The Official Review Thread of 2006

[VanHelsing]

Damien, if what you said about Christopher Reeve is true, i can never look up to him in the same light ever again. If it'd been Sandra Bullock, she would be more than glad to sign an autograph for that boy. Is it sooooooo difficult to sign your own name on a photo? Jesus!

[Damien]

BJ, when I linked goddamn cartoons to the ludicrously misnamed "family values" crowd, I was specifically thinking of that odious troll Michael Medved, who was the original cheerleader for treating aninated features as the equivaklent of real movies. Then again, we're talking about a small-minded fool who denigrated The Piano and Jane Campion every chance he got, while labelling The Snow Princess a "great movie."

Tee, great comments about The Shaggy Dog, Poseidon and movies we loved as a kid. I remember loving Disney's In Search Of The Castaways when I was 8. WHen I was 16 it was revived, and I convinced a friend of mine to forego his plans of going out to the hut we all had in the woods to get stoned and come with me because its a wonderful movie. It was bad enough that I my memory seemed so distressingly off -- everything about the movie was embarrassingly juvenile, but the worst thing were the shoddiest special effects ever seen in an A movie -- but the combination of withering scorn and anger that my friend had for me for dragging him to the movie was unbearable, LOL.

I didn't even like Chris Reeve in Superman -- I thought he was wooden and charmless. The only thing I liked in that movie were the performances of Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter as Ma and Pa Kent. Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty were painful to watch. The second Superman picture received much better reviews than the first, and because it was directed by the estimable Richard Leste, I went. Whoa -- this was the movie that convinced me that going to summer "blockbusters" was a painful waste of my time.

I know Chris Reeve is today considered some sort of saint, but truth be told he was a dreadful actor (boy, was he bad on stage in Fifth Of July and his non-Superman performances, such as in Somewhere In Time and Deathtrap were embarrassing. I also disliked him intensely from a personal experience. Once in the early 80s, I was in a post office on the Upper West Side near where he lived. Reeve came in and took mail from a personal mail box, tossing most of it in a waste paper basket. Curious, after he left I reached in to see his mail. Amidst the junk mail was an 8 by 10 of him, with a letter attached. It was from a 10 year old boy, who was effusive about Reeve, calling him his favorite actor and his hero. He asked Reeve to autograph the phot and send it back, and the boy couldn't wait to show his friends he hasd Superman's autograph. A sweet rewuest like that and Christopher Reeve threw it in the trash. I actually took the picture home and forged his signature and sent it to the kid.

NIk I haven't seen Pinocchio since I was a kid so I cant really comment on it. But "When You Wish Upon A Star" is an enduring and great song. I will say though that the animated sequences in Song Of The South are brilliant, and are as audaciously wonderful as the work of Tex Avery and Frank Tashlin.

[Big Magilla]

I wasn't exactly a child when Superman came out in 1978, but I loved it all the same, and not just the Reeve performance - I loved the Smallville scenes and the Clark/Lois scenes as well as the nifty for its day special effects. I didn't like the Krypon sequences, thought Brando was a bore and Gene Hackman irritating as Lex Luthor, but was willing to overlook those problems as well as the ridiculous endless credits which have now become the norm, because the good outweighed the bad.

As a child I was not into cartoons, but I did read a lot of "serious" comic books of which Superman was my favorite. It was a real treat to finally see the character given his due on the big screen. The Shaggy Dog, like most of Disney's "comedies", I always found quite silly. Of course I was a teenager when it came out so I suppose that's understandable.

Caddyshack I've never been able to sit through, but the legion of golfers I know think of it as the Citizen Kane of sports films.

I can probably count on my fingers the number of animated features I've seen in a theatre - I think Beauty and the Beast was the last, but I do buy some of them on DVD mainly to entertain my nephews when I babysit. Most of them bore me to death, but the classics - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi and Dumbo and the newer Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and to a lesser extent, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Antz manage to hold my interest when they're playing. I never cared much for Disney's Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland or Sleeping Beauty and have never sat through the Disneyvbersion of Peter Pan. I don't at all get the adult fascination with Shrek, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. I am looking forward to seeing Cars, though, since I recently sat through three or four hours of Nascar racing on TV without feeling as though I were forced to watch in a strait-jacket.

[Mister Tee]

I'll stay out of the Pixar debate, but I want to chime in on Damien's comment about Superman. The film was indeed considered a spotty effort when it came along in 1978, and the mere passage of time (and degeneration of mainstream cinema since) has not masked its flaws: the ugly-looking Krypton sequences, the sometimes incoherent story-telling (we didn't know till Superman II why we saw Terence Stamp and gang on trial), and the wild swings in tone from section to section (the bucolic and earnest Smallville years, a sudden switch to ironic hipsterism in Metropolis). The only truly praiseworthy element was the Reeve performance, which struck just the right balance between sincere and out-of-it.

I know we all have different feelings about movies we saw when we were young -- at 7, I loved The Shaggy Dog. But doesn't there come a time to put aside the things of a child? It's frightening to hear legit critics call crapola like the original Poseidon Adventure -- a movie we laughed at in '72-- a classic. I've also heard Caddyshack, an intermittently amusing piece of dreck, referred to as comedy gold. Is having made money in its day the only standard? Will Armageddon be labelled an action masterpiece 25 years hence?

[The Original BJ]

You make good points, Nik. However . . .

I don't particularly care whether or not Pixar films appeal to the "(anti-)moral values" crowd. If they like them, fine, but that has very little to do with my own appreciation of the films. I certainly won't let that crowd define the movies I'm allowed to like, or even oppose.

Secondly, I take great issue with the argument that any film which stresses the importance of family promotes the hateful type of "family values" defined by the right. Conservatives ain't the only ones who value family, and I'd hate to think that liberals can't celebrate true family values because of their aversion to the right's narrow definition of the term. (To bring it back to Pixar, I'd argue that, with the exception of The Incredibles, most of their films feature non-nuclear communities as families. Heck, the kid in Monsters, Inc. is even raised by two men!)

I of course do not mean to argue that Disney/Pixar films represent the pinnacle of progressive cinema. That could not be further from the truth. And you're right, a film like The Incredibles could never be THAT anti-conformist. I just think that the Pixar films are so far from being right-wing propaganda and merely another mouthpiece for the fundies.

[Nik]

P.S. Doesn't The Incredibles essentially critique the culture of conformity those loons want to impose? (Not sure I wanted to open that barrel of worms, but . . .)

Wellll...not entirely. I see where you're coming from and I too have argued with Damien on the merit of SOME animated films (for the record, as far as Pixar goes, I think "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters Inc" are wonderful) but he's not far off on many Disney and Pixar films. I'm flabbergasted by the acclaim for "Finding Nemo" which is a gorgeous looking film that has very little depth other than an innocuous children't story and a fine vocal performance by the spirited Ellen Degeneres. I don't think Damien meant to invoke the looney religious fundamentalists you cited, but "Nemo" and "The Incredibles" certainly emphasize the importance of family above all else and appeals easily to the kind of people who vote for "moral values" over well everything. You may say well almost all American animated films emphasize family but yes sadly that would be the point. The assumption that a hetero-normative family is what we all aspire to and ascribe any value to is par for the course in these films and their inability to delve any deeper or contain any insightful and surprising subtext certainly does not make them "bad" films, but it does make them limited. This simple perspective is the kind that only a child would carry and so this is where I think Damien sees them as (good or bad notwithstanding) "children's films." I would agree with that position on many of them.

And the family values propaganda may not be what the producers of the film believe but for years Disney has operated under a shrewd doublespeak: supporting workers' rights for its gay and lesbian employees (and indeed many of their animators, producers, writers etc. are gay which is why films like The Little Mermaid are infused with such a curious queer sensibility and appealed to kids like myself growing up), but also marketing itself to the family values crowd so that all their films crack 100 mil or more and they make a mint on toys, products and other kid paraphernilia merchandising by appealing to the lowest common denominator in terms of an easy to digest "family" value.

Again this is not a complete criticism of all things animated or even all things Dinsey. I think a number of Hiyao Miyazaki's films are great works of art (especially because they contain all the things most American animated films lack) and I think Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" is among the best films I've ever seen (certainly the best musical). I'm also impressed with "Pinocchio", "Dumbo", "Sleeping Beauty", "The Little Mermaid", "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Toy Story" "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters Inc."

Oh and also to defend Damien, I do know that he adores "Dumbo."

Finally, to come back to the thing about "The Incredibles." I never understood the critical adulation that met this good but not great film. I felt it made all of its uninsightful points early in the film and then wore out its welcome by ceaselessly repeating them. Its message of non conformity is in direct opposition with its family values agitprop and the conformity message is undercut by a conformity to markeplace politics. The line about "When everyone is incredible, no one will be" (or however it goes) is easily a very anti-Socialist message and the rest of the film supports an individualist, conservative, isolationist position. I admit my bias as a quasi-Socialist, and so for me this was hard to swallow but even without that message, the family values pandering and the fact that it devolves in the third act to a loud, crashing action film, also undermines any high artistic merit for me.

Oh and btw, Damien, if you're reading this - I never asked whether you liked "Pinocchio" or not (I know you've never really seen "The Little Mermaid" or "Beauty and the Beast" despite loving their music). How do the rest of you feel about it? I loved it so much growing up and years later came to realize why. There is SO much queering going on here. Pinocchio is essentially a boy who does not know how to ACT like a "boy" and thinks he has to conform to societal and gender norms. His desire to be a boy by smoking, swearing, running away from home, and generally doing all the illicit things associated with masculinity is very much similar to a gay boy or girl who looks for gender clues and how to perform them from the world around, and desperately wants to fit in.

Plus that Jiminy Cricket is such a fag.

[criddic3]

It's akin to comparing such ostensible pieces of children's literature as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, which are fraught with adult meanings and references, to My Pet Goat, or whatever that book was that Bush found so rivetting on 9/11.

-- Damien

Another sly way to inject politics into an otherwise completely different conversation.

Quote (anonymous @ July 02 2006,06:51) Not bad at all. Though it's still not quite as great as the first two films, When did the Richard Donner Superman become regarded as a "great" film. Back in the day, it was rightly regarded as an overblown mediocrity. Since 1978, we've been given a litany of overblown mediocrities, to such an extant that Donner's film (which, I must admit, I've always liked) seems like a quaint, near-perfect classic by comparison.

There were some critics, like Ebert, who at the time acclaimed it as a great film. Viewing it yet again only a few days ago, I was reminded of just how good it really is. Reeve must have been born to play that role. He seems effortlessly charming as Superman and disarmingly goofy/sincere as Clark Kent. The effects hold up even today, while the story/screenplay unfolds smoothly and with the captivating aura of classic storytelling. And say what you might about John Williams' music, but there is no better theme for this character than his. It is remarkable how, because the film takes Superman seriously, you take in the movie (and the second one, too) as almost an alternate reality. It creates its own world, which is when I like movies the most. I just wish the other movies in the series had taken this approach. Number four was a mess and led to all these years of Superman-movie limbo.

That the new movie apparently uses the same basic mythology and even devices from the original says a lot about its influence on the way people see the Superman universe. I still view it as one of the all-time great fantasy/adventure movies.

[The Original BJ]

Adult acclaim for Pixar movies and other goddamn cartoons is just a disturbing case of infantilism, melded with the reactionary chorus of the so-called "family values" crowd.

I'm not offended by being called infantile. That's fine. Bring that on as much as you want.

But please don't equate enjoying Pixar films with worshipping the likes of jerks such as Falwell and Robertson. I see a VERY big difference between the two, and to compare those of us defending animated pictures to those monsters is an offensive overreaction.

P.S. Doesn't The Incredibles essentially critique the culture of conformity those loons want to impose? (Not sure I wanted to open that barrel of worms, but . . .)

[Penelope]

Not bad at all. Though it's still not quite as great as the first two films,

When did the Richard Donner Superman become regarded as a "great" film. Back in the day, it was rightly regarded as an overblown mediocrity.

Since 1978, we've been given a litany of overblown mediocrities, to such an extant that Donner's film (which, I must admit, I've always liked) seems like a quaint, near-perfect classic by comparison.

[anonymous1980]

[But then again you treat the Harry Potter books as if they were on the level of James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence.

Hmmmm? I never said they were. C.S. Lewis and Wizard of Oz yes but I never said it should be placed in equivalence of James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence.

Infantilism? Don't you think that's going too far, Damien? Again, I can write you paragraph after paragraph on why the PIXAR movies are great art forms in their own way.

When did the Richard Donner Superman become regarded as a "great" film. Back in the day, it was rightly regarded as an overblown mediocrity.

The Richard Donner Superman movies were a huge part of my childhood. I used to watch them endlessly as a kid. I would regard it as among the best superhero movies ever made along with The Incredibles and Tim Burton's Batman movies.

P.S. Damien, how come you're never on-line on AOL? I'd love to chat with you sometime.

[Damien]

Not bad at all. Though it's still not quite as great as the first two films,

When did the Richard Donner Superman become regarded as a "great" film. Back in the day, it was rightly regarded as an overblown mediocrity.

[Damien]

Well, then call me a proud pinhead!

I do also think that PIXAR films are the cinematic equivalent of great children's literature . . .

But then again you treat the Harry Potter books as if they were on the level of James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence.

Adult acclaim for Pixar movies and other goddamn cartoons is just a disturbing case of infantilism, melded with the reactionary chorus of the so-called "family values" crowd.

[anonymous1980]

SUPERMAN RETURNS
Cast: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn, Tristan Lake Leabu, Marlon Brando.
Dir: Bryan Singer

Not bad at all. Though it's still not quite as great as the first two films, Singer managed to make a very entertaining take on what is arguably the most popular comic book superhero of all time. Routh and Spacey do a good job filling in for Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman respectively but Bosworth made me miss Margot Kidder.

Oscar Prospects: Sound, Sound Editing, Visual Effects.

Grade: B

[anonymous1980]

No disagreement, Pen. yes cartoons CAN be artistically valid, as has been shown by such works as Waking Life, Yellow Submarine, the films of Ralph Bakshi and John and Faith Hubley; Beavis & Butt-head and so on. But here we're talking about Pixar movies, which to me seem designed for pinheads.

It's akin to comparing such ostensible pieces of children's literature as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, which are fraught with adult meanings and references, to My Pet Goat, or whatever that book was that Bush found so rivetting on 9/11.

Well, then call me a proud pinhead!

I do also think that PIXAR films are the cinematic equivalent of great children's literature because not only do they remind people of their childhood, they're also great stories which both children and adults can enjoy in different levels.

I already defended The Incredibles to you, Damien (see Films of 2004 section). I'm ready to defend each and every one of the PIXAR films (except Cars) and prove to you that they are artistically valid pieces of cinema.

[Hustler]

It's akin to comparing such ostensible pieces of children's literature as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz

Regarding that matter I´ve seen an exquisite norwegian film called Sofies Welt (1999) (Sophie´s World in English) directed by Erik Gustavson and based in Joostein Garder´s novel.