Author Topic: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016  (Read 33593 times)

oldkid

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #130 on: May 08, 2016, 12:50:03 AM »
I coulda swore that my son was like a toddler when we saw Prince of Egypt and Hunchback came out after my daughter...

Okay, so I was wrong.  Wouldn't be the first time.  Those years are a blur.

Anyway, I'm mostly comparing the soundtracks.  There is a similarity in sound, with the choirs and all.  The influence is slight (from Hunchback to Prince) but I think it's there.

Hunchback, IMHO, has the best soundtrack of any Disney film (with a possible exception for Mary Poppins).
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Bondo

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #131 on: May 08, 2016, 12:54:42 AM »
Step Up (2006)

I find it very interesting that this film came out the same year as Take The Lead, which also features Jenna Dewan in a central role. Take The Lead, based on the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, involves a polished teacher, and one posh student, going to a urban school (where Dewan's character is a student), whence a melding of cultures occurs. In Step Up, Tyler (Channing Tatum) is a kid of the streets, and its style of dance, who ends up doing community service at an elite (though as the film points out, not necessarily rich) school for the arts, where Nora (Dewan) is a student. Again, a melding of cultures occurs. So in one year Dewan is both sides of the coin in films that kind of invert each other, like a film negative.

Of course, that they seem so alike is less of a coincidence when you consider how common this type of storyline is. Just staying in the realm of dance, Save The Last Dance covers fairly similar territory. The film was at its most awkward when it had to remind us of where Tyler was from, make him feel the need to attempt self-sabotage, because that is how we understand characters like this to be. Of course, in the opening scenes, he and his friends were such pests that it does create an empathy deficit. When unfortunate events happen later, I didn't so much feel sad as think "yes, 1+1=2"...you don't steal a gangsta's ride. So yeah, the film is trite and that doesn't allow it to stand out as anything special.

In terms of the dance, there is a strong early scene where Tyler is improvising by his friend's car, giving occasion for Nora to see his skills. After that, the film struggles to impress because so much of it are pieces of rehearsal, not authentic products. The only moment from rehearsal that caught my attention was one moment where Tyler is on the fly translating Nora's traditional ballet moves into his freestyle moves. That was an interesting concept that could have stood being fleshed out. The final sequence doesn't quite manage what the contrasting duet might have done, but it is still an impressive bit of work. And I suppose it should be mentioned that the central pair have great chemistry...the actors did get married after all. So yeah, could be more original, could have more solid dancing sequences, but otherwise a perfectly tolerable film.

C+

Paul Phoenix

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #132 on: May 08, 2016, 01:16:08 AM »
I coulda swore that my son was like a toddler when we saw Prince of Egypt and Hunchback came out after my daughter...

Okay, so I was wrong.  Wouldn't be the first time.  Those years are a blur.

Anyway, I'm mostly comparing the soundtracks.  There is a similarity in sound, with the choirs and all.  The influence is slight (from Hunchback to Prince) but I think it's there.

Hunchback, IMHO, has the best soundtrack of any Disney film (with a possible exception for Mary Poppins).

For what it's worth, it's been forever since I'd watched Hunchback, so those years are a blur for me too. ;D I do recall what little of Quazi ringing that gigantic church-bell while the iconic theme song plays in the background:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-XONxvdq4Y

Perhaps this music marathon is a good opportunity to reassess the movie; I used to give Prince a ★★★½ rating back then, after all. These childhood films do have a way of providing new context and perspectives in adulthood.
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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #133 on: May 08, 2016, 01:46:49 AM »
I did that a few years back. Here's my review from two years ago. Might entice you.

Quote from: myself
Disney doesn't have an amazing track record with difficult stories. In fact, read nearly any critique of their canon and you'll find a lot of  about dead parents and villains falling from tall places and women with little in the way of agency, nevermind the whole copyright thing. The company has a formula and it works for them. The Hunchback of Notre Dame could fit easily in to most of those critiques, including plundering an out of copyright story and changing it so much that Hugo himself might not recognize it if it weren't for the two gargoyle characters named after him. Yes, it serve as a centerpiece in one of those easy anti-Disney polemics if it weren't so damn good.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame indulges in all the things that reinvigorated Disney's brand during the 90's renaissance. There are sidekicks who shouldn't be able to talk but do anyways, a bunch of singing about things that aren't often sung about, and a villain who, yes, falls to his death. This is for sure a Disney movie, but it's also one of the most intense and complex stories they've ever told. Frollo isn't just evil, he's a man fighting with his humanity. He's sworn to uphold decency and justice while he is tempted by the beguiling Esmerelda (is this Disney's first pole dance?). Heaven's Light/Hellfire is a one-two punch that forms the dramatic and emotional core of the film. While Quasimodo sings about the woman he met who gives him feelings like those people that walk below him on romantic evening jaunts, Frollo confronts his lust-fueled desires by the light of a possessed fireplace. The visual distinction between the two scenes is especially indicative of their different moods, Quasi's scene is calm and blue while Frollo's recalls Disney's earlier forays into psychedelic nighmares from Fantasia and Dumbo. When the hooded, blank-faced figures come pouring out of the hearth you know things are getting a little hot under the collar. I've remembered this scene for the 18 years since I first saw it in theaters and seeing it again just solidifies how perfectly it combines character, mood, theme, and visuals with one of the best Disney songs of all time.

The rest of the movie is really good, too. Most of the songs aren't only great, they're also usually relevant to the story being told, either as mood pieces ("The Bells of Notre Dame" sets the table nicely for an epic film) or embodiments of chaos ("Topsy-Turvy" is both fun and scary at the same time). Oh, and "Out There" deserves a spot alongside other great Disney hero songs, as does "God Bless the Outcasts" as a plea for considering those with worse lots in life. In fact, only the gargoyle's song is really out of place here. I didn't like them too much in general during this rewatch, though I recall loving them when I was 8 or so. That's the way these things go sometimes. If this is the end of Disney's Renaissance - and it probably is, despite how much 9 year old me loves Hercules - it went out with a bang. A gloriously beautiful film which blends hand drawn animation and computer generated images artfully with a story that is powerful thematically and emotionally thanks to wonderful characters and outstanding songs. It's great.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #134 on: May 08, 2016, 03:35:53 AM »
Technically it's classic Victor Hugo propaganda. At least neither of them die like they do in the book.

This just goes back to my favorite thing to do: blame the French.

Also, "Hellfire" is one of the best Disney songs ever, so Hunchback has that going for it.

This would be where I complain about what a farce the film makes of a perfectly good book. I mean seriously, the book is nothing like that. I blame the Americans.

But big thumbs up on Hellfire, yes.
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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #135 on: May 08, 2016, 10:45:56 PM »

Wonder Bar (1934)

I found this on YouTube, a sort of pre-cursor to Footlight Parade from director Lloyd Bacon and choreographer Busby Berkeley. It seemed harmless enough with a swift 84 minute running time and a cast that includes Kay Francis, Dolores del Rio, Dick Powell (pre-fame), Hugh Herbert and starring Al Jolson. In the film, Jolson plays a Cagney-esque fast-talking nightclub owner who keeps the party (and many plots) moving along with song and dance and jokes. Backstage, everyone's lives are a mess, but on stage it's one big happy time. Powell is in a reduced role as the bandleader, but he gets to croon a couple of tunes. There's even a very progressive joke about homosexuality.

Something I forgot about Al Jolson, the reason why you don't hear about him much today. You see, back then Jolson was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer." His style is hyper/manic, but I like Betty Hutton, so this is okay. What is no longer okay, is Jolson is the most famous entertainer who performed in blackface. It's more complicated than it initially sounds, and you can find a lot of info about how blackface ties into the prejudice Jolson faced being Jewish. How Jolson would use his fame to promote black artists, and fight to give them equal pay, credit and respect.

Unfortunately, this doesn't hold much weight during the film's climactic sequence, "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule". I have a very high tolerance for great artists who performed minstrel acts because they didn't know any better and I find the very existence of blackface fascinating, but I turned to my wife and said, "this is the most racist thing we've ever watched together." Not only is Jolson in Blackface, in true Busby Berkeley style, so are dozens of men, women and even children. The visuals of a black heaven are surreal, and creative within its own narrow mind, like trees with pork chops hanging from them. (That's about all I care to share here.)
RATING: * * 1/2, I guess. But obviously if the idea of blackface offends your core you should either stay far away or as a Letterboxd review puts it "The only recommendation I can give this film is the fact that's it's so terribly, terribly wrong on almost every level, that it almost demands to be seen, just so you can say that you've seen it."

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #136 on: May 09, 2016, 02:43:03 AM »
I did that a few years back. Here's my review from two years ago. Might entice you.

Quote from: myself
Disney doesn't have an amazing track record with difficult stories. In fact, read nearly any critique of their canon and you'll find a lot of  about dead parents and villains falling from tall places and women with little in the way of agency, nevermind the whole copyright thing. The company has a formula and it works for them. The Hunchback of Notre Dame could fit easily in to most of those critiques, including plundering an out of copyright story and changing it so much that Hugo himself might not recognize it if it weren't for the two gargoyle characters named after him. Yes, it serve as a centerpiece in one of those easy anti-Disney polemics if it weren't so damn good.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame indulges in all the things that reinvigorated Disney's brand during the 90's renaissance. There are sidekicks who shouldn't be able to talk but do anyways, a bunch of singing about things that aren't often sung about, and a villain who, yes, falls to his death. This is for sure a Disney movie, but it's also one of the most intense and complex stories they've ever told. Frollo isn't just evil, he's a man fighting with his humanity. He's sworn to uphold decency and justice while he is tempted by the beguiling Esmerelda (is this Disney's first pole dance?). Heaven's Light/Hellfire is a one-two punch that forms the dramatic and emotional core of the film. While Quasimodo sings about the woman he met who gives him feelings like those people that walk below him on romantic evening jaunts, Frollo confronts his lust-fueled desires by the light of a possessed fireplace. The visual distinction between the two scenes is especially indicative of their different moods, Quasi's scene is calm and blue while Frollo's recalls Disney's earlier forays into psychedelic nighmares from Fantasia and Dumbo. When the hooded, blank-faced figures come pouring out of the hearth you know things are getting a little hot under the collar. I've remembered this scene for the 18 years since I first saw it in theaters and seeing it again just solidifies how perfectly it combines character, mood, theme, and visuals with one of the best Disney songs of all time.

The rest of the movie is really good, too. Most of the songs aren't only great, they're also usually relevant to the story being told, either as mood pieces ("The Bells of Notre Dame" sets the table nicely for an epic film) or embodiments of chaos ("Topsy-Turvy" is both fun and scary at the same time). Oh, and "Out There" deserves a spot alongside other great Disney hero songs, as does "God Bless the Outcasts" as a plea for considering those with worse lots in life. In fact, only the gargoyle's song is really out of place here. I didn't like them too much in general during this rewatch, though I recall loving them when I was 8 or so. That's the way these things go sometimes. If this is the end of Disney's Renaissance - and it probably is, despite how much 9 year old me loves Hercules - it went out with a bang. A gloriously beautiful film which blends hand drawn animation and computer generated images artfully with a story that is powerful thematically and emotionally thanks to wonderful characters and outstanding songs. It's great.

I like this review a lot. I love that you give the original work its due while still being able to praise the qualities of the movie. I do not completely agree with it though, far from that. I would love for Frollo to truly be the conflicted character you describe, like a more judicial version of the book character. However, in Disney's version he is from the first seconds, for lack of a better word, evil. He loathes gypsies and has no qualms imprisoning or straight out murdering them. He does end up having to struggle with his lust but his arc is not that of a good or morally neutral man who ends up making tragic decisions. He is a terrible person who does terrible things, from start to end. Had he neve met Esmeralda, he would still have pursued the Outcasts with a similar fervour, because that's his thing. Furthermore, there is never anything that clearly establishes that he cares about justice or any similar virtue. His sole defining trait is hate.

At least that is how I remember him.

Again, I think Hellfire is one of the best Disney songs better but I do not like the rest anywhere near as much as you do. Maybe it is because they are so serious. The songs in Hercules are more tangential and superficial but way more fun too.

Hunchback happens to be one of the two only Disney films in the Renaissance Era

I found this sentence funny because one of the themes of the book is the passage from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.  ;D
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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #137 on: May 09, 2016, 12:03:42 PM »
A Song is Born (1948)
* * * - Okay
Most cinephiles would like to see this film tarred and feathered. A musical remake of the great screwball comedy Ball of Fire with the same director (Howard Hawks), cinematographer (Gregg Toland), editor, mostly the same script and more of the same cast than I expected. I thought the film would be unnecessary at best and a disaster more likely, but it was more like watching a beloved play with a new cast.

The big improvement is in the addition of music. Hawks brings in Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and other familiar artists from the era to teach the professors about jazz. The music and songs are really fine. Where the film falters is in the lead casting of Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Anyone who doesn't get what a commanding lead Gary Cooper was, just watch Kaye soft-peddle his way through the same dialogue with a manner so unconcerned he's detached from his own punchlines. And I happen to love Virginia Mayo (White Heat), but it's difficult for anyone to attempt one of Barbara Stanwyck's best roles. I still laughed a bit, but that's because the dialogue is so strong, not because of the cast.


Hearts Divided (1936)
* * 1/2
Directed by Frank Borzage, but I didn't notice his touch on anything here. A mediocre comedy drama involving romance in the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Of note mainly for the cast: Dick Powell, Marion Davies, Edward Everett Horton, Charles Ruggles and Claude Rains as Napoleon Bonaparte. Barely a musical, with a couple of tunes crooned by Powell.

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #138 on: May 10, 2016, 01:57:46 AM »

The opening of King Creole is one of the highlights of my month. It starts with three salesman shouting to the French Quarter neighborhood in harmony about their food for sale. Immediately, the feel and flavor of New Orleans penetrates this film. Then after a brief credit sequence comes the clip I posted above, a duet between Elvis and a soul singer named Kitty White. There are more catchy tunes to follow. Most of them have the Jazz, Blues and Dixie flavor of The Big Easy, and not a single one I was familiar with as an Elvis staple.

King Creole is only Elvis' 4th feature and it does something I figured was never going to happen. Legendary director Michael Curtiz pulls a good performance from the musician, and it's not an easy part. Kind of a James Dean, teenage rebel trying to do good when everybody has written him off as trouble. This isn't a fun and breezy Elvis vehicle, but a tough and sleazy juvenile delinquent drama that makes the most of its New Orleans setting.

Elvis is supported by Walter Matthau (playing a local crime boss), Carolyn Jones (The Addams Family) and Dean Jagger. Matthau gets points for being so convincing as a cold-blooded jerk, but it's Jones who gives her part some extra emotional depth in the most memorable performance. Eventually the plot takes over and everyone falls into familiar genre patterns, but until then, Curtiz delivers a real surprise awaiting anyone who thinks they know what to expect from an Elvis film.
RATING: * * * - Good

Bondo

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Re: Merry Music of May Marathon 2016
« Reply #139 on: May 10, 2016, 10:50:07 AM »
The Prince of Egypt (1998)

Quote
I mean, the United States ended slavery, and our only plague was Gen. Sherman. #theprinceofegypt

Not for the first or the last time, but this analogy struck me because in both the biblical and historical instance, the objective was freeing slaves. What is shown here is a war, and God, through Moses, is fighting a total war. Civilian men, women, and children will not be spared, especially first-born children. Of course, as animated children's films go, it makes for a rather high body count. So many animated films aim to teach broad life messages, and through juxtaposition, this film tells me that "when you believe," God will commit genocide to achieve political goals. Oops!

I do agree with Hermit that the brotherly relationship of Moses and Ramses is the most interesting. Ramses burdened by the expectation of maintaining the status quo, Moses burdened by having to cross the life he knew in order to disrupt a status quo he knows is wrong. And maybe we should shed a tear for those in the Confederacy who died protecting the only thing they knew, that they convinced themselves was necessary. Are they all just tragic victims of the circumstances of their birth, with few having the inspiration to resist those shackles.

Now, for my own view, I don't even countenance that this film is the equal of Hunchback, as a story or as a musical. One point I'd make in comparison, as an atheist, is that while Hugo's works were deeply religious, they are more about the content of faith than the fact of it. Hunchback (and Les Mis) isn't quite as metaphysical, of burning bushes and miracles (or naturally occurring phenomenon that through ignorance and the power of myth have become miracle). It is of the very human component of faith through action, through how one relates to others. It teaches compassion to the "others," while Prince of Egypt, due to its source, is inherently more tribal. Sure, slavery is bad, but it is particularly bad because it is of God's people. So one of these stories transcends religious faith to broader humanitarian values, while the other, for me at least, did not.

 

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