Disney/Pixar In General

Wasn't Ernest and Celestine by Chomet, though?

Never mind, I just looked it up, and it wasn't (I thought for some reason he was a producer or something). That one IS an excellent film.

edited 27th Sep '16 4:31:08 PM by Robbery

No.

What's the recent French animated film about a girl in a steam-punky kind of setting? I thought that looked interesting, too.

The French have made good animated films as far back as Paul Grimault and his Le roi et l'oiseau - a film that Hayao Miyazaki considers great; and say what you will about the man's work, he knows his animated film.

(No wonder, after all, that it was the first release in the partly-Disney-financed Ghibli Museum Library series...)

Watching The Adventures Of Ichabod And Mr Toad right now thanks to my library's digital streaming service (and 'cause it's October). Even with the package films, there's perfection. Especially with the character designs of the The Wind in the Willows segment. (Toad whenever he whips out his monocle always manages to get a big laugh out of me for some reason and Mr. Winky reminds me of an animated version of the bartender from Tapper despite the former coming 34 years earlier than the latter.)

Also, did Basil Rathbone voice Mr. Rat in addition to narrating the film? Because designing Mr. Rat like Sherlock Holmes would've been one hell of a shout out.

Also, check out the animated segments for Rayman Legends, which, despite being an American-released game, is all French animated. And is GORGEOUS.

edited 1st Oct '16 4:58:29 AM by Shippudentimes

He didn't, actually.

The Wind In The Willows is not too faithful to Grahame's book - and how could it be at a half-hour? - but is great fun nonetheless and, arguably, does manage to provide a good case for why Toad may be the most fabulous character in English literature.

The Sleepy Hollow segment, however, is a truly faithful adaptation of Washington Irving's story, to the point it retains the ambiguity of the characters - Ichabod Crane is not a pure hero, and Brom Bones not a pure villain...

That's April and the Extraordinary World. I'd recommend checking it out, it's a very good movie in my opinion. I loved that the animation managed to work with the ligne claire style and make it look really dynamic and charming.

edited 1st Oct '16 6:15:23 AM by Nightwire

Now that you mention it, since Basil from the Great Mouse Detective is named after the actor Basil Rathbone, could Basil's design be a tribute to Mr. Rat?

It should be mentioned that, in England around the turn of the 20th century, a lot of outdoorsy types wore deerstalker caps, so Rat's wearing one is not necessarily out of the ordinary. Holmes actually is never described as wearing one in Conan-Doyle's stories; it was adopted, for some reason, in stage plays and the later films (It is a mite odd that they frequently had him prowling about London dressed for a trek on the moors). If Rat was in a deerstalker cap and an inverness cape and had the s-shaped bowl pipe, then I'd say it was more likely to be a shout out. As it is, especially since he was NOT voiced by Rathbone, I'd say it's more likely just local color. And properly speaking, what he's wearing isn't a deerstalker, but a different variety of hunting cap.

I enjoyed The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad quite a lot. The Mr.Toad segment very loosely adapts a little less than half of Wind in the Willows and it's portrayals of pretty much everybody (except arguably Toad himself) are way off. It's still pretty good, just not particularly faithful, which should really not surprise anyone.

As to Ichabod Crane not being a pure hero...well, I can't really say that he's any kind of hero at all. He's barely even a protagonist. I thought Brom Bones, despite having (accidentally?) suffered a few indignities at the hands of Crane, still qualifies as a villain of the town bully type. Even unprovoked, he was a bully and an ass. I have to think that Gaston from Beauty and the Beast might have been modeled a bit after him.

edited 1st Oct '16 9:34:44 AM by Robbery

They got Toad down pretty well. They do soften him a bit, however, by having him be innocent of stealing a motorcar - as opposed to the book's Toad, who did steal a motorcar. (The Badger, of course, as befits his role in the film, is Scottish.)

The characterization in Sleepy Hollow really is rather ambiguous for a Disney production. One would expect that Ichabod Crane would be steamrolled into just simply a hero, and Brom Bones just simply a villain; but there's none of that here. Ichabod snitches food off of other people and seems only interested in Katrina van Tassel (who, I should note, rather resembles Cinderella) because she's rich, and Brom Bones... well, is still pretty much a jerk. Nobody comes off that well in the short.

Live Action Remakes are the new cheapquels.

The original story was like that too. It's narrated more like an occurrence than the path of a protagonist, and there's a lot of ambiguity about who - if anyone - is supposed to be the "good guy" in that situation. It's basically a rivalry between snob outsider vs a boorish local, which ends mysteriously amid the rumors of a local superstition.

Ain't that the truth?

Which is why it's so faithful. I would arguably say it is the best version of the tale out there.

(It should interest some of you to know that there is a version of the short made for airing as a Halloween special on TV, with an introduction by Uncle Walt and a 14-minute prologue about the life of Washington Irving.)

Come on, a few of the live action remakes aren't bad. I liked the Jungle Book remake.

True. nobody comes off particularly well in Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Not even Katrina, who gives every appearance of playing the two against each other and enjoying it immensely.

Speaking of Halloween... I wonder if anyone's playing Hocus Pocus this time of year.

Probably whatever ABC Family's called this month will.

edited 1st Oct '16 12:46:19 PM by Aldo930

Somebody usually does. It'll probably show up on Freeform (I think that's what they're calling ABC Family now) before too long, if nowhere else.

I kinda wish somebody'd show Something Wicked This Way Comes.

edited 1st Oct '16 12:48:27 PM by Robbery

I hear "Freeform" and this is all I can think of.

I've actually been wanting to see that one for a while, being a big fan of Ray Bradbury... I wonder if it's any good.

edited 1st Oct '16 12:50:25 PM by Aldo930

But seriously, a Lion King remake? That's just absurd.

It changes a few things from the book. but it's pretty good at maintaining the flavor of a Ray Bradbury story (Bradbury wrote the screenplay himself). Jonathan Price is particularly excellent as Mr.Dark.

Disney did a number of live-action films in the early '80's, usually adapting a book, and aimed at a young adult audience. They were about 25 years too soon for that particular trend...

edited 1st Oct '16 12:55:14 PM by Robbery

I mean, they've done live-action films throughout nearly their entire lifespan, dating back to at least the '40s or '50s.

Yes, but in the early '80's they tried changing up the tone. They were experimenting (and mostly failing, as the movies bombed) with science fiction (The Black Hole) and horror (The Watcher in the Woods, Something Wicked This Way Comes). These weren't goofy comedies, or general audiences stuff, but stuff specifically intended for the YA audience.

isn't 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea science fiction though

I would assume they bombed because nobody could reconcile the Disney label with stuff like The Black Hole or Something Wicked This Way Comes or even Return To Oz or The Devil and Max Devlin (if anyone remembers that).

Thus they created Touchstone to do more adult films, but even then the Disney family-friendly reputation dogged them. I recall reading a comic where the hero has to find Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen body, which has somehow unfrozen and gone loose into L.A. They find him running screaming out of a matinee of Ruthless People and Down And Out In Beverly Hills.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea may be sci-fi, but it's also an adaptation of a classic novel - and Disney was always known for their takes on classic works of literature, so it would make sense.

Back then live-action was meant for the more realistic books they adapted, from Treasure Island to Pollyanna.

edited 1st Oct '16 1:37:37 PM by Aldo930

I mean, I was referring to both the book and the film when I said that.