A Brief History of the Cartoon as Toy Commercial

Tim here. With The Lego Movie devouring money at a rate virtually never seen in the middle of winter, and receiving some of the most enthusiastic reviews of any animated film since Toy Story 3, any fears that it would be nothing but a craven toy commercial have been firmly put to sleep. Which isn’t to say that it’s not a toy commercial; but, as Nathaniel put it in his review, “Who cares? It’s wonderful!” Besides, it’s one thing to have a hard-core branding effort for some new plaything that nobody wants or needs, and quite another to have a feature-length advertisement for a 65-year-old icon that’s the best-selling toy in history. Lego doesn’t need The Lego Movie.

Still and all, the fact remains that there’s a mercenary heart beneath the film: not only selling Legos, but selling multimedia franchises controlled by Warner Bros. on top of it. This is done painlessly, even cleverly, and that tends to make it harmless; and in this respect, The Lego Movie represents a striking break from the history of cartoon-as-advertisement. For the most part, previous examples of this commercial impulse have been, in fact, unusually painful, dumb, and harmful .

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Weirdest News of '14 (Thus Far): Greta Gerwig To Headline 'How I Met Your Mother' Spinoff

It's almost like the universe is punishing me. For what I am unsure.

Greta Gerwig with a giant poster of her face this time last year

When I spoke with Greta Gerwig a few months ago she was singing the praises of Jacques Demy films and Leos Carax's Holy Motors and the movie musical; her indie cred was most definitely intact, she's actually a cinephile (unlike many actors) and her taste is impeccable. She was starring in stupendous music videos, keeping prestigious company in awards season, and coming off the high of a great run with the brilliant Frances Ha.

And now she'll follow all that with a spin-off of a formulaic old school sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" that's already many years past the season (5) where even the best shows start to falter from fatigue and stagnation?I understand that money is a powerfully motivating factor in most careers. I don't begrudge Gerwig a cash-in but I thought that that was what that dumb Arthur remake was for? I mean a sitcom on the most traditional of networks that's not even an original? Greta Gerwig with a laugh track? I'm so depressed.

Word is that she'll be producing, writing and starring which is smart given her talents but why not use them on something original? Why waste the Gerwigian gift on that format and for that franchise? The problem with sitcoms is that there is no return if they're picked up. When was the last time you saw, oh I dunno, Zooey Deschanel or Kat Dennings headlining a movie or even thought of as "actresses" rather than just celebrities? I'm aware that it is possible to do both TV and film simultaneously and successfully (Melissa McCarthy & Jason Segel) but it is most definitely not the norm.

Greta Gerwig had so much more to offer the movies. One hopes that her Untitled Public School Project with Noah Baumbach is finished and that its a beautiful cinematic swansong.

Looking at "Looking" (Episodes 1-4)

I wasn't looking for Looking. My experience with gay or gay-adjacent television series has been hit and miss at best, mostly miss. I outright loathed "Queer as Folk" what with its hypersexualized fantasy version of Pittsburgh and occasionally questionable acting. But mostly I hated it because it was populated by sociopathic characters who consistently behaved like no one anyone would ever put up with in real life. Sociopathic characters are fine if its part of the point within your concept or setting but otherwise, nope. Will & Grace was fun but like most sitcoms, once it established its 75 jokes, it basically repeated them for years with new words like a long-running "fabulous!" game of Mad Libs. Recently though it seems like gay characters, at least on non-gay focused shows have been allowed something like two dimensions; we're getting closer and closer to three! 

And so far so good with Looking... 

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We Can't Wait #14: Veronica Mars

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Dancin' Dan on Veronica Mars.]

Veronica Mars
Kristen Bell reprises her role as the title character in this neo-noir murder mystery that picks up nine year after where Season 3 of the eponymous TV series left off.

Talent
Rob Thomas, creator of the original series is in the director's chair. Kristen Bell is joined in front of the camera by other series regulars including Jason Dohring.

Why We Can't Wait

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Linking

The Stir Laura Linney had a baby despite none of us knowing she was pregnant
The Wire Joe Reid plans to see all 58 Oscar nominated movies from 2013 
LA Times George Clooney pretends to be pissed about Tina Fey's Golden Globes joke 
Gawker loves the idea of Detroit getting a bronze Robocop statue. It needs a hero! 

Film School Rejects as I predicted Margot Robbie is wracking up the roles in the wake of Wolf of Wall St
Interview Magazine Kanye West interviewed by Steve McQueen. Expect quotables 

tv
/Film what's going on with Nicolas Winding Refn's Barbarella TV series? 
previouslytv "your crotch is not that interesting" on HBO's Looking 
Vulture on the new and improved Lady Edith on Downton Abbey 
Coming Soon Jason Isaacs is joining the Rosemary's Baby tv miniseries as Roman Castavet (good part!) ... and word is that Zoe Saldana may get the famous pixie cut for it

Looking premiered and I missed it. But more when i catch up with it

a chain reaction
NY Times has a piece about why it might be better for the cinema if there were less movies each year. It's an interesting article that I mostly agree with though I wholeheartedly wish that Manohla hadn't felt the need to diss Iron Man 3 which is hardly the best example of junk blockbusters out there -- at least it was trying something vaguely new, making a Tony Stark movie rather than an Iron Man movie essentially. But let's not get distracted. Her piece was provocative asking for curation over consumption for programmers and money people. 
The New Yorker disagrees, arguing that we only get the great discoveries because so many indie films are made. You can't predict which new artists will actually deliver. 
The Front Row takes this as an opportunity to talk about what the purpose of film criticism is in the internet era and then
Mark Harris comments, too
...all of which gives us plenty to think about.