Disney, retrospectively

Hercules (1997)

This was the last of the 90's Disney we saw and we were already in our teens so there is less nostalgia to be had. That being said, we sort of enjoy it. Once again, particularly the Finnish dub. Objectively speaking this is most likely the worst Disney had to offer in the 90's. But we still like it way more than Pocahontas. 

Characters

Hercules: Just a fucking clueless idiot. Unlike Aladdin though, he's at least honest and sincere. Doesn't have much in the way of a character arc. Much like Aladdin, he's not the the most interesting character in his own title film.

Meg: She has the best attitude. We're especially fond of her sharp tongue. She does have a character arc, but of course it's all about the dude like one would expect from one's basic Disney movie. 

Hades: The last decent Disney villain, even though the role is forced on him (his motives suck). However, he's really fun and entertaining. 

Minor characters: There aren't many, but those that are important to the story (and even those that aren't) work quite well. They definitely provide the best gags. The cat gets us every time. 

Story

Obviously this has nothing to do with Greek mythology or even geography. Mt. Olympos does not look like that. Since one of us has lived in Greece for 18 months it's fair to say that we know more about the region and country than Disney. They clearly didn't consult any experts. Considering the company's track record with sticking to the original version, it's no surprise. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. 

The story is already weak to begin with, but it completely falls apart by the third act. This movie simply cannot decide its genre. It's tonally way more confused than Hunchback. The story works when it's comedy but not when it tries to be epic or serious. To be honest, we don't have much else to comment because this movie is utterly frivolous. Frivolous, but fun. We stand our ground that it's funny. But for god's sake don't mistake it for anything deeper. 

Miscellaneous

We love Menken, but this is definitely not his best work. The gospel theme is weird, we guess it has something to do with praising gods and stuff? We still think it's not the most natural fit. At least Menken has composed a score in addition to the songs, unlike many of the later Disney films. The popular culture references were a little too much for us. So if you thought the Genie was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. 

"Inspired" by Austen

We've already made lists of our best and worst Austen adaptations, so this time we thought to look at stuff "inspired" by Austen. And when we say "inspired", we mean they mostly have nothing to do with her books. These are ranked from our favourite to the most offensive to all of humankind, especially women. 


1. Clueless. We were actually shocked how much we still like this film. It's fun, it's light and makes some pretty clever references to Emma. It's the perfect guilty pleasure movie. Also, Cher has a character arc that's pretty rare to see in a teen romance.

2. Death Comes to Pemberley. First of all, the fact that Wickham would in ANY shape or form care about Lydia at all is pretty egregious, so that should already tell you how knowledgeable the people who made this are about Austen's works (that includes the author of the book this miniseries is based on). And poor Colonel Fitzwilliam, what have they done to you!?!?!? But they did manage to make Lizzy's and Mr Darcy's relationship somewhat believable, and that is this series' only saving grace. 

3. Austenland. Ok, this is incredibly cheesy and we don't much care for this film, but it does have some good things in it. For example, the main character learns to live in the real world and stop living in a fantasyland perpetuated by the chick-lit/flick industry. It is super sappy  and clearly written by a Mormon with Mormon understanding of Austen's creations. It could be a lot worse, though.

     








4. Bride & Prejudice. Again, this one could be a lot worse. It shares the same misconception that all adaptations (apart from one) of Pride & Prejudice have - the misunderstanding. Mr. Darcy is actually a decent man instead of an asshole and the conflict is all about miscommunication and not about a transformation of both Mr. Darcy's and Lizzy's characters. We don't watch much Bollywood, so we can't really comment on that aspect of the movie.

5. The Jane Austen Book Club. What annoys us about this one, is the reading of Austen's novels from a modern perspective - no, not the "Charlotte is a lesbian" - stuff, but the fact that they insist that these books are all about romance. They don't really talk about female experiences or how Austen could be interpreted from a feminist perspective. No, in the end it's all about boys (and romance) and not about a woman's inner thoughts and experiences, which is what Austen largely focused on (with some well-executed romance thrown in the mix). 

  











6. Becoming Jane. They claim this is based on Jane Austen's life. It is not. This movie is completely inspired by the modern interpretation of Austen's books. It is your standard "lovers separated by society" - cliché, and come to think of it, wouldn't even be anything that Austen would write. If she had, this is not what it would look like, not even close. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with Austen's real life. If you are interested in seeing a dramatization of Austen's life, watch Miss Austen Regrets. At least in that one they make it clear that what she wrote was fiction and during her lifetime might as well have been pure fantasy. Both James McAvoy and Anne Hathaway have done much better. And for God's sake, never make Anne Hathaway do an English accent ever again.

7. Pride & Prejudice and Zombies. Jesus Christ, this is one huge turd of a movie. Granted, the source material is incredibly lazy and only capitalizing on the Austen - craze going on. This doesn't have any characters of Austen that one would recognize or really anyone that you'd even wanna root for. The concept is quite brilliant, but the book or the film do it no justice whatsoever. This is just another romance disguised as an action film - and not even a good one by any standards.

8. Lost in Austen. P&P and Zombies is a piece of shit but this bs takes it to a whole 'nother level. This is downright offensive. EVERYTHING in this is wrong. The worst thing about this mess is that it plays into the unhealthy idea that women would have somehow been treated better by men in Austen's time. No. Just no. And hey, why does she have to exchange her world, where she has some tangible rights, to a world where she has no rights, for a dude?!?!?!?!? Why didn't they flip it around? Here it would've actually made some sense and we wouldn't hate on this so much. He (Mr. Darcy) would have much more of a chance to succeed and have a life in the modern world than a woman would've had in the Regency era. Fuck this shit! Plus, they clearly don't know anything about the characters, if they think even for one second that Jane would've married Mr. Collins. Even if Jane had consented, her father would have never allowed it. It was nice to see our fantasy of kicking Mr. Collins in the nuts, but everything else about this is literally the worst. 

 

It vs A Quiet Place

First of all, we don't like horror, modern horror in particular that often relies on gore and jump scares. Most of the horror films we like are older and focus on the psychological aspects and gear towards suspense, not horror. Hitchcock is the master. We saw both these movies about six months apart from each other. It is surprising to us, that we have now seen not one, not two, but three horror films in the cinema. Let us reiterate, we do not like horror. We also saw Get Out last year. We didn't include Get Out here, because it simply does not compare as well. These two are first and foremost entertainment. Content-wise they don't pack as much of a punch as Get Out, as it dives into the African-American experience in the US. So we're gonna go with these. If anyone wants our take on Get Out, ask Jenni to send the essay she wrote for her African-American cinema class (you'll need to understand Finnish for that).

It

Pros: Most of the children are good. Those kids that are given time, use it well. We especially liked Beverly as a character, despite the stereotypical storyline they pushed on her. Some of the visuals are cool and work pretty well. For example, the red balloon, the painting coming to life and the slide show. Most of the story works without major hiccups and manages to be quite entertaining. 

Cons: All the jump scare scenes and music. Too much of it. That always does away with suspense. Suspense is created by the good old Hitchcock rule: the audience knows something that's about to happen which the characters do not. Too little of that here. Not enough of planting and payoff. Underdeveloped characters (eg. Stanley and Mike). Stereotype storyline for the one girl. Although the abuse backstory is the best part of the film, but that damn damsel in distress strikes again. Isn't it time we get past this cliché? Plus why was she floating with the others when she wasn't afraid anymore? Also,  the film had other time-wasting clichés that don't lead anywhere. Like the good old 'heroes must fight and separate' which definitely contributes to the overlong runtime of the film. In addition, some CGI was pretty hacky. 

A Quiet Place

Pros: Good deployment of visual cues. Planting and payoff worked great. Well developed characters, it was most likely easier to develop them as there are only four. None of the characters are useless. When you have too many characters, some of them will suffer and not be as interesting as those who are given time. Not a problem here. Particularly mature storyline for the daughter and unlike in It, this film explores it and gives her a real character arc. There are actually tense and scary moments as they use visual and audible cues (not music, but sound). The silence was a refreshing take on horror. Surprisingly short and enjoyably succinct, it had no unnecessary scenes and was easy to follow. Did not try to branch off to anything more. That's a good thing. All of the performances felt real and packed an emotional punch.

Cons: Occasional use of the jump scare music, though nothing compared to It. Minor complaint would be (to others it might matter more) the creatures' CG. But again, this aspect did not bother us nearly as much as it did in It. And that's literally all the complaints we have, folks.

General: It should be pretty obvious which movie we like better. It is rare for us to see a film in the cinema about which we have minimal complaints. For us , It was a standard made for Hollywood blockbuster (though funnily enough, rated R) and didn't really scare us or leave a mark. Whereas, A Quiet Place kept us at the edge of our seats and we still think about the film three months after having seen it. Also, first time we have preferred a PG - 13 over an R - rated film.    

Modern sexist films

When we say modern, we mean movies that have come out in the 2000's and after. These films have tropes about women that really shouldn't exist in this day and age, the worst offenders being those from 2010's onwards, because by now people really should know better. These are our picks, so naturally we've taken those that annoy and anger us the most. The order depends on when the film was made and how much it offends us. 


1. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010). First of all, the woman's only role in this movie is to be a prize to this guy she doesn't even know. Even worse, she does get to know him, but then in the end all of her memories of him are erased and everything she went through to save everyone, is made redundant. Way to write sexism into, not just the story, but the very core of your story. This is one of those rare instances where we really would have preferred she died over the outcome where she lived.  She would've made a difference and would've at the very least died of her own volition.

1. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017). We had to share the top spot, because both of these movies are equally offensive. We can't believe this film was made in 2017. They have literally removed all of the original myth's female characters. Instead of having an array of very powerful and diverse women that they had in the original story, all the women in this film are there either to die or be kidnapped. Their purpose is solely to motivate the men in the story. It was a painful experience to watch, especially since Jenni is such a big fan of the original Arthur legend. 

3.  Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014). God, this one was infuriating! Because we had actually started to like Black Widow in The Winter Soldier - she was competent with flexible morals, you know, like a spy, and all her interaction with a character who is complete opposite of her added some actual intrigue to her character. And this was accomplished without fabricating  a forced love story. Then Joss Whedon decided to throw all of that "useless" character building out the window, make her a damsel in distress, add a love story that comes right out of the fucking blue (and feels so cringeworthy) and worst of all, makes her barren. Because after all, a uterus is all that women are. And no, Joss Whedon, you are not forgiven in making the dude infertile as well. That was just some bullshit manoeuvring in order to forcefully connect Banner and Black Widow. It's insulting.

4. Robin Hood (2010). Here we have an example of the strong-independent-woman trope, aka a female character who the film shows is capable of taking care of herself but in the end seems to forget all those skills she had and has to be saved by the guy. Also, she has little to no personality, which, granted, plagues pretty much everyone else in this movie, too. 

5. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). We will write about both this and the 3rd one more extensively later, but when we watched these again we knew both the second and third films had to go on this list. In a nutshell, Èowyn is one of our favourite literary characters ever, and these movies completely annihilated her. Instead of being a cold-blooded fearless warrior, she's a silly lovelorn teenager. The reason why this is higher, is because of the motherfucking cooking scene in the extended version. It's the worst. 

6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). They turned one of the coolest scenes in the entire book trilogy into a hurried and anti-climactic short fight.  They reduced Èowyn's badass character into a scaredy-cat. It's fine if that's how somebody was originally written, however, Èowyn was not. Plus, she totally should've had steel armour on her.

7. Spider-Man 2 (2004).  We've already written about Mary Jane in another post, so no need to delve into why we find this movie annoying. Though, to be fair, the men in these Spider-Man films aren't a lot better. 

8. Passengers (2016). The premise of this film was actually quite interesting. If they had followed through, it might've made an interesting movie. We just find it hard to believe that someone would forgive, and worse, still want to be with an asshole who lied to you to get into your pants ('cause he lonely, hey) and basically stole your whole life from you. Doesn't make the female character very relatable to us and makes the love story more than a little toxic. Again, if it was written with that in mind, we wouldn't have a problem. It's all about the framing.

9. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005). These movies in general are so bad that we're surprised only this one made it here. But unlike in the previous two pointless outings, in this one the female character does absolutely nothing except walk around barefoot and pregnant (though we do think her clothes in the second film are beyond ridiculous - she looks like she's working at a seedy strip club instead of the senate). Her only role is to give birth and then die. And don't even get us started on the whole weepy "don't go breaking my heart" - routine. We await for the day when male writers realize that pregnant women aren't invalids.

10. Jurassic World (2015). This movie fails particularly in comparison to the original. It's pretty astonishing that a movie from 1993 is less sexist than a film from 2015. The trope of the uptight woman and chill dude does not work in this installment, feels terribly forced and doesn't add anything to their respective characters. They can't all be Leia and Han. And why would anyone in their right mind wear high heels when walking through a forest?!?!?

11. Troy (2004). Jesus, this movie. This is the real Stockholm Syndrome if you ask us. Your captor is not a rapist like those other dudes, so obviously you fall in love with him. None of the women in this story really matter, except Helen of Troy who is basically blamed for the whole war. Otherwise this is a super forgettable movie.

12. Frozen (2013). It's supposed to be all about female empowerment, but one can't help but notice the inconsistencies while watching. Elsa's story is fine, but Anna...ugh. Her life basically revolves around men, and even the ending where she supposedly grew up and did it all for her sister, she still gotta have some arm-candy. We don't want films where men are treated the same way women have been treated for centuries. That's not female empowerment, that's payback. And this film contradicts itself - they say that love at first sight doesn't exist, but then try to fool us into thinking that love at first day does. We mean, it's no different from your usual Disney love story, but when they went out of their way to emphasize how ridiculous it is to fall in love so fast they undermine their own story when exactly that happens in this film.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of a Good Setup

We have been meaning to write about these films ever since we started this blog. We have an unpopular opinion when it comes to Peter Jackson's rendition of this masterpiece of a novel. A myriad of people would cite these films to be among their favourites and might even claim that they are the best film trilogy ever made. We might ruffle some feathers here. You have been warned. 

First of all, we would just like to say (before anyone crucifies us) that we're not such puritans that we can't handle any deviation from the source material. We've been around the block enough to understand that books and movies use a different language. Some things in books need a fundamental change in order to work on screen. All of the adaptations of books we love to film have done that, successfully so. That is why we like them. However, we don't comprehend the argument that you should always separate the book from the movie. When it was announced that these movies were going to be made, which fan of the books would have gone in with zero expectations and thinking that this is probably not going to be like the books that I worship at all? Particularly when the books are so universally loved and famous, plus this is the first time they have properly been adapted, one would expect more faithfulness. Especially towards the characters. Anyway, we'll return to the whining and bitching when writing about the next two movies. 

Also, if you haven't noticed by now, we tend to be rather obsessive about things we like. Other people have religion and politics, we have entertainment.

Watching the first again, we have to backtrack most of our previous disdain and criticism of this one.  It's a pretty damn good adaptation and a well executed piece of cinema. We have quibbles and we'll get to them later, but all in all, as a whole it works. This will be the shortest "review" of the three as we actually enjoy the film. Let's just do the simple pros and cons.

Pros: Number one has to be Viggo. The man was born to play Aragorn. His character is definitely at his best in The Fellowship and every choice they made with his character works in the film. We don't take issue with the casting and most of them are really good. The exteriors: the costumes, the sets, the locations, music - all of them are amazing and breathtaking. Even some of the outdated CGI doesn't bother us as much as it used to. That is because the story is held together very well and manages to stay coherent. They chose the correct parts to cut from the book that wouldn't have translated well to the screen or that didn't have relevance to the main storyline. Neither the story nor the characters are fundamentally different from the book. There are changes and some of them do bother us, but for the most part the changes were for the better both character and storywise. We especially appreciated that they took more of the Lúthien approach (who is truly one of the few better female characters from Tolkien) to Arwen's character.

Cons:   The major one has to be some of the changes in Frodo's character. Most of it has to do with what we call Ring porn. It isn't as bad in this one as it is in the subsequent films, though. He's less mature and knowledgeable than he's supposed to be. That renders him more helpless than we as viewers like. In the book Frodo is resolute and resourceful. Here he has no effect on anything, literally the only thing he gets to decide is to carry the Ring. It's not a huge impediment to liking his character or enjoying the film. Yet. Couple of grumbles about Arwen. The drawing of the sword, which is not a problem in and of itself. It is made completely obsolete and feels like a slap in the face because of what follows in the next two movies. We do have to nitpick, why the hell would you draw a sword in the first place when you have magic that can sweep away your enemies in an instant? The one that annoys us the most is but a moment. It's that demure and deferential look that she has when the fellowship is departing. You are an ancient being with infinite wisdom. What the fuck are you acting like a shy school girl for? It is truly the beginning of her infantilization. The few brief moments of Hollywood sentimentality, which are completely out of place in Tolkien's world, are just that, brief (for now). 

Unfortunately, the sequels don't live up to the setup. All of the factors that work here are almost completely undone in the next two. More to follow... 

Pick of the month

Silence (2016, Martin Scorsese)

It's weird to have to recommend Scorsese. We all know that Scorsese + religion should be an interesting combination. It's criminal how under the radar this film went. The premise is quite simple; two jesuit priests go to Edo period Japan. Famously the period when Japan rejected any outside influences. So some brutal persecution follows (take note Pureflix, this is what real religious persecution entails). It's not simplified though, particularly when you know the destruction/colonization that many Western Christian nations practise(d). 

It's not a look at Japanese/Western relations, but the film is a close examination on faith and doubt. It's an intimate story and not really connected to history per se. If you are someone who thinks that there is no room for doubt in faith, this film will be a very difficult piece to process. We thought it would be the perfect work to recommend to watch for Easter. 

We especially love Scorsese's understanding and sympathy for the Judases. It was already apparent in The Last Temptation of Christ. Here, it seems, he has even more affinity with Judas. Even when we were children growing up Mormon, being taught that the man was wicked, evil, under the influence of Satan and even beyond redemption, we couldn't help but take pity on him. When you read The New Testament, it's a lot more nuanced than what is being taught in Sunday school. 

Not only is the content of the film glorious, the cinematography is stunning. Oh, and this is definitely the role of a religious person for which Andrew Garfield should have been nominated. Maybe if Hacksaw Ridge had been directed by someone more subtle. All of the performances are great in this movie. We're slightly upset that the wonderful Japanese actors don't get credit in the posters the same way. Shame on you, Hollywood. 

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Curse you, manbun!

Movie musical pieces

This will be a list of our personal favourite movie musical songs. This was hard to make, and we had to leave several of our favourites off to keep it succinct. Honourable mentions go to Grease, Prince of Egypt, Wizard of Oz , West Side Story and pretty much every other Disney animation.


1. Heaven's Light/Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. You have to listen to these two together in order to experience the full impact. One of Menken's best and definitely the best villain song ever.

 


















2. Beauty & the Beast from Beauty & the Beast.  This is a shared place because we just couldn't make a decision. This is a classic and deservedly won an Oscar for best song.

 















2. Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins. We never saw this one until we were adults, so it doesn't really have any nostalgic value for us. However, the music is great, in particular this song. It's difficult to listen to this without welling up.

 















4. I Dreamed a Dream from Les Misérables. Say what you will of this adaptation, Anne Hathaway really knocked it out of the park in this one. We can't believe she's our favourite Fantine. This is one of the few scenes in the whole movie where the live-singing actually works. 

 















5. Johanna from Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street.  We don't much care for this rendition of the musical, but the original music is so great that even this version sounds good. The main actors aren't really up to the mark, but the minor characters have some pipes, which is why we chose this version of the song, and not the Quartet which we prefer from the musical.

 















6. I Wonder from Sleeping Beauty. It's Tchaikovsky. Do we need to give any further explanation?

 















7. Devant le Garage from Umbrellas of Cherbourg. This is a beautiful and bittersweet melody, just like the film itself. It's a classic.

 
 













8. My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music. We liked this song the best when we were kids. Today we really like all of them, but this holds a special place in our hearts.

 















9. Lies from Once. This is our only completely diegetic musical here. So, obviously the music is more pop than classic musical arrangement pieces. This would be our personal choice from the film.

10. Heaven On Their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar. If it was the concept album, it'd obviously be Gethsemane and would be much higher. But since we absolutely wanted to have a song from this composition, we went with the best performance in the film.

 















11. City of Stars from La La Land. This is a really simple tune, but it's so damn effective. We wish we could like the movie as much as we love the soundtrack.

 














12. Jack's Lament from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The whole song is just sung so expressively that we can't help but love it.