MOVIES NOW AND THEN

Several acclaimed and popular movies turned twenty this year, and each bears significance to at least one person in this world.  While I am thankful for 1994 movies like Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, and Ed Wood, one less-than-acclaimed film, whose anniversary is today, has been on my mind quite a lot recently.  It’s Richard Rich’s The Swan Princess, a film whose appeal somehow stayed with me despite two decades of maturation and a much more expansive view of animation’s capabilities.

Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is one of the most altogether pleasing family films in some while. For very young children, its straightforward narrative is bright and friendly without the adult sensibility of Rango, the violence of Kung Fu Panda 2 or the potentially overwhelming scariness of Toy Story 3. For parents, it is a diverting reminder of things they enjoyed as children. For Disney aficionados, it is an affectionate revitalization of the style initiated in the 60s and 70s Pooh cartoons. For anyone, the whole film is simply smashing.

One of my favorite toys when I was young was a purple car that could fly. Jet engines would sprout out of the trunk and the doors would turn into wings. I loved imagining it flying and taking down bad guys, and now it sits in my closet safe from being given away. Imagine my delight and gratification when, during the final battle in Cars 2, a purple car sprouted wings and started flying to the rescue. This is just one of the keen, childlike marvels you'll see in this movie, the 12th from Pixar Animation Studios.

Kung Fu Panda has gone from being just one very good movie to being a sprightly animated franchise. The original, starring Jack Black as the titular warrior Po, was an expertly done feature that leapt well over my expectations. Now we have Kung Fu Panda 2, which has enough of the same fun and visual excitement to reward all who waited for it to arrive, even if it also loses some of the first movie's strengths.

1. Fantasia (1940)



I won’t pretend this is an easy film to sit through, but I believe it is the Disney film in which the concept is the most audacious, the staging is the most inspired and the animation is the most accomplished. It is a celebration of honest imagination without any predetermined notion of its audience. It is what it is, and you can either like it or not. In my book, it could very well be the best animated feature of them all.

Disney's Five Best Opening Numbers

1. "Belle," Beauty and the Beast (1991)



Could it really be anything else? “Belle” is the culmination of opening numbers throughout musical theatre history. It’s as expository as “Tradition,” as catchy as “Wilkommen” and as delightful as “Comedy Tonight.” The memorable melody, marvelous lyrics and bustling animation make this sequence an opening so grand you can’t wait to see what the movie will pull off next.

Disney's Five Best Villain Songs

1. "Hellfire," The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)



Any villain song list should include this number just to recognize what an anomaly it is in the Disney canon. A song using the villain’s agony to portray his deviousness, “Hellfire” is colored with sexual imagery that’s actually milder than what was originally storyboarded. This sequence best signifies Hunchback's goal to be a great musical over a great Disney musical.

Disney's Five Best "I Want" Songs

1. "Part of Your World," The Little Mermaid (1989)



Of the songs on this list, this one benefits its movie the most. Without it, Ariel might appear to be a spoiled brat (or more than she already does, as the detractors would say). She makes her case with some pretty singing and some brilliant work from lyricist Howard Ashman and animator Glen Keane. The song makes us understand that Ariel’s dream is a heartfelt desire and not some superficial sweet sixteen present.

Disney's Five Best Animal Supporting Characters

1. Sebastian, The Little Mermaid (1989)



For me, the most interesting Disney sidekicks are the ones who have their own story instead of just being around as the protagonist's receiver. Sebastian, for instance, is not even on Ariel's side until halfway through the movie. He just wants to do his job and to avoid Triton's rather horrid temper. It’s only when Ariel gets herself into a risky situation that he steps forward to help her. He’s got a big heart that doesn’t show itself right away, plus he’s a master at organizing musical numbers on the fly.

Disney's Five Best Serious Villains
Only the upcoming Best Movies list was anywhere near as hard to decide as this one. By the way, how telling is it that I found just one video for yesterday’s protagonists and I found videos for all of these villains?

1. Lady Tremaine, Cinderella (1950)



This woman has to be one of the easiest villains to hate. Even though she relishes having the beautiful Cinderella act as maid to her two ugly daughters, she always looks serene in her triumph instead of ecstatic. All she has to do is flash that cruel, vindictive smile to show her pleasure at Cinderella’s misery. We have two people to thank for this nasty character. Eleanor Audley performed the role with nothing short of evil grace and vile dignity, and Frank Thomas built upon that with rigid yet expressive animation. Lady Tremaine is spite incarnate, and watching her get her comeuppance in the end must be the most satisfying defeat in any of Disney’s films.

Disney's Five Best Heroes

1. Beast, Beauty and the Beast (1991)

The first male lead in Disney’s fairy tales to have a character arc, the Beast is not an easy person to like at first. It’s only when gentility subdues his angry despair that we care for him. Both Robby Benson’s performance and Glen Keane’s animation make him one of the most versatile characters in all of Disney, and likely all of animation. He can be monstrous in one sequence and endearing in the next. My only major quibble is I don't think we really see the point where he knows he loves Belle. It feels too sudden for me, but that’s more a story problem than a character problem. It does not diminish what a lovable brute this fellow is.

Disney celebrates its 50th animated feature by releasing Tangled, a loose adaptation of the fairy tale “Rapunzel” that combines the storytelling conventions of the old classics with today’s computer animation. In many ways, the placement of this movie at that particular studio tally is a very fortuitous one. Tangled is a mostly harmonious work that pays reverence to Disney’s traditions and embraces the continuing advances in the medium of animation.

The exclamation of predictability can be heard loud and clear within the first five minutes of Despicable Me, the new animated feature from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment. The opening sequence uses the old joke of somebody trying to catch an object and saying, “I got it!” just before he or she misses the target. At the screening I attended, a child anticipated the joke and loudly said, “I don’t got it!” before the character could (the character did not say that line, giving the routine a bit of moot surprise). The child did not say anything else the rest of the movie, which surprises me considering how much else in Despicable Me is recycled material. The film is as hackneyed as many other recent computer-animated features, though a few elements save it from being truly disposable.

Almost 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2, Pixar Animation Studios is revisiting their biggest franchise with Toy Story 3. The span between the second and third film may have been primarily the fault of the Disney/Pixar ownership negotiations in the mid-2000s, but that time has been an unequivocal boon to the series. Many of the kids who saw the first movie in 1995 have reached the age where their childhood will be tucked away and reserved for rainy days or for time with their own children. What better way to signify that transition than with one more adventure with the toys that simultaneously enraptured the youth of the world while creating the art (or craze, to some) of the computer-animated feature?

DreamWorks Animation’s most successful franchise finally ends with this fourth chapter. The movie takes stock of everything that has happened to Shrek by placing him in an alternate reality, created by the twitchy trickster Rumpelstiltskin, in which he was never born. This darker story focuses more on action and character than on humor, and it allows Shrek and his friends to be their most heroic and sympathetic since the original film.

“Shrek Forever After” is a serviceable finale that emphasizes the series’ strengths and flaws. The main characters are as appealing as ever, largely because of their voice actors’ seasoned yet still likable performances. However, the anachronistic pop culture humor remains as hit-and-miss as ever. These modern jokes are less numerous than in the other sequels, but they still beg the question of whether they will date these movies. The film also seems the most chaotic, using quick editing and rarely stationary cinematography that render the proceedings somewhat exhausting.

The best moments occur when the alternate universe offers variations on jokes and scenes from the other movies. These details, which range from appearances of old props to direct quotations, are easy to recognize and help tie the series together into one story. A few recollections do rely too much on fond memories of the other movies (“I’m a Believer” is far less magical here than it was in the first “Shrek”). Still, “Shrek Forever After” is almost like a yearbook in how it allows fans to view highlights (albeit twisted ones) of their years in the kingdom of Far Far Away. It may not be as special as the first two movies, but it is a mostly satisfying conclusion.

First published in The Coastland Times