So yeah…that whole situation where I had to talk someone out of considering suicide? Happened to me again. Twice. I may be reaching my own psychic limit here soon.
@Martin:
I’m not sure what you mean. Disney has been primarily making ‘Princess Movies’ since The Little Mermaid made so much money. Brave would fit into the group invisibly. The plot is eerily similar to The Little Mermaid itself. And Medina is actually a princess as well as a princess-style-protagonist.
Home alone on a Friday night, with only a bottle of old vine zinfandel. Well, not completely alone. There is a totally adorable golden laying on the floor beside me. He truly is the sweetest doggie.
Shockingly appropriate satire of the insane dynamics that the election year produces — particularly around these parts. Who could honestly not see ABL and Zandar, mindless drones that they are, post snarky jeremiads in defense of this accusation? Then Doug would adopt his now-tiresome tough guy pose and write a follow-up heh indeed post — something along the lines, “It might not be true but it gives me a huge erection to see the other side scream. Politics ain’t beanbag motherfucka [insert gangster rap analogy] [insert glib bravado] yada yada yada.”
I recently reorganized my books and weeded out a few dozen that I either have dupes of (somehow this has happened to me a handful of times) or just don’t feel the need to keep/never wanted to begin with. As I’m on a very limited fixed income, I figured I could sell them and make a few bucks, but I am so lazy that having to weigh each one and figure out the shipping cost in order to ask a reasonable price is like…meeehhhhh. I thought about just schlepping them down to Goodwill, but the money factor keeps poking at me. I need to not be lazy! Hell, I could probably sell off most of ’em to you crazy people.
Home alone on a Friday night, with only a bottle of old vine zinfandel
Only?
15.
Hill Dweller
As Maddow pointed out, the ad that has the wing nuts so freaked out didn’t even air on television. It was a web ad that was seen by a relatively small number of people. But the Republicans wanted to change the subject from an actual Obama ad about Willard’s taxes running in battleground states, so they feigned outrage.
The media, of course, followed their lead.
16.
Waynski
“Our campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature,” Romney said, according to excerpts of an upcoming interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd released Friday.
My goodness. Romney sounds like he’s talking to an employee. ” Uhh… yeah… It would be great if we got those TPS reports.”
You expect Obama to help your campaign? What a glass-jawed foof.
17.
PurpleGirl
@Alison: I wanted to sell an art book — a book about Dali, the one with the gold heavy paper dust jacket — but I researched it first on the web and found that the price it could command was $25 and no used book store would take it. And there were dozens for sale on eBay and Amazon. So I just donated it to Housing Works.
Just watched the Blu Ray of Jeremiah Johnson with the commentary by Pollack, Redford and Milius.
The commentary is stunning. Pollack and Redford had Jeremiah dug up from the vets cemetery in LA and reburied in Cody. In addition, Milius used Jeremiah’s grave in LA as the backdrop for the drunk scene on Waxer’s grave in Big Wednesday.
Your concern is noted, as is your grouping of the African-American FP-ers and merging them with DougJ’s style, saying it’s reminiscent of “gangsta rap”.
Sorry that Balloon Juice isn’t white enough for you. It’s just “silly”.
20.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: I agree, the mother/daughter issue was done very well. That’s one reason I liked the movie so much.
21.
different-church-lady
@Thomas F: The real payoff on that one comes in the final line.
22.
Dennis SGMM
The 2008 election was sufficient to impose a media black out on myself. I suffered withdrawal symptoms for a while, but then I became so much more calm. I’m now so news-averse that this blog is my only source for hearing about things about which I can do shit.
@PurpleGirl:
Which they deliberately took away from the female creator so it could be made more marketable, and the resulting movie is identical to a Disney Princess movie. Not making Disney Princess movies was the guiding principle of Pixar’s creation.
@efgoldman:
The mother/daughter interaction was one thing they did well, but there was no context because the characters were completely formulaic. As was the plot. ‘Princess who doesn’t want to be girly’, check. ‘Mother who means well but thinks forcing her to be girly is a good thing’, check. Wish that goes wrong, check. Cure for wish turns out to be mother and daughter learning get along, check. All you’d need to do would be throw in three mischievous little brothers and an affable but clueless father, and – oh, wait, check. The movie would be fine, except it had been made ten times by the guys next door.
@PurpleGirl: Well, I’m certainly not looking to get rich off them or anything :P And I figured people might like to buy a book from an acquaintance who could use the bucks even if they could get it elsewhere for the same price…
27.
Thomas F
@freelancer: The “gangsta rap” reference was an exclusive reference to Doug’s observation that GOP messaging often resembles the overstated bravado of gangsta rap. I realize you were probably itching to smear me as a racist, but I think any regular BJ reader is aware of Doug’s schtick on this count.
28.
ChrisNYC
@Thomas F: The thing about the cancer ad is that it’s what happens when people don’t have health insurance. Do you not get that? Do you not think that Mitch McConnell’s “well, less people will be covered” statement as to the GOP “plan” for healthcare has ACTUAL REAL ramifications for real people? That those “less people” will not go to the doc and so will suffer? What’s wrong, despicable with saying, “Americans, this is the end result of this glibness. Are you ok with this?” So weird that there is all this horror about DEATH. Like this OMG he said that people DIE as a result of Romney policies. Well, yes, people die as a result of policies, policies MATTER, so stop acting like that’s not true and make your goddamn case.
Uh-huh. So in which other Disney princess movies does the heroine even have a living mother, much less have the entire story revolve around the mother/daughter conflict?
We’ll wait here while you go find the answer. I warn you, it’s gonna take you a while.
(Also, too, by all accounts the studio’s conflict with Brenda Chapman was literally an artistic conflict — she wanted the film to take place in the winter with everything a sea of white, and the Brain Trust, er, disagreed. All of that mother-daughter stuff you hated? That’s all Chapman’s.)
30.
NotMax
Primary election here on Saturday.
No suspense whatsoever as to who will be the top vote getters for each party in the House and Senate races.
As who advances to the general election is a foregone conclusion, will be voting for people on the ballot whom I prefer to the shoo-ins.
31.
gbear
I picked up my new 6 year old cat this evening. She’s acting like she was born to live in my house (although she’s only seen one room so far) – juat a little love bud. Hoping I can introduce her to my Tort tomorrow. The Tort is keeping her rage well hidden…
Doug can speak for himself on his “schtick” as you refer to it. And I’m not smearing you as a racist. I just got a little curious as to the subjects that you chose to highlight in your concern trolling, and the behavior you deemed as silly that you chose to compare it to. Other front-pagers and commenters have been just as rah-rah-rah regarding the Obama campaign fighting fire with a little fire, but you chose to highlight specific people and bemoaning the “bravado” of others acting in kind. It’s not nothing.
Don’t know if you have one of the newer high-def TVs but if so, you might be interested in this article on adjusting it to show movies as they were intended to display when they were made.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
You are misreading me. The mother/daughter interaction was the GOOD part. Substitute ‘father’ for ‘mother’ and you have the basic relationship of The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and as I recall Mulan. The character conflict driving the heroines of Mermaid, B&B, Pocahontas, Mulan, and Princess And The Frog were that they didn’t want to be girly like good little girls, but independent and/or heroic. Buying a spell to fix the problem that ends up going wrong? Straight out of The Little Mermaid.
Every character was a two-dimensional movie stereotype, the plot was utterly unoriginal, and the moral lesson was as shallow as a petri dish. Like a Disney movie, it was pretty and some of the interactions were very cute, and it was suitably funny and had some nice imagery. It was an okay movie. It was high quality pulp, but it was pulp and Pixar’s reputation is based on making movies that are better than this.
Another option to consider is donating them to your local library (which is a Good Thing in and of itself), and getting the tax deduction for that. Even a small deduction can be helpful.
@NotMax: I did think about that too. I don’t even think I pay taxes on my income, though (SSDI)? I didn’t on SDI at state level…not sure about federal…
@slag:
Is this that hard to see? Every character is a cliche and the driving conflict is the one that defined the Disney Princess Movies, where a girl wants to break free of the destiny forcing her to be girly. Going ‘But her mother wanted her to be more girly, not her father!’ doesn’t change anything. The lesson, where if everybody just listened to each other all problems would magically disappear, is standard Afternoon Special material. It is well below Pixar’s standard, and it’s well below Pixar’s standard because they dumbed it down because they thought it wouldn’t attract a boy audience.
Substitute ‘father’ for ‘mother’ and you have the basic relationship of The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and as I recall Mulan.
Weird, I don’t remember Belle having a single argument with her father, nor did Jasmine or Mulan, for that matter. Of those three films, I think Mulan was the only one who even had a mother at all. And, as slag pointed out, Finding Nemo has the exact same plot, but I guess that was better because it was a father and son?
Sorry, but you sound like every dude who makes fake snoring sounds during the trailer for something he deems a “chick flick.” Is it about women and the relationships between women? L-A-M-E!
Every character is a cliche and the driving conflict is the one that defined the Disney Princess Movies, where a girl wants to break free of the destiny forcing her to be girly.
Really? Snow White was trying to break free of destiny forcing her to be girly? Sleeping Beauty? Cinderella? Ariel having the hots for Prince Eric was her being forced to be “girly” by her father?
You sure have some interesting Disney movies running in your head. Too bad they don’t bear any resemblance to the actual films.
49.
Mnemosyne
IMO, people who think “Brave” is a “typical princess movie” haven’t actually seen those “typical princess movies.” Or, what this writer says at length.
ETA: A sample quote —
I would never have guessed, either from the title or the movie poster, that Brave would end with mother and daughter riding off together in importantly modified hairdos. Subtle touches like this speak to the quiet redefinitions Brave makes possible—and it’s a kind of subtlety most reviewers are missing.
50.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Expect a front pager here to tell you that you should have told them what an honor it is to do their duty to the fatherland and pay their taxes, and fuck ’em if they died. At this point in the election cycle you shouldn’t go squishy and give in to republican framing.
@Mnemosyne:
Finding Ne… Finding Nemo’s plot is about a son getting lost, not about a girl not wanting to be girly. Which is the plot driver of The Little Mermaid. And Mulan. And Pocahontas. And Princess And The Frog. It was at least a background theme in Aladdin.
I’m not mad it was a movie about feelings. I’m mad about EVERYTHING ELSE.
I thought your current cat was purring on the scent-rag from the new cat that you introduced?
I just lost my new cat. A friend’s aged mother-in-law went into assisted living last month, and the friend was managing her affairs, disposing of household goods, etc. She said she was trying to find a no-kill shelter to take the MIL’s old cat, and I said, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let me find my new place to live and get settled and I can probably take the cat.
So all that came to pass, and she brought the cat over this morning. We let her out of her carrier and she started skulking around in sneak mode, checking out the apartment. My friend and I got to talking, and when we went to check on the cat she had disappeared.
The only place she can be, we agreed, is behind the washer. (Washer and dryer are stacked in an open closet.) Because of the close quarters, I can’t get in to look behind the washer, and I don’t want to pull it out for fear of unplugging something or not being able to get it back into position. And it’s not unprecedented in the history of cats for them to hide out for a while in a new place. So it’s a waiting game. She was shown where her litter box is, and she’s got food and water on the kitchen floor. Actually, I moved her food bowl (with some wet food in it) close to the washing machine so that maybe she will get a whiff and decide to come out and eat.
She’s a nice-looking cat—the two minutes I saw her—and I hope she gets comfortable in her new home soon. I will feel better once I see some evidence that she is able to get out and is not trapped back there. I’m hoping she comes out during the night, when it’s dark and quiet.
@Mnemosyne:
That would be great, except the lesson is as subtle as a brick to the face and has been force fed to kids for years. Hint: If everyone says Brave is a disappointing carbon copy of Disney Princess Movies, maybe that’s because it’s a disappointing carbon copy of Disney Princess Movies.
Among other things, your reviewer seems entirely unaware that the movie was taken away from the creator who wanted a movie for and about women because it wouldn’t appeal to boys. They got what you’d expect when a movie is dumbed down – cliched characters and a shallow moral lesson.
55.
PurpleGirl
@Steeplejack: I hope she comes out soon. Moving the food was a good idea.
Finding Nemo’s plot is about a son getting lost, not about a girl not wanting to be girly.
No, Finding Nemo‘s plot is about a father and son reconciling and coming to understand each other better. Its plot is much closer to Brave than Brave is to The Little Mermaid.
Unless, of course, you can’t see past the word “princess” and assume all stories that have princesses are of course identical because, hey, it’s chicks.
That would be great, except the lesson is as subtle as a brick to the face and has been force fed to kids for years.
Really? The lesson that if you and your mother take time to work together, you can both get what you want has been force fed to kids for years?
The only other movie like that I can think of is Freaky Friday. What movie were you thinking of? This time, try to mention a movie where the heroine has an actual living mother.
Among other things, your reviewer seems entirely unaware that the movie was taken away from the creator who wanted a movie for and about women because it wouldn’t appeal to boys.
Yes, that’s why Brenda Chapman has story credit, co-screenwriting credit, and co-directing credit — because the movie was taken away from her and completely re-written.
Jesus, at least read the IMDB trivia before you try to make claims like that.
59.
Yutsano
@efgoldman: Did I mention this was just TODAY?? My only salvation is that I will be a GS-7 next month. I need a drink. Or 7. And serious Dawg time.
60.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne: Just because you have credits doesn’t mean the movie wasn’t taken away. There are strict rules with the WGA. The director and owner of the studio can walk out arm in arm, declare you the worst writer on the face of the earth, swear you had nothing to do with anything and still have to give you credit. Which doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.
Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn’t work the same way for directors.
And I’m still waiting for Frankensteinbeck’s long list of movies about mothers and daughters learning to work together. I don’t think Aladdin is going to make that list.
@Frankensteinbeck: I, for one, found the mother-daughter relationship refreshingly new and nothing like I’d seen in the other movies you mention. If you ignore the nuances, then sure, every movie is pretty much like every other movie. That’s why you don’t ignore the nuances.
The lesson, where if everybody just listened to each other all problems would magically disappear, is standard Afternoon Special material. It is well below Pixar’s standard, and it’s well below Pixar’s standard because they dumbed it down because they thought it wouldn’t attract a boy audience.
I have to agree with you on this, and I haven’t even liked Pixar movies I’ve seen that well. Brave had a good properly terrifying story at its heart, which some batch of balance-sheet-sniffing cowards decided to bury with a deluge of adorable infant pranxters and comic ethnic stereotypes. Because who doesn’t like a farting-bagpipe joke, especially if it’s signalled well in advance so’s you’ll know when to larf?
(Also — sorry, Purplegirl — whoever approved that score should never be permitted to work in the industry again. There are better “Celtic bluegrass” bands in every third bar in every college town in America. Hell, they’d have gotten a better score from the Japanese pop group that did the opening theme for Scrapped Princess.)
Now, Lilo & Stitch — there was a strong female lead with the courage of her convictions, and a convincing (pseudo)mother-and-daughter relationship as well.
66.
Waynski
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. Right after we storm the Bastille. Hah!
67.
ruemara
@Frankensteinbeck: Wow. Why do you even bother going to movies? Every movie has the simplest story at heart. It’s how that simple tale is told that makes it worthwhile. “Brave”, unlike most fantasy oeuvres, is unusual in that it does focus on the unique dynamic of mother-daughter relationships. It was never going to be about the tween Rambina fighting off orcs with nothing but an arrow and ancient tampons.
Is it about women and the relationships between women? L-A-M-E!
Due to the pre-release hype, I was really hoping BRAVE would pass the Bechdel test. I wanted to see the story at its heart — the Amazon Princess, the Queen Mother, and the Witch Crone, learning to deal with each other as well as the dual dangers of ‘civilisation’ and ‘wildness’. What I got was about 20 minutes of that story, buried in a plethora of marketing-friendly Funny Accents and Quirky Stereotypes. If I want a drink of cask whiskey, I don’t want it diluted in a jeraboam of blue kool-aid. Especially if the bartender insists on serving it in a ‘souvenier glass’ with sugar crystals around the rim and a little umbrella.
(1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man
Which part(s) did Brave fail at?
71.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: Oh, Brave passed the Bechel test, eventually, and I was grateful for that. But I felt like they’d promised me a steak, and when I showed up for dinner (on the release weekend, even, which only happens maybe twice a year) they said: First, you have to eat six Hostess Sno-balls and an entire box of Marshmellow Peeps. By the time the steak came out, I was slightly queasy & my ears were ringing from the sugar overload, so I couldn’t enjoy it like I’d anticipated.
The Spousal Unit, FWIW, enjoyed it a lot more than I did. Which is the main reason I didn’t front-page a review before this, because I didn’t want to rain on anyone else’s parade by unleashing my inner grinch.
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Frankensteinbeck
Open thread? Okay. I saw Brave. It was a perfectly good Disney Princess movie, which is the insult I hoped I’d never have to give Pixar.
Concerned Citizen
Jesus Christ, this is Communist!
different-church-lady
I’ve been away from the computer for the past couple of hours. How many stupid things did Romney say while I was gone?
Martin
@Frankensteinbeck: Actually, I think it’s the first Disney movie that has a female hero. So, I’d dispute the ‘princess’ label.
piratedan
@Martin: what, we’ve forgotten Mulan already?
Yutsano
So yeah…that whole situation where I had to talk someone out of considering suicide? Happened to me again. Twice. I may be reaching my own psychic limit here soon.
piratedan
@Yutsano: how many times have we told you to stop taking Donald Trumps calls?
Frankensteinbeck
@Martin:
I’m not sure what you mean. Disney has been primarily making ‘Princess Movies’ since The Little Mermaid made so much money. Brave would fit into the group invisibly. The plot is eerily similar to The Little Mermaid itself. And Medina is actually a princess as well as a princess-style-protagonist.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
The toll is worth it. Good job, Yuts.
geg6
Home alone on a Friday night, with only a bottle of old vine zinfandel. Well, not completely alone. There is a totally adorable golden laying on the floor beside me. He truly is the sweetest doggie.
PurpleGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Her name is Merida.
I liked it a lot. I really liked the music.
It’s Pixar’s first movie with a female hero/lead character.
Thomas F
http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-murdered-jonbenet-ramsey-new-obama-campaign,29114/
Shockingly appropriate satire of the insane dynamics that the election year produces — particularly around these parts. Who could honestly not see ABL and Zandar, mindless drones that they are, post snarky jeremiads in defense of this accusation? Then Doug would adopt his now-tiresome tough guy pose and write a follow-up heh indeed post — something along the lines, “It might not be true but it gives me a huge erection to see the other side scream. Politics ain’t beanbag motherfucka [insert gangster rap analogy] [insert glib bravado] yada yada yada.”
November can’t come soon enough.
Alison
I recently reorganized my books and weeded out a few dozen that I either have dupes of (somehow this has happened to me a handful of times) or just don’t feel the need to keep/never wanted to begin with. As I’m on a very limited fixed income, I figured I could sell them and make a few bucks, but I am so lazy that having to weigh each one and figure out the shipping cost in order to ask a reasonable price is like…meeehhhhh. I thought about just schlepping them down to Goodwill, but the money factor keeps poking at me. I need to not be lazy! Hell, I could probably sell off most of ’em to you crazy people.
Maybe this weekend…
different-church-lady
@geg6: geg6 Says:
Only?
Hill Dweller
As Maddow pointed out, the ad that has the wing nuts so freaked out didn’t even air on television. It was a web ad that was seen by a relatively small number of people. But the Republicans wanted to change the subject from an actual Obama ad about Willard’s taxes running in battleground states, so they feigned outrage.
The media, of course, followed their lead.
Waynski
My goodness. Romney sounds like he’s talking to an employee. ” Uhh… yeah… It would be great if we got those TPS reports.”
You expect Obama to help your campaign? What a glass-jawed foof.
PurpleGirl
@Alison: I wanted to sell an art book — a book about Dali, the one with the gold heavy paper dust jacket — but I researched it first on the web and found that the price it could command was $25 and no used book store would take it. And there were dozens for sale on eBay and Amazon. So I just donated it to Housing Works.
raven
Just watched the Blu Ray of Jeremiah Johnson with the commentary by Pollack, Redford and Milius.
The commentary is stunning. Pollack and Redford had Jeremiah dug up from the vets cemetery in LA and reburied in Cody. In addition, Milius used Jeremiah’s grave in LA as the backdrop for the drunk scene on Waxer’s grave in Big Wednesday.
freelancer
@Thomas F:
Your concern is noted, as is your grouping of the African-American FP-ers and merging them with DougJ’s style, saying it’s reminiscent of “gangsta rap”.
Sorry that Balloon Juice isn’t white enough for you. It’s just “silly”.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: I agree, the mother/daughter issue was done very well. That’s one reason I liked the movie so much.
different-church-lady
@Thomas F: The real payoff on that one comes in the final line.
Dennis SGMM
The 2008 election was sufficient to impose a media black out on myself. I suffered withdrawal symptoms for a while, but then I became so much more calm. I’m now so news-averse that this blog is my only source for hearing about things about which I can do shit.
Hal
@Waynski:
Breaking News MSM; Obama is actually running for re-election, not the guardian of Mitt’s feelings.
Frankensteinbeck
@PurpleGirl:
Which they deliberately took away from the female creator so it could be made more marketable, and the resulting movie is identical to a Disney Princess movie. Not making Disney Princess movies was the guiding principle of Pixar’s creation.
@efgoldman:
The mother/daughter interaction was one thing they did well, but there was no context because the characters were completely formulaic. As was the plot. ‘Princess who doesn’t want to be girly’, check. ‘Mother who means well but thinks forcing her to be girly is a good thing’, check. Wish that goes wrong, check. Cure for wish turns out to be mother and daughter learning get along, check. All you’d need to do would be throw in three mischievous little brothers and an affable but clueless father, and – oh, wait, check. The movie would be fine, except it had been made ten times by the guys next door.
Ripley
@different-church-lady: All of them.
Alison
@PurpleGirl: Well, I’m certainly not looking to get rich off them or anything :P And I figured people might like to buy a book from an acquaintance who could use the bucks even if they could get it elsewhere for the same price…
Thomas F
@freelancer: The “gangsta rap” reference was an exclusive reference to Doug’s observation that GOP messaging often resembles the overstated bravado of gangsta rap. I realize you were probably itching to smear me as a racist, but I think any regular BJ reader is aware of Doug’s schtick on this count.
ChrisNYC
@Thomas F: The thing about the cancer ad is that it’s what happens when people don’t have health insurance. Do you not get that? Do you not think that Mitch McConnell’s “well, less people will be covered” statement as to the GOP “plan” for healthcare has ACTUAL REAL ramifications for real people? That those “less people” will not go to the doc and so will suffer? What’s wrong, despicable with saying, “Americans, this is the end result of this glibness. Are you ok with this?” So weird that there is all this horror about DEATH. Like this OMG he said that people DIE as a result of Romney policies. Well, yes, people die as a result of policies, policies MATTER, so stop acting like that’s not true and make your goddamn case.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Uh-huh. So in which other Disney princess movies does the heroine even have a living mother, much less have the entire story revolve around the mother/daughter conflict?
We’ll wait here while you go find the answer. I warn you, it’s gonna take you a while.
(Also, too, by all accounts the studio’s conflict with Brenda Chapman was literally an artistic conflict — she wanted the film to take place in the winter with everything a sea of white, and the Brain Trust, er, disagreed. All of that mother-daughter stuff you hated? That’s all Chapman’s.)
NotMax
Primary election here on Saturday.
No suspense whatsoever as to who will be the top vote getters for each party in the House and Senate races.
As who advances to the general election is a foregone conclusion, will be voting for people on the ballot whom I prefer to the shoo-ins.
gbear
I picked up my new 6 year old cat this evening. She’s acting like she was born to live in my house (although she’s only seen one room so far) – juat a little love bud. Hoping I can introduce her to my Tort tomorrow. The Tort is keeping her rage well hidden…
fraught
Why’s Bowie here? To make us feel old?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Thomas F: Exit is on your right, motherfucker.
Also, fuck you and your race-baiting bullshit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Waynski:
We’ll get right on that, then, Mittens.
freelancer
@Thomas F:
Doug can speak for himself on his “schtick” as you refer to it. And I’m not smearing you as a racist. I just got a little curious as to the subjects that you chose to highlight in your concern trolling, and the behavior you deemed as silly that you chose to compare it to. Other front-pagers and commenters have been just as rah-rah-rah regarding the Obama campaign fighting fire with a little fire, but you chose to highlight specific people and bemoaning the “bravado” of others acting in kind. It’s not nothing.
NotMax
@raven
Don’t know if you have one of the newer high-def TVs but if so, you might be interested in this article on adjusting it to show movies as they were intended to display when they were made.
General Stuck
Alien Invasion
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
You are misreading me. The mother/daughter interaction was the GOOD part. Substitute ‘father’ for ‘mother’ and you have the basic relationship of The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and as I recall Mulan. The character conflict driving the heroines of Mermaid, B&B, Pocahontas, Mulan, and Princess And The Frog were that they didn’t want to be girly like good little girls, but independent and/or heroic. Buying a spell to fix the problem that ends up going wrong? Straight out of The Little Mermaid.
Every character was a two-dimensional movie stereotype, the plot was utterly unoriginal, and the moral lesson was as shallow as a petri dish. Like a Disney movie, it was pretty and some of the interactions were very cute, and it was suitably funny and had some nice imagery. It was an okay movie. It was high quality pulp, but it was pulp and Pixar’s reputation is based on making movies that are better than this.
SiubhanDuinne
@gbear: Pictures? Soon? Please?
NotMax
@Alison
Another option to consider is donating them to your local library (which is a Good Thing in and of itself), and getting the tax deduction for that. Even a small deduction can be helpful.
slag
@Frankensteinbeck:
And substitute “daughter” for “fish” and you have the basic plot of Finding Nemo. Seriously…WTF are you talking about?
SiubhanDuinne
@General Stuck:
That is one fuckin awesome photo. How did you get him to hold still so you could put the little Elizabethan ruff collar on him?
Seriously amazing photography.
General Stuck
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks
Alison
@NotMax: I did think about that too. I don’t even think I pay taxes on my income, though (SSDI)? I didn’t on SDI at state level…not sure about federal…
Frankensteinbeck
@slag:
Is this that hard to see? Every character is a cliche and the driving conflict is the one that defined the Disney Princess Movies, where a girl wants to break free of the destiny forcing her to be girly. Going ‘But her mother wanted her to be more girly, not her father!’ doesn’t change anything. The lesson, where if everybody just listened to each other all problems would magically disappear, is standard Afternoon Special material. It is well below Pixar’s standard, and it’s well below Pixar’s standard because they dumbed it down because they thought it wouldn’t attract a boy audience.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Weird, I don’t remember Belle having a single argument with her father, nor did Jasmine or Mulan, for that matter. Of those three films, I think Mulan was the only one who even had a mother at all. And, as slag pointed out, Finding Nemo has the exact same plot, but I guess that was better because it was a father and son?
Sorry, but you sound like every dude who makes fake snoring sounds during the trailer for something he deems a “chick flick.” Is it about women and the relationships between women? L-A-M-E!
Citizen_X
@Thomas F:
I must not be a regular, then, because I get the distinct impression that this “schtick” exists solely within your own skull.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Really? Snow White was trying to break free of destiny forcing her to be girly? Sleeping Beauty? Cinderella? Ariel having the hots for Prince Eric was her being forced to be “girly” by her father?
You sure have some interesting Disney movies running in your head. Too bad they don’t bear any resemblance to the actual films.
Mnemosyne
IMO, people who think “Brave” is a “typical princess movie” haven’t actually seen those “typical princess movies.” Or, what this writer says at length.
ETA: A sample quote —
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Expect a front pager here to tell you that you should have told them what an honor it is to do their duty to the fatherland and pay their taxes, and fuck ’em if they died. At this point in the election cycle you shouldn’t go squishy and give in to republican framing.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
Finding Ne… Finding Nemo’s plot is about a son getting lost, not about a girl not wanting to be girly. Which is the plot driver of The Little Mermaid. And Mulan. And Pocahontas. And Princess And The Frog. It was at least a background theme in Aladdin.
I’m not mad it was a movie about feelings. I’m mad about EVERYTHING ELSE.
Steeplejack
@gbear:
I thought your current cat was purring on the scent-rag from the new cat that you introduced?
I just lost my new cat. A friend’s aged mother-in-law went into assisted living last month, and the friend was managing her affairs, disposing of household goods, etc. She said she was trying to find a no-kill shelter to take the MIL’s old cat, and I said, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let me find my new place to live and get settled and I can probably take the cat.
So all that came to pass, and she brought the cat over this morning. We let her out of her carrier and she started skulking around in sneak mode, checking out the apartment. My friend and I got to talking, and when we went to check on the cat she had disappeared.
The only place she can be, we agreed, is behind the washer. (Washer and dryer are stacked in an open closet.) Because of the close quarters, I can’t get in to look behind the washer, and I don’t want to pull it out for fear of unplugging something or not being able to get it back into position. And it’s not unprecedented in the history of cats for them to hide out for a while in a new place. So it’s a waiting game. She was shown where her litter box is, and she’s got food and water on the kitchen floor. Actually, I moved her food bowl (with some wet food in it) close to the washing machine so that maybe she will get a whiff and decide to come out and eat.
She’s a nice-looking cat—the two minutes I saw her—and I hope she gets comfortable in her new home soon. I will feel better once I see some evidence that she is able to get out and is not trapped back there. I’m hoping she comes out during the night, when it’s dark and quiet.
Waynski
@Hal: Well done neighbor.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
That would be great, except the lesson is as subtle as a brick to the face and has been force fed to kids for years. Hint: If everyone says Brave is a disappointing carbon copy of Disney Princess Movies, maybe that’s because it’s a disappointing carbon copy of Disney Princess Movies.
Among other things, your reviewer seems entirely unaware that the movie was taken away from the creator who wanted a movie for and about women because it wouldn’t appeal to boys. They got what you’d expect when a movie is dumbed down – cliched characters and a shallow moral lesson.
PurpleGirl
@Steeplejack: I hope she comes out soon. Moving the food was a good idea.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: So sorry to hear that, hon. ::Nestles you comfortingly to my jubleys:: You’ve done a tremendous thing, but at such a cost to you.
@gbear: Pics or it never happened.
@Steeplejack: I was very excited to read about your new digs in the other open thread. Hope the cat comes out soon! And, pics when she does.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, Finding Nemo‘s plot is about a father and son reconciling and coming to understand each other better. Its plot is much closer to Brave than Brave is to The Little Mermaid.
Unless, of course, you can’t see past the word “princess” and assume all stories that have princesses are of course identical because, hey, it’s chicks.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Really? The lesson that if you and your mother take time to work together, you can both get what you want has been force fed to kids for years?
The only other movie like that I can think of is Freaky Friday. What movie were you thinking of? This time, try to mention a movie where the heroine has an actual living mother.
Yes, that’s why Brenda Chapman has story credit, co-screenwriting credit, and co-directing credit — because the movie was taken away from her and completely re-written.
Jesus, at least read the IMDB trivia before you try to make claims like that.
Yutsano
@efgoldman: Did I mention this was just TODAY?? My only salvation is that I will be a GS-7 next month. I need a drink. Or 7. And serious Dawg time.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne: Just because you have credits doesn’t mean the movie wasn’t taken away. There are strict rules with the WGA. The director and owner of the studio can walk out arm in arm, declare you the worst writer on the face of the earth, swear you had nothing to do with anything and still have to give you credit. Which doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
Yes, I am aware of that, but it doesn’t work the same way for directors.
And I’m still waiting for Frankensteinbeck’s long list of movies about mothers and daughters learning to work together. I don’t think Aladdin is going to make that list.
slag
@Frankensteinbeck: I, for one, found the mother-daughter relationship refreshingly new and nothing like I’d seen in the other movies you mention. If you ignore the nuances, then sure, every movie is pretty much like every other movie. That’s why you don’t ignore the nuances.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
The DGA actually doesn’t recognize the concept of “co-directors”.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Silly me, I thought one of the defining features of the Disney Princess movies was a Prince and a Happily Ever After.
Anne Laurie
@Frankensteinbeck:
I have to agree with you on this, and I haven’t even liked Pixar movies I’ve seen that well. Brave had a good properly terrifying story at its heart, which some batch of balance-sheet-sniffing cowards decided to bury with a deluge of adorable infant pranxters and comic ethnic stereotypes. Because who doesn’t like a farting-bagpipe joke, especially if it’s signalled well in advance so’s you’ll know when to larf?
(Also — sorry, Purplegirl — whoever approved that score should never be permitted to work in the industry again. There are better “Celtic bluegrass” bands in every third bar in every college town in America. Hell, they’d have gotten a better score from the Japanese pop group that did the opening theme for Scrapped Princess.)
Now, Lilo & Stitch — there was a strong female lead with the courage of her convictions, and a convincing (pseudo)mother-and-daughter relationship as well.
Waynski
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. Right after we storm the Bastille. Hah!
ruemara
@Frankensteinbeck: Wow. Why do you even bother going to movies? Every movie has the simplest story at heart. It’s how that simple tale is told that makes it worthwhile. “Brave”, unlike most fantasy oeuvres, is unusual in that it does focus on the unique dynamic of mother-daughter relationships. It was never going to be about the tween Rambina fighting off orcs with nothing but an arrow and ancient tampons.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
Due to the pre-release hype, I was really hoping BRAVE would pass the Bechdel test. I wanted to see the story at its heart — the Amazon Princess, the Queen Mother, and the Witch Crone, learning to deal with each other as well as the dual dangers of ‘civilisation’ and ‘wildness’. What I got was about 20 minutes of that story, buried in a plethora of marketing-friendly Funny Accents and Quirky Stereotypes. If I want a drink of cask whiskey, I don’t want it diluted in a jeraboam of blue kool-aid. Especially if the bartender insists on serving it in a ‘souvenier glass’ with sugar crystals around the rim and a little umbrella.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie:
Why do you hate teh WALL-E?
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
There are only three parts to the Bechdel Test:
Which part(s) did Brave fail at?
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: Oh, Brave passed the Bechel test, eventually, and I was grateful for that. But I felt like they’d promised me a steak, and when I showed up for dinner (on the release weekend, even, which only happens maybe twice a year) they said: First, you have to eat six Hostess Sno-balls and an entire box of Marshmellow Peeps. By the time the steak came out, I was slightly queasy & my ears were ringing from the sugar overload, so I couldn’t enjoy it like I’d anticipated.
The Spousal Unit, FWIW, enjoyed it a lot more than I did. Which is the main reason I didn’t front-page a review before this, because I didn’t want to rain on anyone else’s parade by unleashing my inner grinch.