Disney Movies

Ok, confession time... Disney movies make me cry a lot.

Does anyone else get very emotional when you watch Disney movies these days? I do. Almost every Disney movie somehow makes me tear up. I don't know if it's part nostalgia, or just being an adult and thinking about the movies in broader, more adult contexts, but it happens often.

Examples:

• When Pocahontas gets everyone to stop fighting, and her father holds up his club that he was about to kill John Smith with, in a bid of peace... (I think the music kills it for me with this one)
• In the Fox and the Hound, when she drops the fox off in the game preserve, the truck ride over... (truthfully, this has pretty much ALWAYS made me cry)
• In Mary Poppins, when their father walks to the bank, knowing he will be fired for his job due to his children misbehaving, but he accepts it, and when he pauses to look at the steps of the cathedral, recalling how his children just wanted to feed the birds and he told them they were throwing their money away doing that...
• In The Little Mermaid... when she hugs her dad, King Triton, at the end, saying she loves him...
• When Simba ascends Pride Rock to take his place as king (again: music)... and also when Mufasa dies and Simba just wants him to wake up (but who doesn't tear up at that one?)
• When Andy leaves his toys behind with someone new in Toy Story 3
• The opening montage in Up
• When Belle tells the beast she loves him at the last second
• Honorable mention: The Wizard of Oz (not Disney, but mostly thought of as a 'kids' movie) Last time I watched it, I teared up multiple times.

I recently watched Mary Poppins, and had a few thoughts. 1, I really, really hope that parents still share this movie with their children. It's getting up there in how old it is, and I worry this one is going to be shoved off as an "old" boring movie, or simply forgotten about. But 2, it is such a magical film! I watched it and remembered how fascinated I used to be with everything Mary Poppins did. Sliding up and down the banisters? What kid didn't want to do that?! I realized it actually has a big message for adults, which is to never grow up too much, never take life too seriously. That's the issue with the father, he becomes so focused in his job and his responsibilities, having order, and what is "right" that he loses interest in games, having fun with his children, or remembering what it is like to see the world through a child's eyes. By contrast, Mary and Bert both make a living and have adult responsibilities, but they are still very much in tune with their inner-child, finding plenty of time to enjoy life and have fun. Who knew that was such a deep movie? Anyways, if it's been a while since you watched this, please go check it out from your library. It is a gem!

And the other night, I again watched Inside Out, which I think has become my all-time favorite Pixar movie. It's just so darn creative and brilliant! And I don't use those terms lightly. (Spoiler warning! if you've never seen it...)

<spoilers>

Never have I ever seen a concept as complex as the brain and depression so creatively explained, and in a kids' movie, no less. Because essentially, that's what they illustrate: depression. As the girl slowly loses all of her key personality traits and feelings, and ends up feeling nothing, where she no longer even feels sadness, she is essentially falling deeper and deeper into depression.

</spoilers>

If you've never seen Inside Out, I highly recommend it. It's funny and brilliant, truly brilliant.

On the other hand, The Good Dinosaur has to be the absolute WORST Pixar movie of all time. I could not even believe it was a Pixar movie, it did not live up to their caliber AT ALL! The plot was fairly predictable, yet still didn't make much sense, and I didn't laugh once during the entire thing. And some parts were downright disturbing. I could tell the times when they were trying to be funny—and like, Oh, that was a joke, I was supposed to laugh there—but it was not entertaining or funny at all. Don't waste your time on that one.

I also just watched Coco finally, and it was... alright. I'd give it a 6/10 rating. It was just a little strange because it's essentially all about the Day of the Dead, and therefore death, and almost all of the characters are skeletons. I didn't think it was nearly as witty as other Pixars.

Friday Fast 5

1. Today was a cold but sunny day, so it's not so bad. The piggies were out and about at Todd Geisert Farms when I stopped by to get us some bacon. It made me smile watching them trot around and play in the field.
2. Jarrod and I went to the Star Wars opening last night. We were very, very excited; it's not every day that there is a new Star Wars movie. We decided to head to the theater about 40 minutes ahead of time, and good thing we did. The theater was probably about 80% full already! It was a relief that we ended up with good seats, and by 'good seats' I mean that we weren't sitting by any crying children, we weren't by anyone talking, we weren't by any obnoxious teens. Thank goodness. We both really liked it, I loved BB-8, and I'll leave it at that. Spoilers are easy to come by these days, and I am not going to add to that problem. 
3. Due to the movie, I have also had the Imperial March (the Darth Vader song) pop in my head multiple times a day all week long. It's getting a bit old...
4. I've got all my Christmas shopping done, and I am very glad for that. And, I accomplished at least three-fourths of it online. The last thing I want to do is go out shopping this final weekend before Christmas. No thanks.
5. Yesterday, I had errands to run and my final one was shopping at Aldi. I got there and realized I forgot my bags, then realized my quarter for a cart wasn't in my car—I usually keep one in the cup-holders for this purpose. I dug through my purse but didn't find one there either. I was disappointed, and resigned myself to the fact that I would have to grab two things I absolutely needed and could carry, and come back another time to get the rest. I got out of my car, and this older man said "Do you need a cart?" I said sure, and he pushed it my way and said "Merry Christmas!" and I replied "Thank you sir." It just really, really made my day. The prospect of having to return to the same store a day later... sigh... not fun. I tried to pass on the goodwill when I was finished, but there wasn't anyone going in the store at that time needing a cart. So maybe next time.

Going Solo at the Movies

I was having a bit of a rainy day too, Charlie Brown.

Today I did something I've always wanted to do: go to a movie by myself.

I have been excited for The Peanuts Movie ever since I heard they were making it. And once I saw some of the first promo images for it, I was even more so. Half of the reason I love animated movies so much, aside from being young at heart, is because of the animation and the creativity. And the style they used for this movie made me smile, it just looked so darn cute and perfect for taking a flat cartoon to a 3D animated movie.

The movie came out a while ago, we never got around to seeing it, and I would check movie times almost every week to see if it was still there. Well, today was the last day before our local movie theater retired it to move on to a new film, so it was my last chance. The showtimes were 1:30 or 4:30, and the later time is cutting into dinnertime and when Jarrod would come home, so 1:30 or nothing.

After I ended up having a pretty crappy day at work, I decided I was definitely going to the 1:30 show right after my work day ended.

Not only did I go by myself, I was also the only person seeing the movie today. I think there were maybe 5 people there total, seeing other movies, based on the amount of cars in the lot. I had the entire theater to myself, which I find quite nice. This happened to Jarrod, myself, and Jeff once before when we saw Muppets Most Wanted. You can laugh as loud as you want, chat a little bit if you choose, and simply chill out like you were at home on your own couch.

I'm so glad I went. The movie was very cute, sweet, and had a story with heart. I laughed, I shed a couple tears, and it was exactly what I needed this afternoon. I walked out with a smile on my face.

Death of a Genie

No one could have guessed that the next tragic celebrity death we'd be dealing with would be that of Robin Williams. My social media feeds have been so full of things about Robin Williams, be it simple signs of memorial with people standing on desks, quotes from favorite movies, or articles about him, that I'm almost getting tired of it. Maybe you are too, and even if you aren't I'm going to try to keep this as concise as I can.

I think there are two reasons the world is so shocked about his death. One, being that he provided so much happiness and laughter for others, and two being the reason of his passing. It is unnerving and hard to fathom that someone seemingly so passionate and joyful, who could bring so much laughter to the world, was in fact so isolated and joyless.

Many took to Twitter to post their thoughts, and many of them simply said there were no words to describe how they felt. But one very popular tweet has me unsettled and I think I finally figured out why.

The Academy tweeted out this last night:

As you can see, it's been retweeted and favorited many times. Some have called it the 'perfect' way to pay tribute, or memorialize, or whatever it is you're trying to achieve. 

At first glance, it seemed kind of nice. After about 3 seconds it seemed kind of... off. 

In case you're a little fuzzy on the ending of Aladdin, in the Disney Aladdin movie, Aladdin uses his final wish to set the genie free. It's a semi-emotional scene with the genie being taken aback that he would do such a selfless thing, and Aladdin declares again that is his intent with "Genie, you're free." Some magic happens, the genie rises up, his cuffs of enslavement to the lamp are broken away, and he is free.

It's a joyous occasion.

Suicide... is not a joyous occasion. 

The image could also imply that suicide is a solution to freeing yourself of your demons or your pain. I don't think that's the message you'd want to send to someone dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts. 

There is a much better, more proper way, to handle this, and that would have been with another quote that follows immediately after the scene where Aladdin frees the genie:

Yes we will, Aladdin, yes we will.

The movies

Last night, I realize now, was an almost-duplicate of how we spent our Valentine's Day earlier this year. On that Valentine's day, we went to the Olive Garden here in Wentzville, dealt with a huge wait, and also saw Gnomeo and Juliet. Well, last night we ate at Olive Garden, and then decided to stream Gnomeo and Juliet on Netflix. Wow... that's kind of odd. (By the way, that movie is super fun; filled with tons of Elton John music, some good humor, and cute gnomes. For a kids movie, it's pretty good for adults too.)

Anyways, what I'm getting to is today, when I logged onto my Netflix, I noticed the website had changed. I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I was. Anyways, this happened because I switched my plan to an instant-only plan, because last month we had the same DVD here for an entire month. I have done the plan switch many times throughout my Netflix life, and pretty much suspended my entire account for four months while I was planning a wedding. But I've never gone to JUST streaming. Well, lo and behold, my DVD queue is GONE. Completely. I had way too many movies in that thing; over 100, for sure. But hey! Thank god, for some reason a while back, I decided to post it on here! So yay, when my DVD's resume, I have something to reference. I can't tell you how happy that makes me, because trying to rediscover that many movies or kind of remember what was in it would have been overwhelming, to say the least.

With movies, I have also decided that for a 'winter project' Jarrod and I will start watching a bunch of 80s and 90s movies that I have not seen. I won't go into the whole list, though; it's kind of embarrassing, haha. When Marie comes home for Christmas, too, she might be able to help me out in this department. Her and her sisters owned many of these cult classics, so there is another resource besides Netflix. Looks like I'll have to reactivate my DVD plan, and add even more movies to the queue.

Thoughts from the Oscars...

The Oscars just finished up, and here are some random things I think:

1. Great, now I will have to wait even longer to get "The Hurt Locker" from my Netflix. I'm moving it to the top right now before everyone else scoops it up. We'll see if this works...

2. A little heavy on the Avatar jokes, don't you think? I would have been a little annoyed if I was James Cameron.
2B. James Cameron doesn't seem like a very easy-going, joke around kind of guy.

3. The director for "The Hurt Locker", Kathryn Bigelow, seemed like she was about to faint. She kept holding her hand to her stomach as if she was wearing a painful corsette, or had bad indegestion.

4. That girl from those "Twilight" movies looked ill. And sounded ill. And she scratched her back in a very odd way. It wasn't very becoming of someone who should be poised and propper at the Oscars. I'm just sayin'.
4B. Speaking of Twilight-girl (I honestly don't know what her name is), I wonder what the rest of the famous actors and actresses think of her and that Taylor guy presenting an award. Are they thinking 'Hey, good job kids. Way to go!' or 'The only reason these people are up here is because they happened to be in some insanely popular movie, but they really aren't that talented.' Personally, I feel the latter is more true.

5. I felt sorry for the Argentinian who won Best Foreign Language film. He seemed so frightened by the unseen sign telling him to wrap him up. He stated he was sorry but it was hard for him to speak English so it slowed him down.

6. I wonder if the Animation category has become something like softball at the Olympics. Oscar : Pixar as Gold Medal : USA. Pixar always wins, and everyone expects it.

7. I love watching the Oscars, but sometimes I feel they're a little too... into themselves. Too stuck on themselves, in a way. What I mean by this is the endless montages and strange skits that have hardly any purpose than to exploit the fact that we're talented, we're the movie business and we rock, and to waste time. Seriously, sometimes that is how I feel: it's just a waste of time. I like the montages most times, though. But the combo of break dancing/hip hop styled dance/pop 'n lock with orchestral music? I'm a fan of mash-ups and strange combos, but even that didn't quite work for me. The dance barely had any reference to the music. I mean, how can you pop 'n lock to a bunch of slow violins and cellos? Their attempt failed for me.

8. I thought Sean Penn was drunk when he presented.

9. I thought it was quite hilarious when the announcer said, before the commercial break, "Stay tuned for Best Picture. Will "Avatar" take home the Oscar? Or "The Blind Side" or "The Hurt Locker"? Or will there be a surprise winner?" Translation: "Those are the only three real contenders. The other seven don't really matter and won't win."

10. That "Logorama" short is RIGHT up my alley! It looks sweet. Anyone know where I can watch it? It looks like I'm gonna have to buy it off of iTunes because it's nowhere to be found online.