Welcome to the Love of Animation

This week, I was saddened to learn about an arson attack committed at the Japanese animation studio Kyoto Animation. 33 people were killed with another 30 injured. Most of the victims were young women in their 20s and 30s.

Though I'm not super familiar with the animation studio's work, I was heart broken to hear about the incident and hope that the perpetrator is brought to justice. From what I understand, he is currently in police custody.

Following the news, a lot of people who couldn't pay their respects in person took to social media to talk about their feelings on the attack and how the studio's animated series and movies touched their lives.

Animation is a beautiful art. One that I think doesn't always get the appreciation it deserves.

There's something magical in the seamless world building created in animation. I never question the reality that Sen finds herself exploring in Spirited Away nor the appearance of the monsters in Moana. Everything fits in without looking fake or unreal. Contrast this with some CGI (particularly early CGI) and I'd take the animated world versus an unrealistic live action one.

Unfortunately some animated series from the US, also known as cartoons, are often only associated with children's entertainment, which isn't a good idea. I wouldn't want a child watching South Park or Futurama.

Gravity Falls is definitely one of the best animated series I've seen in a while that is also family friendly.

I have distinct memories of watching anime (Japanese animation) as a teenager and having someone ask me why I was still watching cartoons at my age. At first I was insulted by the comment, and then horrified by the idea that a young child would watch Black Cat (a fairly violent anime that was in fact geared towards teenagers).

However, I can't fault people for thinking that animation is only for kids. A lot of animated movies are meant for general audiences, especially if they have the Disney logo (or are of the knock off Disney variety) and cartoons, especially if they were made by Hanna-Barbera, were well known to be made on a shoe-string budget for kids. Once the 80s rolled around and regulations loosened on advertising to kids, cartoons were used as a 20 to 30 minute ad for kids to nag their parents into buying the accompanying toys (see anything made by Hasbro).

That doesn't change the fact that people who have since grown up, still look back on the animated works of their youth with fondness. This is likely why we've seen a recent surge in reboots of older series and/or live action remakes. Disney is currently raking in the cash by creating life action remakes of all the 90s movies I grew up with. Personally, I prefer the original animated versions, but there are a few of the remakes I don't mind. I admit that I'm curious as to the changes they made to Mulan (will it be closer to the original story from China?) and Halle Bailey seems like a great fit for the role of Ariel.

I'm not even going to touch the number of sequels that have come out this year.

Animation is some of the first art we're experienced to. Some of my favorite memories are of waking up early to watch Rugrats, Scooby Doo, or Bugs Bunny before my parents woke up. One of the first movies I saw in theaters was The Lion King and it blew my young mind away.

I'm currently writing this blog post while watching Spirited Away. It's one of my all time favorite movies (though Castle in the Sky will always be my number one Studio Ghibli film). I don't think I'd enjoy it nearly as much if it weren't animated. The world building, backgrounds, and characters all seem so tangible animated.

Castle in the Sky is beautiful and I recommend it to everyone.

The tragedy at Kyoto Animation is heart breaking and I hope the people who were injured are able to recover. They touched a lot of people's lives through their work.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Remake

I somehow got talked into seeing the new Child's Play today with a couple of my friends. Was it good? Yes. Was it scary? Not really. Did I scream like a small child because I can't handle gore and jump scares? Of course.

If my friends are to be believed I helped to enhance the movie going experience.

Also I don't mean that this movie isn't scary in that it won't make you jump in your seat. I mean that it's not scary because it's just not still creeping me out after seeing the movie. That's how I judge whether or not a movie is scary, if I'm still freaking out about it after the credits roll.

It's honestly been a while since I was left feeling like my skin was crawling after a horror movie or TV show. Much as I like The Haunting of Hill House, Jaws, or The VVICH, I don't often find them all that scary.

I do think they are all really good movies and TV shows. Just like I think Child's Play (the original and this remake) are good movies, just not very scary ones.

In fact, and this might be an unpopular opinion, I think this new version of Child's Play is slightly better than the original.

I'm not sure if it's the updates that were made to the story, the changes that were made, or if I just need to go back and review the original again to compare the dialogue, but the remake was a lot more engaging for me. Also Mark Hamill is amazing. Like I could tell it was him, but it wasn't his Joker or his Luke Skywalker voice. Spot on casting right there. (And he liked my tweet!)

Reasons I liked the movie aside (because I swear this isn't a review), it's very rare for me to enjoy a remade movie. It's an extremely fine art that Child's Play did well and most other remakes do not.

Much as I love Disney and enjoyed the remake of Beauty and the Beast, I still felt the original animated 1991 version was better. I even went how right after seeing it in theaters and rewatched the original. Carrie? 1976 film all the way. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory versus Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka wins hands down. There's just something a little more heart warming to that movie.

And the less said about the Psycho remake the better.

That isn't to say that remakes can't work. I freaking loved It: Chapter 1. Again, did I find it scary...no. It was entertaining as all get out though (especially that random dancing scene, I was hysterically laughing). I also like the 1953 version of House of  Wax, which is in fact a remake of an earlier version from 1933 and was also remade (terribly) in 2005.

I  even occasionally like gender-bent remakes (where they switch a main character or characters' gender) such as His Girl Friday which is a remake and adaptation of The Front Page. These types of remakes are even rarer to work and designate with audiences or just be good in general.

Also a remake is different from a reboot. Batman  and Superman are rebooted fairly often, each with varying degrees of success. I like both the Dark Knight and the 1989 Batman, however there is very little connecting the two. Reboots are giving a franchise a face lift without actually being the original. A remake is just trying to be the original.

(I know that reboots and remakes are very similar in concept, but I think of them as two different types of movies.)

So why do so few remakes work?

Honestly - it's because most of the time the studios are hoping you'll see the movie on name recognition alone. They hardly ever try to do anything new or refreshing in the story. Often times, the remake is just the old movie with modern tropes thrown in for fun.

A good remake pays homage to the original and makes itself something new.

The original Suspiria is a technicolor trip. It's entertaining and at times scary (though not much), but the story isn't really there. The new Suspiria that came out last autumn is also a trip, but it's much more focused on the story (maybe a little too much) and political climate of 1970s Berlin. One is a fairy tail and one is a beautiful, yet twisted period piece. I like both movies for very different reasons and because they are so different, I couldn't even begin to tell you which is better.

For the record there are movies I am not opposed being remade. There are some stories I feel can be expanded upon in visual media (*cough* Harry Potter *cough*). I do have a select few movies that are so very much part of the time that they came out, I would hate it if they were remade (rebooting is not impossible - Star Trek was fine, but definitely not remade). Movies like:

• Indiana Jones (all three originals)
• The Crow
• Star Wars
• Labyrinth - with the possible exception of Tom Hiddleston as Jareth 
• Back to the Future
• Lord of the Rings 
• Princess Mononoke
• Akira (no live action remakes Hollywood please)
• Jaws
• Metropolis 

This isn't a comprehensive list, just the movies I can think of off the top of my head. The reasons I don't want them remade have more to do with how well I think the story works. There isn't as much I want to see explored anymore from the above listed. Now, inspired by movies and spin-offs are okay...if done well (only the first Hobbit movie was to my liking), but those stories are done. If I want a new Indiana Jones, I want a new character, not a new actor playing a beloved character.

And some animated movies really don't need live action remakes. Occasionally they work. I was very happy with Detective Pikachu (that's not a remake, but it was a medium transfer from animated to live). I was not impressed with Death Note and I'm still pretending Ghost in the Shell never happened. Beauty and the Beast wasn't bad, but the new things didn't work and the ones they tried to "fix" didn't really need fixing to begin with.

Okay maybe that whole cursing an 11 year old kid nonsense needed to be explained, but that's neither here nor there.

Do you guys have any movies you would never want to see remade? Let me know.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Time Warp

 The remake of Rocky Horror Picture Show aired this week. I managed to watch it on Hulu a couple of days later. I thought it was entertaining, not the original, but entertaining none the less. I felt it was missing something 1970s.

The first time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I had no idea what kind of movie I was in for. I knew the song Time Warp because it is played at nearly every Halloween party I've ever been to. My friends had set up a space in their dorm room and someone had their laptop up for us to say all the audience participation words, though we didn't have props.

It was a ton of fun.

It was also one of the most bizarre movies I had ever seen. I also didn't really understand it.

Okay I understood the symbolize and sex positive message. I also got that most of them were aliens. I didn't understand the progression of the plot. It's felt more like a series of events rather than a story.

I understand it better now, but I still think it is a weird movie. It's also one I love to watch around Halloween. It's a fun hour and a half.

There are a few books and movies that I feel similar about. There are the stories that I finish and then say "what the heck was that?" I remember saying that after the first time I read Uzumaki and MW (these are manga). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its squeal Through the Looking Glass are also good examples of this*, not to mention the tunnel portion of the original Willy Wonka movie or everything in Labyrinth.

I wonder how these types of stories become cult classics. Its not that I think weird is bad, but sometimes the plot makes very little sense. Then there are the movies that are so bad they've become ironically good (The Room or Food Fight). I feel these movies are in a slightly different from the above mentioned. I want to watch Rocky Horror because it feels like going to a party ever time I hit play. I'd watch Food Fight because I'm mildly curious as to what kind of disaster the movie actually is, but I wouldn't watch it again.

I wonder if I could ever create something so fantastically weird and crazy. I don't think it's possible to start creating something like Rocky Horror with the intention of creating, well, Rocky Horror. Then it just feels like I'm trying to hard. The weird sequence of events feels natural for the universe created in the movie.

I think that's the challenge when creating something like that. It needs to feel natural in the environment that has been created. Stories like Charlie/Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland leave our reality behind and create new rules for the reality they are in. I mean who gets in an argument with time and is then stuck having tea time for four months.

Not everyone may like these kinds of stories. That's okay too. I don't like extremely gory horror movies and they seem to be everywhere this time of year.

I recommend checking out the new Rocky Horror if you haven't yet. Its fun, it's crazy, and I think they made some funny jokes that called back to the original. Then watch the original. Tim Curry singing is just too much fun.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

*Contrary to popular belief, Alice in Wonderland has a lot of mathematical symbolism.Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was a mathematician and didn't like some of the new mathematics theories that were being proposed at the time.