Archive for November, 2009
CHILDHOOD REVISITED – THE SECRET OF NIMH
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Childhood Revisited, Film, Uncategorized on November 9, 2009
Blood? In an animated movie? SRS. BSN.
The Secret of NIMH – (1982)
Director: Don Bluth
Starring: Elizabeth Hartman, Dom DeLuise, Derek Jacobi, Peter Strauss
Screenplay by: Don Bluth, John Pomeroy, Gary Goldman, Will Finn
We return to the realm of Bluth, that oh-so-strange animation director with the hit-or-miss filmography that inspires many an animator in the field, aspiring or veteran. While I previously vented my surprise over my disappointment of An American Tail, I at least acknowledged that his animation did indeed “work” somehow. I did come up short on detailing thoroughly on the movie’s parallel to the Jewish experience in 1890s Russia. (Although to be fair, 1) it is obvious and 2) Art Spiegeleman did it before in Maus, and 3) is irrelevant to the specific points I mentioned in the piece. But I digress.)
So now, I decided to jump back a few years to 1982 and explore The Secret of NIMH, which the Nostalgic Critic mentioned as one of the greatest nostalgic movie of all time (seriously, people, I’m aware of the guy—don’t have to constantly link me to him.). The movie did very well at the box office, grossing 14 million, double its budget, but let’s see if that secret is still as potent as it was back then.
NOSTALGIC LENS: Without any of the lighter, funnier, and/or wackier elements that I was accustomed to in animated form, I can’t say I remember liking this movie. Its seriousness seemed detrimental to what animation should be about—or so I believed. As I grew older and became much more accepting of darker, heavier films of the animated kind, upon thinking back onto this movie, another question came into my brain: what the f*ck did amulets and magic have to do with what basically amounted to a film about a mother saving her sick son? The script was reformatted with the fantasy elements to fit the 80s paradigm of popular young fantastical fare, but since I remembered so little about the film, I was desperate to 1) figure it out and 2) find out if it worked.
DOES IT HOLD UP: For the most part, yes. A solid 80% of it.
My main concern with this movie was whether or not the heightened maturity was warranted. When some sort of media forges its way away from typical family/children’s development, they automatically jump to an ultra-adult theme, utilizing sex, drugs, violence, or the grotesque (Heavy Metal, Conker’s Bad Fur Day). It’s only recently that companies like Pixar (and to a lesser extent, Dreamworks) manage to create films that do balance the perfect line between appealing to both adults and children (and genuine criticism). Back in the 80s and 90s, this wasn’t exactly the case.
Luckily, The Secret of NIMH does indeed control its mature elements with a casual respect that works for the film, rather than against it. A mouse mother, whose child is sick with pneumonia, has to figure out a way to move her house before the farmer’s plow comes in and destroys everything, including her family. There’s a lot of interesting and complex story points here, but for the most part, Ms. Brisby is forced to do a lot by herself, showcasing a tremendous amount of bravery for a recently widowed wife. She even goes up against a churning plow aiming for her home. That’s hardcore.
The most noticeable delight about this movie is the calm, directed, poignant voice work. The voice actors don’t oversell their deliveries or push into exaggerated caricatures. They speak as if human, as if conflicted, struggling, concerned, worried, and panicked. They stumble over their words, stammer and stutter, talk over each other—speaking as if everything is real, not hyper-real. Check out this first scene of the movie, as Ms. Brisby speaks to Mrs. Ages:
In fact, subtlety is this film’s most brilliantly utilized aspect. The Secret of NIMH doesn’t push its plot or themes on the viewer (the humor, however, is another thing). Carefully and slowly, it becomes clear that the mice and rats and other critters of the farm are divided by class in some manner; Ms. Brisby, for example, can’t read that well, and the rats of NIMH, who grew intelligent through the experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, become disillusioned towards the “lesser creatures,” epitomized by Auntie Shrew, who in turn distrusts the rats (and others “bigger” creatures) and their over-hyped brilliance.
Intelligence spurs the rats to try and move from the farm for better a better life for ethical reasons (they can no longer live like rats and steal!) but morally speaking, they still are SOBs. They don’t particularly care about helping Brisby or her family, until they realize she’s Mrs. Jonathan Brisby, the wife of the mouse who saved the rats from NIMH in the first place. (In fact, this fact is disturbing in a way. Mrs. Brisby isn’t given a first name—and being referred to solely by her husband’s nomenclature, coupled with the casual, borderline abuse she receives from other characters not named Justin is striking; being smart has little to do with being generous, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Bluth did that on purpose.)
A lot of what I mentioned is noted in this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsb9bPbI7PQ
With such beautiful, refined animation, excellent voice work, and rich, deep characters and backstory, it’s disappointing to note some of the film’s slightly weaker elements. The humor derived from Jeremy’s goofy antics is more problematic than funny (something that Brisby conveys very well through her voice), and his troubles in finding a girl is wrapped up so swiftly that, for a moment, you think it’s some kind of joke. In fact, the entire film’s ending is wrapped up so fast, it’s as if Bluth didn’t bother to write one, and just shoehorned something in to finish it. As for the fantasy elements? Well, they weren’t as distracting as I thought they would be, but you do get the sense that they shouldn’t have been there. However, they aren’t too awkward, except for the climax (which I won’t spoil), and Bluth works around them to make a credible film that has the view rooting for Mrs. Brisby all the way through.
IN A NUTSHELL: I have to admit I truly enjoyed this movie. I especially want to point out how well the sounds and music was used—and when the sounds and music weren’t used. The silent, quieter moments add much more to the movie than one might think possible, and when the score does pop in, you can bet it’s there for a reason. When watching Mrs. Brisby feed her ill son as her other kids look on, you can’t help but feel her plight. Indeed, unlike An American Tail, I was pleasantly surprised.
November 16th: Home Alone
November 23rd: [surprise entry!]
CHILDHOOD REVISITED – THE CARE BEARS II: A NEW GENERATION
Posted by kjohnson1585 in Animation, Childhood Revisited, Film, Television, Uncategorized on November 1, 2009
F*ck trees! The bastards.
The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation – (1985)
Director: Dale Schott
Starring: Hadley Kay, Cree Summer, Maxine Miller, Dan Hennessey
Screenplay by: Peter Sauder
Why, you may ask, did I decide to tackle the sequel to The Care Bears Movie? Was the first one so incomplete that it warranted a viewing of the second one to feel more wholesome? Is my childhood so disappointing, so mundane, that I needed to force myself through another enterprise of excessive “caring” and “sharing” and “feelings” to warm my neglected heart? Am I an emotional sadist?
Like I’ve said in the past, I’m watching everything I watched as a kid, no if’s, and’s, or bu’ts about it. As I mentioned in my previous review, I was surprised that, at the very least, the first film developed a relatively straight-forward adventure of the cutest degree, even if the ending just wasted everything that preceded it. And besides, I’m still jonesing to find that ridiculously sad song I remember on of these movies having, even if I have to shove a trillion hearts, stars, and rainbows deep into my eyelids. I’m doing this all for you, dear readers.
NOSTALGIC LENS: Nothing distinctly from the first one. Both movies are the same blur of cute animals and clouds and hearts. I can’t remember anything significant that stood out from one movie over the other. Except. That. SONG.
DOES IT HOLD UP: I am a sucker for fantasy-created backstory. It always amazes me to experience the history/background of made-up characters, even if said characters are lame and bear-ly endearing (see what I did there?). While certain developed backstories are just obvious fluff and fanboy-based powergaming (Person X fought off the government/secret society/evil demons/cast of According to Jim), a solid, over-aching history really presents how creative and clever a writer can be. How well one thinks and showcases a real, devised world really brings weight and direction to any main story.
A New Generation does just that. It’s a prequel more than a sequel; it posits to tell how the Care Bear and the Care Bear Cousins came to be.
After, uh, GOD gives “Noah” Bear and his wife (or significant other—the gender is never made clear) a place to live among the clouds, the two are given the task to care for the cubs (who are orphans) as well as the typical “help those in need” tasks. Darkheart causes chaos below on Earth to capture the Care Bears, so to protect the children, True Heart Bear and Noble Heart Horse divide and separate them—the Care Bears are taken to Car-A-Lot, and the Cousins are deposited in the Forest of Feelings.
Sauder spends a bit of time working the history of the characters here, which I actually admire. I was surprised to see him describe how the originals and Cousins got separated; and while there’s a couple of huge, temporal mistakes in trying to piece the first movie with the second one, it’s still an ambitious task that’s managed as well as I suppose it could have been.
Which is a problem, because once you enter the road of background information, you’re only opening up a huge Pandora’s Box of questions: where originally did the Care Bears come from? Where were they going when they were on the boat? Who abandoned the Bears originally? What did True Heart and Noble Heart do that was so special to deserve high-apple-pie-in-the-sky status? How long does it take them to grow?! (Although– I do have a theory of how to make this work: time in the Kingdom of Caring moves MUCH faster than on Earth.) Of course, I’m exaggerating. I don’t have any major investment on the details. But it would have been really exquisite if Sauders managed to not only weave a seamless backstory here, but also leave some perfect wiggle room to fit the events from the first one into this one.
Mainly because that’s really the only interesting part of this movie. A New Generation reaps rewards in the Care Bear history but misses completely on an interesting main plot. I suppose it starts off okay—Christy sells her soul to Darkheart to become the Camp Champ, only to have to help the evil force capture the Bears later in the film. But this idea is never taken anywhere, even in the simplest, pre-school terms. For a good twenty minutes, Darkheart doesn’t even bother to exploit Christy’s tête-à-tête, but just opts to chase them around, like an inept dogcatcher.
Beyond that, the story jumps all over the place. Tender Heart and Noble Heart chase Darkheart for what seems like ages; when they realize it’s just its shadow, they return in twenty seconds. The Bears are supposedly disappearing—but they’re not. And then, they are, all at the same moment when Christy pretends to be stuck in a canoe (the scene here is really fucking designed like crap—it’s a visual, confusing mess). Christy saves Darkheart, a flying, transforming force of hatred and evil, after he knocks himself out on the boat like a moronic klutz. The final fight between the Bears/Cousins and Darkheart is lame, with red lighting bolts missing everything, and the mundane power of the stares/calls just being a nuisance. And seeing Darkheart show sympathy for Christy at the end, you know, since she saved his life, coupled with the “We Care” chant at the end (in which the viewer is supposed to participate), just puts the final cap on the most inane, boring story ever, even at children standards. There’s no sense of travel or adventure here, which leaves any sense of exploration or discovery; any chance of the older crowd finding any avenue to enjoy this flick is fairly insignificant.
(An aside: there is a juicy bit that implies Christy’s desire to become a Camp Champ was not for a selfish caving to win, but to indirectly protect John and Don, two random, “master race” twins. But with a lack of a defined relation between Christy and John and Don, and with the most frustrating and constant repetition of plot points this side of Heroes, it’s never taken anywhere interesting. Which is too bad.)
BUT.
The final five minutes of A New Generation is gloriously beautiful. The song I sought for so long is here, and it’s as heart-wrenching as I remember it, but made doubly-so with an soft, evening-mood atmosphere coupled with a montage of the Care Bears enjoying their simple, un-requited childhood, before being pushed into their roles of saving the world of love. Even these cute, cuddly creatures of caring can’t return to the times of pure innocence, and if any moment in film represented the overall feeling I had while doing this “Childhood Revisited” feature, this moment is it:
IN A NUTSHELL: Overall, this movie is just a waist, save for the beginning and the end. Hell, I’d say this entire movie was made for that final song sequence alone. When a movie makes you feel the pain of the freaking Care Bears growing up, something was done right.
While I won’t be reviewing CB3, I’ll probably watch it on my own on the side—it looks like it’s more of a generic adventure than something with ultra-love-caring pushed upon the audience.
November 9nd: The Secret of NIMH
November 16th: Home Alone