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Post by Jeremy on Jun 3, 2020 17:03:54 GMT -8
Mainly I've avoided his work because of the X-rated factor, but I've learned over time that not all his films are at the level of Fritz the Cat. And yeah, he's certainly not shy about experimenting with animation.
I've got my picks from two other decades here - just half a dozen films from each, since most of the non-Disney fare from the era is pretty forgettable.
First, the '60s:
6. Mad Monster Party? - Shlocky but charming stop-motion film; no Hotel Transylvania, but amusing enough.
5. The Man Called Flintstone - The sorta-finale to the Stone Age TV series tries to capitalize on James Bond, to mixed success. Aimed more at kids than the show was.
4. The Sword in the Stone - Leisurely Disney flick with a fun Merlin/Madam Mim climax.
3. A Boy Named Charlie Brown - First Peanuts film meanders in spots, but it's got a compelling story and is punctuated by several inventive musical numbers.
2. 101 Dalmatians - Cruella is one of Disney's all-time great villains, but you know that.
1. The Jungle Book - To heck with all the live-action adaptations of Kipling's book - this is the one I'll forever stand by.
And now the '50s (a much better sextet overall):
6. Peter Pan - Juvenile to a fault. But it's still plenty fun!
5. Sleeping Beauty - Maleficent and the fairies color an otherwise traditional Disney flick.
4. Cinderella - Sweet and funny, even though there's no time-travel in this one.
3. Lady and the Tramp - The first romance film I've ever watched, and still one of the most memorable.
2. Animal Farm - Dark and effective adaptation of Orwell's novel. Again, don't show this one to the kids.
1. Alice in Wonderland - Handsome and inventive animation, very likable lead, and a cheerful affinity for nonsense. This one has it all.
1940s incoming at some point.
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 4, 2020 10:01:00 GMT -8
Hey, turns out what we've both seen from the '60s is exactly in sync.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 4, 2020 15:22:09 GMT -8
Yeah, not too surprising. It's a particularly weak decade for animated films (not to mention shorts - between DePatie-Freleng taking over Looney Tunes and Gene Deitch producing Tom and Jerry, big-screen animation took a thwomping). But the decade's three Disney films are pretty widely regarded to be in that qualitative order, and Mad Monster Party? has never been mistaken for cinematic brilliance. Have you ever seen any of the old Peanuts films, Snipe? They hold up pretty well. A Boy Named Charlie Brown may be of particular interest due to its willingness to get aesthetically creative, more so than most children's entertainment of its era. Take this scene, for example, featuring Schroeder playing his toy piano. Can you imagine any youth-oriented film featuring a scene like that nowadays? 'Twas a different world.
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 4, 2020 16:38:34 GMT -8
I've only seen Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!), for one reason or another (Peanuts wasn't really a thing here), and I wasn't really onboard with its animation - a lot of scenes were a very flat 2D (presumably to match comic panels) and sometimes there would just be like a sheet of colour for a backdrop. But I do like the characters, humour and tone, so I'm not averse to seeing others.
And that sequence does look very cool.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 4, 2020 20:14:35 GMT -8
Scenes like that, and another stylized sequence in the film featuring Snoopy on an ice rink, did try my patience as a kid, since they added nothing to the story. But looking back, it was pretty impressive of the film to get so creative at a time when most non-Disney animated films were considered silly shlock.
The animation style is crude and sparse, but I was always impressed with how the Peanuts characters - both in the comics and onscreen - can generate so much personality from a few simple pen strokes. The designs are simple, yet unique and indelible. And they received a nice upgrade a few years back with the better-than-expected CG Peanuts Movie.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 5, 2020 13:31:59 GMT -8
And finally, here are my top animated films of the 1940s:
10. Make Mine Music - The weakest of Disney's compilation films, though it perks up during a few vignettes, notably "Casey at the Bat" and "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met."
9. The Three Caballeros - Lots of slow spots, but the title characters are plenty fun.
8. Mr. Bug Goes to Town - The only non-Disney film on the list; a benign but amusing feature from Fleischer Studios.
7. Fun and Fancy Free - Stronger on the Mickey half than the Bongo half, and spiced up by the appearances of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
6. Melody Time - Underrated film, with several creative musical vignettes - "Johnny Appleseed" and "Pecos Bill" are highlights.
5. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad - Very entertaining in both its Wind in the Willows and Sleepy Hollow halves, with an effectively frightening climax.
4. Fantasia - Some of the segments drag, but others, like "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Night on Bald Mountain," remain sensational to this day.
3. Bambi - Beautifully animated film with an endearing main character.
2. Dumbo - Beautifully animated film with an even more endearing main character.
1. Pinocchio - Sweet, scary, spectacular - my favorite Disney film from the Walt era.
Honorable mentions to Snow White (not a '40s film, though I'd place it right behind Pinocchio) and Saludos Amigos (too short to be a feature film).
And I'm gonna find a way to watch Song of the South someday.
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 5, 2020 16:29:38 GMT -8
I agree on Music being Disney's worst from the era; context is important with the circumstances that yielded those hastily stitched-together post-war efforts, but you still have to judge art on the end results.
Hadn't even heard about that Fleischer one, though I have seen a lot of their Boop, Popeye and Superman shorts plus the underwhelming Gulliver's Travels.
As for South, I need to know: what are your feelings regarding “What Made the Red Man Red?” in Peter Pan? Because that will establish some grounding in or against its favour.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 7, 2020 6:42:36 GMT -8
I didn't understand the 'What Makes the Red Man Red?" song as a kid - to my younger self, it just struck me as a silly kids' song in an overall silly movie. Like many folks, I didn't realize its racist undertones until I grew up.
As with most older films, I try to approach these things from a historical perspective - different times, different sensibilities. The portrayals of minorities in those days were certainly wrong, but they're also key to understanding history and progress. So I'm generally able to tolerate them, whereas I'd be much less forgiving of racist caricatures in modern-era films and TV.
I get why Disney doesn't want to make Song of the South available to wide audiences, but I wish they'd give it some platform, maybe frame it as an educational reflection of the era it was made.
On an unrelated note, those Fleischer Superman shorts are still pretty great (and most of them don't come with racial issues).
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Post by guttersnipe on Jun 9, 2020 5:15:45 GMT -8
I thought that might be a good lead-in question because the song basically serves no purpose to Peter Pan beyond an amusing aside at a people and culture's expense.
I'd argue that South is never pro-slavery as much as it's flippant about the experience and era - like the Dumbo crows and Tramp cats, it takes the tack of illustrating minorities as existing mainly for white people's amusement, and is thus quite wilfully myopic about presentation of their experiences.
Incidentally, my '40s run includes Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors, a film impossible to see without loads of disclaimers about context and the war effort - though it's never really racist about the British soldiers (they're just easily defeated and the officer is a blubbering coward), certainly not in the manner of Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips et al - history is written by the victors, and all that. I've seen plenty of John Wayne vehicles where the "Injuns" and "monkeys" can't be reasoned with on any civilised level.
I assume you've always been fine with Dr. Zoidberg; I mean they never clarify that he's Jewish and even if he is he's inherently non-kosher.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 9, 2020 6:39:55 GMT -8
Yeah, flippancy sounds accurate - these films were made long after slavery was abolished, but at a time when Jim Crow was still common law in many parts of the country. Portrayal of the crows or the Siamese cats was just one manifestation (probably not as bad as, say, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's; at least with the anthropomorphized animals, most of the stereotypical jokes are likely to go over the target audience's heads). I got a bit of a culture shock over the weekend when reading a collection of the 1960s Batman comic strip, which includes some blatantly offensive stereotypes (Joker has a female Native American sidekick who speaks in comically over-the-top "ums" and "hows"; Batgirl has a fat and goofy Chinese friend referred to as an "Oriental janitor"). Truth be told, the more recent a depiction is, the more disturbing it feels. Still, I think Whoopi Goldberg said it best in her intro to the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: These portrayals were wrong then and wrong today, but simply ignoring them would be ignoring teachable history. And with some racial issues continuing to this day, I'd say a lot of this history is very teachable. I assume you've always been fine with Dr. Zoidberg; I mean they never clarify that he's Jewish and even if he is he's inherently non-kosher. Honestly, I don't think I realized he was supposed to be a Jewish stereotype until the "That's Lobstertainment!" episode. But yeah, he's a funny and likable character, so I've never been bothered by it.
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