Pixiepalace

Disney’s movie version of the tale of “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” from the Arabian Nights stories has become something of a modern classic in animated movies. It is a cinematic masterpiece with sweeping views of a fabulous city plucked directly out of an Arabian fantasy and soaring music that gives an epic feel to what is not a particularly epic story. It is not, however, terribly reminiscent of the original tale. I really like this movie, but not because it in any way resembles the original story (in fact, the changes made to the princess bothered me enormously at first – westernizing her so much seemed just wrong). I think that this is a fun movie and Carpet is just one of the must fun animated characters to watch, but I think this is the perfect example of how Disney takes stories and twists them to be what they want, forever changing how popular culture sees them. Nearly every kid I meet today knows the Disney version of the Aladdin story, but I doubt many of them know the Arabian Nights version. And that’s kind of a shame, even if the movie is awesome.

The Little Einsteins seem to read the oddest versions of fairy tales. This time, Quincy reads them his favorite story – “Sleeping Bassoon”. In the story a princess Bassoon (complete with pointy princess hat) makes everyone happy by playing a happy song, but the grumpy wizard doesn’t want to be happy or see anyone else happy, so he casts a spell to put the princess in a deep sleep. If no one can wake her up before all the purple pebbles fall in an hourglass, she’ll never wake up. None of the instruments in the kingdom seem able to replicate the bassoon’s happy song (the wedding march) to wake her up. The Little Einsteins rush to the rescue, since Quincy can play the song on his trumpet. After much searching, aided by a fish and hampered by the grumpy wizard, they reach the castle and Quincy manages to awaken the princess. Everyone is happy, even the grumpy wizard (go figure).

Although this was a rather interesting telling of the “Sleeping Beauty” story, I actually found it rather unsatisfying. I think part of the problem was that in changing the focus of the story from the princess to the questing rescuers, the writers ended up kind of removing both the impetus for the action in the first place and the repercussions afterwards. Why did the grumpy wizard suddenly become not grumpy at the end? It really didn’t make any sense. The use of the song to wake her up and everyone else trying to play it (in sort of a more genuine version of everyone trying on the glass slipper) was really interesting and well done. I would have liked to know what was special about the song that made it impossible for any other instrument to play (part of the spell, maybe?), but I liked the element of them trying to awaken her.

I find the fluidness of stories really interesting in Little Einsteins. They enter the books they read as easily as they encounter “real” things, which is very much the way children are able to interact with books and stories. It’s like the fairy tales are games to them, rather than books, and that’s perfect. I love how they’ve made that the case and yet haven’t felt the need to explain or qualify it at all. It just is. This is definitely an interesting series!

This episode of “Little Einsteins” made me laugh a lot, and not just because it completely baffled Michael. It tells about how Rocket is taking Rocket Soup to his sick Grandma Rocket through the woods when Big Jet steals it. The Little Einsteins give chase and eventually get the soup back, only to have a classic wolf-disguised-as-grandma conversation with Big Jet at Grandma Rocket’s house. The whole thing made very little logical sense, but was incredibly cute and very funny. It was actually a pretty straightforward telling of the “Little Red Riding Hood” story, although never acknowledged as such except for in the title. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Big Jet was disguised as Grandma Rocket and they went through the comments about physical features (“what a big nose you have!”, “what big wings you have!”, “what big jets you have!”).

Michael pointed out that almost none of this episode made sense. Rockets really shouldn’t have grandmas. And they really shouldn’t drink soup. And soup really shouldn’t play music. And rockets don’t really get sick. And conducting crescendos really shouldn’t make tunnels bigger (and why exactly the rocket couldn’t just fly over the tunnel in the first place was extremely unclear). I kind of enjoyed the complete nonsense of the world and the fun it brought to the story, but I can also see how it could be extremely distracting and even frustrating for many people. I kind of wonder how many parents watching this show with their kids get irritated with those aspects of it? Regardless, it is what it is and I think they’ve done a pretty good job of telling this story.

This is a loose retelling of the “Little Red Riding Hood” story. Goofy is sick, so Mickey and Minnie make Minniestrone soup to help him feel better. They must carry it to him in a picnic basket. Part way there they run into Pete who smells the soup and wants it. First he begs for it, then he tries to pretend he’s sick, but they don’t believe him. When neither of these tactics work, he tries to sneak up on them and steal it. This backfires and they get it back fairly easily while Pete ends up in a mud puddle. Pete continues to try and confuse the group (which grows as Daisy and Donald join with their offerings for Goofy), but problem solving gets them through every situation. Finally he simply chases them, but they escape to Goofy’s tent on roller skates. Once they arrive at the tent, Pete disguises himself as a sick old woman and tries to fool them again, but this again fails. He does eventually get some soup, but not until he gets sick himself.

The plot of this episode is really well done. It follows the structure of the original story excellently, but gives a whole new spin on it that fits well with the Disney characters and this show in particular. Some parts did come off as odd, however. Minnie randomly wears a red hooded cape throughout the episode, which we have never seen before (and, as far as I know, never see again). No comment is ever made about this unusual addition to her wardrobe, which otherwise never varies. I was also a little annoyed that Minnie needed Mickey along throughout the whole thing. This wasn’t exactly a difficult adventure that required two people and it has not previously been typical of this show for characters to need companions to do anything (Mickey does things on his own all the time, as does Donald). So why did Minnie need help? She could have made and delivered her soup just as easily without Mickey along. He’s in charge of every situation he’s in, so it really felt like her contribution to the whole thing was minimized, which is frustrating when she’s effectively doing the whole thing. But this show is rarely forward thinking in gender portrayals (example: the characters’ footwear), so I’m not particularly surprised either.

I liked this episode, but I’d really like to see the girls on this show get to DO something for once and this episode in particular really highlighted the fact that they don’t ever get to.

This episode of Little Einsteins* was all about Hansel and Gretel. The classic fairy tale siblings wander out into the woods and get trapped in a gingerbread house by a witch. Unable to save themselves, the Little Einsteins rush to the rescue. The witch continually block their path, but the foursome is able to solve each puzzle and eventually make it to the gingerbread house where Leo, the group’s clear leader, defeats the witch with help from the viewing audience. Hansel and Gretel are saved and everyone goes home.

There are obviously a lot of changes to the story in this version. The parents abandoning the children in the woods is completely cut out, probably because the fates of Hansel and Gretel are actually fairly unimportant to this tale. Hansel and Gretel themselves are also portrayed as completely helpless. They need to leave a trail for themselves every day to be able to get back home and when the witch traps them all they seem to do is sit and wait to be rescued. First of all, it’s the same trail every day and they still need to drop something to lead them home? Seriously? And as for being trapped by the witch, did it not occur to them that she trapped them in a house made of food? They could eat their way out, or at least pull apart the gingerbread walls and make a new doorway for themselves! But no, they just whine and wait to be rescued. Quite a change from the fairy tale characters who roast the witch!

I find this show rather interesting, but it does kind of bother me that the gender images, and to a lesser extent the racial ones, are pretty heavily following stereotypes here. The girls’ obvious talents are ballet and singing, respectively, while the boys are more obviously the brainy types. The white boy is the obvious leader while the black boy, Asian girl and white girl adoringly follow along with everything he suggests (even the rocket does whatever he wants!). There’s nothing saying every show needs to break image rules for gender or race, but I’d love to have seen something surprise me here. Anything.

* Little Einsteins is a television show and not the same as “Baby Einsteins”, the line of DVDs and books that promise to make babies smarter but probably don’t do anything of the kind (Michael requested that I clarify this, since it can be a little confusing).

Miss Potter was a moderately recent biopic of Beatrix Potter that focused on the time surrounding the publication of her first few books and the romance with the publisher of those books. This was very much a “chick flick” (although, as my father was quick to point out, not the type of chick flick that is date fare). It was slow moving and focused entirely on the interpersonal relations between Beatrix Potter and the people around her. The romance was rather uninteresting, actually, with no real build-up or surprises or even tension. What made the movie was the tension between Beatrix and her mother and the friendship between her and her publisher’s sister. For no apparent reason, Beatrix’s brother was completely absent from the film except for a few flashbacks showing him as a child. I really wondered why he wasn’t at the Christmas party.

The retellings of Potter’s stories were a little over-cute, but they didn’t cut out parts I had expected (Peter’s father having been made into a pie by Mrs McGregor, Jemima being in very real danger, etc.). Instead, they left those parts in the stories, but whitewashed Potter’s childhood. We saw her as a little girl with numerous animal “friends”, which she reportedly was, who got disgusted by her brother pinning bugs to a board, which she definitely would not have been. The fact that those cute, cuddly friends sometimes found themselves being dissected by the young artist and her scientist brother never got mentioned. The drawings themselves were also animated to move and Potter reacted as if she saw them do so each time, when clearly no one else did. This was cute and very much in keeping with Hollywood’s idea of a “charming young lady children’s book author”, but somehow I get the feeling that if Beatrix Potter Heelis was around today she’d be very much annoyed by it. She was not that type of woman, by all the reports I’ve read. Maybe she had changed by the time those were written (most came from later in her life, after she’d mostly stopped writing for farming), but it seemed far too much a Hollywood convention to me. Why must Hollywood make the world of children’s books and those who create them so “precious” (almost to the point of nausea sometimes)? Why can’t the people who write books for children just be adults like everybody else? Is that really so much to ask?

I did enjoy the movie, but obviously it brought up a few issues! I would recommend it, just don’t take it to be necessarily a very accurate picture of Beatrix Potter. Not that any biopic is really that accurate, I suppose. But it was a fun little romance, even with the bittersweet ending.

“Sleeping Minnie” is an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in which Minnie picks a sleeping rose and falls asleep. She will sleep for one hundred years if Mickey doesn’t retrieve a magical golden harp that can wake her up. As Mickey quests to find the harp and bring it back to the clubhouse garden, where Minnie is asleep, he is constantly reminded of the importance of his quest by a little song sung by Clarabelle. The cow, who is sort of the cause of the whole mess in the first place, stayed behind. Mickey is never long without companions, though, and meets Donald and Goofy along the way who gladly join his quest and the three of them overcome all obstacles together.

The episode started with Clarabelle coming into the clubhouse and telling Mickey that she had been planting “sleeping roses” in the garden when Minnie picked one. “Sleeping roses”, she explains, will put whomever picks them to sleep for one hundred years. My reaction to this was to wonder what kind of moron plants “sleeping roses” in their garden, especially without neon signs warning passersby not to pick them! But Clarabelle’s idiocy in this matter aside, I quickly started to wonder why she couldn’t go after the harp herself. Why did the boys have to do it? It’s not like there was anything particularly perilous or anything about the quest that she might be wanting to pawn off on them out of fear. It really seemed like it was just a matter of the expectation being that boys go on quests when these things happen and girls wait at home for it to be all better (assuming they aren’t the one under the spell in the first place, but I would have been extremely surprised to have seen Mickey put in such nebulous danger). This didn’t make me especially happy, as you may imagine. The way the writers reworked the fairy tale was innovative and interesting – no villain, no romance, just a spell and a quest – but it felt very unfair. The girls definitely got the short end of this stick.

This is a retelling of the Cinderella story with a 16th century French setting. Danielle (Cinderella) is made to work as a servant in her own household by her stepmother and stepsisters, but takes solace in the books of philosophy and science that her father left her. Prince Henry, the heir to the French throne, is unhappy with his “gilded cage” and habitually runs away. One of the times he runs away, he meets Danielle on her family’s estate (as he is stealing a horse). He clearly doesn’t pay that much attention to her, but when they encounter later and she is pretending to be a fine lady in order to save a servant who was sold away, he definitely notices her as she lectures him. He consistently pursues her until she eventually falls in love with him. All the time, both of them are dodging the stepmother and her daughter (who is trying to win the prince). The problem here is that Danielle gives Henry a false name when she’s pretending to be a fine lady and must thereafter continue the charade whenever they meet. This, of course, causes many problems. But it’s a fairy tale, so all things work out in the end.

I liked that this movie told the story completely without the use of any magic or exaggeration on the part of the characters. The stepmother and stepsister were horrible people, but also totally believable people. There was nothing about their cruelty that I couldn’t believe. The same went for pretty much the whole cast of characters. They had strengths and flaws every one, no one was completely without blemish (even Danielle and Henry) and no one was without something that made them understandable and pitiable (even if they were still pretty despicable). I also loved that the strongest characters in the movie were the women. Danielle was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and clearly a smart woman. She even rescues herself near the end just as the prince rides up on his noble stead to rescue her. The stepmother and stepsister were willful and cunning in many ways, even if it was clear from the outset that they were doomed to failure. Their strength made them all the more frightening. The queen of France was also far more interesting and appeared more observant and competent than her husband (or her son). It was clear that she was not simply there as a royal social director, she obviously had a real hand in what was going on. That’s an awesome thing to see in a fairy tale and a movie with a historical setting!

I really like this movie. It’s one of my favorite full-length fairy tale retelling movies. I think they did a great job with every aspect of it – the writing, the acting, the sets and especially the costumes (I want a dress like Danielle’s ballgown some day!). I am perfectly happy with the romanticised story and the way everything turns out happily ever after (which are sometimes criticized about this movie) because it’s a fairy tale! That’s the way it’s supposed to be! I’d be annoyed if the bad guys didn’t get punished, but they did, and it was a great realistic punishment! I love this movie and highly recommend it!

I love this whole movie, but the only portion that I want to talk about today is the “Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102″ by Dimitri Shostakovich segment, which retells the story of the steadfast tin soldier and the little ballerina he loved. I always loved this particular Andersen fairy tale (I found it’s very sad ending unspeakably romantic when I was a kid – I was weird). The version of the story that the Walt Disney studios brings us in this movie is very different from the classic one. It has a happy ending for the soldier and the ballerina, but even more than that, it introduces a villain in the person of a jack-in-the-box who loves the ballerina. It almost feels to be like they took “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and another of Andersen’s tales, “The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep”, and sort of smushed them together to come up with this story. It works fairly well, but the result is very different from either tale of course. I enjoyed it a lot. The mix is creative and I do wonder if it was conscious or if the resemblance they ended up with to the second story just sort of happened as they made changes. I would be interesting to know! This story is so infrequently told in cinema that I’m pleased they included it in Fantasia 2000, especially since it is such an interesting version!

Movie versions of Little Women are always a little bit odd. They are much abridged, since the book is actually quite long, and generally put more meaning or emphasis behind some of the events than the book really seems to intend them to have (the better to sensationalize, my dear). This version is really no different. It tells the story of the four March sisters and how they grow from young ladyhood to adulthood while the Civil War and other various changes are happening in the rest of the country. Each girl is different, but they share a special bond and are clearly young women the audience is supposed to love and identify with (at least the female half of the audience is).

My biggest issues with this movie were in the portrayal of the girls themselves. Beth, for some reason, never grows up while the other three do. She never got any older, while Amy, who is ostensibly younger than her, grows up and starts wearing long skirts and even eventually gets married! Beth is still dressed as a little girl and speaking as a little girl up until the end, while the rest of them, obviously full grown women at this point, stand around her and it looks very odd. Amy, played by Elizabeth Taylor, is incredibly bratty. She actually kind of drove me crazy. I really wanted to like Amy, just like I liked the other three sisters, but I really couldn’t. I felt like Ashley was a dope for marrying her at the end and I felt really sorry for him having to spend the rest of his life dealing with her. I felt like Jo was trying to hard. It just didn’t feel natural. Meg was so generic that I hardly remember her at all! I don’t remember her actually getting much screen time anyway.

This wasn’t a terribly good interpretation of the book and it felt very choppy and odd as a movie in its own right as well. It really felt like it was saying “love these girls, aren’t they precious and wonderful?”, but Amy was an unlovable brat, Jo was so fake it hurt and Meg was completely forgettable. That’s a little hard to love. They all looked great. The costuming and sets were amazing. And the secondary characters were really well done. It’s just that the story isn’t about them, it’s about Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Somehow, that wasn’t what this felt like. It felt like a very strange, convoluted story about random people. I kept wondering why I was supposed to care.