America vs. the Hoovers: Little Miss Sunshine

It was the first film I saw in the theaters when I became a student at the University of the Arts. It remains one of my all-time favorite films, not just because I always enjoy the ride and I love the characters, but also because the themes of the movie relate to so many pieces of my life, including things that I think are wrong with the world. Little Miss Sunshine is a dark road-trip comedy, a touching family drama, but above everything, I believe the film is a critique of American society. It criticizes the American attitude of winning at all costs, it attacks America’s obsession with sex, and their obsession with hiding said obsession, and it criticizes the American dream, by showing a group of characters close to misery in their search for the American dream, and their discovery of happiness as soon as they reject that American dream and embrace each other.

The film tells the story of Olive Hoover, a little girl whose dream is to become a Beauty Queen, which is an ironic dream for this little girl, since her appearance suggests the opposite of beauty. She’s overweight, she wears dorky glasses, and she doesn’t have an eating disorder, but her dream is to be one of those girls who wear a tiara and a ribbon around her chest. Olive is surrounded by a group of adults who are all at different stages of chasing their own dreams, but none of those stages is success. Richard, her father, is a motivational speaker who is trying to sell his 9-Step program for publishing. Dwayne, her older half-brother, dreams of leaving the house forever as soon as he gets a chance and becoming a test pilot for the Air Force, and to show his disdain for his current life, he’s taken a vow of silence until he reaches that goal.

Her gay uncle Frank is past failure. His dream was to be regarded the #1 Proust Scholar in the United States, but an unrequited love he had for one of his students made him do some stuff he regretted, which got him fired, and led to an attempted suicide, and has now landed him on a cot in his sister’s house (Olive’s house). Her grandfather may have had a dream once, a long time ago, but now he just lives life one day at a time and enjoys himself, snorting heroin and sleeping around, because life has disappointed him and he just wants to do whatever he wants. Holding all these men together is Sheryl, Olive’s mother. She has no time for dreams, because she has to finance her husband’s motivational program, and care for all these men living in her house. She also provides the love and support needed for this family to go on, but with no help from any of the people around her, she can barely hold it together.

The film begins with Sheryl picking Frank up from the hospital, getting him settled in Dwayne’s room, and everybody sitting down for dinner, which is where we learn every conflict in this family before they get the news that will set them off on their road trip. During these scenes, we see symbols on many of the objects that represent America, like a McDonalds sign on the cups they drink from, or the clowns drawn on the pillows on Frank’s cot, which stand out from Dwayne’s somber room, filled with white wallpaper and a drawing of Friedrich Nietzsche. This room is the only room in the house that isn’t bright and sunny, and doesn’t have any symbols of American life, so it stands out from the house as a place where Dwayne doesn’t belong, and to an extension, a place where Frank doesn’t belong and is being placed in by forces outside those within the room. They are also eating bucket chicken for dinner on paper plates. These are American symbols that tell the audience that this family is failing at pursuing the American dream, and from the conversation at the table, we see that they are failing at being a family.

When the family gets a message that Olive will be competing in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant this Sunday in Redondo Beach (900 miles away from Albuquerque, where they live), the entire family is forced to crowd into their bright yellow VW bus for two days before they arrive at the competition that will change their lives together. I believe the yellow bus is a symbol for the family that travels inside of it. It may need a little push to get started again (once the clutch stops working), but it’ll get you where you need to go. The bus is an old VW that no one would consider when dreaming up the American dream, but the fact that the bus is a very bright and welcoming shade of yellow represents that the family already has what they need. They already have that ray of sunshine that they expect to gain when they’ve accomplished their dreams, they just can’t look past the fact that it’s a VW bus and their stuck together, but during their travels, the only thing these characters can count on are the bus and each other.

I’d like to talk about Grandpa. He dies half way through the film, but his presence remains throughout (and I don’t mean his body in the trunk of the car). In a way, he can be viewed as the mastermind behind the entire plot, and as soon as he’s gone, the family can do nothing but be surprised by what he has in store for them. Grandpa represents a complete rejection of the American dream and everything that goes with it. He’s been alive for 80 years, he’s lived through wars, through at least 10 Presidents, changes in technology, and the one thing he has learned in all that time is that the American dream, and all the rules he’s had to live by to achieve it are just not worth it. Early in the film, Grandpa has a conversation with Dwayne, and gives him a piece of advice, which is to “fuck a lot of women. Not just one woman, a lot of women”. Grandpa regrets having lived by the rules society provided him, like getting married and raising a family, that he wishes he could’ve had more women and more adventures. Now, he just wants to do what he wants, which got him kicked out of the last retirement facility he checked into. Richard pressures Olive to win the competition, but Grandpa tells her to just have fun. Before he puts her to sleep for the last time, he tells her that “a real loser is someone who’s so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try”, so even if she doesn’t win the competition, she’s still a winner, and that’s his view on what life is all about before it was tampered by the capitalistic society that is our country.

The film follows these characters as the dreams that still remain are slowly shattered. On the way to Redondo Beach for the Little Miss Sunshine competition, Richard learns that no one would buy his 9-Step program and there’s nowhere else to go from there, according to Stan Grossman (Richard’s agent, who was trying to get the program sold at an auction), so he’ll have to start from scratch, and probably go bankrupt. Dwayne breaks his vow of silence in a fit of rage when he learns that he’s colorblind. Olive takes some eye tests from the hospital where Grandpa died and tested them on Dwayne, and because of that, Dwayne found out he was colorblind and they won’t let him become a pilot if he’s colorblind. After both these dreams are shattered, there is still one dream that can be reached, and that is Olive’s dream, but throughout the film we find hints that this American dream should be rejected.

The waitress at the restaurant, and the mechanic who tells them about pushing the car, the only two people on the road that are of any help to them, are both Mexican. Mexicans are people on the hunt for the American dream, and in many cases, American rejects them, so the fact that the mechanic who helps them and the waitress who is nice to them are both from a country that the United States looks down upon, it says something about the American dream they should be rejecting. There’s also this subtle little hint in the motel room scene, where Richard and Sheryl are arguing and Dwayne can hear them through the wall. Frank tells him not to listen to that and turns on the TV, but Dwayne turns it off and says he'd rather listen in while his mother and stepfather argue. When Frank turned the TV on, President Bush was giving a speech in front of Congress. The fact that Dwayne turns the President of the United States off shows us that the movie is rejecting what America represents. It’s turning off the leader of the country (at the time) in favor of listening to the problems of people we’ve grown to care about. The road trip also foreshadows the American obsession with sex shown in Act III when the family gets pulled over by a cop, and the cop inspects the trunk (where Grandpa’s body is), but lets Richard go because some porn magazines that Grandpa had Frank buy earlier fell off the trunk and the cop is aroused by those magazines, so he lets him go, because he shares that obsession with Richard.

As soon as the family arrives at Redondo Beach to sign Olive up to the competition, the place we’ve been waiting the whole film to arrive to, we find that it’s the last place we want to be in, and in this room, we see everything that is wrong with beauty pageants, especially when little girls are involved. When Olive walks backstage with her mother, we see the other contestants in bathing suits, sometimes bikinis, with tans sprayed on their legs and giant hairdos placed on their heads. During the pageant, there’s an interesting cut to the beach outside the hotel, which looks empty and depressing. The MC is singing “America the Beautiful” to the pageant contestants as they stand next to each other, and as soon as it cuts out to the beach, we hear the MC saying “America, you are so beautiful…” before we pan over to Frank and Dwayne on the peer, leaning toward the ocean, and we hear Dwayne saying “sometimes I wish I could sleep till I was 18 and skip all this crap, High School and everything.” This is what American has done to both of these characters. They each had big dreams, and had them shattered by a country that would not accept them unless they were winners, and it’s through this conversation that Dwayne realizes you should “do what you love and fuck the rest.” What I love about this cut is how the MC says, “America, you are so beautiful” over one of the most depressing sceneries. It's like playing "What a Wonderful World" over images of massacre and carnage in Good Morning Vietnam. It’s good for a hint of irony.

Olive’s dance routine is the ultimate “fuck you” to American society. The reason why I say Grandpa appears to be the mastermind of the whole plot is because he’s providing a message to his family through this little girl who doesn’t understand a sexual dance. The way she does it is fairly innocent. She just memorized moves and is mimicking them on the stage, the way she rehearsed them, but we know that Grandpa choreographed this dance, which tells us a lot about him and what he wants to say to his family.

Thinking back on the music of this film, I realize that it did everything it could to sound foreign. The score is by Michael Daynna, with the help of a Latin group called DeVotchka (including an original song at the end). The motel sequences include mariachi music, and throughout, most of it sounds very ethnic to Southern American countries, which I believe is an attempt to alienate the audience from the country they’re in and get us to listen to other cultures with its music. The music, and the two Latino characters, is a subtle way of exposing another American hypocrisy, which is its openness to outsiders. It doesn’t delve on the subject and it doesn’t preach on it, but by celebrating it in a movie that ditches the American Dream, I’m led to believe that it exposes this hypocrisy by making the sounds of the film very ethnic, even if the film is not. I read a review that said that the song over the end credits sounds like it belongs in Babel. Now that I think about it, maybe that was the point, only it didn’t tell us about it.

The filmmaking techniques of this film rely heavily on the characters. During the initial scene, we cut to practically every character on the table, even if the conversation doesn’t necessarily involve that character at the time, or even if the character isn’t talking, the film treats them all as one unit together against that one common enemy, and that is the American Dream. Everything about the film establishes that the characters should be pursuing each other, the concrete and present human people they can depend on, and not some dream that they don’t know if they’ll ever reach. Every reaction from each character is important, which is why when Frank talks about his suicide attempt, it cuts to every character on the table. They are all there, and even though they tend to get on each other’s nerves and disagree all the time, this family is the one thing that each and every one of its members can count on.

People from all over the world come to this country in search of the American Dream, because we hear all of the success stories of actors and directors and writers and fashion designers, but this is the story of those unsung heroes looking for someone to sing about them, only to realize that all they need is each other. The film tells us that reaching for the American Dream can be futile, and it uses its formal elements to get us away from that dream, and reach toward what really does matter.

A Disney Princess: Damsel-in-Distress to Heroine

Last Thanksgiving, Disney released the film Enchanted. It’s the tale of a classic Disney damsel named Giselle who falls in love at first sight with Prince Edward of Andalasia. She’s about to marry him when Queen Narissa, afraid she might have the throne taken from her, takes Giselle and banishes her to present day New York City. During her time in New York, Giselle transforms from a classic Disney damsel-in-distress waiting for her prince, to a modern damsel who takes matters into her own hands to save the man she loves from the claws of a dragon (and this man is not the prince of Andalasia, but a divorce lawyer who helps her when she arrives to the city). It takes about an hour and a half to make that transformation in the movie. However, it took years for the Disney Company to move away from their classic damsel-in-distress to the kind of heroine that was brave enough to save those she loves. The journey started with Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, who were damsels waiting to marry their true love within seconds after meeting them. It moves into the late 80’s and early 90’s with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, where the damsels acquire a sense of adventure and defiance. It culminates with Pocahontas and Mulan, the women who are strong enough to fight for what want.
Disney’s first full-length animated feature was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It’s the story of a Princess who was so beautiful that it made her stepmother jealous, so she dressed her in rags and made her into a servant. When she realizes that she can’t make her any less beautiful, she sends a huntsman to kill her. The huntsman warns Snow White about it and she runs away to a cottage in the woods where seven dwarves live, and there, she waits for the Prince she’s dreamed of to come. One of the early scenes in the film has Snow White singing to a wishing well and all the animals around her where she says she’s wishing for “the one I love to find me today”. The Prince hears her voice and appears in the well’s reflection next to her. As she runs back into the castle, he sings to her, and they instantly fall in love. We don’t see this Prince again until the end, but we do get a song in the middle where Snow White tells the dwarves that someday he will come. The old Disney heroines were defined by these kinds of scenes. In these films, love is reduced to a single, magical, lustful moment that could last a lifetime. Another curious thing about her is that she is an expert at cleaning. It appears that Disney is selling the image that a woman’s place is in the home. Snow White cleans the dwarves’ cottage as soon as she enters, and tells all her friend to whistle while they work. She’s a maiden ready for a husband.
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are similar cases. Both of these ladies have a song in which they dream of a prince. Aurora, from Sleeping Beauty, sings in the woods about a Prince she met “Once Upon a Dream”, and while she sings with these animals, she meets Prince Philip. Aurora doesn’t know she’s a princess and already engaged to him, but it’s love at first sight. They sing together, marriage is discussed within minutes of this meeting, and a plan is set up to meet that very night. The climax of that movie is the Prince cutting through a forest of spines and fighting a dragon to get to the castle, to the highest room of the tallest tower, to kiss the Princess and wake her from her spell (much the same way it happens in Snow White, curiously). In Cinderella, the Prince (who is not even given a name) doesn’t quite save her, but she still needs to be saved by someone, and in this case, that’s her Fairy Godmother and all her animal friends who come to the rescue. She does, however, meet the Prince in the ball, and they immediately say they are in love with their duet “So This Is Love”. They only meet once, and they are already talking about marriage. Kathi Maio, in her article Disney Dolls, describes this type of women as “natural-born happy homemakers who lie in a state of suspended animation until a man gives them a life.”
After Disney’s Death, his company produced a bunch of films about animals that didn’t include any of these princesses. The first Disney princess to reach the screens after his Death was a little different than the ones that Disney used to make. For one, she had the tail of a fish and lived underwater, but that was not the only thing that was different about her. She was more independent than any of these women. Her dream was to seek adventure in the human world. Like the previous Disney princesses, she has a musical number that expresses her wishes, except her musical number is called “Part of That World”, which basically expresses her need to live in a different place. And, unlike the previous Disney princesses, she never sticks to her duties or obeys her superiors. She does, however, fall into the early Disney trap of falling in love at first sight. Faith Larson talks about this in her essay “Romance: Just Like In the Movies”, “’But Daddy, I love him’ says Ariel of Prince Eric, a young man who has never even spoken to her. How did she know that she loved him? She knew because he was a prince, of course! Though at times the princess movies show love for what it really is, most of the time they convey false messages about love and being in a relationship.” Their next film, however, would finally avoid this trap.

Their next heroine wasn’t exactly a princess, but she does fall in love with a prince. The difference here is, she doesn’t fall for him immediately. In fact, she is initially repulsed by this prince and wants to stay as far away from him as possible, but she can’t go anywhere, because she’s his prisoner. This heroine is Belle, the daughter of a crazy old inventor who lives in a small town in France. The town expects her to be like Snow White and Cinderella, but she’s much smarter and cultured than that, which makes her into the town outcast, and she finds shelter in the adventures found in her books. Her song expresses the wish “I want much more than this provincial life”. She does get much more when her father wanders into the woods and ends up in a castle where he’s taken prisoner by a prince who was turned into a Beast. Belle trades her father’s freedom for her own and lives in the castle as the Beast’s prisoner. The Beast accepts her trade as a final, desperate attempt to earn a woman’s love and break the spell that turned him into a Beast. Belle is initially taken aback, not just by the Beast’s appearance, but also by his uncontrolled, short temper. As the Beast grows to love her and tries to win her heart, she’ll discover that the Beast has a kind heart of his own and will eventually break the spell. This is the first Disney film where a love story unfolds and we see the characters getting to know one another before they fall in love (with human characters anyway, since you can make a case for Lady and the Tramp).
Disney’s next film, Aladdin, shows a similar relationship. Princess Jasmine isn’t looking for a prince. She’s a feisty girl who won’t just marry anyone who lays eyes on her. There is, unfortunately, a law that states that she must marry a prince by her next birthday (which is three days away), but she’s reluctant to obey this law if she doesn’t like the Prince she’s marrying. She meets Aladdin when she runs away to the marketplace in disguise, and he saves her from a guard. He becomes attracted to her, even before he finds out she’s a princess, but that won’t stop him from trying to impress her. He finds a lamp with a Genie who disguises him as a prince. Jasmine is not impressed with him originally. She is repulsed by the arrogance and empowerment he’s portraying, but it is after he takes her to see the world on his magic carpet that she’s won over by his honest charm and free spirit.
Ariel, Belle and Jasmine are women who break the conventions of the worlds that surround them in order to find their own version of happily ever after. But these women still became damsels in distress when a dangerous situation came about, which is something that would change with the company’s next few films.
In 1995, we were introduced to a woman who discovers a new world colliding with her own and will stop at nothing to discover this new world, and protect her own if she must. This woman is Pocahontas, a Native American woman living in Virginia when a British ship arrives to find gold beneath the ground. Pocahontas meets and falls in love with Captain John Smith, a celebrated sailor looking to explore this new land and conquer it. Pocahontas teaches John Smith that conquering the land will only kill the beauty that already inhabits it. It is this lesson that allows her to fall in love with a stranger, and ultimately convince her father as well as all the men from England that fighting each other will only lead to an ugly path. When John Smith is falsely accused of killing a Native American warrior, he is nearly put to Death, and the British prepare for a battle against them. Pocahontas rescues Prince John from Death by lying next to him and saying she loves him. She defies her people and everything they believe in to protect them and save the man she loves, which is proves the right thing to do when John Smith saves the Chief from a gunshot. Pocahontas is shown as a brave woman, but maybe not as brave as the one that came to the screen three years later.

Her name is Mulan, and she is a Chinese girl who defies the expectations of her village to become a housewife and enlists in the Army as a man. She would probably belong in the culture she was born in if she was more like Snow White or Cinderella, but she’s just not like that. She tries to bring honor to her family (or so they say in her village) by acting like she could be the perfect woman she’s expected to be, but when she’s alone, she looks into the well at her reflection, and sings, “when will my reflection show who I am inside”. When the Huns invade China, the Emperor asks for one man from each family to join the Army. Mulan’s family has only one man, and that is her aging father who is now barely fit to walk without a cane, so to save his life, Mulan dresses as a man and enlists in the Army. Mulan is a new type of Disney heroine. She’s not looking for romance, and she’s not looking to discover new places. She’s a woman who cares about the people she loves and will do anything to protect them. She takes matters into her own hands the way no heroine before her would. The film introduces one love interest for Mulan (in the form of General Li Shang), but the film never focuses on their story, and therefore, Mulan never becomes a damsel-in-distress. She becomes the damsel that takes all the men out of distress when she uses her wits and everything she learned in training to fight the Huns.
One last thing to note about these women from the early years to the later Disney movies is their appearance. Heidi Herberich compares Snow White to Ariel in her essay Body Image and Sexuality in Disney Princesses. “Snow White has an hourglass figure, but it is not accentuated. She is not voluptuous; in fact, in many scenes her chest looks nearly flat. She is slender, but her arms (and I suppose legs, if we could see them) are not overly thin. Ariel, on the other hand, wears nothing but two seashells. Her body is quite mature for a teenager, with cleavage showing nearly all the time. Her arms (and legs, when she gets them) are markedly thinner than Snow White’s. And her small waist creates a much more accentuated hourglass figure.” It’s interesting to think about how the earlier Disney films tried to avoid sexuality almost completely. If you look at Aurora and Cinderella, most of the time they wear dresses that cover up their chest completely, so we don’t see a hint of them having one, yet later on, Belle wears a yellow dress that bares her shoulders and shows some cleavage, Jasmine has a very sexy Arabian outfit that uncovers her navel, and Mulan is shown nearly naked in a few scenes (to emphasize the humor of her situation, but Disney would not have allowed this). Also, as they get sexier, they also get thinner. I spoke to a few kids once that told me that the worst thing is to be fat (their parents were outraged at this) and this can be shown with the image that is being sold in magazines, and even cartoon princesses. Heidi Herberich expresses her own concerns by saying, “In a day in which anorexia and bulimia are common plagues in every junior high and high school, it is important for parents to help their girls understand that the female body image presented in Disney movies is not realistic.” She’s also concerned about younger girls worrying about their breasts and asking for plastic surgery.
There was a time when a heroine in a Disney movie couldn’t get out of any situations on her own and had to wait for a handsome prince, or a gang of cute forest animals to come and save her. In Disney’s views, a woman was helpless, so he left the heroics to the men and left women in the home by making them good at cleaning houses. As the world and its image of women evolved, Disney heroines went to become women looking for adventures, until they were finally allowed to be brave. These women have entertained kids for years, and they may not notice the changes within these characters when they see them. I didn’t notice them when I first saw these films while I was growing up, but now that I’m older, I’ve noticed how ridiculous the love stories are in the older Disney movies, but I see them in the context of when the stories were first told, as well as the stories that came out while I was growing up. This may not sound important to people who only see these princesses as cartoons, but one thing to remember is that children are exposed to these films every day, and for better or worse, they are role models for little girls. Their views on beauty, love, bravery, adventure and certain other values may come from these hand-drawn women that were first introduced by a man named Walt Disney, and whose legacy continues today.

Links:
Reflections on Disney Princesses
http://scots.covenant.edu/faculty/davis/Disney%20Princesses/links.htm
“The Internet Movie Database” www.imdb.com
“Rotten Tomatoes” www.rottentomatoes.com
“Romance: Just Like In the Movies” by Faith Larson, http://scots.covenant.edu/faculty/davis/Disney%20Princesses/romance.htm
“Body Image and Sexuality in Disney Princesses” by Heidi Herberich,
http://scots.covenant.edu/faculty/davis/Disney%20Princesses/body%20image.htm
“Disney Dolls” by Kathi Maio
http://www.newint.org/issue308/dolls.html

Bridge to Terabithia (2007 film)

Last night on ABC Family, I came across one of the only Disney live-action film from the last few years that is worth anyone's time. It's the story of Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson), a miserable, constantly bullied kid who lives in a house out in the country with four sisters (two older, two younger), and he'd trade them all for a good dog. He has a difficult relationship with his hard-working father and his only refuge is in his drawings. At least it was until he met Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb), a girl with a wild imagination and a constant smile on her face. Leslie introduces Jess to the world of Terabithia, a magical kingdom that both of them create in the woods behind their houses. In Terabithia, they are the rulers, and they fight trolls and evil creatures belonging to the Dark Master (creatures they model after bullies at school). It's a story about imagination, about a friendship that develops out of two kids were just too odd to fit in with the rest of their classmates. Neither of them ever had much luck making friends, and through this world that they created, Jess finally feels that his life is worth something, until tragedy strikes.
I wanted to discuss this film because it raises a really big question when it comes to selling a film. Bridge to Terabithia is a story about friendship and imagination, where not much happens, and the biggest plot point in the film is something that you can't put into a trailer. The film was heavily marketed as a fantasy film, and it gave the impression that it would be a film very much like The Chronicles of Narnia. I remember the way it was marketed on ABC Family last night. It was placed into a "Magical Weekend" along with The Chronicles of Narnia. It uses this marketing, because it draws audiences. The film opened strongly on Presidents Day Weekend with just over $28 million, and it ended up earning about $80 million in the US, and $120 million worlwide (with a budget of $60 million). So, the marketing was successful in the sense that it drew people into the film, but many complained that they were let down by the advertisement, because when they saw the film, they didn't get what they expected. A lot of people who read the book also complained about the trailers, because when they saw it, they thought the filmmakers had butchered the book by expanding on the fantasy world (which is not described in much detail in the book) and making it into a Narnia-like fantasy. But the film is actually very close to the book (even though the fantasy sequences are beefed up with some CGI).
I'm about to spoil the biggest plot point in the film, so if you haven't seen it, or read the book, read no further. This plot point became a real shocker for people, mainly parents who were expecting their children would see a nice family fantasy film. The film follows Jess and Leslie's various adventures in Terabithia, including hunting a giant troll, getting Jess's dad's keys back, and even a little detour into church where Leslie gives a new insight in how we can view religion ("I think God goes around damning people to hell, he's too busy running all this.") Jess has a crush on his music teacher, Miss Edmonds, who invites Jess on a trip to a museum to encourage his artwork. He thinks about inviting Leslie, but decides not to. When he comes back, he learns from his worried-sick parents that Leslie tried to swing across the rope that leads her into Terabithia, and the rope broke, causing her to fall into the creek, where she got knocked unconscious and drowned. From here on out, the film acquires a more solemn tone, dealing with grief and guilt, but finally acceptance of Leslie's death. I read on IMDB message boards that the film upset a lot of people who were not prepared for it, and for those who had lowered expectations, they were pleasantly surprised by how deep the film is. I was of the latter group. When I saw the advertising, I wasn't really sure I wanted to see the film, but then I read the reviews (which were surprisingly positive) and decided to go see the film. I already had the plot point spoiled (which is why I noticed a shot of Leslie waving to Jess, and though, they're setting this up to be her last shot, her big goodbye) but that didn't ruin the feel of the film for me. It made me feel like I was 10 years old, and now every time I see it, different scenes get me.
Another performance that really impresses me is Bailee Madison, who plays Jess's second-to-youngest sister Maybelle. She idolizes her big brother, and wants to be around him all the time, but he keeps pushing her away because he's embarrassed and annoyed by her, and part of the story is also about appreciating the people you have and the people who love you, because they may be gone one day. There's a scene that really got to me this one time I saw it on ABC Family, after Leslie's Death, Jess goes to look for her in Terabithia, but instead finds Maybelle trying to cross a fallen tree over the creek. First he helps her up from the log, but he then tells her to go home. In his anger, he even shoves her to the ground. The scene brought tears to my eyes, not just because of Maybelle being pushed away, but because of the way Josh Hutcherson displays his grief in that scene.
I'm actually really glad Disney made this film and didn't sugarcoat the story. I read about the book. Katherine Patterson wrote this book after her son lost his best friend (who was struck by lightning on a trip to the beach with her parents). He was 8 years old at the time, and she remembers how she had to deal with his grief, so she wrote this story for him, but also to show children how to deal with the loss of a best friend and how you can create this magical place for them that keeps them alive, even after they're gone. David Patterson, the author's son, co-wrote the screenplay for this film and was also a producer, so his emotions were very much on the screen when building the story, the way he dealt with his grief and how lively the friendship became. It's one of the few Disney films I've seen lately that looks to convey something beyond a wholesome message and actually teach children about the hardships of life and how people can move beyond those hardships. It also explores themes of socio-economic statuses (Jess's parents are constantly worrying about money, and therefore expect Jess to be down-to-Earth) and it looks for a non-oppressive way of viewing religion. It's a shame it was marketed the way it was, but in all honesty, this film had a target audience of children and teenagers, so it was going to be hard to draw children into watching what the film was really about. The advertising drew them in to the film, and then they got the surprise of what the film was really about, while still getting the CGI battles and special effects they found in the trailer (only on a much smaller scale). Fans of the book who expected the film to tell a completely different story were pleasantly surprised (except perhaps by the fact that Terabithia is actually visible to them) and those who can appreciate a surprise got it). To me, it was probably the most pleasant surprise I got last year, and I urge you all to give it a look.

Film Flashback: 2005

I'm not going to do a Top Ten for this year, because I want to evaluate this year in a different way. I was originally not a big fan of this year because I couldn't find any films that I was really passionate about, but I've recently been exposed to 2005 films again, and one thing I find very curious about most films of that year is how relevant they are, both socially and politically. 2005 was a year where almost everything was attacked, including capital punishment, homophobia, witch hunts, terrorism, racism, capitalism, pharmaceutical companies, oil industries, television, the police, I could go on and on. If you look at the five Oscar nominees for Best Picture of 2005, they all tackle on either a social or political issue, and there are plenty of films outside that list that tackle these issues as well. Let's start with the five nominees.


Brokeback Mountain: This film is viewed as either a piece of art or a punchline, a masterpiece or blasphemy, depending on who looks at it. I think it's one of the most beautiful films ever made (and I'm straight by the way). I was a bit put off by the pacing the first time I saw it, but in the years that have gone by, I've been able to appreciate the beauty, not just of the landscape and the music, but of the characters (and I haven't been able to watch this film without crying since Heath Ledger died). This film was a big deal when it first came out, because as far as I know, it was the first film that told a love story between two men. Yes, gay characters had been portrayed on screen before, but most of the time as stereotypes or funny sidekicks or understanding characters. Very few films had focused on a love story between two men, and Ang Lee did something even more daring by applying that to the macho stereotype of the American cowboy (something that I think outraged the Hollywood old-timers, which may have been one reason it lost the Oscar for Best Picture). Or maybe the one who was daring was Annie Proulx for writing the short story in the first place. Anyway, either admired or infamous, people still talk about this film, and despite the inevitable label it has earned as the "gay cowboy" movie, well, that label just proves that the film struck a chord in people and has challenged them to explore their own views on homophobia. As a movie, on its own, I believe it is simply beautiful (and the chemistry between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal is still unmatched).


Capote: Philip Seymour Hoffman won a well-deserved Oscar for playing this brilliant writer. He's very flaumboyant, with a somewhat annoying voice, but there's a subtle genius in every word he says. You're uncomfortable around him, but he still draws you in to the story of his own self-destruction while trying to finish what he believes to be the best book he's ever written (I think this man could've used with some modesty, honestly). The film explores Capote as he forms a relationship with Perry Smith, one of two men who murdered a family out in Holcomb, Kansas and is now on Death Row. Capote writes a book about the murders, focusing on the two killers, and the film deals with Capote lengthy conversations with Perry Smith (chillingly played by Clifton Collins Jr.) as he learns more about him and creates the character for his book, and he wants to help him, but he also wants him to die already so he can finish the book and get it published (something that led him to drinking and never finishing a book again). The film explores this moral question of whether a book is worth someone dying over it, and it takes us into the mind of a man who is every bit as smart as Capote, every bit as articulate, but ended up on the wrong path and is now on Death Row. This film is not really a critique on Death Row, but how many people want to see a bright young man hung in the gallows, even if he did kill a family. Killing a killer doesn't make us anything other than murderers. It's not really justice, it's vengeance (a film explored in other movies in 2005, as well as the 1995 film Dead Man Walking). Do we really have the moral high-ground to choose who gets killed, and who doesn't. Perry Smith and his partner Richard Hicock did kill that family, and they had to pay a price for it, but Death is not a price. It's just an earlier entry to the world that everyone ends up in (how do we know that the killers won't end up in Heaven, while the people in government end up in Hell, or whatever comes up after this life?). The film doesn't explore these questions (since it's really a character study of one man and the way he uses a life for literature), but it raised the questions in me. It's one of the reasons I think it's an amazing film.


Crash: Just about every faculty in my department hates this film. They view it as a film that just hits you over the head about racism being bad. There may be some truth to that, because in all of my repeat viewing, I've noticed scenes that are just so heavy-handed they make me cringe, but there is an underlying theme to the movie. It's not about racism, it's about people. It's about the way people interact with each other, judge each other, have an inevitable reaction to each other due to race or socio-economic position. The film is about facing yourself. It is filled with characters who pretend to stand so high on a moral pedestal that they believe they can judge everybody else. These characters include Officer Tommy Hansen (Ryan Phillipe) who judges his partner on his racist tendencies before he realizes that he himself is prejudice against people as well, or Anthony (Ludacris) has a conspiracy theory against everybody around him, thinking he is the only good person in the world, until he is forced to look at himself. "You think you know who you are? You have no idea" or "You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself" are lines that explore this theme. There's also Sgt. Graham Waters who believes he is moral enough to say that he shouldn't frame a potentially innocent man, but he runs away from his real responsibilities which include his mother and his criminal brother. The film is heavy-handed and some scenes did need a lot of work, but there are also scenes of brilliance in the film, including the car explosion where Matt Dillon saves Thandie Newton character, or that moving scene where the locksmith tells his daughter about the invisible cloak. These are all people, and the message comes in the way these people interact and the racism comes out of that. No one is perfect. It's all just a matter of recognizing it in yourself, and seeing yourself as a flawed human being, and then you can judge others. This film won the OScar for Best Picture as a major spoiler, which adds to people's hatred of it unfortunately, but I still think it's a fascinating, if flawed, study of human interactions.


Good Night and Good Luck: I just recently re-watched this one in a class on political films, and it was probably my best viewing of it. It's the true story of Edward R. Murrow, the host of See It Now (an old news show on CBS) and his legendary battle with Junior Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy over his communist witch hunt. The film is co-written and directed by George Clooney, an actor who is known for being actively liberal, and he explores this story of a very courageous man, one who puts all current news anchors to shame with his willingness to expose what is wrong with the world and question it, despite the many warnings he gets from his fellow reporters. Even though the film is set in 1954, when television was still in black-and-white, I think it was very relevant for the audience of 2005, because we were at the beginning of Bush's second term of presidency, and his administration was taking many of the same actions that McCarthy and the HUAC took back then when convicting people based on rumors and heresay. Terrorism these days, as well as communism back then, are two very difficult things to prosecute and defend against because anybody could be either one of them, but I still believe that to arrest and convict someone, evidence and due process of law are still necessary. Laws were made to protect people from being unfairly sentenced. In this country, you are innocent until proven otherwise. No one has the right to exploit a state of fear and paranoia. The film also says a lot about television and the role it's taken in our society these days. I think television can be a wonderful tool if we only knew how to use it right, rather than just to entertain us and insulate us. Television can teach, it can broaden your minds, it can promote debate, it can challenge our perceptions of the world. The problem is, networks only care about making money, and people simply want to be entertained, so television only caters to the lowest common denominator, and even in network news, we are never challenged and we have even grown to distrust what we hear. I think that if we had more people out there like Edward R. Murrow (and amazing performance by David Strathairn), parents wouldn't be telling their children that television is bad for you. I think good, intelligent shows should be given more of a chance to gain an audience before the plug is pulled from them.


Munich: I haven't seen this film in a really long time, but I remember how impressed I was with it when I first saw it. It's long and tough to sit through, but Steven Spielberg brings one of the greatest rivalries in the world to the forefront, and that is the one between the Palestineans and the Israelis. However, what I admire most about Spielberg is that he doesn't give anyone in this film a free pass. It's a film about violence and terrorism. It's a never-ending cycle. As soon as somebody is bombed, the other side retaliates with a similar demonstration and so on. I spoke to some of my friends from the Jewish community in Mexico after watching this film (I'm Jewish myself, so Israel is kind of a part of my life), they told me they didn't like the fact that the Israeli government was portrayed in such a negative light. I think that may have been the point. Not to really color any one person in a negative light, but to color their deeds, their actions, their way of dealing with the terrorism in a negative light. The people they bomb in the retaliation from the massacre at the Munich Olympics seem like perfectly nice people when we see them, and we later find out that they were also involved in other terrorist attacks. Terrorism is never going to end if we all believe in this ideology of "an eye for an eye". Those who are involved with the government begin to live in fear of who might kill them next, because once you attack someone, someone else is coming out to get you, and if you kill a leader, someone else will be found to replace them and retaliate. As for the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestineans, and all the other conflicts that are present right now in the world, well, it's going to be hard to find a solution when children are still taught to hate one another, and people's minds are difficult to change as well. I don't think Spielberg ever thought about looking for a solution to this problem, but the problem persists. Violence is clearly not working. Non-violence worked for Gandhi, but that's another figure of whom there may be no other.

Those are the five Best Picture nominees, and as you can see, I spoke less about the films and more about the questions or discussions that can be drawn from those films, which I think is a good thing, because it means these films can spark up some debate, and it's one thing I think is very strong about that line-up (and a reason I may be underestimating 2005 as a film year). 2005 also saw the political thrillers Syriana and The Constant Gardener. I remember I seriously disliked Syriana when I first saw it because I couldn't make sense out of it, but I just recently saw it a second time, and realized the film, while still very complicated, is actually really good. It explores our global need for oil and what some countries do in order to get to that oil, but it also speaks to the game America plays with the Middle East, keeping those countries in trouble while they profit from their resources. Alexander Siddig plays Prince Nassir Al-Subaai, the successor to the Emir who has plans to make his country into a democracy, something the Emir doesn't want, since he appoints Nassir's idiot younger brother to the throne, and he is happy to continue reigning as his father did, and America is happy to keep the status quo they have, but in order to do that and to prevent a military coup by Prince Nasir, they must assassinate him, so they send CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney, in an Oscar-winning performance) out to assassinate him. It goes wrong, however, and Barnes, after being the subject of an investigation, goes on a race against time to warn Nassir. Another plot consists of Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon), an energy analyst stationed in Geneva trying to cut a deal with the emir, which he only gets after his son is accidentally electrocuted in a pool, and Jeffrey Wright plays Bennett Holiday, a lawyer looking into the shady dealings of a merger between two oil companies. The film is complicated, but the basic story is that every one of these characters are trying to do their jobs and keep their sides of the world healthy. Nobody is innocent or guilty, nobody is good or bad, they are all just trying to survive in this world where resources are low, and we all need to get to them.
As for The Constant Gardener, I haven't seen the film in a long time, and what I remember more vividly is the love story and the outstanding performances from Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (who won the Oscar for it), but I do remember that there was a conspiracy against pharmaceutical companies that exploted sick children in Africa to bring out a drug, and Rachel Weisz plays activist Tessa Quayle, who is murdered for knowing too much about it. I'll have to watch the movie again, but I do remember it being quite thrilling, and the scenes with the two leads make it come alive even further.

There was also some social and political commentary in summer blockbusters Batman Begins and War of the Worlds. That's right, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Say what you want about the father/son angle, or Tom Cruise, or the ridiculous ending, but there's one thing that can't be denied. War of the Worlds succeeds in creating paranoia and showing how society can collapse when under attack. It's one of the few alien invasion films that actually felt dangerous. Very much like Jaws, War of the Worlds keeps the nature of the aliens as a mystery to the audience, so we're forced to watch how humans react to the invasion with the limited information we all have. All we know is they are killing people, and we could be next, so we use our basic instincts to fight for our survival. Where the film falters, in my opinion, is that it's hard to care for Tom Cruise's character (he comes off arrogant in the worst of ways) and some of the more manipulative moments are cringe-worthy, but the fear is there, and in my opinion, the film works because it manages to convey a true sense of fear. As for Batman Begins, that film explores the themes of justice and vengeance (which I discussed in Capote). Batman is a vigilante, a man who takes justice into his own hands because the government and the police in Gotham City are not acting in the name of justice. He's a man who sees the city collapsing around him, and he wants to do something about it. In the film, the League of Shadows (the group that trained Bruce Wayne to become Batman) believed that Gotham is a city that needs to be destroyed because it's tearing itself apart. That's a good question to ponder on. When something is not working anymore, including a society or a country, so we destroy it and try to build something new, or do we do something different? Do we stick to our old ways or do we try to fix it? It's one of the many things I admire about Batman Begins (other that the concept of bringing Batman into a world that is more like our own), the fact that it raises questions on justice and whether people have the moral high ground to go above the law in the name of the people, or to choose which societies should be destroyed. Can we really decide? Thenagain, in most countries, we do put our trust in one man whom we elect, so in a way, there are people who put themselves at the mercy of everyone in their countries, and we choose whether we can trust them with that moral high ground to make that decision, but what about those we don't elect and don't know about (like Batman, or in the real world, Al-Qaeida terrorists)?

Just to be clear, not every film in 2005 that I saw and enjoyed had a political or social agenda. There are three films I loved from 2005 that I love just for the sheer entertainment value and the love story (and two of them are based on true stories. One of them is Cinderella Man, the story of boxer Jim Braddock (an outstanding-as-always Russell Crowe), who made a comeback after the Great Depression and beat Max Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world. I know I told you the ending, but really, it's no surprise. This is a classic sports movie about an underdog who has all the odds stacked against him and succeeds despite those odds being stacked against him, but the film is so uplifting and so powerful that it's hard to resist it (and it doesn't hurt that Paul Giamatti gives an energetic performance as Braddock's manager Joe Gould). The other one is Walk the Line, the story of country singer Johnny Cash (played by Joaquin Phoenix) and the love of his life, fellow country singer whom he keeps chasing, June Carter (the lovely Reese Witherspoon). What draws me in about this film is mainly the music and the chemistry of the two leads, and even though the film is a bit over-the-top at parts (the sink-breaking scene was way too much), it's so endearing. I love to see the relationship developing between two people who are part of that same world of country music, and while one is slowly sinking into the realm of drug addiction and depression brought on by this world, the other is strong enough to keep herself afloat, and even pull up a friend on the way.

The other film I wanted to mention was Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Now, this film doesn't display any political messages or try to say anything important. It's just plain fun. It's got such a lively humor, both for children and adults, such colorful characters, a clever plot, some ingenious inventions, a lot of vegetables, a few furry animals, and of course, cheese. Before I saw this film, I hadn't seen any of the shorts, but since then, I've gotten better acquainted with Wallace and Gromit and enjoyed some of their adventures. I particularly recommend The Wrong Trousers.

Anyway, that's 2005, a very peculiar year for cinema. Do you people have any other films you wish to discuss? Anything you'd like to add?

Sin Nombre

Last week I saw this film that was distributed in the United States by Focus Features, about two very different people whose paths cross on a train that carries illegal immigrants across Eastern Mexico, to the United States. Sayra is a girl from Honduras who is train-hopping with her estranged father and her uncle (who doesn't seem to be much older than her), hoping to get to New Jersey and join her father's family. Casper is a member of La Mara Salvatrucha in Chiapas (a violent, tatto-crazy Mexican gang), who betrays his gang after one of its members accidentally kills his upper-class girlfriend, and is now running from them on the trains. Sayra is nearly raped and killed by a member of the gang, but Casper rescues her by killing this gangmember (which causes the Mara to put a price on his gang), and because of that, despite warnings from the rest of the immigrants, Sayra sticks to Casper like glue, leaning on him, trusting him to get her across the border safely.
"Sin Nombre" is Spanish for "the unnamed". This film is about the millions of immigrants that try to reach the border to the U.S. all the way from the Central American countries, and the hardships they must reach to get there. On their way, some people help them by giving them food and direction, while other throw rocks at their trains and tell them to go home. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (an American film director who has lived in France, Japan and Mexico) travelled on one of these trains himself to get the experience of being an illegal immigrant travelling to the United States, and therefore get the authnticity in the story. The film also brings La Mara Salvatrucha to the forefront. It's a real gang that has its origins in Central America (mostly Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador), and has expanded through Mexico and even up to the States (the FBI held a raid against their activities in the U.S. back in 2005), and they've even expanded to places in Europe. The gang's activities include drug deals, arms deals, theft and murder. In the film, the tragic nature of this gang is viewed through the character of El Smiley, a 12-year-old boy whom Casper takes in as a rookie to initiate into La Mara, and through the film, you see how this sweet, innocent little boy loses his soul when he's initiated into the gang, and by the end of the film, his initial disdain for pulling a trigger and watching a life vanish right before his eyes disappears.
The film is very effective in creating suspense and keeping the characters constantly in danger and constantly alone. We care about Sayra and Casper, and their desperate situations, and we also care about Smiley, the kid who tragically falls in the wrong crowd (and we are constantly wishing he find his heart again). I think the film falters a bit with the relationship with Sayra and Casper, in the sense that we're never sure what the relationship is. They meet on the train, Casper saves her from getting raped, and we see how Sayra is constantly reaching out to him, practically trusting him to keep her safe, but I wasn't sure whether to view the relationship as a romance, or as a brother/sister, or as a simple protector relationship, and I was never sure how old Sayra and Casper were, so because of that, I was never sure what to think of the relationship. I think the film needed to be a little longer to explore this relationship further and understand it better.
Otherwise, I think this is one movie that should not be missed. It may be my bias of the language and the fact that the film is telling a Mexican story (and it's also produced by two of MExico's biggest stars, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal), but I do believe that the cinematography and the beautifully layered performances make this a worthwhile film. Also watch it to discover the landscapes of Mexico, even if they are some of the more dangerous places to explore.

PIXAR Animation Studios

Nowadays, most animated films are computer-animated 3-D pictures. We have films such as Monsters vs. Aliens, the upcoming film Up, last year's Bolt and Kung Fu Panda, it's becoming rare that animated films are hand-drawn nowadays. But there was a time when a computer-animated film was a novelty. In 1995, the first full-length animated feature film was released in theaters to critical and commercial success, and won a special Academy Award for its technical achievement of computer animation. That film was Toy Story, about a cowboy doll named Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) who is the leader of all the toys in Andy's room, but that position is threatened with the arrival of Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), the hottest space toy at the time who thinks he is the real Buzz Lightyear. The film went on to earn over $191 million in the U.S. and over $361 million worldwide. It exploded from there with films such as A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille and last year's WALL-E. However, before they made these films, PIXAR had a long history before that.
PIXAR was founded as one third of the Computer Graphics division at Lucasfilms back in 1979, and they worked on testing and creating visual effects that are now taken for granted in most films. They pioneered CG techniques that were used in films such as Star Trek II and Young Sherlock Holmes, before being bought by Steve Jobs back in 1986, shortly after Jobs left Apple Computers. George Lucas sold the division after the box-office flop that was his film "Howard the Duck", and the division was named Pixar, which was a fake Spanish word that meant "to make pictures" or "to make pixels" (and if it were really in Spanish, the accent would be on the "a". not the "i", but I do think it's kind of clever). Originally, Pixar was a computer hardware company that sold to government agencies and the medical community, but one of their clients was also the Disney company that wanted to use the technology to make a more automated and efficient process to their animation, rather than the Paint and Ink process they were using. In the meantime, one of their employees by the name of John Lasseter was creating short animation demonstrations to show off what the Pixar Image Computer (their primary product) could do. His most famous demonstration is Luxo Jr. (which is where the lamp logo came from, the lamp that crushed a ball).
Sales for the Pixar Image Computer were low, and with the company threatened to be put out of business, Lasster and his team made various commercials for products such as Listerine and LifeSavers. After several layoffs in 1991, The Walt Disney Company made a $26 million deal with Pixar to produce three animated films, the first of which was Toy Story. It wasn't until it was confirmed that Disney would distribute Toy Story that Steve Jobs decided against selling the company and giving it another shot (since it was costing him so much money to keep).
Disney and Pixar have had a tumultuous relationship over the last few years about control of the films. The original agreement was that Pixar would be in charge of making the films, and Disney would be in charge of distribution. Even though profit and production costs were split down the middle, Disney owned all the sequel and story rights, and they could make sequels without Pixar if they wanted to (even though they preferred to do it with Pixar). Disney and Pixar had a complete falling out in mid-2004, and it was announced that Pixar was actively seeking partners. The Incredibles was ready for release on its original date, but Cars was delayed until the summer of 2006 to allow time for these two companies to reach an agreement, and they created a distribution deal for Ratatouille to be released in the Disney channels, pending an agreement.
On January 24, 2006, Disney announced that it was buying Pixar for $7.4 billion, but a deal was made that it would exist a separate entity, and their next few films would be branded Disney-Pixar. They were also allowed to keep their studio in Emeryville, California, where they currently work.
What's amazing about PIXAR, in watching their movies, is their commitment to story and characters, but particularly the different voices that are present in them. The films work because they don't simply cater to the technology of the time, even though they try to advance the technology (which include a character's fur in films such as Ratatouille and Monsters Inc.) but they attempt to make these films timeless by granting us characters and stories that people can relate to. What people remember most about Toy Story are the characters of Woody and Buzz, and all the other toys in Andy's room. I remember seeing that in theaters for the first time, and becoming scared when I first saw Sid blow up a toy. I haven't missed a Pixar film since, and thus far, WALL-E is my favorite film because of the way it conveys a beautiful love story without much use of dialogue, but also because it's the one that feels the most vivid and real (at least in the scenes that happen on Earth), but I'm also a big fan of Ratatouille because of its infinitely smart and inventive screenplay, the message that speaks to the heart of what it is to be an artist, the creation of food on screen, and the unforgettable characters. My favorite scene in that film is the one where Anton Ego (an iconic performance by Peter O'Toole) tastes the Ratatouille, and has a flashback to how he first came to love food, reminding him why he does this in the first place (since he's introduced as a jaded food critic who didn't believe in the magic of the art anymore).
Pixar also has a great track record with the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The category first came out in 2001 (when Monsters Inc was nominated) and every Pixar film from then to now has been nominated in that category, and all but two have won (the only two that didn't win were Monsters Inc, which lost to Shrek, and Cars, which lost to Happy Feet). The Incredibles also won an OScar for Sound Effects Editing, the only time for an animated film so far. From its humble beginnings under the Star Wars universe, to being the gold standard for animated films and the company that pioneered computer-animated films, Pixar continues to challenge the audience with less commercial storylines that end up surprising the audience and becoming massive critical and commercial hits. The biggest box-office hit so far is Finding Nemo (which has the inimitable Ellen DeGeneres as a fish with short-term memory loss, a performance that never fails to make me laugh and cry, as well as the story of that film), and with Up being released in 3-D later this year, Pixar hopes to continue their track record and continue to release hit after hit.

Pinocchio (1940)

Just to be clear, I was not alive in 1940. I wasn't around when this film first came out, but for a long time when I was a little boy, this was my favorite film. When I heard it was coming out on two-disc Platinum DVD, I got really excited and didn't hesitate in purchasing it, even though I have a VHS copy back home. Flashes of the movie kept flying into my head from different scenes that I hadn't visited in years (that's how good my memory can be), and I couldn't wait to give it another look, and one thing that always surprises me about this movie is how it doesn't seem to age. There are many great movies from the 1930's and 1940's that have scenes and moments of dialogue that feel so ancient when we hear them nowadays. As much as I love Casablanca, it feels dated at times, and I took another look at Rebecca (also from 1940), and it really feels dated (creepy as it is), but Pinocchio still feels fresh and entertaining, and it contains scenes that we regrettably don't see in Disney movies anymore, because the industries feel they have to dumb everything down to cater to the children, and parents worry that children are fragile and can crack at any time, which in my opinion, it depends on the child, but I'll get to that as I get further into the review.
For those who may not know, Pinocchio is the film about Italian puppet-maker Geppetto who wishes that his latest puppet (a little boy he names Pinocchio) were a real boy. As he sleep, a Blue Fairy comes into his house and brings Pinocchio to life. She tells him if he proves himself brave, truthful and unselfish, he'll be made into a real boy. With the help of Jiminy Cricket (who becomes his self-appointed conscience), Pinocchio tries to be a good boy for his father, but he runs into temptations that get him into trouble, which include becoming a string-less puppet at a theater and joining a troupe of disobedient boys to Pleasure Island.
What I used to love about this film were the characters and the imagination that went into a every sequence. When I saw it this time, I marveled at the opening sequence in Geppetto's house, before Pinocchio comes to life, with the imagination that went into every music box in the house, every clock, every toy, everything has its own distinct personality, and they are all an extension of Geppetto. I especially loved Jiminy's reaction to every object and to Pinocchio particularly. One of my favorite moments is when Geppetto has just painted a mouth on Pinocchio, Jiminy says "very good, very very goo-", he looks at the sculpture next to him, which is a face with a low expression, looking very angry, and Jiminy says, "well, you can't please everybody." Then, when the Blue Fairy beings Pinocchio to life, that's one very magical moment, and we're introduced to Pinocchio's personality, a happy little boy willing to become flesh and blood. I saw in one of the special features that the character of Pinocchio was changed drastically, both physically and emotionally, from the stories by Carlo Collodi. Originally, Pinocchio was supposed to be an arrogant wooden puppet who is not very likable and goes on all these adventures to prove himself as a real boy, but he does it the wrong way. He also looked physically more like a dark brown wooden puppet. Disney decided to make him look more like a real boy, with only his wooden arms and legs and that stub he has for a nose to let us know he's made of wood (and his hands are covered with Mickey Mouse gloves), and his personality was changed to a well-meaning, naive little boy who easily gives in to temptation. This was made so children would have a protagonist they could easily root for and feel for. I don't know if it would have worked if they had left him the way he was in the books, but all I can say, this version of Pinocchio works.
Now I want to talk about my favorite character, Jiminy Cricket. Another view of this film made me love the character even more, not just because he's the sidekick, but I love his humor, his perseverance, his faith, but above all, his loyalty. No matter what happens, no matter how badly Pinocchio screws up, Jiminy always comes back. My favorite moment with Jiminy comes after he and Pinocchio have just found out that Geppetto was swallowed by a whale, and Pinocchio wants to go after him. Jiminy tries to talk him out of jumping into the water, but as soon as Pinocchio says goodbye to him, Jiminy's line is, "Goodbye? I may be live bait down there, but I'm going with you." I also love how seriously he takes his job as a conscience. He's committed to helping this wooden boy, and he's hard on himself, particularly in the scene where he and Pinocchio find themselves locked in Stromboli's cage. Before that, there's another scene that breaks my heart, and that's the scene where Stromboli locks Pinocchio in the cage, starts the carriage, and the cage is swinging back and forth, and Pinocchio is desperately whistling and calling for Jiminy. He known he's nowhere in sight, but he's desperate, and he needs Jiminy, and as soon as he realizes he may not be back, he sits down and cries. Meanwhile, Jiminy is outside, looking at the carriage, wanting to go away, but instead, he goes to say goodbye to Pinocchio, and that's when he discovers him in the cage. He's that committed to the job. He doesn't leave Pinocchio, even when he feels he's failed him.

No Disney film is complete without villains, and this film has a diverse cast of villains, and the odd thing about this film is that none of the villains gets their comeuppance (except maybe Monstro the Whale, but he's more a freak of nature). My favorite villain is Honest John (quite an ironic name for a character such as himself), a fox with a hat and a seductive British accent that acts as an agent of temptation for Pinocchio. He leads him into two of his most perilous adventures and trades him in for money. The man lies and cheats just to get in a pay day, and he doesn't care what happens to him after he's sold. Giddeon, his sidekick, a silent cat who walks next to him provides a perfect partner for Honest John to play off of for comedy. I love the scene where Honest John is diagnosing Pinocchio before taking him to Pleasure Island, and has Giddeon scrible in a notepad. That's just hilarious.
Now, I want to talk about Pleasure Island, because I was hit with something there that didn't happen when I was a kid. I thought that part was really scary, but the way I think of it, it's scary because it serves the story. Films back then had no problem exploring some darker places and scaring children out of doing things they shouldn't do, and in this case, that's smoking and drinking, and just plain acting like a jackass (nowadays, the word jackass warrants an automatic PG rating, and yet in this film, the word is uttered twice, and it's still G). One scene that I found particularly scary was the scene where Lampwick (Pinocchio's friend on Pleasure Island) turns into a donkey. We already saw the Coachman earlier (by the way, that character is also scary when he says earlier, "they won't be back..... as BOYS!!!!") selling donkeys and shipping them to different places, and we find out, from one donkey who can talk, that these donkeys are the boys who spent the entire day on Pleasure Island. In the following scene, we watch Pinocchio's face as Lampwick slowly grows ears, and then a tail, and then his face turns into a donkey's snout, and as cool Lampwick realizes what happened to him, he begs Pinocchio to help him. We see him kneeling next to him, we see his hands begging for help, and his hands turn into donkey legs right in front of him. It's a really scary scene, and then we see the same thing starting to happen to Pinocchio, and the tension grows. I wish more scenes like that could be written into more animated films nowadays, because I'm sure this scene scared a bunch of children out of drinking and smoking (at least for a while), and Dumbo also has a scene where he gets drunk and starts seeing elephants on parade that I heard gave people nightmares (and the Fantasia number from the Sorcerer's Apprentice gave my mom nightmares), but I honestly believe children are not as fragile as we think they are. They are more open-minded and can handle more than we give them credit for, so it bothers me that children's entertainment these days appeals to the lowest common denominator (with PIXAR as a glorious exception).

One thing I noticed with Pinocchio is that none of the villains get a punishment. They all continue with their villainous ways, but we don't really care, because we just want Pinocchio to get away from them. As soon as Pinocchio is out of the cage and away from Stromboli, he's still out there looking for a new act, and as soon as Pinocchio and Jiminy escape Pleasure Island, the coachman is still selling boys that turned into donkeys whose futures don't look too bright. It's disturbing when you think about it, but it works beautifully.
There's a couple of characters I forgot to talk about, and that's Geppetto's pets Figaro, the spoiled cat, and Cleo, the seductive female fish. These two are characters that depend more on their expressions and body movements for us to know who they are. We know Figaro always craves for attention, and Cleo loves to be kissed, even if it's just on her fishbowl, because it makes her feel pretty. This is something I hadn't noticed in the film until I saw her this last time, which made that scene at the end in which Figaro jumps into Cleo's bowl and kisses her all the more rewarding. Another character that was made quite frightening with no dialogue is Monstro, the whale that swallows Geppetto and Figaro and Cleo, and later Pinocchio as he searches for him. I remember the intense experience of watching Geppetto and Pinocchio trying to paddle away from the whale, and then the whale destroying their raft and Pinocchio having to pull Geppetto to shore, even when he tells him to swim for shore. This is the act that finally makes him worthy of being a real boy.
I remember hearing a rumor once that Jiminy Cricket was based on Cri-Cri, a cricket character who was the identity of Francisco Gabilondo Soler (the most important children's composer in Mexico). Apparently Walt Disney wanted to buy Cri-Cri for his films, but Gabilondo refused to do it. I don't know if that rumor was true, and from what I heard in a documentary on the DVD it may not have been (since they took a talking cricket character that Pinocchio squashes from the Collodi book and made him into Pinocchio's conscience), but since I grew up listening to Cri-Cri, hearing that made me even closer to Jiminy Cricket. It's probably just a rumor, but I love making that connection, because Pinocchio and Cri-Cri were huge parts of my childhood. It's fun to remember what used to be a part of our childhoods, and it's funny for me that my childhood memories were released to the world in the 1940's and 1950's (though I also grew up with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and other cartoons from the 1990's). It was produced by Walt Disney, released in theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 7, 1940, and even though it didn't do very well in the box office on its first run (it only recouped 1.9 out of its 2.6 million budget). The film started catching on with re-releases, with the tradition that Disney films were re-released in theaters every 10 years (starting in 1944 for Snow White, and 1945 for Pinocchio) up until 1992 with a digital restoration. It remains a classic, and the Academy-Award winning song "When You Wish Upon a Star" has now become the theme of the new Disney logo.
So, is there any film you'd like to discuss that was this much a part of your childhood? Anything that hasn't aged for you? Or anything you may have re-visited lately?