Hi Everyone & Good Morning All!
Coming to you live from the Magic Kingdom, your hosts are back again and as time goes on, some things just do not seem as magical as others. Think about it. When I was a child, having someone “pull” a coin from behind my ears was amazing. That was until the trick or the rub was found out: a little slight-of-hand. So all of a sudden what was cool back in the day is no longer of fancy. The secret of the trick is everything; once the trick is known the trick is forever worthless. Now, that is not to say that magical things do not exist. There are spectacular fetes that simply cannot be explained by mere words because those words are snagged in a web of our disillusionment.
This goes back to the quote from The Prestige, “Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.” No pun intended, but The Prestige was a magical film, dealing with concepts of sacrifice, love and devotion. Does that mean that by us calling the film magical, we, in turn, know what magic is? Of course not! We don’t have a clue. But, since films were mentioned, we, your hosts Wash Your Hands and Penny P. will talk about our least favorite movies from the Magical Kingdom.
2 fall in love was a table reserved 4 fools
Say U’re sorry if U wanna but it’s all in vain
I’m out the door sweet baby, that’s right, we’re through
It’s so sad but I hate U like a day without sunshine
It’s so bad but I hate U cuz U’re all that’s ever on my mind
Honey, I hate U – Now everyday would be a waste of time
Cuz I hate U
Penny Picayune’s Rantings:
I love cartoons and animation, so there being an animated movie that I do not like is a rare fete. But they do exist. As mentioned previously, the collective smoothie of Disney and Pixar was a pairing of a whimsical juggernaut with an eye-tantalizing colossus. Disney brought the fruit and Pixar brought the consistency, the depth and the good-looks (sort of like Wash Your Hands and I…I’m Pixar and Wash Your Hands is just fruity…banana!) (So, I’m Disney and you’re Pixar? That means you’re like my side kick, but sans the good-looks.) (Oh my dear Wash Your Hands, who said anything about you being Disney? I said that you were fruity. Hahaha! It’s funny, I don’t really like computers.) Nonetheless, every solid-gold good run does not go on forever. There has to be a hiatus; a time when there’s sunshine in the Northwest, a time where Google is not a part of everything, or a time when the Chicago Bulls didn’t win the championship. And that hiatus for the Disney-Pixar amalgam was met, in my opinion, with Cars.
Cars, the brainchild of the Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter, is a family film about…well, cars. The viewers follow the life of Ligthning McQueen who wants to win the Piston Cup championship. Traveling to Cali., McQueen has a little run in with the law, was arrested and sentenced to do community service. He? It? He…McQueeen does a half-assed job, meets a couple of friends while doing so. These friends encourage him to go back to racing. During the race, McQueen does the Disney thing, the right thing by helping The King to win the race. McQueen receives all types of praise and eventually lives his life the way he wants to rejuvenating a once barren town. I’m not saying that the story and plot are bad…well, maybe I am. It’s just that it’s cars. Cars. Cars handling adult situations and adult problems. I can’t even handle all of those yet. It looked cool, but there was just something lacking. Pixar is known to hit something out of the park every time, it was supposed to be awe-inspiring; that ideal was missing here. It’s just Cars. But you don’t have to take my word for it…I’m just some faceless person.
Keeping the truck rolling…even Miyazaki has his miscues. I own the complete Studio Ghibli collection (a set I’ll talk about later I’m sure); from Miyazaki’s first work to his latest. Slowly making my way through the collection, I decided to watch the Disney re-released flicks that I have not seen, first. And that lead me to one film: Ponyo. Ponyo is Miyazaki’s 10th film that is centered on a goldfish who lives in an aquarium with her father and sisters, and who wants to become a human-girl. On an outing with her family, The goldfish decides to see the sights, encounters a 5 year old named Sosuke who cuts himself. The goldfish licks his wounds when he picks her up and the wound heals immediately (it was love at first lick). Amazed Sosuke names the fish Ponyo and keeps her, promising to protect her forever. Poppa fish thinks Ponyo was kidnapped, and has the wave spirits bring Ponyo back. Daughter and father have a quarrel, Ponyo then professes her desire to become human and her love for Sosuke. Upon such, she grows human legs as a consequence for the human blood she licked. And from this point, the movie is about how Ponyo finds Sosuke, builds their relationship, the parent’s acceptance of the relationship and Ponyo’s eventual transformation into a human-girl. Now, if I didn’t know better, Ponyo is just a Japanese version of The Little Mermaid; minus the rampant sexual-innuendo. Again, much like all of Miyazaki’s work, it looks beautiful; it really is visually stunning. Again, beauty is not the problem here. Much like Cars, there was just something missing…something that I just did not like. Maybe it’s the fact that Ponyo and Sosuke are both children handling notions and ideals that some grown-folk refuse to handle: love, desire, and longing. Love is blinding. Desire usually leads to heartache or the realization that when we obtain the thing that we want, we find out that we really didn’t want it at all (thank you Gerard, Modiano and the romantics). And what is it that you really want? I bet that you don’t even know for sure.
Wash Your Hands’ Rantings:
Disney gave us the well-beloved Mickey (and Donald and Goofy and the rest of the crazy gang), catchy sing-along songs (I sing along, at least), and magical happy endings, but what Disney didn’t give us is a continuation to these happy endings. Life after that happy ending isn’t so magical in the Disney realm. They take their classics, make a sequel (probably hoping to make more money), but I’m sorry, these sequels are crap. Crap, I say!
For one, take my favorite Disney animated film, Mulan. It was awesome in my opinion, we have Mulan, who dares to be herself, save ancient China, where girls are considered nothing. It would’ve been great if it was just that, but adding in the Disney factor, there had to be a man, Shang, and some romance to get a happily ever after in the end, which I really didn’t mind. (Come on, it’s Disney, they known for romantic happily ever afters.) Great, Mulan, Shang and the rest of the gang can live happily ever after and that would be the end, but nope, Disney had to go and make a Mulan II. Actually I was all for Mulan II before I saw it. I enjoy Mulan so much that I watch it at least once a year, so imagine my excitement when I heard there was going to be a second one. (I gotta rewatch it to figure out what it was I didn’t like, come back for this later)
So Disney decided to ruin a second classic that I enjoy, The Little Mermaid by making a sequel about Ariel’s daughter, Melody,titled The Little Mermaid II: Return to Sea. For starters, I don’t like Melody, how did Ariel, nice looking and Eric, also nice looking, make that, not nice looking at all. So to point out the good stuff before I bash the film till it’s banished to oblivion, Ariel’s character development is good, she’s now a mother, and can no longer be how she was originally in the first one, so no loopy-loop holes there. Another good point is the villain, she’s much more pleasing to the eye, but she’s also the biggest loop hole in the show, where in the world did she come from? Where was she when her sister died? Huh? Exploring the seven seas while Ursula was exploding to tiny bits? And why is it that it took her so long to come back and avenge her sister? Also, why’s it there’s only one octoperson in each film? There’s has got to be more of them. Why don’t they try to get the trident, too? I think what I really don’t like about the film is that it is the exact same film as the first, but instead of wanting to get out of the sea, the main character wants to get back into the sea. Even the villain’s goal is the same, to obtain the trident and rule the oceans. What’s the point? It’s like a picture, the original is the original, when someone copies it, it may be very good, but it’s still a copy, it’s not original. That’s what The Little Mermaid II is, not original, a poorly inverted copy of the original. Also, Melody’s character doesn’t help, it’s like watching an ugly, annoying version of Ariel, flipping her red mermaid tail around, getting the trident, so that she can become a mermaid permanently, but for what? At least Ariel had some reason, be it a very bad reason and a rather dumb one, too, to be human, but what was Melody’s reasoning? I don’t think I ever got the reasoning behind it, but I’m rather displeased with the sequel to give it a second viewing. If I wanna see a mermaid, why not just watch the much more magical original instead of a poorly made copy?
One more ranting only, before all the viewers leave cause I complain too much. Cinderella! So Cinderella is a classic that everyone knows: girl gets her prince and lives happily ever after, the end. That should’ve been the end, but Disney decided that they wanted not one, but two sequels for Cinderella. (Yes, that’s right, two sequels.) So, the first one that came out was Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. I watched this a long time, when it first came out, about 10 years ago, so my memory of it may be a bit hazy, but from what I remember, it’s not good. For one, it didn’t feel like I was watching a movie, for Cinderella II consisted of three segments that weren’t connected to each other (actually, it felt like I was watching tv). They tried to make the segments flow with transition scenes with the fairy godmother and the story book, but it didn’t work. So the first segment, Cinderella and house-work (or castle-work, whatever it is) was dumb. I don’t care that you have to do housework after you’re married, if I wanted to see you cook and clean, I could just go cook and clean myself. Segment two, Jaq the mouse becomes human: I just didn’t care either. For a very long time, and still now sometimes, I don’t remember the mice’s names, so why would I even care who’s who now? Also, what’s with the desire for the mice to always help her? I mean always. Yes, friends help one another, but there’s a point when one must help his-/her-self. The main point of segment two was that Jaq felt too small to her Cinderella, so the fairy godmother turns him to a human so that he could help Cinderella (geesh, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Jaq was in love with Cinderella, and not the friendly love.) Anyways, segment three to me was the redeeming segment. Anastasia falls in love: So Anastasia falls in love with a common man and eventually decides to stay with him even though her mother and sister objects. For one, this segment shows a different side to Anastasia, she’s not just that dumb, ugly, evil stepsister , there’s actually more to her. It actually shows that she may not be so evil, she just did what her mother and sister wanted because she wanted to feel accepted, as they were the only ones who “loved” her. Too bad it was such a short segment, if they fleshed it out, and called it something else, it may have been good. (Hahahahaha! I know! That movie was bad! The thing is called Dreams Come True. Her dream already came true…now her friends want a taste. They’re just getting greedy!)
Sequel #2: Cinderella III: A Twist In Time. Well, this one wasn’t as bad as the first sequel. There was actually a plot, a plot that’s different than the original (finally! A sequel that isn’t a mirror image of the original). This sequel plays with the “What if?” factor, what if the evil stepmother found out about magic being involved with Cinderella’s happiness? What if she could make her daughter fit the glass slipper and become Cinderella? Well then, we get a sequel to Cinderella. Cinderella III in all seriousness wasn’t that bad, it shows a little more creativity by imagining what could’ve happened if the stepmother did have a magic wand. Also, it fleshed out Anastasia’s character more, she’s not just the dumb, ugly, evil stepsister that tortures Cinderella for fun, she’s human. She knows the difference between right and wrong, but when doing the right thing means rejection from the only people she has in the world, the only choice is to do the wrong thing and be accepted by them at least. So deep down, Anastasia was just someone who wanted to be loved and accepted. However, that’s not to say that the sequel didn’t have it’s problems. One was the stupid line that Cinderella had to say, “Prince, it’s me.” Uhh, who are you? I clearly don’t understand why Cinderella was so convinced that the Prince will remember her without the shoe, I mean she only knew the guy for three hours! He would never have found her if it wasn’t for the shoe, and also, if someone else had small feet like her, than the Prince could’ve married someone else, and never known it wasn’t the right girl. However, this is Disney, true love conquers all? So another thing with the sequel is that it’s a sequel. People usually don’t like it, why take a perfectly good movie and make changes when the original was good already. If this wasn’t a sequel to a classic, it could’ve fared better in my eyes, for it ruins the story of Cinderella. It makes Cinderella really desperate, “Prince, it’s me”. (Really, was that really the only thing you could’ve said to make him remember you?) However, I don’t think this would’ve made a stand alone movie since it needed a backstory to play with the “What If?” factor.
For the films ranted on above, instead of the standard thumbs, we give one, wet big toe up. That’s all folks! (Oh crap! That’s Warner Bros…Let’s not start with them!) We’re so sorry that we have to go, but we always appreciate you coming. Come back next time for more untitledincandide fun with your hosts WYH and PP, because when you’re here you not only double your pleasure and double the fun!
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