Can Mickey Bite His Tongue?

This is a big week for Disney. Not only will they try and prove that 2D animation is still a hot commodity, but all eyes will be on the corporation as it unveils with The Princess and the Frog its first African-American heroine in nearly ninety years of filmmaking.

This Friday marks Disney’s return to hand-drawn animation, a method abandoned after the box office failure that was Home on the Range in 2004. The Princess and the Frog will be the 49^th addition to the “Walt Disney Animated Classics” line of films, a list ripe with Disney favourites like Alladin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. It is also a list lined with prejudice, sparking many critics to ask whether their new heroine, Princess Tiana, can finally repair Disney’s reputation for stereotyping.

For years, the brand most often associated with innocence has been panned by cultural critics for its representations of race and gender. One of the more notable incidents surrounded the music of Aladdin in 1993. The lyrics of the film’s opening song drew criticism from Arab groups saying its depiction of the Middle East was offensive: “Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but hey, it's home” goes the film’s signature tune. Later versions of the film and soundtrack were slightly altered.

The production of The Princess and the Frog was one riddled with controversy from the beginning. The original plot featured the main character as a chambermaid working for a wealthy white debutante. She was then to win the heart of a white prince who saves her from the clutches of her superior. This was quickly scrapped after critics slammed its clichéd depiction of subservient black workers. Revisions to the script are still being met with concern. Will it be able to rectify the image of African-Americans in Disney classics like The Jungle Book and Dumbo? Will the film approach its setting of New Orleans with sympathy considering the recent events of Hurricane Katrina? Still, others will undoubtedly ask: “What is the big deal?”

Many grew up on Disney and remember it as a fond childhood memory. After all, it is entertainment. But the Walt Disney Company is first and foremost a business – the world’s largest media conglomerate, to be exact. The ways in which race or gender are represented is not of immediate concern for the company. Disney’s strong hand in shaping childhood culture is very evident. Even this Halloween, months before The Princess and the Frog was to be released, Princess Tiana costumes were already being marketed to children. According to a study released last month, girls as young as six identified that they worry about body image, and that making their hair blonde and skin white would help them become better princesses. Princess Tiana seems to be a positive step forward, but the ways that Disney uses their influence on a highly impressionable child audience cannot be ignored.

Considering the massive global influence that the company exerts, Disney bears a great responsibility for defining the ways in which children are exposed to the culture of their race and others’. In the Obama-craze of today, The Princess and the Frog looks to be another step forward. This Friday will tell if Disney can live up to the hype.

A Failure of Talent

EXTRACT

Put the director of Office Space at the helm of a comedy starring Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman, SNL’s Kristin Wiig, Juno’s J.K. Simmons, and Ben Affleck, it’s bound to be a howler, right? Wrong.

Mike Judge, famed writer-director of cult classic Office Space is back to movies with Extract, another workplace comedy. This time, the office is a flavoured extract factory owned and ran by Joel Reynold, Bateman’s character. The film has two storylines: high on horse tranquilizer, Joel hires a gigolo to have sex with his wife (Wiig) so that he will not feel guilty having an affair with the factory temp. In the second, the temp, Cindy (Mila Kunis of That ’70 Show), takes advantage of the victim of a workplace accident in order to bank on his potential lawsuit earnings. Sounds simple, and it is.

Bateman’s character is the sort he always seems to play – the everyman. There is nothing interesting about this character type Bateman has pigeonholed himself into. Joel Reynold is essentially Michael Bluth (Arrested Development) as was Michael Bluth essentially Mark Loring (Juno). This is the same kind of trap friend and occasional co-star Michael Cera has fallen into as well – if he can’t find a fresh role soon, he might just dry up.

One of the biggest problems with the story is with Wiig’s character. In a dreamlike sequence, Joel’s hired gigolo poses as the new pool boy and seduces Suzie. The scene seems a success not just because Wiig and Dustin Milligan are genuinely funny for a brief moment, but because it happens in Joel’s head. When it is revealed that the gigolo stunt was successful (more than once) the movie sinks to a deeper level of failure and the scene loses its spunk. Some kind of twist is expected in the storyline, but what you see is what you get. Unpredictability in movies is always welcome, but when it becomes unbelievable the movie fails.

The other storyline involving Kunis’ con woman character is so dry and unmemorable it deserves no more mention than this.

There are brief moments throughout the film where the all-star comic cast manages successful sketches, but the jokes are often one-note and overlong like the “annoying neighbour” bits with Anchorman’s David Koechner.

While its credentials sound like the ingredients for another comic gem, the movie won’t extract much laughter from audiences. To say that it is a disappointment is not enough – Extract is a failure of talent.

*

uwogazette.ca

The Real Devil Wears Prada?

It's a documentary that will probably make a lot of people angry. I'm there.

Will it carry some kind of mature message on beauty? Or will it be a Devil Woman one-trick pony?

Trailer Faceoff: The Better Tease?

Two pretty significant sci-fi teaser trailers were released this past week, and boy do they tease good.

In this week's "Trailer Faceoff" Leonardo DiCaprio teams up with The Dark Knight's Christopher Nolan against the man that made him famous -- Titanic's James Cameron.

Christopher Nolan vs. James Cameron

The men behind the two most successful movies ever.

Up first, weighing in at nearly 885 million dollars in domestic box office earnings and enlisting the help of young Oscar talent like Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page, it's Christopher Nolan with Inception:

What's it about? Based on this trailer, no clue. But it sure does grab you. From its seeming tagline ("your mind is the scene of the crime") to the thumping drumbeat, to the anxious crescendo and the trippy Matrix-like action -- this one's a perfect tease.

The plot details released so far for Inception are just as skimpy as the trailer: it's been revealed that DiCaprio plays a "CEO-type" caught in some kind of "blackmailing scandal", while all Warner Bros. will disclose is that the film is "set within the architecture of the mind", whatever that means. No matter, this one's a must-see come Summer 2010.

In the opposite corner, weighing in at over 1.1 billion dollars in domestic box office gross, with heavyweight veteran Sigourney Weaver at his side, James Cameron returns to the ring after a twelve-year hiatus (who wouldn't take a break after Titanic?) with the much-anticipated Avatar:

What's it about? Based on the teaser, again, no clue. But more is known about Cameron's film than Nolan's. Apparently, it is about a paralysed human soldier who gets the chance to walk again as the "driver" of a body called an "Avatar". Then the Avatars invade a planet called Pandora full of aliens. Likely, some ethical, imperialistic issues ensue.

It's not that the plot sounds bad, it's just this teaser is too massive. It leaves one a little cold.

This is however, the weakness of trailers -- they don't always work for certain movies, especially huge, complicated, 3D sci-fi epics. Or maybe it's just the weird CGI aliens. As a teaser trailer, Avatar is not a success. But based on its credentials, there is no doubting its must-see worthiness.

Champ: Inception, Christopher Nolan

Another Great Britain Talent

Yet again a British talent show churns out another incredible talent that upstages any recently discovered American talent from any American television show. This time The X-Factor showcases s a 27-year-old teacher named Danyl Johnson.

Hot on the heels of Susan Boyle, Johnson looks to be the next big thing across the globe, but can he reach the same level of celebrity as Boyle did back in June this year?

What Johnson's story lacks is the inspiring, heartbreaking and moving tale that encompassed all that was so good about Susan Boyle. Her story was one that showed millions that childhood dreams don't have to die after we're through our twenties. Her story was about the insignificance of physical beauty, and overcoming Hollywood tabloid expectations. It wasn't just her voice that got us.

Johnson is just a really great singer. But so what if his story isn't as significant as Boyle's? That's not what The X-Factor is about anyway. And if this "x-factor" means having talent, charisma and the ability to control the stage, then Danyl Johnson is definitely it.

Here's his rocking, soulful performance of The Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends":

(if LittleMissSoccer bothers you: watch here)

X FACTOR 2009 WEEK 1 - DANYL JOHNSON
Uploaded by littlemisssoccer. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

Do you agree with Simon? Is it the "best first audition" you've ever seen?

When Will Michael Cera Stop?

Notice anything familiar?

That's right. Michael Cera is at it again. He's playing an awkward, geeky, lovable teen!

For a brief moment, let's take a look at a snippet of Cera's recent acting arsenal:

• Arrested Devlopment (awkward teen)
• Superbad (awkward teen)
• Juno (awkward teen)
• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (awkward teen)
• Year One (awkward prehistoric teen)
• Paper Heart (awkward teen)

It's probably something you've noticed. Maybe it's not necessarily something that bothers you. Maybe Cera is some kind of geeky teen "auteur" in your opinion. But to this bored blogger it's a tired act.

It does seem, however, that this newest addition to Cera's filmogrophy, Youth in Revolt, is spiced up with a "supplementary persona" by the name of Francois. Let's hope this is Cera's way of slowly moving towards a different character type, because, really, how many times can you change the environment (or millennium) of essentially the same character before everyone notices?

I will still see Youth and Revolt. Aside from the fact that Cera looks to be doing mostly the same awkward things as he's been doing for years, the movie's got the based-on-a-best-selling-book thing going for it. And that's something... right?