"Dumbo" Teases

by Nathaniel R

click to enlargePrediction: By 2040 Disney will have remade all of their animated features as "live-action" movies. Well, maybe not Song of the South or The Three Caballeros. Live-action is in quotes because some of the remake titles are basically still half animated -- like The Jungle Book in 2016, or Beauty and the Beast in 2017. Next up in the Disney remakes department is Tim Burton's take on Dumbo. 

The name Tim Burton used to automatically thrill but he lost his mojo at exactly the turn of the century (just after Sleepy Hollow in '99) and hasn't been able to get it back. He's made 10 features since and the only uncompromised / totally satisfying artistic success among them, I'd argue, is the animated features Corpse Bride (2005). And to a lesser extent Frankenweenie (2012) if we're feeling a bit generous...

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Lunchtime Poll: What Cartoon Should Come With a Trigger Warning?

In last weekend's most hilarious Golden Globes presentation, Kristen Wiig & Steve Carell equated Fantasia and Bambi with utterly traumatic childhood experiences. Which begs the question...

What cartoon sends you spiralling into depression? 

JOSE: Dumbo! As a giant eared child, it brings back so many traumas. 

ERIC:  Dumbo.  When caged Mama's trunk reaches for Dumbo's trunk: merciless!

NICK: The Legend of Bagger Vance.

KIM: Toy Story 3 was a pretty traumatic viewing experience for me; I came out of the theatre with my eyes almost swollen shut from crying. (The holding hands when they all thought they were going to die, you guys!) If I harken back to a movie that sent me off the edge as a kid, I'm going to go with The Secret of Nimh. I know it ENDS happily, but that movie is DARK. 

JORGE:  Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle throws me into a deep pit of out-of-body melancholy.

DAVID:  The Fox and the Hound is a regular feature in my nostalgic nightmares, even though I haven't watched it since I was about twelve and the VHS gave out. Under the weight of emotional distress, no doubt.

STEVEN:  Every time I think about the fact that there is a Cars 3 coming I get depressed. Does that count?

King Aragorn... and Other Luminaries

It's a big day for your Lord of the Rings fans, even if you don't know it. Read on.

On this day in history as it relates to the movies
1882 Bela Lugosi is born in what was then Hungary (and now Romania). He vants to suck your blood as the original big screen Dracula. A century later Martin Landau will win a justly deserved Oscar for playing him in Tim Burton's wonderful Ed Wood (1994).
1895 Rex Ingram, one of the earliest successful black actors in Hollywood was born. Credits include: The Thief of Baghdad (as the genie), Huckleberry Finn (as Jim), and Cabin in the Sky (as Lucifer Jr)... 

1901 Frank Churchill is born in Maine. He wrote songs people still listen to today including "Baby Mine" from Dumbo and "Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Tragically he committed suicide at age 40 mere months after his winning his Oscar for Dumbo...

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Tweetweek: Dumbo, Depp, Ghostbusters

It's a tie for Tweet of the week with the first win going to cartoonist Lucy Knisley for her sudden Mrs Jumbo tweet flurry... but there's more to come including Isabelle Huppert, Helen Hunt, Game of Thrones, Bridesmaids, and Michael Fassbender after the jump...

Tweet of the Week Part 1 

Is Dumbo's mom a Disney princess? Is she the first wrongfully imprisoned princess, persecuted for mental illness? IS SHE THE BEST ONE!?

— Lucy Knisley (@LucyKnisley) May 23, 2016

Elephant gestation is 2 yrs. If I had to be pregnant for 2 yrs, I'd want a flying baby and a princess title AT THE VERY LEAST. #FreeMrsJumbo

— Lucy Knisley (@LucyKnisley) May 23, 2016

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Tim's Toons: Animated Features at Cannes

This week, the Cannes Film Festival was home to the premiere of Inside Out, the new film by Pixar Animation Studios, and one of its best-reviewed pictures. The film is playing out of competition, as has been the recent tendency of most Hollywood products, and animation in particular. It has been a special habit of films made by DreamWorks Animation in the 21st Century, with all sorts of things from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron in 2002 up to How to Train Your Dragon 2 last year muscling their way onto the Croisette.

There has, however, been a small but meaningful history of animated movies to have been given slightly more honorable treatment, and allowed to play in the big kids’ sandbox. Since the festival’s first edition in 1946, there have been seven animated features entered into the main competition, if my count is right, and they make for a fascinating cross-section of how the international cinema scene regarded the state of that particular art across the years. Here, in order, are those seven films.

Make Mine Music (1946)
The eighth feature made by the Disney studio, and the third of that company’s dubious “package films”, attempts to make entire features by jamming a bunch of short films into one vague thematic frame. Like any anthology, it has peaks and valleys, though the latter dominate, and the film is infinitely less impressive than its quasi-sequel Melody Time. Let us not be baffled by its Cannes slot; this was the fest’s first year & they were figuring it out, everybody loves Disney, and it’s a nice post-war feel-good effort. It won Best Animation Design, a discontinued award.

six more after the jump including Persepolis and... Shrek 2 (!?)

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