Watching Enchanted, 10:39pm. It's a real good movie. When a world icon like Disney can make fun of itself, and do it with a great picture, you've got something there, kid. The heroine right now is singing A Happy Working Song. Think Whistle While You Work, but more real.

We’ll keep singing without fail
Otherwise we’d spoil it
Hosing down the garbage pail
And scrubbing up the toilet
Ooh!

Disney should, however, fall back on its original feature animation style. Check out the animation in Snow White vs. Enchanted. Pay attention to the character animation. More on this after the videos.



Pigeons are not ok to kiss. . .



One wonders if rabies exists in these animated worlds. . .

The contemporary style found in Enchanted focuses on sharp and dynamic lines, turning the animation into something that looks sleek. And caricatured. One can definitely see the influence from Japanese animation--note the enlarged eyes and elongated features such as arms and legs, the neck, the sharp angle of the face's T-Line (a new vocabulary word I learned from watching women apply make-up. Long story). Whereas the older style looks like there were real actors filmed, and the animators drew over that film. This is called Rotoscopy party people.

In the past, one saw a very different relationship between cultures and animation. It was American animation, namely Disney animation, that influenced other nations. If one were to look at Disney's biography, a definite power emanated from the Disney studio while Walt was himself closely involved in the animation . As the studio became bigger, more staff, more ideas, more in-house rebellion against Walt Disney's vision of animation as art, animation married with realism, he became distant and lost control and thus the animation changed. Take a look at the vast differences between Snow White and the next few features: Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, a difference of only four years. I'd say, the Disney vision ended early, with Fantasia.

Irony: as Walt Disney became more successful and gained more power, Disney quality as Walt himself strived for, and subsequently Walt's power over animation, became something he could no longer control.

Sorcerer's Apprentice

Party People,

FS3's Read and Watch List continued:

Read

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami
Catch 22, Joseph Heller (I haven't read this one yet, it's on my personal list just as it is on yours)
The People of Paper, Salvador Placencias (I've recommended this one before, but it begs repetition)

Watch

Fight Club
Divorzio Al'italiana
Detour
Being John Malkovich
The Good German

Burn After Reading

This past Sunday, my wife and I met my parents at the Empress Theatre in Vallejo, CA. My wife and I drove up, around 5:45 in the evening, when it was already dark, through the old neighborhood of Victorian Houses and alleyways. Who knows what they did there in the old mildewed basements and what smells came from the alleys. We were in the car, windows rolled up. You couldn't be too safe.

"Damnit, I told you we couldn't turn from this street. It's one way. Now we have to drive around."

"Just drive around."

I drove to the next street and circled around.

The Empress stood beautiful. No other place in this diminishing city has kept to its original mission of pushing non-discriminating art and culture to the people. Let them taste and savor every bit of it. Let the politics explode here and all the protests for Gay Marriage and Good Christian Values meet and see what happens. This mission.

Somehow its flashing marquee lights told me this.

They haven't strayed from the original design. Just looking up at the lights after we got out of the car and hearing the electric hum, feeling its rhythm as the red and yellow blinked in some fashion, like electricity trying to be fire, the original designer and architect were laughing at the hold they had on the nostalgic minds who renovated this place. Laughing maniacally - what other way could they laugh, they're old and dead?

The theatre first opened its doors on Valentine's day, 1912.

There was some confusion about whether my parents were already here. We bought our tickets. 2 for 1. This great American theatre automatically kicks any other theatre I've been too's ass because of this. What other theatre around here regularly gives out monthly discounts? Nose upturn to the financial woes of California. What crisis? California is burning, baby, lets have fun. Here's a free ticket.

That's what this theatre says. What else can you do but join the party, or be horribly, horribly shunned and shamed and made impotent from denying it. This party will go on without you.

The Empress Theatre. Run by two die hard people, Randy and Kitty. They've made it their mission to keep this theatre running after all that it has been through - a fire that burned the whole interior in the 1930's, the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, the slow sickness of neglect and a diminishing of Vallejo's Downtown - the Empress, this beautiful bitch, keeps her stiletto heel dug into the ground here and watches the seasons come an go. No man can move her. No bout of nature can topple her, but only blow up her dress and give her a little tickle. She laughs as the original architect and designer do - with insane glory as people fall around her dead.

And she continues to live.

It turned out my parents arrived after us and we went back out to meet them. Then I introduced them all to Randy and Kitty, the General Manager and Assistant Manager respectively. Randy seemed unsure of who I was. It didn't matter. I knew who they were. I damned well knew. Those good bastards who keep this theatre running. They looked tired.

We went into the theatre and my parents awed at the flourish of decor. A wave of gold colored plating curling from the screen to the back, across the ceiling, with a blue glow hinting at the majesty here. We climbed the stairs and we took our seats. In retrospect I wonder at what this place looked like during it's renovation before reopening this March.

No doubt whatever blights that existed here were done away with. The theatre was sexy now.



We watched the movie.

Then we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant called City Lights Cantina. The restaurant being just up the street, we walked. City Lights had the spirit of Old Downtown Vallejo, its square room, its wainscot ceiling, I thought it was made out of an old church. Where the bar stood now, once stood the altar, and the people feasting on their high stools, the chancel at the feet of the breaded Christ. But we soon found out it used to be a banquet hall, and before that the PG&E company.

The restaurant shares the same lovely snobbery as the Empress - that lack of fear and disregard of money. To the man of logic, this is no time to start a restaurant or renovate and re-open a theatre. We watch our cash falling to the floor and leprous hands stamping down on them, snatching them through the folds of a purple curtain. The City Lights Cantina, however, laughs at those sorry sons of bitches. It stands open to feed you while all other restaurants lose their nerve and shrink away. Fuck Starbucks. Let them lose their excess limbs until they have four left and remember what it means to be human.

Delightful Mexican food from City Lights. It tastes better when you know the food is clean.

So, we talked about the movie for a while. My mom thought that there should have been more people at the theatre. The movie was funny. I agreed. Funny. But more, you never saw a real political satire on screen in a long time. We talked more about the movie.

The food took a long while to come out. We speculated about that. Perhaps the bartender, who had by then disappeared, was also the cook. He was the one who took our orders too, served our drinks. I looked around at the people sitting at the high tables and in the booths having their separate, intimate conversations, enjoying their alcohol. They seemed to not notice. Everything was copacetic. I drank my water deliberately. That late at night, drinking soda would have sent my nerves to spark.

There's no excuse for addictive substances like caffeine that late at night when you don't plan on staying awake and listening for intruders in the dark. You think you hear voices and you want to go out and check. But what if they're breaking in and intend on raping you? Just you. Because that's their fetish.

They want to come in when everyone is asleep and abduct you, they're masters at it so they take you slowly from your bed and your wife doesn't wake. They have you and they take you to the front room where they have their way with you. Then they put you back. Quietly.

Checking on that sound will definitely alert you of their presence early if that were to really happen, you can prepare. But something inside you makes you stay awake and super alert in bed, not leaving bed, just thinking about how that could happen. As if that were the best way to be taken if then, all and prone laying down, instead of with a fight.

Well, the movie was indeed a good satire on all the paranoia that hovers around us when you find things that don't belong to you. That paranoia when you think someone is watching you. You see that person look your way and you think he's got it in for you. What agency is he a part of? What do they want from you? It's because you found that file folder on the floor of the gym locker room. There's something secret in there. It's big. It's bigger than you or me.

That Paranoia. It plays well in the movie. And something has to be said about the way all the women make out with the money in the end. About how all the men die in the end, or wind up in Venezuela. Or going on with their job because none of it has anything to do with them and they don't want the trouble because things tied themselves up well, neatly, and without any hitch. That too.

The night went famously.

Party People,

This film is a classic in every sense of the word. As we are on the subject of films today, let's get down with this film.



When talking about Roger Rabbit, we're talking about the greatest collaboration between Disney and Warner Bros. For those of you who have seen this film when you were young, you may remember the classic scene where the detective, Eddie Valiant, winds up in toon town and somehow finds himself free falling from a building. Who does he meet there? Homeboys Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.

But this is no regular cameo appearance. In terms of story and plot, the cartoons and their partnerships play a significant role in the film. From a storyteller's standpoint (who do you think I am, anyway) every element you see has a purpose. It's solid storytelling, party people. The fictional RK Maroon film company actually contracts cartoon characters to star in their films.

The best line that illustrates this is when Maroon tells Eddie about Dumbo, "we got him on loan from Disney along with the rest of the cast from Fantasia. The best thing about it," he picks up a handful of nuts, "they work for peanuts." Then, he tosses them out the window at my man Dumbo. Dumbo goes crazy.



What's wild about this film is that it has a strong story. Similar to the film noir story, you have a sullied protagonist, a washed out private detective without much of a conscious, hired to take blackmail pictures of Roger Rabbit's wife together with Marvin Acme. The idea is to blackmail Acme, the owner of toontown, to give up the property and the toons. What ensues is murder and mystery and sexual innuendo and trash talking, cigar smoking, gun toting character action which happens to be carried out mostly by toons. Despite the color and cell characters, it's a mature story line. Party people, if you're looking for drama and a captivating story, look no further.



What made this movie monumental outside the partnership with Disney and Warner Bros. are its marketing campaign and its innovation in special effects.

For marketing, the film released a series of Roger Rabbit shorts to play before such films released at the time as Dick Tracy. With Warner Bros. and Disney behind the animation, it set a hype like no other. Of note, the shorts 'Tummy Trouble' and 'Roller Coaster Rabbit'.





By the time the actual film was released, the audience had a frame of what to expect. The film did not disappoint. What's more is that the film gave the audience a chance to see the cartoon actors when they weren't 'working'. Baby Herman, the cigar smoking, deep voiced, ass slapping baby says, "the problem is I've got a 50 year old lust with a one year old dinkie." Once again, a mature story line.



In terms of special effects for cartoon/live action hybrids, before this film the actors would act with markers, such as a stick, to show where the cartoon characters should be. Then, the artists would draw the characters in on the actual film making sure to cover up the stick marker. The film was then filmed again to create the final. This made the appearance grainy and super ugly.

Party people, Roger Rabbit was made before computer technology was reliable enough to imprint cartoons on live action film.

For Roger Rabbit, Bob Hoskins, the actor playing Eddie Valiant, acted with no marker showing where the character would be. The artists then merged the cartoon action with the film to give it a more polished look than it would have been with the artists drawing over the markers. Part of the trademark Disney innovation and part great acting. Hoskins' ability to focus essentially on air gave the illusion that he was actually looking at the cartoon that was later drawn in.



Party People, this is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The ride you ride when you go to Disneyland's Toon Town. Toon Town, after the place in the movie. It set the standard for all cartoon/live action films that came after it and since then none has come close to the innovation, story and legend status of this film.

Let's end with another line.

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."
--Jessica Rabbit



Peace, Party People. Be safe!

Watch: Maltese Falcon; Detour; The Set Up; DOA; Touch of Evil; Double Indemnity

Read: A Panorama of American Film Noir by Borde and Chaumeton

Party people and you film buffs,

Why, you ask, will we discuss this. It's so old and hokey. Old is hokey. Talk about politics and ipods and cutting edge technology.

I respond with a quick slap to the face.

This is one of the greatest eras in American Film. It began in 1941 with an epic movie and an epic leading actor: The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. It came at a time when the United States was starving and weak from the Great Depression. Teeth bared and sharp and gritting hard from pain. The party of the 1920's was over and the hangover was here, hard, those who had become drunk from the excess now hated the world with a headache as big as Europe.



Color film had just been introduced and musicals capitalized on the goodness of it all to try to keep people in love with the saccharine. At the same time, many film directors and cinematographers from Europe were fleeing to the United States, the only nation not involved in World War II at the time. Therein began a harsh reaction that sent movies reeling away from the imagined prosperity and glee. Things weren't about smiles and happy feet anymore. People were poor. Damnit. People were hungry. Imagine you need to feed your family and you see store owners pouring good milk into the sewers, tossing produce into the trash, because they'd rather get rid of their stock and lose the money than give it away.

Films like the Maltese Falcon began to slap these musical films silly, essentially saying, "wake up. Why the hell are you dancing? You look like a fool with those tapping shoes."

Then, the morose of it all shifted films into the extreme and birthed Film Noir. With the Maltese Falcon, one saw a story line where the happy ending dissolved into an ending where no one came out clean. The good guys got beat. The bad guys wound up losing what they were after. Even in terms of character, the 'good guy' didn't even exist. The protagonist you followed on screen was often a crooked and lusty private investigator or a man who's trying to get away from his life and cheat on his girl every chance he got.

Take a look at Bogart's face. This is you're protagonist now.



The effect of these films and this kind of character acting was so profound that people on the street seriously thought that Bogart was a real tough guy like the characters he played on screen. Lucky for him, he was a real tough guy and he kicked serious ass. But I digress.

One can even attribute Film Noir to the advancement of the female character, which would soon be complimented by the 'Rosie the Riveter' campaign that promoted female independence and the image of the working woman, while the men were either enlisted or got drafted to fight in Europe and the Pacific soon after Pearl Harbor.

In Film Noir specifically, the damsel in distress and the innocent, fervently valued woman archetypes were replaced by the sly and foxy and ultimately corrupted. The woman who had her own plans and a gun to get her way. Unlike the singing dancing and melodramatic, this woman lied, had sexual hunger, was selfish and vicious just like the men. To the extreme, she was like this all the damned time.



Needless to say, all the leading ladies today can attribute the depth and complexity of their roles to this movement in film and storytelling. The men too, who the hell would want to keep singing and dancing and forgetting that across the middle part of America dust storms killed vast acres of crops and destroyed the farming economy? People were hungry. Damnit.

Film Noir also incorporated the best in film effects and in the best way--being poor. The bulk of films in this genre were produced by B-rated companies and therefore budgets were low. No color for these films. No expensive backdrops and special effects. They did it the hard way. The hard core way, through the use of dynamic camera angles and use of lighting. The most notable of techniques was Chiaroscuro--the use of shadows to create dynamic effects so to result in visual tension. Thank Film Noir for the image of the menacing shadow crawling up the wall. It began with shadowy figures of men and women running around in their dark dark world with so many secrets and guns that have fired too many bullets.