Films and Feelings

Director Don Hall has acknowledged pulp adventures as the main source of inspiration for Walt Disney Animation's newest film, Strange World , but the landscape of his film feels so striking and unique that it seems to have sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus without any earthly influences. Viewers of this film might have the rare experience of feeling like they’re watching something entirely original.  Though the film does eventually feel obliged to explain what exactly is going on with this Strange World, the film establishes early on that we can never really anticipate what’s going to happen with this otherworldly terrarium. This is most clear in the designs of the various flora and fauna in this universe (it’s not always clear where one ends and the other begins) which land in that narrow overlap between bizarre and endearing. The final rendering itself is wonderfully tactile. You want to hug everything onscreen, even as it's trying to digest our heroes. All the ad...

            Though the library of master songwriter, Stephen Sondheim, reaches a pedigree of acclaim that is perhaps unrivaled, his most profound work is arguably his Tony award winning show, Company .  Yeah, I know Bobby is sometimes played as a woman, but this particular metaphor is more clear with a male protagonist      Premiering in 1969, Company follows Bobby, the only bachelor among his loving network of married friends. The story is presented through a series of snapshots showing Bobby’s interactions with his coupled friends intercut with scenes from Bobby’s own romantic pursuits, and it’s through these little vignettes that we understand what it is that keeps Bobby tethered to single life: Bobby fears the chaos of being married to another person. Seeing up front all the turmoil that his married cohorts are subjected to, and faced with his own relationship woes, Bobby contemplates his own bachelorho...

 Once Upon a Time, Disney's Enchanted reminded us that deep down inside, even the most cynical of us was pining for a fairy-tale. In those days, a musical rom-com featuring hand-drawn animation and overtly referencing films of the Disney animated catalog actually felt novel, even daring. But today is a different climate. Disney fairy-tales are unambiguously a popular presence in modern pop culture. They are regularly referenced, discussed, and abused both by their parent company and the public at large. Any sequel to such a film wouldn't have the same opportunity to feel revelatory or groundbreaking.  But this proves to be an inadequate defense for this movie's shortcomings. Turns out, you can sing about fairy-tales for two hours without earnestly exploring what makes them so special to begin with. I say shortcomings deliberately because there's not a lot that's actively wrong with this movie. Almost everything about this movie could have worked if it had been pr...