Sunday, December 13th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Steamboat Willie)

A few days ago, The Walt Disney Company returned to their traditional animation roots with The Princess and the Frog, the new film by Ron Clements and John Musker (the directorial duo is best known for two Disney classics, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin). In honor of the release, I figure I will take the high road and not blog on the normal Disney criticism of racist undertones, and celebrate 2-D animation. I mean, Pixar has yet to make a bad movie, but we all long for some more traditional animation to come our way, so I decided to embed the Ub Iwerks directed, Walt Disney written and produced short Steamboat Willie. It is the film that brought the iconic Mickey Mouse character to prominence, and was the third to feature Disney's mischievous rodent lead, the first being the less popular Plane Crazy, released earlier in the same year, 1928.

As always with Disney animation, an aura of controversy seems to follow this film, although the renown and changing times seems to downplay the one time censored parts. During the big musical number, many of the scenes are considered to display cruelty to animals, including a bizarre scene where Mickey plays sow nipples as an instrument. What happened to Disney, Iwerks and their animation properties after the success of this film needs not be explained, as the Disney corporate name is one of the biggest in the world, let alone the entertainment industry itself. However, it is to be noted that the film is part of the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, as well as being one of the top 50 cartoons, as voted by members of the animation medium.

As for owning the film, it has been released on DVD uncut twice in the Walt Disney Treasures collection. The first is a compendium of old Mickey Mouse cartoons in Mickey Mouse in Black and White, as well as being a special feature on The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, due to it being one of Iwerks' seminal works. Even easier though, unlike other popular Disney works, this film is available all over the Interwebs without Disney issuing out copyright lawsuits all over the place due to the fact that as it has fallen into the public domain. So without further adieu, here is a legal showing of Steamboat Willie.

Usually, I do not blog about anything else on my Short Film Sunday posts, but I have been seeing a lot of blogs featuring a recent interview with Sigourney Weaver. I would post a source, but basically every movie site online has posted it, despite the fact that I can no longer find the video of the session. Anyhow, Weaver was being interviewed for her role in Avatar, when the topic changes to her thoughts on the possibility of Ghostbusters 3, where she drops some huge spoilers. She mentions that her character, Dana Barrett's, son will become ghost buster for this installment, and that Bill Murray will be playing a larger role than she would, but this time as a ghost, thus meaning that Dr. Peter Venkman dies in the movie, or in the space between Ghostbusters II and the upcoming sequel, if it ever comes to fruition.

Also, in about an hour from the time this is posted, Adult Swim is going to air a new Space Ghost interview with Zoe Saldana on her role in Avatar. The advertising blitz has began, and the return of Space Ghost to my late night lineup is a damn good start to it.

Monday, December 7th, 2009

I was quite saddened a few months back when I read that Robert Luketic would be taking over the directorial position on the Barbarella remake, a project that had once been in the hands of someone more familiar with exploitation film, Robert Rodriguez. Trading Rodriguez for the guy most famous for directing Legally Blonde just doesn't really click for me. Anyhow, ever since Luketic's name became attached, it seems as if the project has took another dive into development hell, as no casting or production news has came forth. Despite the lack of news, a Cinematical article takes a look at this Absolut Vodka ad starring Zooey Deschanel as a blonde and noting the similarities to the erotic science fiction vixen. Would Deschanel take such a raunchy role? Despite looking the part, I can't really see Deschanel taking the role of a sexpot and leaving her (or our) comfort zone as the quirky girl. It would be like Janeane Garofalo taking the titular role in a reboot of Barb Wire. Sure, she could pull it off, but why?

In other kind of casting news, CinemaSpy reports that Tom Waits is in talks to join the cast for The Hobbit. The eccentric actor/singer whom last appeared in Terry Gilliam's soon-to-be-released The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, carries the right audience to fit in without too much argument from the hardcore Middle-earth-to-cinema fans. Still, who would Waits play? The consensus coming from the message boards I've been surfing through is the voice for Smaug. Although, this will cross another popular Internet rumor that Ron Perlman, a frequent collaborator with director Guillermo del Toro, will be taking up the voice acting duties for the dragon. Still, something to think about as we slowly trudge forward to the next piece of Hobbit news.

Shockingly, The Blind Side took the top spot at the box office in its third week of release, toppling the current reign of The Twilight Saga: New Moon... also in its third week. Is those top two in the runnings enough to make a cineaste slightly depressed? If so, maybe it is a bit of a spirit lift to note that per theater, nothing touches Disney's latest return to traditional animation with The Princess and the Frog and Jason Reitman's highly praised Up in the Air, which landed overall in the sixteenth and thirteenth positions respectively.

Wednesday, Septermber 9th, 2009

Yesterday, I blogged about the first piece of good news to come from The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Comics huge merger in the form of Pixar giving some desirable eyes to Edgar Wright's script treatment of Ant Man. Well, today there comes the news of the vast implications that concerned us in the broad scheme of things, even outside of the world of Marvel. Via Variety, Warner Brothers is creating DC Entertainment in opposition to the Disney ran Marvel Entertainment. Will much change? The first major blow is to the comic world as former president and publisher of DC Comics Jeff Levitz has stepped down to become a contributing editor, writer and consultant to the new rebooted version of the company, under the tutelage of Warner's Diane Nelson. Obviously this news will strike readers a little hard, but what about the implications on DC's cinematic adaptations? Well, the first and most obvious is that the long secretive next step in the Batman film franchise is hinted at in the article of having a tentatively 2012 release. Is this good news, or is this just going to become a conglomerate race to see whom can ruin their respected comic company first? Only time will tell.

Speaking of Disney, a new trailer for their upcoming return to cel animation, The Princess and the Frog, has been released to much criticism online. Of course, as predicted in Disney's long history of alleged racism, the company's take on a black princess is being scrutinized. Also, IWatchStuff throws in the claim that there is a bit of bestiality for good measure. Watch for yourself and see what you think.

'Princess and the Frog' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Fox News has a story on another bump in the road for Robert Rodriguez' Red Sonja adaptation as Rose McGowan had to endure serious wrist and elbow surgery after suffering an injury that will put production on hold until the actress heals. I just hope this doesn't kill the project completely as McGowan looks so much better than Brigitte Nielson's big screen turn as the character. Also, you have to love the fact that McGowan is doing her own stunts. So there, I said it, despite all the bad buzz, I am actually looking forward to this.

Yahoo! Movies has released the official poster for Columbia Pictures documentary on the last performances of Michael Jackson in This Is It. Nothing too special, probably to match the film, which will more than likely not be anything more than a money pump from AEG to capitalize on the death of Jackson.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nicolas Cage has dropped out of the villainous role in The Green Hornet. It seems that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's version of the flick just can't keep anything going for long. But, if it is like other news, such as Stephen Chow's leaving the director's chair for Michel Gondry, it can only bode well for the little film. A piece of casting news we'll be keeping an eye open for.

9 is out today, snagging the interesting release date of 09-09-09. Looks pretty decent. We'll look more at this Sunday when I'll show Shane Acker's original short film that serves as the basis of the Tim Burton/Timur Bekmambetov-produced feature.

I was alerted that today is officially A Day Without Cats online. Of course, The Cheezburger Network and 4Chan are protesting the event pretty hard, and I was going to do my part by looking up some cute cat clips from cinema. Unfortunately, when you type that into Google, you get something like this... McBeardo's Top 100 Cult Movie Nude Scenes, which to be honest wasn't all that bad of a list, and gave me a reason to watch a few clips of Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead. When searching a similar query on YouTube, I came up with probably the only thing raunchier than the countdown up there, a red band trailer for Ralph Bakshi's X-rated cartoon Fritz the Cat. I was personally hoping to get a video of two adorable kittens re-enacting the entire "we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses" scene from The Blues Brothers in a cardboard box car. Watching animated cats have explicit group sex in a bath tub comes in at a close second I guess. (In case it wasn't implied, the aforementioned link and the video down below are NSFW.)

P.S. Here is a real fix of kitten fun if you need it.