KWIF: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Last two weeks, actually. With the Olympics last week and all the new TV shows popping up this week, as well as fending off a bug or two, I didn't get to many movies, but the ones I did get to...well...a couple of them are real gems. I'll let you determine which of the three I maybe didn't like as much.

This Week:
Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2025, d. Matt Johnson - in theatre)
Lady Snowblood (1973, d. Toshiya Fujita - Crave)
Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood (aka Bye Bye, Chaperon Rouge; "Tales for all #9", 1989, d. Márta Mészáros - Crave)

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What an exceptionally bizarre and niche idea to take something as exceptionally bizarre and niche as Nirvanna The Band, the bizarre and niche musical-ish duo of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll, who had a short-lived, two-season bizarre and niche show on the bizarre and niche Viceland TV network, and turn it into a bizarre and niche movie that may well be the biggest (in ambition and scale) comedy movie of the decade.

I'm sure anyone reading this, like most of the population, have no idea what the heck Nirvanna The Band or Nirvanna The Band The Show are. Hell, I barely knew myself. If you know co-creator Matt Johnson from anywhere, it's likely from making Blackberry a few years back.

No, Nirvanna The Band is not a Nirvana cover band. McCarroll plays piano and Johnson...well, he talks a lot about what he's going to do over McCarroll's piano playing, and all the admiration and reverence he's going to receive from the audience without really having any other specific set of skills or talents put on display.Their deepest ambition is to book a gig at the famous Toronto resto-bar/performance space The Rivoli, but they don't actually attempt to book a gig at The Riv (as we locals call it) by contacting the bar. No instead they think they can somehow trick their way into performing there. The logical fallacy of all this is I don't think "Nirvanna The Band actually has any songs to perform should they get there, so what they're actually going to do with their platform should they ever achieve it remains a mystery.

Having never seen Nirvanna The Band The Show, I can infer from the story of Nirvanna The Show The Movie that each episode of the show is a Pinky and the Brain-style set-up of of Matt coming up with a scheme to get the band into The Riv that night, Jay reluctantly following along, and it all falling apart. The Show, if it's at all like The Show The Movie (and it must be) is all shot verite style, with a mix of Johnson and O'Carroll interacting with real people and actors in pre-planned if highly improvised situations. The Film just takes it to...well, not just another level, but to astonishing extremes.

It starts with Matt coming up with the plan "Seventh Inning Stretch" where the two will jump off the CN Tower and parachute into the Skydome (as it will forever be known) announcing that they have a gig at The Rivoli that night (and the stunt will be so spectacular that The Riv must give them the stage for the evening right)? 

Ambitious, but certainly there's countless things getting in the way of Matt and Jay in succeeding with this plan. Well, would you believe that the only thing that gets in the way of the plan is the Skydome's roof closing, and Matt and Jay's timing being off such that they land on the roof instead of in the stadium?

I couldn't believe it either. And yet, it looked very much like two people (though absolutely not Matt and Jay) were skydiving in downtown Toronto and landed on the roof other Skydome.

With today's level of digital and AI technologies, it's not hard to deepfake this sort of thing, and yet, there's a level of gritty craftsmanship here at play that definitely make it hard to tell what's real, what's staged, and what's trickery.

The main story of Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, however, involves a second scheme Matt comes up with, which is to pretend to be time travellers from 2008 flung into the future, using Back to the Future logic, only for things to go awry and Matt and Jay actually travel back to 2008, mess things up, and then return home to find Jay has become a massive celebrity leaving Matt behind.

It's profoundly silly and insanely entertaining. The Movie is incredibly propulsive, moving a pretty rapid clip, not giving the audience a lot of time to sit with all the questions they might be having (the movie, so self aware, is savvy enough to address many of them anyway, if only to side step). At the same time, even if you have zero investment in Matt and Jay as a duo (like me) the film slowly starts investing you into the stakes of their friendship (I mean, there's really no other characters in the film beyond the camera guys and Matt's alt-future roommates).

As one of the most Toronto films ever made, it's bizarre, sure, but maybe not so niche. It's an extremely accessible film if (like me) you've never actually engaged with Nirvanna The Band in any capacity before. But I'm now hooked, and I'm ready to dive into Nirvanna The Band The Show and their precursor web series of the same name... if only there were anywhere that I could watch them (the presumption is that Crave, who partially produced The Film, will pick up The Series for when The Film hits streaming).

Much like, say, Strange Brew or Brain Candy, other Canadian comedy films derived from TV shows that preceded it, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is also a surprise gem of a film, but much more immediately recognizably a triumph than maybe the other tv-to-film comedies that came before it. (Do I need to watch that Trailer Park Boys movie now...?)

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Lady Snowblood is a big name in classic Asian action cinema (and classic manga), one that I'm sure was jotted down on one of my many "to watch" lists decades ago but, without ever truly understanding what the movie was about, and as such was never prioritized.

How unfortunate for me.

The film is the grandmommy of revenge dramas, or "revenge-o-matics" as Quentin Tarantino likes to call them, and in fact Lady Snowblood was QT's primary (but far from only) inspiration for Kill Bill.  There's little doubt in my mind that Lady Snowblood has inspired dozens upon dozens of films in the 50+ years since its debut.  Having such an influential legacy can actually tarnish a classic film when it's watched for the first time, as one might only see story ideas, action sequences, shot framing or other such ideas that have been used and probably bettered in the years since. 

Not so with Lady Snowblood.

The opening sequence, taking place at night, the moonlit road that much brighter because of the snow, is beautifully shot and staged. It finds our titular character in her tight kimono and sandaled feet shuffling quickly into place, a carriage quickly approaching. She gets in its way and proceeds to dispatch the entourage rapidly and bloodily, before fighting the man in the carriage. His skills are not even close to competing with hers.

This visually striking, blood-and-snow-soaked extravaganza is a marvel, but also the low point of the film. The action is stilted and Lady Snowblood's portrayer, the stunning Meiko Kaji, doesn't seem very adept at wielding the utensils of her character. 

But as I said, this is the film's weakest point. From there we delve into her wild backstory, which predates her even being born. It has it's roots in Japanese history from the later-1800s where the country's troubled leadership was directing it to build a grand army and conscripting the young men of villages across the land, disrupting the labour force dramatically. Yuko's mother's husband, a teacher, was killed when it was suspected he was an army recruiter, and her older brother was also murdered. Her mother was kept and abused and enslaved, but dreamed of nothing but revenge. She managed to dispatch one of the men who killed her family and was sent to prison for murder, cutting her revenge story short. She knew the only way of continuing her revenge was to have a child who could carry her burden, and so she aggressively pursued the prison guards and managed to get pregnant. She died shortly after childbirth but made her fellow inmates promise to have her child, who she likened to a demon, trained to pursue her vengeance.

We see Yuki's training from a young age to adulthood, a brutal inhuman life, but then, as has been reinforced by her trainer, she is not to be human. She is a demon of revenge. The first act is comprised of all this history, and it is told moving forward like running water, rather than cutting back and forth between the past and modern day, with elements referencing directly the Manga in a stylish way that seems incredibly ahead of its time.  The fact that it moves through the darkness of Yuki's mother's tale and her own training without being overly sensational and distanced from making the abuse seem alluring is remarkable for the era.

When it returns to the modern day, the story moves constantly in unexpected zigzags. It never moves towards the typical narrative choice, and at the same time is not playing with expectations that it will. It so secure it its storytelling that it feels assured in its atypical manoeuvres, and it's thrilling to experience.  I very quickly learned not to anticipate where it was going, and I don't imagine I can ever have that experience again. But it just highlights that what this story does, and how Toho and the director present it, hasn't been repeated, at least not to an extent that can deny the power of this production.

What is most surprising is how the film tries to humanize one of Lady Snowblood's targets. A unwell drunken degenerate of a man, with a sweet daughter who cares for him despite what she has to do to make money so that he can drink and gamble it all away. You would think Yuki's disposing of this man would be a blessing for the poor girl, but it's not the case. The man even seems to have a death wish, until death stares him in the face. There's some rather meaty drama amidst all the arterial spray.

Yuki's gets involved with a reporter, who begins to tell her tale, sensationalizing her and spreading her story across the country, more fable or urban legend than fact, but distinguishing between the two, at that time wasn't always the case. The stories are told to draw out her prey, and it works, but it's all so much more complicated than either thought it would be.  Magnificent twists and movements abound.

The doubt I had in Kaji's physical prowess really only held away in the film's first sequence. I don't know that she ever proved herself an agile swordswoman, but subsequent scenes she's definitely more confident in her wielding of the blade, and is just as often posing with it as she is using it.

Visually, I love this era of vibrant red gushing blood samurai story, but this one stands out as special, because it doesn't approach the world with a gawking lens. It's not revealing in its nudity and abuse, it's matter-of-fact in its presentation. It's honest about how harsh the world is and the truths of the time its set it, but it also gives way to its revenge fantasy elements without letting them overshadow those truths. 

It's fantastic, and I wish I'd seen it 100 times by now.

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The 9th entry of Quebec producer Rock Demers' "Tales for all" series once again finds funding as a co-production, this time with Hungary, and filming there as well rather than in Canada. This once again leads to a release with no native soundtrack. You can watch the French or the English dub, it doesn't matter, because the entire production is dubbed as not all performers are speaking the same language.  (I don't like watching dubbed movies, and find it frustrating when the dub is so obvious, as it is here... the preferred alternative is watching the French dub with English subtitles, but I was too tired for subtitles for this viewing).

Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood, as you may have guessed, is loosely based around the classic fairy tale. Here, the film opens with five-year-old Fanny in her city apartment bedroom, decorated entirely in red, trying to fall asleep only to be roused by her parents arguing and her father walking out on her mom. We then hard cut to "Mother" (no other name given) taking Fanny through the airport and confirming that they're going to go live in the woods, near her Grandmother's.  

This hard cuts to a forest montage and Fanny is now twelve maybe (played by Fanny Lauzier, who was the young star of Tales for all #6 -  Tadpole and the Whale), and she's a free spirit roaming the woods with her pet lamb, when she comes across a wolf who, it seems, can telepathically communicate with her. It appears the wolf means her no harm, and in fact wants to be friends...but his tone of voice, sinister and sleazy, gives his intentions away.

Fanny's woodsy home with her "Mother" (who works as a meteorologist) is in a artistically brutalist construct of all odd angles and bizarre stairs to nowhere and brightly coloured nonlinear shape accents. There is no meaning to this bizarre structure, only that it's likely a building the production company found interesting and decided to use (you need some visual flair when 90 percent of the film takes place in the forest I suppose). 

Fanny's traipses through the woods aren't exactly established as "adventures" as they're poorly structured and really not edited to be framed as such, but on one journey to her grandmother's house, she encounters a magic tree, and on another, she gets lost and is rescued by a man in a grey hat and trenchcoat who she thinks might be her father. On another adventure she meets a gang of similar aged school children out on a field trip and she sparks up a friendship with a dashing young boy who is very curious about this red-clad woodland girl who doesn't go to school. 

Fanny's grandmother, despite what you might think, is not her mom's mom, but rather her father's mother, and she does not get along with Fanny's mom at all, so they don't communicate much. Also Fanny's great-grandmother is there, an old crone who never moves from her spot sitting in a carved out seat in the trunk of a tree grandmother's house seemed built around. Great-granmother has inexplicable mystical powers, including the ability to see what's going on outside her trunk-chair, as well as send telepathic communications across great distances. 

There is a general sense of the fantastical in this production, but it establishes no rules for them, so the stakes are never clear, nor are the paths to resolution. This whole production seems like it was crafted on the fly, without a tremendous amount of forethought.

Fanny seems charmed by the man in the grey ensemble, in part because he lives in a weird hovel with a tremendous amount of birds (he's an ornithologist) and he saves her in the woods more than once from getting lost or a heavy storm, but when she determines that he's not her dad and then finds out that he's hooking up with her mom, she inexplicably loses it and runs away... where she's lured into the wolf's den and he refuses to let her go, and needs to be rescued by her young male friend from the city but only after Great-Grandmother telepathically calls out to him to help her. After she's rescued, they set all the man-in-grey's birds free and steal his truck, heading into to the city where Fanny does some petty thieving.

Eventually she returns home, and Fanny is sent with a picnic basket of soup and other goodies to Grandmother's house because Grandmother is not feeling well, not realizing that the wolf has swallowed her whole and taken her place (but not before the wolf and man-in-grey have what seems like a metaphysical exchange which implies the two are connected but it's nothing the film ever elaborates upon). When Fanny arrives, we get the what big hands/eyes/mouth thing, when Fanny too is swallowed whole. The wolf is a furry TARDIS, bigger on the inside than it appears no the outside, and fanny and grandmother reunite next to the wolf's beating heart (a charming set piece to be sure).

Mother and the man-in-grey arrive, and the man-in-grey shoots the wolf, killing it and releasing Fanny and Grandmother, only Great-grandmother dies for some reason. It's sad, I guess. The story picks ups with Fanny - wearing heavy make-up and styled to look like an older teen I guess - back in a very red room in a city apartment...with no real explanation or even insinuation as to what this scene means or what the seemingly happy Fanny is going through. Are we to infer that this was all just in her head? Is that why the story seems to be so dream-like?

The story is one hundred percent nonsense, so very little of the characters' actions are explained, there's no logic to anyone's motivations, and personalities and intentions shift on a dime. It seems like there was an intentional story here, about a lonely little girl making the best out of life, and a single mother trying her best, but it all got lost when trying to film what may have been an English script but performed by a Hungarian and Quebecois cast.  

When it eventually gets to its interpretation of the classic fable, Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood seems like a completely different film. It's like if the characters of the film were performing in a play, it in no way seems organic to the story being told.

There is some really nice imagery here. The damp, lush, Hungarian forests are shot with reverence, even if the colour sense is pretty muted. Some sets are really quite impressive (Great-Grandma's tree-chair is outstanding, as is the wolf's innards, and lil' Fanny's very red bedroom), but there's not a tremendous amount of cohesion happening here.

Even dream-logic would imply a sense of logic, and there is none here. If the film's finale intends to intone that the whole film was but a dream, well, that isn't explicit, plus there's little more frustrating in storytelling than such a "twist". A deeply flawed and odd film.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Dust Bunny

2025, Bryan Fuller (writer of Hannibal) -- download

Wait, what? This is his feature film directorial debut? OK, I knew he was primarily a show-runner and writer for TV, but ... OK, I guess so. Your alternate reality is weird.

Also, pre-amblish in saying, its only mid-January but I predict this will be one of my favourite films for the entire year. As Kent said, "What a fucking delight."

Also, as Kent said,  "What if Leon: The Professional was made by Jean-Pierre Jeunet [sic] instead of Luc Besson".

We Agree.

Tempted to just point at Kent's post and say, "Yeah what he said," and that wouldn't be the first time I have thought that in the 10+ years of this blog, but its still cheating.

I am [mostly] not going to recap. But this movie is about a little girl ("Erora" ... "Aurora" ... "Uhrora" ... "AURORA" ... "That's what I said.") who fears the monster under her bed, the one which will eat you if you walk on the floor. It arrives one night, as a mote of dust through an open window -- I was thinking how unclean is this city that finger sized balls of fluff float through windows -- and evolves into a coot wittle fuzzy wuzzy bunny-kin, i.e. a dust bunny. After the thing evolves even further, into a magic-powered (how could it not be) eating machine, and devours her parents, she knows she has to do something.

Living across the hall is the impeccably dressed... OK, maybe not impeccable, he is not Hannibal, but more eclectically dressed Intriguing Neighbour (Mads Mikkelsen, Polar) -- nicely patterned track suits meet silk pyjamas. How does she know he can help her? She doesn't but after following him one night to China Town, she sees him in action against a dragon. Well, a bunch of China Town villains underneath a dragon-dance costume, but her imagination sees what she needs to see.

Aurora (Sophie Sloan, Chemistry of Death) procures his services by robbing the collection plate of a church. He questions how she knows a word like "procure". And thus begins a battle of wills & wits as she gives him no choice but to be involved in slaying her monster.

In case you need the warning, hereafter are Spoilers. 

The monster is quite real. She wished him up, ages ago. This is not the first foster family it has eaten. And some of those foster families were nice. But, in little girl logic, she also wished up her Intriguing Neighbour, to deal with it. Meanwhile he is ... an assassin? Its never explicitly said but he does violence, has enemies and a handler. The handler (Sigourney Weaver, The Gorge) is presented as many have been in such movies -- you approach her in a funky restaurant, where she sits at a table that affords a view of all who come and go. She is mysterious, callous and thinks Aurora should die for having witnessed what he does for a living. Except, when they enter her apartment under the cover of nighttime, they are in the monster's domain, and they step on the floor. Gobble gobble.

Migawd this movie is lovely to look at. Sure, as we know (and love), Fuller is known for his shows having a particular look & feel. Hannibal was his most straight-laced show but the costuming and set decorating was out of this world. Dust Bunny is set in a uber-stylized New York City that I had to build towards believing it was actually NYC. At times, I thought it was an unnamed Eastern European city, at times, it was a London where Aurora might run into Paddington. But eventually, enough set pieces appear to establish it well as NYC, but one unlike any reality we live in. And the apartment building they live puts the Arconia to shame, such wild aesthetics! I swear the wallpaper in the entry hallway of Aurora's apartment changed depending on the mood of the scene.

This is a movie that wears its whimsy on its brocade sleeve. But that's to be expected in a movie about a monster from under the bed, but also in the Fuller oeuvre, its grim. The monster basically eats almost everyone by the end of the movie, but there is also a bonding scene through body dismemberment. It is so much like a proper faery tale in that it is colourful, magical and entirely violent. And delightful!

31 Days of Halloween: The Ugly Step Sister

2025, Emilie Blichfeldt (feature debut) -- download

Or stygge stesøsteren.

The elevator pitch is pretty much, "Cinderella but from the point of view of one of 'ugly' step sisters" and I can hear my coworkers now, decrying its "woke feminist agenda". The movie does have a strong message about altering one's appearance to fit into societal moulds, no matter what the cost personally. 

Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp, The Quake) arrives at the opulent home of her new husband Otto, with her two daughters Elvira (Lea Myren, Kids in Crime) and Alma (Flo Fagerli, Kuppel 16), where they meet Otto's haughty and beautiful daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss, La Palma). Otto obviously has money, from the grand stature of his home to the lavish design of Agnes' dresses. Plural. The family lives in the shadow of the Prince's castle, whom Elvira has constant fantasies about as she reads his poetry. It is a time when widows have to marry into money in order to survive, except they discover that Otto thought he was doing the same thing -- turns out they are both barely eking by. Barely, as in only a handful of servants.

Almost immediately after her arrival Otto dies and Rebekah sets her eyes on marrying off her daughters, Agnes as well, relying on the virginal nature every man desires. An invitation comes from the Prince, to attend a ball in four months time. That is plenty of time for Rebekah to have Elvira made into something more beautiful, partially through starvation, partially through reconstructive surgery on her already very normal, but not "slender" nose, and partially via a finishing school. But the cost is extravagant and Agnes challenges her spending the money there, while her father literally rots in the drawing room. Literally, with flies and maggots and bloating. This is not a faery tale from Perrault, but one by way of Grimm and David Cronenburg. Oh yeah, the starvation is helped along by swallowing the egg of a tapeworm.

Eventually Agnes, who is excelling at everything at the finishing school, while Elvira usually gets last place, is caught fucking the stable boy. How dare she sully her virgin status with the help?!? Rebekah drives the boy off, and shoves Agnes down onto the scullery floor, to assume her "cinderella" role. Meanwhile adolescent Alma, who disappears into the background, falls into the stable boy role, dressing in pants and mucking out stables.

Everything is leading to The Ball. As the tapeworm grows inside her, Elvira suffers horrible stomach pains and binges on treats from the pantry whenever she can hide it from her mother. Agnes shoulders her new role with aplomb but as time gets closer to the date, she still has a desire to attend. She even has the perfect dress and the perfect shoes, that is until Elvira sees them and tears them to shred. She is finally getting somewhere, having lost weight and the nose covering has been removed to show a slim & slender proboscis, and her braces are off revealing perfect teeth. She has even risen in the ranks at the finishing school because of Agnes's absence. She's also become a wee bit unhinged with the obsession impressed upon her by her mother. Agnes runs off in tears to her... ick... father's melting corpse, where the ghost of her mother appears. Oh yeah, Cinderella story so let's have some minor Magic Realism and the maggots become silk worms that repair her dress to its high glory.

The night of The Ball is all bloated with our, the viewer's, expectations on how things are going to go. Elvira is beautiful, even if her hair falling out had to be replaced by a wig, and she can dance well, but is kind of flatulent and her tummy growls and moans constantly. We know how its going to go. But this is not an American movie, so the climax is not at The Ball itself, but further in, once The Prince has become enamoured with Agnes/Cinderella who has to run from the dance before midnight. This movie is from Elvira's perspective, and her reaction to all her painful plans being dashed by Agnes (AGNES !!) 

So, we know there has to be a fallen shoe, and the step-sisters have to try them on, but in this movie its all happening off camera. There is no way Elvira's big feet will fit into that shoe, so why not just cut off some toes. That doesn't go so well, and the pain knocks her out. No matter, her mom finishes things off, even pointing out she did it to the wrong foot. So, five toes become ten. Buuuuut, again off camera, the Prince has already bumped into Agnes and... they have ridden off into the sunset, happily ever after. A drugged and in pain Elvira falls out of bed breaking her fragile nose and her shiny teeth. All the ugly on the inside is now on the outside. But her sister Alma, now more stable boy than potential virgin bride, still loves her and the two rob their mother and escape into the fog to have ... different lives.

The movie was somewhat painfully indie feeling. Its very rough around the edges but its strength lies in knowing exactly what tale its telling and the, yeah well "agenda" is very on point. And by very potent performances. Elvira is driven by what is expected of her, and nothing ever comes easy for the girl. I won't preach on its message, but its well told. The horror of the story comes in the consequences, the body horror, and the (even if it didn't happen at The Ball) inevitable extrication of the tape worm. That scene was all the more horrible for the reality of it all. Makes me squeamish just recalling, squick almighty!

ReFried Disney: Snow White

2025, Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man) -- Disney+ 

Stupid Boy Project? Oh, stupid stupid boy.

This is one of the rare movies in this project that is not a remake of a recent Disney animated movie, and by recent I mean that "new era" of original Disney animated musicals that started all the way back in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. Its kind of odd to say "new era", because only ten years prior had been Disney's last animated musical, Pete's Dragon. Ten years is not all that long in cinematic eras, at least it isn't these days. But what I am getting at is that this movie is a "live-action remake" of the Classic Era of Disney Animated Musicals (deemed worthy enough to get capital letters) that stretch from the 60s to beyond. The original Snow White was in ... 1937. Nineteen Freaking Thirty-Seven!! And I probably haven't seen it since my days sitting in front of grannie's TV during The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday afternoon.

I don't have much recollection of the original animation, but a lot of imitators came to mind as I watched this movie. Less imitation of the animation and more of the motif that became part of the collective conscious. Think Amy Adams in Enchanted. Less imitator and more homage? I mean, the story of Snow White is built into our fairy tale brain, but was that ever from a non-Disney source? I am old enough that I had an actual collection of classic Grimm / Perrault fairy tales, so it must have been in there, but admitedly the core of the story must have come from 50+ years of exposure to Disney's adaptation. From the colour scheme, to "heigh-ho", to an evil queen with her hair tucked inside a skin tight dark wimple, all are indicative of the fairy tale but visuals from Disney.

Anywayz, this movie. Cough.

I was tempted to write three paragraphs consisting only of "Fair fair fair. Fair fair FAIR fair. FAIR ! Fair fair." This movie was really really REALLY trying hard to rebrand "fair" as not referring to Snow White's skin colour, but to fairness of judgement. As in, her father was a Good and Fair Ruler. But not even Mjolnir herself could have hammered that definition into the Magic Mirror's proclamation that the Evil Queen was ever fair. Snow White was the fairest, always and forever, as was her father. That mirror was a fucking liar.

Not bothering to comment on the "her skin isn't snow white" utter whiner troll shite on the Internet. If I roll my eyes any harder at that, I will hurt myself. There are plenty of other things to dislike about the movie without that weaksauce.

The tale begins with a fair (cough) kingdom ruled by a fair King and Queen who are equal with their people. Oh, they live in a castle and wear finery and probably don't actually do anything but they also spend one day a year picking apples and preparing pies for their people. I mean, I highly doubt they bake the pies, as they probably have people to do that but they carry the prepared pies to the tables, for the villagers & castle folk. The fair princess Snow White helps, so named because she was born on a cold winter night, and sure all the people seem to love her, but one does wonder what would happen if they didn't defer to her.

Fuck you King; howsa 'bout instead of serving us over-sized pieces of apple pies (from our orchards by the way) you release us from our vassal-state and pay us a living wage? Sure, you might own the land but....

Then the queen dies and the king gets a new wife, and almost immediately after sets off to fight in a foreign war, where he dies. New Wifey (Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman) takes the throne, and immediately makes changes. Once prosperous villagers (OK maybe they were making more than a livable wage) are conscripted into her royal guard, and Snow White is relegated to scullery maid. Nobody argues, because Evil Queen.

Waitasecond here; she doesn't actually have a NAME ?!?! She's really just called "Evil Queen". I would love to see her business card.

Snow White (Rachel Zegler, Y2K) grows up in her now impoverished kingdom, locked behind castle gates. One day she bumps into a thief stealing potatoes. Snow White's royalty shows through, as she does not like him being a thief. He is caught and tied to the gates, I guess the Evil Queen's version of a crow cage, but Snow White frees him anyway; I mean, it was just potatoes. That pisses off the Evil Queen, who has been getting "yer the fairest" from the Magic Mirror, until that act by Snow White. I am still convinced the Mirror was lying all along, but not sure why he suddenly got some courage. No matter, pissed off Evil Queen orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and cut out her heart. Not sure why she just doesn't have Snow White murdered right there in her throne room; its not like she has a reputation to uphold.

Part of me wonders whether the source fairy takes tell us why.

Of course, the Huntsman feels guilty and sends Snow White off into the forest to hide. In this version, he doesn't even kill a deer, from which to cut out a heart, but puts an.... apple into the box? He knows his fate; he's just delaying. The forest is initially dark and scary and definitely UnSeelie. I know that this is supposed to be representative of Snow White being a city girl and dark rural forests are scary, but I have always like to think of it as an actually fae infested wood with its periphery tainted by proximity to the Evil Queen. Luckily though, some Uplifted Animals find Snow White and guide her to the quaintest of quaintest cottages deep in the wood.

The Dwarves Miners own the house and are away for part of the day slaving away in the mines, using their magic powers (yes, the exhibit magic) to light up the location of gemstones, which they cut out of the stone and load into mine carts for... well, I am not sure we are ever given a reason the "miners" mine the gemstones. I kind of thought they were hinting that the Evil Queen has tasked them with this duty for her throne room is going to be littered with an endless supply of perfectly cut gemstones. But I am not sure if it was edited out, or underplayed, because I don't recall any reason for all this labour. 

But complaining about minor miner duties is burying the lede. The real complaint here, and admittedly, I thought it was all the blame of Disney's terrible sub-titling, but why aren't they called DWARVES ?!?!? Seriously, if anyone is going to give fuel to the "woke agenda" bonfires its choosing to ... to what?? Choosing to not offend little people? I mean, they went with entirely CG representations of these not-dwarves!! If they wanted to separate themselves from whole "dwarf" label (and we will completely ignore the fact these are not and never were "little people" but fairy tale dwarves, i.e. the folk tale fae creatures used as inspiration for Tolkien's story species) then just make them weird human miners with odd personalities and funny names.

Umm, isn't "dwarfs" more correct in this context? 

Shaddup you.

When the miners return home, they find the lady who broke in and slept in their beds. Most of them are suspicious but a few are at least understanding of her plight, being a Princess who was almost murdered by her step-mother (cough, E. Queen). Despite being a bunch of bachelors (no implication of familial connection) living together, they don't really get along. Even if you ignore their distinct personalities and/or named-traits, they all seem to pick on Bashful. But with a song and some gentle chastising, she shows them how to work together and clean up their house, in a way only a young woman can. And by whistling. Not at young woman, but.... oh nevermind.

Snow White is convinced her father is actually not dead, just that he never came back from the war in the south. She hopes to find the rebels in the forest, or bandits or whomever is rumoured to be still loyal to her father, and not beholden to E. Queen. What she finds instead is that the rebel/bandits are actually just unemployed minstrels, and more than a little buffoonish, led by the potato thief Jonathan (Andrew Burnap, The Front Room). The two make googley eyes at each other when the Evil Queen's henchmen show up and attack. Jonathan is injured and she takes him back to the "miners" where she begs Doc to help the cute boy. "I'm not that kind of Doc," he says, implying he's probably a doctor of philosophy or something to that eye-rolling effect. Whatever he does helps either way. The two decide they are in love, and that Jonathan and his Minstrels should head off to look for their King. They instantly get caught, cuz, you know they aren't bandits nor rebels, just fucking useless musicians and actors.

From them the Evil Queen learns where Snow White is hiding and concocts her poisoned apple bit. Apparently the Fair King had a rather diabolical Evil Queen Ready dungeon/lair in his basement all along. Putting on the Kindly Old Woman disguise, which has never ever been kindly looking but Halloween Witch scary, she gets Snow White to bite the apple, and thus, sleep of death. Jonathan and the now imprisoned Huntsman escape and find Snow White and all the weeping miners (folk core prog rock band). He steals a kiss and she wakes up. 

Snow White's pissed, and decides that even though she doesn't have an army, not even any rebels, she will head back to the castle and ... guilt them into surrendering? Which is exactly what she does. Once the Evil Queen realizes that five guys wearing her armour would rather do what Snow White says, instead of her, she runs back inside and gets all pissy in front of the mirror, sealing her fate. Seems her power, and maybe long life, was tied directly to the mirror - smashing it out of frustration is not the best choice. The End, but for one long song and dance number which must have used up the urine of every man, woman and barn yard animal to get all the clothes that bleached white.

I did not like this movie, in case my mockery was too subtle for you. I knew going in that I am not a fan of musicals, but usually I can tolerate, and some, I even like. Give me one banger of a tune and I am OK. There were none, not even the ones they stole from the original. To me this felt like a boardroom full of Purple Suits (I guess that is the collective noun?) paving the way for a off-Broadway stage musical production, and didn't really care if the movie did well or not -- they just needed the framework, set visualizations, musical numbers and visually appealing costumes. 

It does not adapt the original nor any fairy tale source material well. It seems to shoe-horn in some standard, run of the mill musical components, wedged in between all the "I remember that!" scenes from the original. The (lack of) story is forgivable in a 1937 animation, but here it is just brain-numbingly empty. Nothing feels like world building, nothing feels lived-in, nothing feels enchanting. Not a single song is memorable nor are any of the visuals above passable. Characters are more often labels, not people -- see E. Queen reference above. This movie does not have much going for it, so I hope it at least appeals to seven year old dim witted children.

As for the dwarf controversy, the CG one, as we already covered the dwarf vs miner one, I was not horrified nor annoyed. I get what they were trying to do -- recreate the original animated visuals but with some resemblance to ... real people? For Average People they must seem very Uncanny Valley (maybe that's where dwarves er miners come from?) but for someone raised on video game cinematics and The Lord of the Rings they are just passingly acceptable fairy creature depictions. Nothing offensive, nothing too terrible. But to tie in the original complaint, if they were not mythical creatures, why the fuck not just cast real little people?

Hmmm, too late to back out of the Stupid Boy Project, Mr Stupid Boy?

Watching: Over the Garden Wall

2014, download

I am often, in my head and on this blog, whinging about how most things are just "meh" or on occasion, "OK". But on rare occasions something comes along and I yell, as I did on social media (FB, cuz yer old), "OMG, how am I just hearing about this?!?!" And I heard about it from Marmy, who saw the 10th Anniversary Short on YouTube. That was followed by me finding the original short film, or pilot if you wish, called "Tome of the Unknown". And after that, a quick run for the full mini-series, which is commented on below.

And that's a rock fact !!

What 100. Wirt and Gregory have become lost in the Unknown, basically a fairy tale forest. A bluebird named Beatrice, a cursed girl, joins them and the three have a bunch of adventures while trying to find their way out of the forest. The Unknown is a weird place full of fairy tale monsters, a woodsman cutting down haunted trees, a stalking Beast, Mississippi river boat frogs, American folksy vegetable people, etc. Its an odd mashup of Americana circa the 40s-50s and traditional magical stuff that plays out like a shroom dream. Eventually we learn what's really going on, and that's a bit disappointing.

1 Great. The dynamic between Wirt, a worrisome teenage boy, and his utterly bonkers little half-brother Gregory is probably the best thing about the show. Wirt tolerates Gregory's scatter brained, always optimistic approach to the world, and while he seems to genuinely seems to care for his brother, the kid's clearly ... odd. There is no explanation as to why Greg walks around with a tea pot as a hat and carries a frog he constantly renames, nor why Wirt kind of looks like a attic trunk wizard, until there is... and again, that's a bit disappointing. And while we are in a fairy tail like environment, the characters are clearly from modern times, though not really out of sorts with the idea being in a fairy tale... they just need to get to the other side of the Unknown and everything will be alright.

Wirt calls him "Greg" for the most part, but really, he's a Gregory.

1 Good. The weird mashup of Americana with fairy tale is fun and weird and disjointing. And along with that ideal comes a ton of music & songs, which are all sorts of folksy, quirky jazz diddies, which are, to quote Elijah Wood, "if this show were a record, it would be played on a phonograph." I am sure that for music nerds there is a whole breakdown as to the stylistic choices made, and the musicians chosen to score the show and write & perform the songs.

1 Bad. Honestly, I didn't care that the show "explained" away the weird and wonderful world Wirt and Greg were travelling through. I like my weird to be weird for weirdness sake. But, given that there were obvious hints as to the why's and how's, I cannot begrudge the idea they did that episode. Also, along the same line, the "pilot" was a short on its own, and it was just a few shades weirder / more magical than the show itself. I wish it had embraced that odd stylistic choice and doubled down on it, instead of softening it a bit to make an entire season. 

SPOILER.

But, as a meta aside, like the show turned out to be just a dream / transportation to a magical world while the kids were drowning in an icey lake, once I woke up from the show (finished watching it) it kind of fade, like a wonderful dream you just want to get back to. I hope it can find a permanent spot somewhere in my brain so we can return each Autumn for a rewatch.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Damsel

2024, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) -- Netflix

Feeding damsels to dragons is a cliche, so this movie,  riding at the far end of the faery tale trend, turns it on its end. Its more generic fantasy than anything, in the vein of The Princess. You could probably find enough of these movies for a "princess don't need no prince to rescue them" sub-genre.

Of course, the D&D player in me loved it. The rest of me, was mostly OK with it. Its serviceable, it does its job, its a Netflix movie.

Elodie (Millie Bobbie Brownie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) is the daughter of King/Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone, The Gentlemen) and step-daughter of Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett, 9-1-1) in a cold land that has chopped down all its trees. Lord Bayford receives a proposal of marriage to Elodie, from Queen Isabelle of Aurea, and they are invited to the idyllic island to all meet. Yeah, its obvious, Bayford is selling his daughter to keep his kingdom afloat. Its nothing new, and while Elodie doesn't like it, she does get along with Prince Henry, and goes through with it. Nobody seems happy with the deal, not even her step-mother, but what has to be done, has to be done.

The final ritual of the marriage just looms of doom, and we know what is happening, even if we came into the movie cold, with no exposure to the trailers. I mean, the opening sequence setup the fact there is a dragon. There is a cave on a cold mountain, a pact of blood on the other side of a crevasse. A crevasse into which Prince Henry tosses Elodie. Time to feed the dragon. 

Of course, Elodie is resourceful and strong-willed, and has no intention of dying down there, despite finding evidence that LOTS of girls have gone before her. Many survived the fall, many were resourceful, but none lived to escape. Elodie will. The dragon herself was also wronged so many years ago and finally comes to see Elodie's way, so they can both escape the mountain and burn the establishment down around them.

My favourite bit was hearing the dragon (Shohreh Aghadashloo, The Expanse) speak for the first time; now THAT is the voice for a dragon! The dragon itself was done fine, but I didn't buy the fact that a dragon could be burned by her own fire.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Three Thousand Years of Longing

2022, George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) -- Amazon

What a beautiful fairy tale of a movie that ... well, to be honest, left me pretty empty. Not feeling empty, just that it didn't affect me much. It should have. Miller was able to take an older, popular action franchise and have it become transcendent while still retaining the world contained within. The visuals, the music, the world building !! And lest us not forget, he took a story about a pig and astounded the world. But not everything can be those, some just have to be an exercise in movie making.

When opening genie containers, I assume the world would be more interested in finding Idris Elba than Melissa McCarthy. I know I was. So was Tilda Swinton. Elba (The Suicide Squad) is The Djinn, discovered in a bottle that scholar Alithea Binnie (Swinton, The Dead Don't Die) finds in a shop in Istanbul on one of her trips for work. As is the way, he offers her three wishes, which have conditions, but she is suspicious. She is a woman of tales, and all the tales tell one to be wary of djinn. So, instead, he tells her tales of him, of his past, of his wishes.

Each tale is cautionary, full of wonder and love. They expand on who he is, what he can do, and how people have treated him, and he in turn, treated them. The tales turn the sceptical Alithea and in the end, she wants nothing more from him but to have him love her. So he does. So he returns to London with her, to become part of her life, but a secret one, that she returns to each day. But it comes with consequences for djinns  were never meant to be part of our modern world with all its signals and wavelengths. So, she finally releases him, but the love is retained and he returns to her on occasion, when his strength returns.

Each tale was so intricately built, so beautiful dressed and shot. The Djinn is truly a marvel to behold, a being of smoke and fire and shimmering, reflected light, both massive to behold and airy. But there was no weight to the stories, they didn't draw me in. They were just nice things to look at, to hear, but didn't move me once, there was not even one moment of, "That'll do pig, that'll do." Its a shame. If it wasn't for the marvellous visuals and colours, I might have been bored entirely. There was so much to work with, but perhaps I can just blame it on the source material? 

Kent's take.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Princess

2022, Le-Van Kiet (The Ancestral) -- download

Download? This was a Hulu/Disney+ movie!! But where is it? WTF Disney, why are you cleaning house of the movies I never got around to watching yet? It was only there a year !!

I was in the mood for a "fantasy movie", i.e. something with swords and pseudo-medieval worlds, not necessarily with magic or monsters but something in the D&D vein. This one about a faerie tale princess who turns the tables on her captors fit the bill quite well.

And I liked this movie. It perfectly scratched the itch I had. It also had a rather expeditious nature to it that fit the Wuxia inspired action rather well. There isn't a lot of world building here; we are just dropped in a situation. Princess (no name given) (Joey King, Bullet Train) awakens, groggy, in manacles, locked in The Tower. Two leather clad henchmen were sent to check on her, and are probably about to grope her, when she attacks. She's no meek princess and makes quick work of them, while still recovering from whatever overcame her. She kicks ass.

Think reverse-The Raid as The Princess makes her way down the tower defeating enemies and hiding as the circumstances require. As she makes her way, we are given her recollections of the events that got her put there, as well as the requisite background. Good King (no name given) (Ed Stoppard, Knightfall) was about to marry his eldest daughter off to smug nobleman no na....er... Julius (Dominic Cooper, Preacher). He does not have a male heir and feels he has no other options. But The Princess is not traditional in the least, and abandons her betrothed mid-ceremony. In response, Julius takes the castle. And her.

She does not react well to that. Julius does not react well to her daring to rebuff him. But he still feels he has to marry her in order to win the people's hearts. He could just be a plain old usurper, but tradition rules this land. But The Princess has made her choice and all who stand in her way will feel her wrath. And she's a skilled warrior, so even Julius's best and biggest barbarian cannot defeat her.

Its a silly movie, with lots that doesn't make sense outside the faerie tale sub-genre, but it was a lot of fun and Joey King has you rooting for her almost immediately. Oh, it could have used a bit more polish and finesse, but it more than satisfied the desire I had for a "movie with swords".

KWIF: Enchanted/Disenchanted (+2)

 Kent's Week In Film #3

Enchanted (2007, d. Kevin Lima - Disney+)
Disenchanted (2022, d. Adam Shankman - Disney+)
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022, d. James Gunn - Disney+)
Reindeer Games Homecoming (2022, d.  - Lifetime)

I rewatched Enchanted as a precursor to watching Disenchanted, and I had forgotten how absolutely delightful the film is from start to finish.  Going back to my original review (8 years ago) I don't have much to add except maybe I enjoyed it even more the second time around.  I knew I enjoyed the picture the last time I watched, it, but so much time had passed it seemed like I was watching it again entirely fresh, and everything seemed just as surprising, funny, and sincere as the last time. Of course, the world has changed since Enchanted was made 15 years ago, and it caused me to consider whether the naifish Princess-to-be Giselle as a variation of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope.

Giselle is naive to our world, because the world she comes from, the magical realm of Andalasia, operates in Disney princess film cliches.  The damning thing about that is the film (and even more so in Disenchanted) sort of postulates that the cliches are the magic, the glue that holds that world together.  Giselle in the real world finds herself in her big, billowy, wedding dress getting in all sorts of innocent scrapes until divorce lawyer Patrick Dempsey's Robert and his daughter Morgan stumble upon her and help her out.   That she's a wide eyed, pretty, strawberry blonde, white woman who seemingly has a 5-year-old's innocent awareness of the world makes her not only not a threat, but kind of an object of attraction, and triggers Robert's white night sympathetic response.   

It is over time that he sees her naivete for what it is, an actual true unawareness of the world he lives in, and what she has is a warmth and kindness that he sees lacking in his legal dealings and his own sense of the world.  His attraction to her is not his ability to teach her about his world, but more about what her view of the world and people can teach him.

Disenchanted picks up 15 years later, and finds Giselle, Robert, Morgan and the new baby Sofia finding life to be not-so-happily-ever-after.  The crushing realities of work-life balance, of parenting a newborn, of dealing with teenage hormones, means that life isn't as magical as it once was for Giselle and Robert, and they think that, somehow, a change of scenery is perhaps what they need, as if getting out of the hustle and bustle of New York would fix things.

They wind up in an run-down estate in Monroeville, an already distressed Morgan has a hard time adjusting to the new location and her new school, and the queen bee of the city, Malvina, is very passive aggressive in welcoming her new neighbours.  King Edward and Queen Nancy pay a visit, gifting baby Sofia a magical wand "for a true daughter of Andalasia" to grant them their truest wishes.  After a particularly fraught day, Giselle cant help but wish her life in Monroeville was more like life in Andalasia, and a transformation happens to the town, as it turns into a real-life cartoon, full of song and dance and magic.

Malvina is a real wicked Queen, Robert yearns for a heroic quest, Morgan feels like she can't do anything right, and Giselle finds herself uncontrollably becoming a wicked stepmother. It knowingly plays into all the cliches in a way that its predecessor tried to buck them.  The root of it all though is dissatisfaction one's life, and how even with great love in family and friends, one can still feel like life isn't exactly what it should be.

It's an entertaining production with some really fun songs, particularly the duet/battle between Amy Adams' Giselle and Maya Rudolph's Malvena, but it's unfocussed. The asides of Robert, in his fantasy form, searching for adventure (and being quite terrible at it) are unnecessary.  The same with a subplot about Morgan's maybe having a love interest in Malvina's son, and Morgan's trip into Andalasia seems to serve purpose of getting Idina Menzel as Queen Nancy a song she can belt out for all the Frozen stans (it was one of the big, glaring omissions of Enchanted to have Menzel and not have her sing, and the song she sings here, she really destroys with it, but, sadly, it doesn't do much for the plot at all).

The movie really needed to keeps its focus tight on Giselle and her dissatisfaction with life, perhaps a postpartum depression metaphor even, as well as Morgan's aging out of believing in magic, increasing tensions with her stepmother, and feelings of inadequacy with the new baby being Giselle's true daughter.  Because when that story comes back around and Morgan learns that she is a true daughter of Andalasia, it opens the spigot for the waterworks.

Enchanted though perhaps problematic, is still a flat-out entertaining marvel.  Disenchanted is lesser-than in its entertainment factor, and perhaps even a bit of a misfire at times, yet still not entirely unwelcome in its existence.

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Toasty did a pretty good summary of The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, so I won't say too much about what happens, and most of what Toasty said about it, I agree with.  This really is a Christmas special, but "Holiday Special" recalls the Star Wars Holiday Special more, so I see what director James Gunn was going for there.  But I almost wish this was more in the campy vein of the Star Wars Holiday Special, than the straight up Christmastime adventure that it turned out to be.  There were always shows in the 70's and 80's that would do Christmas specials where things would step outside of the usual sit com vibe or hospital drama and do a really different story to deliver, basically, Christmas feels, about caring, and giving, and goodwill towards men, and learning about the spirit of the season.  And that's really what this is.  Rather than the bizarre variety show that was Bruce Vilanch's interpretation of Star Wars, we get a proper Christmas special but with the massive budget of a Marvel production, and its hard to be anything but grateful for that. Plus, it's basically more content with probably the best franchise in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I'm doubly thankful for more of that.  I don't know if it will become a holiday staple (I guess it might depend on how GOTG Vol.3 works out), but it'll certainly be fun to return to from time to time.  

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I've taken a step back from the Christmas/Holiday tv movie romances this year. I watched way too many of these the past few years, and last year kind of broke me.  These holiday movies are rarely good, frequently terrible, and the kind of joy or entertainment I got from the repetition of their cliches has almost fully waned.  This year's Hallmark crop, by all signs, has been endeavouring to break its own mould, but I'm having a hard time mustering up the enthusiasm to really care.  Lifetime seems to be content to continue to colour within the lines, and so we get the pablum of Reindeer Games Homecoming.  Written by and starring Grey's Anatomy's Sarah Drew, she's a science teacher who gave up pursuing her career as a doctor when her father got sick, and got complacent after he passed. She's reminded of what she didn't accomplish when high school flame, and super-hot action star Justin Bruening rolls into town.  The two flirt and hang out and develop feelings, but the old feelings of hurt and sadness get in the way.  All of this is framed around the local town's "Reindeer Games" which are a series of team competitions that the movie doesn't really care about in any real way so neither should the viewer.  This is all played as a lighthearted romance, so there are a couple of decent gags (and a lot of lame ones) but it's all trope-laden, seen-a-thousand-times-before type stuff, and the chemistry is not strong enough to really carry you through.  I've seen a lot dumber versions of this story, but a lot better ones too.  This reminded me why I don't want to watch 40 of these this year. One bad one is one too many.

31 Days of Halloween: The Dark

2018, Justin P Lange (The Seventh Day) -- Amazon 

Apparently we also finished off the season last year with one of Lange's flicks, The Seventh Day.

This might be a good candidate for Kent's horrornothorror tag, as it plays the thin line between horror movie and horrific faery tale very well. Let's call it a fantasy with horror overtones.

Mina is the boogeyman in the woods, in a remote area of... There are tales of a monster in the woods. She looks like a horrifically scarred zombie and acts like a feral child. Joseff has kidnapped Alex, also horrifically scarred, and blinded, likely by his captors. Mina kills Joseff, whom Alex was completely dependent on, and she is forced by some shred of humanity left in her, to care for Alex. A bond is formed. As the bond and trust increases, as the two hide in the woods, from hunters, and police, Mina's humanity appears to return, her flesh healing, her memories of her past (and her death) returning, until eventually she becomes (again) a real girl.

The tone is what makes this somewhat muddled indie movie. So many are going to compare the interaction with the original Let the Right One In but this movie wants to be more allegorical, more dark fairy tale, than true exploration of monsters. It gets the dark, shadowy nature of two abused people finding connection. But it is challenge by also trying to tie in a thriller plot, of a kidnapping ring, of a police hunt, etc. The timelines seem to be off, when the plot focuses on the thriller/horror aspects -- Alex's scars are years and years old, but the police hunt is fresh; Mina's death and her subsequent murderous resurrection was long enough ago to have her become urban legend but some of the trappings around her death appear to be recent. Either way, despite my desire to skip past the allegory and see a proper monster movie, I did enjoy this.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: The Princess and the Frog

 2009, d. John Musker and Ron Clements - Disney+

I'm slowly working through both the Princess and Renaissance-era Disney pictures, and not finding a whole lot of joy in most of it.  They don't feel like they were made for me to enjoy.  They never have.  They feel very much like the refined output of a factory that has a specific consumer profile, and hey, more power to those people that they were made for, and do enjoy them.  The straight, white, gen-xer male that I am has, and continues to have, more than enough product targeted at him. But I really like movies, and I like to see things that reach and try to be different.  Pixar came along in the middle of the Disney Renaissance and kind of embarrassed them making Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2 all which appealed to all types of children and parents, feeling contemporary and entertaining in a way that musical princess/romance/fairy tale movies just weren't, and hitting audiences in a way that made Disney seriously question what they were doing.  The course correction away from "girl-centric" features, into non-musical things like Atlantis and Treasure Planet basically sunk both the art form of American-originated hand-drawn animation and the princess story for nearly a decade.  With Disney suddenly under Pixar's influence in the late-aughts (rather than vice versa), The Princess and the Frog was the return, short-lived though it was, but it showed that some lessons had been learned in the intervening years.

From the title alone, The Princess and the Frog is so pointedly an attempt at recapturing the little-girl-princess market, but the story, and how it's told, feel like a distinct deviation. It's a story set in 1920's New Orleans, but it breaks from a lot of the tropes that they had established with The Little Mermaid (another Musker and Clements picture).  Tiana is a hard working young Black woman with a dream she's dedicated to fulfilling: saving her money to open her own restaurant, the same dream her father had but died before he could realize it.  She's self actualized which is quite a refreshing switch for a Disney Princess (which she isn't yet).  The film is also astutely aware of the economic and racial disparity in New Orleans, but only plays at it subtly, not seeking to make the whole affair too uncomfortable.  It's a visiting prince (from a made up, Spanish-ish nation, which gives only the skightest feel of Netflix's live action princess romances) that sets the town abuzz, and catches the attention of Dr. Facilier, the Shadowman, a voodoo priest and trickster. He set into play an overly complicated scheme to acquiring riches to pay down some debts he owes to some very vengeful spirits.  In the process the prince is turned into a frog. Tiana, kisses the frog to help him out of his jam, and turns into a frog herself, and they wind up on the run together.

The film puts the pair on a bayou adventure seeking out a voodoo priestess, and they meet some charming friends along the way, including a trumpet playing gator named Lewis and a creole firefly named Ray who is in love with a star. The quartet and their journey is a lot of fun, like a Pixar movie, putting the audience into a reality that's quite a different perspective on the world... a frog's eye view if you will.  While the romance between Tiana and Prince Naveen feels somewhat forced, it also doesn't feel like the goal the film is trying to get to.  It may be a flaw, or a strength depending on your perspective.  Of course, Tiana becomes a princess by marrying Naveen in the end, thus validating the title of the film.

The film is quite enjoyable but at the same time, there's definitely cultural criticism that can detract from the enjoyment of Disney's first Black princess musical romance, such as the fact that there's a big opening sequence with music from Dr. John, a white jazz musician (he's from New Orleans, I guess is the reasoning here) and that the music and songs of The Princess and the Frog (which are admittedly quite good...I learned Keith David can sing and he's amazing) come from Randy Newman.  It just seems a little off key to include these two figures as the musical representation for this film.  And the exact same criticism leveled against Soul (Pixar's first film with a Black lead character) is somehow apparent in a Disney film released a decade earlier, where the character's visual representation as a Black person on screen is taken away from them. It's kind of astounding that it happened again.  Just like Soul, there is an entertaining product here, but in both cases it just calls out to the fact that maybe in this Millennium you need to originate your stories with Black leads with Black creators.  That's not to say that all stories with Black characters have to be created by Black creators, but if the only Black stories you have are only originating from white creators, that's a real problem that needs addressing.

3 Short Paragraphs: Gretel & Hansel

2020, Oz Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House) -- download

From meh to wow, with a liberal bit of huh? This art house take on the faery tale is mystifying and captivating and more than a little weird. It fits well into that sub-genre that includes The VVitch and It Comes At Night (post conveyed to The Void), atmospheric horror where often the environment is scarier than the events, that relies on that childhood level of fear of the unknown, when you would sleep in a tent and hear twigs scraping on trunks and envision anything could be coming to get you.

Rather than do the twins wandering into the wood, we have older Gretel (Sophia Lillis, It) and Hansel younger, who are turned out to the wood, after not securing a servant's job in the house of a lecherous old man. Assisted by a woodsman, they are directed to head to the other side of the forest where they will find refuge... as long as they don't stray from the path. Buuuut after an encounter with some hallucinogenic mushrooms, they stray, and end up at the lovely A-frame cottage of The Witch (Alice Krige, Children of Dune), which reminded me of the Stave Churches of the Scandinavian region. Inside, the children see a table overflowing with a feast but nobody about. And thus they get entwined in the Witch's legacy.

Where the rest of the movie has this otherworldly lost in time feel to it, Alice Krige plays the witch like some kooky old American widow. She has nefarious plans in mind for Gretel, connected to a local legendary witch called The Beautiful Girl. In classic arthouse style, styles juxtaposed with the mood, often jumping from horror to social commentary to eerie beauty. While a bit rough around the edges, I rather enjoyed its atmospheric intent. Lillis really proves she is going to be more than just the Girl Who Was In IT, with Gretel also proving she is not to be the pawn in anyone's game.

3 Short Paragraphs: Artemis Fowl

2020, Kenneth Branagh (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) -- Disney+

Another casualty of The Pause (which has morphed into more of an Alternate Universe Play) was this movie based on a popular series of YA books, which I have not read, but Marmy has advised me was about a super-genius rich kid who plays super-spy cum master-thief who runs afoul (*cough*) of Faerie. It was supposed to have been released (last summer) in the theatres but was halted during the Fox-Disney merger, and then further delayed by all the fun we are currently having.  In fact, it has been in one form or another of Production Hell for almost 20 years. But what we ended up getting cannot really be blamed on any of this. What we got was muddled and confused at its best.

Artemis Fowl is the son of Artemis Fowl Sr., a rich philanthropist with a vast fortune. Jr has been raised to believe in Faerie, but doesn't really, and while Sr is on a business trip (that Jr is never allowed to come with) he disappears. Soon after he is accused of being the mastermind behind some the greatest thefts the world has known. They never really say where this evidence comes from, but it leaves Arty Jr disillusioned and angry. He's a snotty angry kid to begin with and is definitely not at all the sympathetic main character. Jr receives a call from a Mysterious Figure who tells Jr he has his father, and wants a particular artifact returned, or else. MacGuffin!!

Then we are introduced to Faerie.

This was hinted at in Thor when Branagh's vast and glorious Asgard was too big a bit to swallow in one movie, but he continues by giving us the vast and intricate culture of Faerie with its multiple races, complicated relationship with the surface (Faerie has been driven underground, literally) and a rather odd militaristic society. The Aculos (the MacGuffin) is something that was stolen by Sr and everybody wants, but of course we don't know why. But Faerie and the Mysterious Figure want it so much so they all come to the surface to take it back from Jr.  Spaceships and Faerie Wings and Laser Guns and Time Stops and Marauding Trolls and Not Short Dwarves that Shart dirt and and and.... there is so much in this movie which runs along at a break-neck pace while accomplishing very very little. If I was 14 I would have loved it, filling in all the blanks where I needed to, but 50ish Pause-tainted moi was just ... made tired.

Maleficent

2014, d. Robert Stromberg - Disney+

Disney's animated cinematic output has included more than it's fair share of memorable heroes, but likewise it's produced many a striking villain as well.  Although, many of those villains were mature women envious of the attractive young princesses in their lives, which is certainly a problematic stereotype.

Maleficent comes from Disney's adaptation of the the Sleeping Beauty fable, and is here re-imagined/retconned not as an envious and vain queen but as a woman scorned.  Well, actually it's more brutal than that...far more brutal.

But first, we meet Maleficent as a bright and bubbly pre-teen.  She's a horned, winged faery and the benevolent ruler of the Moors, hidden away from the world of man.  She wakes up in the morning and greets her community much in the same way Paddington does in his films (although, Paddington's urban London environment is far less unappealing than this vibrant-bordering-on-garish looking CGI abominable reality).  Her attention is called to an outsider, a human boy who has stolen a gem from the waters of the Moors.  Large tree-like creature seek to restrain him when Maleficent smooths things over and befriends the orphaned peasant boy, Stefan.

Through montage and voice over we learn that Stefan and Maleficent become best of friends and eventually, in their teen years, a romantic couple.  But as Stefan ages, his ambition -- now an aide to the king -- starts to blind him to his love, and eventually their love fades.  The king attempts a conquest of the Moors and fails brutally, suffering a mortal wound.  On his death bed he offers his crown to anyone who brings him the head of the demon woman who leads the fae folk.

Stefan seeks out to warn her but in fact tricks her, drugs her and cuts off her wings.

Yes, you read that correctly.  He roofies Maleficent and violates her horrendously.

It's brutal and sobering and honestly shocking.  I don't know if the writer or director intended this to be such a strong rape allegory, but in the fallout scenes, Angelina Jolie performance is certainly playing the horror of it.  This isn't just a woman scorned, this isn't just the betrayal of her love, it's the vicious abuse of her body for a man to feel powerful.  She has every right to be angry, and for what she could do, following her painful recovery, she shows incredible restraint.

When she hears word of Stefan's daughter's birth, she enters the palace and curses the child, to prick her finger on her 16th birthday and sleep forever, granting the one concession of true love's kiss reawakening the child, believing herself that true love cannot exist.

Through vignettes (the whole film is pretty much a series of vignettes, kind of like old Disney storytelling in a way), we see Maleficent watching over the child with hatred, and yet the child reciprocates with smiles and affection.  As time passes Maleficent finds herself the shadow guardian of the child, or, as Aurora believes when she discovers Maleficent in broad daylight, she's her fairy godmother.

Now out in the open, Maleficent cant help but adore this child she's basically helped raise from a distance, but she also can't help but feel guilty for the curse she placed upon her.  Yadda yadda yadda true love's kiss followed by overlong action sequence, and a happy ending.

It really is a ghastly-looking film beyond some impeccable costuming and make-up (Maleficent is so striking)... had this been a practical film instead of largely CGI it would have been a real marvel.  But also the storytelling, the vignette-style, doesn't serve any of the characters particularly well.  Relationships between characters imply familiarity more that demonstrate it.  There could have been more time spent developing the relationship between Maleficent and Stefan, so that we see, rather than are told, about the distance that grew between them because of the cold and ambitious heart of man.  Then the betrayal and assault could have been far more shocking and upsetting, but perhaps, being a Disney film after all, they thought they would temper that by keeping focus squarely on Maleficent. 

This film barely holds together, at times, and even at a brisk 97 minutes (with lengthy credits) it drags in spots.  Jolie is marvelous, clearly knowing exactly what she wants to put into the role and exactly what we should be getting out of it... the rest of the cast needs more direction.  Sharlto Copley makes for an awkward Stefan.  We can see from the outset his intentions as Stefan (we're also basically told), so there's no moments where he doesn't have an air of nefariousness.  Elle Fanning plays the princess Aurora, and she's asked basically to be bright and sunny and love everything, which she does, but there's no personality behind the role, and really, not much of a role there for her to play.  She's the film's maguffin, in a sense, but she should have been more.

I'm not certain a...less novice director than Robert Stromber (his first film, coming from effects and art direction)  could have saved the vignette style of the script, but think of the meal Guillermo Del Toro could have made of this.  Word was Tim Burton was originally interested in directing, which is probably for the best he didn't as it would have been Alice In Wonderland Burton and not Edward Scissorhands Burton.  But Edward Scissorhands Burton would have been perfect as well.


I admire what Disney was trying to do with Maleficent as both a story and a character, and while the execution let the story down tremendously, the character actually comes through for the better.

[Toast's take from 2014, we agree]

20/20: #6 American Gods season 1

2017, Bryan Fuller (Amazon Prime)

OMG

Since David literally *just* tackled it, I figured I'd weigh in on American Gods too.  It sort of fits the connective thread of comic books, superheroes and stranger things that have been the norm for 20/20 so far.

Like David, I too am a fan of Neil Gaiman...well, more a lapsed fans since Gaiman has been writing primarily prose and not comics any longer.  I don't read a lot of prose.  I get bored reading prose, my mind gets distracted and the experience of reading puts me to sleep.  It's not just Gaiman, but pretty much anyone.  On top of that, there's little reward for me reading prose, since I tend to forget the bulk of what I read, to the point that my brain has devoted absolutely zero space for American Gods.  I have no recollection of anything about the novel.  This is my status quo.  Strange, then, that my wife, a voracious reader with amazing recall of the printed word, also has next to no recollection of American Gods (or its follow up Anansi Boys).  Adding David to that pile, you have three people who should be the target audience for that book not connecting with it to any great degree.  There's no ill will towards it, but no fondness either.  That bodes ill for adapting it to another medium...as in, what's the point.

Bryan Fuller...Bryan Fuller is the point.  Fuller, death-obsessed Fuller, darkly comedic Fuller comes at American Gods with a vision.  Having just come out of three remarkable seasons of Hannibal severely underappreciated by the masses, and unceremoniously cancelled by NBC (though cudos for them for daring to even run it for three seasons, I suppose), he carries over much of the same crew and directorial talent, so there's a vibrant darkness to American Gods which it shares with Hannibal.  It takes about three episodes for American Gods to shake its Hannibal-ness and feel like its own thing, it's heavy shadows with vibrant colours, dark and grainy hard-to-watch scenes contrasted with bright and welcoming ones.  All the while that underbelly of sick, wry humour pulsating.  It's got its shocks, but its got a sense of humour about it too.  Some Fuller staples from as far back as Dead Like Me just persist.

American Gods' first season is surprisingly only 8 episodes long, and is all set-up.  While this could prove infuriating, it's so brilliantly put together it's hard to damn it for any of the choices it makes.  Old god Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) is readying for war against the new, and with his new associate, ex-con and widower Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) , they travel across America attempting to recruit other old, forgotten gods.  Meanwhile, Shadow's dead wife has returned from the grave (Emily Browning is a slow-build tour-de-force) and the new gods seem all too keen to have Shadow on their side.

There's a definite heightened reality to this show, one which is set in the opening moments depicting Vikings landing on a hostile terrain. Their leader faces a barrage of arrows, in fact, every single arrow hits him and only him.  In that instant, this brutally comic moment, one realizes this show is striving for something different.  This is a show afterall which features a montage of one god absorbing her worshipers into her during intercourse (and, as David noted, one of the most gorgeous, affecting, sensual gay sex moments in mainstream media ever... as you might expect having sex with a genie to be)

The casting is impeccable.  Those mentioned above, along with Orlando Jones, Cloris Leachman, Pablo Schreiber, Omid Abtahi, Peter Stormare, Gillian Anderson, Crispin Glover, Demore Barnes, Yetide Badaki, Kristin Chenowith and more putting in some infallible performances.  It's rare to see this level of talent buy into the conceit of a genre program so fully.  The show seems to encourage, not just accommodate scenery chewing.  The gods, afterall, should be grandiose, larger than life.

The first season doesn't end like a typical season finale... at 8 episodes it just feels like a break.  I have a feeling Fuller can tell this story in 3 8-episode seasons, 4 at most. But what we get is its own thing.  It's challenging, it's entertaining, it's glorious and memorable in a way the book wasn't.