May Review: The Great Race (1965)

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1900s, 1960's, american west, arthur o'connell, austria, blake edwards, cars, cartoon, classic, classic comedy, classic Hollywood, Comedy, cult classic, dick dastardly, dorothy provine, edith head, feature, feature film, feature presentation, film, film review, henry mancini, hezekiah, intermission, jack lemmon, Keenan Wynn, larry storch, laurel and hardy, looney tunes, maggie dubois, max, movie, movie review, natalie wood, New York, obscure movie, Paris, peter falk, pie fight, prince hapnik, prisoner of zenda, professor fate, race, racing, racing game, review, roadshow, silent comedy, silent movie, silent movies, slapstick, slapstick comedy, the great leslie, the great pie fight, the great race, the prisoner of zenda, the sweetheart tree, tony curtis, travel, traveling, vivian vance, wacky races, Warner Bros., Warner Brothers, west

“Push the button, Max!”
– Professor Fate, usually before a catastrophe of his doing strikes

To say things have gotten tumultuous since the last review would be a gross understatement. But we’re not here to discuss today’s upheavals, important as they are. Let’s just take a moment to reflect and laugh. Lord knows we could use a good one right now.

Directed by esteemed comedy director and Hollywood bad boy Blake Edwards, The Great Race is a loving pastiche and send-up of silent comedies and melodramas from the early days of cinema (classic Laurel and Hardy in particular; the film even opens with a dedication to them). Thankfully the movie itself is not silent. What kind of genius madman would try to make a silent comedy in the late twentieth century?

Believe it or not, The Great Race was inspired by a real automobile race from New York to Paris that took place in 1908. Some of the more outlandish elements of the race like floating on icebergs across the sea were even based on genuine ideas that were proposed for the race but wisely ruled out. Despite its star power and a huge budget, The Great Race was a flop on release and quickly fell into obscurity. Critics assumed it was trying to ride off the popularity of Those Magnificent Men And Their Flying Machines, another big-budget all-star comedy with a similar premise. I’m more inclined to believe that its failure was due to the roadshow phenomenon that boomed in the late ’50s dying out at this point. It would be several more years until the epic format of a three-hour film with an overture and intermission faded from theaters completely, but audiences were already losing interest, and that rung The Great Race’s knell. Regardless, it’s garnered something of a cult fanbase from automobile aficionados (the original cars are still displayed at conventions), fans of classic cinematic comedies, and it even inspired the wildly popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon Wacky Races.

So if it wasn’t for this –

– we wouldn’t have this.

April Review: The Pagemaster (1994)

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1990's, 20th century fox, 2D animation, 90's, 90s movie, adventure, animated, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animation, animators, book, books, captain ahab, cartoon review, christopher lloyd, classic literature, david kirschner, dr. jekyll, dream away, edward hyde, fairies, fairy tale, Fantasy, film, film review, frank welker, frankenstein, george hearn, ghost stories, hand drawn animation, haunted house, henry jekyll, Horror, James Horner, jim cummings, joe johnston, leonard nimoy, library, literature, living books, macaulay culkin, moby dick, mother goose, movie, movie review, mr. hyde, Non-Disney, nostalgia, obscure animated movie, obscure animation, pagemaster, patrick stewart, puns, review, stephen king, The Pagemaster, the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, traditional animation, treasure island, turner animation, wendy moten, whatever you imagine, whoopi goldberg

I expected this movie to have a few votes from those who remembered it as kids. I never expected it to win by a landslide. Lesson learned: never underestimate a nostalgic kids’ movie from the ’90s.

Once upon a time, David Kirschner, producer of An American Tail among other things, took his daughters to the New York Public Library. This visit inspired him to write a story about a fantastical adventure that would get kids excited about reading. The result was The Pagemaster, a 1994 box-office bomb that would go on to develop a cult following among children like me who grew up watching it. Animation historians tend to lump The Pagemaster in with the likes of Thumbelina or Quest For Camelot: 90s features that tried to coast off the success of Disney’s Renaissance films yet failed to match their caliber. But actually, trailers for The Pagemaster played in theaters and on home video a good four years before the movie was released…it was still in production for most of that time so the amount of influence Disney had on it is up for debate, but the point remains. I’m willing to bet what played a major part in its delay was the myriad of problems that cropped up during the filmmaking, from David Kirschner suing the Writers Guild of America for not receiving the sole story credit he felt was owed, to the plot being rewritten in the middle of the animation process, which is never a good thing. I’ve also heard stories about Macaulay Culkin being a diva on set, but knowing what we know now about his abusive father explains a lot so I’m not holding that against him.

And here’s another fun fact I dug up while doing my research: apparently Stephen King of all people wrote the treatment for The Pagemaster, which certainly explains the film’s more horrific elements. Does this means this movie is technically part of the King multiverse? I can see Richard hanging out with The Losers Club on weekends and trying to avoid killer clowns and langoliers in his spare time.

Though it was released under the 20th Century Fox banner, The Pagemaster was the first of only two animated films created by Turner Feature Animation, an off-shoot of Hanna-Barbera founded by media mogul Ted Turner. In hindsight, it’s not surprising that Turner had a hand in this children’s flick with an educational message. Let’s not forget the last animated project he invested himself in was all about teaching kids environmentalism in the cheesiest way possible.

But unlike Captain Planet, does The Pagemaster hold up after all these years? Will it get kids sucked into the magic of reading? And how long can I go without forcing in a Home Alone reference? Read on and find out.

September Review: School of Rock (2003)

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Adam Pascal, andrew lloyd webber, band, classic comedy, Comedy, deep purple, film, film review, immigrant song, instruments, Jack Black, Joan Cusack, led zepplin, Mike White, miranda cosgrove, movie, movie review, music class, music teacher, musical, no vacancy, review, Richard Linklater, rock, rock and roll, rock band, rock music, sarah silverman, school band, school comedy, School of Rock, smoke on the water, substitute teacher, teacher, The School of Rock, wagner college

There are some beloved movies you watch and think “Why the hell did it take me this long to see this?” I can officially count School of Rock as one of them. I once caught some of it on tv during a babysitting gig that was more long ago than I care to remember, but this was my first time seeing it in full. Like Mean Girls, I’ve heard a lot of the lines before I got around to seeing the movie itself, so it’s interesting to see them in their original context. And of course, it stars Jack Black in the role that made him America’s sweetheart. So let’s get to it!

And no, I have not listened to or seen the musical version yet, so I apologize for not making a lot of comparisons throughout.

June Review: The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

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action, Action-Adventure, alfrid, an unexpected journey, azog, balin, bard, bard the bowman, battle of the five armies, benedict cumberbatch, bifur, bilbo, bilbo baggins, bofur, bolg, bombur, burglar, desolation of smaug, director's cut, dori, dragon, durin's day, dwalin, dwarfs, elf, elves, elvish, erebor, evangeline lily, extended edition, Fantasy, fantasy franchise, fili, film franchise, film review, firedrake, franchise, gandalf, gandalf the gray, gandalf the grey, giant spider, gloin, gold, graham mctavish, hobbit, ian mckellen, journey, jrr tolkien, kili, laketown, lee pace, love interest, luke evans, magic sword, martin freeman, master of laketown, middle earth, mirkwood, motion capture, movie, movie review, necromancer, nori, oin, one ring, orcs, ori, original cut, orlando bloom, peter jackson, quest, radagast the brown, revenge, review, ringwraiths, sauron, sherlock, smaug, spiders, stephen fry, sting, studio interference, sword, sylvester mccoy, tauriel, the hobbit, the lonely mountain, the one ring, theatrical cut, theatrical edition, thorin, thorin oakenshield, thrain, tolkien, trilogy, Warner Bros., Warner Brothers, wizard

“If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together.”

Can you believe it’s been nearly four years since I reviewed the first Hobbit movie? *Sigh*, how time flies. My tastes may have matured and expanded, and I like to think my writing has improved too, but my thoughts on The Hobbit trilogy haven’t changed. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is superior, obviously, but I’m quite fond of this slightly smaller yet no less exciting adventure. I went into great detail why in the previous review, but if I had to sum it up I like how it expands upon Middle Earth lore hinted at in Lord of the Rings while decently tying it back to the events of those movies, and it fixes some major character and plot issues I had that kept me from fully enjoying the book it was based on.

While The Hobbit films do suffer from some the same issues as another prequel trilogy that people love to harp on – mainly an over-reliance on CGI and some contrived plotting – I’m relieved to say that poor performances and production value are not among them. The fact that they were able to bring together some great newcomers to the franchise as well as get as many cast members and locations from Lord of the Rings to return and make it all not feel like fanservice is a testament to the writing, craftmanship and direction that went into making these films, even more so since they were under double the studio pressure than they were the first time around. And if I may be shallow for a moment, it also looks really nice. Sometimes I like nothing more than to get lost in an inviting woodland fantasy atmosphere and this scratches my itch every time.

Now we have the much-anticipated Part 2, The Desolation of Smaug. This incarnation of The Hobbit was originally supposed to end here. But at the last minute it was decided that the Battle of the Five Armies, which happens during the last fifty pages of the book, was too important to relegate to the last act of a film that could potentially overreach The Return of the King’s runtime so they made it its own separate movie. I should mention that the copy of Desolation of Smaug I’m reviewing is the theatrical version since I received it as a gift. I saw the extended edition when it came out on blu-ray and the comparison between the two is an…interesting one. The extended cut fixes some of the inconsistent pacing and adds a few welcome character moments both original and from the book, but the rest I could do without. Some scenes stop the movie, sidetrack the main plot for something else to happen and take you out of the moment as a result, or simply add way more than necessary. One of these days I might get around to editing my own cut combining the best of the two, but for now I’d say you’re better off sticking with the theatrical cut in this case. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll give special mention to those parts when they’re supposed to come up. So let’s find out if it was it a wise decision to split these movies up or if those naysayers who edited the entire trilogy into one forty-five minute feature were right.

Shelf’s 2019 Book Adaptation Tag!

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adaptation, based on, book, book tag, book to film, cinema, film, film of the book, movie

Book Adaptation Tag banner created by Madame Writer. Image found at her blog.

It’s National Reading Month, so why not share some of my thoughts on book-to-film adaptations? 18 Cinema Lane did a fun book related tag in her blog (go check it out, she’s got some good reviews on there), so I decided to give it a try too. Just so we’re clear, these are all my own opinions, and if you disagree with me you’re not in the wrong. Let’s get started!

 

1. What is the last book adaptation you saw?

Gone With The Wind. Classic movie with great acting and gorgeous visuals, but that racism and nostalgia for pre-Civil War Old South is almost unbearably cringy.

 

2. What book movie are you most excited for?

Good Omens. Yes I know it’s a miniseries and not a movie but I love me some Neil Gaiman and I adore the casting. Plus, if you binge watch it, it’s basically a long movie with credits between each part! Doesn’t that count for something?

 

3. Which upcoming book movie will you definitely NOT see?

If it’s got Nicholas Sparks’ name in the title, it’s not getting my money.

 

4. Which book movie would you NEVER watch again?

Ella Enchanted. They took one of my favorite books and completely wrecked it in order to make a watered-down Shrek clone. Not even Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy botched their own plot and characters this badly (yeah, I said it, come at me). The only good thing to come from this movie is Anne Hathaway’s cover of Somebody to Love, and thankfully you can listen to that on its own without having to watch this stinker.

 

5. Is there a movie you saw that made you want to read the book, if you hadn’t yet?

Coraline, and The Last Unicorn. Both are proof that you can make successful animated adaptations of classic stories. I also caught bits of Can You Ever Forgive me on the flight home from Argentina and now I want to read the book it’s based on as well.

 

6. Conversely, is there a movie that made you never want to read the book?

A controversial one, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve said it before in my Unexpected Journey review but Tolkien’s writing in The Hobbit focuses way too hard on the minutiae of world building that it gets dull pretty quickly. Peter Jackson’s movies on the other hand are so well made that I never want to relive the stories with a heaping dose of doorstopper exposition and superfluous characters attached (lookin’ at you, Tom Bombadil).

 

7. Name an adaptation that has almost nothing to do with the book it’s supposedly based on.

Most any adaptation of The Jungle Book I found has little do to with Rudyard Kipling’s novel. The 2016 Jon Favreau one was closer in spirit than the ones what came before it, but it was still a loose remake of the animated one.

 

8. Have you ever left the theater during a movie adaptation because it was so bad?

No, I normally don’t leave the theater during a movie.

 

9. Do you prefer to watch the movie first or read the book first?

Depends on the book/movie, I suppose. It usually comes down to whether or not I want to make comparisons as I’m watching the movie or if I just want to sit back and enjoy it. Or if I have time to read the book in the first place.

 

10. How do you feel about movie adaptations that age characters up? (ex. characters that are in middle-school, but in the movies they’re all 18)

Annoyed, because it shows the studio doesn’t have faith in the younger demographic and want to pander to the safer, older crowd. Do they really believe they can’t get good actors who haven’t hit puberty yet? Granted they are hard to come by, but it’s not impossible.

 

11. Do you get angry when the actors don’t look like how you thought the characters should have looked?

Not really, no, unless they try to make them too pretty. Heaven forbid we get some diversity in our features!

 

12. Is there a movie you liked better than its book?

If it’s Disney and it’s based on a fairytale, you can bet that I probably like it more than its literary origins (with the exception of Frozen, but the sequel looks like it’s headed towards a good place).

 

13. Name a book that you would love to see as a movie.

I’ve got a shortlist, but here goes:

• Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix
• The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews (yes, THAT Julie Andrews)
• The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
• Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Can you tell I’ve got a thing for fantasy?

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Have you ever participated in a tag? What are your thoughts on book adaptations? Let me know in the comments! I promise the Fantasia review will be up by next week, see you then!

September Review: The Music Man (1962)

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1960's, 76 trombones, band, being in love, broadway musical, buddy hackett, classic musical, eulalie shinn, gary indiana, golden age of musicals, good night my some one, good night my someone, goodnight ladies, goodnight my someone, harold hill, hermione gingold, Hollywood musical, if you don't mind my saying so, iowa, iowa stubborn, ireland, lida rose, marcellus, marcellus washburn, marching band, marian, marian paroo, marian the librarian, mayor shinn, meredith wilson, movie, movie review, mrs. shinn, musical, musical number, musical review, original, paul ford, pert kelton, pick a little, pick a little talk a little, prof. harold hill, robert preston, rock island, Romance, romantic cliche, romantic comedy, ron howard, sadder but wiser girl, seventy six trombones, seventy-six trambones, shirley jones, small town america, the buffalo bills, the music man, the sadder but wiser girl, til there was you, tommy jeelis, travelling salesman, travelling salesmen, trouble, trouble with a capital t, turn of the century, wells fargo wagon, winthrop, ya got trouble, you got trouble, zaneeta

“Please observe me if you will, I’m Professor Harold Hill,
And I’m here to organize the River City’s Boy’s Band!”

Let’s close out the summer with what I consider a must-watch summer musical. Doesn’t hurt that the main action kicks off on the Fourth of July.

“Missing another appropriate holiday-themed movie by several months. Ah, it’s good to be back.”

Based on the stories and childhood of Meredith Wilson, The Music Man weaves a tale of small town turn-of-the-century America, marching bands, charming charlatans, and the power of music that brings them all together. The original stage production notoriously beat West Side Story for Best Musical at the Tony Awards, though Tony and Maria got the last laugh when it came to the Oscars. I contend however that 1962’s The Music Man is a prime example of how to do a stage-to-screen adaptation. Through a combination of top-notch talent, music, staging, and witty witticisms it’s one of the crowning jewels of the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals that lasted through the 60’s. Fifty years later its impact is still felt, at least musically. Chances are if you ambled down Main Street USA in any of the Disney parks you’ve heard the melodies of “Iowa Stubborn”, “Lida Rose”, “The Wells Fargo Wagon”, and “76 Trombones” playing in the background. It’s a staple for community theaters across the country. And like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Sound of Music, it’s one of Seth MacFarlane’s most beloved and referenced musicals.