Mickey's Christmas Carol

I really like Charles Dickens', A Christmas Carol. I've seen probably every film and TV version there is, save for some of the older ones. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd have to be Mickey's Christmas Carol. Sure it's heavily truncated, but it has all the Disney characters you love, and it throws in a little humor. Otherwise I would say I enjoy The Muppets Christmas Carol, Scrooged, and the George C. Scott version. Mickey's Christmas Carol was released in December, 1983 and marked the first theatrical appearance by Mickey Mouse since The Simple Things in 1953. The thirty year gap is currently the longest, since Mickey Mouse cartoons have come out every so often since Carol. Like I said before, it is a pretty condensed version of the Dickens classic, but you get all the main points. They cut out the parts of the book pertaining to his childhood, and his present-day visit to his nephew Fred's house. For a twenty-six minute run time, they get through it pretty well. Think of it as a beginner's run through the story. It was my first time hearing of the story. While it was released in theaters in 1983, it has played on TV every year since then, making it hard to miss. My parents recorded pretty much anything Christmas related in the 80's, so this short movie was on a VHS, along with other Christmas Disney cartoons i.e. The Art of Skiiing, Donald's Snow Fight, and my personal favorite Pluto's Christmas Tree. I watched these every year and occasionally dig through our old tapes just to watch them again. I'm sure I could find them on DVD (Mickey's Christmas Carol was recently released on Blu-ray), but I still enjoy breaking out the old VCR (plus I can watch old 80's commercials).

The cast is made up of classic Mickey Mouse characters such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy, and some of the lesser-knowns. The funny part is that the other characters are taken mainly from The Wind and the Willows (Toad, Mole, Rat, Cyril Proudbottom, Angus MacBadger, and the weasels), and Robin Hood (Lady Cluck, the rabbit children, Skippy Bunny, Toby Turtle, Mother Rabbit, and Grandma Owl). There's even the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs, apparently setting aside their differences to raise money for charity. Jiminy Cricket (Pinocchio), Willie the Giant (Mickey and the Beanstalk), and Pete make appearances as the three ghosts. Of course at the center of it all you have Scrooge. Scrooge McDuck was partly inspired by Ebenezer Scrooge, so it's only fitting that he play him. Unlike what I thought for most my life, Scrooge McDuck has been around since 1947 and therefore was not made a character for this specific movie. This was however the first time Scrooge was voiced by Alan Young who has voiced the character ever since. Any of the classic Disney characters are unfortunately not voiced by their original voice actors, except for one character: Donald Duck. Clarence Nash, the original voice for Donald, provided the voice one last time before he passed away in 1985.

While it may be my favorite of the Carol movies, it makes me the most emotional, even to this day. Don't get me wrong, it has its funny moments, mostly given by Willie the Giant and Goofy, but this short movie will also make you cry and hide under the covers. Someday I'll make a list of saddest moments in animated movies, and when that happens, this short will be on that list, only because of one thing: the death of Tiny Tim. Yes, I couldn't care less in any of the other versions, but for some reason when I see Mickey crying over Tim's grave and setting his crutch down I can't help but get emotional. Mickey doesn't cry! I'm not supposed to see that when I'm a kid! Mickey is supposed to be happy! I'm getting sad just thinking about it! Anyway, the part that still freaks me out to this day, or at least causes me to feel a little unsettled is the coffin opening scene. Scrooge is seeing the future (or possible future) and he finds out that he's dead. Pete throws him into the surprisingly deep grave and then the coffin opens up to a blazing hellfire. Oh my Jesus this freaked me out when I was a kid. He was literally going to Hell! The ghosts could have shown him that first off and he'd probably had changed his ways!

All in all it's a great adaptation that's perfect for kids, but can also be enjoyed by adults. You know, like most Disney films. It's always fun to see Disney characters from other films or classic cartoons, which is what makes this short so great. It's one of my holiday traditions, and I hope you'll make it one of yours. Merry Christmas.

The Evil Dead

I discovered The Evil Dead at a Meijer store in my hometown. For all you non-Michigan natives, it's like a Super Walmart except dirtier. I had been browsing through the movie section and spotted this horror movie with special packaging. It was behind a glass case so I couldn't pick it up, but for some reason I was utterly intrigued by this odd horror movie that I had never heard of. I actually can't remember when I finally watched The Evil Dead, but I believe it was late in high school. Keep in mind that I was not a big fan of horror movies when I was younger. Sure I loved Halloween and scary stuff, but movies made it a little too real. Somewhere along the line I got over my fear, mostly because I realized there were actually good movies out there in the horror genre. I have to be honest though, I watched Army of Darkness before The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead 2. This was before I knew that it was part of a greater trilogy of films and hadn't made the connection quite yet. Army of Darkness is a favorite of my dad's and if my father and I agree on a movie or TV show, well, that's a miracle in itself. I can't tell you how many times I've watched all three films, but it's a lot, trust me. There's just something about them. I really can't explain it. I could go on and on about how much I love these movies, but I won't. I'll just elaborate on the first film in the trilogy, mostly because it has the most interesting backstory.

The Evil Dead is one of those movies that shouldn't have seen the light of day. If any number of things had gone differently, we wouldn't have these movies, and possibly any movie directed by Sam Raimi. Yep, that means no Spiderman movies. This film also jump-started the careers of the Coen Brothers, so we might not have had such movie classics as The Big Lebowski, Fargo, and O Brother Where Art Thou? Luckily for us nothing went wrong. The Evil Dead's unbelievable production all started with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, two friends from Southeast Michigan who enjoyed making Super 8 mm films together. They duo directed a few comedies, but Raimi's attention soon turned to the horror genre. Raimi was trying to break into the film industry and knew he could do it if he made a short that would gain the interest of producers. Together they made Within the Woods, a film with a budget of $1,600. Raimi knew that if he could garner attention with his short, he could get investments to create a whole feature film. He surmised that he needed about $100,000 dollars to make what would later be called The Evil Dead happen. To get even close to this amount of money, Raimi had to not only ask producers for money, but strangers and family members. He even resorted to begging at one point. He eventually gained enough money to start the film, but not as much as he had hoped for. With enough money, Raimi and Campbell began to write a full treatment called The Book of the Dead, which was basically a remake of Within the Woods. The story centered around a bunch of Michigan State University students who go to a cabin in the woods and unwittingly unleash a terrible evil. Sound overdone? That's because it is, but it was original in the early 80's.

Raimi made Campbell the main character, Ash Williams, while the other roles were filled by either friends or people that responded to his ad in the Detroit News. The crew consisted of friends and family with members of the crew from Within the Woods. Raimi didn't have the money to hire a location scout, so they had to scout a location themselves. Raimi initially wanted to film right in his hometown of Royal Oak, MI, but he decided instead to film in Morristown, TN since Tennessee was the only state that seemed enthusiastic about the project. The crew quickly found a remote cabin that was miles away from the nearest building. The cabin itself had no plumbing, but was wired with a phone line. What could go wrong!? Well, just about everything. The cast and crew spent a total of twelve weeks at the cabin, with most of them staying in the dilapidated building. On the first day of shooting the crew got lost in the woods while shooting the bridge scene. Several cast and crew members were injured during the production but because they were in a remote area, attaining medical assistance was difficult. Conditions at the cabin got so bad that once all the interior shots had been finished, the crew began burning the furniture to stay warm. They eventually burned everything form inside the house, but most of the crew members still became sick from the constant cold. Needless to say, Raimi lost a few crew members over the span of the production. Things weren't much better for the cast. Each at one point in time had to wear special contacts for their Deadite versions, though since the budget was so low the contacts were as thick as glass. The contacts took ten minutes to put in and could only be worn for fifteen minutes because their eyes couldn't "breathe." If you wear contacts like I do, then you know what I'm talking about. Raimi loved to "torture" the actors because he felt that their pain and anger would translate well into horror. Basically Raimi put the actors through hell, even going so far as to poke Bruce Campbell's freshly injured leg with a stick.

A small budget meant that Raimi couldn't afford a camera dolly or other camera equipment, so he made up new camera techniques. The first invention was the "vas-o-cam", a mounted camera that was slid down long wood platforms to create a more fluid sense of motion. Instead of a Steadicam, he used what he called the "shaky cam", which involved the camera being mounted to a board and having two camera operators sprint around the swamp. Most of the moving shots involve the camera being attached to either a stick and pushing it through a window, attached to a bike and riding it through the swamp, or rigged up and ran over logs and cars so as to make it look like it's from the perspective of the never seen "evil force". Raimi is a huge fan of The Three Stooges and decided to borrow a filming trick from the popular slapstick comedies. If you know your Stooge history, after Shemp passed away, the studio had a bunch of shorts that weren't quite finished. Instead of re-shooting, they instead put in a "fake shemp". Sometimes it's easy to spot a fake shemp, but most of the time it's just a double with his back to the camera. Raimi decided to use this same technique when his actors were otherwise occupied or unavailable. Most shots of people with their backs to the camera aren't actually the actors anymore, but random crew members and for the most part Raimi's brother Ted.

Raimi had a ton of footage to edit and decided to enlist the help of Edna Paul and Joel Coen. Coen and Raimi became good friends during the editing process and Coen eventually stole Raimi's idea of making a smaller film to build the interest of investors, a tactic he used to make Blood Simple. After editing the film down to from 117 minutes to a more marketable 85 minutes and adding extra sound effects, the film was finally ready for a premiere. Raimi decided to celebrate finally finishing his movie by having an extravagant premiere. They chose the Redford Theatre because it was a favorite movie theater for Campbell as a child. Raimi wanted the experience to be special so he made custom tickets, installed wind tracks in the theater, and even ordered ambulances to park out in front to build atmosphere. The premiere drew one thousand people, a number far exceeding anything the cast had envisioned. The audience responded positively to the movie, so Raimi decided to take the movie "on tour" as a way of building hype.  Raimi showed the movie to anyone that would watch, booking meetings with distribution agents and others in the film industry. Raimi eventually found some luck with Irvin Shapiro, the man who was responsible for distributing Night of the Living Dead and other famous horror films. Shapiro commented that while the movie "wasn't Gone With the Wind," it had commercial potential. He hated the title Book of the Dead, reasoning that it made the movie sound boring. It was then that Raimi brainstormed some new titles, eventually landing on The Evil Dead, which was deemed the "least worst" title. Shapiro also advised Raimi to distribute the film worldwide to garner a larger income, though it would increase the movie's budget. Raimi decide this was sound advice and scrapped what little money he had left to distribute the film in other countries.

Luckily for Raimi, Shapiro was one of the founders of the Cannes Film Festival and had agreed to show The Evil Dead out of competition. Stephen King was present at the screening and gave the film a rave review. King called it his fifth favorite movie in the genre in an interview with USA Today and stated that he was deeply impacted by the movie. King would end up being one of the film's largest supporters in finding a distributor and even let Raimi use his quote about the movie in advertisement. What did King say? Oh, only that The Evil Dead was the "most ferociously original film of the year." King's comments garnered attention from critics who usually would have swept such a low budget movie under the rug. Raimi finally found a distributor in New Line Cinema for domestic release and Stephen Woolley's distribution company for the U.K., with both heavily promoting the movie. This was unusual, as most low budget movies never received a substantial amount of promotion or even a wide release. For one reason or another, both companies saw something special in The Evil Dead and decided it was worth the risk.

The Evil Dead was released in theaters in late 1981 and had an initially disappointing gross of only $108,000 in the opening weekend while showing at 15 theaters. Word of mouth soon spread and it became a "sleeper hit", eventually making $600,000 domestically and $2 million overseas. It was a huge success in the U.K. and became the best-selling video in the horror genre, out-doing such big budget movies like The Shining. The success in the European market was chalked up to heavy promotion and the more open-minded nature of the audience. That's right, we Americans are close-minded. The film proved to be controversial as Raimi wasn't concerned with censorship. The film was labeled so bloody and graphic that both it and its sequel were initially given an X rating (they are now both R), something usually given to porno movies.While the movie wasn't pornographic in nature, it was probably the most violent movie of it's time. This hurt the movie in some ways, but also made it more infamous. It was even banned in some countries. Now who's open-minded?!

Initial critical response to the movie was almost universally positive. Fangoria called it "the exception to the usual run of low-budget horror films" while the Los Angeles Times called it "an instant classic," and proclaimed it "probably the grisliest well-made movie ever." Not bad reviews for a movie that sounded like it was going to die a quiet death in the middle of a Tennessee swamp. The film continues to have stellar reviews to this day, with a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is considered to be one of the best horror movies of all time and has cemented itself as probably the biggest cult film of all time. The only thing that reviewers bring up as a negative in the film is the unfortunate tree rape scene. Yes, you heard me correctly. At one point in the movie a bunch of possessed trees rape a woman. Raimi still doesn't know why to this day he included it in the film and has regretted the scene since the release.

So what happened to the cast and crew after this movie was such a success? Sam Raimi went on to direct Darkman starring Liam Neeson, the popular Spider-Man trilogy, and most recently The Great and Powerful Oz. Of course he also directed the second and third films in the Evil Dead trilogy, with the second film becoming an even bigger success (and even considered better than the first), and the third having a much bigger budget but doing mediocre in theaters. Go figure. Joel Coen and his brother found success with Blood Simple and eventually became the big-shot directors they are today. Bruce Campbell, the king of B-movies, starred in the second and third Evil Dead films, had cameos in every other Raimi film and a few Coen Brothers films, and even was the star of a few short-lived TV shows like The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. and Jack of all Trades. Campbell recently starred in My Name is Bruce, a movie about the crazy obsessions people have with his character and The Evil Dead in general, and co-starred in Burn Notice.

Let's get one thing perfectly straight. I like weird movies. I have odd taste in movies sometimes and I'm kind of used to others not agreeing with my choice in movies. That being said, I realize this movie isn't for everybody. I haven't exactly sold the movie by taking about the tree rape scene. Sure, that is probably the weirdest and most unnecessary scene I've ever seen in a movie, but the film makes up for it in every way possible. It's a cheap movie that looks cheap. The cast and crew are extremely inexperienced. Some parts of the movie are downright funny when they aren't supposed to be. But, that's part of the charm of this movie. The difference between this cheap horror movie is that it actually scares the crap out of you and keeps you coming back for more. It has a surprisingly solid story, one that has been copied countless times now. Fair warning though, if you don't like gore or other disturbing images, then this movie really isn't for you. Of the three movies it is definitely the most horror oriented. However, if you have a strong stomach and love yourself some good ol' B-movie fun, then you could do much worse than this movie.

German Expressionism

German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War and reached its peak in the 1920's. German Expressionism involves architecture, painting, and cinema, though I will only focus on cinema. Expressionism was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation it experienced during World War I. Germany had also banned any foreign films from being shown starting in 1916, so the country was in need of some homegrown cinema. Indeed, the amount of movies produced in Germany went from 24 films in 1914, to 130 films in 1918. By the early twenties, German cinema had gained an audience all around Europe and when Germany finally lifted its ban on foreign films, it found itself as an important player in the international film industry. Why were these early Expressionist films so popular, though?

European culture was in need of a change. It desired for something different, something that experimented with bold new ideas and artistic styles. German Expressionism fit that niche. The first Expressionist films made up for their lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. These films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics, very much unlike the action-adventure films that Hollywood was churning out. This trend was a direct reaction against realism. Its practitioners used extreme distortions in expression to show an inner emotional reality rather than what was on the surface. Famous examples of German Expressionist films are Nosferatu (1922), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), Metropolis (1927), and M (1931). The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is probably the best example of German Expressionism. The whole story is told by a man in an insane asylum, so the recounted action takes place in a distorted world. Windows are jagged,  buildings are at funny angles, and everything just looks wrong.

The anti-realism of Expressionism quickly died out, fading away after only a few years. Though the movement was short, its effects are still felt today. Directors, influenced by the look of these intellectual films, now asked for more creative control on how the lighting and scenery were set up as ways to affect the mood of the film. Expressionism gained more influence over Hollywood when the Nazis gained power and many German filmmakers emigrated to the United States. The two genres that were most influenced by German Expressionism were horror films and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios made a name for themselves by producing such famous horror films of the silent era as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera. German filmmakers such as Karl Fruend (the cinematographer for Dracula) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, and Carol Reed introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.

German Expressionism still is used in cinema to this day, with many directors paying homage to those silent movies that had to use camera tricks, lighting, and unique sets to help tell their story and establish a mood. Woody Allen's 1991 film Mirrors and Fog is an homage to German Expressionist filmmakers such as Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, and Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner borrows stylistically from German Expressionism masterpiece Metropolis. Tim Burton is probably the biggest proponent for the use of German Expressionism in film today. Batman Returns is considered a modern attempt to capture the essence of the movement. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares of Gotham City evoke the loom and menace present in Metropolis. Edward Scissorhands borrows much from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, even modeling the eponymous character after Caligari's somnambulist servant, Cesare. Similarly, Dr. Caligari was the inspiration for the grotesque, bird-like appearance of The Penguin in Batman Returns. Other works of Burton's that would be considered examples of German Expressionism would be Sweeney Todd, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Batman, and Beetlejuice. There are many, many other films that borrow heavily from German Expressionism, but that would take forever just to name them all. Just know that every time you watch a horror movie, there is a good chance that it was influenced in some way by German Expressionism.

All Dogs Go To Heaven

Don Bluth first came up with All Dogs Go To Heaven after The Secret of NIMH, though it was supposed to be a short story inside of an anthology, and it had the main character as a canine private eye. The dog private eye would be a shaggy German Shepard and was made with Burt Reynolds in mind. Unfortunately, Don Bluth Productions went bankrupt about this time, so the idea was shelved for a few years. It was finally dusted off in 1987, with new plot centered around the title, All Dogs Go To Heaven. The title had come from the name of a book that was read to Bluth when he was in fourth grade, and though others related to the project wanted to change the name, Bluth was adamant, finding the title to be provocative. All Dogs was Bluth's first production to be made in his new state of the art studio in Dublin, Ireland, and as such he and Goldman and Pomeroy were forced to relocate. The biggest shift was that this film was not backed by Amblin and Universal, and therefore Bluth didn't have to worry about George Lucas and Steven Spielberg having any creative control over his work. It also meant he had to do this basically on his own.

Bluth was able to get some decent voice talent with this film, netting not only Burt Reynolds for Charlie, but also Dom DeLuise for Itchy, a fun pairing since the two had previously starred in several movies together, most namely Cannonball Run. The actors asked if they could record their lines together-an unusual request since most voice actors did their work individually-which Bluth agreed to. The simultaneous recording led to a lot of ad-libbing, with some of the lines making it into the film instead of the scripted lines. Even Bluth admits to this day that their lines were better than his script. 

Once again Bluth found himself competing with Disney, this time with The Little Mermaid. Yikes. Without the big name studios backing Bluth up, All Dogs wasn't promoted nearly enough as it should have been, which caused the movie to tank in comparison to The Little Mermaid. In all, All Dogs made $27 million at the box office, making just enough for the company. The Little Mermaid on the other hand made over $210 million and blew away their $40 million budget. The film received mixed reviews upon its release, with most critics focusing on the lack of good characters, disjointed plot and forgettable songs. Many critics pointed out that this film was not really appropriate for children, noting that the movie dealt with such mature subject matter such as drinking, gambling, smoking, violence, death, and Hell. The movie has since done extremely well on video, becoming one of the highest selling VHS's of all time. It has also, like most of Bluth's work, gained a cult status, specifically for the same reasons critics found it so inappropriate for children. 

I loved this movie as a kid, though maybe not as much as Fievel Goes West. I'm not sure anymore what drew me so much to it as a child. I hadn't watched it since I was very young, so I decided to pick it up and watch it for old time sake. I didn't like it. It wasn't enjoyable at all. I saw all those imperfections that critics had brought up. Plus, I had totally forgotten about the alligator, which if I'm not mistaken was meant to be a caricature of voodoo/hoodoo practicing African-Americans in New Orleans. Wow, just wow. The only character I actually cared about the whole time was Anne-Marie, the young girl who can speak to animals. Charlie and the rest are completely unlikable. I really want to talk about how great this movie still is and how fun it was to watch it again, but it just wasn't. It was like re-watching Rock-A-Doodle, which I wouldn't recommend. I will say that this movie is better than anything Bluth puts out later on, with the exception maybe being Anastasia. Stick with Bluth's first three films, they're much better. 

The Land Before Time

An American Tail was a hit, and it allowed Bluth a period of time where he didn't have to worry about one of his companies going bankrupt. The next film being planned with Steven Spielberg (George Lucas jumped on board too) was described as a story like Bambi, but with dinosaurs. The early title was The Land Before Time Began, and it was originally planned to have no dialogue, similar to the Rites of Spring segment of Fantasia. Spielberg and Lucas decided that this would alienate children, so they made it a talking dinosaur movie. A lot of research went into the movie, with many of the film's animators and production teams visiting natural history museums and especially the Smithsonian. The film featured many different types of dinosaurs, but the research team didn't do a perfect job: in the setting of the movie, five species of dinosaurs depicted would have already been extinct. Oh well, kids aren't going to nit-pick that sort of thing. Plus, people are trying to tell me that there's no such thing as a triceratops, so now Cera isn't real! Scientists, stop messing with my childhood! You took Pluto away, don't tell me certain dinosaurs didn't exist!

A lot was changed in the movie as time went on. Littlefoot was originally going to be named Thunderfoot, though they had to change it when they found out a triceratops in a book was named that. I think Littlefoot has a better ring to it. Thunderfoot doesn't fit the character of Littlefoot, really. Maybe if Littlefoot wore cool sunglasses the whole movie. I'd pay to see that movie! Cera's character was originally going to be a male named Bambo (why so close to Bambi?), until Lucas decided that Bambo should instead be a girl and have a clever name instead of a stupid one. Also, I had no idea until a few years ago that Cera's name was spelled that way. I just assumed it was Sara, or some variation of how we spell it. My mind was blown. I mean, come on, triCERAtops?! Who does that? Spielberg and Lucas took one look at the finished project and realized that they had made one scary dinosaur movie. They had to tone it down a little or they would be stuck with a PG rating. This may be a common thing today, but back in the eighties it was pretty risky to let your animated film get a PG rating. The only two I can think of that did it around that time were Watership Down and Disney's The Black Cauldron. With Bluth complaining the whole way, Lucas and Spielberg cut about nine minutes of the film, mostly consisting of Sharptooth scenes, making the film only sixty nine minutes long. That's barely longer than Dumbo! Littlefoot's mother dying was deemed too emotionally scarring and the character of Rooter (the old clubtail dinosaur) was introduced to soften the blow. Doesn't matter, it's still probably the most tear jerking scenes in all of animation. Even the theatrical version seen in 1988 is different from the version you see on DVD. In the original, Littlefoot's mother is shown being bitten by Sharptooth on the neck and back, but apparently it was later deemed to intense. While the movie isn't the darkest of the Bluth films, it's easily the most depressing.

The cast of dinosaurs centers around an Apatosaurus (Littlefoot), a Triceratops (Cera), a Saurolophus (Ducky), a Pteranodon (Petrie), and a Stegosaurus (Spike). In the story, a tyrannosaurus named Sharptooth (I always thought it was Sharktooth as a child, I can't be the only one!) attacks a group of dinosaurs while a random earthquake happens. Littlefoot's mother fends off Sharptooth, who falls into a deep crevice, though it costs her her life. Due to the earthquake, both Littlefoot and Cera are seperated from what's left of their families and have to set out to find them. Their ulitmate destination is the Great Valley, a place that hasn't been ravaged by volcanoes and earthquakes; a place where food is plentiful and there are no sharpteeth. Along the way they are joined by Petrie, Ducky, and Spike. They run into trouble along the way involving other, more dangerous dinosaurs, though in the end they defeat Sharptooth and make it to the Great Valley. I know that was a short run-down, but there isn't much to this story in terms of plot. What I will go into however is the relationships between the dinosaurs.

Whether you knew it or not as a child, you were watching a big story about tolerance and acceptance of people different from you. At the beginning of the film we learn from Littlefoot's mother that there are four other main groups of dinosaurs that they live around, "Three-horns", "Spiketails", "Swimmers", and "Flyers." We also learn that historically these dinosaurs don't associate themselves with each other and generally mind their own business. This conversations stems from Cera's father insisting that Cera not play with a "Longneck." This is an easy reflection of race/class relations in our own culture. Two children of different backgrounds or race play with each other for a time, until one of the parents insists that they stay away from each other. The other child questions their parents, who tell them that's just how it is. Maybe you've been in that situation yourself, or have seen examples of it in your daily life, but the movie does a good job of setting up a realistic scenario of how fear of other kinds of beings will lead to chaos instead of union. Both Littlefoot and Cera are OK with playing with each other until they are told by their parents that it's not acceptable behavior. Each gets a different response; while Littlefoot's mother says that's just how it is, Cera's father makes Longnecks out to be an inferior group. Cera's attitude throughout the movie carries her parent's indoctrination, though it doesn't help that she's kind of bossy to begin with. It's only through their travels together that they realize that's there's nothing wrong with associating with other dinosaurs. In fact, they probably all would have perished had it not been for each other. I know I didn't pick up on most of those things when I was a kid, but I did know by the end that you shouldn't dislike someone just because they are different.

Released in 1988, The Land Before Time was a huge hit for Bluth, grossing over $84 million dollars worldwide (around the same as An American Tail, though Land Before Time did better domestically). Disney's Oliver & Company came out around the same time,  but came in about $10 million less than Land Before Time. Critics liked the film more than An American Tail and confessed that it was more like a classic Disney movie than Oliver & Company. The only common complaint against the film was that it spent more time on tragedy than it did on the sense of discovery and natural history. The film has spawned twelve direct-to-video sequels and even a television show. I've honestly probably only watched one of the sequels, but I remember it being garbage. So why isn't this film my favorite of the Bluth films? Well, honestly Cera and Littlefoot kind of bug me. I loved this film as a kid, but it's lost some of its sheen in more recent viewings. I love all the other characters, but for some reason Cera and Littlefoot just rub me the wrong way now. Still a great animated film, though, and a classic Bluth film.

An American Tail

Don Bluth Productions may have been bankrupt, but that didn't stop Bluth from teaming up with Rick Dyer of Advanced Microcomputer Systems and founding Bluth Group (Bluth really liked his own name I guess). The group ended up creating one of the three games stored at the Smithsonian (the others being Pong and Pac-man), Dragon's Lair.  Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, coming out in 1983 and 1984, respectively, were both played on Laserdisc, so it gave the game a more realistic look, something revolutionary at the time for video games. Unfortunately for Bluth, the video game market crashed in 1985 and Bluth Group also had to file for bankruptcy. Things were not looking good for Bluth, but in 1985 he got a second chance in movies thanks to businessman Morris Sullivan. Together with Bluth's dependable team of producers, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, they created Sullivan Bluth Productions. Another lucky stroke for Bluth was the interest of Steven Spielberg in helping produce and distribute his pictures. Together they created the story of a small Jewish mouse who moves to America.

An American Tail tells the story of Fievel (or Feivel) Mousekewitz, a young Jewish mouse that lives in Shostka, Russia in the mid 1880's. Fievel and his family are run out of their home by an army of Cossacks and their cats, leading them to jump on a boat for America. Papa Mousekewitz assures his family that there are no cats in America, and it will be a land of freedom and prosperity. A huge storm causes Fievel and his family to become separated and they believe that he has drowned. Instead, Fievel had stowed away inside a bottle and eventually lands in New York City. He is encouraged by French pigeon named Henri, and sets off to find his family in this new world. Things aren't easy for either Fievel or the Mousekewitz family in America. While Fievel is tricked into being sold to a sweatshop by conman Warren T. Rat, the Mousekewitz family is trying to adjust to their new life in America and realizing it's not all that it's cracked up to be. Instead of freedom from cats and prosperity, they find a ton of cats and little opportunity for the American Dream. Fievel escapes from the sweatshop with a street-smart Italian mouse named Tony, and they run into a rally centered on dealing with the cat problem. The speaker at the rally is an Irish immigrant named Bridget, who agrees to help Fievel find his family. They go to the local politician, a drunk mouse named Honest John, who says he can't help Fievel since his family isn't registered to vote.

Fievel and the gang attend another rally and Fievel comes up with the idea of scaring away the gang of cats that roam the area: they'll build a large mechanical mouse in the image of the legendary figure, the "Giant Mouse of Minsk." Fievel gets lost on the day they are supposed to release the secret weapon and stumbles into Warren T. Rat's hideout. It is here that Fievel realizes that Warren is not a rat at all, but a cat! They capture Fievel, but he is eventually let go by a soft-hearted cat named Tiger. The cats chase Fievel out of the hideout and are led to the dock where the mice have the secret weapon in waiting. The giant mouse comes out, fireworks shooting out of its mouth and everything, and the cats are so scared they jump into the water, eventually boarding a steamer headed for Hong Kong (not sure if this is supposed to be a joke about Chinese food being made of domesticated animals or not). After the battle, Fievel starts to give up hope of ever finding his family, but he eventually hears the violin music his father plays and is finally reunited. The film ends with Henri showing the Mousekewitz family his completed project, The Statue of Liberty.

Using rotoscoping again to make the humans look much more life-like, thereby differentiating their animation style from the more cartoon looking animals, Bluth once again had a beautiful looking film. The film, released in 1986, ended up grossing the most of any non-Disney film, taking in almost $85 million dollars. In comparison, Disney's The Great Mouse Detective made about $22 million less, so Bluth was finally hitting his stride while Disney was floundering. While critics had loved The Secret of NIMH, they really didn't care for An American Tail. Critics called it an expensive movie with no real humor or interesting narrative. Roger Ebert commented that the story was "dark and gloomy" and that "very few children would understand or care that the Mouskewitz's are Jewish." Though critics didn't appreciate the film, it has still developed a cult following, as has most of Bluth's films. The movie spawned a sequel, Fievel Goes West, a project that Bluth was not a part of, but Spielberg did produce. The movie was panned by critics, but is still popular among members of my generation.

Both An American Tail and Fievel Goes West were mainstays in my childhood. I never owned either film but would rent them often, especially the second film. I can still remember going to see the movie in theaters for my 6th birthday, then going out to Pizza Hut afterwards. I only bring up the second film because I won't be writing an official post on it. Over the years, An American Tail has become one of my favorite Bluth films, probably tied with The Secret of NIMH. I can really appreciate the historical aspects in the film, from the different groups of immigrants trying to make it in New York City, to the sweatshops that employed children, to the Tammany Hall politicians that only seek to gain influence, to the embittered loneliness that most felt when first coming to this country; a country that for many was not a land of opportunity, but more of the same. I honestly don't know why critics hate this movie so much, it's a really good movie with a decent narrative. Sure it's darker than most Disney movies, but maybe some kid's movies don't need to be squeaky clean. My last note on this film will be its unintended(?) impact on Art Spiegleman's graphic novel, Maus. Maus is a book detailing Art's fathers struggles during WWII and the holocaust. What does this have to do with An American Tale? Well, Spiegleman had been working on his book since the late 70's, a book that portrayed Jewish people as mice, German's as cats, and so on and so forth. Spiegleman was convinced that Spielberg or Bluth had stolen the idea for Jewish mice and set out to outdo them. Instead of suing them for plagiarism, Spiegleman asked his publishers if he could release the first part of his book before the movie came out, that way people wouldn't think he was stealing from the movie. The publisher's agreed and Maus Volume 1 came out in 1986, with Volume 2 coming out in 1991. You still have to buy them separately. Be warned, Maus is nothing like An American Tail, but it is a very good graphic novel that delves deep into the experience of  a Jewish man trying to survive the Holocaust.

The Secret of NIMH

If you've read some of my blog posts concerning Disney movies in the 1980's, then you'll probably remember the name Don Bluth popping up every once in a while. For those who don't remember, Bluth was an animator for Disney for many years, first working on Sleeping Beauty in the late 50's, though working more for the company in the 70's. Disney still had a few hits in the 70's, but it didn't match anything they had made in their early years. Bluth, along with eighteen other Disney animators decided to leave to form their own animation company. Bluth complained that Disney had lost their way and he wanted to create new and exciting animation that would bring it back to the forefront of entertainment. With his small group of animators, Bluth started Don Bluth Productions, and went about working on their first short film, Banjo the Woodpile Cat. Besides the short film, Bluth and his company were also tasked with doing the animated segment of the live-action film, Xanadu. The reason I'm bringing up Bluth is because he is a very important part of animation history. Not only did his company churn out some of the best animated movies of all time, but because of this, Disney got their act together and started making hits again. So, I wanted to do a series on Bluth and his films, though there are much fewer than Disney has released. If you didn't bother to read the title, I'm going to be talking about his first major release, and one of my favorite animated films of all time, The Secret of NIMH.

The Secret of NIMH is based off the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O' Brien. The book tells the story of Mrs. Frisby, a widowed field mouse who must save her family from human interference. When her son, Timothy, becomes very sick around the same time the farmer, whose land they live on, decides it's time to plow the field, they must find a way to move their home, though the move would likely kill Timothy. Mrs. Frisby is stuck on what to do for her son, until she is directed by an owl to speak to the rats that live in a nearby rosebush. Speaking to the rat's leader, Nicodemus, she finds out that the rats have all gained human-level intelligence from being tested on by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and have thus learned to read, write, and master certain forms of technology. The rats agree to help Mrs. Frisby due to the fact that her husband, Jonathon, was one of their own that had helped them escape from the laboratory. Ironically, the rats also need Mrs. Frisby's help in moving them, as they want to stop their dependence on humans (they steal electricity from the farmer). A small group of the rats didn't agree with this plan and set off on their own, getting killed in the process, which leads to exterminators being called to kill the rats. Mrs. Frisby must help the rats by drugging the farmer's cat, Dragon, so they can move out in the open without fear. Mrs. Frisby is caught by the farmer's son and locked in a cage. Only with one of the rat's help, Justin, is Mrs. Frisby able to escape and tell the rat's of the humans plans to kill them. In the end, everybody makes it out, and little Timothy gets better. 

The book ended up winning the Newberry Award in 1972 and was offered to Disney for film rights. Disney apparently wasn't interested in a story about lab rats and mice, but Bluth was a few years later. Bluth asked Aurora Productions to buy the rights to the film, though the deal brought with it a budget of $5.7 million dollars and 30 months to complete the film. Keep in mind that's a short amount of time to make a film, and not a lot of money to make it with. Bluth set out to make a film like the ones from Disney's Golden age, with better character development and classic animation techniques. He felt that Disney was using cheaper and cheaper modes of animation just to save a few bucks, which made the films less visually appealing. Bluth attempted to use a few new techniques in his film, namely rotoscoping (multiple passes on the camera to achieve transparent shadow), and back lit animation. Nicodemus' eyes appear to glow due to light being shone through the color gels. What Bluth got was something altogether new to animation, and something that no one had ever seen before. This style of animation, however, was extremely labor intensive and called for very long hours for the animators, and no pay to show for it in the short run. The animators were given portions of the profits instead, something unheard of in the animation world. Bluth and his producers even had to mortgage their homes so they could pay for the film, so stakes were a bit high. 

The movie differs from the book in a few ways. Probably the biggest difference is the name of the main character. Aurora contacted Wham-O to see if it was alright if they used the name Mrs. Frisby since it was so close to the name "Frisbee." Wham-O denied their request to use Mrs. Frisby, and now Bluth was stuck. All the lines had been done already and some of the actors couldn't even be brought back in to re-read, namely John Carradine. Bluth decided to go with a name that was so close, that they could convincingly make it to where Carradine's character, the great owl, sounded like he was saying the new name. So, because of Wham-O, Mrs. Frisby changed to Mrs. Brisby. Kind of silly, right? Many of the characters that had very small parts, or weren't actually shown in the book had much larger parts in the movie. Jenner, the leader of the rats that don't want to stop mooching off the humans becomes the villain in the movie. In the book he is mentioned briefly and is never shown. Jeremy the Crow goes from a bit part at the beginning of the book, to full on comedy relief for good portions of the movie. The book lacked any magic, but Bluth decided to change that by making Nicodemus, the leader of the rats, basically a wizard, complete with a magic amulet. Mrs. Brisby is still a widowed mother, but Justin turns into sort of a love interest. 

The film was ultimately distributed by MGM in 1982, who apparently didn't have much faith in the film since they did no advertising for it, so Aurora had to take the brunt of the responsibility for that. Though Bluth and Aurora planned on a wide release of 1,000 theaters, MGM instead went with 100 on the film's opening weekend. It slowly improved to 700, but the damage was done. Being released against E.T., the film only made a little over 14 million dollars, barely twice as much as its budget and therefore ended up putting the studio in the black. That, coupled with the writer's strike forced Don Bluth Productions to file for bankruptcy. This is not the end for Bluth, though. He would be saved, later, by a businessman and a famous director. For all the financial woes that befell the production, the movie was a huge critical success, being called one of the most vibrantly animated films of its time. The film became a hit on video and with cable showings and subsequently became a cult classic. 

This film is very much a part of my childhood, namely because it's mostly likely the first animated movie I had ever watched. My parents had recorded it off the TV sometime in the early eighties and my brother and sister and I watched the heck out of it. Not only was the animation beautiful, but the story intriguing and characters exciting. That being said, it's probably the darkest of all of Bluth's films, save for maybe All Dog's Go to Heaven. Between Jenner, the Great Owl, Nicodemus, and Dragon, the film has some creepy and frightening characters, though it wasn't any of them that scared me the most as a child. The scene that still gets me to this day is when Mrs. Brisby is trapped inside that cage inside the farmer's house. The drowning aspect combined with her accidentally cutting her arm open still makes me cringe. Though not as widely known as some of Bluth's other films, this is probably one of the best. Also, how many kid's movies has a widowed mother as the hero? Pretty sure this is the only one, and that's pretty cool. Oh, and it also has the best song during the credits. So bad, but so good.