We've made it quite clear in the past that we are total couchpotatoes and this post will solidify it for anyone still in doubt. Because we're pretty sure most movie critics wouldn't come to the same conclusion as we, when comparing these two films. These two were probably the most anticipated movies for us to go see in 2017 and since they're both musicals, the comparison came naturally.
La La Land
Pros: The best thing about this movie is its music. Hands down, best original music since Once. It's really simple, but so effective. Also, the cinematography is gorgeous. We loved the costumes. All the external factors are just right, nothing is amiss. Okay, some might disagree, but we thought that Emma Stone was pretty phenomenal. Her voice, her look, her everything just fit perfectly. And personally, we loved her low, husky and gentle voice. We like distinctive voices (after all, our favourite singers are Kate Bush and David Bowie). We can't deny that the movie uses film language expertly. The director clearly had a vision for the style and how he wanted the film to look.
Cons: The problems we have with this film spring entirely from the story and the characters, which are the two most fundamental factors for us when deciding whether we like a movie or not. The story suffers from major intertextual dissonance. What they seem to have missed, is that when you reference another creative source, the audience creates a connection with that original source, and they expect it to pay off later in the film. That's how intertextuality works. For the most part, the movie references nostalgic, fluffy, happy-go-lucky, golden age Hollywood musicals, so one would expect those references to pay off somehow. Instead, at the last minute, they decide to take the road of the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which simply does not do because they have not laid the groundwork for that particular pay off. The ending is completely detached from the rest of the film. Also, don't try to frame your selfish protagonists as altruistic. Now, don't get the wrong message, we love selfish characters. But we love them because they are selfish (case in point, Lady Susan in Love&Friendship). We're supposed to believe that the circumstances messed up their relationship when, in fact, they were unwilling to compromise. This leads to another huge issue we have with the movie: the glorification of Hollywood. Essentially, this film really is just a massive hand job to Hollywood. If instead, it had criticized the fact that in order to make a living from creative professions, one needs fame and success... Now that's something we'd want to see. We really, really, really wanted to love this movie. So much.
Beauty and the Beast
Pros: Actors, even Emma Watson, we'll address the autotune later. The cast works really well, even though Luke Evans and Josh Gad probably stand out the best. Again, everything external works, it looks like a musical. Surprisingly, the new songs actually are functional and sound really good, not some random Broadway additions that grate our ears. The new character arcs for Belle's father and Le Fou were refreshing changes. Thankfully the musical arrangements were classical. It's pretty much the original Disney story with some minor alterations. We went in
expecting to hate this film. Everyone knows our love for the original
Disney animation, it's in our top 10 of all movies, not just animation. However, we were able to look at this as a separate entity and not constantly compare it to the animation. 'Cause folks, there's no comparison, you know that.
Cons: That fucking autotune. It must've been some executive who decided that vocal cleanliness was more important than authenticity. It's not. Autotune is an emotion killer, which really doesn't work in a musical. It seems that the director might have been good with actors on set, but production elements like cinematography and editing have not been his strong suits. We wish it had been someone with clear, individual, artistic vision and a flair for the dramatic. Disney had that director, but they wasted him on something as boring and superficial as Cinderella. This definitely would have benefited from Branagh's Shakespearean scale directing. Sigh. The director isn't fluent in film language. There's too much dialogue and not enough silence. They seem to suffer from Nolanism as well. The last big problem we have is that they tried fixing non-existent flaws of the animation. Even students of literature could tell you, the original fairytale does not suffer from Stockholm syndrome. You're supposed to be professional writers, you should know better. Then we have some minor gripes, that don't really bother us, but we want to mention them. Like Mrs. Potts stealing the Beast's line about loving Belle, focusing too much on the servants before the transformation scene and talking about the transformation scene, they totally should have milked it more! It's the pivotal scene in the story!
Comparison: Emma Watson and Ryan Gosling are pretty much equally (not) talented when it comes to singing. Their voices aren't unpleasant nonetheless. Although Emma Stone clearly isn't a singer either, she has natural talent and knows how to use emotion in her voice. La La Land is very aware of Gosling's limitations which is why he sings so little and only in the easy songs. Emma Watson has most trouble delivering in the original songs because you'd need at least a trained musical actor to sing those parts. In the new songs, she's fine, because they're written for her. The rest of the cast can sing so well, that it's not that big of a deal for us. La La Land's use of film language is superior to Beauty and the Beast, but the latter takes the cake in story and characters. As musicals go, we find they both fare equally well. Beauty and the Beast already had a pretty solid story, so all they needed to do was to not screw it up completely. As previously discussed, we found La La Land's story to be fundamentally weaker. In addition, Beauty and the Beast has quite a rich tapestry of minor characters, whereas we could not think of one from La La Land who had any significance for the story. A film is often made better by its minor characters, although occasionally they can steal the protagonists' thunder (like those few moments before the transformation scene in BatB), but they could also have elevated La La Land's story (for example, Mia's husband). Oh, and then there's the covert sexism, which again, is worse in La La Land. Like why does Mia need to be married? Apparently it's still outside the realms of possibility in Hollywood for a single woman not wanting to get back together with their single ex. And you know what, we might have actually liked the film without bringing a useless husband to the story. That is how you should've subverted those Hollywood romances. Now the husband is simply a prop, instead of a compelling minor character that might have brought some depth into the story. The covert sexism in Beauty and the Beast we're willing to forgive more easily as it originates from the animation (plus unsurprisingly, the fairytale is a little sexist - it's a fairytale, people). Covert sexism in this story comes in the form of shifting Belle's character arc from the fairytale to the Beast. The animation was the first to do this, and the movie went with it. But it goes down easier, because it's not trying to be anything more than an unapologetic romance. All in all, both of these films are pretty vapid and while we agree with most critics that La La Land is the better movie overall, we happened to like Beauty and the Beast more. It shocked us too.
Pocahontas (1995)
This is the only Disney renaissance film that we didn't much care for as kids, apart from the music. Remember what we said about Aladdin being slightly racially tone-deaf? Yeah, Pocahontas takes the prize home. It's so much worse. In addition, it commits the ultimate crime for a children's movie - it's boring. For both kids and adults. We don't have a lot of nice things to say about this one. Sorry, all you Pocahontas lovers.
Characters
Pocahontas: she has the same fundamental flaw that each of the film's speaking characters have; she's boring. And it wouldn't be a Disney movie unless they were trying to recycle previous storylines. Pocahontas has exactly the same initial conflict as Belle, being a contrarian in a conformist culture. Also, her obsession with destiny really rubs us the wrong way. It doesn't have anything to do with native beliefs, instead it's more similar to what our Western culture thinks about destiny and supernatural things. She's not an authentic native character. Sure, her design is cool (aside from missing a nose).
John Smith: even Eric has more personality, and we call him Eric the generic! Like what does he learn from his dealings with native Americans? Nothing, he just has the hots for Pocahontas and wants some hanky-panky.
Ratcliffe: there's nothing to say really. He's hands down the worst villain of the renaissance. Even Mulan has a better villain. His motives are so cliché because they have no bearing in the actual story. He has no connection to either of the main characters, and thus is redundant. But the most gross offence is that he embodies all the evils of colonialism. He's the principal evil person - with the other white colonialists/settlers it's just a misunderstanding, folks!
Minor characters: the scenes with the animals make this movie bearable, which is a little ironic since their existence brings tonal dissonance to this exasperatingly serious story. Still, they are definitely the best thing about this film. The relationship between the raccoon and the pug is more believable and enjoyable than the love story with Pocahontas and John Smith.
Story
We came to the conclusion that Twilight must have taken some inspiration from Pocahontas. Where else could you get such wooden characters and "fate brought us together" love story. Despite Aladdin's insensitivity to other cultures, it at least has memorable characters who actually learn some lessons from their journey. No matter how dumb Aladdin got, we still liked him. Can't say the same here. Last but not least, this film wastes the opportunity to go into environmentalism. All you have is a pretty little song from Pocahontas about respecting the nature but not a peep about it afterwards. It's a shame because there aren't really any kids' movies that delve deeply into the conflict between environmentalism and industrialism. This is why the villain is so weak, because he's not believable. It's ridiculous that disposing of one person would somehow result in natives and settlers living in harmony or resolve centuries of exploitation and injustice. That's just too naive, even for Disney.
Miscellaneous
Obviously the music's good, the best part of this fiasco. Disney managed much better with Moana in relation to depicting a non-Western culture. We can't say for sure how accurate it was as we don't know that much about Polynesian cultures, but it definitely felt more sincere.
A while ago we did a list of the worst Austen adaptations and so, here is it's counterpart. We've rated them according to how faithful they are to the source material and also how well they have transferred the novel to the screen. You might think that this list is very monotonous but we are, after all, Austen puritans - which should be obvious since we didn't include Mansfield Park (1999). It's a good movie, but not an adaptation of any Austen novel we've read. Like last time, these are period adaptations, not modernized versions.
1. Pride & Prejudice (1995). DUHH!!!! Did anyone really think we would have anything else as #1? We feel we've talked about this show so much that everyone's feeling sick already. So we'll keep it short and state that this is as close to perfection an adaptation can get. The flaws it has are incredibly minor compared to what it got right. It is the only version where the characters go through the transformations they do in the book.
2. Sense & Sensibility (2008). First of all, the novel is our second favourite from Austen (with Persuasion), so it's quite natural that the series would place higher than the film. You always have more time to explore the themes and represent the characters better than a much shorter movie. Also, since this is a BBC produced series written by Andrew Davies, needless to say it's expertly made. And let's face it - the choice between Dan Stevens and Hugh Grant is an easy one.
3. Emma (2009). Again, this is a mini-series, so obviously there's more time to develop the characters and story and to keep it more faithful to the book. Those who have read the book only once and remember the more light-hearted movie, might have been disappointed by this version since there's more drama than straight-out humour here than one would expect. We, on the other hand, were delighted to finally have the version of Emma onscreen that we know from the novel.
4. Sense & Sensibility (1995). This is as close to perfection as one can get with Austen - on film. Emma Thompson did a superb job of fitting this piece of complex drama to just under two hours. And amazingly, without losing much of the nuance of the book. Also, this rendition has our favourite versions of Colonel Brandon and Willoughby.
5. Emma (1996). This is an example of an adaptation where one has captured the spirit and humour of Austen's work while not necessarily being entirely faithful to its source. For us, the positives outweigh the negatives though, and unlike in Mansfield Park, in Emma the characters and the story remain somewhat similar to the novel. Plus, we have some serious nostalgia for this movie, so that may very well affect our judgement.
6. Love & Friendship (2016). Ok, we have to admit - this film surprised us. The dialogue is so authentically Austen it almost made us weep for joy. Lady Susan, the novella this movie is based on, we thought would be difficult to transfer to screen as it's written in the form of letters. But the screenplay is absolutely brilliant - its sharp wit and dry humour is something one would expect from Austen.
7. Northanger Abbey (2007). This movie is the one that teeters at the border of faithful adaptation and oh-my-god-how-drunk-was-davies-when-he-wrote-this. The biggest problem this film has is that it's produced by ITV - and they are nowhere near as classy as BBC. However, it does not butcher the source material the same way that other ITV Austen productions have done. The main players retain their essential characteristics and the story follows the novel quite closely. There was still room to make Mr. Thorpe creepier, though.
We are well aware that we don't have any version of Persuasion here - but we're waiting for Michael Fassbender to be cast as Captain Wentworth.
After seeing Arrival, we especially wanted to go see Passengers, since we thought that these two films would be pretty compatible. This is actually our first versus - post where the films come from almost the same genre. Sci-fi mixed with romance is something rarely seen, and both of these films fall under this category. It's a straightforward comparison, but in the latter we refer to the previous (which we found the superior movie).
Arrival
This was hands down the best movie we've seen the whole year. So the comparison is going to be a little unfair, since the gap in quality is so apparent. Science fiction often has an element of mystery to it and leaves the viewer pondering philosophical questions. In both of these departments Arrival absolutely delivers. Previously, we haven't been the biggest fans of sci-fi, but this film was everything we would ever want from a science fiction movie. It succeeded in those things that left us disappointed with Interstellar. Mainly the fact that the film lets the viewer make the connections instead of having the plot explained to them like to a little child. It's a visual medium, don't treat it like a book. The device they use to further the story is something we haven't seen used before - at least in mainstream movies. It's a gimmick, but the filmmakers wield it so expertly that it never turns into one of those "surprise!" - plot lines that so many purely plot driven movies indulge in. And the reason we think it works so well, is because of the film's characters. Although it might seem that the movie's premise is larger than life, it's actually quite intimate. For example, while the flash forwards give you the information why the aliens are there, the more important information they reveal is about the main character herself.
We absolutely loved it that the main character was such a grounded character. She was complex and her internal struggles were at the center of the film. None of the minor characters suffer from stereotyping either, though we don't get to know them as thoroughly as we do the protagonist. That is, of course, supporting characters' function. The relationship between Louise and Ian progresses naturally, there's nothing forced in it. You're completely invested in it, and the pay off is both beautiful and bittersweet. The only thing that left us wanting was the music - but since we had seen Sicario, our expectations in that regard wasn't the highest. The sound design was absolutely superb though, and the soundtrack argument is not even a real complaint, we just miss classical music in movies. As pacifists, we appreciated that the film promoted dialogue, diplomacy and communication over warfare and militarization.
Passengers
Dear god, where do we even start from? Some perspective here to begin with, it's not the worst movie we've ever seen, by far! It just pales in comparison to Arrival in all respects. Even the music was better in Arrival, because at least it fits the film's atmosphere and environment. This movie was so 'meh', that we find it hard to focus long enough to write a review. The story was clearly inspired by Sleeping Beauty. More on that later, let's first compare the two. There is no element of mystery in Passengers; the mystery is that something simply malfunctioned. It's too straightforward, which wouldn't be problematic if the rest of the movie was interesting. Namely, the characters and their relationship. Holy fuck, is that boring as hell as well. And creepy. So creepy.
The romance is unbelievable, and that is because it's from a fairytale. Name one fairytale in its original form that is romantic, we dare you. Beauty & The Beast : passive-aggressive guilt tripping. Cinderella : dude is so 'in love' that he sends his servant to find her because obviously he wouldn't recognise her, plus child abuse. The Little Mermaid : the choice between murder or suicide. And finally, Sleeping Beauty : an already married king tries to wake up a pretty girl sleeping, and when she doesn't he rapes her, and she wakes up giving birth to his twins. Lovely, right? That is pretty much the main problem with the romance. The writers had no idea how to address the source material, they probably thought about the "cute" Disney animation (she's Aurora, duh) but didn't realise the implications that come with the story the way they have presented it. The storyline they went for is the original fairytale, ie. the guy is a dick and takes her ability to choose away from her. That premise is actually good, it's simply the execution that lacks depth and understanding which are required to handle this kind of subject matter. Unlike in Arrival the film never addresses the ethical and moral dilemmas of their situation or his actions. Sure, she's mad at him and even beats him up, but all of that is undone by the ending. Because, you know, true love etc. What could have improved the film was that in the end she would've chosen to go back to sleep. Because it was so implausible for her to suddenly forgive him after being so furious for most of the film's duration. The pay off was so unsuitable and underwhelming considering the material. Visuals weren't that bad. The first 10-15 minutes were pretty entertaining. Sigh, what a waste of Michael Sheen.
This is part one of two. Obviously, the second will be about best adaptations. There are plenty of lists floating on the internet that have been devoted to give you the best Austen adaptations. Most of these don't exclude films that were only inspired by Austen's stories. And a lot of these lists, simply put, suck. The main problem seems to be that people assume that Jane Austen is chick lit and thus include on their lists insipid fluff pieces instead of actual adaptations of her work. Since we're puritanical about Austen, we stick to the period. Don't worry though, we will definitely write about productions "inspired" by Austen. This list isn't only about butchering Austen's work, it's that these versions don't even qualify as good or entertaining media for us.
1. Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Of course we abhor this adaptation the most. We really don't feel the need to explain further, since we've already done a pretty detailed account of this abomination. We also considered including BBC's horrific 80's series of Pride & Prejudice, but while it's bad, it's not infuriating enough to land on this list.
2. Sense & Sensibility (1981)
In
the 80's BBC's period drama art was still in its infancy, so if you
really wanted to see a quality production of a period drama, you watched
Merchant & Ivory. This would just be one of those bad theatrical and emotionless 80's productions by BBC that you could simply forget having seen, if it wasn't for a couple of things. Namely, Edward being a total asshole and Marianne almost dies, because, and we're being literal here, she is LOVESICK! What the fuck people who wrote this crap!?!?!??!?!?! This is beyond offensive - it's downright sacrilegious.
3. Mansfield Park (2007)
This film suffers from very poor casting choices. Like, horrendous. Nobody seems to know the part they play in the story, probably because the script is also horrendous. That is the film's biggest issue, 'cause the book itself is Austen's most serious work and no version to date has really given it the magnitude it requires.
4. Emma (1996)
Oh poor Mr. Knightley, what have they done to you???? This is a really clumsy adaptation. Davies adapting Austen doesn't often let you down, but when he does, he really does. ITV might have had something to do with it as well.
5. Northanger Abbey (1987)
These writers must have been high. Jane Austen and the supernatural do not mix. You have Brontë or Montgomery for that. And the music - God! Some new age crap trying to imitate Enya - this is not a fairytale, folks. The whole point of the story is that none of that fairytale/gothic romance shit is real. Plus what kind of a weirdo kisses with their eyes open onscreen? That just does not happen.
The Lion King (1994)
This is the last film of the Disney renaissance which we religiously watched numerous times as kids. These four movies pretty much defined our childhood (along with Star Wars, Aliens, Back to the Future and Die Hard). As with the previous three, The Lion King's beginning will suck you in with its animation and music. This film has more problems with its story and some characters rather than tone or ignorance about minorities and non-Western cultures.
Characters
Simba: He has a promising character arc that will disappoint you. Simba doesn't annoy us as much as Aladdin. However, unlike Aladdin, Simba's promised personal development goes nowhere. He's better as a child, because immaturity suits children more and is completely unattractive in any adult.
Scar: Starts off as a great villain. The song is good, the attitude is good, it's all good! Until he's in power, and that's when he becomes uninteresting. He's just a whiny bitch, and not even a good one. He pales in comparison to Disney's Prince John.
Mufasa: The best dad Disney's had so far, so of course he has to go.
Nala: She has a distinctive personality as a child, but once she turns into an adult, that personality seems to have been completely eradicated. Her function annoys us even more than that of Jasmine. Although Jasmine did nothing, at least she had personality. Nala is shown to be physically more capable than Simba, but in the end, she is nothing more than emotional support for him. Frustratingly, even that support has really no influence on him, one way or the other. No, you need a dude to return from the dead as a ghost to do that.
Minor characters: What makes this movie is its minor characters, much like Genie makes Aladdin. They are fuckin' hilarious. Timon & Pumba are our favourite cartoon skeptics. Rafiki, the random cryptic baboon who can do martial arts. Who wouldn't love that? The minor characters are funny because of their characteristics and interactions with others, not because they constantly allude to modern phenomena, which is probably the reason why the humour is more balanced than in Aladdin. Aladdin does take more chances with its humour, though.
Story
To this day the Lion King's story must be the most ambitious and epic undertaking when compared to other Disney movies. The idea is downright mythological in scope, and for the most part it works quite well. Apart from the last conversation between Simba and Scar, which is where the film gets a flat tire. Because that discussion alone destroys the whole character arc they had been trying to build with Simba. Way to cheat your audience out of a satisfying ending, Disney. We thought Simba was about to prove that he had learnt an important lesson, but then you decided to simply let him off the hook. It wasn't integral for his character development to learn the truth about his father's death. We would argue that he would have been a better character without that scene. In addition, we wouldn't have that ridiculous cheesefest 90's slow motion fight sequence. And by all means, show children that their friends won't stand by them when they've made a mistake. There are some other incongruities as well, like the relationship of Simba and Nala as adults. They just swore eternal love to each other (via the sappiest Disney love song ever) and then right after they get into a massive fight. Boy, that's a promising start for a relationship. True love, eh?
Miscellaneous
So Mufasa's polygamous, right? 'Cause he totally has a frigging harem of lionesses surrounding him. Guess that comes with the job description (or that they're animals). 19th century Mormons would have loved this movie, just sayin'. Clearly, Disney wasn't ready to address that aspect any deeper in the film, though. It does bring a somewhat disturbing perspective to the equation when Simba says about Nala: I can''t marry her, she's my friend. Apparently, Mufasa left his son in the dark about certain things. Ooops! For once, Hans Zimmer delivers with the original score and Elton John's pop music works much better than bland Broadway pop.
