Brave

Did Barry Norman ever say: 'Hello, I'm Barry Norman'? I can't remember.

Anyway, I'm not Barry Norman, but here is my review of the current movie scene, film fans. I'm sure Barry Norman never said anything remotely resembling that, but I need to distract myself from the shambles that is Manchester City at the moment (despite - finally - the sale of Adrian Bayor, we still have Roque Santa Cruz on staff, so things will never be right while that state of affairs continue, if you ask me. If Liverpool hadn't insisted on Keystone Cops style defending, we wouldn't have got a point out of that) and present you with my review of the latest Pixar offering: Brave, which I went to see with the kids yesterday.

Wood Green is never the most salubrious of locations, and I have to say that my mood before going into the cinema wasn't lightened by an encounter with a group of rude and aggressive people outside the doors of the Mall, where the Cineworld 12 screen complex is located. I'm ashamed to say that I was so disconcerted by the behaviour displayed by this bunch of yahoos that I called them a word which I don't normally use, and of which I definitely don't approve. Mind you, I didn't say it very loud, because I wasn't keen on getting my head kicked in.

Which, I suppose, doesn't make me very brave, unlike the heroine of the piece on the big screen. There have been mutterings about comfortable corporate interference in the Pixar brand with this latest piece, which I'm sure the House of Mouse will carefully consider once it has finished banking the $67 million from its opening weekend and the other several million dollars from subsequent weekends, weekdays, consumer products, etc, etc... Sniffy references to Scottish stereotypes and cheap kilt gags are all very well, but me and the kids enjoyed it, so there.

In all seriousness, I think Disney need to be careful with the stupendous Pixar brand, because it really does have something special, and although I don't think any serious damage has been done with this, there are some troubling signs in the film's edging towards the more traditional Disney animation style of film. Some tremendous sequences were negatively balanced by exaggerated blocky characterisation.

Some talk has been expelled (who knows whether the Disney PR machine is responsible for this crap. It wouldn't surprise me) about Merrida being a lesbian because she doesn't want to marry any of the Jocko parody men laid before her as suitors. I call bullshit on this one, and would say that the story is ultimately a simple one about compromise and family love, given added weight by throwing in a witch and a giant psychotic bear. Hugely enjoyable nonetheless, and wonderfully enhanced by Billy Connolly's reference to Tatty Bogle (who featured in my formative years thanks to the Scottish fiancee of my City supporting uncle John)  in the opening few minutes.

Recommended ****.

Reg

I write in tribute to an old friend - Reg - who has not, let me hasten to add, shuffled off this mortal coil just yet. Though he has endured a slightly littler death, i.e., retirement. If my rudimentary maths are correct, Reg has just achieved 40 years of service at the House of Mouse, retiring last week. I feel bad because I was (at least partly down to laziness on my behalf; though there are other reasons - to do with a sense of inadequacy after my being made redundant from there - for my unwillingness to make the pilgrimage to Hammersmith) unable to attend the party.

Reg is a man of true heart and soul, and I feel privileged to have made his acquaintance. Historian, writer, romanticist, fixer, boozer and carer. Viking, alternative universe-dweller, Terry Pratchett fan, Baloo the Bear costume wearer and (not quite. But this is what makes us human, the 'not quite' bit, isn't it?) all-around good guy.

Reg is a human. Long may he reign.

Jonah

Wherever I've worked, I always seem to have been haunted by some issue or other. A problem without a satisfactory resolution.



When I was at Channel 4, it was a noisy air-con unit which used to cause the occupants of the floor it serviced to complain daily. We could not - despite throwing inordinate amounts of time and money at it - seem to make it stop. I even resorted to working among the complaining group to see if I could pin-point the cause of the problem. But to no avail. As far as I'm aware, the unit is still screeching away now, and the good folk of Legal Administration (or whatever the fuck department it was) are still phoning in daily to moan about it.

Prior to this, there were a couple of things during my reign at Disney which made my life a living hell. One was a scenic lift. It persistently intermittently and inexplicably broke down, occasionally with some high-flying (no pun intended) executive or other trapped in it. I can look back on this sorry tale now and laugh (unlike the poor claustrophobic executive, sad to say) but at the time I suffered many a sleepless night over it, I have to tell you.



Worse than that - far worse - was a cracked window. It may not seem a huge deal, but this window was gigantic. Approximately 8ft square, located on the 8th floor, above the Hammersmith flyover. JG Ballard could have written my CV if anything had gone wrong with replacing that damned thing, and it took an absolute age to get it done. I remember that there were quite a number of broken windows in the building, and great efforts were expended to find out what had caused this odd fracturing, though there was some hesitation when it came to committing to the huge sums of money necessary in order to (possibly) resolve it.

I can recall an expert who came to look at the problem with me. He and I were looking at one particular office with a broken window. There was a female manager sitting there at that time, but she was not at her desk when we arrived. We deliberated, digested and cogitated for a few moments, with the requisite amount of chin stroking and inside jokes. And then she walked in.

"Hi Carol." I said (for it was she)

"Oh, hello," said my erstwhile companion. "We've just been admiring your cra..."

I have one or two extant situations for the final bizarre couple of weeks remaining at my current place of employment, mostly involving pigeons and leaks, but the biggest bloody sea bird adorning my neck, Flavor Flav style, is a lazer blue bastard, draped around there from an early age, and hanging around like a bad smell ever since.

Counter-strike

With thanks to www.quinn.echidna.id.au/.../index.html for this stunning and very depressing image.

Conscious as I am of the - shall we say - lack of effort in my last post (though I stand by my right to sing a paean to the boys from Charterhouse, who were such an important part of my teenage years, I do admit that a little more time could and should have gone into the piece) I will now attempt an immediate rebuff with a review of Disney/Pixar's latest offering - Wall.e, which I saw yesterday afternoon. I may well end up dropping a spoiler or two, so please be warned.

Much has been made of this movie, backed up of course with the usual juggernaut of House of Mouse publicity, and having watched it for myself now, I can see where some of the more thoughtful reviewers were coming from. As we have come to expect with the Pixar crowd, the quality is superb (though still somewhat lacking in its depiction of humans) with some truly stunning scenes for us all to enjoy. The film is also immensely brave by modern standards, with the first 30 minutes or so capturing a post-apocalyptic world of discarded waste and the tiny details of the life of the waste collecting robot - Wall.e - as he continues his 700 year long 'directive' of compacting and stacking the massive quantities of rubbish thrown away by the long-departed human race. There is no dialogue for (I think) 23 minutes, and some very touching moments illustrating the utter loneliness of Wall.e's life, by the use of (of all things) Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly.

The logo of the mega corporation Buy 'n' Large is everywhere, from shopping malls to railway stations and airports. It even supplants the President's seal in a TV broadcast - given by the CEO of the company. All of this is superb, and gives the film a bleak and sinister feel, though this is leavened by a good bra gag, and some cute moments with the cockroach sidekick. All in all, extremely promising, and not exactly what you would expect from a mainstream movie of this kind.

My youngest, who is seven, said that she thought this was not a movie for children, and I tended to agree at that point, though there came a noticeable change after about 40 minutes. Eve, the sleek iPod to Wall.e's SE, arrives and - needless to say - catches the eye of the little rubbish collector. There are some stand out moments of what I suppose you would call courtship between the two robots and then we end up on board the Axiom, which is the equivalent of one of the Golgafrinchan arks from H2G2, equipped as it is with the long-departed Earthers, who have been sitting in a gas nebula waiting for the home planet to heal itself, growing immensely fat (though not as fat perhaps as the current US population) and increasingly insular as they hover around on their electric chairs, their every whim attended to by an army of robots. An unanswered question for me is: what happened to the poor people? Could everyone afford to go aboard in this capitalist society? I think not, and it would I think have been far more intriguing to have explored this angle.

There has been some criticism of the film's premise from some on the right in the US, which - surprisingly - I find myself agreeing with. It's as if the director chickened out and opted for a softer direction as the Ark returned to earth (thanks to a rebellion led by Wall.e and Eve, natch, with a fairly disappointing HAL story line to boot) to start all over again, producing, consuming and dumping. What's to stop this new earth ending up the same as the old one?

Is it really likely at the end of the day that Disney is going to send out a message of moderation whilst pushing 15 billion tons of Chinese made plush on the back of each release? Sad to say, it all ended up feeling a little hollow.

Vintage fun

I said that I would revisit the animation theme, and compile a top ten of animated films made up to, but not later than, 1994. So here goes.


Now, we all know that Disney is a behemoth, an evil beast intent on world domination via mountains of plush and big round eyes, but, and I mentioned some of their films before, they have made some belters. Any list of animated movies up to 2000 is absurdly heavily weighted in their direction, and this in spite of some of the awful crap (I loved L&TT when I was a kid, mostly because of the Tramp character, I think, but it looks very poor now. There's something horrible about a woman called Darling Dear, don't you think?) they've generated alongside the pearls. There are, or at least were, in truth, few other film makers in the field in genuine competition, though I have striven to include a couple, and I have again not referenced the art house sector (apologies) but I think this is a lineup to grace anyone's video on demand collection.
So, without further ado, here, again in a reverse order kind of way, is my top 10 'vintage' animation movie list.

10. At number 10, I had a few candidates, and I found it quite tough as to which one I should call at the end of the day, so I apologise if this explanation is longer than those which will follow. In the end it was a toss-up between An American Tail and The Lord of The Rings. There are two non Disney entries here, for the sake of some attempt at balance in the list. Let's start with LOTR. I am a confirmed fantasist, as many of my friends will testify, and have been a Tolkien acolyte for some time. I listened to the LOTR Radio 4 serialisation, and I even read the bloody book, which would definitely be out of the question these days. I really liked this rotoscope film, with an excellent Gandalf and some very scary ring wraiths, but it was of course seriously compromised by the fact that it was only half finished. For that reason, it has to be consigned to the outer reaches of the chart. So that leaves An American Tail, which I think is a charming enough film. It was refreshing in itself in those days just to see a cartoon that was not made by Disney, and there is in addition an almost gothic feel to the animation style, somewhat similar to that of Basil the Great Mouse Detective. Little Fievel also tugs at the heart strings, doesn't he?

9. There are an awful lot of reasons to be angry with my next choice of film (the film, not the choice, already) as it is definitely saccharine coated and takes helluva liberties with the original story. But, Jeffrey Katzenberg had a knack of making stuff that pleased the audience, and there are so many moments of genuine warmth, and lots of fantastic songs, so that you would have to have a heart of stone, etc, etc... I refer of course to The Little Mermaid.

8. Rags, riches, witches (or at least fairy godmothers), princes, wishes, pumpkins, mice. It's all there. In glorious colourama. Cinderella! A small stolen gripe - such small feet, it's not natural.


7. A little more balance next, with the (and I choose my words carefully here) markedly English adaptation of Watership Down. This was a school text for me at the age of 12-13, and many of the boys in my school were sad enough to actually start speaking the rabbit language. Yes friends, they really did go for silflay in the school hall, and hraka in the school toilets. Frith! What's not to love about John Hurt and Richard Briers, even if Keehar is somehow worse in the film than he is in the book?

6. On we go, just about to nudge the top 5, and my next choice prolly would satisfy the vintage tag. It seems an odd story, perhaps because its original meaning was expropriated (following even earlier thefts to avert unhappy endings) by Comrade Walt, but it is strangely compelling. Some of the morals are easy enough to see, such as the value of education, and the duty we owe to our parents, but the overall moralising effect is rather vague. I speak of no less than Pinocchio. Stromboli is wonderfully ferocious, and I love the opening sequence as Geppetto's workshop is revealed and Jiminy Cricket introduces the story to us.


5. Into the top half, cartoon fans, and the 'one that started it all', Snow White And the Seven Dwarfs. It seems a little dated now, but not so much, considering it is 70 (!) years old, and - let's get picky - Snow White's voice and general demeanour are rather irritating. But other than that, it really is dazzling. It deserves its place as 'culturally significant' in the history of American film-making. The step-mother is great, as are all the cute little creatures of the forest.

4. In at Number 4 (and it's Disney all the way from here on in, folks) is that Middle Eastern mirthfest known as Aladdin. Robin Williams as the genie, the suave but dark Jafar, cheap gags, treasure, derring-do. Ya gotta love it. Right after the break, we're gonna hit the top 3.

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3. Welcome back! Now we're in the end zone. Hold on to your hats. There has been a difference of opinion on this one, but overall, I really like it. Great compositions, dazzling animation effects, and a heroine who reads books. You know what I'm talking about, girlfriend. It's Beauty And The Beast. Oh yeah. Gaston is funny and scary. A true psychotic.

2. I'm sure the suspense must be killing you. It is me. To redress the balance, I am forced to put this movie into Number 2 spot. It is uneven, Bob Hoskins is a bit of a spanner, etc, but just for bringing together Looney Tunes and Disney alone the film deserves every plaudit. Ladies and gentle-bunnies, put your paws together for...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

1. I'm a sentimental soul, this cannot be denied. I am aware of criticism that the animation is flat, and have noticed Mowgli's feet floating above the vines, but I can't help it. There is no other movie for me. I saw Daniel Radcliffe in the recent drama about Kipling, and I have eaten the cakes and even (yes really) read the book(s). Still I am in love. Look for the Bear Necessities of the mightiest animated movie ever. I give you...

The Jungle Book.

animation

disney

Animated

I have a friend who says he doesn't like animated films. The subject arose as a result of my visit to the local Odeon to see the latest Pixar outing, Ratatouille ("rat.a.too.ee" - how annoying is that? Are we really so dumb that we can't pronounce that word?)

Anyhoo, some of the reviews I've read were very complimentary about the film (in particular of Peter O'Toole, and who can argue with that?) saying (yet again) that it was as good as Toy Story. How many times that's been said I don't care to remember, and so far - including Ratatouille - it has proved to be false. So I took the kids along and was a little disappointed.

Don't get me wrong - this is an accomplished film, IMO - with some goodish gags, nice animation and reasonable characters. I'm not sure about the female love interest, and the fat brother could do with further development, if you see what I mean. He's fat. Ha ha. It just doesn't reach the heights of perfection that TS (and to a slightly lesser extent TS2) achieved. There are a couple of reasons for this, I think.

Notwithstanding the Great Mr O'Toole's performance, the idea of an arch-villain (I know that he doesn't end up as an arch-villain - hoping I'm not dropping a spoiler here - but he does take that role until just before the end) being a critic doesn't really curdle the blood or shiver the spine in the way that an arch-villain should. Think of Sid. No food critic he.

Second, and this is endemic these days, the film was too damn' long. Second act syndrome badly effected the pacing, and like most modern animations (and even live action) movies, it could and should have ended at least half an hour earlier than it did. I don't feel that it's right that I'm itching to get out of the cinema when I'm watching a children's movie.

But, it was better than The Incredibles (what's the point of that film?) better than Finding Nemo (good moments, not strong enough over the entire length) not as good as Monsters Inc... wait... Not only is this a little Pepsi Blue (and do Disney Pixar, like, need any more promotion?) I think it would also benefit from a little listifying.

So here, in reverse order, are my top 10 modern (since 1994, so that excludes Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Beauty & The Beast - all good) and mainstream animated movies. Classics (this term does not include Oliver & Company, no matter what it says on the DVD packaging) are a whole other bottle of bees and for another day. As for my animation unfriendly friend. Pshaw! The films listed are at least as good as any live action movie, so there!

10. Small Soldiers. Scary. I like the bit where the dolls are climbing all over the girl, and the sinister corporation element is always a winner for me, no matter what the film.

9. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. There are a couple of annoying things about this, namely the smudgy finish to Quasimodo's face and in particular his all-American voice and demeanour. However the darkness of Frollo is genuinely dark, he is a well rounded villain. And the early scene with Quasimodo's mother is wonderfully done.

8. Wallace & Grommit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. English. Great gags. I'm extremely saddened that the Nick Park venture with Dreamworks didn't take off in the US, because we are talking pure quality. Nuff said.

7. Antz. Woody Allen. Bit of Ovitz digging at Mouschwitz. I need to watch it again.

6. Ice Age. Apart from Sid's too zany face (you don't have to try that hard, guys) this has some tremendous slapstick moments, a brilliant running gag with the squirrel, and a decent villain. Close contender with No. 5.

5. Monsters Inc. Some pointless filling I felt, but overall a real barrel of laughs. The door concept is superbly realised, and Billy Crystal excels.

4. Two in a row, followed by two in a row. Shrek 2. What's not to like about Mike Myers? Not even the Cat in the Hat. Although a little more mannered than the first in the franchise, it's still a stand-up film.

3. Shrek. Rightly generating a franchise. Having seen all three, the deterioration hasn't been too terrible at all. Shrek makes me laugh. A lot.

2. Not in the best tradition of Sir Jimmy Saville, I have removed the suspense from this countdown with my earlier comments. At Number 2 is the mighty Toy Story 2 (please read that link. There are some seriously crazy people in the USA, and the pastiche is not too far off the reality, I can assure you). Where it falls behind its even more illustrious forerunner is hard to define. I used to think it was to do with the music, but I love Jessy's song. Perhaps it's the overly retro nature of the Woody franchise... In any case, I'm splitting hairs.

1. Now then, now then guys and gals. In with a bullet, and not likely to be dislodged for some time yet, in a Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way... It's... Disney Pixar's timeless masterpiece... Toy Story. I thank yew.

disney

animation

The Decline of Horror

Picture from The Hollywood News

I read an article in today's Grauniad which really pissed me off. Don't worry, I don't intend to launch into the church again - there's quite enough discussion on that front at the moment - although in some ways those weirdos are again behind the whole thing.

What I'm really incensed about is the creep of censorship, the insidious ways in which those who deem themselves better than us are controlling what we can watch, what we can read or listen to, and even how we can celebrate.

Now, as reported in the article I link to above, two major supermarkets (Sainsbury's and Asda - neither of which I would be seen dead [hurr-hurr] in anyway) are no longer going to sell traditional, horror-based stuff for Halloween, focusing instead on 'alternative items' - such as hair braids for god's sake - following representations from the Church of England. These idiots apparently want to see Halloween as a celebration of the victory of good over evil, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

I detect common cause with the ever-anodyne Disney corporation. There's something creepy, something that makes me uneasy about Disney versions of Halloween costumes - perhaps more than any other of the commercialised, sanitized dross marketed to kids these days. Princesses have nothing whatsoever to do with the tradition of Halloween, and should be banned from the event all together. Am I alone in wanting to pull out a .44 Magnum when I see Disney's (NOT AA Milne's) Piglet peeking out from behind a Jack-o'-Lantern? And as for that execrable Lumpy... well, don't get me started, that's all.

When I was young, we used to hear about American rituals through the imported kids stuff we'd get, but we did things differently ourselves. I read with interest that the custom of Trick or Treating started in the British Isles, thinking of it as very much a Stateside thing. For me, it was the Guy Fawkes Emmanuel Goldstein-fest. We saved up our money-raising/ begging/ menacing of the old folks for the run-up to bonfire night (which of course has a considerably longer pedigree for us inhabitants of these Northern Isles) stuffing newspaper into some old clothes and standing next to it on street corners, or - if you were moved on by some local Biffa Bacon - pushing the rubbish effigy from door to door in an effort to raise much-needed funds for Mojos, etc. Though bastardised, and somewhat to my chagrin, the Trick or Treat ritual - with a heavy American accent - is strongly re-asserting itself now, if slightly dampened as a result of the rampant fear of paedophilia that permeates everything these days.

All of this milquetoast shite is symptomatic of the censorship malaise we are currently suffering from. Sky Movies is not - quite - the most infuriating example, although their 'guidelines' or whatever bollocks they choose to call them, are not just handed down from the bbfc - they also apply their own ratings. So, the Dirty Digger and his orcs are presuming to tell me whether or not one of their programmes is suitable for me to watch. They even put pictures of guns or syringes and crap like that on screen to 'help me make an informed choice'. The bastards.

Far worse are the po-faced little warnings on film trailers - even on utterly harmless fare like Ice Age or some such - telling us that the film contains scenes of 'mild peril'. Will somebody please tell me, in the name of Astarte, WHY? What possible purpose can such a warning serve? The film-makers have already subjected themselves to censorship in the making of the film, with the legal might of the studio then checking it out before release. All of this in order not to risk offending that freak Michael Powell at the FCC. (It has always bugged me, BTW, that his father pronounces his name 'Coal-in'. What's wrong with good old-fashioned Colin?) I am an adult, quite a childish one admittedly, but an adult nonetheless. I can make up my own mind, thank you very much.

Green

Picture from the Guardian Steve Bell section. I bought a t shirt with the design from these people, who sell lots of others as well. Cool.

Not naming any names, but a company I used to work for was a firm believer in business travel for its workforce. I was based in its European head office in London, and many of the middle and senior staff within the lines of business would travel to Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Milan and Madrid on a regular basis. Latterly, the 'emerging markets' were increasingly on the radar, and Budapest and Moscow (interesting to note that an HIV test is required for a business visa of longer than 3 months' duration for Russia) were added to the list.

Executives would make reasonably frequent trips to - again, not naming any specifics - the West Coast of the US. As I worked in Facilities Management, our department was a cost to the business (quite a significant one) and always in obeisance to the money masters and mistresses. "Budgets are tight!" the cry would always go up, "Tom (made up name) has told us that we have to come in flat, or even under, year on year." There were dire warnings that if we overspent in any area, no matter what, cuts would have to be made elsewhere.

All of these jeremiads were of course pure bullshit, and insulting to the intelligence of a trained baboon, but we played the game all of us, sombrely nodding our heads as we read yet another press release on the revenues, profits and share options of the company, whilst being unable to spend 5K on that essential chiller maintenance and made to look like a twat because of it. But there is no bitterness, as I'm sure is evident from this post, just a sense of confusion.

The head of our team - of our cost centre if you like - was a frequent business traveller and would journey to all of the cities above, sometimes as often as once each week. Or else he would hop from one to the other, spending a day, or even less, at each office. I'm not saying that his considerable talents weren't always strictly necessary in an in-the-flesh sense. Far from it. Though I did once travel with him to one of the offices (each of which, BTW, had its own manager or sometimes even a director) to assist with an office move. This activity is perhaps unique in an FM's worklife, in that a hands-on approach is often required to ensure that all the crap that can go wrong gets put right. Most of the rest of the time, like nearly everyone else, FMs are just, well, doing email basically. So, on this particular trip (where I made the mistake of going into Amsterdam for an evening with my friend James) what did our esteemed leader do? Email. Lots and lots of email.

Surely, in this age of video- and web-conferencing, in this age of the virtual presence, in this age of environmental consciousness, there's no need for all that air travel? Isn't it morally and financially corrupt to expend the vast amounts of money and CO2 involved? But then again, what the hell do I know?