Christmas Mini Review: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

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animated, animated special, animation, benedict cumberbatch, boris karloff, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas special, chuck jones, cindy lou who, dr. seuss, fahoo fores, grinch, holiday special, holiday tradition, how the grinch stole christmas, jim carrey, june foray, max the dog, mount crumpit, mt. crumpit, rhyme, rhyming, roast beast, the grinch, thurl ravenscroft, trim up the tree, tv review, tv special, welcome christmas, who hash, whoville, you're a mean one mr. grinch

Ah, the holiday season, the start of winter’s deep freeze…

…Though from where I’m typing it’s 70 degrees (damn you, global warming!!)

It’s now that I’m thankful of everything I’ve got

(And I ask Santa for everything else I have not)

And for you, fellow reader, I have a small gift,

A review that’s humorous, tidy, and swift.

So what can I review in a cinch or a pinch? How about…

I was gonna say Charlie Brown, but meh, he’ll do.

The Grinch hates Christmas

The whole holiday season

(Please disregard the movie

It gives him a dumb reason).

The Grinch glowers from his cave

At all of the Whos

Whom every Christmas

They bother to choose

To fill the air with joyous noise

Of singing and laughter from

The girls and the boys

The presents, the laughter,

The singing too

Makes a Christmas like theirs

Seem too good to be true.

I admit I don’t blame the Grinch on hating the toys

As he emphasizes and we see all the noise, noise, noise, NOISE…

…they make.

(Hey, doing a whole review in rhyme ain’t easy.)

Still, these are some creative play things,

Requiring skill and imagination to make them all sing.

Be honest, even you wanted at least one of these as a kid, whatever they are.

His dog Max pops up

With a beard made of snow

And in the Grinch’s head

An idea starts to grow.

In a Santa disguise

And a reindeer-dog sleigh,

He sneaks down to Whoville

To steal Christmas away!

To the mellifluous tones of Ravenscroft-Thurl,

The Grinch snatches treats from each Who boy and girl.

And am I the only one who was curious about what Who-Hash tastes like?

He finds himself spotted by one Cindy-Lou

(Who I wanted to be ever since I was two).

Cindy-Lou is adorable, and June Foray sounds so sweet…

…but where the hell are both her feet?!

The Grinch fools Cindy into going back to bed

And when all is done and said,

He finishes his rounds

Stealing Christmas all ’round town

The houses and square

Are empty and bare.

He rides to the tip of his mountain top

To let go of Christmas and watch it all drop

But over the snow comes the sound of the Whos

And they aren’t wailing or sobbing boo-hoos

They’re singing, though the Grinch doesn’t know why

And their song makes a star raise up to the sky.

The Grinch is quite sore that his plan didn’t work

But here’s where Chuck’s animation really gets to work.

In just a few seconds, it’s not at all strange

We see the Grinch undergo a three-size heart change.

Awwwwwww. No seriously, awwwwwwwwwww.

With the spirit of Christmas at last understood,

The Grinch uses his super-Grinch strength for good.

Or maybe he finally achieved godhood.

He’s welcomed into town where he brings back the feast,

The decorations, the toys, and he carves the roast beast.

Nearly fifty years later this short is still great

Its music and message still resonate.

And here’s a fun fact (or a funny ordeal)

Though this 30-minute animation won Seuss’ appeal,

He had one small complaint –

“Chuck Jones, you schnook!

The Grinch looks like YOU instead of like in the book!”

Separated at birth?

Still, Jones’ animation and Seuss’ wordplay

Make this a must-see every holiday.

How much appeal has the Grinch?

This isn’t false or true-ish

My friend Brian loves it –

And he’s freaking Jewish!

 

Merry Christmas, my readers, or whatever you celebrate

I hope your holidays are heartwarming and great

May your days be filled with comfort and cheer

And I’ll be seeing you in the New Year!

A Star Wars Nerd’s Girlfriend’s Prayer

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bb8, c3po, chewbacca, general leia, han solo, JJ Abrams, luke skywalker, prayer, r2d2, star wars, star wars nerd, star wars:the force awakens, the force awakens

Dear Lord or Whomever is Reading This,

Tomorrow is an important day for thousands of people around the globe. A day long that will be long remembered, if I may borrow a phrase. Tomorrow is the official release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and immediately after work I will be joining my boyfriend at the famous movie theater the Ziegfield (along with at least a hundred other Star Wars fans) to see the much anticipated follow-up to the original Star Wars trilogy.

Like many I’ve had my doubts that this moment would ever come. I had forgotten how good the original films were (and how…I’ll be nice and say middling the prequels are) until my boyfriend came along and converted me to the ancient religion of lightsabers, droids and wookies during our first summer together. When news broke that Disney bought the rights to the films, he was cautiously optimistic. When it was announced that there would be a new trilogy with possible spinoffs, he said he would wait and see how they would turn out, but I could sense how afraid he was. Afraid of being let down again after the special edition edits and Jar-Jar and Hayden Christiansen and everything else that had happened before I was fully aware of their impact on the majority of fans and himself.

When the first full trailer dropped though, he called me on the phone immediately afterwards to confess he was in tears by the end. I gave it a watch, and…dammit I got a little choked up as well. And he has talked of little else since. For the past five months or so, nearly every conversation I’ve had with him has twisted towards the direction of Star Wars – who’s going to be in it, will John Williams be returning, who’s doing the poster, will this rumor and that one be true, you get the idea. I know the trailers have given us out-of-context bits that have been difficult to cobble even a hint of a story from, but but they were brilliant. They gave us what we wanted to see but just enough to keep us begging for more. We grew even more hopeful upon hearing that the practical effects all but outnumbered the amount of fully-digital shots and characters. We cheered on hearing Carrie, Mark and Harrison would be returning as their beloved characters. And come on, BB-8 has all but ousted R2-D2 as the cutest thing in the galaxy.

But will the casting and the effects be enough? Will the story and characters hold up compared to the trilogy, or at least on their own? We’ve seen how bad the Star Wars films can get; I don’t think any of us can take it if we wind up with another Phantom Menace or even an Attack of the Clones on our hands. All the premiere reviews from this week have said without going into detail that it’s great, but it could just be opening hype. I’m excited as anything, and I want The Force Awakens to be the best film that it can be. With Disney about to build a new Star Wars Land and expanding Star Tours to include the new worlds we’re about to see tomorrow, they can’t afford for it to fail. With fanboy-turned-acclaimed-director JJ Abrams getting a chance to leave his mark on a series that he adores, he can’t afford for it to fail. If this movie loses, we all lose.

So tonight I pray, please, please let this movie be good…

Because if it’s not, I will never, ever, ever hear the end of it from the rest of the world, and especially my wonderful overexcited Star Wars-obsessed boyfriend.

May the Force be with you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Force Ghost. Amen.

 

 

 

PS – Yes, I will most likely drop a spoiler-free short review after seeing it. No, it is not the bonus review I promised for Christmas, that’s on the 24th.

December Review: Rise of the Guardians (2012)

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.)

“My name is Jack Frost and I’m a Guardian. How do I know that? Because the moon told me so.”

-Jack Frost

Dreamworks – what can you say about them? They’re powerful rivals to Disney and Pixar but I almost never hear anyone say they come close to what those studios produce on a regular basis. I have a theory about this.

You see, one of Dreamworks’ founders was Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former head of animation at Disney and one of the men behind the Renaissance period in the late 80’s-early 90’s. I’m not going to go into why he left or the studio politics at the time of his departure because it’s way too long and complicated, but the point is after leaving Disney, Katzenberg wanted to create an animation studio that could compete with them and produce the stories that Disney couldn’t touch, movies that could be identified as nothing else but Dreamworks. It took them quite a while to find the perfect Dreamworks formula and in that time between its foundation and when they did discover it, they weren’t afraid to experiment. The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado are gorgeously animated masterworks, and while the timing of Antz’ release is a little too coincidental with the release of A Bug’s Life, I’d say Chicken Run more than makes up for it with its cheeky humor and creativity (though I tend to consider it more of an Aardman film than a Dreamworks film).

Then along came Shrek in 2001. It was a hit with audiences and critics, became the first Best Animated Feature Oscar winner, inspired dozens of truly horrifying memes, and in the words of Katzenberg himself, was what a Dreamworks movie could and should be.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Shrek, I truly do, but now that I’m older I can see how much I was manipulated as a kid into liking it by the barrage of marketing showing how edgy it was compared to Disney fare at the time. Speaking of Disney, if you know anything about Katzenberg’s feelings towards the company (especially its then-CEO Michael Eisner), the movie takes on a more unpleasant tone, like Katzenberg is flipping a huge middle finger towards the studio that got him to where he is in the first place throughout. The sequels and spinoffs may have made the Shrek franchise inescapable for a while, but they’ve mostly aged better than the first film has. Shrek 2 handled the modern-day/Disney fairytale parody much better in my opinion, and the musical version manages to give the characters much more heart and development* (every horrible thing you’ve heard about Shrek the Third is true though; for the love of all that is good and holy avoid it like the plague).

Getting back on topic, watch this or any random Dreamworks movie that came afterward and you can bet that all of these rules that go into making it will come into play –

1. Assemble a cast of celebrities (voice acting experience not required; the bigger names the better regardless of whether or not they act at all)
2. Infuse your soundtrack with pop songs with one classic hit as your main theme that will be played ad nauseum (Hans Zimmer or Harry Gregson-Williams must also provide the score)
3. Make as many references pertaining to what’s popular right now or within the past few years. The more the better, especially if they go completely over young kids’ heads
4. Your hero must be a totally hip dude who’s always with it but nobody ever gives a chance or an average joe that everyone puts down because he’s really a special snowflake
5. End every movie with a dance party
6. END EVERY MOVIE WITH A DANCE PARTY

It’s catering to a formula like this that makes me worry that this is why people are more ready to consider animation a distraction for children rather than an art form. Rather than present something with a long shelf-life that everyone can enjoy regardless of age, it chooses to focus on what will make them the most money now by playing to the lowest common denominator with juvenile humor and references that nobody will understand or find funny even five years from its release. When this formula worked with Shrek, everyone tried to copy it, even Disney. By now it’s been used so many times I’m surprised it hasn’t made the studio collapse on itself (though it has come close several times).

My theory is this – for every couple of films that follows the Dreamworks formula or is a sequel to one of them, there is one that manages to capture that era of beauty that first helped get the studio off the ground and succeeds in balancing it out. More often than not it can put a spin on that formula to make it work in a non-manipulative way. Kung-Fu Panda looked like an ordinary Dreamworks film but evolved into something creative and funny and genuinely beautiful. How to Train Your Dragon was the same (something they both have in common is that their second movies manage to blow the first out of the water and I’m scared to death that the upcoming third installations in their franchises will be a repeat of Shrek the Third). Rise of the Guardians is among those rare and wonderful films.

Based on the Guardians of Childhood series of books by William Joyce (better known as the creator of Rollie Pollie Ollie and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore), this movie is as far from traditional Dreamworks as you can get…but there’s also no other way to describe it but Dreamworks. Its look is unlike any other in the usual style, the story is very inventive, the lore is fascinating, the emotional stakes are high, and having it produced by Guillermo del Toro certainly gives it a lot of credit as well (now if only he would get around to doing Hellboy 3).

Unfortunately, stunning visuals and creative story doesn’t always guarantee a box office smash. Lots of films hinge on good marketing or word of mouth to sell them and sadly this film had neither. There were a few fans, but not enough to save it. It also came out at the perfect time – holiday season 2012 – but it ended up getting swept under the rug and was considered a bomb by Dreamworks. As a result, the executives were forced to start handing out pink slips to many talented artists and had to go back to that always reliable Dreamworks formula to save them from bankruptcy.

To put it in perspective, Rise of the Guardians made $306,941,670 domestically. Turbo, made $282,500,000 worldwide, but Katzenburg also gave it a Netflix series to squeeze even more potential revenue from it (and people wonder why I’m so determined to drive snails to the endangered species list).

So is this movie really the big bomb the studio who made it wrote it off as? Let’s take a look.

And Your December Review Is…

It’s that time again! I must say the overwhelming amount of votes for this one film shocked me. I think many of you will be surprised by the outcome.

But before I announce the winner, I have a little surprise.

I love you guys. Really, I do. All eight or nine of you out there. If you are reading these words then you have devoted precious time and energy to reading some random person’s ramblings about movies on the internet. How do I not love you for that?

So, seeing as how this is the month of merriment, I’m giving you guys a little extra something for your stocking. Not only will I give you the movie review you voted for, but a short review of a holiday classic that’s near and dear to my heart.

I’m keeping what it is under my Santa hat until December 24th though, because as much as we love trying to catch a peek at what presents we got early, the internet just doesn’t work that way (unless you’re a hacker.)

Now I bet you’re really excited to see what I’ll be reviewing for December…

Though I bet you’re even MORE excited to discuss the recent political upheavals between the US and the Middle East –

All right, fine.

 

The movie up next for reviewing is…

“Ms. Shelf, I’m here to talk to you about the Guardians Initiative.”

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Thank you for voting. Cast your vote for January’s review by leaving a comment on what film you want to see or by emailing me at upontheshelfshow@gmail.com. Remember, you can find what films are available for reviewing by clicking on “What’s On the Shelf”, and you can only vote once a month.

You know, I’m in a bit of a musical mood for January. Mind if I hum a few possible bars?

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• Oliver!
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• The Music Man
• Into the Woods
• Mary Poppins