pulled you into this fantastic world.

DKC was a platformer, in the vein of the Super Mario Brothers series, but something about the jungle beat and the grunts that the reptiles made as you trounced them just made you feel the gorilla. Donkey had a personality now. He would occasionally mug the camera or beat on his chest like he was subtly hoping for the player's approval. He had a brotherly fondness for a Curious George type sidekick named Diddy. He endured the cartoony abuse from his elder. And when he saw his bananas were stolen he hung his head in sadness. Donkey Kong was a real character now.

Of course it didn't hurt that the gameplay was solid, both satisfying and frustrating in all the right ways. And when DK stepped out of the spotlight for the sequel it opened up a position for Dixie Kong, one of the greatest (neglected) female game characters on consoles of the time.

Donkey Kong Country 2 is rightfully hailed as one of the most perfect games ever made. There were a lot of secret areas in DKC1, but 2 implemented a system to let you know whether or not you'd found them all, and gave you an alternate ending for the added effort. It's also funny, looking at Diddy and Dixie together. We know from the manual that they are dating, but nothing about their behavior indicates that except for the amount of comfort they have with each other. Even amidst hornets and phantasms trying to kill them, Dixie can't resist tasting the honey-lined walls she's climbing and Diddy has to put his hands up on the roller coaster of death.

Then comes Donkey Kong Country 3, which gets a bit of flack. Some of it is deserved. No gamer wants to deal with a damn baby. When Dixie takes a hit and starts crying, you want to put your arms around her, but when that God awful Kiddy Kong throws a tantrum you just want to drown his ass.

The gameplay is just as good as in its predecessor, and some of the level designs are truly creative. In fact, there's not really anything to complain about if you take the game as a solitary experience. It's when you compare it to DKC2 that the weaknesses start showing up. Mainly, while each individual level is fun in its own way, there's not really the sense of overarching mood that the past game had. In DKC2 you really feel like you're going in one pirate ship and out another, through a theme park and a beehive and back out. DKC3 comes across as a later season of a TV show you've invested in where the ongoing story arcs are abandoned in favor of a more episodic format. It's not bad, just a little disappointing.

Party Like it's 1997

If memory serves, Donkey Kong Country 3 was the last SNES game released to which anyone paid attention. Eyes were on Nintendo's newest system, which came out of the gate roaring and then stalled and stayed there. Rare rolled out a new Killer Instinct, but it wasn't until the following year that they started giving us their A-game.

First came Blast Corps, which is a gem of a concept that I haven't seen duplicated anywhere else. There is a computer controlled transport vehicle carrying a nuclear bomb, which malfunctions and has to head straight to a shelter before it explodes. Unfortunately, there are several towns worth of empty buildings in the way, and you have to bulldoze/shoot/ram them out of the way. It's the idea Michael Bay wishes he could have. The learning curve is easy, but the difficulty ramps up REAL QUICK. You're not meant to rent this game, you're meant to own it, and pull your hair out in frustration until that damned dump truck finally swings in the miracle arc without stopping.

And on the heels of Blast Corps came GoldenEye 007. Now I'm also not a fan of first person shooters, but I fully understand what people who are see in this game. On top of being a movie-to-game adaptation that people actually liked, the mayhem and death count really was fun. And that of course carried over into the multiplayer. It was just simple enough and complex enough to find that perfect balance.

And finally Diddy Kong came back with a Mario Kart emulation that added collection quests, an adventure element, and Lord knows how many challenges. What Mario 64 did for running around, Diddy did for driving. It was fun and it was hard, and so worth the effort. Of note was the appearance of both Banjo and Conker as playable characters before either of them had there own games on the market.

Dueling Banjos

The following year was Banjo-Kazooie, a title that looks like nonsense but may have been the most perfect 3D platformer ever created. It's been almost twenty years and this game is still great. I can't think of another game that feels as rewarding of exploration as Banjo-Kazooie. There are so many times where you're just going, "I wonder what's over here -oh, awesome!" Even the nuisance level Rusty Bucket Bay comes at the right time and is really not as bad as people claim it is. This whole game feels like one big Easter Egg hunt, quite literally when you finally go into hacker mode.

At the end of the game, Mumbo the shaman reveals that there is going to be a sequel, insisting that it is going to make Banjo-Kazooie look like a joke. So expectation were high for the sequel. Banjo-Tooie hit the shelves two years later.

Eh.

It probably had more fun bits than I remember, but the game just seemed to be more work than play. Fetch quests weren't satisfying anymore. It was more, "Oh wait, I can't open that door yet because I haven't hit this button on this other world, but I need that ability first and I've got to get rid of Kazooie and somehow get back on top of the mountain." The game was bigger, but Rare filled the space with tedium.

Part of the problem was that the developers were starting to throw all their tricks into each game. Hance, every Banjo-Tooie level has an obligatory first person shooter challenge, a vehicle mini-game, and way too many timed events. I'm actually convinced that Rare was beginning to develop a negative attitude towards gamers, as we were being given challenges to just keep us busy.

Striking the Kong

There were some other ttitles Rare released that people seemed to like, which I frankly haven't played. Jet Force Gemini got a positive response and was hailed as the spiritual successor to Blast Corps, while Perfect Dark filled the kind-of-next-GoldenEye void. And then there was Donkey Kong 64.

Dear God, I get exhausted just thinking about this abomination. Take the frustrating elements of Banjo-Tooie, having to swap characters out at specific locations, and then imagine it with five characters. It starts out fine, but it gets old by the second level. So since I've wasted too much of my life playing this game I'm going to sum up.

1. I like Tiny Kong, but why no Dixie?

2. Lanky was cool too. Chunky was unneeded.

3. They killed Wrinkly for no damn reason.

4. The best was when DK had to play his own arcade game. That's not a good sign Rare.

5. Holy hell Candy! Were you trying to one-up Lara Croft?

6. The DK Theme is stupid, but it is the greatest stupid theme song. Ever.

Rated M For Misuse of the Word 'Mature'

Fun fact about me: I NEVER throw video games away, or trade them in for that matter. I will probably never see Attack of the Timelord! or Quest for the Rings brighten up the TV screen in front of my Odyssey 2 again, but damn it, I'm holding on to those cartridges from now until the flying spaghetti invasion. But there is one isolated time I have ever considered returning a game to the store.

Conker's Bad Fur Day.

You know, it's honestly my fault. All the warning signs were there. The game was being touted as "Nintendo grows up" which in retrospect I take to mean "made it into...seventh grade?" Scatological 'humor' everywhere. Obscenities beyond gratuitous. Violence that was deliberately mean spirited. And my God! Chris Seavor's voice just makes me want to choke him so many times over. I hate this f**king game.

But it was from Rare, a company whose work I had respected, admired, and overlooked the monotony of when it happened. I thought, how bad could this game be? It was worse than I could have imagined. Conker's inability to jump, swim, or speak with any finesse still makes me want to pull my hair out. The game's movie parodies were essentially reference humor, so prevalent movies like Meet the Spartans. The rest of the humor was completely devoid of actual humor, apart from the one joke "I can't believe they said THAT on a Nintendo game!" told over and over.

And to make matters worse, this piece of shit developed a very loud cult following, of which I seemed to travel in the online circles. I still see this game pop up on "funniest games of all time" lists and I die a little more each time. It's not funny, it's just pushing infantile buttons; button mashing them even.

Memories of three amazing Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES can't trump Conker as the first game that comes to mind when somebody mentions Rare, and I'll never forgive them for that.

Stop 'n Swop

I played Star Fox Adventures on the Gamecube, which was Rare's final Nintendo hurrah. It wasn't bad, just not very memorable. I know Fox got shoehorned in at the eleventh hour, but the game was honestly mediocre already. Then Microsoft bought Rare, and, I guess they're still relevant.

Maybe game companies have creative peaks and valleys just like individuals. It seems like Rare honestly blossomed brightest with Banjo-Kazooie. For all I know, Conker may have been an intentional self-destruct button, because it really felt like they no longer cared about their players.

Today I feel about Rare the way I feel about that friend I was really close to in my younger days, but either they changed or I grew up and they didn't. It was a fun relationship while it lasted, and if Rare sends me a friend request I'll accept it. But I've no reason to comment on their posts.

Paranormal Activism: Reflections in Found Footage

There are a couple of movie franchises I periodically check in on. One of them is the Paranormal Activity series, which I was a big fan of for the first few years. Yesterday, I was made aware that the newest film, Paranormal Activity Not 5 or 6 Because We Botched Our Numbering System is due this October, with promises of answering all the questions the series has posed.

Really?

There are questions to be answered?

I was satisfied with the notion that the producers were making it all up as they went with no real coherency in sight. Frankly, I'm less than optimistic this final film is going to prove otherwise.

It's a bit telling that this 'endgame' announcement actually came four moths ago and I'm just now hearing about it. Somewhere along the way, I went from being an advocate of the series to exhibiting unbridled indifference to it. I've rented Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones twice and I still haven't motivated myself to put it in the DVD player. So what the hell happened?

Found Footage is a Gimmick

Just like 3D or stories told in real time, the 'found footage' approach to filmmaking is a double edged blade. On the one hand, you have a shortcut to getting your audience's attention. On the flipside, you give the audience inclination to judge your work not by the story content but by your technical creativity in pulling said gimmick off.

Found footage can work, although it's probably better in bursts; the intense opening to Strange Days comes to mind. If you're an independent filmmaker, the found footage horror film is an attractive genre, because it helps disguise a lot of production issues; such as the lack of set designers, fully realized scripts, a convenient justification for not showing the monster at the end, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just very difficult to do it well.

1999 gave us that milestone indie film The Blair Witch Project, a movie which honestly hasn't held up over time. People praised it back in the day, probably because of their personal experience with the movie, and not the overall quality of the film. The characters were the girl who screamed the whole time, the guy who threw away the map, and the other guy.

I maintain that Paranormal Activity is the better movie because there were actual characters in a predominantly character driven piece. Katie Featherston may not have had the chance to demonstrate the talent needed to carry her into more mainstream roles, but she's quite convincing in this first film. I find myself invested in her character, and actually concerned with her outcome (kind of an important element). Without her, Paranormal Activity would simply be a uniform-motion equation to its climax. Featherston gives the story its arc.

Why Don't They Put Down the Camera?

In any found footage film, this question will eventually cross the minds of the audience. It's the responsibility of the filmmaker to satisfactorily resolve this issue. Blair Witch gave us a half-assed explanation by suggesting that Screamie could distance herself from reality by looking through the lens, and they could use the camera as a light source (which I guess only worked by hitting record?).

Paranormal 1 also gives us Micah Sloat, the apparent culprit in why the demonic activity gets progressively worse. He likes recording these things, and he's fascinated by all of the happenings. Sure, as the audience we can say "turn the camera off, moron!" from the comfort of our stadium seating, but for the purpose of the movie Micah's character works. It makes sense that he would keep filming. He's cocky, and never quite in touch with the danger he and Katie are in. He's not a bad guy, just overconfident.

Now, I'm going to put that thought on hold for a moment, but as we move into Paranormals 2 and 3, we get to points in the narrative where there is literally no reason for the characters to keep filming, and it cheapens the overall product. In 2 the problem occurs when the dad and the daughter get trapped in the basement. 3 is a little more ambiguous. The question arises, when do you have enough footage to do something about it.

More on that shortly...

The Story Isn't Moving Forward

I know several people who insist that the sequel is the best entry in the franchise, and I very much disagree. Problem one: the new characters just didn't do anything for me. Problem two: getting back to Micah's overconfidence, this movie undoes a really strong element of its predecessor. In Paranormal 1 we're led to believe that Micah creates his own demise by playing games with this invisible demon, and it's a great moral. But in the prequel/interquel/whateverquel it's established that Katie was going to get it no matter what, ultimately absolving Micah's influence on the events.

2 starts taking us into what the producers are calling 'the mythology' of the series, which translates as 'that stuff that we haven't really nailed down yet but we're booked in theaters this October'. We're not fooled. They're making it up as they go, and that rarely works out.

Problem three: and this is the big one, Paranormal Activity 2 contracts a terminal case of 'we've seen this movie already'. Paranormal 1 was meant to be a one shot story, that unexpectedly hit the jackpot, leaving lots and lots of ticket buyers demanding more. Unfortunately we get more of the same. Nothing gets accomplished except to take us back to the climax of the first movie. It like listening to an engaging story and getting to that cliffhanger. "So what happens next?" "Oh, wait, I need to tell you what happened before that." "*sigh*...[two hours later] So then what happens?" "Oh! I need to tell you what happened to the kids back in the 80's." "&@#%!"

We NEED New Tricks

Well, I was going to throw in the towel when I heard Paranormal Activity 3 was going even further back, but then the reviews raved about the oscillating fan-mounted camera. I thought, "that might be fun". It nearly rescued the whole franchise.

The entire second act of this movie is devoted to the new toy, and the directors milk every creative use of the slow pan they can think of. Even horror movies need a fun-factor. And by default, the babysitter with the 80's hairdo becomes one of the few post-original movie characters to leave any kind of impression.

Well, there's also Dude, played in this film by a character named Dennis. He's Katie's mother's boyfriend who have a penchant for videotaping (how fortunate) and serves as the prequel Micah. Miquel?

Dude leaves an impression as well, but for the wrong reasons. He seems well-meaning enough, but unlike Micah, Dude never checks the important footage for the Holy Grail of activity that he's so determined to capture. Meaning, his whole purpose is to justify the presence of the cameras well beyond the point where he would have stopped.

Then the final act shifts locations because I-don't-care-anymore. Dude, again without checking his footage, goes to grandmother's house because the-producers-don't-care-anymore, and I submit that this is the 'jump the shark' moment for the series. Something about a coven and ghoulish old ladies and Dude still won't put down the camera. Finally the demon named Toby (just, wow) pries it out of Dude's cold, dead hands, and still nothing has been accomplished.

END!!! Damn it!

I was actually disappointed to find out Paranormal Activity 4 wasn't going to be set even further back, like the 1700's told entirely through oil paintings.

I honestly remember nothing about this movie and that's never a good sign for a horror film. The action FINALLY moves forward and it amounts to nothing. When the first movie ended, I was still hoping for some way out for Katie. But now that we've been through three more movies and a spinoff, I honestly don't think there's anything or anyone in this series for me to care about. Maybe if the demon starts making its own film.

Paranormal Activity never needed a complicated back story. The original was great because it felt like it could happen to anyone who happened to move into the wrong house. But once we go into 'chosen one' territory, it separates us from the action on the screen. Any traces of metaphor for consequences when one dabbles in things they know they shouldn't are long gone. Now it's just a plodding narrative about an extremely specific set of circumstances that doesn't really warrant a conclusion.

I'm not sure what they should have done differently. Probably scrapped the witch's coven thing altogether and just focus on possessed Katie. Give the demon a malevolently playful sense of humor. Have Katie seeking out people who are filming things. Maybe go on one of those ghost hunter reality shows. Or get a Youtube channel.

The bottom line is: this series started great. But the producers got too comfortable with their cash cow and never tried to build with it. Now, it's like walking through a spookhouse attraction the weekend after Halloween when the performers just want to go home. It's a pity, because I kind of feel like Katie deserved better.





Poem: Faeriesong/Cruel Tragedy

I actually have a few decades worth of poetry which is probably not worth posting anywhere, but every once in awhile I'm able to put something together that honestly feels complete. This pairing of poems is meant to be the finale to a one-act musical that I started working on back in the 90's and (maybe) got a third of it completed.


The musical is called In Vanessa's Room, and it follows the title character who is spending the night alone in a hospital. The other characters are all in her head, sometimes while she's dreaming and sometimes they're waking hallucinations. They include her catatonic mother, the monster in her closet, a trio of girls who act as her Greek chorus, a psychiatrist, and a faerie named Nathaniel.


Faeriesong is the last song of the musical which Nathaniel sings to Vanessa towards the end of the night when she finally manages to fall asleep completely. As the song's writer, I can promise that there IS actually a coherency underneath the absurd lyrics; I figure faeries would take too much delight in playing with the sounds of the language to notice that they're not really making sense.


Cruel Tragedy is a spoken piece by Vanessa when she wakes up the next morning. It's one of my favorite things I've ever written.

Faeriesong

There's a car in the bar with a fender in the tire
And the render is a liar as they pry her free
And they leer when they hear there's a siren in remission
While the iron clad ignition clutches half her key.

It's some high finances when you gamble with your chances
And your missed romances leads to rambling glances
And your ambled askances make you shamble in the stances
And the dance is disarray.

 It'll be okay.

That's the words they say.
 And if the voices in my head have spread their dead cliché

In a silent plea
 Who would set us free?
 There's an empty space for our saving grace
Can the trace embrace a place for me?

If you don't want to merely bask
Then there's no reason not to ask.
Some are against you. Go and task

It anyway.

It'll be okay.

There's a girl who's a pearl being scouted on the beaches
And she's out of any reaches in her skin tight teal.
See her rant when they chant, though her slant is meant to cater
But I can't really hate her 'cause her ........ are real.

There's no resurrection to assure protection
Of the soul's infection of a poor rejection.
Insecure dissection of demur complexion
Makes reflection MIA.

(Piaget...ha ha)

It'll be okay.
Sipping Cabernet.
You know the goddess wears the bodice of her protégé.

Never place your bet
On a fool's regret.
We share a prayer to fair despair
That's barely happened yet.

I'd rather cherish my defeat.
It keeps my savage incomplete.
We'll find somewhere for us to meet
Along the way.

It'll be okay.



And as we wander
Through this vacuum we call love
We feel the tears, the fears, the sears the heavens
Threw out from above.
One day we say the question.
One day we even try.
One day we learn the worth we earn
Is founded on a lie.

But we're together in the nether
When we heal, when we betray.
Some are shattered. Some are tattered.
Some have battered their ballet.
In all its vision surely Fate
Can find a burrow for a stray.
A heart of stone would die alone
In one known.

One

 Way.

Tell me why we deny there's a tie of desperation
To defy our desolation where the moonbeams set.
And I speak like a freak. Could I send it in a letter
To amend the Irish Setter that I didn't pet.

It's my one obsession that I need expression
So my full confession doesn't breed possession
And I plead discretion could impede regression
And refreshen time for play.

It'll be okay.
Our cabriolet.
Why should the Seraphims forget and let the truth decay?

In our final bow
Would we wonder how?
If we kiss and tell, if we miss in hell
Can't our last farewell impel us now?

I know that greatness of the mettle isn't in my destiny
It doesn't mean I have to settle for this mediocrity.

And if the stars should realign
Their chords are bound to intertwine.

So if you stumble over mine.
Let it stay.

 Cruel Tragedy

Sometimes it's hard to get out of your bed.
Sometimes the power goes off in your head.
Sometimes your underwear loses elastic.
Sometimes decisions appears rather drastic.

Sometimes you scatter a mixture of waxes and soar to the floor with a bruise.
Sometimes you've stretched all your threads to their maxes, your temper incited to lose.
Sometimes the world isn't quite on its axis, its central rotation askews.

Sometimes the rainbows are shaded in grey.
Sometimes you simply have nothing to say.
Sometimes the sunflower curses the sun.
Sometimes the time is reluctant to run.

Sometimes you enter a lift moving downward when you had intended to rise.
Sometimes you think there's a step at the bottom and practically shatter your thighs.
Sometimes you haven't a thing to believe in but desperately cling to the lies.

Some times. Some places. Some where and some when
Because life isn't perfect. It never has been.
What a waste. What a crime. What a cruel tragedy.
To expect every sect in effect to agree.

Sometimes the traffic is backed up to Maine.
Sometimes you drop rubber bands down the drain.
Sometimes your very last nerve has been shot.
Sometimes you're worthless.

But sometimes you're not.

Imagine a place with no pressure or struggle.
No pleasure to measure or stressors to juggle.
No waking forsaking the aching of feet.
And every direction is never retreat.
The summer is tepid. The winter a breeze.
With limits unblemished confliction agrees.
No clashing of tension, consention to strain.
Not one comprehension to mention of pain.

No shimmer. No sparkle. No glisten or gleam.
Where all is in balance and nothing extreme.
The surfacing ripples are just what they seem.
No reason to wonder. No reason to dream.
No reason to dance and no reason to sing
And allusion's conclusions aren't worth anything.
Where the sanctity's easy and danger is low
And you don't learn a thing and you don't ever grow.

Now...

Given the option of living in jars
Or a lifetime of trials and woe

I'll handle the strain and I'll handle the scars
And I'll leave here with something to show.

And maybe there's meaning and maybe there isn't
And maybe there's nowhere to go.

But people are people
And voices are voices
And reason is reason
And choices are choices.
Who ever you are
And what ever you say
And what ever you do
Is your personal way
But until you step out
Of the world you perceive
And accept separation
From shelters naive
To determine what's real
From the still you believe
Then you can't really know

What you know.

Disney's Extended Family: The Pixar Films

I keep thinking I'll go back to doing the ensemble Disney film reviews and something else always seems to come up. I didn't plan on doing the Pixar films because I really don't have anything to add to the discussion, but as Inside Out opens this weekend, I thought it might be worth doing quickie reviews (appetizer platter style).

Here's the deal about Pixar from what I understand. They were their own thing. They did their movies, Disney released them and stuck their logo on the product, and the revenue went straight down the several-acres-of-grey-area middle. It was the cinematic equivalent of An Uncharacteristically Good Book by James Patterson & The Actual Author.

The Little Mermaid started Disney's renaissance which carried it through Tarzan, although the real goldmine arguably ran out with The Lion King, i.e. the Frank Wells period that Michael Eisner was getting credit for. Post Wells, Disney's monopoly on animated films was starting to show its fatigue, mostly as each progressively more disappointing direct-to-video sequel was painting a picture that Eisner really didn't understand the nature of the company he was driving.

DreamWorks was showing signs of life but not quite emerging as a challenger. FOX was beginning to dabble, and every once in a while Don Bluth would do...something, but it wasn't until Pixar came out on the playing field that anything interesting started to happen. And when Disney began dropping the ball, Pixar was there to recover it.

It was an interesting experience working at Disney World in the early 2000's, in part because I got to see the inside the mouse house reaction to Pixar's rise to prominence. Cast members were turning against their own company on this issue, insisting that Pixar was a totally separate entity from Disney, and a much better (pretty much infallible) one at that. This of course was a reflection on Eisner's administration more than anything else, but between how perfect Finding Nemo was and how worthless Home on the Range was, it's difficult to remember which opinion held the most passion among Disney employees (only one of which is valid, by the way).

So let's scroll through the Pixar menu and see if the company really is the four star restaurant it's credited to be. I'll be skipping non-Toy Story related sequels, as Cars 2 left no impression and I never bothered with the Monsters prequel.

Boy Story

This movie was going to be a hit regardless of its quality. It was visually stunning before we all got used to computer animation. Yes, the story was lifted from 1986's Jim Henson production The Christmas Toy no matter how much Pixar doesn't want to admit it. But what really holds this movie together is how solid the characters are. Woody has a good heart, but he's also allowed character flaws. He feels pain, jealousy, guilt and despair, all without ever losing the audience's sympathy. This is one of those movies where I really can't think of a weakness.

A Bud Lite

I've never heard anyone refer to A Bug's Life as their favorite Pixar film. It's entertaining enough, but Flik never comes across as particularly well defined protagonist, more of a trope. And none of the other characters stand out either apart from their most basic identifying traits. Antz may have been nothing more than a dick-move from DreamWorks, but I have to say their characters were much stronger. Although A Bug's Life has to get credit for Hopper's death by cute chicks. Note: this was the first Pixar movie to have that god-awful trend of fake outtakes that forced parents to take their kids to a second viewing.

Tolstoy 2

If you don't know, this was meant to be a direct-to-video sequel. Then somebody realized it was good enough to be released in theaters (an adulation that later was mistakenly bestowed onto the Peter Pan and Jungle Book sequels), which led to some real tension between Pixar and Disney (read: Eisner) about their contract fulfillment. Fun stuff. Anyway, the Toy Story sequel is the perfect example of what a sequel needs to accomplish in order to match and/or top its predecessor. It develops some of the favorite periphery characters and deftly throws the spotlight around so everybody gets their moments. New characters are introduced so flawlessly that the original film now feels their absence. And Jessie's back story still makes me cry to this day.

Matisse ITC

This one was creative, but a tad overrated. There's a charm, and it's a really fun ride. Yet somehow I just never attached to the characters the way I was essentially told to. Perhaps it was a misfired idea to have Boo played by an actual infant instead of a child actor, because her character comes across more as a plot device than a real character. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good movie. But I've always felt the heart of it is being told to us instead of shown, and the dialogue is almost compulsively snappy and hyperactive that the movie keeps us out of it.

Finding Waldo

This was where the cracks in Pixar began showing and nobody in my circles wanted to admit it. Dory was a great character, and I loved Nigel the pelican. Nobody else in the movie really came across as anything more than merchandising, least of all Marlin. This is problematic, because we're talking about Albert Freaking Hank Scorpio Brooks. 'Worried dad' is not an inherently strong archetype, but Marlin never conveys anything beyond that. By the end of the movie I've learned nothing about him that wasn't in the opening scene. The animation is drop dead gorgeous, but the (huh-huh, yeesh) hook isn't really there.

The Uncreditedables

There are a lot of ideas in this movie that don't really play together well. A superhero having to fit in with office life is really interesting, and Syndrome's motivations are pretty impressive, but I just never cared about the super kids or the evil lair or all the damn robots. It starts off with the promise of actually being about something but gradually devolves into a typical superhero story with very little to distinguish it from an entry in the Fantastic Four. I don't get why people are so fond of this movie.

Carbs

As much as I wish the character of Mater had been erased from the hard drive, Cars wound up being one of my favorite Pixar films. A lot of it really had to do with the climax, which made Lightning McQueen's journey up to it way cooler. McQueen isn't an inherently selfish character, he's just on the high of a winning streak. When you're on top of the world, it's easy to forget that the world wasn't made for you. And it's not until that climax, when everything that he didn't realize he was learning, all coalesces into a beautiful lesson to teach kids; some things are more important than winning.

Rigatoni

The Toy Story franchise was a series of buddy pictures, but it's ultimately Woody's story. Monsters Inc. was Sully's story. Ratatouille can't make up its mind, and it hurts the overall picture. I think if they had picked one (probably Remy's story) to be the driving force, and abbreviate the other the movie would have been much stronger. But they tried to have it both ways, and the story just felt cluttered. The Anton Ego story arc was well done. That could have benefited from a bit of an upgrade.

WILE-E

This is another one with the same problem. It starts as one movie and then becomes a different one after the first act. WALL-E's story was just fine on its own. I don't know why it had to turn into this massive allegory about human birth. They could have done one of two things: either solidify one damned story arc to serve as a single backbone, or do an anthology film around the central theme of the future wasteland. Yes, the robot's cute. That's not enough to ignore the glaring chasm in development.

Yup

This one honestly feels like it's for the adults, and there's a magic here that I've only seen in a few Miyazaki films. Now in all fairness I don't know how necessary it was to have a villain in the picture, but that aspect was really just an excuse to explore the metaphor of holding on too tightly to the past. Carl Fredricksen may be Pixar's most complete character to date, and Up is one of those films that just stays with you even when you don't realize it.

Toy Storage 3

Okay, credit where it's due. The fact that this movie came together at all after such a long wait is impressive on its own. And there are some standout moments that really make an impact (Barbie and Ken, Woody's fight with the monkey, the incinerator climax). But something about this sequel never entirely won me over. It may have been the character of Lotso. The pain he was carrying was understandable, but I felt his transition into straight up villain was a little forced. I also think there were a few too many new characters thrown in. Toy Story 3 is a good movie, but I politely disagree with the people who say it's the best of the series.

Brava

I've got to get this off my chest. When you do a movie with a female protagonist, just DO the movie. Quit shining every spotlight on how progressive you're being. With that out of the way, I felt about Brave the way I felt about How to Train Your Dragon; I remember feeling very positive about the movie experience but I don't really remember much about the story. The Merida/Elinor relationship was really well done, and I liked the witch, but none of the other characters came across as more than just placeholders for the plot. I'd file this one under the 'worth watching' category but probably not the 'worth owning'.

Insidi-Ous

And finally, the film of the evening's drive-in. First off, the short before the movie (Lava) was the first Pixar short that I can honestly say was dumb. Don't believe me? Watch it again and pretend it's from any animation studio other than Pixar. Yeah, see? Power of the name.

Now the real movie. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, and I say that knowing full well that I'm agreeing with what everybody is already saying; non-conformity is too hard anyway. I think anyone who goes through the process of therapy is going to be referring back to the concepts so cleverly metaphor-ized in this impressive story. Emotion is everything in story. Even when nothing is at stake, it has to feel like something is at stake. Inside Out hits all the right buttons at all the right times, arguably making this the best written story from the artists at Pixar.

In conclusion: Pixar is still the one to beat in animation. No, they don't always hit a home run, but the overall quality of their films hasn't exactly diminished either. Even overlooking the ideas lifted from other sources, Pixar maintains a solid creative energy that puts the film elements together in a fresh way. Here's looking forward to seeing their take on We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.