D52 Week 4: Dumbo!

Last week, we covered Disney's first real financial failure; this week, I get to take a look at the outcome. After neither Pinocchio or Fantasia were an immediate success (thanks a lot, Hitler), Dumbo was thrown together as a quick way to recoup some of those losses. Not only is it really short (64 minutes, which is still slightly longer than 2011's Winnie the Pooh, I think), but the animation is noticeably a lot simpler than the lavish detail and, sometimes, outright beauty of the previous three Disney films. Given that, at times, the only thing those films had going for them was gorgeous visual craftsmanship, this might not bode well for Dumbo, which shows a similar disinterest in any sort of significant plotting. To compensate for this lack of visual endowment, though, Disney has clearly opted to stuff the metaphorical trousers of this film with the metaphorical sock of increased gag output. Did it work? Well, most critics seem to regard Dumbo as a charmingly crafted little movie in its own right, so...maybe?

D52 Week 3: Fantasia!

A Word From The Future: If you're reading through this blog in chronological order (and if you are, congratulations for being one of a very elite group of people, "elite" in this case meaning "small and insignificant" - and don't know what this is all about, let my acquaintances Kevin and Amanda, explain the what and the why and perhaps some other W word you're seeking. Basically, for each week of 2012, we watch one of Disney's 52 canonical theatrically released animated features, and post our thoughts. For the first two weeks, I just limited my thoughts to comments on their blog posts, which were so long and unwieldy that everyone involved thought I should just do it on my own. Those two movies will probably receive retroactive "official" write-ups, eventually, before the year is through - but, for now, here's the first piece I wrote for the project. (Oh, and also, my super-cool girlfriend also takes part in this. Give her a read too.)

Here I am, only three weeks into this silly thing, and already I've reached a film that I haven't seen before. It's hardly surprising, of course. Children rarely go out of their way to listen to classical music, and I suppose I was no exception. But, with age comes a more open mind, and perhaps it's for the best that I waited to experience Fantasia until I was ready for it (i.e. not a terrible child). Seeing the high esteem in which this odd highbrow experiment seems to be held, I found myself wondering whether this could truly hold up, or if it would just end up being a glorified Melody Time. (The question of whether or not my memories of Melody Time as being sort of terrible are still accurate will have to wait several weeks.)

Okay, maybe THIS will be the year where everything bets betterish!

A Word From The Future: I'll surely recap my New Years Resolution progress at some point later in the year, but......Jesus, if only I had known...

As always, the start of a new year means that people everywhere make promises to themselves, usually involving weight loss, that they probably have no real intention of actually keeping, to be perfectly honest. It's almost as grand a tradition as making films about how not believing in fictional characters is just plain wrong around Christmas, or having the President pardon a turkey that has been wrongly convicted of the heinous crime of being a turkey around Thanksgiving!

Pride and Prejudice (and Jesses)

If you've spent any amount of time on the Internet, you've either participated in, or at least been an uncomfortable witness to, unwinnable arguments with mindless bigots. Mindless prejudice is, after all, among the many things the web has greatly simplified. Never before has it been easier to anonymously tell the world about how whichever minority/religion/gender/sexual orientation/phase of the moon is destroying the world! And, if you've spent any amount of time on the Internet, undoubtedly you've noticed that these arguments are unwinnable because every mindless bigot in the universe has the same irrefutable argument against anyone who might question their prejudices.

"You people are all awful awful hypocrites because you're prejudiced against people with prejudices!"

Wait, did I say "irrefutable"? Of course, I meant "completely invalid and illogical and silly". It's like criticising someone who's being shot at for fighting back against their attacker because it makes them every bit as violent and immoral.

Jesse vs. Plumbor, Master of the Shower Underworld!

"Support local businesses", they always say! After all, small businesses are the real America or, um, something. It's a stance I can usually understand, unless you live in a small, particularly rural town, where small businesses are usually run by morons incapable of properly owning a gerbil, let alone an entire business. Absarokee, as a whole, is locally sort of infamous for this. I've lost count of how many times some local twit decided to start a restaurant, rented commercial property, made up some surprisingly professional signage, and maybe even backed it up with some decent sandwiches, only to quickly lose interest in the completely gross idea of actually having to be there and have the doors unlocked so customers can come in. Despite actually having a local customer base more than willing to give them money, a mere month or two after starting up their shiny new business, they'd give up and shut their doors, forever, due to laziness. Meanwhile - and this is something that seems to happen more in Columbus - plenty of thoroughly awful local businesses manage to keep going, despite having no discernible positive traits, I suppose because it's far easier in the long-term to commit oneself to less-than-half-assed work. In no case in recent memory has this been more obvious to me than in an extended kerfuffle involving the only plumber in town apparently.

A Summer in Crappy Cell Phone Photography.....in Mid-Autumn!

Well, this is late. Wanted to get this done sooner, but life stressful bloggy concerns blah blah blah excuses excuses. But things, I think, are settling down and I might have time to waste again, which is always nice. So now, herein lies the pictorial story of the uninteresting parts of Jesse's summer!

Random Begrudging Book Review: Janet Evanovich, "Ten Big Ones"

First, a little backstory to explain WHY the hell I'm doing this: My step-grandfather owns a small business installing heating stoves and fireplaces throughout southwestern Montana and, increasingly, northern Wyoming. For a business that essentially just consists of nothing more than himself and his assistant, it's reasonably successful! But it would be more successful if it were more successful, so he's enlisted my mother to drive around and put up flyers on public bulletin boards, because I guess he knows nothing about advertising in the twenty-first century. And she's been making me go along to assist because, well, that's the kind of thing I have to put up with while I'm living back home. As we cross boring stretches of boring countryside on our way to the next boring small town, what does she choose to listen to? In what she claims is an attempt to share my love of mystery novels, she plops an audiobook she got from the county library into the CD player. That book? You're pretty thick if you haven't realised by this point, thanks to the subject line, that it's Janet Evanovich's "Ten Big Ones", the sort of book you could've easily found on sale in paperback alongside fresh produce and frozen dinners for years after its release. She was offended when I asked if we could shut it off, so I had to listen to the entire thing - and that takes us to where we are now. I suffered through it, and so you shall suffer vicariously!

Family Guy Review: "Foreign Affairs"

It's a tough time to be in the television biz. The kids today are spending less and less time huddled around the ol' cathode ray tube, due to this passing Internet fad. Why watch something with fun characters and production values when you can watch cats doing cat things or virus-riddled kiddie porn or whatever it is they watch today. Ratings are, generally speaking, down, and everyone's had to make cutbacks. House, for instance, is throwing away Lisa Edelstein, which actually might be the best thing to happen to it in seasons. American Idol famously saved money last season by throwing away some of their famous people, and bringing in moderately less famous people. And Family Guy, it seems, has outsourced three minutes or so of the show to Mick Jagger and David Bowie circa 1985, thus saving valuable writing/animation time and money. What's that you say? That probably made it even MORE expensive, and as such there's literally no justifying this episode's already notorious centrepiece? Oh. Well. That really is unfortunate, isn't it?

Family Guy Review: "The Big Bang Theory"

This past Sunday was Mother's Day, as all of us who were sprung forth from female loins were probably forcefully made aware if we weren't already. How did you celebrate it? I called my mother, and will regrettably be shipping off the pirated CDs of her request soon. If you were Family Guy, you celebrated Mother's Day with an episode where Mama Lois left to run errands early in the episode and was never seen again, and wherein a relatively newborn baby was shot between the eyes with a spear gun. Festive! But, ignoring the show's refusal to air an instalment with even a slight appropriateness to Overly Commercialised Maternity-Themed Holiday, I think we can at least be pleased that it is considerably less romance-themed than "Brothers and Sisters". Instead, it's about Stewie being the most important person in history and not being married to Generic Female Character #614. Also, despite its title, it's not about horrid socially awkward nerd stereotypes. "Bang" probably means something sexual, like intercoursing or something.

Dentistry and a Show!

As I've mentioned, I've been having to make several visits to the dentist lately, to fix cavities caused by, well....let's not get into what Jim's family put me through yet again. Instead, let's get into what I love about going to the dentist: the awkward banter between dentist and hygienist. Two people who generally have nothing in common, but are forced to fill the silence while their patient of the moment is incapacitated with fingers and various dental instruments inside his or her mouth. To me, this is amateur theatre to ease the pain of the procedure at hand. I love it.

*an ad for NBC's The Voice plays on the radio*

Hygienist: Have you seen that show yet?

Dentist: Nnnnnno.

Hygienist: It's really good.

Dentist: Oh. I never really got into American Idol.

Hygienist: But this is better!

Dentist: Mmmm-hmmmm.

Hygienist: It's not like American Idol. Everyone is hand-selected because they're actually good. So, every performance is epic.

Dentist: Mmmm-hmmmm.

Hygienist: So you don't have to spend weeks watching all the bad auditions to get to the ones that are good. You should watch it.

Dentist: Is that the one with Steven Tyler on it?

Hygienist: No, that's American Idol.

Dentist: Oh. Paula Abdul then?

Hygienist: Also American Idol.

Dentist: Oh. Mmmm-hmmmm.