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This weekend I watched Coco and Trolls. Very different movies with contrasting strengths. Coco Thoughts: I thought that Coco used it's music to particularly good effect, it always served a real purpose. Like in the La Poco Loco scene, showing Miguel getting his confidence while performing for the first time. I loved that he starts with the same terrible mariachi yell from a few seconds earlier but the crowd doesn't give him a hard time about it - it gets them on his side because they don't care how he is, they want to see what he bringing to the table, and he's finally about to show them. Then the first few chords start as the song starts properly, and some great animation happens when Hector gets dragged into the scene and it culminates in Miguel finally bursting out a few good mariachi yells during the songs climax. It's a really cute and satisfying scene. Also the movie's climax with the villain was really fun, with the Matriarch using her act to avoid the guards just out of sight on stage, then De La Cruz joining and turning a Tango into a literal power struggle as they each attempt to overpower each other through their dance. That was a really fun scene as well, with the Matriarch being reminded of how much she actually loved that poo poo back in the day.  I also thought that the comedic bits had strong payoffs during the dramatic moments, like the Mariachi Yelling becoming a father-son bonding exercise to keep their spirits up at their lowest moments. ("I'm proud to be his family" was a really cool scene) or the pratfalls of Hector trying to cross the bridge in the start becoming heartbreaking in retrospect, then beautiful as he finally manages to cross hand in hand with his lost family. Also the ending totally wrecked me, probably because my own grandma has been having (short-term) memory issues herself - not diagnosed with Alzheimers proper, but having trouble keeping up with what's going on. Trolls Thoughts: After a relatively weak start I really liked this one. The Jukebox Musical stuff felt well placed, and Clint Eastwood had me reeling because of how unexpected yet appropriate it was. I also liked the payoff that was there from Branch being grey, not just a character design thing but an actually interesting (although predictable) plot thing. Also Poppy trolling (  ) him with Sound of Silence was cute, and I liked her original song too. The ending was really nice too, while leaving the Chef and Guru Troll free to return to try to get their revenge in a sequel, if that's the direction that they will go in.
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Feb 26, 2018 06:25
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Something I appreciated with Bolt was that Mindy-from-the-Network wasn't a villain. She had a difficult job to do wrangling an insufferable manchild of a director so that her shareholders wouldn't fire everyone in that room. The director just took things personally and did a stupid petty thing that was calculated to piss off his fans and inadvertantly freaked the hell out of his star dog on top of that. The director was the worst person in that movie IMO. The only thing saving Penny's agent from that title is that he has no real influence. I especially liked the scene between her and Penny when she talks her into trying to move on with the new dog - if the show is allowed to grind to a standstill a lot of good people are going to lose their jobs. Penny has a really hard decision to make, and Mindy just lays it all out on the table, gently but without sugarcoating or condescending to her. Mindy is a really nice person with a difficult position.
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Mar 1, 2018 20:15
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glam rock hamhock posted:I'm sure Ralph 2 will be fine but the name is really dumb and internet jokes tend to have a really bad shelf life, especially with goons. Thing is though a lot of the jokes will likely last because some aspects of the internet are surprisingly static, like there have always been clickbait headlines and likely always will be. It's an old joke, but that's because it's still happening. Of course with some of the phone games that have come out recently the simplicity of the presented phone game may quickly be losing it's shelf life because there are a few games that are trying to be more ambitious.
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Mar 1, 2018 22:27
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Whiz Palace posted:What if I told you movies can be good for reasons other than jokes? It's like when the Nostalgia Critic did Mars Attacks - he kept harping on it for not being laugh out loud funny. That's not the point of the movie - it's ridiculous certainly in how it takes the usual invasion tropes and escalates them ludicrously, like using a general as a flagpole or setting an entire herd of cows on fire for no reason, and the comedy comes from those extremes - it's not necessarily going for a laugh though. Some scenes certainly, like "Do not run, we are your friends!", or the bowling ball taking out Easter Island, but for the most part it is more fun in a surreal way - the amusement doesn't come from jokes, but from what the movie is doing, more an acrobat than a clown.
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Mar 1, 2018 22:39
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Phylodox posted:Be fair, it’s a game for a toddler. Also to be fair, I laughed pretty hard at the payoff to that joke.  Generally I'm OK with lazy jokes, if they are accompanied with some good satire as well as making sense within their world. Rocko's Modern Life has great satire, and so when they go for something a little stupid or a grossout joke I'm more in the mood to find it funny, because the clever moments got me on the writer's side. In one of the episodes with the Bigheads (I think), I wouldn't have laughed so hard at the old gag where Rocko gets started by his alarm clock and his head crashes through the ceiling, but with clever jokes the episode primed me to enjoy it's simpler jokes. Similarly, Bowser spittaking fireballs in WiR is a silly visual, but the strong characterisation of Zangief proves that the writers are capable and willing to do more so the simpler jokes are balanced. On the other hand the trailer for Monster Family puts me against the movie because the best foot forward it seems to have is the dad announcing himself as now a frankenstein's monster by farting. Why farting? Bowser's fireballs make sense given his animations and attacks, Rocko smashing through the ceiling makes sense as an exaggerated reflex - what the hell does a Frankensteins monster have to do with farting? If they had made him a zombie instead it would have worked better as intact bodies releasing gas post mortem due to decomposition is a thing that you can build a fart joke around, but they got lazy and came up with something more recognisable without thinking about the jokes that they could make - the Monster is traditionally made with lightning, have him occasionally accidentally floof his werewolf son with static electricity - short punchy joke for the kids that makes sense. If your going to do something stupid, think it through. There can be art in a silly joke if internally consistent. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 22:53
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Sorry if mine read as an attack Jerk () I was just elaborating on Whiz Palace's point.
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Mar 1, 2018 23:49
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Madagascar 3 had great characters, like the circus animals, although I felt that the love interest was often overdoing her accent in a way that it interfered with her actual acting. I especially liked that the Sealion was totally unafraid of the intimidating russian tiger to the extent that when he tried to interrupt him by throwing knives at him, the Sealion's response is to get annoyed with him and just snarl. also the villain was great, loved how she was designed to specifically be able to move fluidly on both 2 and 4 limbs. Also this scene was amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTt4SrzibV0. As was "It was never about the money. It was only ever about... the lion." She give no fucks about the feeling of the humans present, let alone the animals, she just wants Alex's head on her wall. Although the Afro Circus bit went on far too long and was the most jarring part of the movie. The rescue itself was cool, and the music was funny for a bit, but then it just kept going through the credits and ruined the joke. It also has my favourite animal joke though, in which they point out the biological lifespans of the cast despite the fact that they are adult animals. "Show me  ""'Show me', what are we, 5?!" "Yes, I am 5. Show me!"
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Mar 6, 2018 07:21
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Macaluso posted:The big circus scene with Firework is also really really good I really liked the scene when the Sealion and Zebra first use the cannon. The Sealion gets in trouble due to bad trajectory, the Zebra comes to his aid, but then for the next few seconds all he's feeling is pure elation as he soars through the air. It's a very nice little moment for one of the more annoying characters. I also liked the scene when they finally get back to their Zoo, the entire point of the last 2 movies, and realise just how pathetic it was. Then they get recaptured and the zoo becomes a literal prison to match the metaphorical one that they were so desperate to escape from in the first movie.
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Mar 6, 2018 08:02
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Just rewatched the song Gaston from the original Disney movie. Something neat that I never picked up on is that on the line "Now that I'm grown I eat 5 dozen eggs so I'm roughly the size of a barge!" during the rhythm at the end of the line, each bolded word is accompanied by Gaston physically inflating as he flexes into each pose. Very subtle use of "squash and stretch" but effectively gets the point across. Although I'm sure eating 5 dozen eggs isn't easy considering I doubt Gaston can count to 10, let alone 60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuJTqmpBnI0&t=143s BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 6, 2018 |
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Mar 6, 2018 15:48
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Also it's a common visual but I like when a villain who is trying to pretend to be better than he is, like Gaston and Ratigan (great mouse detective), end up looking more bestial in the climax, like toward the end of the fight with the Beast where Gaston's hair starts going all over the place and he gets slightly more exaggerated motion as his cruelty comes to the surface. Ratigan is also a good example as as the clocktower fight goes on he loses a chunk of his outfit and winds up moving and fighting like a feral rat. It's an effecting visual that often has a lot of fun behind it.
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Mar 6, 2018 16:21
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Macaluso posted:The Ratigan thing rules because he quite literally looks like a gross savage rat. He goes on all fours, and hunches over and his hair is all messed up and his clothes get torn off. It's so good. It would have been hilarious if he also started peeing all over the clock tower.
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Mar 6, 2018 17:05
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Little thing to clear the air... of... semen? Apparently. alot of porn chat R/N... Anyway, a mostly animated movie I have a soft spot for is Chuck Jones' Phantom Tollbooth - it has imaginative characters and fun puns, and some of the songs are fun too (just don't let Milo sing, his actor sounds terrible) A personal favourite is Noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7rZJidVeZkHe just loves his job On the other side of things, I like this song a lot but Milo should never have been allowed to sing any of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJaNDQ-jkxs BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 09:30
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Ccs posted:This is sending me to a very different video. Did you mean this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7rZJidVeZk Fixed, thanks. Didn't realise the link didn't copy.
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Mar 17, 2018 16:58
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I have just caught up with the thread and have Cartoon Opinions to share. Spoilers for all the things mentioned. Minions: I really liked it, Sandra Bullock's character and her husband are really fun and her rocket dress is badass. Also the smaller gags are really great, like the whole Evil Convention is just wall to wall hilarity. Also it adds an undercurrent to the rest of the series - they work for the most evil person in the room. They have no real loyalties. The only difference between Gru and the other villains they've worked for is that Gru treats them like people and give them the benefit of the doubt, and relative free reign. It makes their subplot in DM3 more interesting, because it makes total sense - they are born to be bad. They aren't for childrearing, and when Gru ceases to be bad with no turning back, the Minions are concerned because if they don't have anything to do, as this spinoff attests, they become severely depressed and listless. Without leaving with Dru, the minions likely would have just rotted under Gru's lack of leadership, growing increasingly frustrated and listless. They weren't made by Gru. They have existed since time began, and will just find a new villain when Dru inevitably gets himself killed. They won't return to Gru. Ever. Personal favourite clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1CLeWUw14M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TGWdRK-Ykk In the latter clip they could easily have just had the castle burst apart as Giant Kevin was revealed, but they didn't - they give it a full treatment as the windows shatter and the foundations creak until the castle cracks like an egg. It's a really good Spectacle and I loved it. Other: I read an interesting AU book commissioned by Disney called Reflection, a riff on Mulan where the idea is after the Avalanche Li Shang dies and Mulan travels to the Chinese Afterlife to save him, protected by Li's Guardian Spirit (Mushu is asleep when she makes her decision and for reasons she decides to leave him behind). It had a really neat setting and imaginative challenges, like the mountain literally made of knives and swords, and took the Ping/Mulan stuff in a new direction, where the focus was on Mulan's Ancestor's finding out and their reactions (some of them find it hilarious). Li of course finds out as well in the course of the narrative and gets incredibly pissy about it, but a neat thing is that the gods and afterlife characters tend not to give a poo poo - even his Guardian comes to respect Mulan before Li does. It's simply because it doesn't really matter. They're dead, the sexism is a human construct of the living world and all the other characters have more important things to worry about. It also has a neat payoff with the title where Mulan's final challenge is the Hall of Mirrors, each of them containing a reflection of an aspect of herself with her challenge being to find which one truly represents her as a whole. There are numerous variations on her motivations there all playing off of her insecurities about herself like "I'm a selfish girl who stole her father's armour and ran off seeking glory", and it's an interesting sequence. I keep meaning to look into the other books they commissioned as this one was neat. Did anyone else read that book? Any thoughts?
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Dec 2, 2018 08:38
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Macaluso posted:What happens to the Ralphs living in emulators I'd like to meet a Ralph from a fangame where he's the hero saving Felix from something. Or a terrible fangame where Felix turns evil and starts using his fixing powers to close up the Grand Canyon and poo poo.
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Dec 2, 2018 17:18
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So I take it no one else has read Reflection then? It's a really interesting take on the culture and characters.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:22
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Wheat Loaf posted:I was in HMV the other day and noticed all these paperbacks with shiny black covers near the checkout which all had Disney villains on the covers; is it one of those? Maybe, one of them is Ursula centric, but mine has a really cool mirrored smoke pattern to go with the mirror imagery that has Ping in the negative space, with Mulan's sword splitting down the centre. I scanned it:  It's a bit faded in the scan, the gold really pops and the cover itself is black in person.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:01
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Wheat Loaf posted:That looks like one of them. Probably the same series. I at least can recommend that one. It's an interesting take.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:12
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big dyke energy posted:I actually didn't know that series of books existed! I was obsessed with Mulan as a kid so I'm grabbing it from the library. Didn't read your spoiler completely, either Cool, let me know what you think, I'm curious if I just have bad taste
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Dec 3, 2018 07:37
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big dyke energy posted:Bringin this back to say I read Reflection yesterday and I thought it was fun. It was particularly cool in that it kind of hit all the same beats the end of the movie did, and also I could imagine the rest of the movie happening after the end of the book. Glad you enjoyed it. I really liked the character of General Li. He was fun. Shishi also owned.
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Dec 7, 2018 07:55
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