Ant-Man Shrinks, and Other Lukewarm Stories

I don't always get around to stories when they hit. Join me in the catch-up comments...

Fan made poster (if I knew who made it I would credit them, but so many blogs are bad about giving creditAnt-Man Shrinks
By now you've heard and digested or, more likely given this crowd (you didn't even comment on that juicy misogynistic She-Hulk debacle!), ignored the drama surrounding Disney/Marvel's Ant-Man movie. The long and short of it: Edgar Wright, of Shaun of the Dead / Scott Pilgrim fame who is unarguably adept and inventive about action-comedy (a unique skill given how unfunny action 'comedies' usually are), abruptly left over creative differences. Now from the roster of potential replacements (none of them even ⅕ as interesting as Wright), one has already fallen away. Leaving us sad for Paul Rudd (probably locked into the role for a decade) and Joss Whedon's Avengers: The Age of Ultron (doesn't Joss need Ant-Man to have his story work since Ant-Man created Ultron?) 

The probable answer as to why is that Disney/Marvel, now that they've won all the moneys in the world and are surely empowered by the knowledge that audiences are lemming-like about these things and will turn out in droves for even dud superhero movies  (Thor: The Dark World, Amazing Spider-Man 2, Iron Man 2), can afford to dump directors with artistic vision and focus on generic bosses who will just keep the assembly line running with less "ideas" / back-talking. Capitalism eventually ruins everything. Marvel sadly didn't learn the inspiring lesson they could have from hiring Joss Whedon. He made The Avengers the success it was, basically rescuing The Black Widow entirely, understanding how tiresome Iron Man had become and how to limit the dose, finding a way to make Thor and Hulk work in a team format even when they've never worked on their own. You need an artist to accomplish these kinds of juggling miracles and feats of resuscitation, not hired hands. 

The silver lining? This Ant-Man debacle did inspire the parody Michael Haneke twitter account to chime in...

. @marvel plz plz i bein praktisn wth mi cat!!1! he help katch ants 4 film. most he killd tho lol #haneke4antman pic.twitter.com/KcXEmX0bIA

— Michael Haneke (@Michael_Haneke) May 28, 2014

Who Stopped Roger Rabbit 2?
It's a story that never quite dies. It is... undead. The Dissolve performs the oft performed reanimation of that story corpse wondering why the sequel never happened and if it might happen now since the original people all still want it to. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is the Movie of the Week over there which is why they're asking.

In a Hollywood culture that prizes franchises and recognizable characters above all else it is a still a SHOCK in all caps that this sequel never came to be. In many ways this movie is the movie that proved to Hollywood that people would go nuts for a mix of new envelope pushing visual effects mixed with old school nostalgia. Which you could argue led to Toy Story which you could argue led to everything. I am ultra fond of that movie (I'd have easily nominated it for Best Picture that year) but I also have a not-so secret amount of affection for the fact that it never produced a sequel.

Why would I not want a sequel to something I love that much? Well, sequels are in so many ways our collective junk food and in an era where movies produce not only sequels but reboots and straight-to-dvd spinoffs and other forms of money-grubbing self-cannibalizing, Roger Rabbit feels comparatively monumental in its mystic standalone purity.

Finally...

Big Hero 6 Teaser
I meant to share this last week and completely forgot. I don't have much to say about it other than that it is adorable despite doing nothing other than ripping off The Incredibles (2004) for its "too fat for this suit" slapstick teaser but people have very short memories about these things so everyone can LOL anew

Curio: Heather Theurer's Disney heroines

Alexa here with your weekly art post.  This past weekend was another big win for Disney; clearly the public at large did not have the same trouble talking the family into seeing Maleficient as I did (my daughter didn't want to see that movie about the "scary fairy").  From the trailer I was entranced by the look of it, but I'll have to wait. Reading about the painterly, Pre-Raphaelite stylings of the film reminded me of Heather Theurer. Theurer is a painter who has done a series of oils of Disney heroines, transforming them with a realism akin to the Pre-Raphaelites.  

So far she has completed Cinderella, Mulan, Rapunzel, Lilo, and Merida...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Mother's Day Special

For this very special and ultimately quite spontaneous edition of the podcast, Nathaniel calls a few of his team members to grill them about their moms & the movies. Sadly the entire team was not available -- some of them were being good kids en route to visiting their mothers so they have a good excuse -- but you get to hear from a few of us and how our moms factor into our cinephila. Expect name-droppings of Margo Martindale, Susan Sarandon, I Remember Mama, The Lord of the Rings, A Separation and much more... 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes.

00:01 Intro
01:00 Amir
09:00 Abstew
14:00 Anne Marie
20:30 Tim Brayton
27:00 Funny Girl Interlude & Surprise Guest
32:00 The Guest of Honor, Nathaniel's Mom!
40:00 Exit Music "Baby Mine" with Bette Midler 

Nathaniel's mom & dad in 1960I can't interview each and every one of you out there listening about how your moms shaped your moviegoing but if you have any key stories, please share them in the comments. I actually teared up making this one. Keep the love a-going. And call your mama or take her to a movie today!

Further Reading To Enhance This Podcast
Anne Marie's "A Year With Kate"
Tim's Home Schooling Essay on "Mean Girls"
Amir's "Hello Cinema"
How Many Barbra Streisand's Have You Seen?
Loretta Young, Nathaniel's Mom's Favorite

 

Mothers Day with TFE

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Visual Index ~ Pocahontas (1995)

For Earth Day, Hit Me With Your Best Shot returns to Disney's long neglected Pocahontas (1995). Can you sing with all the colors of the wind? The movie uses a lot of them and not shyly: blues, greens, pinks, oranges, yellows, and that glorious raven hair of Disney's most beautiful heroine.

Pocahontas's Best Shot(s)
13 savages chimed in. Click on their best shot selections to read the corresponding article

One of the greatest marriages of image and melody in the entire Disney canon...
- Three Pounds Lost 

She's still dwarfed by the majesty of the earth...
-Film Actually

The best scene in the movie is a silent one... 
-Coco Hits New York 

...not one without its wonders.  The main two of which for me are its use of long lens widescreen framing and the music.
- Best Shot in the Dark 

It’s not that the film isn’t beautiful, it’s just that I remember it more for it’s music.
-Missemmamm

We're no longer looking at moving drawings, but being moved by the drawings...
- The Film's The Thing 

Pocahontas looks really good especially when her hair is wind blown (nature as her personal wind machine for the win)... 
- Sorta That Guy 

 At times it feels as if Pocahontas is a feature-length version of a lost Fantasia sequence... 
-The Entertainment Junkie

One of the least busy and textured images in the film, 
- Lam Chop Chop

Love Story, Flawed History Lesson, and Nature Appreciation Pamphlet all in one go? No easy feat...
-Minnesota Gneiss 

It's dealing with big themes that kids don't think about and visualizing them in a way that kids can understand at every level...
- Dancin' Dan 

For all of Pocahontas failures, I love it and feel deeply protective...
- The Film Experience 

Confession: I totally started to tear up here...
- I Am Derreck 

NEXT TUESDAY ON 'HIT ME...'

Ten years later: Home on the Range

Tim here, to celebrate, and by “celebrate”, I mean “lament” the ten-year anniversary this month of the film that more or less killed traditional animation at Disney. Back in April, 2004, all that anybody could talk about was anything else imaginable other than Home on the Range, a Western comedy feature the voices of Roseanne, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly that during its opening weekend only managed to scrape itself up to the #4 spot at the box office. This was to be expected. Disney had already announced prior to the release of Brother Bear the previous fall that once they cleared out the pipeline, they’d be abandoning 2D animation forever, and given the quality of most of their work in the 2000s, nobody could really be terribly offended by that decision for any strong reason other than nostalgia. Let me put it this way: I, in 2004, was easily the biggest Disney lover I knew. And even I didn’t bother watching it until a good year and a half later.

I would love nothing more than to say, at this point, “this was a terrible injustice done to a great movie, because…” and that’s really not accurate. Still, Home on the Range is certainly better than its still-unchanged reputation would have it; the fact that Disney’s very next film was the outright toxic Chicken Little certainly helps to make it look that much better, as does the 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog, which took away the pressure for the earlier film to be The Very Last Traditional Disney Film.

Click to read more ...