ALADDIN 8 out of 10; Directed by Guy Ritchie; Written by John August and Guy Ritchie; Starring Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, and Alan Tudyk; Rated PG for some action/peril; Running time 128 minutes; In wide release May 24.

Bringing Disney’s 1992 animated hit Aladdin to the big screen in a live action production is no small feat. The Broadway version removed Abu and Iago (no doubt due to logistics), but the magic of computer animation returns these characters to the beloved tale of a boy, a Genie, and a princess.

Interestingly, the new film probably utilizes as much if not more animation than the original film for Will Smith’s Genie alone. And though I think many questioned his casting because, let’s face it, they’d question anyone not the late great Robin Williams, Smith makes the character his own. With perhaps a bit less improv and more subplot, the Genie no doubt will endear himself to a new generation of audiences.

My one complaint would be the Genie’s eyes. Did they really need to CGI Smith’s eyes to such a degree? Very unsettling. Like Renesmee unsettling if you know what I mean. (I hope you don’t.) 

The basic story remains the same: street rat Aladdin (Mena Massoud) has a chance encounter with Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) on the streets of Agrabah and begins to dream of a better life. An opportunity comes in the shape of Royal Vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) who presents him with a quest to obtain a magical lamp from the Cave of Wonders. Returning as the Cave’s voice is Frank Welker, voice talent extraordinaire and also the voice of Abu and Rajah in the 1992 film.

Of all the talent in the film, I was most disappointed with Jafar. His character went the opposite of Jonathan Freeman’s out of control, snide, slimy villain–Kenzari’s Jafar is soft-spoken, mostly mild-mannered (a facade, of course), and, quite frankly, dull. Iago (Alan Tudyk) is more sinister. And couldn’t he have called Aladdin Prince Abubu just once? Missed opportunity. Unless he did and I missed it. 

Jasmine, however, is the standout in the film. She has a role that moves even beyond her expanded story in the Broadway version. And a new solo song that I think will resonate with a lot of women. Her handmaiden/best friend is played by Nasim Pedrad, and can we talk a moment about Jasmine’s costumes? Beautiful corseted pieces that probably aren’t remotely historically or geographically accurate, but this is a fictional land, right? The colors are vibrant, and there’s so much sparkle! 

By the way, if you’ve seen the movie, did you get a Newsies vibe during One Jump Ahead? Not sure if it was the dancing or the music or both. Probably the new arrangement of the music, as Alan Menken wrote for both the animated film and the new one, as well as composing for Newsies.

And finally, the director. I might have forgotten it was a Guy Ritchie film (not nearly as much violence as in his other films) except for several instances of extreme slow motion. And immediately it brought to mind his Sherlock films. I think that style is a bit unusual for a Disney adaptation, but I feel it worked for the specific scenes where it was used. 

Overall, a fun, faithful adaptation with some new twists and turns. 

Ralph Breaks the Internet will be available for home release later this month, and to celebrate, we want to give our readers a chance to win a Blu-ray combo pack for free!

To enter, all you have to do is send your name and mailing address (in the U.S. only please, and we cannot guarantee delivery to PO Boxes) in an email with RALPH in the subject line to ADAM@BIGSHINYROBOT.COM, and that’s it! If you share this contest on Facebook and/or Twitter, you’ll get an extra entry for each one; just be sure to let me know in the email that you did.

The contest will run until Saturday, February 16, and the one (1) winner will be contacted shortly thereafter.

Ralph Breaks the Internet is available on Digital 4K Ultra HD on Movies Anywhere February 12 and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray February 26!

Best of luck to everyone who enters!

In the late 1890s, when the advent of cinema was just beginning to take shape, film was primarily seen as little more than a cheap thrill. Even the Lumière Brothers, the makers of such iconic early short films as L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat or Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon, saw the art form they were helping to build as little more than a gimmick. Much like their fellow film-pioneering peers of the time, they did not make films for art, but rather as a means to an end. They would tour across the country with individual viewing stations where patrons could pay to individually watch a few minutes, at most, of film.

These earliest films were not anything extravagant in form, simply stationary shots of fairly mundane events happening, such as a train arriving at the station or workers leaving the factory. But to the public, it was hypnotic. ‘Moving pictures’ became something bigger than any of the earliest filmmakers and exhibitors could ever have dreamt of.

Decades later, this early period of filmmaking would come to be contextualized by film-essayist Tom Gunning as capitalizing on “the cinema of attractions”. Viewers flocked to these side-show film-fests, not for any sense of narrative or larger purpose, but rather to simply be entertained. Much like the circus acts and feats of strength these films were exhibited alongside, audiences were simply looking to be awed. As Gunning wrote at the time in The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde;

“From comedians smirking at the camera, to the constant bowing and gesturing of the conjurors in magic films, this is a cinema that displays its visibility, willing to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world for a chance to solicit the attention of the spectator.”

Obviously, over the course of time, cinema has evolved a great deal. But elements of the cinema of attractions remains with us to this day. Audiences don’t flock to big blockbuster tentpoles for no reason; they’re looking to be awed. They want to see something they haven’t seen before. 

But there’s one genre, especially, where the cinema of attractions has remained a vital part of the genre’s core DNA since the very beginning: the musical.

Perhaps no other genre is quite as thoroughly equipped and prepared to drop everything on a dime, in the name of awing the audience, as the musical is. This owes a great deal to the fact that, in their earliest form, musicals were positively rooted in this concept. In 1927, The Jazz Singer helped usher in an entirely new era of filmmaking in becoming one of the first motion pictures to have sound. In using this new element of sound to its full capacity, it was also the first musical ever committed to film. And while it was not without a narrative or other elements, it was first and foremost a piece of the cinema of attractions. Audiences turned out in droves to see a man talking, singing, and dancing on-screen.

Over the last hundred years or so, there have been hundreds of musical films, each one of them indebted to the cinema of attractions in one way or another. But perhaps the most interesting of the bunch was a film that not only embraced the cinema of attractions through its formal elements but also made the conflict between early cinema and new cinema one of its primary narrative and thematic threads. That film, Walt Disney’s immortal classic, Mary Poppins, went on to change musical cinema forever.

Released in 1964, the film came four decades-deep into the prime of the Hollywood musical, and only a few years prior to the genre’s inevitable crash as the world stepped into the ‘70s. Just as westerns evolved from fairly straight-forward tales of good versus evil into more complex, nuanced, and mature stories in later decades, so too did the musical. By the fifties, classics such as Singin’ in the Rain were actively attempting to advance the genre beyond just simple song and dance routines. These films were still very much rooted in the cinema of attractions, delivering show-stopping musical sequences at every turn, but they were also actively striving to reach new heights.

Mary Poppins was a culmination of all of this. Going above-and-beyond traditional song and dance routines in truly Walt-ish fashion, Mary Poppins was stuffed to the brim with not only phenomenal songs by the Sherman Brothers and visually striking dance sequences to match but also some of the most incredible visual effects ever committed to film. From the film’s revolutionary implementation of glass and matte paintings, to the extensively impressive wirework used to make characters fly, to the jaw-dropping chalk drawing sequence that mixed live-action and animation so fluidly, the film plays its effects off like an unbelievable magic trick to the audience.

The early moment when Mary Poppins first goes up to the nursery with Jane and Michael is a perfect example of this. As Mary reaches deep into her bag, pulling out objects that are far too big to be legitimately housed within the bag, Stevenson goes out of his way time and time again to rub the audience’s nose in what seems like the only logical answers. The table’s underside is clearly exposed to the camera, showing that there isn’t any larger bag beneath that she is reaching down into. The bag is moved all across the table, never staying in the same spot for too long, demonstrating that it isn’t attached. And most effectively of all, Michael goes from standing next to Mary to the underneath of the table, investigating for himself, all in one fluid shot. This is the cinema of attractions at its finest, presenting genuine magic on-screen for the audience and daring them to guess at how they could have possibly pulled it off.

And of course, it is, because that’s precisely what Walt Disney has always specialized in. He is arguably the biggest advocate of the cinema of attractions in all of history. From his first Mickey Mouse shorts, to his first feature film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, to Disneyland itself, Walt was all about awing his audiences. He wanted to immerse his viewers and guests in a narrative, absolutely, but he was also quick to prioritize maximum joy and wonder over these constraints time and time again.

Which is what makes the thematic work of Mary Poppins all the more interesting. In the film, Mr. Banks is looking for a nanny who can help support a household founded on “tradition, discipline, and rules” and mold his children’s minds. Yet, when Mary Poppins is brought on-board, there is a fundamental break in their theologies.

As a character, Poppins’ entire ethos is to educate the children while also entertaining them. As she reiterates time and time again, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”. As a result, she’s teaching the children valuable lessons about everything from cleaning up their room to respecting their elders, but all while taking them on magical adventures. This gives the film a somewhat episodic structure, with the first hour or so after Mary Poppins arrives being spent on these seemingly disconnected sequences.

For the narrative, these sequences are hardly necessary. They could be cut and the script could still maintain the same essential structure. But for the film, these sequences are everything. They are the beating heart of all Walt was then and was ever trying to do: entertain. Rather infamously, author P. L. Travers herself felt that the entire animated sequence was superfluous at best and begged Walt to cut it from the film. However, Walt refused, insisting that it was key to the film.

It isn’t hard to find the mirroring of this dynamic in the film, when Mr. Banks comes crashing back into the narrative, insisting that all Mary Poppins has done with the children since her arrival is indulge joyful frivolities. While it would have been easy to sell this conflict as thin and little more than a reference to some of the behind-the-scenes creative tension, it is so much more than that.

Mr. Banks serves as a representation of the rules of storytelling, insisting that Mary Poppins stay on-schedule and follow the rules. He views unnecessary singing, such as the impromptu renditions of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as unwelcome and aggravating at best. When the children want to invest their tuppence in feeding the birds, Mr. Banks and his fellow-bank workers insist that this is a ridiculous waste of their money and that they should instead do the reasonable thing and allow the bank to hold onto their money for them.

Much like the rules of narrative filmmaking, Mr. Banks views the world as something that will devolve into chaos if it is not rigidly structured. Anything outside of what is absolutely necessary is simply excess to him and has no purpose. But Mary, and to a larger extent the film itself, sees that sometimes that structure can be suffocating and that sometimes the chaos is where the real beauty of the world truly lies.

To say that the world must be constantly kept in rigid formation in order to function is to deny the presence of visceral, unpredictable magic in the world. Which, of course, is not a viewpoint that Mary Poppins or Walt Disney himself were ever going to ascribe to. The key difference is that while Mr. Banks sees magic as some ludicrous thing that must be explained, Poppins herself openly denies explanation. She is the embodiment of everything the cinema of attractions stands for; a character completely capable of breaking the rules of her own universe and narrative, so long as it heightens the experience of the viewer.

It is no coincidence that by the end of the film the freeform creativity of Mary Poppins has won out. She helps show Mr. Banks that not only do the children need more creative freedom and “sugar”, so-to-speak, in their lives but so too does he. Because in a world that is frequently shoving such large amounts of medicine down our throats, we all need a spoonful of sugar every now and then.

Disney’s Mary Poppins is a perhaps one of the greatest genre commentaries ever made. In foregrounding the inherent conflict in all musicals (that of the cinema of attractions versus narrative structure) in both its text and subtext, Disney was able to deliver a film that both explored the very reason why film ever came into existence in the first place. Tom Gunning coined the phrase cinema of attractions to illustrate what he felt was a parallel between cinema and the “attractions of the fairground”, saying;

“Such viewing experiences relate more to the attractions of the fairground than to the traditions of the legitimate theater. The relation between films and the emergence of the great amusement parks, such as Coney Island, at the turn of the century provides rich ground for rethinking the roots of early cinema.”

Which only makes it all the more fitting that the ultimate commentary on the subject’s prevalence in modern film was delivered by none other than the king of fairground attractions himself, Mr. Walt Disney.

MARY POPPINS RETURNS (8 out of 10) Directed by Rob Marshall; Written by David McGee; Starring Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Wishaw, Emily Mortimer, Meryl Streep, Colin Firth; Rated PG for some mild thematic elements and brief action; Running time 130 minutes; In wide release December 19, 2018.

It’s hard to imagine a Mary Poppins movie without Julie Andrews or the timeless lyrics of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

But Mary Poppins Returns manages to capture the spirit of Mary Poppins without destroying our childhoods. There’s some kite flying and a visit to the bank, so not all is different from the original. And Mary Poppins still carries that bottomless carpetbag, along with her talking umbrella that allows her to soar into the sky and then very gracefully step back onto the ground.

Set some decades after the original film, Mary Poppins Returns reintroduces us to Jane (Emily Mortimer) and Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) as grownups. Michael, recently widowed, struggles to care for his three young children. An artist-turned-bank teller, he still can’t quite manage to get the house and finances in order.

Jane is the high-spirited sister/aunt, and Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame plays Jack, a lamplighter who is acquainted with both Bert and Mary Poppins.

It would be impossible to compare Emily Blunt‘s depiction of Poppins to that of Julie Andrews. Julie Andrews is incomparable. However, Blunt is practically perfect in every way.  A bit of cheeky humor here and there combined with over-the-top propriety. No matter what magic she weaves, she is always prim and proper.

The songs are catchy and fit well within the story. It will take several more viewings and repeat listening to really gauge which are my favorites, but the underwater song and the lullaby seem to stand out. Several also have counterparts to  the original Mary Poppins film. Instead of chimney sweeps, Jack and his lamplighter friends do a major musical number. (And the Spielberg fan in me was reminded of the bicycle chase scene in E.T. I looked around to see if anyone else saw it, but no, it was just me.) And rather than jumping into a chalk drawing, Mary Poppins and the children go inside a Royal Dalton vase for animated adventures. The journeys into imagination are filled with fun and frivolity, and Blunt is absolutely delightful when she’s being playful with the children.

But of course this isn’t the Mary Poppins that we grew up with. If we wanted that, then we could simply re-watch that for the hundredth time. This is a reimagining, a sequel, an homage. Something new and fun to look at that does not take away from the original film in the slightest. And if there isn’t enough nostalgia in the film for those who are a little harder to convince, Dick Van Dyke reprises a role, and, despite his age, doesn’t miss a step.

I left the theater smiling and heartily recommend. 

Incredibles 2 is a film imbued with multiple layers of nostalgia. Primarily, it’s a sequel to a fourteen-year-old Pixar film that picks up precisely where the first film left off. Unlike other Pixar sequels, like say, Toy Story 3 or Finding Dory, both of which allowed time to pass in their narrative world, Incredibles 2 quite literally thrusts audiences right back to where they were in 2004.

But also, there’s the inherent nostalgia of Brad Bird’s world. As a filmmaker, Bird has consistently played on themes of progress and how we as a society can utilize it for better or for worse. As a result, Bird’s films consistently pull from a distinct era in time; the late 50’s and early 60’s. The world of The Incredibles is no different, with a newspaper in the first film citing the year as 1962. It’s also no mere coincidence that this is the same era that Bird was born and raised into.

Thus, from the get-go, Incredibles 2 is a film that sees both its filmmaker and its audience chasing down their childhood. What makes the film so great though, is the way in which Bird utilizes this and weaves it into the film’s thematic core.

The central plot sees Winston Deavor, the wealthy head of a telecommunications company, looking to help supers step back into the spotlight. Upon meeting with Elastigirl, Frozone, and Mr. Incredible, he is able to tempt all of them into helping with his endeavor. Each of the characters in this scene is driven by their own nostalgia. Our heroes are driven to meet with him solely on the basis that he claims to be able to return things to the way they were, or as he phrases it, ‘make supers legal again’. Even Elastigirl, who is initially unsure of the plan, is brought fully on-board when the Deavors give her a new Elasti-cycle, a device that immediately incites memories of her youth.

Mr. Deavor’s intentions are also heavily rooted in his own nostalgia. His parents were killed years earlier when supers were made illegal because they called for the supers but no one came. By bringing back the supers, Winston sees himself as restoring balance to the world and doing right by his parents. Even Frozone notes to the Parrs that they should wear their old superhero outfits when meeting with Winston because he’s got a feeling he’s the “nostalgic type”.

Each and every one of these characters are motivated by a desire to return to the way things were. Mr. Incredible wants to avoid going back to a desk job by being a super as his full-time job. Elastigirl longs for the opportunity to get back in touch with her younger self and not see herself as being defined by motherhood. Winston wants supers to come back, because it’s the way things were when he was a child and as a particularly nefarious character points out later in the film, supers were legal when his parents were still alive so he “conflates the two”. These motivations are not driven by a desire for progression, but rather a desire for regression. And this is expertly represented in the action of the film itself.

The three biggest setpieces in the film all have a simple thing in common; they are about stopping something. The opening sees the heroes trying to stop the Underminer’s drill from destroying city hall. The monorail setpiece sees Elastigirl trying to stop a runaway monorail. The finale sees everyone trying to stop the Everjust ship from crashing into the city.

In the first instance, things end poorly. The Incredibles and Frozone are able to stop Underminer’s drill but at a great cost. The Underminer escapes, the money from the banks is stolen, and the Incredibles are arrested for their deeds. In trying to halt the progression of the Underminer’s drill, they actually bring about more damage both to the city and themselves.

In the second instance, things get a bit more complicated. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new monorail in New Urbem, something goes terribly wrong and the monorail leaves the station, going backward. This is the result of an act by the Screenslaver, which comes with its own layers of subtext. Arguably made famous by Disney parks, the monorail was famously referred to by Walt as ‘the skyway of tomorrow’. So to see Screenslaver quite literally using this tool for progress as a means of regression is a visceral and powerful moment.

The final instance continues this theme. The Everjust is a hyrdoliner, again a futuristic method of travel that represents progression. And again, Screenslaver redirects the ship, turning it fully around and aiming it straight at the city, turning its unstoppable progression into a weapon. It is here that our heroes realize that victory is not in stopping progress, victory is in embracing it. The ship does crash into the city, but it does so safely. Between the combined efforts of the Incredibles, Frozone, and all of the other supers, the ship simply skids to a stop amidst an avalanche-worth of snow. And it is here, for the first time, that the general public truly embraces all heroes once again, because of their willingness to progress.

Throughout the film, progress is what saves our characters. Staying at home with the kids takes a heavy toll on Bob until he visits Edna and opens his mind. It is only through being progressive and embracing his role as a stay-at-home father that he succeeds. Likewise, Violet is devastated to learn that all of Tony’s memories of her have been erased. Her efforts to try and jog his memory are fruitless, and it is only when she embraces the opportunity to forge new memories with him that they finally get to go on their date to the movies.

In the third act, when Mr. and Mrs. Incredible’s minds are taken over by Screenslaver, it is solely up to the children to save the day. The nostalgia and glory days mentality of the parents is turned against them, and it is only through their natural progression, their children, that they are able to overcome Screenslaver.

Speaking of which, Screenslaver is revealed to be Evelyn Deavor at the end of the second act. Just as Winston is driven by a sense of nostalgia surrounding the trauma of their parents’ death, so too is Evelyn. Where Winston blames the society that took supers away, Evelyn blames the supers themselves and what they did to society and her parents. Her goal as the Screenslaver is to use tools meant to further progress, such as screens, monorails, hydroliners, or even superheroes, and bastardize them so as to ruin people’s faith in them. Through her ranting and raving about the “weakness” of society though, she fundamentally underestimates the power of progress.

As Edna tells Mr. Incredible, Jack-Jack is so powerful because he is positively bursting with potential. As the baby of the family, he is the epitome of the potential of progress.

In Incredibles 2, Brad Bird has crafted an exquisite sequel that directly addresses some of his favorite themes in the most relevant way yet. The weight of being both a “cynic” and a “believer” in how the world progresses from here is felt throughout the film. To look at days gone by and wish that things could only be as great again is a fool’s errand, both in film and in real life. Hollywood is currently driven by nostalgia, but it’s only through embracing the progression of those properties that studios will ever forge something worth-while. And in the real world, trying to return a society or nation to a romanticized past era when things were ‘great’, is destined to end in failure.

Progress is key. And in a time where forces are actively attempting to regress society on a day-to-day basis, that message has never felt more timely.

Ready Player One was an ambitious film. The kind that, in the hands of a lesser director, would have absolutely faltered in on itself. It explores a world so vast and so easy to get lost in, and yet Spielberg handles it with masterful prevision. At the SXSW premiere of the film, Spielberg summarized his approach to the film as follows;

“The pop-culture references can be seen out of the side windows, but if you look right out of the front windshield, you can follow the story”.

So what does any of that have to do with a half-animated film noir from 1988, concerning a bunny whose wife decided to play paddy cake with another man behind his back? Well, a lot, actually.

Illustration by deadbinky.

On June 22, 1988, Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released in cinemas across the country. It was the final product of nearly seven years worth of planning, negotiating, writing, filming, animating, and editing. Produced as a joint venture between Amblin and Touchstone, the film marked the first time in history that Disney’s animated characters got to mix and mingle with Warner Bros’ own animated line-up. And while this was historic in a great many ways, Zemeckis never lost sight of what truly mattered.

The film opens with an animated short, starring Roger Rabbit as an unprepared babysitter. In the span of its five-minute runtime, the short channels the eccentric energy of the Tex Avery sketches of old and immediately transports the audience to a different time and place. When the camera then pulls back to reveal the shooting crew who is filming the animated short, it kicks the doors in on our preconceived notions of animation. It treats Roger and Baby Herman as real actors, and in this one single shot, the film recontextualizes our entire understanding of animation in the world of this film and supplies us decades-worth of world-building.

 As overwhelming as all of this information could have been, as easy as it would have been to immediately lose the audience, the most ingenious thing Zemeckis does is also among the simplest. At the end of this single-take that holds our hand through the transition, he pans back to show that we have been experiencing the entire opening through the point of view of Eddie Valiant.

Throughout the film, Valiant is the audience surrogate who acts as an anchor for the film at large. After paying a visit to R.K. Maroon’s office, Valiant’s walk out of the studio is, again, captured in a single, long-take. He strolls past countless animated characters, all of whom are interacting with the real world. The ostrich opens the real-world door, the pelican rides a real-world bicycle, the hippo sits on and breaks a real-world bench. It’s mesmerizing to watch and it puts the audience squarely in the shoes of Eddie Valiant himself. Just as he is re-introduced into the world of toons for the first time in years, we as an audience are immersed in the reality and length of it. The shot runs for a little over a minute, without a single cut, and it makes the animations feel real. Rather than separating these elements into separate shots, Zemeckis shows it to us in one long, continuous take with every element able to interact with one another within the same frame. It’s a ton of more work, but the end result is indisputably remarkable.

This is the film’s methodical approach. Show the world to the audience through the eyes of Eddie Valiant and consistently go above and beyond the constraints of formal film language, to achieve a greater sense of realism. In fact, so much extra work was put into making the effects of Roger Rabbit as believable as possible that the film coined a term still used in the studios to this day: ‘bump the lamp’.

In a scene in which the handcuffed-together Valiant and Roger are hiding from Judge Doom in a secret room in the bar, the overhead lamp is bumped early-on and continuously sways back and forth throughout the proceeding shots. As it does, Roger’s shadow dances around the walls just as Valiant’s does. This was achieved through animation director Richard Williams and his team painstakingly going through frame-by-frame and adding the shadow animation in by hand. The end result isn’t even something that your average film-goer would consciously notice upon an initial viewing, but the team went the extra mile because they knew the wonders it could work on a subconscious level. Seeing both shadows move along the wall makes the viewer equate the two, it makes Roger just as real and tangible of a character as Valiant.

This want for pushing the cinematic form as far as humanly possible works wonders throughout the film, but it only works so well because of whose eyes we’re seeing it through. In an early sequence, Valiant goes to a nightclub to see Jessica Rabbit perform. When he arrives, Donald Duck and Daffy Duck are performing on dueling pianos. It’s a huge moment of IP cross-over, but Zemeckis keeps us anchored with Valiant. We see their performance as it grows increasingly insane and ludicrous, but only through the eyes of Valiant. Removing us from him could have easily resulted in this moment feeling superfluous or tacked on. Instead, it is a core component of the scene that not only sets the tone moving forward, it offers an early look into Valiant’s fear of toons and their more violent tendencies.

Even amongst all of the technical wizardry on display, the most impressive feat the movie accomplishes is in its quietest moment. Valiant and Roger hideout in a movie theater that is showing Goofy Gymnastics, a Disney short starring the Goof himself. Roger tells Valiant that the entire reason he got into show-business was because of how much Goofy made him laugh, and how that’s all he ever wanted to do. This revelation leads to Valiant telling Roger the story of how he came to stop working with toons after his brother was killed by one.

It’s an intimate moment between the two characters in which both of them reveal a crucial and driving piece of information about themselves that recontextualizes their actions up to this point. Roger is a natural born entertainer, who is only striving to bring the same happiness to others that his idol, Goofy, brought to him. He doesn’t mean any harm to Valiant or anyone else when he acts up, handcuffing the two of them together, singing for the bar patrons, or laughing loudly in the movie theater. He simply longs for joy and happiness, and to share it with others. More so than any effect, it humanizes Roger and allows us to see him as a fully-formed character, warts and all.

Valiant’s insight paints his actions towards toons in an entirely different light. He isn’t some Scrooge of a character, but rather someone who, just like Roger, loved the toons and the joy they brought to his life, but was betrayed by that very love and is now content to drown his sadness in alcohol and cynicism.

Later, when Valiant is forced to go into Toontown to save Roger, he gives up alcohol and is willing to face his demons so that he might preserve the joy and happiness of others. It’s a turning point for Valiant and for the larger commentary, the film is making about how we as an audience grow with (and against) the art of our youth.

 In a particularly noteworthy visual, as Valiant enters Toontown, Zemeckis creates a frame within the frame. Literally giving audience’s Valiant’s point-of-view, we look through the front windshield, speeding towards Roger and driving the main narrative of the plot. But as Valiant looks out the side windows, we get glimpses of all the animated characters and references packed into the film.

Ready Player One and Who Framed Roger Rabbit have a lot in common; both are based on novels they don’t have much in common with, both are populated with characters who shouldn’t be interacting together, and both feature a larger commentary about the generations of fans that see themselves in their characters. But perhaps the most pertinent aspect they have in common is a mantra so powerful that Zemeckis put it on-screen. You can put as much as you want to out the side windows, but none of it will ever matter if the road ahead is fraught with disaster.  

The concept of spectatorship, or the relationship between any given film and its intended audience, is one that has escalated over the years. The idea of there being a distinct relationship between a film and its audience is nothing new, it’s always been present in the medium. Even dating back to the earliest days of cinema, filmmakers like the Lumiere Bros. or Georges Méliès made films for the express purpose of impacting audiences.

But as noted by the immortal Miriam Hansen in her musings on cinema and the public experience of it, spectatorship has evolved right alongside cinema and its audience. Modern filmmakers have taken this inherent concept of the medium and run with it. One need look no further than the immediate value of the intertextuality that runs through all modern blockbusters. Intertextuality and its relationship to the viewer have become crucial parts of the concept of spectatorship over the last few years. But perhaps the most intriguing cases of this is when a film is brave enough to take the iconic imagery and subvert it with a whole new meaning. This is absolutely the case with Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast, as it uses new plot points and songs to foreground the nostalgia that the film has spawned from and dissect it.

Condon’s film is drenched in intertextuality. Just about every moment of the beloved animated film is recreated in lush detail, with the songs all returning and even several shots replicated verbatim. When comparing Condon’s film to the live-action Disney remakes that have come before it, it is much more truthful to its animated counterpart. There is certainly a reason for this.

Whereas films such as Cinderella and The Jungle Book were originally released in the fifties and sixties, Beauty and the Beast is hardly more than twenty years old. A large portion of the audience, for this film, in particular, had grown from children to adults in those ensuing twenty years. Returning to the theater now, this subsection of the audience would be looking for one thing and one thing only; the sweet gush of nostalgia. And sure, Condon’s film immediately lures them in with a near-exact recreation of the animated film’s opening moments.

But the genius of the film is that once it has the audience firmly in the palm of its hand, it decides to do something much braver than simply adhere to the ‘tale as old as time.’ A new subplot is added, along with several new songs, which relates to Belle’s missing mother. Upon first glance, this may just seem like a bit of runtime padding or unnecessarily added backstory. But it grows into something much more, which ultimately alters the film as a whole.

It begins with the new musical number, How Does a Moment Last Forever, in which Belle’s father, Maurice, sings of holding onto a cherished memory. He sings this while crafting a music box that features paintings of Belle’s mother and himself. Simple enough, yet shortly after Belle arrives at the Beast’s castle later in the film, the refrain makes a return in another new song, Days in the Sun. In Days, the various characters of the castle reflect upon days long gone, feeling nostalgia themselves for the world they remember.

The Beast is introduced to this new theme as well, as a younger version of himself reflects upon the day his own mother died. He longs to return to the innocence and simplicity of his youth. Belle’s definitive line here that essentially sums up the entire number for them both is “I can’t go back into my childhood, one that my father made secure”.

For Belle, the culmination of this arc comes in the third new song. It is a full-on reprise of How Does a Moment Last Forever, that sees Beast and Belle traveling to what was once Belle’s childhood home. Standing amidst the shambles of the place she remembers so purely, she laments, “Easy to remember, harder to move on/Knowing the Paris of my childhood is gone”. Belle comes to the realization that the very thing she has been chasing after her entire life, this sense of nostalgia she’s felt, is for a place that no longer truly exists. It’s a dark moment and one that is sincerely surprising. It’s a twist that registers on a purely emotional level, as a film that has spent a vast majority of its runtime investing its audience in nostalgia suddenly forces them to see the dark underbelly of the very beast they came to see.

This distraught sense of the darkness of nostalgia is not just something that exists within the subplot; it feeds into the main story that the audience knows and loves, offering newfound depth and subtext. When Belle flees the castle to go help her endangered father, she is quite literally clinging to the one aspect of her nostalgia that remains alive in the world. This act on her part leads to Beast’s ultimate realization with the final new number, Evermore.

Evermore features the Beast reflecting upon his past as he watches Belle leave. He remembers the days of being a prince but for the first time in the film, he does not look upon them as fond days that were ripped away from him. Rather, he sees them as days he himself threw away. Instead of looking at them through a lens of nostalgia, he is now forced to face the truth and realize the implications of his own actions. He sings, “Now I know, she’ll never leave me”, and while on the surface it seems to be about Belle, it is also a clear reference to the mother he lost. Belle has shown him that clinging to these days in the sun is perhaps not what’s best for him. That perhaps the best way to let a moment live forever is, in fact, to let it go.

When the film inevitably reaches its joyous conclusion, the characters are left very much in the same place they were in the animated film. All those trapped in the castle are human once more and Belle and the Beast dance together in the ballroom. But there is one slight difference; Maurice is there, painting a new picture, one of Belle and the Beast. Now that they’ve finally been released from the memories and nostalgia that shackled them, they are all free to create new memories and moments together.

For a film such as this (a huge, blockbuster tent-pole for the House of Mouse) to take such an unflinching, analytical look at nostalgia is a bold move. It’s a mass-marketed film that calls for a much more active viewing experience than one would suspect.

COCO (9 out of 10) Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina; Written by Lee Unkrich, Jason Katz, Matthew Aldrich, and Adrian Molina; Starring Anthony Gonzalez, GAel Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau, and Herbert Siguenza; Rated PG ; Running time 109 minutes; In wide release November 27.

Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3, brings his long in development story about a young would-be musician named Miguel whose family has forbidden him to become a musician. He travels to the Land of the Dead on Dia de los Muertos in order to gain the blessing of his ancestors to pursue his musical aspirations. Naturally, things get more complicated.

Bryan: As with any Pixar film, there are two warnings you should always heed and Coco is no exception: don’t wear eye-makeup if you’re so inclined, and bring tissues. This film, like most films that come from Disney’s Pixar studio, brings an emotional, essential, and universal truth to the storytelling that crosses all cultures and audiences in order to deliver something magical.

Adam: Yes, you will definitely want to bring along some tissues as Coco will tug at your heartstrings and lead to a few tears of both pain and joy. Now that said, it’s nowhere near as moving as the likes of Inside Out and Bing Bong, but there’s enough here to stir emotions and move the heart. If anything, by the time I got done, it definitely made me want to talk to my family and check up on them to see how they have been doing, so make sure to take your parents and siblings with you to go see it.

Bryan: The film is truly wondrous and so original and authentic in its concept that it’s hard to find touchstones in other media that might have informed it. Obviously, it’s dripping in the Pixar formula but parts of it feel very old Disney. The musician that Miguel seeks out in the afterlife, Ernesto de la Cruz, feels almost like Guy Williams had been bred with Vicente Fernandez. We’re even treated to old black and white films from his past that remind us visually of these eras of old Disney filmmaking.

Adam: Pixar outdoes themselves once again with one of the most beautiful movies they’ve ever made. The Land of the Dead is bursting with light, color and character, and even from what has been shown in the trailers cannot compare to the experience of seeing this on the big screen. Oh, and make sure to see it in 2D. I can’t think of viewing it with what are essentially sunglasses to see it in 3D as that would greatly affect just how beautiful and colorful this film is.

Bryan: The structure of the film really does feel Pixar, which makes it almost predictable in some ways. But I can’t tell if it’s because the movie is really predictable, or I’ve just seen enough to know where the twists and turns are coming. And even when seeing a character or situation appear and say to myself, “Oh, this is the situation there,” and have it turn out to be true, there were still enough twists and turns that I couldn’t predict.

Adam: It is predictable, but then the enjoyment of Coco is the journey and not so much the destination. Yes, we’ve seen this type of story before, and certain beats have been repeated so many times, especially in Disney films, that anyone familiar with them can guess exactly when and how certain scenes will play out in order to move the plot along. But this pales in comparison to the world that has been built for Miguel to explore as well as the intriguing and fun characters who inhabit it. That said there was a pretty fun plot twist towards the end that had a genuinely surprising reveal that made the film even that much more interesting as well as making the theme of love and family even stronger.

A feast for the ears and the eyes and the soul

Bryan: The visuals of the film are rich and vibrant. The lighting is nothing short of breathtaking. In an early scene, Miguel is locked up in an attic, watching old VHS tapes of his hero’s movies. The glow of the TV, the cracks in the roof allowing sunlight, and the candles of his shrine all combine into a hazy, ethereal light on Miguel as he strums his homemade guitar. The way it all blends together is truly something. And that’s just one scene. There are scenes lit by fireworks, others lit by moonlight. But the true feast of the eyes is in the land of the dead, where normal rules of light or architecture don’t quite apply.

Bryan: This film has excellent screenwriting on display from the very beginning. And when the plot threads all tie together, they do so in a way that is ultimately tearful and satisfying. It evokes the gamut of emotions we deal with as humans surrounding death and grief. But it does it in a way that’s sweet. Though I think it’s difficult to advocate the idea of an afterlife, I think more children’s fare should deal with the idea of confronting death and not thinking of it as the end as long as we’re in the memory of those we leave behind. Kids need things that help them process those emotions, and Coco feels like the perfect vehicle for that.

Adam: The Book of Life handled Dia de los Muertos a few years back, and as entertaining as it was, Pixar really nails the look and feel of the holiday while still respecting the culture and people that surround it. It was truly refreshing to see a movie about Mexican people and their heritage voiced by actual Latino actors. For as much as we’ve dealt with white-washing roles even in movies from just a few months ago a la Ghost in the Shell, it was a wise choice to allow these actors to accurately portray their culture. And yes, there is a lot of Spanish spoken throughout the movie with no subtitles. This might make certain parts a little hard for kids who have never taken a Spanish class to understand, but it’s all pretty easy to figure out as the characters emote what their saying so beautifully that it doesn’t even matter so much that they’re speaking a different language.

Bryan: This film was a delight. It was colorful and full of soul. It was a feast for the ears and the eyes and the soul. Despite a few quirks of predictability, this is one of Pixar’s finest and earns a full 9 of 10 from me.

Adam: Coco is fantastic and easily the best animated movie of the year. Pixar once again proves that they are on the top of their game when it comes to the art they regularly produce, and Coco ranks up there with some of the best they’ve ever done. Grab your family and go see this as soon as you can. And if they can’t go with you, you’ll want to give them a call as soon as you get out to tell them you love them. 9 out of 10

9 out of 10

In case you’ve forgotten (but really how could you?) a new DuckTales series will begin this summer with an all star cast including David Tennant as Scrooge McDuck. In anticipation of the most wonderful thing to happen since the acquisition of the number one dime, Disney is releasing six short clips today.

All six are available on the Disney XD app but, in the event that you’re concerned about Disney’s all seeing eye gazing into your soul through your smartphone, you can just watch them on YouTube (which is to say that they’re below and you can watch them right now). Three of them were uploaded today with the remainder available next Friday.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES 7 out of 10; Directed by Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg; Written by Jeff Nathanson; Starring Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush,Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario and Orlando Bloom; Rated PG-13 for sequences of adventure violence, and some suggestive content; Running time 129 minutes; In wide release May 26, 2017

Who knew there were so many cursed pirates sailing the seven seas? Though the Curse of the Black Pearl was lifted long ago, a barnacle-covered Will Turner still serves as captain of The Flying Dutchman, and we are introduced to a suffering Spanish pirate Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) who vows revenge upon Jack Sparrow. It’s easy to think that Jack himself must be cursed since so many who cross his path meet unlucky fates. 

Will the son of Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner, face a similar fate? Growing up near the ocean, Henry studies everything he possibly can to find a way to break his father’s curse and bring him home. The fabled Trident of Poseidon holds the power to breaking any curse on the ocean, but no one knows how to find it. Henry’s adventures lead him to Jack Sparrow and Carina Smyth, an educated woman facing execution for being a witch. 

The two young newcomers played their parts well, but I found their characters bland compared to Will and Elizabeth. Henry is too idealistic and innocent, Carina comes across as defiant and not easy to like. But I suppose if someone kept trying to hang me simply because I’m a woman and like science, I might be sassy and a bit untrusting too.

This is now my third favorite film in the franchise. At World’s End ended in a way that was unsatisfactory to me, and the bleaker tone of the film made it a pale imitation to its more light-hearted predecessors. I don’t even remember On Stranger Tides. Is that the movie where the Black Pearl ended up in the bottle? I know I saw it but it wasn’t memorable. 

The new installment is a return to the more comedic parts of the franchise, as well as rollicking adventure. Jack Sparrow is down on his luck, and while Depp’s portrayal is more caricature than character at this point, we still want to see the pirate win the upper hand.

The race to locate the Trident before Salazar reminded me a bit of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where the person in possession of the relic will have unimaginable power. There’s also a diary that helps them along the way. And the hero is named Henry. 

The visual effects looked incredible, and through the magic of CGI we see a younger Jack Sparrow and how he acquired his tricorn hat (and yes I see Spielberg everywhere but it did feel like another nod to The Last Crusade). I didn’t feel the scene ventured into the uncanny valley, and we’ve come a long way in de-aging of actors since Tron: Legacy.

There’s a lot going on in this movie. A lot of characters and double-crossing and triple-crossing. Statements on educated women and how society perceives them. Secrets are revealed that really don’t lend much to the plot other than to lend a little gravitas to the ending. And there are creepy sharks. Too bad the Black Pearl is stuck in the bottle. They could use a bigger boat. 

Overall, Dead Men Tell No Tales is a fun addition to the successful franchise. Was it a film that needed to be made? Not really. My expectations weren’t high, though, so I was pleasantly surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s by no means perfect, but it’s entertaining with plenty of action and a little bit of heart.  If you were a fan of the first film, or even the others, I think you should give this a chance. Savvy?