Films and Feelings

       Once Upon a Time ...when The Professor was a teaching assistant for his film program’s introductory class, he had to plan and execute a lesson on film directing. The idea was to show them clips from two separate versions of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy-tale and compare and contrast the directorial visions. When he told them neither of the films were Disney, one of his students blurted out something along the lines of “Wait, there are Beauty and the Beast movies that aren’t Disney?”     So ... Beauty and the Beast is hardly the only fairy-tale to experience this problem. The Disney retelling of any fairy-tale tends to supplant any pre-existing version of the story. People tend to be casually aware that fairy-tales came from “long ago,” but they give little thought to how these stories may have been shaped by telling and retelling across generations--which certainly extend far beyond their induction into the lineup of Walt Disney Feature Animat...

     The Walt Disney Company as a whole seems to be in constant danger of being overtaken by its own cannibalistic tendency--cashing in on the successes of their past hits at the expense of creating the kinds of stories that merited these reimaginings to begin with.       Pixar, coming fresh off a decade marked by a deluge of sequels, is certainly susceptible to this pattern as well. Though movies like Inside Out and Coco have helped breathe necessary life into the studio, audiences invested in the creative lifeblood of the studio should take note when an opportunity comes for either Disney or Pixar animation to flex their creative muscles.       This year we'll have three such opportunities between the two studios. [EDIT: Okay, maybe not. Thanks, Corona.] The first of these, ONWARD directed by Dan Scanlon, opens this weekend and paints a hopeful picture of a future where Pixar allows empathetic and novel storytelling to gui...

The legacy of Judy Garland is somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, she's a portrait of American optimism and wholesomeness. On the other hand, she stands for the bleak and rancid underbelly of the Hollywood dragon.  Even to the most casual film viewers, the name "Judy Garland" brings to mind the indelible young star who filled monochrome Kansas with color through her angelic singing voice in the legendary film,  The Wizard of Oz . At the same time, the narrative of "Judy Garland--OG Victim of Hollywood" has grown increasingly popular.  So I guess it was only a matter of time before Hollywood did what it does best and make a movie out of its own abuse of Judy.  The 2019 biopic "Judy" sees Renee Zellweger portraying Judy Garland through her final public performances. This isn't Judy fresh out of Kansas: this is after the drugs, the failed marriages, and the suicide attempts. Though the film reliably acknowledges Dorothy Gale as Judy’s signature rol...