The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie, 2013, Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Starring Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, films based on toys were made slightly differently than how they are today. In a world of Pokemon 2000, Bratz the Movie and Barbie of Swan Lake, the emphasis was most definitely on marketing the brand, kiddiewinks forcing their poor parents to watch under-budgeted and over-hyped feature length adverts for a new piece of plastic which would be most likely forgotten about in a week or so (I should know, I was one of those kiddiewinks. Sorry about that Mum). 

But then Transformers happened. Despite being too long, too enamoured with the military and somehow made giant CGI robots hitting each other dull, it coined a baffling amount of money and changed the expectation and aesthetic of toy films. Gone are the days of sloppy animation and short running times, now films like GI Joe and Battleship have budgets in the hundreds of millions and massive set pieces which have little to nothing to do with the toy they’re selling you.  Seriously, GI Joe 2 blew up all of London, which itself is quickly becoming a trend (what’s wrong with London, movies? Don’t you like the bikes or something?) They’re also overwhelmingly cynical, trying to hide their toy origins with whole scale destruction and strangely dour plots. Toy movies are indistinguishable from the rest of Hollywood action, any spark of genius whittled away to nothing to make the toy fit the mould.  

  

Yay, millions are dead and the entire country’s

infrastructure and soul has been destroyed! Go GI Joe! 

So when a massively budgeted film about Lego was announced for a Valentine’s Day release, I was surprised to see how much people truly loved it. Mark Kermode made it his film of the week, my Facebook feed was littered with gushing reviews; even the man in Starbucks demanded that I see it that day. And after watching it and needing two weeks to digest it fully, I can finally say with thoughtful conviction:

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS MOVIE ROCKS!

Ahhhhhh! It’s so damn good!

Ahem.

Directed by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs maestros Chris Miller and Phil Lord, The Lego Movie seems to have a real debt not to Transformers, but to Aardman, its relentless charm coming from a real passion for film making and the medium they’ve chosen. Though it’s totally computer animated, it always looks like Lego, the way that Aardman films always look like plasticine. It appears that the film’s one rule is that it must always be made of Lego, right down to the flames, background buildings and crashing waves. It may sound cheap, but the effect is a brilliant, immersive and three dimensional one.

But don't try an recreate this at home, it'll only lead to heartbreak and alcohol

Its endlessly creative use of the medium to builds an entire Lego universe, encompassing the old with the new with gleeful abandon. Looking around, the only bits of Lego I have in my house are the Wii games for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Lego has evolved with its core audience of children (and unemployed graduates, apparently) to keep a sense of play and creation at the heart of its brand in an iPad world. And The Lego Movie totally understands this, showing Superman, Darth Vader, Batman and Gandalf alongside unlicensed characters like Space Guy and Construction Worker Man. Original characters like President Business (voiced by Will Ferrell in one of his better roles of late) and Vitruvius (a brilliantly cast Morgan Freeman) fit so well in with this madcap array of famous faces it’s hard to imagine Lego itself without them.

It is an antidote to the super serious and boring toy films of recent years; it’s full of background gags in a way that reminded me of Monty Python, before those jokes became tired from out of context use by nerds who think parroting one-liners is a decent replacement for a sense of humour. It also gently reminds people that whilst it is possible to fully delight in children’s toys and films, taking those things away and obsessing over them to the point where you yourself can find no fun in them anymore is probably not healthy. Or interesting. So I’m not going to talk about the flaws in the film (but the ending is a bit iffy, somewhat implying that girls will always ruin the boys fun, always) and I’m not going to search for great insight in the minute details. All I’ll say now is that it’s massively bonkers, enormously good fun and you’re guaranteed to leave the cinema with a huge grin on your face, singing Everything Is Awesome with only a trace of irony.

Everything is awesome indeed.

Frozen

Frozen, 2013, Disney. Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Starring Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Santino Fontana.

In amongst the film awards upheaval this week, with Emma Thompson missing out on her Oscar nomination, 12 Years a Slave ruining my prediction that Gravity would win everything at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA’s continuing to make people scratch their heads with their definition of a ‘British’ film ( it seems like if the director’s grandma went to Edinburgh once, the film is deemed as British as afternoon drinking), there’s one film in one category which no one is betting against. Yep, Frozen will win Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, and it’s been a long time coming for everyone’s favourite corporation, Disney.

Because Disney have never won an Animation Feature award, a hole in their trophy cabinet that must have been noticed by more than a few board members. Since the category debuted in 2001, there have been well deserved winners (can a girl get a hell yeah for Nick Park and Peter Lord for Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit?) and... Not so deserving winners (Happy Feet? Seriously?) but never a Disney Animation winner. It could be because their films haven’t been that great (they did give an award to Rango though, so maybe not), or they were always in Pixar’s long shadow, but this year the stars have aligned and their magic sparkle dust has fallen onto Frozen, since it seems to be reminding everyone of all the good things we love Disney for, as well as being an interesting, exciting and overall modern film about a relationship which just isn’t explored in mainstream cinema.

Frozen’s greatest selling point is its artistry; the whirling snow looks real, the settings and background fully formed and engaged with the characters. Disney spent years getting the technology to a place where their CGI films look as good as Pixar’s, but without losing that style and cinematography which defines their films, and it does a rare thing where the 3D adds a dimension to the overall feel of the film, rather than take away from it. 

In short, it looks bloomin’ gorgeous and it sounds bloomin’ gorgeous too. It’s got Broadway running through its veins, with songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez of Avenue Q and Book of Mormon fame. Both of those shows are said to be the funniest in Broadway history, something which shines through with In Summer, an ode to heat sang by a magical snowman, and Love is an Open Door, an upbeat, reggae pop song which is the precursor to a spur of the moment marriage proposal. Let it Go is Frozen's anthem, a celebration of freedom from fear sang on top of a literal mountain. Idina Menzel sings from the depths of her soul, early doubts that her voice doesn’t fit the character swept away by the second chorus. 

  
Just try getting this song out of your head. I double dare you.

However, the film’s secret weapon is its story, and here is where this new Disney moves on from Classic and Renaissance Disney. Two princesses, Elsa and Anna, live in the idyllic Nordic kingdom of Arundel, but Elsa’s ice powers endanger Anna, and so she locks herself away for fear of what people will do to her if they find out how powerful she really is. Elsa accidentally reveals herself though, and flees Arundel, leaving it in perpetual winter. Only Anna can bring Elsa back and with her, the summer. But there’s something else going on – that spontaneous engagement between Anna and Prince Hans (a dashing sort who has ‘Disney Prince’ written all over him) is rejected by Elsa, because hello, they’ve spent one evening together. Even though Anna and Hans spend just as much time as Cinderella and her Prince do, this injection of reality jolts you awake – are Disney really saying that love at first sight is.... unlikely? Ill advised even? Blimey, they really have moved on.

However, the best thing about Frozen is Elsa and Anna’s relationship. Elsa is cool and confident in her own skin, whilst Anna is flighty and unsure of herself as a woman in power. They laugh, they fight, they stand up to and for each other, they act exactly like sisters do. Just think about it - when was the last time you actually saw two sisters on film and they not be bitter enemies?

Every other mainstream film, when they show sisters on screen, take the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? path, the elder usually insanely jealous of the younger’s looks/boyfriend/Pokemon cards – not so with Frozen! Elsa genuinely wants the best for her naive little sister and Anna’s song Do you Wanna Build a Snowman? shows that despite growing up and apart, she still goes to her big sister for help. It’s not just refreshing to see a loving, thoughtful portrayal of sisterhood on screen - it’s revolutionary.

The best kind of revolutions always start with plaits.

 So watch Frozen. Watch it because it’s funny, exciting, beautiful and vintage Disney. But watch it because the number crunchers will see how much money it makes and, maybe, Hollywood won’t be so scared of portraying a loving relationship between sisters, and just maybe, there will be more of them in the next few years. We need more Frozens in our collective cinema diet, and there’s a glimmer of hope that when it wins that Oscar, we’ll get them. 

Gravity

Gravity, Esparanto Filmoj, Heyday Films, 2013, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Starring Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris.

Watch the trailer here:

As of today (12^th December, 2013) Gravity is the frontrunner for the Golden Globes Best Picture award, the first indication of Oscar glory come next February. This is incredible: it’s sci-fi, it’s short (90 minutes! I’ve had showers that have lasted longer!) and it only has three actors, one of whom isn’t even on screen. 2001 this is not, but all this falls to the wayside because Gravity is amazing, cool and all of those things everyone has been saying.

For a start, the visuals are staggering. Alfonso Cuarón said that he built the film around an image of an astronaut adrift in space, free falling into the void of the universe and it shows. Each shot in space feels massive and terrifying. Our heroes Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) look both tiny and huge, the usual frame of reference for size gone as the camera pulls away and moves to within inches of their faces. Bullock's face fills the frame in one shot – in another, she’s just another dot of debris. You know that famous image of Earth from Voyager, taken billions of miles away? Remember how our entire planet is just a speck of dust and we are all just transient as we move alone through the universe? That’s how Gravity makes you feel.

Though at least us Earth-bound folks get to move alone together  

Of course, none of us will ever be quite as alone as our main character. After a series of catastrophic events, Ryan Stone has to travel 400 miles downwards to Earth before she’s safe, cut off from Houston and her fellow astronauts as she navigates wrecked space stations and abandoned escape pods. Though George Clooney is all Buzz Lightyear, Sandra Bullock as a rookie astronaut shows real emotional depth as someone who is truly having the worst day ever, dealing with no oxygen, fires in space and limited knowledge of how to fly these hunks of metal away from danger.

All this existentialism doesn’t real give you a true feel of Gravity though, which is more like Alton Towers than anything else – I’d be surprised if the DVD chapters aren’t just called Nemesis, Oblivion, Rita and Air. The camera doesn’t cut for upwards of ten minutes, giving each take and each disaster a quality of an actual roller coaster, with breathing space for character moments acting as the wait before you get onto the next ride. This means that it does kind of have the emotional depth of a roller coaster as well, the film slowing down to reveal some hidden truths about our protagonists which don’t really impinge on the story that much. But it’s nice to have a film pace itself in between massive set pieces (Michael Bay should take note) and it gives you a chance to catch your breath as well, which is nice.

It’s an unashamed thrill, and from the first five minutes it doesn’t let you go until the house lights come up. If you haven’t already, check it out on the biggest 3D screen you can; it really is as good as everyone’s saying it is. Roll on the Oscar season; it’s going to be out of this world.

Oh come on, I’m allowed one pun!

My Micky Mouse Degree Part 2: The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid, Disney, 1989. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. Starring Jodie Benson, Samuel E. Wright, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Pat Carroll and Kenneth Mars.

This film was my life for roughly six months whilst I did my dissertation. I watched it about 50 times, listened to the soundtrack endlessly and immersed myself so completely into the merchandising that I dreamt I was a mermaid several times. Yeah, I was not great company, to the point where my sister, who loves Disney and who’s favourite film has been The Lion King since she was two, quietly pleaded that I might, y’know, want to shut up about the damn The Little Mermaid for two seconds please (unfortunately, this was two weeks before the deadline, so that wasn’t going to happen. Sorry for that sis). But, throughout this, I didn’t even once consider that I could even find the film less than amazingly wonderfully beautiful. But I very quickly became aware that there are some who either don’t care for The Little Mermaid, or even actively dislike it. So this blog will show how they are super wrong and why this film is awesome.

First, the story is one of the tightest ones Disney has ever come up with. Human obsessed mermaid Ariel saves and falls in love with Prince Eric, and since such an action is forbidden by her own father King Triton, she runs away to make a Faustian pact with the Sea Witch Ursula so she herself can become human. This story must have been inspired by Vladimir Propp’s 1928 Morphology of the Folktale, a blueprint for all Western fairy tales. If you watch the film with Propp’s book in your hand (like I did, several times), you can tick off the plot points as they go, and not a second of film is wasted or sidetracked from the story. This is a massive improvement on the likes of Cinderella, which though gorgeous, spends a good eternity and a half messing around with mice and cats, which serves nothing expect the fact that it’s kind of cute. Which is okay, but The Little Mermaid has epic storms and a properly satisfying ending.

Though Hans Christian Andersen’s original Mermaid story is haunting and angst-ridden, it doesn’t really have much of a plot, and no villain to speak of. Somehow, everyone is passive and there isn’t very much to say about the characters – they don’t even have names, just roles they fulfil. Even the Sea Witch acts as a fair minded businessman who warns the Mermaid exactly what she’s in for; nothing is surprising and everything is heartbreaking. So Literature zealots who act as if the Disney Company slapped their grandmother because they changed things, I disagree that the changes made were for the worse; actually, they’re probably for the better. The Sea Witch has agency and causes actual conflict, King Triton has a story arc which turns him from a bigoted, scared patriarch to a caring, selfless father figure and Ariel is both victim and hero, an active character who makes mistakes (really stupid mistakes which only a teenager would think of) but is a fully developed character who earns her right to a happy ending (seriously, listen to the soundtrack). 

This isn’t to say the film is just an exercise in plotting and story development. Nope, it’s Disney’s first Broadway musical, thanks to Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Not only did they structure the songs within the story (something which is surprisingly rare pre- Mermaid for Disney) but they gave each character their own flavour and style, making the soundtrack a varied, awesome extravaganza of what Disney mixed with Broadway could do. Ursula has the big drag queen moment in Poor Unfortunate Souls, where she gets to glam up and wig out to this massive rousing chorus, pumping up to the huge finale –watch it again, it’s really a remarkable mix of animation and music.

Sebastian is the only character who has two separate songs (though Ariel sings several times, she only sings the motif from Part of Your World) but both of them work together as their own little story arc. So Under the Sea is this showstopper of a song, which is really a desperate plea for Ariel to get back to reality and save Sebastian’s shell. Everyone’s having this great calypso time, all the fishes are loving it:

I love this bit. Look at all the fishes watching the chorus line of lobsters! 
They’re not in the show, they’re all just like, ‘hey cool, street theatre!’
 

But Ariel has her back to it, and obviously this big number isn’t working for her.

Ariel: ‘Meh, calypso oysters, seen it before, don’t care’

But, when Sebastian starts looking out for Ariel and helping her, he sings Kiss the Girl, a pop ballad which uses steel drums to connect it to the Caribbean calypso, but also uses violins and a tiny dash of electric piano (the scourge of 90’s Disney pop, but used sparingly and well here) to invoke a romantic, quiet atmosphere where true love can blossom. Sebastian’s gone from creating loud, fun but ultimately hollow set pieces to loving, thoughtful music which serves his audience of Ariel much better. Marvin Gaye wishes he was as smooth as Sebastian.

There are so many other things about The Little Mermaid which are worth serious, in-depth analysis, but there’s just one more thing I think needs clearing up. And that’s Prince Eric’s apparent blandness.

Hi guys!

 So I’ve heard many people complain that this chap is the weak link in the film and that after all Ariel goes through, she’s pinned her hopes and dreams on a guy who just seems... nice. Not interesting, but... nice. The problem with this is that it devalues Ariel’s struggle for her human freedom, making it seem like she’s given up everything and everyone for a guy who’s only merits are his castle and dog.

This is wrong though, since Eric was actually quite revolutionary in terms of Disney Princes. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty both have once scene each with their Princes, and Snow White’s guy doesn’t even have a name, he’s just Prince Charming. Cinderella's Prince isn’t even dynamic enough to search the kingdom for her himself, he just gets married to her at the end, with no thought given to his hopes and dreams at all.

'Hey, you look kind of familiar. Welp, guess that 

means we’re in love'

Not so with Eric! After he’s rescued from his ship, it’s implied that he’s spent days wandering the beaches of his kingdom, looking for the woman who saved his life. He’s made up his mind – he’s going to find her and marry her, because he’s a stupid teenager like Ariel and that’s what they do. But see how he’s actually looking for this mystery woman? And not just passing it on to his butler like he would his shopping list? He’s an active character! But not only that, he realises that the awesome woman he’s been spending all of his free time with might be better even than a mystery, life saving lady, and he falls in love with Ariel, not the elusive lady of hotness he had his heart set on. He’s actually changed his mind about marriage, based on someone else’s personality – do you know how often that happened in Disney films before The Little Mermaid? Zero times!

If you haven’t seen it since you were a kid, I’d watch The Little Mermaid again and appreciate it for the superior piece of filmmaking it is. If you still don’t like it, Well, I guess that means more merchandise and t-shirts for the sane amongst us. It’s up to you really. Take us away, Sebastian!