Tag Archives: Disney

Dress for the Job You Want?

Cinderella

By Christie Robb

It seems weird that Disney and director Kenneth Branagh would remake Cinderella in 2015. The animated classic that generations grew up with feels rooted in the gender norms of the middle class culture of the 1950s.

To put Cinders up on the big screen today…I didn’t know what to expect.

But this is Disney…a company that somehow managed to make a blockbuster franchise out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Sometimes they do make magic happen out of the most gossamer of source material.

I anticipated some serious updates. After all, the classic was pretty thin on plot. The mice carried most of the movie. And this one is live action and nearly 40 minutes longer.

There’s a lot about the new movie that remains familiar. Cinderella is portrayed as an impossibly earnest and optimistic blonde by Downton Abby’s Lily James. Her mother’s early demise leads to a stepmother and two new stepsisters. Then her father bites it. Her social status falls until we find her nestled into the ashes at the hearth struggling for a few minutes of sleep in between her stepfamily’s incessant demands.

We even get cameos from the mice and Stepmama’s cat, Lucifer. (Seriously, Dad, was the cat’s name not a red flag?)

There are some updates, though. There is a nod to diversity in the casting, a new moral (have courage and be kind), Cinders and the prince get to exchange some dialogue before still randomly falling for each other, and there are extended scenes of Cinders’ childhood and Stepmama behaving badly.

Much of the cast is delightful. Cate Blanchett hams it up as the Evil Stepmother in some truly amazing costumes. Helena Bonham Carter takes a daffy spin as the Fairy Godmother. And, in a bit of an upstairs/downstairs reversal, Downton Abby’s Daisy (Sophie McShera) flounces around in catty splendor as evil stepsister Drisella.

The animation that transforms mice into horses and lizards into footmen is Disney magic at its best and is probably the highlight of the film.

Ultimately, however, after movies like Enchanted, that take the tropes of these familiar tales and update them, Cinderella seems oddly dated. It’s like a pair of glass slippers—something beautiful to look at that doesn’t make sense in today’s world.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

No Badass is Safe

Maleficent

by Hope Madden

Hey, thanks a lot Wicked.

For those of us who love a good villain for their terrifying villainy, the popularity of the stage musical Wicked has created a bit of a problem: the neutering of the greatest of the greats. Gregory Maguire started it when he gave the Wicked Witch of the West a political backstory that exposed her self-sacrifice and good nature.

Now Disney wants to turn their greatest and most terrifying villain, Sleeping Beauty‘s Maleficent, into another role model.

Bah!

I’ll give them this. They can cast a lead.

Angelina Jolie has always cut an imposing, otherworldly figure, and Maleficent’s horns and leather look right at home. She offers the chilly elegance, dry humor and shadowy grace needed to bring the animated evildoer to life.

Plus, she looks great. And the film looks great – we’d expect nothing less from first-time director, longtime visual effects and set design maestro Robert Stromberg. But it’s not enough to save the effort.

The truly talented Elle Fanning struggles in an anemically-written role while Sharlto Copley flails, saddled with a character whose descent into madness is articulated with little more than overacting.

The basis of the problem is a toothless script by Linda Woolverton. Less the girl-power theme that elevated Frozen (another Wicked rip off) and more a bitter pill about untrustworthy men, the film feels mean in all the wrong ways. Woolverton’s also littered the enchanted landscape with forgettable or annoying characters – the three pixies of Disney’s ’59 animated film devolve from adorable, amusing pips to annoying, useless caregivers.

Stromberg’s plodding pace helps little. He forever undercuts any tension he builds, and the film suffers immeasurably from lack of momentum.

He and Woolverton could have learned a lot from the flawed but watchable Snow White and the Huntsmen (2012), a film that sought to update the old fable with a larger focus on its great villain without de-fanging her bite. Instead, Maleficent takes the very strongest element of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and weakens it.

Look out, Darth Vader. At the rate Hollywood is corrupting our great villains, you’ll be singing show tunes in no time.

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

The 2014 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

The Academy Award nominations can drive you crazy between the snubs and the needless accolades. Some years are so bad, you may think you’ll never forgive them. But every year, however misguided their big ticket nominations, the academy does at least one wonderful thing. They draw attention to short films that would otherwise go unnoticed. Do yourself a favor and head to the Gateway Film Center to catch all fifteen of these magnificent short subject works of art, starting with five brilliant and varied animated features.

The nominations this year net a variety of styles and tones. The clear frontrunner for the Oscar is Disney’s Get a Horse, the 3-D short that accompanied their popular (and prescient!) Frozen. Director Lauren MacMullen’s six minute ‘toon is a joyous ode to animation history, bridging Disney’s past with its future by mixing archival Mickey Mouse animation with modern cinematic storytelling.

At the other end of the spectrum is Ferel, a shadowy, impressionistic tale of a wild boy found by a hunter and introduced to society. Smokey images in shades of grey underscore the story’s haunting nature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vywZvg9uA

Equally haunted, though in a more literal and offbeat manner, is Shuhei Morita’s Possessions. A fix-it man travels, wares on his back, through a terrible storm. He takes shelter in an abandoned shack to witness the discarded items there come to life. It’s a lively, entertaining piece on a consume-and-discard culture.

Room on the Broom is a longer, stop-action style film aimed at a younger crowd. Simon Pegg voices the narration for the tale of a good hearted witch who never met a new friend she didn’t want to make, regardless of her cat’s preferences. It’s a sweet image of acceptance and family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhF37MpUYs

The best of the bunch, though likely not to be the winner, is the appealing Mr. Hublot. In a clattery, mechanical future world, idiosyncratic Mr. Hublot lives alone with his OCD. His days are full – straightening picture frames, turning the lights on and off, on and off, on and off. Back to straightening frames – though he can’t help but hear that abandoned, barking puppy out there in the weather. Writer Laurent Witz, along with his co-director Alexandre Espigares, creates an endearing image of familial love and acceptance with this charmer.

Every one’s a winner regardless of the final vote. Catch them while you can.

Disney Misfires without Pixar

Disney’s Planes

by Hope Madden

The tortoise and hare fable meets Top Gun in Disney’s blandly watchable gear-head adventure Planes.

Dusty the crop duster (Dane Cook) wants to fly a prestigious, international air race. His opponents mock and underestimate him, he’s afraid of heights, and he faces a coaching crisis at the worst moment. The odds he must overcome – how can he do it?!

The uninspired waste of time comes courtesy of director Klay Hall (Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure) and screenwriter Jeffrey Howard, who boasts a slew of Tinkerbell-related work. Boast may not be the right word. Together they spawn an uninspired derivative of a familiar concept.

Back in 2006, Pixar released its weakest product to that date, Cars. It was a middling effort – not a bad premise, decent cast, pleasant enough to look at. The reason it felt so disappointing was that it came from the animation genius factory that had already brought us two Toy Stories and found Nemo.

By the time the vehicular mediocrity of Cars 2 arrived, Pixar had exploded with classics WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3, and the auto sequel could not help but suffer by comparison.

Disney’s making the connection to the Pixar flick as obvious as possible without actually cribbing characters. Too bad, though, because while Cars is hardly a stellar work, a familiar face to spy in a crowd might have given this flick a glimmer of excitement. (Credit the filmmakers for including the voices of Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards just as Dusty finds himself in the danger zone.)

No real laughs, no memorable characters, no novelty, not enough conflict, no interesting villains – basically, Planes offers nothing we’ve come to expect from an industry revolutionized by Pixar. Disney should try seeing Pixar’s work as an inspiration for unique work rather than an opportunity to cash in.

Verdict-2-0-Stars