Disney Movie I've Seen the Most

            I have not been posting nearly enough this year and I want to steer back from that.  To that end I have found a 30-day blog challenge and fluffed it out to 31 entries (since December has 31 days).  I have done a 30-day challenge before for movies, though that one was poorly executed (I started it in the middle of a month, at one point I posted 2 entries on one day, it is a mess).  I did another one just this year in August on Video Games, that one was better, go read it after this one, all of it.  Or don’t, no pressure.

            Today is day 28 and the topic is “Most Watched Movie”.

Watching Stuff Pre-Internet... And Pre-DVD

Growing up there were numerous movies we had on VHS that I would watch.  “Ghostbusters” was the top of that list, but there were others that I had taped off Saturday afternoon network affiliates, like “Monster Squad” and “Swamp Thing II”.  I was really big into ghosts and monsters if you can’t tell.

(Edit: Turns Out I kind of Talked about this subject a bit back in 2011, during a different 30-day blog challenge.  I even mention the Disney movie there.)

There were also frequent rentals from the library of the animated “The Hobbit”.  There were also rentals from Blockbuster of “Transformers: The Movie” and “GI Joe: The Movie”—I should note that I am in my 30’s and am referencing the animated films, not the live action stuff that came much later.

I have also been weirdly nostalgic for a set of VHS tapes I had as a kid that were lost cartoon pilots that they would package with defunct toy lines.  Essentially they would have a concept for a toy, they would tell an animation company to whip together something—often times Marvel comics would be called to brainstorm and create comic book tie ins, most of “GI Joe” and all of “Rom Space Knight” was their doing.  I have been looking at several of those as I used to watch them all the time too. 

This show is so crap that up until a few weeks ago I thought I had dreamed it.
It should have been a line of M.A.S.K. figures, they did not have what it took to do their own thing.
And I own a VHS of it that I watched often.

The Mouse’s Contribution

The Disney movie that got fed into circulation among these others was “Aladdin”.  As I mentioned on Day 1, I grew up when VHS and Disney were just starting to team up so as to start printing money.  “Aladdin” was also getting a cartoon series, some follow up movies, and even without all that it was still one of the most beloved animated films of all time.  It is a stellar action movie even without the comedy and romance aspects, it might even contribute to my love of Dungeons and Dragons in some nascent way.

This movie is certainly not limited to my experiences growing up.  I am sure that before weirdos started fixating on Harley Quinn and Joker, Jasmine and Aladdin were many peoples’ first animated crushes.  They are good characters in a fantastic and too rarely utilized setting.  Could you imagine the avalanche of retarded complaining if today they tried to release a family’ movie that portrayed Middle Eastern characters as sympathetic, let alone making them the entire cast?

Though, showing a 300ft. tall gold plated palace that might not have indoor pluming...
That would be a good homage to Dubai's attitudes toward outrageous structures.
Also, something of note: No Minarets.

I did talk a bit about “Aladdin” already, in particular the role of Robin Williams as Genie that became the gold standard of supporting characters for Disney for the next age of films.  “Often Imitated!  But never Duplicated!-Duplicated!- Duplicated!- Duplicated!- Duplicated!- Duplicated!”  As “funny” pop culture references by magical creatures crept into numerous productions.

I still enjoy “Aladdin” as an adult, even though there are some flakes around the edges.  This was one of the earliest movies to have a big CGI sequence slapped right into an important action scene and it looks so out of place and awful that it can take you out of the moment.  But that is a minuscule detail to hold against the production.

There is an online inventory of all her outfits.
Of course there is.

             Share your own thoughts on this in the comments.  I know I am not the only person out there who is nostalgic for Disney products, and I am sure many people disagree with my selection for today’s entry. 

I picked Disney stuff just because I knew there was so much of it to talk about and it lends itself to discussion in the comments.  What Disney movie have you seen the most number of times?  Does it hold up to all the views?  Did you watch it on VHS?  Did the tape hold up to all the views?  Would you be interested in reading about me revisiting old VHS shows from my childhood?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

______________________________

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My Review of "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation"

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Score: 8/10 (I wrote this back when I was fonder of giving numerical scores)

            For a while this was my favorite movie of 2015 and if the villain had been more memorable, cut back on the adoration of Tom Cruise, get rid of the 10 words of romantic crap, and have the ending be a little different and it would have been.  None of these items are individually bad enough to sink the movie, no one of them “needs” to be fixed, but each could be fixed to elevate the movie.

            The action in “MI5” is fantastic, chases are tense and fast; the hand to hand combat feels impactful; and the buddy comedy between Simon Pegg and Tom Cruise is great (they should work together more).  I liked the female lead, she is charismatic and projects competence in what she is doing.  I liked the gadgets and jet setting around the world.  I liked nearly everything.  So now that I have pointed out the positive highlights let me flesh out my previously mentioned complaints.

The practical effects and stunts are also super fun.

            The villain is just a growling skinny guy in a suit.  His motivations for why he is doing what he is doing are never explained (yes I know WHAT he was doing, but the WHY is unclear).  He tends to kill underlings too frequently in some instances and not at other times which seems more prudent.  His first appearance shows his willingness to get his hands dirty in the field, but for most of the movie he sits in front of a laptop.  What I am saying is that he comes off inconsistent.  It doesn’t help that his actor (who I am sure is quite talented) was in “Prometheus” and that might have tainted my opinion of him.

I'm a geologist.
Sure you are sport.

           The adoration of Tom Cruise needs to be mellowed.  There is a scene in which Alec Baldwin talks for two whole paragraphs about how awesome and dangerous Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is.  It feels like something Cruise says to himself in the mirror at the end of the day as a personal pep-talk of how awesome he is.  In the movie it sounds awkward at best and it is too long.  You know what it could be shortened to?  “Ethan Hunt is a dangerous disavowed field operative who is after you, he has killed better protected people than you and infiltrated more secure locations than this.  Be afraid.”  Boom.  Done.  Less is more.

            The 10 words of romantic crap needs to be shed.  Tom Cruise is 50+, it is weird for women in their late 20's and early 30's to ask him to run away with them.  It only happens once in this movie in a scene that leaves it kind of ambiguous as to whether the offer is romantic, but it still comes off as odd.  Otherwise the female lead and Cruise have zero romantic chemistry and display zero attraction to one another.  It felt out of place.

The guns built to look like flutes and tonfas are quintessential spy gadgets.
And women wearing clothing that shows off their legs is quintessential sex appeal.
Also, the character's name is Faust.  DO YOU GET IT?

            And the ending, SPOILERS obviously.  Since the bad guys are planning to use the millions and millions of dollars in the hidden accounts to fund their own terrorist criminal activities and the US government wants to defund the IMF.  I was expecting the end of the movie to be Ethan and company using the money in the hidden accounts to fund a rogue IMF hunting down and eliminating the terrorists who had signed on to be a part of the bad guy organization.  Instead they just get reinstated by the government.

Considering how many times the IMF has been dissolved or had traitors in it, having it officially dissolved makes more sense.  And it works as a set up for the sequels.  “Mission Impossible: Freelance” sounds like a perfectly hokey title that explains exactly what they need it to.  What is more, my idea makes sense in the world.  Ethan shouldn’t want to work with the USA anymore, he has his own handpicked team, resources, an enemy, and too many reasons to resent and distrust his previous supervisors in the US.  He should want to be a white hat rather than a government triggerman.

            END SPOILERS.

My Review of "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Score: 8/10 (I wrote this back when I was fonder of giving numerical scores)

 

The movie's advertising was not very good and almost stopped me from watching it.

This was the first great movie I saw in 2015.  A well-paced action movie with lots of humor and some underlying themes that gave it some impact.  It was colorful and took itself as seriously as it needed to, and with only a few hiccups here and there that kept it from being a classic.

I feel that this movie was a true shot in the arm for the spy genre and provided another example of how Rated-R movies are financially viable when not released against a cluttered field. (This was a rather soft R in my opinion, no nudity, very little blood, it could have gone a lot further.)

Let me talk about one issue that stood out for me that I imagine most people would not have even noticed, the dog scene.  There will be spoilers for this, and since I am recommending the movie to anyone who likes rougher action comedies, stop reading here and go see the movie, that way I can complain about a minor point without you having it niggle at you while watching.

The tone can be a bit all over the place.
They really needed to settle on a level of nudity and lewdness and stick to it thru the movie.
Having an anal sex joke to punctuate the movie is a bit strange.

 SPOILERS: during the movie there is a sizable training portion to locate a new agent for the Kingsman and the recruits are required to pick a dog to raise… and you know where this is going, a classic “kill the puppy” part of the training.  Here is the issue, the test does not make sense in the context of the movie and the character traits they are looking for.  And for that matter the idea of secret agents at all.

Our hero, Eggsy is told to murder his pet with a provided firearm and chooses not to do so, it is then revealed that the gun was loaded with blanks, the test was to see if Eggsy could follow orders.  They tell Eggsy that the Kingsman never take a life without reason… But Eggsy did not know that.  The test should be whether a recruit would refuse a bad order given to them, “take a life without reason”, and the blanks would be to avoid killing the dog should the recruit follow the order which would be taking the wrong position.

The obvious right answer is, "No, I will not kill an innocent animal for no reason.

Want to know why that bothers me so much?  Because I went to a police academy and during one training exercise we are told to shoot a cut out of a person, that person is holding a coke can and is no threat.  I and 1 other person, out of a 20+ class were the only people to not shoot the harmless civilian.  YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT.

What is more the movie proving that to be the correct response, Eggsy does not follow bad orders and that allows him to thwart the bad guys.  So the test is shit.  I would mind less, but it is a plot fulcrum, there is no reason this backwards way of thinking should still be in the movie.

END SPOILERS.

Movies 2013, Action, pt2

RED 2, or "I didn't see the first one and still thought this one was pretty good, and able to stand on its own."

Overall: 6/10

I am not sure this is an actual poster cause it looks kind of shit.
Though I guess if it were fan made it would look cooler, cause they would actually care.

            The ever ballooning genre of, "Old people kicking ass".  When did this become such a thing?  I understand where the market is coming from, people who were 20-40 in the 80's who liked action movies and never really stopped.  Those people got older.  They like the idea of people their own age having agency and impact in the world, and a lot of really good actors and Bruce Willis are willing to be in these things because they like being big action heroes.

            That being said this movie is pretty good.  It has good pacing, though you can tell it is a rather direct translation from a comic book, I can practically hear a page turn when you reach the end of each issue and the next one starts.  Set up, joke, action, cliffhanger, and repeat.  Actors are good, even Willis who I guess took some uppers or something to help him get out of whatever funk he was in for "GI Joe Retaliation", and there is a lot of set up and pay off in the script with gadgets and gags.

            All of the characters are very distinct, Malkovich is the highlight being the funny crazy one; Mary Louise Parker also doing well as the audience stand in character, asking questions and trying to keep pace with the heroes.

            Best compliment I can give: I never saw the first one, and I had no trouble following this one... Though I suspect that since Morgan Freeman was in the first one's marketing a lot and is not in this one he is probably dead (the character, not Morgan Freeman) so I guess I will be less shocked than I otherwise would have been when I go back and watch the other one.  Regardless, the fact that this movie works on its own without the barrier cost of having to watch number one makes it better.

            All of those compliments out of the way, the doomsday weapon of this movie is a glorified suitcase nuke, but they talk it up a lot and it is not worth the fanfare.  Aside from the heroes, the intelligence agencies are not good at their jobs... at all.  And I am treated to yet another scene of a young world class hit man getting his ass kicked by an ever more elderly Bruce Willis, who is more than a decade older (though their ages are closer than those in "Only God Forgives").

White House Down, or "The other 'Die Hard' in the White House movie that happened this year."

Overall: 6/10

This poster is the most awesome looking, but ironically is not at all accurate.
The ones with just Tatum and Foxx are probably more on the nose.

            Much like "Pacific Rim," if you know what this movie is about and still decide to go see it then you have no right to complain about how fucking stupid it is.  That being said it is really fucking stupid.

            There is a coordinated attack in Washington by an alliance of ex-black-ops soldiers, disgruntled government security and tech people, and domestic terrorists.  The ultimate goal of each group is to either kill the black President, subvert world peace, steal tons of money (because getting away with tons of money is totally going to happen), or... something.

            The movie is a little strange in that pre-established data is retarded.  For instance, at one point the people at the Pentagon are going to destroy the White House because a super-hacker is going to seize control of weapon systems (that would be bad) but earlier in the movie it is established that blowing up the White House would be meaningless to the bunker that has the weapon control systems in it, that a direct hit by an atomic bomb would be necessary to stop it.  The only thing bombing the white house itself would do is kill the hero who is trying to stop the bad guys.  And the corniness of how that attack is resolved borders on a parody of how this sort of uber-patriotic crap usually goes (I am actually half certain that this movie is a parody of other action films).

            It is pretty funny, though James Woods is miscast, he is too old at 66 to be playing a Secret Service Agent.  The secret Service like almost all Federal Law Enforcement have a required retirement at 57, ironically Bruce Willis would have been better for the role and might have been less an obvious villain.  Tatum and Foxx are okay as a buddy team.

            Small thing: there is a minor character in this who is a tour guide in the White House and I identified with him a great deal, he mostly just spouted trivia and did his best to mitigate the situation.  I liked him.

Movies of 2013, Action, pt1

Action

GI Joe Retaliation, or "Why is the destruction of London and the murder of millions taken so in stride?"

Overall: 5/10

Also, all of the posters are awful.  They look like the covers to a generic shooter video game, this is the best one and it looks like it is advertising a discotheque.

            This movie is about as good a film as we could have possibly expected considering how shit the first one was.  And since it ties up all but one loose thread it will serve as a decent end to this current era of GI Joe on the big screen... Probably.  They might make another one.  I don't really want them to.

            The first one suffered(?) from throwing in a lot of goofy stuff that I guess would have been cool if the movie had not been about GI Joe and instead had just been about super soldiers fighting some massive corporate-terrorism scam... Even though the plot was stupid, the universe needlessly small, and the bad guys were badly executed... Come to think of it this series shares a lot of issues with the new "Star Trek" franchise but consistently has poorer direction (though better than the first one).

            Actually there are plenty of fun things in the movie, there is a massive cliff side ninja battle that is a lot of fun, if the Ninja Turtles had shown up to lend a hand and this had all been a giant set up for a shared universe between GI Joe and their future movies it would have all but redeemed the thing.  The Rock is fun, though the movie somewhat contradicts itself with his skill level and unloads (rather than fires) Chekhov's gun, the movie shows his ability with a massive firearm at the start of the film and during the climax his skill fails to hit a much larger target, I actually watched a review online that said they should have just had the Rock play himself in the tradition of real life pro-wrestlers and fictional athletes being GI Joe's (like Sgt. Slaughter and Rocky).

            But there is so much needless crap in this movie, they have Cobra Commander in it and he does nothing, they kill Destro without having ever had him standing outside of a cage.  They have Storm Shadow, who was run through in the last movie back alive without any explanation.  The climax of the film has the entire city of London totally annihilated by a space based weapon... Millions are dead... Beautiful to look at... Totally unnecessary, and actually really pissed me off because it marks the second time a major city outside the United States has suffered either near or total obliteration and it is not treated with the gravity it should.

            The film cheapens itself, cheapens its characters, and makes less and less sense in its own universe, mostly because it is just starting from a really bad place, the first movie which knee capped any chance this thing of really functioning.  Let's just let this series quietly expire in the corner, and do something else with it later, cause it isn't working.

The Lone Ranger, or "This is a really uneven movie... Which averages out in my opinion."

Overall: 6/10

There is maybe too much going on.

            Wasn't all that bad.  This movie is making a lot of, "WORST MOVIE EVAR!" lists because it has a white man playing an Indian, the titular character won't stop sucking, it is overly cynical, and the tone is all over the map.  Yeah... Can't really argue with any of that, but I am reminded of something from Shakespeare (yes I am mentioning the bard in a review of "The Lone Ranger").

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream, -Puck

 If you're wondering how he eats and breathes

And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show,
I should really just relax
For Mystery Science Theater 3000. -MST3K

             This entire movie is told from the perspective of an aging, doddering, traumatized old man... Tonto.  The framing device of the movie is Tonto telling the story of his first adventure with his friend the Lone Ranger to a young kid in a Wild West show attraction.  And you know what happens in stories told by old or silly people?  They have a hard time keeping things on track.

            Tonto throughout the story talks about things that are clearly too dark to be talking to children about, (in one scene his entire race is slaughtered in a suicide charge against the villain, and Tonto gets away, only to watch as bits of feathers and native regalia wash down a river, his society is being washed away.  Then they make a joke about how the Lone Ranger's horse acts funny... He does this because the old man Tonto is telling this story and if he dwells too long on the sad parts either he or the kid he is telling the story to is going to cry, so he breaks the tension with a joke).

            There is also the issue of the "main character".  The Lone Ranger is a naive overly optimistic fool.  At numerous opportunities he is confronted with the man who killed his brother (a man also responsible for killing a lot of Tonto's people), and rather than letting Tonto kill the guy, he fights Tonto and takes the guy in to face trial... While knowing that the system is corrupt and there is someone helping the outlaw from the inside.  Of course the Ranger gets betrayed and nearly killed.  Actually, it could be said that this movie's message is teaching one young attorney to chose the path of violence and revenge because justice is a lie constructed by the rich so as to more easily exploit those who are different from us... I can kind of get behind that message... but then they frame it as, "I used to think that you were the Wendigo (cannibal) but now I see you are just a white man."  Really, Tonto?  I know the movie could be saying that you no longer believe that some supernatural evil is to blame that regular old greed is to blame, but it makes it sound like white people are the problem rather than say... That guy who did the crime...  That kind of pissed me off, we are supposed to be past that level of liberal guilt.

I also liked the bird hat and the mystic weirdness.  It was certainly memorable.
Rather than ANOTHER iteration of these characters, they had their own iteration of these characters.

            There is also another scene in which a military commander who was tricked into killing a lot of innocent people refuses to believe that he was tricked, and just up and decides to be a bad guy (metaphor for American military?)  I guess they could be saying that rather than admit that killing Indians is wrong we all just bought into the idea that they had it coming?  This movie throws a lot of stuff out there with themes and ideas, but it does so in the context of some old guy talking about how shit people were/are.

            Could have cut some stuff to make it work better, it was too long, really the whole framing device of old Tanto was stupid and overly cynical, and the bad guys make lots of bad decisions. But, there were a lot of fun gags, a lot of good action, the costuming was good, and the dialogue never felt forced or unrealistic. The movie was okay. Solidly okay... So long as you take it on its own terms.  It certainly was not one of the worst films of the year. Nor was it nearly as bad as people led me to believe.

            Basically, whenever the theme kicks in, I felt myself getting caught up in the action and excitement.