My blog is mostly movie reviews and whatever random story idea I post a chapter at a time. Though sometimes I also talk about politics, my dreams, or anything else on my mind.
This was
inspired by a friend of mine who came to mind when I read this poem, “Heat”
by Denis Johnson.As always I am
hesitant to say, “I wrote this about you,” as that always feels a bit forward.
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If you like or hate this please take
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My eyes resting on peaks of a beauty, sweet and timid
Holding up myself tight of grip, both hard and rigid
Deeply felt and Heaven calling,
Too quickly spent, though enthralling
Hot and happy, but not calming
More time solicited via palming
Time and time again,
Until no more could I extend
Finishing with a gasp
Oh Heaven, why can I not fix a clasp
To hold this woman, with a lasting grasp?
Why a nod, and then a turn?
Why part when we both burn?
Why? Please. Cannot we learn?
Our time does bring smile’s gleam
Should all this be left, just as a dream?
______________________________
If you like or hate this please take
the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link
to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
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 beforefor 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 onVideo
Games, that one was better, go read it after this
one, all of it. Or don’t, no pressure.
Today is
day 24 and the topic is “Most Overrated Movie”.
I almost gave this to “James and
the Giant Peach” but then I recalled that a good 20% of that movie is in live
action and decided that DQ’d the mean spirited thing. I only went for it initially so I wouldn’t
keep talking about the same damn thing again.
The ultra-mega hit that so dominated the world that they are redoing the
theme parks to better incorporate the IP into them. Who has a song that everyone has heard a million times—because the song is the best thing in the movie. Of course I am talking about “Frozen”.
BUT I’M TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT
“Frozen”. I can’t even turn this into a
top 5 in an interesting way, or find some new angle to come at the topic. Disney is a pretty up-front about itself company
and I can’t really scratch any deeper on this.
“Frozen” has awful bad guys, mediocre protagonists, stupid decisions
driving the plot, and while the animation at first struck me as awesome—the
snow looks great—it did not hold up to scrutiny as the character models
(especially the women) are interchangeable and the houses look almost like doll
houses (They look fake in the sense that they were poorly animated).
This thing made a billion
dollars. It is in the top 50 for
animated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. IT
IS A MERCHANDISING EMPIRE ALL ITS OWN. I
can’t see a movie with a greater disparity between its quality and the amount
of praise it received. IT WON BEST
ANIMATED FEATURE.
Blergh…
What about
high hopes? While “Frozen” was reworked
around some ideas (it has actually been workshopped since Walt was alive) I
don’t think that Disney thought it would be the titan that it is. What did they imagine to be their crowning
achievement that amounted to little?
What was the most overrated by the company that ultimately
underperformed because of inflated expectations? Well, the answer is just around the riverbend.
At the time
of its creation “Pocahontas” was being seen as the sort of classic, “we’ve done
this right before, we’ll do it right again” romance that would certainly be the
hit of its era. Animators jumped ship
from working on “The Lion King” to work on what was sure to be the more
successful project. Jeffery Katzenberg,
one of the most important and powerful entities in all of animation held this
belief. IT WAS A RARE MISSED MARK FOR
HIM.
I am a
child that grew up in the 90’s, and if there is one thing I remember about
going to school in the 90’s it was the ever present specter of white guilt that
hovered over all of the curriculum of the era.
I remember learning all of the different tribes of North America in
elementary school, how there were longhouses, teepees, and the sandstone Pueblo
housing in the south west. I recall
learning about gender roles, property rights, some of the managerial styles of
tribal life. I went to field trips that
emphasized Indian mounds.
In Middle School we spent so much time
dwelling on the Trail of Tears, by which I mean I learned that it was a sad and
morally repugnant event in history, but I couldn’t tell you the year it
happened, the events that led up to it, the events that followed, or who was
president at the time, but I knew white people should feel bad about it. It was a shallow view of history to say the
least and I would even say it made me more of a bigot growing up. You know what fought back against that idea? The positive and inclusive steps pop-culture
was taking to make minorities more prevalent and respected, which is why I don’t
bitch about it now when they cast minority actors in more and more blockbuster movies.
Keep in
mind I know that my white forefathers were absolute bastards toward the Native
Americans, and that there were many tribes and cultures that populated the
Americas before they got there, but the strange BS mysticism and reverence of a
vague Native American spiritualism that sprung up and the odd revulsion toward
the explorers and pioneers of white America, that was doing no one any
favors. “Pocahontas” has that shit in
spades.
"What the hell tree has purple leaves?" -Pocahontas
There are a
few good—albeit preachy—songs to complement the flowing animation, but overall
you should NOT make a movie about the longest term genocide in history and
frame it as a bullshit simplistic miscommunication between two people because
of WANTING GOLD. Ultimately the tension
is resolved by… I honestly have no idea.
No substantial resolution to the underlying tensions are reached. You can point to Pocahontas stopping the execution,
but that didn’t answer any of the issues that still existed… Which I guess is a
good explanation for why the Indians would ultimately be wiped out.
“Pocahontas”
is not the cultural touchstone that “The Lion King” became, and compared to
“Beauty and the Beast”, who it was emulating—with an epic romance and tons of
sidekicks— “Pocahontas” is a joke. I am
sorry, but the best romances are about strong FLAWED characters going thru arcs
via contact with one another and becoming better people. Having two perfect characters—John Smith and Pocahontas
are annoyingly flawless—politely talk out the issues existing between two sides
in a war because they want to bone each other IS NOT GOOD DRAMA.
"Want to see if my carpet matches my drapes?" asked Jon. "What's carpet? What're drapes?" asked the mysterious native woman. "Oh yeah, gonna have to use different pick up lines in this country," realized John.
There are
about a trillion tumblr nerds wanting to talk about how this movie is sexist or
racist but you can ignore all of that because the real problem as far as I am
concerned is how flat everything is. Pocahontas
is a pretty princess whose biggest concern when not frolicking in the forest is
that she is being pressured to marry a guy who is noble, good looking, and
liked by her entire community.
Boo-fuckity-hoo. John Smith is
the swarthy adventurer who has seen the world and conquered it all with his
good looks, skill, and bravery, the guy probably has a trail of bastards and
broken hearts from Cairo to Santiago.
I’m having déjà vu as it is another case of Boo-fuckity-hoo. NEITHER OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANYTHING TO OVERCOME!
I don’t even
know these characters’ motivations.
Let’s compare a few protagonists from other movies.
Belle, “I want to see the world,
the one beyond the little village I live in”.
How does she do this? “All I can
afford is to read books about that world”.
Hercules, “I want to prove myself
worthy of my birthright as a god”. How
does he do this? “I will fight evil,
protect the innocent, and bring glory to my name.”
Rapunzel, “I want to go
outside.” How does she go about
this? “I go outside as soon as I have a—let’s
call him ‘willing’—guide so that I will be relatively safe.”
"Tangled" sure as hell has a greater grasp on the idea of romance than "Pocahontas".
These Characters have goals and do
things to accomplish those goals. What
is the goal of each of the leads in “Pocahontas”? I don’t know.
What do their actions indicate might be their goal? Getting some strange from an ethnicity they
haven’t been with before. Capital. Wonderful protagonists.
Whatever.
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. So please, tell me how
my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon
movies is objectively right.
______________________________
If you like or hate this
please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
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 beforefor 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 onVideo
Games, that one was better, go read it after this
one, all of it. Or don’t, no pressure.
Today is
day 20 and the topic is “Favorite Romantic Moment”.
Funnily enough, I hinted at the
existence of this when I wrote the blog about the 5 types of love present in
Disney songs, but I did not include this moment on that list specifically
because it was a blending of multiple categories and as such it beat the others—in
my opinion—for most romantic moment.
One of these things is not like the others. Who in the world made this montage? Did they even see all these movies?
This is not to say my pick is the best
song—though it is quite good.
This is not to say my pick is in the
best movie—though it is better than its reputation implies.
This is not to say these are the
best characters—though I really do like the two of them.
THIS IS, a combination of elements
that I feel yields a greater whole.
“I see the Light” from “Tangled” is
the most romantic moment in a Disney movie.
At the time I saw this movie I considered it one of the most beautiful I
had ever seen. It is really pretty, and
this scene in particular was a big reason why.
There are thousands of paper lanterns flying thru the air. It’s fucking gorgeous!
What is more, this moment is a
strong culmination point for each character. The nature of the lanterns has been a mystery
for Rapunzel her whole damn life and now she comes to see it up close, and the
romantic part is that she is still looking at the guy she bribed into taking
her there. The two characters have moved
from rivals, to friends, and are now falling into deeper levels of affection. It is 3 out of the 5 types of love that I
listed on my top list: Swept Away, Making the Move, and True Love. That is great!
There is
something else I was going to put in here about the nature of romance, but I
decided to push it back into its own thing.
Maybe write it up in January. It
is a bit out of tone with the rest of the series… and I realize that I have
talked about racial stereotypes which is definitely out of tone. But, it is kind of something else.
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. So please, tell me how
my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon movies
is objectively right.
______________________________
If you like or hate this
please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
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 a30-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 10 and the topic is “Best Love Song”.
I am going
to start off by saying, there are lots of these and they are near universally
good. The reason I start with that is I
also have to point out that the songs skew HEAVILY toward romantic love and
neglect almost entirely friendship and familial love as things to sing about—there
are plenty of songs about friends, but not about loving a friend.
To that end
I decided to look at what I feel are the 5 most iconic songs about romantic
love, a top 5 list in no particular order seemed like a great idea. Then I recognized a fun quirk about each of
the five, they each emphasized a different stage/aspect of romantic love so I
decided to put them in that order.
Trepidation
From “Hercules” you have “I won’t say I’m in Love”
This song
captures the hesitation related to entering a new relationship, in this case
those feelings issue from having been hurt previously—or in other cases just
being scared of entering into a new relationship.
The best aspect is that the song is
presented in a statue garden that presents numerous instances of a romantic
ideal—a modern Western heteronormative ideal that is, in real Ancient Greece
there would have been a lot more sculptures of gay wrestling—so even while
surrounded by depictions of love and having the muses singing with her about
the subject she is still trying to keep her emotional walls up. She fails, but still.
(If you want to learn more about
Aphrodite, the love goddess barely appearing in the movie about Greek gods and
has a subplot about romance, watch this video, it also talks about the Greek
ideas about love.)
Swept Away
From “Aladdin” we have “A Whole New World”
We have
moved on from being afraid, both in this blog and in the movie, “Aladdin”. Jasmine has been resistant to suitors and Aladdin
has met that resistance as best he can with charm and wonder and… well, if a
princess showed up to my house with a parade and then took me on a magic carpet ride (Euphemisms! They’re great!) I
think my resistance to entering a relationship would melt away too. Allowing yourself to be swept up in the
charms and taking your emotional barricades down is important to starting up an
emotional journey.
It was my favorite Disney song for
a long time because I think it captures the emotions they are going for
perfectly, both in the animation capturing the rises and falls—subtext(!)—and the
nature of the duet starting off as an invitation, answering with acceptance,
and then coupling. It’s great.
Making the Move
From “The Little Mermaid” there’s “Kiss the Girl”
While the
previous two have either trepidation or breaking thru trepidation at the start
of a relationship this song takes place during a relationship that is going
from quasi-platonic and flirty to full on romantic. And the song is full on about reading signals
and making moves. Which can be difficult.
Not
everyone is taught how to seal the deal and not nearly enough people know when
you should be trying to. This song is
about that little voice in your head telling you to do it because being around
this person is making you so emotionally charged that every noise in your vicinity
starts to sound like music.
Sexual Chemistry
In “The Lion King” they have “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”
First and
only song on this list that is non-diegetic, aside from the opening and closing
by Timon and Pumbaa—and you can cut those elements from the song without losing
the meat of it—all of the singing that is done by Simba and Nala takes place
within their own heads while most of the music comes from an unseen chorus. But that aspect is not all that important to
what the song is really about.
This song
is about sex. Unlike the other songs
about romance, this song is about sex framed in a romantic sense. It is not even all that sub textual, at one
point in the song he gets he gets her wet and she is shocked by it.
Go ahead and tell me there is nothing symbolic about this!
DO IT!
True Love
“Beauty and the Beast” has the most aptly titled “Beauty and
the Beast”
Moving past
all the previous entries there is one final aspect that needs to be covered,
the romantic ideal. This song
contextualizes the romance between Belle—Her name means Beauty, You Get IT!?—and
the Beast as “story old as time, song as old as rhyme”. This is not just their relationship it is THE
relationship. The bad boy who will only
be good to the one girl, the shut off girl who will only open up to the one
boy.
While the
previous songs see the object of the affection as some sort of ideal that they
are distant from.
“Who d'you think you're kidding? He's the earth and heaven to you” -Muses from
“Hercules”
“A whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew!” -Jasmine from “Aladdin”
“Sitting there across the way, she don’t got a lot to say,
but there’s something about her” -Sebastian from “The Little Mermaid
“Why won’t he be the King I know he is; the King I see
inside?” -Nala, from “The Lion King”
But this
song is about Belle and Beast’s relationship starting from a completely different
point and moving into romance organically allowing them to see each other as
who they are rather than what they imagine the other person to be. They are in love on a deeper level. It is what the whole movie is about, seeing
someone for who they are beyond appearances.
I am, admittedly, taking the exact opposite perspective most comedically oriented people do on this movie.
I mean, the old and tired joke is about Stockholm Syndrome.
“Barely even friends, then somebody bends, Unexpectedly.”
-Ms. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast”
There is
one other song I could have included that blends elements of these and that complexity
I think elevates it, so it will get its own entry down the line. But for right now, these are five Disney
Songs that explore love.
Bonus: Not a Song
Let me be
clear, as most of these movies are made for little children the idea of romance
as something new to be explored means that romance skew young in these movies,
but there is another stage of love that goes past first kisses and dances in a
ballroom. There is the sort of love that
makes you feel incomplete without it and drives you to go on mad cap adventures
trying to prove to yourself and the one you lost that it was all worth it.
There is
more nostalgic and wistful romance in “Up” than any movie with a prince or
princess in it.
Beg for Attention
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.
Do you have
a favorite? Can you tell me why? Is there some stage of courting I missed in
this simplistic list of five things?
What would you suggest? Please
comment below.
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. So please, tell me how
my opinion about cartoon movies is biased and how your opinion on cartoon
movies is objectively right.
______________________________
If you like or hate this
please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and
otherwise distribute my opinion to the world. I would appreciate it.
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