The point of The Little Rascals is almost entirely to watch cute little kids between 4 and 9 playing on your TV screen a little more large than they ever would in real life. And for what ever reason utterly without parental appearance.
They are cast as acting like grown-ups, which is the source of the humor in the movie.
That sounds a little cynical, but it isn't. That's just what the movie is. It is a "cute, funny, quick and entertaining" movie. It succeeds in everything it tries to do.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Nightcrawler (2004 comic series, 12 issues)
A normal comic is under a great weight of awful responsibility. It publishes serially but continuously, so that, in issue 65432, it must at once cater to readers who have been with it since the very first page of issue 1 but also consider people who have never read a previous issue nor heard of any of the characters.
It is a rather constraining box. Thinking within a box (of some sort) may improve one's creativity, but this one is a little tight. I like a good mini-series more. The Nightcrawler mini-ish series ("Limited Series" I suppose) isn't for someone who doesn't know that Wolverene has three claws coming out of the back of his hand (or fist, depending on your artist), or that he has friends called Cyclops and Storm because you will be introduced to a good dozen of characters really quickly. But you don't need to know all that much more. I never knew much about Nightcrawler before this escapade, nor even the X-Men in general outside the movies and 20 year old cartoons which I haven't seen in... 20 years. But the story is kind enough to go over his background and elucidate happenings within the X-Men without being too heavy on the exposition.
It is actually quite a "Fun" series and I find it stimulating to my imagination. The characters are so exaggerated and the adventures are visual and simple. The story isn't so complex, tight, and brilliant as something like Watchmen, but it is still interesting. I red the entire thing in one night.
Then read some of the old 60's comics... Oh my. Well, Marvel was a lot better than DC at the time, but it still was, uh, immature as a medium. The prose is 'the most laughable prose ever penned to paper!' (the exclamation point is important. They put 'em after everything!).
This Nightcrawler series is complete enough in itself to work as a stand-alone story. It is composed of three interconnected story arcs which don't appear to be interconnected in the beginning. The series is not consistently reiterating what each characters "super powers" are, how something was possible, what happened in the last issue. Blah, blah, blah. It shows you instead and assumes that you've read the entire series and for that I am grateful and which separates it from those 60's comics. It also isn't just a huge fight scene with a loose, crappy story holding it together like the first issue of an "X-4" cross-over comic. Which I can't even find a good link for. The art is fine, though it pails in comparison to the cover, even if there isn't a great amount of consistency with how the characters look and all the women have back-breaking busts.
It is a rather constraining box. Thinking within a box (of some sort) may improve one's creativity, but this one is a little tight. I like a good mini-series more. The Nightcrawler mini-ish series ("Limited Series" I suppose) isn't for someone who doesn't know that Wolverene has three claws coming out of the back of his hand (or fist, depending on your artist), or that he has friends called Cyclops and Storm because you will be introduced to a good dozen of characters really quickly. But you don't need to know all that much more. I never knew much about Nightcrawler before this escapade, nor even the X-Men in general outside the movies and 20 year old cartoons which I haven't seen in... 20 years. But the story is kind enough to go over his background and elucidate happenings within the X-Men without being too heavy on the exposition.
It is actually quite a "Fun" series and I find it stimulating to my imagination. The characters are so exaggerated and the adventures are visual and simple. The story isn't so complex, tight, and brilliant as something like Watchmen, but it is still interesting. I red the entire thing in one night.
Then read some of the old 60's comics... Oh my. Well, Marvel was a lot better than DC at the time, but it still was, uh, immature as a medium. The prose is 'the most laughable prose ever penned to paper!' (the exclamation point is important. They put 'em after everything!).
This Nightcrawler series is complete enough in itself to work as a stand-alone story. It is composed of three interconnected story arcs which don't appear to be interconnected in the beginning. The series is not consistently reiterating what each characters "super powers" are, how something was possible, what happened in the last issue. Blah, blah, blah. It shows you instead and assumes that you've read the entire series and for that I am grateful and which separates it from those 60's comics. It also isn't just a huge fight scene with a loose, crappy story holding it together like the first issue of an "X-4" cross-over comic. Which I can't even find a good link for. The art is fine, though it pails in comparison to the cover, even if there isn't a great amount of consistency with how the characters look and all the women have back-breaking busts.
Friday, October 22, 2010
To F. Scott Fitzgerald:
You are right. "An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke." But sometimes it is nice to laugh at your own jokes. Sometimes, if you don't laugh, no one will. Sometimes, I like to just entertain myself.
And I bloody like how they look!
And I bloody like how they look!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Lady and the Tramp (1955 movie, rewatched)
Like many movies from the fifties, but especially all of Walt Disney's "Masterpieces", Lady and the Tramp has an impressive focus on its score. Far more so than what one sees now-a-days, which is one of my repeating, repeating and constant laments. It is nice to see an old movie where not only the atmosphere, but individual character movements are choreographed with music. Where the sounds that they make are integrated with the score. The music is built around what is said, what is done, integral sound effects, and everything, really, so that it acts as the major supporting framework of the movie.
It is not a bad way to make a movie. Some people are visual, some are auditory. Disney was probably both. But even visual people (most visual people) like music. It has this weird quality to it: utterly abstracted from normal reality. It 'mimics' less that you'd find in the outside world than a Pollock paining, and yet it is not only instantly accessible to most everyone, it is also powerfully moving. Directly connected to the emotions; so predictable, it can create a mood more quickly and easily than anything else. It is somewhat bizarre that it works, if ya think about it, but in the end, it does. Which is neat.
But it can overshadow a script. If you get over the brainwashing done on you by the score, you might notice that Lady and the Tramp's script is a little... strange. If you go back over it, there are many instances where something doesn't quite make sense. As if they changed it a little, but not all the way. Well, that's exactly what they did to much of this movie.
It isn't all that noticeable. What is more noticeable is the layers of depth that were part of it for such a simply story in essence. As the title implies, Lady and the Tramp is a 'Beauty-and-the-Beast Story' (as opposed to a Cinderella Story). It comes off remarkably well. But it was one of my favorite movies when I was young, so perhaps I'm a little biased. Still, it's a pretty "Good" movie if you ignore some of the implications of a Beauty-and-the-Beast Tale...
Analysis (spoilers will probably follow):
All our childerens cartoons come up against some pretty unfair scrutiny sometimes. But then, you always end up wondering what someone'll get out of a story. The Little Mermaid has a girl gettin' the guy because she shows up naked and mute. "Kiss the Girl 'cuz she shore can't say no right now". Hm. The Lion King vilifies the only Lion willing to bridge inter-species gaps with the Hyenas. Doesn't help that he's the only "black" lion. What's this say about tolerance. Cinderella stories reinforce the very untrue myth that you can become a ruler from meek servitude and poverty, even though that is despicably unlikely. "Beauty-and-the-Beast" stories tell girls that they can tame that tramp. Change the man into who they want them to be.
But as our conventional wisdom tell's us, you can't expect to change anyone. Guy or girl, it's better to find someone you like for who they are.
Which sounds so simple, yet it obviously isn't.
How good of a house pet would Tramp really make? He did knock over that baby-carriage, no matter how mean that little rat looked. And he plays it up, too, making his paw look broken. This guy fought off three vicious dogs without breakin' a sweat and one little rat's gonna break his foot?
It takes a horse carriage to do that to Trusty.
But I really don't want to bash the movie all that much. My rant is though.
It is not a bad way to make a movie. Some people are visual, some are auditory. Disney was probably both. But even visual people (most visual people) like music. It has this weird quality to it: utterly abstracted from normal reality. It 'mimics' less that you'd find in the outside world than a Pollock paining, and yet it is not only instantly accessible to most everyone, it is also powerfully moving. Directly connected to the emotions; so predictable, it can create a mood more quickly and easily than anything else. It is somewhat bizarre that it works, if ya think about it, but in the end, it does. Which is neat.
But it can overshadow a script. If you get over the brainwashing done on you by the score, you might notice that Lady and the Tramp's script is a little... strange. If you go back over it, there are many instances where something doesn't quite make sense. As if they changed it a little, but not all the way. Well, that's exactly what they did to much of this movie.
It isn't all that noticeable. What is more noticeable is the layers of depth that were part of it for such a simply story in essence. As the title implies, Lady and the Tramp is a 'Beauty-and-the-Beast Story' (as opposed to a Cinderella Story). It comes off remarkably well. But it was one of my favorite movies when I was young, so perhaps I'm a little biased. Still, it's a pretty "Good" movie if you ignore some of the implications of a Beauty-and-the-Beast Tale...
Analysis (spoilers will probably follow):
All our childerens cartoons come up against some pretty unfair scrutiny sometimes. But then, you always end up wondering what someone'll get out of a story. The Little Mermaid has a girl gettin' the guy because she shows up naked and mute. "Kiss the Girl 'cuz she shore can't say no right now". Hm. The Lion King vilifies the only Lion willing to bridge inter-species gaps with the Hyenas. Doesn't help that he's the only "black" lion. What's this say about tolerance. Cinderella stories reinforce the very untrue myth that you can become a ruler from meek servitude and poverty, even though that is despicably unlikely. "Beauty-and-the-Beast" stories tell girls that they can tame that tramp. Change the man into who they want them to be.
But as our conventional wisdom tell's us, you can't expect to change anyone. Guy or girl, it's better to find someone you like for who they are.
Which sounds so simple, yet it obviously isn't.
How good of a house pet would Tramp really make? He did knock over that baby-carriage, no matter how mean that little rat looked. And he plays it up, too, making his paw look broken. This guy fought off three vicious dogs without breakin' a sweat and one little rat's gonna break his foot?
It takes a horse carriage to do that to Trusty.
But I really don't want to bash the movie all that much. My rant is though.
Stress: Portrait of a Killer (National Geographic Documentary Film, )
What's fascinating about Stress: Portrait of a Killer is how it 'paints a portrait' of what stress is and what causes it as though it is sympathetic and interested in lowering the overall stress found in modern society, yet the film is very good at giving you more. It doesn't really offer solutions to how stressed you may be, other than: "get ahead already! Being subordinate is killing you!" which isn't really all that helpful. Most people would already like to 'get ahead' if they knew how.
But the documentary is enlightening and provides a few de-stressing details such as: if you help people, you gan decrease the symptoms of aging and over-stressing.
Yay! Saved? No? Well, you're probably not very different from anyone else. We live with a lotta stress. Perhaps we should think about that and begin to impose some societal changes. Make the world a little better place, eh?
But the documentary is enlightening and provides a few de-stressing details such as: if you help people, you gan decrease the symptoms of aging and over-stressing.
Yay! Saved? No? Well, you're probably not very different from anyone else. We live with a lotta stress. Perhaps we should think about that and begin to impose some societal changes. Make the world a little better place, eh?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The Muppet Movie (1979)
How did Sweetums arrive at the screening of the movie late when he was already there "taking chairs" in the beginning?
Not that this matters in The Muppet Movie, a film which uses it's own script as a plot device. This is Jim Henson humor, using the opportunity to tell whatever joke comes to mind. Plays on words such as 'Fork in the Road' and 'Hopping Mad'. A lot of people call it 'corny', but I love my puns. I like the muppets and their surrealistic humor!
But who can hate the muppets? They are so "Innocent and Funny"! Sure they teach kids to slack off in school by the end, but it's not Sesame Street. Just because it's 'innocent' doesn't mean it's completely benign. It was always an adult variety show; it just casts colorful puppet with even more brightly colored personalities. Muppets are not subtle in who they are and who they parody. From the hippy chick guitar playing Janice (who really was ahead of her time; she's probably funnier to people outside Hollywood now) to Piggy the Diva. One can usually tell that everyone's dialog was written by the same people because everyone has the same sense of humor. Which is enjoyable.
Another thing they do well is music. Like Disney but very different. Henson inspires less criticism, has less controversy, about his creations. Muppets inspire a warm-fuzzy feeling which is hard to say anything unfriendly about. There is a reason they persist so strongly even though their creator has long since met his demise. Kermit is almost older than Jim ever got. More's the pity.
Plus it's got about a thousand guest appearances from Richard Pryor to Bob Hope.
Not that this matters in The Muppet Movie, a film which uses it's own script as a plot device. This is Jim Henson humor, using the opportunity to tell whatever joke comes to mind. Plays on words such as 'Fork in the Road' and 'Hopping Mad'. A lot of people call it 'corny', but I love my puns. I like the muppets and their surrealistic humor!
But who can hate the muppets? They are so "Innocent and Funny"! Sure they teach kids to slack off in school by the end, but it's not Sesame Street. Just because it's 'innocent' doesn't mean it's completely benign. It was always an adult variety show; it just casts colorful puppet with even more brightly colored personalities. Muppets are not subtle in who they are and who they parody. From the hippy chick guitar playing Janice (who really was ahead of her time; she's probably funnier to people outside Hollywood now) to Piggy the Diva. One can usually tell that everyone's dialog was written by the same people because everyone has the same sense of humor. Which is enjoyable.
Another thing they do well is music. Like Disney but very different. Henson inspires less criticism, has less controversy, about his creations. Muppets inspire a warm-fuzzy feeling which is hard to say anything unfriendly about. There is a reason they persist so strongly even though their creator has long since met his demise. Kermit is almost older than Jim ever got. More's the pity.
Plus it's got about a thousand guest appearances from Richard Pryor to Bob Hope.
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