Yes, this is an extremely spooky episode of the Hat! We discuss the successes and failures of the Disney/Pixar machine, a bit about a satirist that we really don’t know very well, and Tony tells a very, very spooky story, about a movie that hasn’t been seen in decades… but some say on a night, just like this one, it’s ghost will rise again… in a crappy, crappy remake.
Also, a surprise guest! Sort of…
Still learning how the sound works on the new machine, so please give your feedback on relative voice/music levels.
LINKS:
William mentioned this cool new (to us) web series, with Felicia Day in it!
Also,William never heard of this guy. Can you believe it?
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Sound level was very good on this one, for me. Tricky to normalise two people with such different voices, but it worked a lot better. I could also hear The Producer perfectly, although I listen with headphones so your mileage may vary. I didn’t have to turn up the volume to hear her, though.
Where to start? Alec Baldwin is immense, I think he’s actually my favourite character on 30 Rock. He could deliver a hopelessly boring line like “Today is Friday” and it would be Oscar-worthy.
You know, I don’t actually recall having watching Footloose. Obviously know the song, but the more you guys talked about it, the surer I was that I hadn’t see it. So the remake wasn’t quite up to Batman reboot standards, then?
Best bit of the show was blatantly the Disney/Pixar discussion, although I wish the question had included DreamWorks. I know their stuff can be a little derivative, but generally no more so than others. Madagascar, for example, is hilarious. The best of the lot, though, is clearly Kung Fu Panda. I mean, “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” Deep, man. Deep. Can’t wait to see the sequel. Hell, I even bought the crappy Xbox game.
Surprised Wall-E didn’t get much love, to me that film just oozes charm and humour. I mean, the first half of it was silent, and yet I was utterly enthralled by it. Loads of little neat touches, like the sound he makes when fully solar-charged is the boot up sound for the old macs. I also really like the overall theme, but that’s my inner hippy speaking.
Surprised, too, you guys didn’t like Tangled so much. It’s clearly aimed towards kids because it’s the only feature length film my toddler will sit through, but I still thought it was awesome. I know it’s coming, but every time he delivers that line “you should know this is the strangest thing I’ve EVER done…” while fighting the horse with a frying pan has me howling with laughter. Every time we stick in on, I invariably find myself sitting down to watch the whole thing.
Honorable mention goes to Finding Nemo. Loads of charm in that one, I especially liked Willem Defoe’s character. It had that edge about him, like he was back in Platoon or something. Perfect casting.
I actually wish they’d do more old school Disney stuff. When Disney are firing on all cylinders, they easily produce the most magic. Unfortunately, it’s all seemingly a big money-making machine these days, with version 2 of this and version 2 of that, straight to Disney Blu Ray/DVD Combo pack for a limited time!!11one. But they know how to write a story, and the absolute best is obviously Aladdin. To my shame, I don’t actually own it on DVD yet (I had it on VHS), for some reason that’s a weird gap in our Disney DVD collection. I can almost recite the words to that whole film though, it’s superb. Helped by Robin Williams, of course.
I’ve left Up til last. Up was just extraordinary, to the point where I’ve only seen it twice and don’t want to watch it very often as not to spoil the emotion. I wept the first time I saw the opening story, and still welled up the second time. It’s like, WTF, a cartoon is making me cry! But then you go on this hilarious adventure where it all works out in the end, and the old man is, finally, at peace. An absolutely incredible one off film whose emotional rollercoaster I can’t see anything topping for a long time.
tl;dr: kids’ films rock.
I forgot to comment about Karate Kid! I have to admit, I did actually like the Jackie Chan remake, but nothing will capture the magic of the original. When you mentioned it last night, I suddenly had the “You’re the best…” music in my head and picturing the scene where he’s getting ready to unleash the crane technique (no can defense!) … gave myself goosebumps!
I agree. The remake of Karate Kid was a surprise. I went to see it because the wife wanted to and I went in with the expectation of hating it. Surprisingly it was quite enjoyable.
Well, Jackie Chan can positively affect any film, but Wil Smith’s kid did a decent job. Though some scenes were lifted directly from the original, and I could have sworn a few lines, I thought the variation on his training was really clever. I mean, if you’ve seen the original, you’re expecting the whole wax on, wax off thing, so kids seeing this version for the first time probably had a bit of a treat there.
I really liked Chan’s character too, it was really easy to feel for him the way you did the late Pat Morita. Speaking of which, I loved that homage to the original Mr. Miyagi when he was catching the fly.
I saw the Karate Kid remake for the first time on a plane (without sound as I mention below). And I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Later, it was on some cable channel or other and I watched it all the way through with sound and it was even better. That is one remake that did an amazing job.
The sound levels were much better this week. Tony is still louder than William (no surprise) and the Producer while a bit quieter than even William was still clearly audible (on earbuds).
30Rock is also available via Netflix streaming. Also, Tracy? Really? He’s the least interesting character on that show; hell, even Lutz is better than Tracy. I’d say the best 2 are Alec Baldwin & Jack McBrayer.
Tony, wtf? William had to tell you about Felicia Day’s Dragon Age webseries? That’s totally ass-backwards. And one doesn’t have to join Facebook to get announcements of Felicia Day’s new projects; she also announces these things on both Twitter & Google+.
If I was told in advance that somebody would remake Footloose in the same year that a movie comes out based on Rock’em, Sock’em Robots; I’d hope both movies flop and flop so hard that Hollywood finally understands that they need to make interesting/intelligent films rather than just more stupid schlock.
What were you expecting from Wall-E that was so different from what it was that you didn’t care for it?
I’d say Up is Pixar’s best movie, though the Incredibles is my favorite. Disclosure: I’ve not seen either of the Cars movies. I’ve heard they’re excellent but I just haven’t had any interest in them whatsoever.
Ah come on, Tangled was pretty darn good. Frying pan fights, bringing the smoulder and super-intelligent horses? How could that be bad?
Tony: I don’t think Robert Heinlein did a lot of travel to do research for his books. I could be wrong, but given the settings he wrote in, it seems rather unlikely. Did you mean to compare William to some other author or if not, could you explain why you made the comparison?
Whoops, I hadn’t meant to hit the post comment button yet.
Last comment on this week’s show: I have seen both Megamind & Despicable Me and Despicable Me is definitely the better of the two (though Megamind wasn’t bad).
Mark, how do I set my own avatar? I’ve created an account, but can’t for the life of me find a way to change my avatar.
Oh, Dragon Age, well reminded. I can’t believe Tony hasn’t played Mass Effect 2, yet! I’m about half way through the main arc (I obsess over side missions, currently at 25h played) and just had a huge HOLYSHITTHEFIRSTGAMEMAKESSENSENOW plot reveal. Play it, sir!
I think once I’m done with ME2, I’m going to fire up the original and create a renegade character. Sounds like replaying ME2 has benefits too, so I’ll use the renegade character. Oh man, I could totally spam up this blog with Mass Effect stuff, I love it.
I really need to grab the first Dragon Age, come to think of it.
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Gentleman and a scholar, thanks.
I’m probably in the minority here but I was actually disappointed with the pacing and plot of ME2, far too much of the game was spent acquiring crew members and then doing loyalty missions. I can understand why, with regards to the plot, you’re recruiting people but the recruiting (to me) just didn’t mesh. It felt very much like the game went: recruit, recruit, plot mission, recruit, recruit, plot mission, recruit, loyalty mission, loyalty mission, plot mission etc so actual plot progression was minimal.
Don’t get me wrong though, I very much enjoyed the game and am definitely looking forward to ME3 when it comes out next year.
I think that’s fair comment. The loyalty missions really aren’t paramount to the plot, so arguably should have been secondary missions. But that would have meant there were very little primary missions, which may have looked silly.
I haven’t finished it yet, so I can’t comment on the particulars, but after a tonne of character development through the recruitment missions, I can only assume this motley crew follow me to ME3.
Of course, this is BioWare, so I expect some sort of mind job right at the end to completely undo any conclusions I may have been drawing!
The sound was much better this week! William is still quiet but he was definitely audible, and the producer is awesome. 🙂
I probably should have included Dreamworks and other animated films in my question instead of specifying Disney and Pixar. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Megamind, Despicable Me and Kung Fu Panda are all excellent films, Despicable Me being the only one of those that we don’t own yet. My favorite Disney film of all time is Beauty and the Beast. I saw it in the theater when I was 14 and was totally wowed by the animation and the story. You’re both right, though, Pixar films are in a totally different league, and I’m not sure I have one that is specifically my favorite. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all of them, and yes, Cars 2 is definitely the worst; I sat through that in the theater for a small birthday party for a 9 year old that my son was invited to, and had to pretend afterwards that it was good. I’m quite fond of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo and Wall-E. A special award goes to Up and Toy Story 3, because I don’t think I can watch those films without crying—the beginning of Up and the end of Toy Story 3; in fact, I’ve only seen them once, both with my son, and had to sit there and try not to cry harder because I didn’t want him to be sad that his mom was crying. For a movie (let alone any kind of media) to make me cry, that’s saying something, because I don’t cry easily. 😉
Tom Lehrer is interesting media. I suggest you consume him.
I never really worry about whether you actually talk about the topics I suggest, the point is to try and create an interesting conversation between you two.
I think the raise in traffic is due to my review of the podcast on the Happy Jack’s forum.
I have not seen the 2nd Toy Story, but I have seen the 3rd and I found it to be surprisingly good. (I mean like really good.) At first I was like, “Oh man. It’s just The Brave Little Toaster”!… But then it was really… It was really good. Just yeah, I was tense towards the end there. I recently saw the 2nd Cars movie on an airplane, and like most of the time when I watch a movie on an airplane, I watched it without sound. I was surprised that an animated movie could hold my interest without sound. Maybe it’s better that way, considering Tow Mater is the central character and so Larry the Cable Guy does a LOT of talking. It had some cute spy/heist/comedy moments that I liked.
My first Disney movie was Pete’s Dragon followed shortly by The Rescuers, which both still hold a special place in my heart… Though I’m afraid The Suck Fairy has visited them both.
CLOAK AND DAGGER! I saw that movie with my Dad in the theater and then we went to a little parking lot carnival and went on a tilt-a-whorl that made me throw up. I remember liking it. (The movie, not the throwing up.) I don’t remember being upset that the kid essentially killed his imaginary friend because when you saw that his imaginary friend was actually his father and he very clearly got his father back so he didn’t need his imaginary friend any more.
Despicable Me is a friend’s youngest kid’s favorite movie. But Brandon (the kid) is so young, he can’t say “despicable”. So he calls the movie “Pickle Me”.
To which I say, “AWWWWWWWW!!!”
Oh, but I have to say my hands down favorite Disney movie (and ride at Disneyland) is Peter Pan.
Sadly, Peter Pan has been visited by the Racism Fairy.
As a complete aside, cheers again to Mark for pointing me in the direction of Gravatar. I’ve started noticing my Welsh flag avatar popping up all around the net!