Lost Boy TV: Phineas and Ferb

The Disney Afternoon has not existed since 1999, but fans of the shows that ran in that prestigious time slot are still ones that are remembered to this day by the people who grew up watching them. Many fans have been almost demanding Disney to make new animated shows that were of the quality of the ones found in the Disney Afternoon, but there have not been many results worth mentioning (except for Kim Possible, which was absolutely fantastic), but now we have Phineas and Ferb. If there was ever a show that should have been part of that programming block, it’s this one.

When I first sat down to watch Phineas and Ferb, I was hesitant. I had been burned by shows on the Disney Channel before, but my hesitation had become completely removed the first time I heard the ska theme song and saw penguins rocking out on guitars. I was hooked immediately.

Phineas and Ferb almost always follows the same exact formula for each episode: Phineas and Ferb create a crazy invention and their sister Candace tries to bust them to their mother. While that main storyline is going on, the B story is always their pet platypus, Perry, also known as Agent P, fighting against his nemesis, the villainous Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Whatever Doofenshmirtz builds to get rid of something he hates or would allow him to take over the Tri-State Area ends up destroying or otherwise getting rid of whatever Phineas and Ferb make right before Candace can bust the boys to their mother. Perry always returns to the response of “Oh, there you are Perry” and everyone has a snack. Rinse, wash, and repeat for around 150 episodes.

While the show has a very obvious formula, each episode feels incredibly fresh. Every one of the boy’s inventions are individual ideas that are never repeated (except for one, but that’s because the second time is a musical version of the episode, but that’s something I will touch upon later). In one episode they can be playing with giant Spinning Tops of Death and in another the boys can be fighting giant treehouse robots with their sister and her friend Stacy. Even Doofenshmirtz and Perry’s story lines never stagnate. There’s always a different “-inator” that Doofenshmirtz makes to “fix” his problems with the world along with a new way to capture the intrepid platypus secret agent (my personal favourite is encasing Perry in quick drying chocolate to stop him from stopping the good doctor from melting all of the chocolate in the Tri-State Area in order to sell his own chocolate at exorbitant prices).

Most of what keeps Phineas and Ferb from stagnating is the consistently high quality of the writing. The jokes fly fast and stick leaving the viewer with numerous quotable lines for each 11-minute episode. The writing also follows the Disney standard of animation in that it writes both for kids and the adults who watch television with (or in my case, like) children. Part of this stems from the fact that it was created by Dan Povenmire (a writer for Rocko’s Modern Life and a director of a number of Family Guy episodes in earlier seasons. He also voices Dr. Doofenshmirtz) and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh (who also wrote for Rocko’s Modern Life and voices Major Monogram on Phineas and Ferb). There is definitely a lot of similarities that can be drawn between the styles of humour in Rocko’s Modern Life and Phineas and Ferb, the largest of which would just be how unbelievably bizarre both of the shows can get at times (Giant Floating Baby Head and the Jewish Mexican Cultural Fair are two that immediately spring to mind).

The other major component to the show’s success is the quality of the characters. Phineas and Ferb are two absolutely brilliant children with imaginations that are just demanding to be expressed into new and interesting ideas. What is most interesting about them, but is something that really isn’t focused upon in the show too often (which is a subtlety that I’m glad exists) is that the brothers are actually stepbrothers. Phineas and Candace’s mother and Ferb’s father married when the boys were young, but the relationship between the entire family unit is just like a family where all of the members are blood related. There is never any amount of dysfunction besides the standard sibling rivalry, which leads us to Candace. Her major role is to try to reveal her brother’s adventures to their mother, but this usually gets in the way of her having an actual life of her own, much to her friend Stacy’s chagrin. Their mother, Linda, is eternally patient with her daughter (though she believes that Candace is completely crazy) and wonderfully doting towards Phineas and Ferb. All of this hides (rather poorly) the fact that she used to be an 80′s one-hit-wonder. Their father is not seen all that often earlier in the show, but when he does finally show up, he just looks upon the inventions of the boys with a blissful joy and relative unawareness.

Even Dr. Doofenshmirtz gets some character development, partially from his constant insistence of telling Perry the Platypus the back story that led to the invention of his latest “-inator”, partially from his hatred of his perfect brother Roger, but mostly from the existence of his daughter, Vanessa. Dr. Doofenshmirtz wants nothing more than to get his teenage daughter to love him, but she usually is just hopelessly embarrassed by him. He also is not really that evil (seriously, he runs a company called Doofenshmirtz Evil, Inc. that has it’s own jingle), he just goes about solving his problems in a very odd manner.

A musical version of an episode was mentioned earlier, but musical numbers are not just limited to that one episode. Most episodes, in fact, have a song in them written for just that episode; on top of that, they’re exceptionally well done.

The theme song (“Today’s Going to be a Great Day”) for the show is performed by Bowling for Soup and really sets the tone and premise for the show up perfectly (and shows a number of inventions that Phineas and Ferb might do over the course of their summer adventures, and by the end of season 3, all but one of them have been accomplished (it’s actually a running joke within the show)). Most of the songs were written by Dan Povenmire and/or Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, and as such, fit perfectly within the tone of the show. Some of the best songs in the show can be found in the season 1 episode “Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together”, which also happens to be one of the best episodes. What is so amazing about the music is that the songs do not necessarily follow a specific musical style, they range from disco, to country, to 80′s rock, to even jazz and ska. There are 3 separate soundtracks for the show and they are well worth a listen even if you aren’t a fan of the show.

Phineas and Ferb is easily one of the most brilliant shows I have seen in ages. It has wonderful writing, well developed characters, fun stories, and amazing music and animation. Drop whatever you are doing and watch this show. 3 seasons of it are available on NetFlix Streaming and you will not be disappointed.

Cinematic Adventures: Tinker Bell

After growing up in the 90′s, the thought of watching a straight-to-video Disney film is one that did not really interest me. Most of the sequels they released were unanimously terrible and only a few gems glimmered out of the river of ankle-deep sewage. Oddly enough, shortly after Disney announced that it’s DisneyToon Studios would not be releasing it’s straight to video sequels (despite the fact that they are now making a spin-off to Cars called Planes, which will probably be just as bad as most of the straight-to-video sequels), it announced a completely different take on the trend of films they had been releasing since 1994′s Return of Jafar: a series of films based off of Tinker Bell.

Now many people would ask: how do you make a series of films based off of a character who doesn’t even speak? The answer is simple, make it all about fairies and not include Peter Pan whatsoever (a decision that personally cut me to the core, but that’s neither here nor there) and in turn, create a completely brand new line of merchandising akin to the Princess line that would act off of Tinker Bell’s already suprisingly devoted fanbase.

Just as an aside, Tinker Bell is one of the oddest characters in the Disney canon. People love Tinker Bell in that she is one of Disney’s mascots and is always present in firework shows, and has been used in the introductions for shows like Disneyland, so her appearance is one that is highly saturated and ripe for people loving her without actually knowing anything about her besides the fact that she is a fairy and is magic. That being said, her actual character in Peter Pan is one that is really either loved or hated. People who like her, adore her for her “sassiness” because of how she jealously treats Wendy; people who hate her think she is just mean and cruel for the same reason that the other crowd loves her. I wanted to like Tinker Bell mostly due to the fact that I love her character design, and Marc Davis’ animation on her is amazing, but I was unfortunately in the latter camp despite my knowledge of her character and why she was acting the way she did.

Luckily, the first Tinker Bell movie allowed me to actually like her character for the first time in my life.

The film opens on the “birth” of Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman, Katara from Avatar: the Last Airbender, Roxy Richter from Scott Pilgrim VS the World, and Ann Veal in Arrested Development) from the first laugh of a newborn baby and we find out that all of the fairies in the world live in a location within Neverland called Pixie Hollow and that they each are magically assigned to a job when they are born. They can be a garden fairy, a water fairy, light fairy, animal fairy, and others. Tinker Bell is a tinker fairy, a fairy who fixes and creates items and tools for the other fairies, but is not quite in love with her job. Her new friends Rosetta (Kristin Chenoweth), Iridessa (Raven-Symone), Fawn (America Ferrera) and Silvermist (Lucy Liu) try to teach Tinker Bell about their jobs to see if she has the talent to do them, and of course, she fails on a spectacular fashion. The fairies are all preparing for the changing of the seasons from winter to spring, as they change the seasons on Earth, and in a spectacular Disney fashion, Tinker Bell ends up ruining the preparations, but learns that she has the power to create and tries to save it.

Tinker Bell is a much more likable character in this film than she is in Peter Pan. She’s sweet, curious, and determined to figure out her role in the world, but she does have that jealous and angry streak that was present in Peter Pan, it’s just not a constant thing like it was in that film.

One of the things I noticed about the film were that there are a few similarities that can be derived between this film and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that I could not help but notice. Both feature characters trying to figure out their role in life (Tinker Bell and the Cutie Mark Crusaders), both feature the changing of seasons actually being caused by the characters. They’re not huge, but they definitely exist.

I fully expected this movie to be bad, and not that awesome kind of bad (in other words, the Pac Man effect: when a film is so bad it goes all the way around to being good), the really, really, genuinely awful kind of bad. A year or two after the film was released in 2008, I spent some time over at my neighbor’s house with their young children who were watching Tinker Bell and I was genuinely surprised that it was not only watchable, but that I wanted to actually watch it in it’s entirety. It’s not a remarkably good movie, but it is very entertaining to watch. The animation is good, not great, but good. The characters are well designed, but a lot of the faces look very similar and move in kind of a weird way. The music is nothing special, but it’s passable and it doesn’t intrude on the film.

If you’re a Tinker Bell fan, you’ve probably already seen this film, but if you aren’t a fan of the fairy you should still see it. It’s a pretty good film that above all else, entertains. I’m definitely interested in seeing the other Disney Fairy films and will probably get to those sometime in the next few weeks.

Blu-Ray Review: Cars Director’s Edition

The Cars films are ones that are highly debated as to their quality (or lack thereof) by both Disney fans and the general theatre going public. They are definitely loved by little boys (and mostly by little boys) and it is usually seen by people as Disney’s boy response to the wildly successful Princess line (considering that Pirates never really caught on in that regard, much to my chagrin). The films do not have a wide adult fan base, which makes the fact that this set even got made is rather surprising.

The set just oozes style and class from the outside with it’s metallic red paint job (it’s actually Lightning McQueen’s paint colour) and it’s exceptionally minimalist box design. On two sides, there is the Cars logo, John Lasseter’s signature, and the phrase “Director’s Edition”. On the other two sides there are the logos for the movies and short collection contained within (Cars, Cars 2, and Cars Toons: Mater’s Tall Tales). If someone were to not know what the Cars movies were, the only indication as to what they were getting into would be the clear plastic box on the top of the set containing a John Lassetire die-cast figurine. The set looks awesome when put on a shelf between other DVD’s and Blu-Rays and helps to class up what could just be standard cases lined up next to each other. That being said, the box is rather big, it’s about the size of 11 DVD or Blu-Ray cases and is taller than your standard DVD case, so if you use a shelf made just for DVD’s, it’s going to need to sit somewhere else (I just sit it on top of the shelf with my other oversized or oddly shaped sets).
The Director’s Edition opens in a rather bizarre fashion. You actually have to lift off the entire red box (it ends up just being a giant slip cover) to reveal, for lack of a better phrase, a multi-tiered steel looking tower with the John Lassetire sitting on top of it. This tower does not look nearly as good as the slip cover, but it’s still a good looking box. The major problem with the set comes when you take off the top part of the tower. When you take it off, you are hit with a cheap looking checker-board flag, which seems to exist only to hide the cheapness of the disc packaging. The 11 discs in the set are covered by a cheap piece of plastic packaging that doesn’t even lock into place, which arises the question: why is it there? The inclusion of the plastic piece is weird, but what is infuriating is the fact that all of the discs are shoved into a piece of foam. No cases, no sleeves, just foam. For a set that has an MSRP of $119, this is completely unacceptable. I understand that Blu-Ray discs are able to take a higher threshold of scratches before they become unreadable due to the smaller size and the strength of the blue laser, but scratches are still scratches, and the foam will provide less protection than your standard DVD or Blu-Ray case. I’m really thinking about going out and getting either some jewel cases that fit in the box or just getting some cheap paper sleeves in order to keep the discs safe from harm.

The packaging of this set is really upsetting to me. I love the casing, but the way that the discs are held just kills the whole thing for me. I’m glad that I got the set for only $50 through a combined use of a $10 off coupon and a deal from Best Buy that got me an additional $10 off of the $70 price tag at the store. While the packaging leaves quite a bit to be desired, the discs themselves are pretty spectacular. The 11 discs are broken down between 5 discs for Cars 2 (2D and 3D Blu-Ray with a separate special features disc, DVD version of the film, and a digital copy) and Cars and the Cars Toons have 3 discs each (DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital copy). The special features for Cars are slim and are just the special features from the original release back in 2006 and I can’t speak for any special features on the Cars Toon set as I just haven’t watched it yet. The special features for Cars 2 are many and plentiful. Along with the normal making-of featurettes, there is a featurette on a car show that Pixar puts on every year, a short on Cars Land that ends up just being a giant commercial for the upcoming land, and even a version of the races from the film that are just the races and none of the story elements that breaks them up within the film.

Recommending this set is rather difficult, as it’s a great set from a looks perspective and the fact that you get a lot of content for your money, but the packaging really holds me back from saying that you should just go out and buy the set. If you can get it for cheap (like I did) and wouldn’t mind getting some cheap jewel cases or some disc sleeves or you don’t have at least 2 of the movies, then definitely go for it. Otherwise, stay away from this set.

Cinematic Adventures: Beauty and the Beast 3D

After the advent of home video, the idea of the theatrical rerelease was one that seemed like it was going to go the way of the dodo, and for a number of years, it definitely was. Until the phoenix-like rebirth of the 3D movie, it was something that both did not seem like it would return nor did it seem like there would even be a point. That being said, one can always expect that Disney will be able to find a way to make money off a concept that almost no one else would expect to work (well, at least at first). The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D when it was originally released in 2006, it raked in an extremely surprising amount of money and Disney continued using the 3D medium to get massive amounts of money (they have had 3 3D movies (Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) in the past 2 years that made over a billion dollars worldwide each) and they do not seem to want to give up on the money-making venture that is 3D, with most of their big films being released in both 2D and 3D, but also with brand new 3D conversions of older films that people already know and love. It may sound like I’m bashing the idea of 3D movies (I’m really not as I quite enjoy 3D), I’m more just making a point.

All of that being said, and while I know that 3D is one of the greatest money making schemes in entertainment today, if Disney keeps releasing 3D conversions like the Lion King (which I already talked about) and the new (but not really) conversion of Beauty and the Beast, they will continue to get my money. I’m obviously not going to be reviewing the film here (because that can be found here), but I do feel like there are things to talk about with this conversion.

The actual conversion itself is rather spectacular, but not as good as the one for the Lion King. The 3D is rather good, and it feels very different from the Lion King due to it sometimes looking like a moving storybook (especially in the very beginning and the tracking shot through the forest). Each layer in that scene feels very separate from each other and some people may not like that, but the rest of the film looks really good, and in a lot of scenes, actually makes the film look better. One problem that a lot of 3D films face is that the glasses make the picture look darker, but it’s not quite the case with the 3D conversion of Beauty and the Beast, the colours really pop on the big screen and besides the fact that the version in theatres looks almost like it’s standard definition, it still looks rather gorgeous. The times that the 3D looks the best, though, are when there is rain and snow present, as they take up the very front layer of the film and it makes you feel much more involved in the story unfolding in front of you.

The 3D version of Beauty and the Beast was actually supposed to come out on Valentines Day of 2010 (which made me actually look forward to that day for the first time in a number of years), but the release was inexplicably dropped, despite the fact that the conversion was already complete. Valentines Day 2010 came and went without an enchanted castle and it was announced that it would come out the following Valentines Day. That ended up being false again and Disney never spoke of it again. Beauty and the Beast got a double-dip Blu-Ray release when the Diamond Edition Blu-Ray was brought out again, but with a new disc that included the 3D version of the film and a digital-copy on October 4th, 2011 along with the new Diamond Edition of the Lion King. After that, it did not seem that we would ever see Beauty and the Beast in theatres again, until the Lion King was rereleased in 3D and raked in money hand over fist in the box office. It was announced that it would be coming out along with Finding Nemo 3D in September 2012, Monsters, Inc. 3D in January 2013, and the Little Mermaid 3D in September 2013.

I’m still holding out for Aladdin 3D in 2014, but we will have to wait and see if that comes to pass.

The real reason that Beauty and the Beast 3D is noteworthy is the existence of Tangled Ever After, a new short that premiered before the film. The story is, obviously, a sequel to Tangled where Rapunzel and Flynn tie the not, but not without Pascal and Maximus losing the rings and are forced to run all around the kingdom trying to get them back before it’s time to declare them man and wife. The cast from the movie returns, as does the vast majority of the cast of characters, for the genuinely hilarious short, but something I am concerned about is how the short is going to be released to the public. The 3D version of Beauty and the Beast is already out and it does not have Tangled Ever After on it, and the short is only around 6 minutes long, so it wouldn’t get it’s own release.

I would highly suggest going to see Beauty and the Beast 3D even if you don’t like 3D movies. Being able to see Beauty and the Beast on the big screen is a real treat that should not be missed, and Tangled Ever After is really just the icing on the cake.

The Lost Boy Goes to the Theatre: The Lion King

Last night, I saw the Lion King on Broadway for the third time, and oh my sweet Christmas it is an amazing show.

The show follows the plot to the movie very strongly, but it’s more like a director’s cut version of the film. Just about everything you remember from the movie is in the show, but with numerous scenes either being expanded or new scenes being added that were only eluded to in the film, such as Nala leaving the Pride Land and her reason to do so. There are even completely brand new scenes such as Zazu talking to Mufasa about parenting and Timon almost drowning from a trip over a waterfall when Simba freezes up due to the similarity to the traumatic event when Mufasa died.

The costumes in the show are absolutely amazing to look at. Most of the animals are elaborate puppets, but are much more representative of their animal than they are literal. With each animal, you can still see the person operating them, but it does not detract from the experience at all. For instance, the Giraffes are people wearing stilts on both arms and both legs and the neck and head of the giraffe being a very large hat. A Cheetah is a puppet that the puppeteer wears around his/her waist where the back legs are operated by the puppeteers legs, the front legs are operated by long poles, and the head is attached by a rope to the puppeteer’s head. The design of the puppets is made to look significantly tribal in nature, with many of them featuring tribal designs in the fabrics, or some of them, like the massive elephant puppet, looking like they are made out of thatching. The lions themselves are much more representative than any of the other characters, they look the most like people out of any of the characters, with really the only visible lion traits being a tail (which really only Scar has) or headdresses, which in the case of Mufasa and Scar, lunge forward when the actor bends over, simulating more cat-like movements.

Timon, Pumbaa, and Zazu are my favourite puppets in the show. Timon is operated by a man dressed in all green clothing and the puppet covers a large part of his body. The actor’s feet operate Timon’s feet, his arms can operate each of Timon’s arms, and his hand operates the mouth of the puppet. Pumbaa’s puppeteer operates the mouth and tongue of the full body puppet, which allows for some very funny physical gags related to Pumbaa catching things in his extra large mouth, or slapping Timon with his tongue. Zazu is the one character in the show that looks the most different from everyone else. The costume designers took the idea that he is British and ran with it. Zazu wears a bowler hat, a blue tailcoat that looks like feathers, some bright orange dress shoes, and carries a white Zazu puppet.

The scenery is exceptionally minimal, with a large amount of the scenery actually being cast members dressed as plants. There are a few set pieces, such as Pride Rock and the Elephant Graveyard that can be moved around the stage to fill different roles and perspectives as needed.

The music combines music from the film with completely new music and songs. The show does not have the standard orchestra pit that other Broadway shows has, but rather goes for a much more tribal sound with plenty of drums of different sizes and sounds along with various kinds of flutes and xylophones. The new songs are fantastic and a number of them are based off of the score from the film or from the album Rhythm of the Pride Lands. “He Lives in You” (which found it’s way into the Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride for some odd reason), “Shadowland” (known as “Lea Halelela” on Rhythm of the Pride Lands, but added English lyrics to the Broadway version), and “One by One” are all from Rhythm of the Pride Land and they flow perfectly into the pacing of the show. “He Lives in You” is an amazing song that really encapsulates the message of the story in a perfect and exceptionally catchy manner and “Shadowland” gives Nala some much needed stagetime and shows just how strong of a character she is in the show.

“The Morning Report” (which as of June of 2010 has been cut from the show, for some odd reason) is one of my favourite new songs and was added to the film when it was rereleased to IMAX and subsequently removed from the film when it was rereleased in 3D (which leads me to believe that Disney is now having an anti-”Morning Report” stance, which is surprising considering their apparent love of puns). A few songs were added to the show like “Grassland’s Chant” and “Lioness’ Hunt” that really don’t serve any purpose to the story, but provide transitions to the story. ”The Madness of King Scar” is a wonderful new song that really shows that Scar is not fit for ruling and adds a bit of comic relief to the otherwise slimy character while also setting up the motivation for Nala leaving the Pride Lands. The best new song in the show, and what I consider to be the best song in the show, is “Endless Night”. The song really shows just how confused Simba is as to his life as he struggles with his past and what he was taught as a child. It is a beautiful and haunting song that helps to turn his life around in the story.

The show manages to seamlessly blend old and new with a distinctive artistic style that is equal parts Lebo M (one of the composers of the new music) and Julie Taymor (the director of the show and director of Across the Universe and the ill-fated Spider-Man musical). If you have the means to, definitely go see this show. Even if you know the movie backwards and forwards, there is still more than enough in this show to keep you immensely entertained, and as I saw last night, it even keeps children entertained and quiet throughout.

Happy 110th Birthday, Walt Disney!

“Over at our place, we’re sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don’t think of grown-ups, and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.”

Walt Disney is 110 years young today, be sure to celebrate by watching Disney movies and shorts pre-1966 today.

Regular posts will be starting up again on Wednesday.

Muppet Mayhem (Part 9): The Muppets

After 10 years of being out of the spotlight, the Muppets have finally returned to the forefront of entertainment. The film was a long time in the making, with talks starting between the writing team of Jason Segel and Nick Stoller and Disney in 2008 when the movie was tentatively called The Greatest Muppet Movie of all Time!! Disney was hesitant about making it due due to Segel’s whole full-frontal nudity thing and the raunchy comedy of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but they finally decided on making it due to the heart found in the movie and that was found in the early drafts of the screenplay for the film that became the Muppets. Jason Segel wanted the film to be closer in tone and style to the first three Muppet movies (the Muppet Movie, Great Muppet Caper, and Muppets Take Manhattan) and he definitely succeeded, but ended up going a step farther.

Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter live in a small town called Smalltown (go figure) and Walter has always felt different from everyone else. Walter and Gary always watched the Muppet Show growing up and Walter, being a Muppet himself, always felt exceptionally close to the characters he was seeing on TV, much to the ridicule of others. When Gary and Mary (Amy Adams) decide to go to Los Angeles for their 10th anniversary of dating each other, Gary decides to take Walter along so he can see the Muppet Studio like he’s always dreamed of, much to Mary’s dislike. When they get there, they find that the Muppet Studio has been in a state of disrepair for years and it’s only being used for lack-luster tours. Walter runs off from the tour and enters Kermit’s old office, but stumbles upon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) and his minions, Bobo the Bear and Uncle Deadly, plotting to buy the Muppet Studio, raze it, and drill for oil.

The three decide to seek out Kermit the Frog and get his help to save the studio. Kermit decides that the only way to get the amount of money needed to save it is to find all of the Muppets and put on a telethon. They travel all over the country, stopping in Reno where Fozzie is doing a Muppet tribute show, getting Gonzo away from his immensely powerful plumbing company, Animal was in a anger management center with Jack Black as his sponsor, and the rest return through a montage, except for Ms. Piggy who is working in Paris as the editor for Vogue. The newly reformed Muppets, with the help of Gary, Mary, and Walter, rebuild the Muppet Theatre and get it ready to put on a show that TV producer Veronica Martin (Rashida Jones) agrees to put on TV if they can get a celebrity host, as the Muppets are no longer celebrities. They have to find a host and put on the best show they can in order to save the studio.

The film is all about the fact that the Muppets are no longer celebrities, and that fact is one of the reasons that the film works so well. The Muppets have not had a theatrical film since 1999′s Muppets in Space, and not have had a theatrically successful one since 1996′s Muppet Treasure Island. They have had a few TV specials here-and-there in the interim, but nothing that really set the world on fire. In fact, a number of the people that I went to see the movie with had not seen a Muppet movie before, and they are all around my age or older, so the fact that the Muppets are trying to regain their popularity is so prescient.

Like Winnie the Pooh, the Muppets is perfect because of it’s very heavy similarities to previous parts of the Muppet franchise, but unlike how Winnie the Pooh is almost exactly like the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the Muppets is much closer to to the Muppet Show than it is to any of the other films. Actually, the Muppets is very much the closest things to a theatrical version of the Muppet Show than any of the other versions have ever been. The Muppet Telethon literally is a theatrical version of the show, with acts that could have been on the Muppet Show occurring on the stage at the Muppet Theatre (which is actually the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, just made over to look like the sets used in London for the filming of the Muppet Show in the late 70′s and early 80′s.) Unfortunately, one of my few problems with the film is that they did not just make some of the Muppet Show skits into segments of the telethon. I would have loved to see “Pigs in Space” again, or a “Muppet News Flash” (the anchorman does make an appearance, though), or visit the Muppet Labs, or see my personal favourite Muppet, the Swedish Chef, whip up something in the kitchen. It was wonderful to see Link Hogthrob and Dr. Julius Strangepork walking around in the background, though. Some Muppets were conspicuously missing from the movie though, such as Bean Bunny and Robin the Frog (who can be seen in the background, but I’m surprised that he wasn’t involved in the story at all).

The other reason that this film works so well is that the Muppets is a genuinely hilarious movie. There are so many laugh out loud segments that just sound so right coming out of their mouth that anyone who is familiar with the characters would feel right at home with this film and those who are not will be able to grasp their character perfectly. The film also has many references to previous Muppet properties that only fans would really get, but they are still funny for those who are not well in tune to the Muppet franchise. The Muppets is easily the funniest movie I have seen all year, and there doesn’t seem to be any films coming out by the end of the year that would knock it out of it’s position.

Like the first Muppet movie, the movie is full of cameos, but unlike the Muppet Movie, there are multiple cameos in every scene. A partial list includes Neal Patrick Harris, Donald Glover, Jim Parsons, Selena Gomez, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Arkin, Dave Grohl, Mickey Rooney, Kristen Schaal, Zach Galifinakis, and Sarah Silverman. Some of the cameos don’t even have lines within the film, with them literally just showing up and doing something in the background, such as answering phones during the telethon.

The songs were written by Bret McKenzie, one half of the 4th most popular folk band in New Zealand, the Flight of the Conchords, and the songs are absolutely wonderful. Jason Segel in an interview said that the choice of getting McKenzie to do the songs was a perfect one due to the inherent Muppet-ness of Flight of the Conchords’ music in general, so there was very little changes that needed to be made to his style to make it mesh with the Muppet franchise. None of the songs are bad in the film, but the real standout is the theme for the film, “Life’s a Happy Song”, which has been stuck in my head for over a week now. “Me Party” is a very amusing song, but the segment within the film is rather bizarre. “Let’s Talk About Me” is another weird song, but it sounds very much like a Flight of the Conchords song (I think it sounds most like “Hiphopopotamus VS Rhymenoscerous”). The other great song is the ballad between Gary and Walter “Man or Muppet?” and manages to be very emotional and deep despite the very funny nature of what happens on screen during the scene where it occurs. The film even has new versions of three classic Muppet songs (“The Muppet Show Theme, “Mahna Mahna”, and “Rainbow Connection”), the last of which left me tearing up from sheer joy.

The film even uses some classic rock to help set the mood in places. “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard” is used at the beginning of the film to set the time period and “We Built This City” is used durin

 

g the rebuilding of the Muppet Theatre in a rather hilarious manner. There are also two Muppet-ized versions of songs within the Muppet Telethon: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, except done via a barbershop quartet featuring Sam the Eagle (“another dirty word”), Link Hogthrob, Rowlf the Dog, and Beaker and “Forget You”, which should actually be called “Cluck You” considering the fact that it’s “sung” by Camilla and four other chickens. The versions in the movie are much shorter, but the full versions can be found on the soundtrack to the film and you should definitely check out the full version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as it’s absolutely hilarious.

If it sounds like I am showering nothing but praise on the film, that’s because there is nothing but praise to give. This film is one of the best films of the year and the best Muppet film since the Muppet Movie (I would actually say that it is better than the Muppet Movie, but there will be some people out there that disagree with me). See this movie, love this movie, and hope that this movie gets more Muppet properties like it to be made. (Hey Disney, get on making a new Muppet Show!)

Muppet Mayhem (Part 6): Muppet Treasure Island

In the continuing trend of the Muppets adapting classic literature, the Muppets got their hands on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic pirate story and did what the Muppets do best, create exceptionally controlled and hilarious chaos.

Billy Bones (Billy Connolly) tells Jim Hawkins and his friends, Gonzo and Rizzo, about the legendary treasure of Captain Flint and to be wary of the one-legged-man at the Admiral Benbow Inn. When the Inn is attacked by pirates for the map to Treasure Island that Billy Bones has, he gives the map to Jim and tells him to run. The Admiral Benbow burns to the ground in the distance as Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo set off to find a ship and a crew to find the treasure. The insane Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear) and his assistants, Dr. Livesey (Dr. Bunsen Honeydew) and Beaker, sponsor the trip by getting a ship, the Hispaniola, and a crew. The three eventually meet the ship’s cook, Long-John Silver (Tim Curry), and they all become fast friends (despite the fact that Billy Bones told them to be wary of the one-legged-man) as the captain, Captain Abraham Smollet (Kermit the Frog) and Mr. Arrow (Sam the Eagle). They all set off from port for an adventure on the seas until the mutinous pirate crew that crewed the Hispaniola tears the ship apart to get the map and the treasure.

Tim Curry’s Long-John Silver, like Michael Caine’s Ebenezer Scrooge, is pitch perfect. He is able to easily and effectively manipulate the audience to feel whatever they need to feel from his immense acting prowess. If you are acting against the strong character of the Muppets, your performance needs to be overblown if you want to be noticed, and Tim Curry not only gets noticed, but he actively stands out within this movie. Kevin Bishop (Jim), on the other hand, is rather terrible and kind of ruins most of the scenes he is in when he opens his pre-pubescent mouth.

This is honestly one of the funniest Muppet movies out there. The comedy is piled on really heavy throughout with running jokes throughout, but unlike the jokes in the Muppet Movie, a large number of the running jokes usually only last for a scene rather than throughout the entire film (jokes like Mrs. Bluveridge’s, the owner of the Admiral Benbow, omniscient ability to yell something consistently relevant to the situation). This allows the jokes to be much more personal in nature and they never go on for longer than they stop being funny. The movie is also a return to form for the meta humour, with Rizzo commenting on how people dying is something you don’t usually see in a children’s movie, and commenting on the existence of musical numbers and there are plenty of anachronisms purely for the sake of a joke.

Unlike the Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island is not nearly as close to the original source material. They take a lot more liberties with characters in order to fit the Muppets into the different roles and they don’t always work. Some events also happen differently, such as Mr. Arrow staying alive in the film instead of dying like he does in the book. Some of the changes make the film a bit more entertaining and incredibly sillier than the book. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as the Muppet’s natural habitat (besides a Studebaker) is comedy, not drama.

The songs are not overall as memorable as the songs from the Muppet Christmas Carol, but the score more than makes up for it. Hans Zimmer does the score this time around and he brings his usual overblown bombastic-ness to the pirate-y score. It honestly sounds like a proto-Pirates of the Caribbean score in a number of places, which really isn’t a bad thing. The songs “Cabin Fever” and “Professional Pirate” are the real stand-outs in the film and the only one that really doesn’t work is Jim’s “Something Better”, but that’s more because of Kevin Bishop’s irritating voice than it is because it’s a bad song. Tim Curry’s “Professional Pirate” is great as it follows the same train of thought as the rest of his performance, over-sell everything.

Muppet Treasure Island is a very entertaining film, but it’s not the best adaptation of Treasure Island out there. The story is not very strong in places and the songs are somewhat weak throughout, but the writing is top notch and it makes the experience altogether more pleasurable. You should definitely watch Muppet Treasure Island, but only if you want to see a funny version of the classic Treasure Island story.

Muppet Mayhem (Part 5): The Muppet Christmas Carol

I have a confession to make here, so don’t judge me, this is actually the first Muppet movie that I ever saw and it is actually my favourite one. The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the best Christmas movies ever and I will even argue to death that it is the best adaptation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol (though many people will and do disagree with me).

This was the first Muppet movie to not have any involvement by Jim Henson and was the first to be distributed by Walt Disney Pictures (but they did not acquire the Muppets yet).

The Muppet Christmas Carol is, as I stated before, an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. It tells Charles Dicken’s (played by Gonzo in the film) timeless tale of redemption, just through fuzzy animals and monsters. Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge, a stingy moneylender who works his workers, including Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog) to the bone with barely any pay. Scrooge had a very hard life that made him completely shut off from the rest of the world, often with violent out lashes against people who are kind to him, and gets especially angry around Christmas. He is visited by his dead former-partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (played perfectly by Statler and Waldorf) who tell him that he is going to be visited by three spirits by the end of the night for his salvation. Scrooge sets off on his journey for redemption, reluctantly at first, with the help of these spirits in the hopes that he can turn his life around. He travels back in time to see how his stony exterior was formed through his schooling, relationships, and jobs via the Ghost of Christmas Pas; travels around London to see the joy that people have on Christmas despite their inherent lack of money, where he of course, sees Tiny Tim Cratchit (Robin the Frog) and his mother, (Ms. Piggy), who serve to warm his heart via the Ghost of Christmas Present (the most awesome of the three ghosts, by the way); and sees the possible future if he does not change via the ghost of Christmas Future.

The story does skip some plot points from the original story such as Scrooge’s sister dying and how that affects his outlook on life, but the main tenants of the story are still there and, despite the film being a comedy, have the requisite emotional effects. Gonzo even quotes the source material quite often in his narrations. It’s rather shocking how closely it does stay to the source material considering how dark the orignal story was. The film actually does not feel like the rest of the Muppet films because of the story. This was the first Muppet movie to not have an original story, and as such, there are no random celebrity cameos. The only human characters in the film are important to the story or are just in the background. Michael Caine plays his role completely spot on, though, with numerous intense emotions coming out from a usually reserved, yet stern portrayal of Scrooge.

As was stated before, the film is mostly a comedy. The Muppet meta-humour is present, but it is much more focused on making jokes about the book or being an omniscient narrator than it is about film (though there are a few in there, mostly commenting on whether or not they should be worried about the kids in the audience, but ultimately coming to the decision that it’s okay because it’s culture). The Muppet characters are very much themselves, they’re just playing a different character, but all of their quirks and mannerisms are still present. Fozzie still tells bad jokes, Statler and Waldorf still heckle, Mrs. Piggy still has anger issues, and Gonzo still chases chickens.

The score by Miles Goodman is rather awesome and sets the tone of the film exceptionally well, but the songs by John Williams (who also did the songs for the Muppet Movie) are what is really special. They’re catchy and are efficient for what they try to accomplish within the film. My personal favourite song in the film is the Ghost of Christmas Present’s song, “It Feels Like Christmas”. It’s bubbly, uplifting, and heart warming, and it will most definitely get stuck in your head. I will say that if you watch this movie on the most recent DVD release, watch the extended edition even though it’s full screen. The widescreen edition, for some reason, cuts out the most emotional song in the film, “When Love is Gone”, and it makes the song at the end of the film, “When Love is Found”, just not have quite the same meaningful effect.

The film has a very distinctive look to it. The costumes are very much influenced by the time period, but the background and buildings are what are so odd. The buildings have very odd angles to them that make them look more appropriate for Halloweentown and everything is accurately dirty and grimy for the time period, but the levels of all of this change depending on what ghost is present. The Ghost of Christmas Present has London looking relatively normal, albeit very bright, happy, and colourful, but when the Ghost of Christmas Past is on the scene, everything becomes rainy and gray (very much like normal London).

The Muppet Christmas Carol is a wonderful film with fantastic music and is surprisingly close to the source material. I highly suggest it to anyone, especially with the holiday seasons coming up shortly.

Adventures of a Lost Boy in Disneyland (Part 15): World of Color

I know some of you are saying “but wait, you have already talked about World of Color on the blog before!” (yay, you remembered!) but after actually seeing the show in person, there are so many things I want to say about it that it really necessitated another post. Also, that last post was somewhat asinine.

When we got to the viewing platform to see the show, I knew that I was in for something special, as plenty of videos of the show had been viewed already, but there was definitely not any expectations as to how I reacted to the show. One thing that surprisedme actually happened before World of Color even started. Mickey’s Fun Wheel is oddly entrancing to watch at night. The lights that run all up and down it are constantly moving in different patterns and changing colours, sometimes being all one solid colour, or maybe all warm or cool ones, or just random combinations of everything. It definitely helps set the mood for what is to come, but no matter how much preparation I had or Disney gave me, the show left me completely speechless throughout and I had to constantly remind myself that breathing is something somewhat important to being alive. The sheer beauty and majesty of the show brought a single tear to my eye and honestly, I am not ashamed to admit that. World of Color is that good of a show.

Videos do not do this show justice whatsoever. The show had me taken aback by the sheer size of it, the effect of the show is almost like seeing a real IMAX film, it literally covers your entire field of vision. The viewing platform is right up against Paradise Bay and the fountains cover almost the entirety of said body of water, not only that, but the lights around the Paradise Pier (especially the ones on Mickey’s Fun Wheel) are used as parts of the show. It is almost a 360 degree experience and it can definitely be a sensory overload. The close proximity to the show ends up making the experience supremely personal with mist from the fountains hitting your face (which feels great on some warm California evenings) and forces you to feel the heat of fire (a la Fantasmic across the way) when they erupt (and feels distinctly less awesome on warm California evenings).

Unfortunately for me, the section that I was most excited to see (“Firebird Suite”/”Hellfire” and “Night on Bald Mountain”) was excised from the show in order to extend the Pirates of the Caribbean section to include footage from On Stranger Tides. When this news found it’s way to me (which oddly enough was when I was walking around the San Deigo Zoo), I was crestfallen. The combination of the “Firebird Suite” and “Hellfire” was such a compelling idea, and the music actually worked well together. I thought that the tie-in wasn’t going to work particularly well with the rest of the show and I really wished that they would hav added it to the end of the show like they did for the TRONcore, but as soon as I saw the show, those feelings went away. The expanded segment was very fun to watch and featured one of the best new pieces of music from the film, “Mermaids”, and featured a lot of cool fire effects. Actually, the segment was basically all fire all the time, which was actually rather terrifying. The flames were so incredibly intense that I actually started to sweat a little bit during the show.

There are some rumours floating around the internet that World of Color might be coming to Walt Disney World. When I heard this, my first thought was where would the show go? Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom don’t have bodies of water large enough to hold the show (also Animal Kingdom’s limited hours make having a nighttime show almost impossible except during the winter months) and the only place that the Magic Kingdom could do it would be in the Seven Seas Lagoon outside of the park (which would cause a logistical nightmare). The only park that actually has the necessary elements to run it would be EPCOT on the World Showcase Lagoon, but World of Color doesn’t really fit into the whole theme of World Showcase and would clash with the rest of the park. The answer to where it would be put came with the announcement that Disney was going to rework some of it’s plans for the upcoming redux of Pleasure Island called Hyperion Wharf.

The plans for the area involved new shopping and dining experiences along with an apitheatre-styled park overlooking the water, an area that is conspicuously similar to the Paradise Park viewing area for World of Color at California Adventure. Whether or not this will happen and how it would be implemented remains to be seen, some arm-chair Imagineers have speculated that there might be some sort of additional fee for the show like with the Characters in Flight Balloon that operates off of the body of water, but Disney has done free nighttime shows outside of a park before with the Electrical Water Pageant at the Contemporary.

If you have not seen World of Color and you have the means to get to California Adventure to see it, you definitely should. It is the best nighttime show that Disney has ever put on and is almost guaranteed to be something that is unlike anything you have ever seen before.

There is going to be a hiatus from the weekly Disney related posts until December as I collect data for my next weekly project. This slot will be filled with other content for the rest of the month (probably some posts about the other part of my California trip).