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Category: Walt Disney Studios

Secretariat Wins Over The Social Network in Depicting Capitalism

7 October 2010

The Social Network

While the highly touted Facebook film, The Social Network, is the technically superior movie, Disney’s tale of a great American horse and the owner that took him to historic Triple Crown success in 1973, Secretariat, is more enjoyable. The former is written by pretentious Aaron Sorkin (NBC’s The West Wing) and directed by the uneven David Fincher (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). The latter, which opens this Friday, is directed by writer Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, The Man in the Iron Mask) and it is choppy, cliched and predictable. Both movies offer a clear perspective on what it means to make money; while Social Network holds capitalism in contempt, Secretariat exhibits a thorough grasp of capitalism in practice.

As the jaded Social Network opens with breathless banter between two cynics (including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg) who yap at one another like prissy show dogs at trial, one pivotal character delivers a derisive line about “being the best you can be” that comes to define the picture. To have Fincher and Sorkin show and tell it, Facebook and all social media are an immature extension of a whiz kid’s neurotic snit and creativity is nothing more than a construct devised by hacks. While it is true that Zuckerberg’s hacking at Harvard led to what is now arguably the biggest Web site on earth, with more hits than Google, this trite, obvious version of his success is impossible to accept as credible. With everyone speaking in that droning mainstream media/dominant intellectual monotone, set to a sparse piano theme, Social Network is like My Dinner with Andre on steroids. Success in business is an accident, Sorkin argues, or something close to anarchy, which comes in random, reactionary spurts of nothing in particular. Sure, one has to be smart, know some facts and punch some code, but, really, there isn’t much more to creating a billion-dollar enterprise than being an unethical geek who scrapes and claws his way to the top like Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls, which this picture unwittingly evokes, with Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo as the clean-cut Barbara Parkins brunette. Only it’s less sympathetic. I hated the characters from the beginning, I wanted to escape Harvard ‘s dull, lifeless den of depravity (the college’s students are portrayed as a bunch of brainy but vacant sluts and brainy but vacant geeks and jocks), and I don’t believe a word of it. If you regard Facebook as an empty vessel of narcissism and meaningless discourse, The Social Network validates your viewpoint. If you think that, like early television programming, social media is an exciting industry rich with possibilities, you will be instantly disconnected.

By contrast, the heavily laden Secretariat is inspiring. Placing at its center a woman named Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane), who brought the best racehorse in the world into existence, this variation on Places in the Heart (1983) has too much to say and not enough of it about what made the horse an incredible achievement by man. Ms. Lane is at her best as a hard woman who’s all business at a time when Daddy’s little girl grew up to be a housewife, not a horse owner. Secretariat, for all its Hollywood oversimplifications, understands ownership. Opening in 1969, with hippies crawling all over the country like bedbugs infesting the civilized world, Penny is like First Lady Pat Nixon, a simple Western wife and mother baking cakes for the kids. When her dad (Scott Glenn) dies, she returns to the horse farm where she grew up, and, suddenly jarred into the realization that she had once wanted more of life than motherhood, and feeling out of alignment while visiting her childhood home, Penny boldly stakes her claim. Showing leadership skills right out of former BB&T Chairman John Allison’s principles of leadership, she takes the reins, pardon the pun, asserting that work is good for grief, that owning horses is her business and that life means having “the will to win if you can and to live with it if you can’t”. Upon Secretariat’s birth, she assembles the team, which includes a down and out trainer played by John Malkovich, and proceeds to instill honor, trust and idealism in those around her. The racing scenes are thrilling (and, having seen the victories live on television as a youth, I can attest that Secretariat brings back the glory), and Diane Lane is brighter and better than ever in the role of a brave capitalist who insists on making things right when she’s been wrong and being a rational example to her husband and children, and not just to her daughters, that offers an antidote to the scum that was building up in 1973. Secretariat’s breathtaking win was what we needed then, more so now, and Secretariat, with its arrogant owner trading in shares and vowing to her men that “we are going to live rejoicing every day” and cashing in during a glamorous ballroom dance, captures the glory of achieving one’s values. Wallace’s and Disney‘s Secretariat, one of ousted chairman Dick Cook‘s last projects, is a winner.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios

3 Movies: Mao’s Last Dancer, Tillman Story, Charlie St. Cloud

10 September 2010

This summer, I saw three pictures about youths cut down in the prime of life, a fitting theme on the eve of the date of the worst attack (so far) in American history. Disney’s Charlie St. Cloud, starring Zac Efron, is a middling fantasy depicting one young man’s grief recovery. Though not a complete waste of time, this ponderous, poorly directed film, based on a book, is stuffed with sudden close-ups, gaping plot holes, and a lot of cheesy scenes and inside jokes. Efron’s character never sustains enough interest, Kim Basinger as his mom is pointlessly sidelined early in the movie, and, with elements of Ordinary People and The Sixth Sense, Charlie St. Cloud comes up short of something to say.

Pat Tillman was the professional football player who enlisted with his brother in the Army Rangers (they were assigned to the same unit) following the Moslem attack in 2001 and the Weinstein Company’s The Tillman Story retraces the brutal details of his death in Afghanistan by friendly fire, not the combat death by Taliban as the Bush administration erroneously reported and subsequently covered up. This gripping documentary was made with the participation of Pat Tillman’s family and it demonstrates that the man who was possibly the nation’s most famous soldier was a hero, though not because he sacrificed himself. Atheist Tillman trained to be his best because he loved life. Once deployed, he expressed his disappointment with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was a freethinker who suspected that the Army might use his celebrity and, according to this convincing account of his 2004 death, he was right. That he was an excellent Ranger whose skills were wasted in a non-war that America refused to fight, let alone win, is not the focus of The Tillman Story, which raises questions and leaves one with the impression that Pat Tillman may have been the victim of envy by some of his fellow soldiers. That the Army and administration covered up his death with an American flag, to paraphrase someone in the film, reflects the profound injustice of America’s response to 9/11. In nine years, we have done nothing serious to defeat the enemy that seeks to destroy us. The Tillman Story shows that what little we have done is worse than you think.

While I do not consider director Bruce Beresford’s (Driving Miss Daisy) Mao’s Last Dancer a masterpiece (as my favorite film critic, Rex Reed, proclaims in his review), the reality-based story of a communist Chinese defector is one of the summer’s most entertaining pictures. Beginning with the young male ballet dancer Li Cunxin (Chi Cao) being chauffered around Houston, Texas, in a Volkswagen Rabbit in 1981, the dance drama is told in layered flashbacks, from his poor but happy family with his smiling mother (Joan Chen) to his rise through Mao Tse-tung’s communist indoctrination and the lucky break to travel to America for a season with a flamboyant director’s company on cultural exchange just as communist China may be trying to impress the West. With a father who is an intellectual, a teacher who is an individualist, and a ballerina who is smart and beautiful, Li has plenty of counterpoints to Mao’s little red book and its anti-American ideals. But Li chooses his own version of freedom, lifting Mao’s Last Dancer into the spotlight. With exciting music and the dazzling pirouettes to match, Li’s escape to the West, aided by a Houston lawyer (Chen’s Twin Peaks‘ co-star, Kyle MacLachlan) is an incredible story. The narrative progression (“don’t look back”) is stronger than its central character, the elusive Li (played at different ages by three excellent actors), and Mao’s Last Dancer lacks the emotional power of The Lives of Others, which also used history as a dramatic hook, and Li’s defection is not as thrilling as Kolya’s (Mikhail Baryshnikov) escape from communism in White Nights. But the true story of a fiercely determined dancer, and those who attend to his success, is an inspiration. Now that China seems to be moving further from Mao’s communist ideas, and America is disintegrating into an anti-capitalist state, it is depressing to realize that Li might have danced himself into more of the same.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios, War

Toy Story 3

12 June 2010

The third in Pixar’s Toy Story animated pictures, Toy Story 3 (available for viewing in 3D), is a treat for the family. Beginning and staying with an exciting and extended sense of play (this Disney movie’s main theme), Andy’s toys fret about their future as the 17-year-old packs his stuff for college. The familiar characters are all here, led by Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) and Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), and the 3D is fine if that’s your thing, though, as with Tim Burton’s Disney picture, Alice in Wonderland, the technology doesn’t make the movie (and the glasses are heavy on the bridge of the nose, as Chicago film critic Roger Ebert observed earlier this year). Andy gets a bit more screen time (apparently, he is an artist) and when his box of toys winds up at a day care center rather than in the attic, the toys break as usual from Woody’s loyalty to Andy and insist that it’s time to let go since, as they believe, they are no longer valued. One of the enjoyable aspects of Toy Story, and this is a Pixar quality born of John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, is a reverence for material possessions, contrary to those who denounce materialism and the concept of ownership, as inherently valuable to the individual owner (note the former’s worship of cars and the latter’s brilliant creation of things that improve our lives in Apple’s fabulous products). Toy Story 3 does not disappoint in upholding the ownership of toys and, in fact, when a counterfeit capitalist (Ned Beatty) shows up at day care praising individual initiative but seeking “the good of the community”, the toys get another lesson in the dangers of collectivism. Woody is a lone voice of reason, as usual, reminding himself to “think, think,” and leading by example in showing the toys (Jessie, Bullseye, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Hamm, Slinky) the difference between a team of individuals and a group ruled by a dictator. Even Mattel’s Barbie (Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid) goes rogue, making a short speech about having the consent of the governed. But, mostly, TS3 is hilarious and fun, adding a classic Fisher-Price toy, Barbie’s Ken (Michael Keaton), who has to choose between self-absorption and self-interest, and the delightful wit and humor in Michael Arndt’s (Little Miss Sunshine) screenplay. Besides the running gag that the day care center is like a prison, there are peppered, veiled references to The Shawshank Redemption (a character voiced by Bud Luckey is a hoot) and even Saving Private Ryan‘s lesson that undeservedly forgiving an enemy soldier is a huge mistake. Toy Story 3 is not as new and fresh as the 1995 original. But it delivers the same clever, wholesome family entertainment of its predecessors and, in a toddler character named Bonnie, who represents the child at play and, in this context, man at his best, TS3 reminds us dearly and richly that having things, owning things, and “being played with”, matters very much indeed.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios

Artist Alex Dilts on Shakes and Jolly

8 June 2010

Animation artist Alex Dilts, whom I interviewed for a retrospective piece about Walt Disney’s Bambi, recently posted some of his unused work on his blog. These visual creations are based on his idea (with his partners) for a television program, Shakespeare and Jolly. “The premise,” Dilts writes, is that “an unemployed Shakespearean actor takes a job driving an ice cream truck. With each truck comes a jolly little clown to drum up business. Polar opposites, Shakes and Jolly try to make a living under the scrutiny of their domineering boss, insane meter maids, and strange playground dwellers. Not to mention a unique racial twist.” The artwork is outstanding, from a depiction of a marvelous looking company headquarters for Happy Bros. Ice Cream to a chop suey joint next to a dilapidated movie theater. Dilts told me he hasn’t given up on creating Shakes and Jolly for the small screen. I think it’s a terrific idea.

Permalink | Posted in Visual Arts, Walt Disney Studios

Screen Shot: The Last Song

30 March 2010

In her dramatic film debut, Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) shows she can act. But The Last Song, opening March 31, is not exactly her movie. The Disney drama is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose Southern-based stories (The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe) always involve death, grief, young love, and scenes on a beach. Miley, with her distinctive look and voice, is one of those taste-specific actors, like Stewart or Hepburn (not that she’s in that league), and she might be better suited to comedy or musical fare. Here, in another heart-wrenching Sparks tearjerker built as her vehicle, she’s generally fine, even very good, in most scenes, but at other times she seems forced and anxious. She plays a musical prodigy who is also a troubled child of divorce recently busted for shoplifting. Told by her mom (Kelly Preston) to spend the summer with her dad (Greg Kinnear, in top form) on an island off the coast of Georgia, with younger brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) tagging along and nearly stealing the movie, she tries to bond with her absent father and possibly re-connect to playing Liszt on the piano. Subplots encompass arson, church, domestic abuse, dishonesty, rich parents (another Sparks staple) and sea turtles, and it’s too much. But Miley’s bitter, black-booted, nose-pierced brat from New York finally warms up for a handsome local kid (Liam Hemsworth) who, like most of the males in Sparks’ pictures, follows her around like a pup. Amid the first kiss, the mudfight, and scribbling “forever” on a sneaker, something dreadful is bound to happen and it does, though it is not as awful as the long-term self-sacrifice in the recent Sparks release Dear John. Though The Last Song is not an elegy, with an anti-climactic deliverance and strings that come from nowhere, there is goodness in what Sparks, with first-time director Julie Anne Robinson, offers on loss, love, and the joy of being alive.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios

The Princess and the Frog on DVD

25 March 2010

New on DVD (and Blu-Ray) is Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, which I briefly recommended when it was released in theaters. There are some things about this hand-painted feature film, which depicts an interracial romance, which I find troubling, such as the aimless prince, the fact that the only biracial character is evil, and a minimization of the heroine’s capitalist mentality. But there is much to enjoy about this animated musical fantasy adventure about Tiana, a black girl in New Orleans, who sets a goal of owning her own business, saves her money, works hard, focuses on her aims, and falls in love along the way. The movie is delightful and the DVD, recently reviewed and available, is worth owning for repeat viewings. I could watch and listen to Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis) “dig a little deeper” over and over and the best song, “Almost There”, which is too short, is a wonderful tribute to the virtue of productiveness. The DVD’s extras are satisfactory, with a music video by a young male vocalist named NeYo that tells a story in a forgettable tune, games, and other bonus bits. Lacking a narrative feature, the DVD provides what it calls deleted scenes, which are hand drawings pieced together and they don’t add much to the whole story. It’s a shame that co-directors Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid) decided against sharing a peek at what they talk about in the film’s audio commentary; a cut scene in which the trumpet-playing alligator, Louis, is pursued by an amorous lady on the steamboat. The commentary, loaded with too many scores to settle, is nevertheless the finest feature on the disc, with interesting information about this enjoyable movie, which is based on The Frog Prince fairy tale by the brothers Grimm. Apparently, southpaw actress/singer Anika Noni Rose, who voices Tiana, insisted that the character be depicted as left-handed. I also learned that my favorite part of the movie, the “Almost There” number with Tiana singing about opening her restaurant, with minimally styled scenes of dancing waiters in black, white, orange and gold, was created based on drawings by renowned Harlem artist Aaron Douglas. The Princess and the Frog is too timid in expressing its theme of a morally ambitious girl for true Disney greatness, but it’s one of last year’s best movies and a little treasure for home entertainment.

Permalink | Posted in Home Entertainment, Movies, Walt Disney Studios

Political Rumor and Reality

22 January 2010

A few afterthoughts on Scott Brown’s upset in Massachusetts: his victory does not kill socialized medicine, which we already have; it merely delays implementation of the latest attempt to fully impose it. Obama, speaking in Ohio today, used the term “fight” 14 times according to MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews, as in “fight’ for a tax on banks that did not take Bush’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) subsidies, banks that did and paid it back, and banks that did and have not paid it back. And, of course, as in “fight” for government-run health care. Already in California, Democrats are advancing a bill for the state to seize control of the Golden State’s medical profession.

And then there is the problem of the Republicans, isn’t there. Beware of Scott Brown’s commitment to promoting capitalism: he refuses to disavow socialized medicine, which he supported when Mitt Romney imposed it on Massachusetts, he advocates banning certain abortions, and he hasn’t said that health care is not a right. But at least he’s part of a trend, attracting secular independents who oppose Obama’s economic agenda like those victorious GOP candidates in New Jersey and Virginia. Brown is a potential threat to the Republican Party’s slate of religious conservatives, Palin, Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Jindal, Gingrich, all of whom explicitly seek more government control of the economy and religion. The reality is that Tuesday’s victory in Massachusetts has yet to play out.

The rumor, according to a reliable source, is that Walt Disney Studios chief Robert Iger wants to pull out of Disney, move to the Empire State, and become a United States senator from New York (which could mean he wants to become President of the United States). Iger, who has gone ballistic tearing up what was once Hollywood’s best movie studio, has been dismantling Disney’s independent creative pipeline and stocking up on secondhand material since the economy tanked. He’s ditching the studio’s classic Disney ideals, themes, and stories for generic fare which instantly qualifies him as a politician. Another modern politico, Obama’s belligerently foul-mouthed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is rumored to be gunning for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Power-lusting Emanuel apparently wants to be mayor and seize control of that toddlin’ town. Mayor Emanuel? Senator Iger? President Romney? Anything’s possible in these uncertain times … including socialized medicine and worse.

Permalink | Posted in Politics, Walt Disney Studios

Screen Shot: ‘Dumbo’

18 January 2010

El Capitan’s organ was sadly silent during a recent kid-filled rainy day matinee, and the leading character does not make a live appearance, but at least Walt Disney’s classic 1941 picture, Dumbo, is being screened at the once-legendary studio’s Holllywood Boulevard movie theater. The animated feature, which was affectionately introduced by El Cap’s extremely knowledgeable manager Michael, runs at the historic theater through January 28 to honor the film’s 70th anniversary next year. Next door at Disney’s Soda Fountain and Studio Store, there’s a caramel-topped ice cream sundae and exclusive Dumbo merchandise. Unfortunately, Dumbo is preceded by a trailer for the latest Tim Burton horror movie, sharing the title of Walt Disney’s 1955 animated feature, Alice in Wonderland. The new, live action version looks like just another of his visually striking nightmares.

If only the currently volatile, unfocused, and increasingly generic Walt Disney Studios were creating movies of Dumbo‘s caliber, showing them in venues to match the quality of these outstanding twin enterprises, and cultivating outstanding cast members (that means you, ushers Melvin and Lucia). Read my review of this wonderfully colorful motion picture here.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios

Screen Shot: ‘Surrogates’

24 September 2009

Disney’s Surrogates is a generic affair yet it is not without value. Written and directed by the creators of this year’s Terminator: Salvation, another dystopian picture about a society in which economics and state are mixed, Surrogates poses some interesting questions. Bruce Willis stars as a cop who, paired with Radha Mitchell (Feast of Love), investigates the murder of a young man who is the son of the inventor of the robotic surrogates that everyone uses as proxies for dealing with reality. That’s about it. With an underlying theme that it takes courage to face reality while most fake reality, certainly a timely message in this text-messaging age of heads buried in technology as a religion instead of as a tool for living, Surrogates scores some points. But it gets bogged down in static characters, a lack of suspense and a thinly plotted climax. Still, borrowing from Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, Westworld, and, of course, Blade Runner, this slice of science fiction about a world in which everyone wears a mask, with society’s charismatic leaders urging us to “sacrifice yourself for the greater good,” offers more than most in the genre. A touch of irony: in one scene, the hero chases one government-sponsored machine by commandeering another: the Toyota Prius.

Permalink | Posted in Movies, Walt Disney Studios

Disney Loses Dick Cook

20 September 2009

Earlier this month, I pondered whether Disney’s deal to buy Marvel Comics signaled an end to Walt Disney’s legendary commitment to creating wholesome stories—with characters in motion pictures and theme park attractions that evoke childlike wonder. Now that Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook has apparently been ousted by Disney’s Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger, we may be closer to having an answer.

The most interesting report comes from CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, who suggests that Disney’s movie slate may rely increasingly on others, reinforcing my concern that Walt’s original creative philosophy is being incrementally phased out or rejected by Mr. Iger. This would be a mistake in creative and in commercial terms, leaving Disney no more distinct that any other Hollywood studio and making the Burbank, California-based studio merely another entry in delivering me-too cultural cynicism. Disney was already well on its way with a mediocre slate of forgettable movies—Enchanted, Up, Pirates of the Caribbean—while Dick Cook was in charge but the honorable chairman, who worked his way up from Disneyland cast member during his 38 years at Disney, understood Walt’s benevolent sense of life and the need to make movies in a private, proprietary artistic system that nurtures and cultivates the individual’s creative vision (Frank Marshall’s man-dog Antarctica adventure Eight Below comes to mind). He built solid relationships with artists based on trust and respect and he deserved better than an abrupt departure.

If Boorstin’s sources are correct that a scaled back studio leaves Disney free to create fewer bigger, better movies, I see no reason why Dick Cook could not have made that happen—unless Cook had some fundamental objection to corporate plans for the studio. Movies such as The Proposal prove that quality pictures can be made, marketed, and sold to the public and Disney can’t be counted out. The number of recent missteps—overexposing its products and depleting the sense of magic and mystery at the recent self-promotional D23 exposition, bland, bleak movies such as Up and Wall-E and the dreadful decision to release Mel Gibson’s primitive horror movie Apocalypto after his anti-Jewish tirade—is offset by good calls on High School Musical, dumping Walden Media’s Christian Narnia movies, and remaking Disney’s California Adventure as a tribute to Walt Disney and early 20th century Americanism. That mixed record and risky moves such as Disney’s train tour for the expensive A Christmas Carol, pushing cash-strapped consumers to buy movies on the pricey Blu-Ray discs, and upcoming remakes Tron, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (with Terminator: Salvation director McG on board, it might be good) and the new picture, Surrogates, Disney’s future as a great, American movie business might be in jeopardy. Dick Cook’s departure makes that look more likely. Knowing who replaces Dick Cook, who worked his way from Disneyland to promoting the studio’s most imaginative recent achievement, The Little Mermaid, and creating Disney’s Soda Fountain and Studio Store, will provide a leading indicator. In the meantime, Disney has lost one its best minds.