As the Year Closes...

I thought about doing a year-end status report, but it's too nice a day to think about business matters.

It sounds silly, but I'm dreaming stories again. Not nightmares or stress/worry rehashes like I have for the past year. It's a pretty good feeling, and I don't want to ruin it.

So instead, I'll say

Monday Movie Mania - The Penguins of Madagascar

The Penguins solo adventure picks up at the party at the end of Madagascar 3, though there is a quick flashback to the boys' childhood. The story revolves around the team's competition with another secret agent group called Northwind in taking down the mad octopus Dave.


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SPOILERS

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PROS
1) I love the Penguins to the point of watching their animated TV shows. This is the first movie or TV program that layers the guys' personalities. Watching Skipper admit that Confidential's plan was better than his was painful, but a necessary evolution to his character.


CONS
1) The other penguins' treatment of Private really didn't make sense in terms of this being a story set after Madagascar 3. Private has proven his bravery and resourcefulness over and over again. For Skipper, Kowolski and Rico to treat him in such a patronizing manner was off-putting.

2) The pacing of the story was glacial compared to the other installments of the Madagascar franchise. There were points I started to nod off.

For the record, that is not a good thing.

3) The animated series did the same basic plot with Dr. Blowhole in the animated series, and it was done MUCH better there.

Because Neil Patrick Harris rocks!

4) Dreamworks' intention to launch the Northwind team as a new series was painfully obvious.


As much as I love the Penguins, this movie version didn't cut it. I'd give a 5 out of 10 stars at best.

TV Marathons I've Been Watching over the Holidays

Bow ties and River Song are cool.

Random Thoughts on December 24th

For those of you who don't know, our family is interfaith. One of the things we've tried to instill in GK is respect for other people's beliefs regardless of his own or ours.

Which means at some point, the in-laws will find out that GK has declared himself an atheist. And damn, will that be entertaining!

But my in-laws' heads exploding wasn't the point of this post. While getting last minute groceries yesterday morning, I had a lot of folks wish me "Merry Christmas!" I'm not Christian, but I'm not offended. The greetings were sincerely meant.

But a lot of folks get pissed off if someone says "Happy Holidays!" I don't really understand why some people feel this is a personal attack. Christians aren't the only ones that have a holiday this time of year. There's Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, and more that I've forgotten. (My sincere apologies to those I didn't name.)

I name a specific holiday greeting to a person if I know their religion. For example, I wish my friend Kat "Merry Christmas," and she wishes me "Happy Yule."

But I don't always know a stranger's religion, it isn't obvious (like wearing a yarmulke, a hajib, or a cross), and frankly, their religion isn't my business. So I go with my favorite standby, "Happy Holidays!"

And when I did that to a customer years ago at the last Day Job, he went freakin' ballistic and accused me of being anti-Christian. At the end of his tirade, I asked him how I was supposed to know his religion. He blinked several times before he answered, "This is Christian nation!"

"But not everyone in the U.S. is Christian," I said.

That prompted another tirade. Again, I waited patiently for it to end before I asked, "Should there be a law that everyone in the U.S. wear the symbol for their religion?"

"Yes!"

"And how did that work out for the Jews in Germany seventy years ago?" I asked quietly.

The blood drained from his face, and he marched out of the store.

I never saw him again, and he never filed a complaint with my manager (I half-expected it). I hope I made him think. I hope he now sees those of us who aren't Christian as people and not enemies. I hope he realizes that a sincere non-specific December holiday greeting is just that--a greeting, not an insult.

Since today's the last day of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, I wish everyone a Safe and Happy Holiday Season!

Monday Movie Mania - Interstellar

The last time I saw Matthew McConaughey in a literary-type sci-fi flick was in 1997's Contact. I think Interstellar is a similar, albeit much better film.

The premise is simple. Earth is dying. While the dialogue doesn't come out and say it, human-influenced climate and microbial changes have brought the human race to the brink of extinction. So of course, we have the brilliant scientist (Michael Caine) and his beautiful and equally brilliant daughter (Anne Hathaway) sconced in a top-secret installation, searching for a solution.

What they need is a pilot for their space ark. Again, the dialogue insinuates that air travel no longer exists. McConaughey's Cooper was one of the last astronauts trained before NASA was officially shut down as a waste of resources.


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SPOILERS

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PROS
1) Give me a good story if you can't give me good science. For the most part, this movie gives both. In fact, the human story outshines the spectacular effects and occasional oopses in the science department. What would you do if your children aged more rapidly than you? If you could only see your grandchildren in messages that were decades old? Could you give up your personal desires/beliefs/dreams in total service to the existence of your race?

2) All three women who portray Cooper's daughter Murph give outstanding performances. While Jessica Chastain has the lion's share of scenes, it's Mackenzie Foy as the teen Murph and Ellen Burstyn as the elderly Murph that will bring tears to your eyes.

3) OMG! Matt Damon does NOT get enough credit as an actor! As Caine's co-head of the Lazarus Project, Dr. Mann seems reasonable and logical, but the mask slips, and we realize he's bat-crap crazy a split-second before the other characters do. Seriously, this guy needs a Best Supporting Actor nomination by the Academy!

4) The special effects are going to make you wish Stanley Kubrick had CGI when he was filming. Even better was the visual allegory of "string theory/threads of the Fates".

5) I got a sneaky thrill that Murph, a female scientist, is the one who calculates with the Unified Field Theory based on the information her father and TARS were able to transmit to her, though the movie never actually names it as such.


CONS
1) Some of the science left me with a WTF feeling. There's a difference between a neutron star and a black hole. At various times in the movie, Gargantua is referred to as both.

2) The filmmakers push credibility by having three planets within Gargantua's habitable zone. Even if I let that go, the fact that Miller's planet is the closest to Gargantua, a star with a massive gravity field, and has liquid water, you would think the scientists would suspect massive tides. But hey, I only have a minor in physics so what do I know.


Obviously Christopher Nolan's shooting for an Oscar with this movie, and I hope he gets it.

Overall, I give Interstellar a 9 out of 10 for a couple of questionable science issues, and two instances where the characters were too stupid to live (and didn't).

Songs I've Been Listening to Lately

You really can't get this tune out of your head after seeing the movie.

Are Disney Princesses Finally Becoming Real Women?

In a stroke of marketing genius, Andy Mooney, Disney's chairman of Consumer Products, created the Disney Princess line in 2000 after observing several young girls dressed in generic princess attire while attending a Disney on Ice production. Mooney pulled together the female leads of several of the animated movie franchises, including the classics created under Walt Disney's supervision, the revival under Michael Eisner's leadership of the corporation, and CGI creations under John Lassiter as the former head of Pixar and the new head of Disney's animated division.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, each man brought his conceptions of womanhood to the drawing board. Walt Disney took classic fairy tales that were often brutal and bloody and toned them down for family consumption. He also reflected American cultural beliefs that "good" women should seek out marriage and children. The movies involving Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (aka "Sleeping Beauty") all end with the title character's marriage to a prince.

Because of the poor reception and low box office take of Sleeping Beauty, Walt didn't tackle another fairy tale. While there's no proof of any connection, one has to wonder if the infancy of 60's counter-culture movements didn't have some effect on Sleeping Beauty's box office. It was released in January of 1959, the same month Castro and his forces took over Cuba. Sixteen months later, the first contraceptive pill was approved by the FDA. The HEA endings didn't make sense to a generation of women taking control of their lives.

It wasn't until Michael Eisner became the head of the Disney corporation in 1984 that the company tackled another animated fairy tale. To his credit, Eisner tried to return to the artforms the company was best remembered for as well as expand the corporation's holdings. The result was an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.

Disney's Princess Ariel was far more feisty than her predecessors. However, she still need to be rescued from the villain by her love interest, Prince Eric. The studio finally broke the "heroine only looking for love" mold with Belle in Beauty and the Beast, but the movie still ended with her falling in love with a prince.

The successive princesses (Mulan is included by the company even though she's of common birth, as is her love interest Li Shang) showed more spunk, more independence, but at the conclusion of each story, the princess in question finds romantic love. Even in Tangled, Rapunzel ends up married to Eugene, a pardoned thief, even though she showed more realistic traits of an emotional abused teenager. In addition, she's the first to take the initiative to escape her psychological imprisonment.

The first time a princess walks into the proverbial sunset without a man on her arm was Merida of the Disney/Pixar film Brave. In fact, she rejects all of her suitors, much to their relief. The three princes didn't want to be forced into a loveless marriage any more than she did.

Merida also broke the Disney mold of one or more dead parents. While her dad loses a leg in a bear attack in the first few minutes of the movie and her mom is turned into a bear later, both of Merida's parents remain alive through the movie.

The primary issue in the story was the normal tension between a teen and her biological mother, an issue neither Disney nor Pixar have dealt with in their animated movies. For once this wasn't about a guardian or parental figure abusing the heroine or out-and-out plotting her murder. Queen Elinor sincerely wants what's best for Merida, but fails to see the person her daughter has become. Merida feels stifled by her mother's constant demands of royal propriety.

I think breaking the normal plot molds of Disney is the one of the real reasons Brave received so many negative reviews when the film was first released. However, thoughts concerning the movie shifted when Disney announced they were adding Merida to the Princess line. The artwork for packaging and the new doll changed Merida from a small-breasted, adolescent tomboy with frizzy hair to a voluptuous woman with well-tamed and styled hair. The new princess aroused the ire of many feminists, and worse, mothers. A petition was started on Change.org, and Disney returned Merida to the original Pixar version. [Disclosure: As one of the pissed-off mothers, I signed the petition.]

The backlash of the petition and the support from subsequent reviewers seemed to sink through the brains of the Disney executives. Maleficent, the live-action retelling of Sleeping Beauty, takes elements of the mother/daughter relationship and uses that love to save the princess rather than romantic love as in the original animated version. It also takes the unusual step of displaying a metaphorical drugged date rape and subsequently punishing the rapist. Further, the hero refused to take advantage of Aurora when she was unconscious. Finally, Maleficent and Aurora work together to save themselves.

Frozen, Disney's latest animated film, also manages to avoid the romance-as-female-safety trap. The princesses Elsa and Anna save each other through the power of their sisterly love. In fact, one romantic interest derides Anna for her desperate wish for any kind of love and how easily she was manipulated because of it.

So has Disney caught up with the 21st century? Three movies does not a pattern make. But I believe the Disney execs will listen to the people who generally buy gifts for the children in the family. And frankly, we buyers are tired of the helpless female meme. I was tired of it when I was growing up in the '70's. And it's definitely a meme I don't want my son indoctrinated in.

What happens next?

That's really up to Disney if they want my money. I still have a couple of underage nieces and my future granddaughters to buy for. If Disney can't keep it's act together, then I'll be buying a lot of Wonder Woman merchandise as gifts.

Monday Movie Mania on a Wednesday - Frozen

FTC Notice: The movie was courtesy of a free promotional weekend by HBO.

For the past year, you couldn't avoid Idina Menzel's incredible voice belting out the show-stopping number from Disney's latest animated fairytale flick. Because of the move from hell, it was the first time our family ever missed a first-run in the theaters, but even GK sat through my princess night on Saturday (ABC Family also ran Tangled that night, so we had a Disney movie-a-thon.), because yes, both movies are that good.

The story is loosely, very, very loosely, based on the Hans Christian Anderson classic, The Snow Queen. Alas, no demons or magic mirrors in this version.


* * * SPOILERS * * *


Elsa and Anna are two young princesses in a Scandinavian land. Elsa has powers to create snow and ice; Anna doesn't have any magical abilities. But that doesn't stop the sisters from having an incredibly close relationship until the day Elsa accidentally harms Anna.

It takes a troll king to heal Anna. Far, far worse is the damage the girls' parents do by forbidding Elsa to use her powers and forcing her to hide them. Elsa becomes so afraid of herself that she shuns any contact with Anna or anyone else. Matters come to a head when the sisters quarrel on the day of Elsa's coronation, and she accidentally turns her kingdom into a frozen wasteland.

PROS
1) The writers captured the sibling relationship perfectly, how they can be best friends and worst enemies at the same time.

2) For once, the male characters weren't the perfect heroes that swooped in and saved the day. Disney tried to change the trend in Tangled, but they fully succeeded in Frozen. It wasn't romantic love that saved the sisters, but their love for each other.

3) Idina Menzel and Kristin Bell's duet. 'Nuff said.


CONS
1) Why does Disney have an obsession with whacking the parents? This is one case where I wish the parents were alive, and they learned their lesson that oppressing their daughter for her own good was the stupidest thing they could have done.


I give Frozen a 10 out of 10 for its Girl Power message and the best music in a Disney score since The Lion King.

Monday Movie Mania - Maleficent

Last weekend was a cornucopia of movies for the family, both recent releases and older ones we missed due to the insanity of the last year and a half. I'll focus on the Disneys first with some thoughts on Friday concerning the company's apparent change in direction in regards to female characters.

FTC Notice: This film was courtesy of a free coupon from AT&T Universe's On Demand service.

Hoo boy! Maleficent. This live-action version isn't your grandma's classic animated one.

The earliest tales of Sleeping Beauty, which has been around in some version or another for 800 years, gave a reason for the character of Maleficent to curse the princess, but Uncle Walt's original movie is pretty one-dimensional. She's painted as bitch for the sake of being one.


*** SPOILERS ***


This version gives the fairy a damn good reason for being pissed at the man who will become King Stefan. He claims he loves her, drugs her, and cuts off her wings, all in order to be named king. The rape imagery is impossible to miss.

Many folks think this makes Maleficent too dark of a movie for children. As a parent myself, I would say watch it yourself and use your common sense as to whether your children is ready. However, don't underestimate your child. This scene is a good teaching moment when it comes to trust and safety issues.

The story also addresses the redeeming power of love, though not of the romantic variety. Maleficent spies on the three pixies raising the young princess, with the intent of torturing the child and thereby her father. However, she finds herself saving Aurora again and again from the pixies' lack of attention and inexperience with humans.

The defining moment is when the little girl accepts the wounded fairy as she is. The innocence of the child thaws Maleficent's heart. She tries to revoke the curse, but is unable to.

PROS
1) Angelina Jolie's subtlety in playing this role. She makes Maleficent a sympathetic, strong, and totally understandable person.

2) Elle Fanning's Aurora throwing a totally teen temper tantrum upon learning that ALL the fairies have been lying to her for her whole life. It's a very real moment in a fantasy story, but it grounds the character, compared to the blow-up Barbie doll she was in the animated version.

3) Prince Phillip not winning the day. I believe in love, but a five-minute meet-up in the woods is lust, not love. In counterpoint to the earlier rape allegory, he refuses to kiss an unconscious girl.

4) This movie is an excellent way for parents to open conversations with their pre-teen children about the opposite sex and safety.

CONS
1) This is a PG-rated film. Use your best judgment, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it for children under eight. Like I said above, this ain't your grandma's Sleeping Beauty.

Overall, I would give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Songs I've Been Listening to Lately

Since I brought up the delightful Meghan Trainor yesterday, here's a taste...