A Country Song

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Alvin Bragg, arrest, arrested, arrested president, celebrate, country, Disney, drumpf, E. Jean Carroll, former president, fuck fascism, fuck GOP, fuck republicans, fuck the nazis, fuck trump, indictment, indictment day, Jack Smith, Johnny Mercer, Letitia James, Nancy Pelosi, parody, parody song, president, Robin Hood, spoof, Stormy Daniels, The Felon Prez of the US, The Phony King of England, trump, vindication

Oh the world will sing of a treasonous king a thousand years from now
And not just ’cause he broke some laws or where or why or how
While waiting for some peace after Barack Obama had gone,
We all had to suffer under that good-for-nothin’ Don
Despicable as he is inept, whenever the history books are kept,
They’ll call him the Felon Prez of the US

A pox on the Felon Prez of the US!

Don’t tell us please, don’t tell us please, don’t tell us please, we pray,
Where did he come from, where is he goin’, what did he do all day!

He sat alone on the White House throne pretendin’ he’s a king
An obese tyke; or rather, like, Putin’s puppet on his strings
And he threw some Twitter tantrums when he could not have his way
And pretends he’s bereft ’cause of “the woke left”
See, it ain’t “fair” when he must pay

He’s not only known as Don the First,
He’ll always be known as Don the Worst,
A pox on that Felon Prez of the US!

While he lied and cheated, bullied, screeched, and robbed us of our rights,
Pelosi, Carroll, Bragg and James were fighting the good fight
And with pissed-off Stormy and Jack Smith in their wily pack,
They’ll finally make the bastard pay and take our country back
This time he can’t escape, the wussy,
‘Cause Justice grabbed him by his pussy

The wheezin’ and deceivin’ Prez of the US!

The snivellin’, grovellin’ (election stealin’)
Thunderin’, blunderin’ (Nazi-lovin’)
Sexist, racist (narcissistic)
Jibberin’, mockin’ (gonna lock him)
Screamin’, plottin’ (wall buildin’)
Stealin’, dealin’ (boot lickin’)
Griftin’, sniffin’ (pants-pissin’)
White House wreckin’ (insurrecting)
Donald Trump, the Felon Prez of the US!

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“The Phony King of England” was originally written by Johnny Mercer for Disney’s Robin Hood. The preceding parody lyrics are by yours truly. I’m no Weird Al Yankovic, but I had to do something to mark the occasion.

August Review: Shrek (2001)

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2000's, 2001, academy awards, Action-Adventure, adventure, all star, animated, animated feature, animated franchise, animated movie, animated movie review, animation, anthropomorphic animal, Cameron Diaz, cgi animation, children’s book, computer animation, donkey, dragon, Dreamworks, Duloc, Eddie Murphy, fairies, fairy, fairy tale, Fantasy, Farquaad, Fiona, franchise, Gingerbread Man, Gingy, hallelujah, Hollywood, I'm a Believer, jeffrey katzenberg, John Lithgow, knight, Lord Farquaad, magic mirror, meme, memes, Michael Eisner, Mike Myers, movie review, ogre, ogres are like onions, ogress, onion, oscar winning, oscars, Pinocchio, pop culture reference, princess, Princess Fiona, quest, review, Robin Hood, Shrek, shrek is love, shrek is love shrek is life, shrek meme, shrek memes, smash mouth, spell, swamp, three little pigs, Vincent Cassel, william steig

Oh, Shrek. Where to begin with this guy?

That’s a rhetorical question, I know exactly where to start. It all comes back to one man, a man with a vision: to stick it to his former boss.

We meet again, Katzenberg.

There’s a lot of history and tangled truths behind the birth of Shrek, and Jeffrey Katzenberg is at the dead center of it. I was sorely tempted to make this another two-parter like the Black Cauldron review to go into more detail, but I was already running behind schedule with March of the Wooden Soldiers so here’s a slightly condensed version:

Between the disaster that was the making of The Black Cauldron and the glorious premiere of The Lion King, Katzenberg picked up a few tricks when it came to making acclaimed animated features. Then in 1994, Disney CEO Frank Wells was killed in a helicopter accident, and the Magic Kingdom was torn asunder as Michael Eisner took the reins and began his descent into madness. Katzenberg hoped that he would inherit Eisner’s former position of Vice President, but here’s where things get tricky. Katzenberg claims that Eisner fired him when he made his ambitions known; but the way Eisner tells it, Katzenberg was impatient, ungrateful, took way too much credit for the studio’s successes, and left of his own accord. Either way, it was a notoriously bitter separation with deep ramifications for the animation industry. Apparently Disney didn’t learn their lesson with Don Bluth because once again they wound up creating their biggest competitor – and this time, they were here to stay.

Katzenberg teamed up with David Geffen and the one and only Steven Spielberg to create Dreamworks SKG, the first major studio to truly rival Disney when it came to making animated motion pictures. The most important thing to them was to not be like every other feature on the market. For the first few years they flipped between making some great traditionally animated films that have been swept under the rug (Spirit, Sinbad and The Road to El Dorado are enjoying a comfortable cult status online and The Prince of Egypt only just got upgraded to blu-ray last year. Still waiting on that Broadway version, though), and openly trying to one-up their direct competition (when not teaming up Aardman to produce the same but with effort and a soul). Pixar announces their next movie is about ants? Dreamworks comes out the following week and says they’re doing a CGI movie about ants. Pixar says they’re making a film about fish? Dreamworks makes one about fish the following year. They make movies for children of all ages but with A-list actors, no Alan Menken musical numbers, and attituuuuude, dude. And nowhere is that jealousy and vitriol towards Disney more obvious than in what we’re reviewing today.

Shortly after Dreamworks was founded, co-head of the motion pictures division Laurie MacDonald gave Katzenberg a book by esteemed children’s author/illustrator William Steig simply called “Shrek!”; a fractured fairytale where a fire-breathing ogre was the hero, a donkey was his noble steed, and his happily ever after is defeating a valiant knight and marrying a princess even uglier than he is. He took one look at it, saw how it turned the traditional Disney-style fantasy he helped re-popularize in the 90’s on its head, the potential for even more slams at Disney fairytales and celebrity voice casting that worked gangbusters with Aladdin and had this to say:

Shrek evolved far beyond its humble literary origins into a green middle finger pointed at Katzenberg’s former workplace, and audiences and critics ate it up because nobody had dared to do such a thing before. And I’m not gonna lie, I loved this movie when I was a kid. But over time, mostly thanks to Katzenberg’s penchant for quantity over quality, Shrek became the very thing it was parodying: a shallow, over-hyped, over-marketed fairytale cash grab, and it’s affected my view of the original installment somewhat.

Well, it’s time for this non-star to get my game on and hopefully get paid. Let’s look at Dreamworks’ watershed studio-defining blockbuster…Shrek.

February Review: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

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1930's, action, Action-Adventure, adventure, archery, archery contest, arrows, Basil Rathbone, classic, classic Hollywood, England, Errol Flynn, giving to the poor, golden age of Hollywood, hero, heroes, Hollywood, justice, korngold, legend, medieval, merry men, movie review, myth, Nottingham, Olivia de Haviland, robbing from the rich, Robin Hood, Romance, Sherwood Forest, stopping tyranny and injustice, sword, sword fight, sword fighting, sword fights

Well, this has been an…interesting few months hasn’t it? 2016 refused to leave without taking a few more beloved stars with it, we saw a changing of the guard that has everyone either flocking to the church or the streets, heck, the last few weeks alone has thrown the world into such uncertainty and madness that I just want to lose myself in a bit of escapism that has nothing to do with what’s going on outside right now.

I’ve got it! Harry Potter! I love those movies. There’s nothing more magical and escapist than the tale of a boy who discovers he’s a wizard and goes to school and fights an evil power-mad sorcerer whose followers share his outspoken racism and Nazi-like methods of suppression…

Maybe a comedy is what I need. Something timeless and hilarious, like the Marx Brothers. Those guys are great! Their best movie is this one called Duck Soup where Groucho suddenly becomes president of an entire nation, puts a bunch of his crazy inept friends on his cabinet, and his loud mouth and ego plunges his country into a giant war…

You know, there’s a number of unappreciated animated gems I have on my Shelf, and one of them is Twice Upon a Time. Only recently released to DVD after years of petitioning from fans, it tells the tale of a mime and an Animorph with the voice of Garfield trying to stop a foulmouthed despotic little madman from turning the world into an inescapable bomb-ridden nightmare and OKAY THIS JOKE IS DONE.

The point is it’s been bloody difficult to find almost any form of entertainment that doesn’t feel touched by current events in any way. Many films that I usually enjoy in times of crisis have served as reminders of the world we’re living in now. Indiana Jones? Makes me wish that dealing with meddlesome Nazis was as simple as finding and opening the Ark of the Covenant. Star Wars? Hard to look at objectively now that my country has officially become the Empire. Disney? Bob Iger is on the council of a certain Oompa Loompa reject and is too afraid of losing profits if he stands up to his tangerine overlord.  I just…I just want something that can raise my spirits. Something other people in the film community and the public can get behind. A symbol.

Something that appeals to the best of us.

Something good.

Something decent.

Something pure.

Something…classic.

Huh. Good thing I already put the film’s name in the title.