Posts Tagged ‘musical’

Alice in Wonderland [1933]

Alice in Wonderland [1933]

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

It’s kinda amazing I haven’t seen this rather lavish Hollywood version of one of my favourite books yet, especially in these past few years of being particularly enamoured of all things Alice. I was reminded of its existence while watching Dreamchild again recently so I finally decided to get hold of it… sadly, it was the shorter 75 minute version, not the 90 minute cut that apparently exists elsewhere. I didn’t have particularly high expectations of it, mostly because you don’t really hear about it much at all, and almost immediately as it started, I set myself up for a difficult hour, as Alice first graces the screen looking practically in her 20s or 30s, in any case the oldest looking Alice (not counting the elderly Liddell in “Dreamchild” of course) I’ve ever seen (the actress, I’ve since learned, was 19; the character claims 12 years and 4 months lol).

But it’s incredibly hard not to love this movie in the end. Indeed, if it had only been made a few years later and done the same “fantasy world in colour” trick of The Wizard of Oz and had only one song more memorable than the few it has, I’m almost certain it would be just as beloved as the Judy Garland movie.

Notably, despite the title, it is much more based in fact on the second book “Through the Looking Glass”, which if you know the books is indication itself of the film’s surprisingly intellectual aspirations. Though it’s perfectly possible to enjoy the movie for its surface sheen (the set design is certainly up there with that of the later Oz), the actual screenplay (by Joseph Mankiewicz, who later wrote All About Eve among other Hollywood classics) retains many of that book’s more complicated nonsense exchanges. I don’t know what was cut from the longer version, but this version hops around Carroll’s world in a frankly disjointed way but so long as you’re comfortable with the nonsense at the core (which, in Wonderland, you really oughta be), it’s not too much of an issue.

Anyhoo, it’s not up there for me with the likes of my fave musical version of the story with Fiona Fullerton or Disney’s eyepoppingly aesthetic 50s version (to say nothing of Tim Burton’s more recent take, as I still haven’t seen it), but I would say at the least that it deserves to be seen and known a lot more than I feel it has been so far. There’s barely an Alice adaption not worth seeing, as there are simply so many approaches and interpretations to be made (whether you like them or not), and this was no exception.



The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

This is not a movie I expected to wind up liking anywhere near as much as I did as the end credits rolled… those who know me will know I have been a pretty huge fan of Disney in my time and even in those times when I mightn’t have liked the product, I always found them to be a fascinating company, in the way they’re perceived both positive/negatively, in the way they change (or try to change) with the times, and yet the way they seem to (most of the time) retain the spirit of Uncle Walt all the way.

I was one of those who never quite understood the decision to quit 2D animation. Yes: Home on the Range was a disappointment that seemed to confirm whatever reasoning lay behind it, but I was never one of those who considered the likes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and most of all Lilo & Stitch (which gets better every year, I swear), to be so much worse than the most average of their earlier output (Robin Hood, *The Great Mouse Detective*… they haven’t always been classics, is what I’m saying); and while it’s true they weren’t living up to the heights of Pixar’s CGI work, or constantly doing their best, they were for the most part easily still better than the output of Dreamworks etc.

That long intro is a way of saying, I was never going to be saying in this review, as so many have, “at last, Disney return to form!” because I honestly don’t think they ever lost it. Mis-steps, yes; total betrayal of their roots? No. The only time I feared they had lost it, as a matter of fact, was much more recently than their closing of the 2D department. If you’ve read my reviews before, you might have seen my semi-rant about Enchanted… another movie which people embraced with strangely deluded arms which seemed to think Disney hadn’t been doing 2D Princess stories for half a century let alone half a decade. I thought the animated sequences in that movie were honestly just embarrassing – and I thought its message, its way of taking the whole “love at first sight and happily ever after” thing of old and treating it “responsibly”, was plain depressing and couldn’t be further removed from what I (and I’m sure many others) turn to Disney for.

I mention that because (finally we can get to the movie!) this was what I really worried for a while would be repeated here. I’ve been following this movie (and the next big 2D from Disney, Rapunzel, about which I at least had the same reservations) since it was announced and especially after Enchanted I really thought my time for loving Disney was coming to an end with the changes I kept hearing. I won’t get started on the other embracing comments about this being Disney “finally” having a black Princess (wow, it only took ‘em 80 years, amazing), despite that princess turning into a bright green amphibian 30 minutes in…

There’s a moment very early here when the heroine’s father informs her, “you can wish on a star but the star can only take you part o’ the way…” The heroine in this scene is still a very young girl. It brought me right back to that scene in Enchanted when the little girl’s father says something similar to her, to which she replies astutely, “I’m only six!” to which he retaliates, “You won’t always be.”

Luckily, The Princess and the Frog has this moment for a better reason.

What this movie does for much of its first hour is similar to what Disney tried to do with Enchanted, this new “responsible” approach, telling kids you can’t just dream your life away or rely on daddy’s credit card to get you out of trouble or, indeed, just wish upon a star which (among many things) are all things Disney have been criticised for doing for decades now. I understand these criticisms and the well-meaning behind them, but I can’t agree with them. Disney is dreaming. In any case: here it isn’t, as was the case in Enchanted, the whole message. The responsible approach to magical thinking – the “having a fall-back plan in case your dreams don’t come true” thing – here is a starting point from which the film makers then work towards delivering the old Disney message in a way that works better than ever in a world where that former message is all too hopelessly prevalent.

I cannot find the words to express the relief I felt and how astonished I was when the final act of this movie came out of nowhere to make all my pent-up frustrations with the run-up to it completely blow away. Like I said, I’m not gonna go all out and say it’s their best since Beauty and the Beast or Lady and the Tramp or god forbid further back (really would you believe there are people on this earth who completely dismiss the 90s resurgence stuff as “not really Disney”?), but it is certainly for me their best since Lilo & Stitch, and there are elements, particularly in the last half hour, that really did take my breath away like nothing from the studio has since Tarzan. I haven’t even talked about the quality of the animation itself or Randy Newman’s songs etc, but it’s probably been covered plenty elsewhere. I really cannot wait to see it again without all the fears I came to it with this time around, and my hopes for Rapunzel are beginning to crawl their way back too a pretty frenzied peak.



Mrs. Santa Claus

Mrs. Santa Claus

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

I half-expected to like this one a lot more. Jerry Herman, Angela Lansbury, lavish design, it’d least be something to hark and gawk at. However, a little like (nowhere near as much as) Prancer Returns, I found this had nowhere near as much to do with Christmas as it perhaps should. We open with a catchy tune and elves singing whilst building toys, etc, and it’s great, then Mrs Claus decides to take the sleigh for a spin and spends most of the rest of the movie down in NYC righting wrongs at a time when suffragettes were controversial.

It reminded me very much of Samantha: An American Girl Holiday: which, though I know was written later and also lacks the musical touch, still tackled the same kind of stuff better and felt more like a Christmas movie. Lansbury is of course wonderful though, as are the tunes (I was disappointed to only hear a cameo melody of “We Need a Little Christmas”, I didn’t realise while watching that that song came from “Mame”, not this, lol), and there’s a hilariously eccentric villain in the form of Terrence Mann, in short, plenty to keep you entertained over 90 minutes plus… I just kinda hoped for something less, “hmm… not surprised it’s on TV not the stage…”.



Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

I like how the first IMDb review listed as I visited this movie’s page contains the phrase, “it might be fabricated but …” The thing is, here is one “biography” movie that says it right up front in plain text: “this is not his life story but a fairytale about the making of the fairytales”. Can’t argue with that.

With movies like this I never quite know what I’m gonna get. When it comes to old movies I think I’m more likely to warm to musicals than any other genre but when it comes to musicals I’m particularly picky. If it’s all about the songs and the songs are nothing but “entertaining” I quickly lose interest. Lucky for this one it gets right to the heart of the matter in its first scene, an altercation between the true educators of Andersen’s little village and Andersen himself as he speaks of different ways children can be taught.

Some of the more extended music sequences I could do without – I really should’ve liked The Little Mermaid ballet sequence but it immediately lost me … The Red Shoes kinda leaves any movies with a dance sequence of such length with a lot to live up to. But the songs are wonderful, and Danny Kaye has a timeless naturalism to him even while singing that kinda blows my mind. I would never have guessed the movie was made as early as 1952. Of its time it’s easily up with the best.



High School Musical 3: Senior Year

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

“You see what happens when you do a show? You become like five people.”
“What’s wrong with that? We used to come here when we were kids and we’d be ten people.”

I figured I best get this in before Mark Kermode gives it Best Picture at his Kermode Awards next week, hehe, and the good news is that I’m pretty much with him on this one. Here’s my High School Musical history – I was pleasantly surprised by the first one but I did feel rather like I’d been forced to watch it. I kinda loved the sequel in a completely non-cinematic way just for Sharpay’s sheer pinkness, lol. A third one, I could kinda take or leave it. As a result, I have to admit, I was kinda blown away even after Mark Kermode’s gushy review of it way back on its release.

I love the structure here – everything is much larger as you’d expect as the first installment to be made for the big screen … but at the same time, everything is oddly more compact. We’re thrown into what could easily be the last scene in the movie as the Wildcats play their last big game, and the songs cut into what look like full production numbers for the big musical they’re rehearsing. It’s weird how the movie feels like it’s playing with the timeline of the story even though it never really does. There’s barely a single scene outdoors let alone away from the school and that I love too. The thing to be aware of here is that the subtitle might just as well be “Reality Not Allowed” and though I’d usually be the person being cynical and negative about a picture of school life as presented here, I really have been shaking my head at the reviews that say that movies like this are to blame for anorexia and school shootings and the like. Not a single thought like that entered my head while watching this, even though it’s the most strangely equipped school I’ve ever seen, a strange fantasy land too where even the social misfits have some kind of worthwhile part to play, etc. Those thoughts never crossed my mind because the movie just doesn’t leave any room for them to occur. I surrendered to it within minutes and by the time Gabriella and Troy were singing in the rain on the rooftop, I was honestly dabbing my eyes and that wasn’t the end of the tearduct malfunction either. This is just a joyous experience and I just can’t say a bad thing about it.



Repo! The Genetic Opera

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

I was really looking forward to seeing this one, and it’s very possible that in the end I really like the idea of this movie more than the actual experience – I feel the need to say that right from the start. Attention must be drawn to a movie like this, I think, especially at a time when – while the musical is “coming back” in cinema – you still have people emerging from Sweeney Todd commenting less than favourably about “all that singing”, and when whole segments are cut out of Rent‘s libretto in favour of more “audience-friendly” dialogue. I didn’t expect this to live up to its title quite so much as it does – there’s barely a word of spoken dialogue (okay, a lot of the “songs” are sung-spoken), and for the most part, for what it is at least, it works.

The set-up reminds me of off-broadway type stage musicals like Urinetown and Bat Boy, both of which it must be said had more catchy tunes. The casting is impressive – I came to it mostly for Spy Kids‘ Alexa Vega but was surprised to find Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, and even Paul Sorvino among the warblers. I was equally surprised by the level of gore on display: they’re not just selling when they tell you this is from the makers of Saw on the DVD cover, lol.

In the end I just love that there are people out there trying to make a new cult classic in the vein of Rocky Horror, even moreso that there are people willing to fund such a thing to this level and clearly give the film-makers free rein – … even if, ultimately, they kinda fail. In all honesty, Repo! is really more Shock Treatment than Rocky Horror – even closer, in fact, this just occurred to me, to Hedwig and the Angry Inch … and it must be said again that all of those productions had more instantly memorable songs. But like I said, I love the idea of it more than anything else; and it’s highly likely to grow on me, as it surely already has on others, because I can see myself watching it many times again.



A Day at the Races

A Day at the Races

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Again, I refer you to my review of Duck Soup for my thoughts on most of this kind of comedy. This one’s 30 minutes longer to boot. There is however, like the mirror scene there that I loved, a great scene here involving the destruction of a piano. The dance sequences deservedly earned these movies their only competitive Oscar … but, meh, I’m even less hot for dancing than I am for silly comedy. Maureen O’Sullivan is gorgeous, though.



The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Oh gosh :)

When I first heard about this I turned my nose up because of the whole set-up … a prequel to the original, which of course meant no Melody :) lol. A few months ago I saw a still from the movie posted to some IMDb message board or other and my interest seeing in the movie for all but disappeared because the moment in particular that they’d captured just looked atrociously drawn.

How fast those doubts can be swept away by the merest glance during the first few minutes here of a tiny tiny Ariel (no seashells, just a cute purple wrap, lol!) and all the other characters, and the animation, crucially, in motion. The animation here is spectacular … and I’m not even gonna add to that “… for a DTV sequel …”

Well, anyway, the tiny tiny Ariel doesn’t last ‘cos this is evidently all occurring pretty close to the start of the original. The story is nifty once it gets going – I actually laughed out loud when Ariel first stumbles across Sebastian’s underground music speakeasy, lol. Basically Triton has outlawed music in Atlantica and the movie is kind of Prohibition for kids about the importance of music. I guess Disney is getting a headstart on the neo-depression genre lol.

There are lots of cute references to the original, my fave being the jawdrop moment (if I remember correctly, this was also in the sequel when Melody tells Sebastian she sometimes imagines she has fins) – here it’s flipped around and it’s Ariel’s jaw that drops when she first seas goody-goody Sebastian breaking the rules by singing. Later we see the villainess Marina Del Ray mimicking the splash-up-on-the-rock moment that ended the “Part of Your World” reprise. There are some supersubtle gags for adults though, too, like “At-lant-ic-a!” when all the sea creatures find themselves locked away. The movie really has a surprisingly rebellious streak to it. Oh and also, almost making up for the absence of Melody (though her voice, Tara Strong, is here! hehe), at last Flounder is back to the cute version we fell in love with in the original, not the adolescent, voice broken, version that was about the worst thing in Return to the Sea LOL.

All in all I was surprised. I’d obviously rather see another Melody story than this but I can’t deny the animation is just leaps and bounds better than most Disney DTVs – though I’m cringing the more I hear about the Tinker Bell movie which basically sounds like Bratz meets Sex and the City with fairies, bah … I can’t wait to see the animation.