Beauty and the Beast (1991)

How this animation is not on the 1001 list blows my mind.  It was nominated for best picture in 1991, but lost out to The Silence of the Lambs.  If it would have won, it would have been the first animation to do so.  Also, it is the first animation to implement computer animation.

 

Plot:

The movie is vastly different from the book, but that does not detract from our enjoying it. It still keeps the basic plot.  Belle is a young woman living in a tiny French town who is branded a "misfit" because she enjoys reading, and her father is deemed crazy because he is a creative inventor.  Belle is actually color-coded blue so she'll stand out in the crowd.  Her father, Maurice, who has created the world's first steam engine but only uses it to chop wood, takes his invention to a fair and gets lost in the woods.  He seeks shelter in a creepy castle where he discovers the inanimate objects there, such as a candlestick, are eager to serve and please him.  Except the clock, Cogsworth, who has issues. Anyway, the scary Beast comes storming in a rage towards the main room, grabs her dad, and drags him upstairs to the dungeon. Yes the dungeon is upstairs. No, I don't understand either.

 

Belle is surprised her horse, Philippe  has returned so quickly and without her father. So, she rides him into the forest and finds her father trapped in the castle.  She begs the scary Beast to let him go and to let her take his place. He agrees and sticks Maurice in a creepy walking carriage that scared me when I was little.  Maurice tries to get the villagers to save her, but they won't because he's crazy. Gaston, Belle's handsome but asshole suitor, plots to put Maurice in an asylum to blackmail her into marrying him.

 

So, about Belle being trapped in the castle. She isn't stuck in the dungeon; she's given her own bedroom, beautiful dresses that fit perfectly, and free range of the castle with the exception of the West Wing.  Of course, Belle, being an only child spoiled brat, goes into the West Wing the first chance she gets.  This enrages Beast, who flips a table and Belle runs away in a panic.  As Belle flees, the wolves chase her.  The Beast comes to fight the wolves as very dramatic music plays.  Belle takes the injured Beast back to the castle to care for him instead of leaving him for dead and returning to her father.

 

Here is the part that sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to a lot of people.  However, its hard to say because the Beast treats her better and with more respect than anyone in her village ever did.  The part where Belle and the Beast become friends is filled with the best songs: "Something There" and the title song, "Beauty and the Beast".  The stunning scenes of the dance in the ballroom was animated seamlessly with both traditional and computer animation.  The ballroom dance is one of the best parts of the whole movie.

 

The Beast allows Belle to return home to care for her ill father, giving her his magic mirror as a gift. She uses it to prove that the Beast is real to Gaston and the villagers, saving her father from the loony bin.  Gaston seizes this moment to incite a mob to attack Beast's castle.  This leads to a hilarious fight between the objects and villagers.  The scene where the man gets trapped in the wardrobe and comes out dressed silly made me laugh so much when I first saw this.  Gaston and Beast have an epic showdown which ends up with Gaston falling to his death and the Beast bleeding out.  Belle comes back to the castle too late, and tells the Beast that she loves him. 

The Beast magically turns back into a human, and Belle recognizes him by his eyes.  The smoke around him while he is transforming is actual smoke with animation around it. They never say the Beast's real name in the film, but in the book and early computer game they call him Adam.  All of the objects turn back into humans too.  And they all lived happily ever after. I'll give this film a 9/10.

Note: The Beast was cursed to live as a beast until his 21st year.  Meanwhile, the objects sing "It's been 10 years since's anybody's here".  Many people mistakenly believe this means the Beast was 11 when cursed.  This is simply not true.  The Beast is the same age when cursed, and when the curse is lifted. The 21 years means being under the spell for 21 years.  This is evidenced by Chip, who is 6 years old.  If the Beast was 11, why isn't Chip 16 by now?  Exactly.  The objects and the Beast stay the same age the entire time they are cursed.

The Wedding Banquet (1993)

This movie is, above all, about lies.  The lies we tell our parents. The lies we tell our children. 

Wai-tung and Simon are living together in New York. Wai-tung is terrified of coming out to his traditional parents, so he literally fakes an entire wedding and wedding banquet just to fool them.  His "bride" is a female tenant (Wei-Wei) desperate for a green card, so there's something in it for her too.  I learned a lot about Chinese/Taiwanese customs, which were very interesting.

The elaborate wedding banquet was stunning. There were so many people! And the wedding night was interesting because everyone piled in the honeymoon suite and partied hard. That was quite funny.

But here comes the part that I hate. And I fully expected this to happen as this is a very predictable film. 

Ok, here it is. Guess what. Even though Wai-tung and Wei-Wei don't mean to, Wei-Wei gets pregnant. From the first try.  We find this out quickly because she is very nauseous at breakfast time.  Oh, yeah, sure because morning sickness happens the same week you get knocked up.  This shouldn't happen until at least the 4th or 5th week. I mean, she doesn't even know if her period is late.  What does this movie teach us? If you have sex and throw up the next day, you're pregnant! Getting pregnant/having a baby without meaning to is so tired and cliche in romantic comedies.  Cheesiness and constant cliches are the main reasons I can't stand watching romantic comedies.  As someone who had a very difficult time having a safe pregnancy and being stuck on bedrest from day one, this is how I felt watching all this:

 Also, Florida represent! So, Wai-tung and his mom are keeping a secret from his dad, and his dad and boyfriend are keeping a secret too. All of them need therapy. I give this movie a 6/10.

Sherlock Jr (1924)

Here is a delightful short film featuring Buster Keaton.  The special effects in the dream sequence were pretty good considering this was over 90 years ago.  Such as when his spirit-like "dream self" emerges from his body while he sleeps on the job.  Also, he jumps through a lady and vanishes.

 

I like that he does his own stunts.  He runs across the top of the train and jumps down the water tower.  I heard from someone that he got injured doing this stunt.  I am too tired to verify this.  Also, he rides on the handlebars of a motorcycle all across the countryside.  I didn't know anyone could do that.  I thought you had to hold on to the handlebars in order to keep the engine running.  I've ridden on motorcycles but never driven one myself.  Oh, and he gets stuck on the roof and jumps on the railroad gate and sails down. Look:

 

 

 

 

That was neat.  I'm glad this was only 45 minutes because there was not enough story to keep it going any longer.  I'm going to give this a 6/10 because for a physical comedy, there wasn't a lot of comedy.  If I wanted to watch an action-filled comedy, I would choose a Stephen Chow/Jackie Chan film over this any day.

Toy Story (1995)

This movie came out when I was 10 years old, and it is by far one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. If anyone ever wants to watch it I'm like

What makes it so scary?

The dolls, man, the dolls. Dolls are inherently scary as fuck. They look like people, with human-like features, but have cold marble eyes.  There is no soul behind their eyes. There is nothing. They want to fool us by looking at us with their soulless eyes, beckoning us to pick them up. But I know better!

So these genius writers at Pixar come up with this twisted idea that once we leave the room, these dolls come to life! What kind of sick mind thinks this up? So once a child leaves their room, the toys come to life.  Do they always have awareness, or how are they able to stay so still when a child plays with them? My daughter is 2 1/2 and is fairly rough on her toys. So they are fully aware of when she's in the room, and when she's not. When she's in the room, the toys all lay there, with their cold features waiting for her human touch, yearning for the warm touch they themselves will never have. They glare at her with lifeless eyes, always watching, always judging, even as she sleeps.

Plot:

So the main characters are Woody, a cowboy doll, and Buzz, a spaceman, who have some kind of male pride rivalry going on, but I really don't care. I kept hoping they would be destroyed so I'd be rid of them. But they don't get destroyed. The worst part of the film is when they wind up in a house of toy mutant horrors. This is by far the most nightmare inducing part.

Woody and Buzz take control of the weaker minded mutant toys and incite them to revolt against their human child master, who has done nothing wrong except be creative. I often have to take apart old machines to find parts for new ones. Machines and toys do not have feelings. Now I know Pixar's just trying to scare me. The worst part when I first watched it is when the boy, Sid, picks up Woody and its head starts spinning around like in The Exorcist! Oh my I just cannot handle this.

This movie traumatized me when I first saw it as a child and had nightmares for years to come. Fuck everything about this movie. I'm giving it a 3/10.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

Here's a fun musical, and the first Bollywood film I've ever seen!

Plot: Girl is betrothed to a guy, but falls in love with someone else.  Father is enraged when he finds out, so he moves the entire family from their home in London to India.  Girl's lover follows her to India to win over her father's approval.

Songs: Yes, I understand the film is 3 hours long, but that's mainly because of all the songs in it.  The songs are upbeat and poppy, and are very catchy.  They're one of the best things about the movie.

 I had to make sure I kept the subtitles on and actually read them during the music numbers, because the lyrics of the songs actually push the plot along and tell us a lot about what's going on.  Otherwise I would be like this:

Romance: Yes, take away the songs and this is a cheesy romanctic comedy.  This movie, however, is a cheesy romantic comedy musical.  It's different.  A lot of stuff about honor is touched upon in the film. Such as our girl, Simran, and guy, Raj, don't even kiss during their time together (I don't think they allowed this in Bollywood films a while ago, and this was 18 years ago).  Also even though Simran begs him, Raj refuses to elope.  He wants to have her father's approval so he can marry her properly.  We wish the best for Simran and hope she doesn't have to marry her betrothed (who obviously has to be the worst jerk in the world, which makes Raj look even better).

Raj tells his father that he loves Simran and so he books a train for the three of them to escape.  Raj is still bent on winning over her father, and succeeds in getting her mother's approval.  Even she tells them they need to elope.  Finally, her father discovers that Raj and Simran still love each other and all hell breaks loose.  It's obvious he really doesn't like Raj.  Raj and his father are waiting for the train, and Simran's betrothed arrives with his gang of friends to beat the crap out of them. What ensues is a terribly hilarious dance-fight. Awesome.

Simran's mother takes her to the train station so she can leave with her true love, Raj.  However, her father also arrives and grabs her arm tightly and will not let go no matter how much she begs and cries.  As the train pulls away, we worry that she will not be able to get on.  Then, at the last minute, her dad lets go!  He tells her to run to her love. What caused this sudden change of heart?  Absolutely nothing!  It's a romantic comedy, there doesn't need to be a reason!  So the lovers end up together and are happy.  The end. I'll give this film a 7/10.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Yes, My husband and I are from Alabama, and no, we have not read the book.  The first thing that struck me was the narrator speaking about how hot it was there. She also said that there was nothing to buy and no money to buy it with.  There's not much to do there. This is all true. That's why we had to pack up and find work elsewhere.

 However, she said they were also told they had nothing to fear but fear itself.  Really?  They were actually told these words? Highly doubt it since she said in the beginning of the movie that it was 1932 and FDR never said this speech until March 1933.  I HATE when people don't pay attention to details.

Times have changed in Alabama, especially in the cities and college towns.  After we left college, we moved into a small town of 5000 people, and it was very similar to the town in this movie. Well, not artificial, and clean.  There seems to be a lack of broken lawnmowers and junk in this movie. The attitude in Maycomb is very believable. In fact, if it were colorized and set today, it could easily take place in our real-life small town and it would have been the exact same. No one would have noticed that it was an old movie.

And what's with them calling their father "Atticus"? It is very disrespectful to call someone by their first name unless you know them very well. A child would never call any adult by their first name. If it's a relative, it's always Aunt so-and-so, never just the name. And when an adult insists on being called by their first name, we had to add Mr. or Miss onto it (doesn't matter if they're married or not). And this is present day. I can only imagine children in the 30's were more polite. But obviously not.

Let's talk about Atticus, or as he should be known as, "pompous father who thinks he is better than everyone else".  He constantly wears his three piece suit everywhere and all day.  It's always very clean, in contrast to the ignorant farmers who are always dirty.  Oh, because we owned a farm, that makes us dirty. It's called taking showers, asshole filmmakers. Also clearly no one in the costume department has ever been to Alabama, because if it's August, ain't nobody wearing a heavy warm suit all day long.  I understand wearing them in the courtroom, but not all day even at home.  This, along with his glasses, seems just to be a gimmick to further separate him from the lower-class individuals.  He is the only person in town that wears glasses, because if you wear glasses it means you're smart.  This is why no one else wears them, because he is clearly the smartest one of all.

Also, I'm not too sure about his accent. He definitely doesn't have an Alabama accent. He doesn't seem to have any kind of accent at all.  Everyone else has some kind of Southern accent except him.  Is he afraid that if he sounds Southern he won't sound as educated? That's what Stephen Colbert does and I feel sorry he feels like he needs to do this. My husband and I went to college in Alabama, got great jobs in our majors, and we will not tone down our accents one bit.

In the courtroom Atticus asks the witness if he can read or write.  This is a legit question to ask in a small town in Alabama seeing how none of my in-laws can.  Atticus proves that the victim's injuries were done by a left-handed person.  Then, he launches into a fucking ten minute long speech with the word "negro" stuffed in 50 times hoping to sway the jury.  It wasn't even a good speech.  Then the jury comes back with a guilty verdict, and I'm like, ha ha ha, your lame speech didn't change anything.  What a loser.

When Atticus comes back to the house, he says that Tom escaped during transport to another town. The deputy said he "shot at him to wound him and missed his aim and killed him". Of course Atticus believes him. I cannot believe how incredibly naive this guy is. Or that he thinks an appeal will help. It can take years to file an appeal.  His stupid speech didn't work the first time; what makes him think it will work again?  Then when his children are attacked by Bob and saved by Boo Radley, the first thing he talks about are how he can defend against Bob's murder in court. He at first thinks that his son did it. Yeah, like a tiny twelve year old (that is the smallest twelve year old I've ever seen) with a broken arm can kill a man.  The sheriff points out that Boo did it to save them and he won't let him be arrested because putting someone like that through the court process "would be a sin". He just wanted to spare Boo from Atticus's terrible defending.  So, by not arresting him and allowing Atticus to defend him, the sheriff saved Boo's life. So we know who the real heroes are in this movie. I'm giving this movie a 5/10.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

This film is so comforting.  It feels warm and cozy, like a cup of hot cocoa.  No matter how bad I am feeling, it will always make me smile.*  

Even though it's a comedy, it's not a constant laugh fest focusing on fart jokes and other bathroom humor. In Shakespeare's day, a comedy was a generally happy play that ends with a wedding while a tragedy was a sad play where everyone dies. Since not everyone dies at the end, by default, this is a comedy.  I like this film more than most comedies I have seen since 2000.

Something I noticed is that even though its a big family, there is a great sense of loneliness.  Margot takes a break from her marriage to live at home.  Chas lost his wife and moves himself and his children home too.  Ritchie never had anyone and moves home to see Margot.  Even Royal could never bring himself to divorce his wife and comes home when the threat of losing her to someone else becomes real. But, in the end, they all have each other as a family.

Is Royal a likeable character?  Not technically, but yes, I am compelled to like him.  Even though he never legally divorced his wife, he still left her to raise their three children by herself.  He finally returns, not for his adult children or grandchildren, but purely for selfish reasons. One, he is broke, and two, he wants to keep his wife from marrying her accountant.  Throughout the film, everything is does is self-serving. Also faking a serious illness is a really terrible thing to do.  I think they forgave him too easily for that.

The best part of the movie is the acting. I love everyone's performance in this movie. Although I did find it odd that the only two actual brothers (Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson) in the movie were not playing relatives!  I wish that they along with Ben Stiller would do more Wes Anderson comedies because it seems like a great vehicle for them and a lot better than certain movies they've done lately. Also, I liked the soundtrack. The music fit perfectly with what was going on in the movie. I will give this movie a 9/10.

 *I feel the same way about another Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic. I'll have to write about it sometime.