"Song Sung Blue" and "Rental Family"

"Song Sung Blue" is easily mistaken for a musical biopic about Neil Diamond.  It's actually a musical biopic about a Neil Diamond impersonator, or "interpreter," named Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman).  Based on the documentary of the same name by Greg Kohs, "Song Sung Blue" follows frustrated musician Mike as he falls in love with a Patsy Kline impersonator named Claire (Kate Hudson), and forms the fabulous performing duo of "Lightning and Thunder" with her.  Both have children from prior marriages, including Claire's hostile teen daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) and son Dayna (Hudson Hensley), and Mike's daughter Angelina (King Princess).  Despite finding great fulfillment in performing, Mike and Claire's lives see dramatic ups and downs over the years, and their love is tested in many ways.

Directed and written by Craig Brewer, the movie is utterly charming from the opening frames.  I love biopics about people who are more adjacent to fame rather than very famous, so we don't have to worry so much about the audience's existing relationship with a celebrity.  The Sardinas are a fairly ordinary couple who live ordinary lives and have the problems that ordinary people have.  However, since they're impersonators, we still get the benefit of hearing Jackman and Hudson perform lots of catchy Neil Diamond songs.  You can tell how much the filmmakers genuinely love Thunder and Lightning, because they always look fabulous onscreen, in spite of the kitschy stage outfits and goofy played up personas.  The performances are very good, with Jackman and Hudson selling the love story, and keeping the Sardinas very human as they face major challenges together.    

 

I'm not a Neil Diamond fan and I admit that "Sweet Caroline" is one of only three Diamond songs that I know.  However, I had a very good time with this film.  I think the actual fans would like it too, because the Sardinas love Neil Diamond as much as anybody.  Mike is initially reluctant to assume the role because he's worried that it might be disrespectful, and when he does he displays a very protective attitude towards Diamond's music throughout.  After listening to the songs for two hours, I still don't think the music is really to my taste, but I enjoyed watching Jackman and Hudson as the Sardinas so much, it didn't matter.

On to "Rental Family," which is a dramedy about the Western and Japanese cultural divide, from director HIKARI, but in a more interesting and nuanced way than I expected.  Brendan Fraser plays an actor named Phillip Vanderploeg, who has lived in Japan for several years since starring in a popular toothpaste commercial.  He's adapted to life in Japan very well, but his career has stalled.  Unexpectedly, he gets a gig with "Rental Family," a service owned by a man named Shinji (Takehiro Hira), who hires out actor stand-ins for personal and social situations.  Phillip is called on to play a groom for a sham wedding, a mourner for a fake funeral, and a reporter to conduct a fake interview with a forgotten filmmaker, Kikuo (Akira Emoto).  However, his most challenging assignment is to play the father of a little girl named Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), who isn't supposed to know he's just an actor.

Companies like Rental Family are real, having originated in Japan in the 90s.  As a very Japanese phenomenon with very particular cultural nuances, it's a great angle to illustrate how Philip still thinks like an American, and hasn't quite figured out how to fit in Japanese society.  Casting Brendan Fraser for this was a wonderful choice, since he's so physically out of place wherever he goes in Japan, and dwarfs all of his co-stars, especially little Shannon Mahina Gorman.  The concept of hiring people to play loved ones has great comedic and dramatic potential, but "Rental Family" chooses to be very gentle, heartwarming, and sincere.  Regarding less savory aspects of the business, there's only a brief subplot involving one of Philip's co-workers, Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), who specializes in playing fake girlfriends to deliver apologies to wives who've been cheated on.   As a result, there's a very old-fashioned feel to "Rental Family," and the comedy is extremely nice in a way that's becoming very rare.

"Rental Family" reminds me a lot of "The Farewell" in the way that it deals with Western and Eastern approaches to personal difficulties, and love is shown in very different ways that seem to be contradictory.  This is a very sanitized and idealized depiction of the rental family concept, but I admire the impulse to make a movie like this, more than I like the movie itself.  "Rental Family" is a pleasant watch that I'd happily recommend to those who might need a comforting feel-good movie, but the resolutions are all a little too pat and tidy for me.  People's emotions are treated very carefully, but the more morally troubling aspects of the rental scheme are largely sidestepped or dealt with superficially.  Everything may look fine, but everyone in this movie still needs a ton of therapy.  

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"Zootopia 2" and "Wicked: for Good"

"Zootopia" is my favorite modern Disney animated film.  It's also one of the few that I thought was a natural franchise starter, being a buddy cop story, so I was looking forward to the inevitable sequel.  Frankly, I didn't think we'd have to wait this long.  Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde return, this time investigating a mysterious newcomer to the city, Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan), who has something to do with the  powerful industrialist Milton Lynxley (David Straithairn).  Other characters include a conspiracy podcaster beaver, Nibbles (Fortune Feimster), ex-movie star turned politician, Mayor Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), Milton's son Pawbert (Andy Samberg), and Nick and Judy's therapist, Dr. Fuzzby (Quinta Brunson). 

Like the first "Zootopia," the sequel is about interspecies conflicts standing in for real-world issues.  This time immigrants and gentrification are the main targets, with reptiles being revealed as a hidden underclass in Zootopia.  Judy and Nick are also dealing with partnership frictions, as Judy is keen on proving to the still doubtful department that she and Nick can be great detectives, while Nick just wants to get through the case in one piece.  "Zootopia 2" follows the formula for most animated sequels, repeating many of the plot beats of the original and indulging in plenty of callbacks, while adding to the Zootopia universe.  We get to see more of the city, including a swamp neighborhood populated by aquatic denizens, and catch up with a few old friends.  Shakira is back with a new earworm, called "Zoo," and there continues to be plenty of slapstick antics for the kids and pop culture references and animal puns for the grown-ups.     

As formulaic as it is, the execution here is good enough that I have zero complaints with "Zootopia 2."  It's not very ambitious and doesn't break any new ground, but it functions just fine as a detective and mystery story, and is rousingly entertaining for the entire length of its running time.  It's not as good as the original "Zootopia," but it doesn't feel extraneous or padded out like some of the other recent Disney sequels, and I'll be happy to see more "Zootopia" sequels make their way to the big screen in the future.  

"Wicked: For Good" was exactly what I expected it to be, which is bad.  The second half of the musical it's adapting is not as good as the first half, and has none of the most famous songs or sequences.  Additional songs were composed to try and compensate for this, but it didn't help.  There's way too much story told in far too little time, and the movie still feels overlong and unwieldy.  What's worse, the first "Wicked" film did so well with family audiences, I suspect that the filmmakers felt it necessary to tone down some of the more challenging content to accommodate younger and more sensitive viewers.  The one really effective horror moment I remember from the musical is totally undercut in the film version, and all the bite and bitterness is quickly taken out of the Glinda/Elphaba hostilities.

Another issue is that the events of this film are supposed to take place at the same time as "The Wizard of Oz," so we're constantly getting bits of Dorothy's journey going on in the background, and catching glimpses of familiar characters.  The trouble is that John Chu and his collaborators can't get all the pieces to fit.  In addition to not being able to use the famous iconography of the MGM film (no ruby slippers allowed), there are so many instances of missing or muddled motivations, inexplicable behavior, and just plain mismatched storylines that I have to question whether we really needed Dorothy in this movie at all.  Then again, without her presence, the already moody, downbeat story would be even smaller scale and decidedly less spectacular.

Some things are improved - after all the criticism about the cinematography, commendable efforts have been made in that department.  The production values remain top notch, and "Wicked: For Good" looks gorgeous, if nothing else.  I also like the increased role of Glinda in the story, and the greater emphasis on her friendship with Elphaba.  Unfortunately, this isn't enough to compensate for some of the glaring, fundamental problems with the film.  There are enough good moments that I think this is still worth a watch for those who liked the first film, but expectations should be kept very, very low.

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A Bewitching "Kiss of the Spider Woman"

One of the major box office bombs of 2025 is Bill Condon's adaptation of the "Kiss of the Spider Woman" stage musical, and it's a terrible shame.  Initially, I was apprehensive about the story being turned into a splashy screen musical, only being familiar with Hector Babenco's non-musical film adaptation from 1985 that starred Raul Julia and William Hurt.  However, the new approach works, specifically the way that it manages to pay homage to Hollywood's golden age, while giving the main characters some important modern updates.

Molina (Tonatiuh), a queer window dresser, and Arregui (Diego Luna), a studious revolutionary, are forced to share a cell during their incarceration by the Argentinian military dictatorship in the late 70s.  Initially, Arregui wants nothing to do with the "frivolous" Molina, who is obsessed with movies and fashion.  However, Molina is persistently friendly, and passes the time by telling Arregui about his favorite actress, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez), and the plot of his favorite Luna musical, "The Kiss of the Spider Woman."  As their time in prison becomes more harrowing, Molina and Arregui grow closer, though all is not what it seems.

It's interesting that "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was pushed so heavily as a Jennifer Lopez vehicle when she has the least interesting role in the movie.  Sure, she's at the center of the gorgeous song and dance numbers that feature in Molina's fantasies, and is perfectly lovely to watch as both the glamorous Hollywood star and the looming spectre of death in her Spider Woman guise.  However, she's a cipher rather than an actual character.  The real lead of the picture is Tonatiuh, whose Molina is not explicitly said to be a transwoman or nonbinary in this version of the story (so I'm using male pronouns), but is given much more narrative space to express himself in ways that strongly suggest that this may be the case.  I don't think that Tonatiuh is as good an actor as William Hurt, but there's a welcome authenticity to the performance that is undeniable.  Arregui and Molina's dynamic is also more romantic, because it's not the '80s anymore.

Tonatiuh's character is expanded through the fantasy sequences, which are his escape from the harsh reality of the prison.  This is the biggest improvement on the previous screen version, where the "Kiss of the Spider Woman" movie within a movie was a Nazi propaganda/romantic melodrama pastiche with very sinister overtones.  In the new version, "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" is a full blown Latin themed MGM musical tribute, with elaborate staging and cinematography, vibrant colors, and a far more coherent plot.  Molina gives himself and Arregui roles within the movie too, so their real and fantasy selves can mirror one other throughout the story.  And this works because the filmmakers were very, very careful to maintain the line of demarcation between the two halves of the film until the very end.  Song numbers from the stage musical that occurred during the prison sequences were all removed, so songs only appear in the fantasies.  And the more vibrant and artificial as the musical sequences are, the more starkly unpleasant the prison scenes are.  Anyone going to "Kiss of the Spider Woman" for a fun romp may be in for more than they bargained for.  

Like many musical adaptations, the second half slows down and gets unwieldy.  It doesn't help that I don't find any of the songs memorable, and we lose Arregui for a few key scenes.  This is where it probably would have helped to have a more seasoned lead, as Tonatiuh delivers moments of great vulnerability and humor, but there were aspects of Molina's character - like his fear of the Spider Woman - that didn't land for me at all.  Still, witnessing the joyous finale where he gets to be himself at last, it's hard to argue that there was anyone more suitable for the role.  And once you've seen "Kiss of the Spider Woman" as a musical, how could it be anything else?  

Like Lars Von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark," "Kiss of the Spider Woman" functions as a metamusical, critiquing and commenting on the musical form, common movie tropes, and the function of fantasy as an escape.  Add its queer hero, and themes of surviving a Totalitarian regime, and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" couldn't be more timely.  The bungled release means it has an uphill battle, but I have no doubt that this one will become a classic - it's too good not to find its audience eventually.   

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My Favorite Ralph Bakshi Film

Fans of American animation all eventually have to reckon with the work of Ralph Bakshi.  As someone raised on the animated fantasy worlds of Disney and Hanna Barbera, I avoided Bakshi's work for a very long time.  The existence of his films, especially the early ones full of X-rated sexual imagery, plentiful vulgarity, and grotesque character designs, was something I initially wanted to write off as a fluke or deviation.  However, Bakshi proved that adult animation could be financially successful, and was massively influential on the state of modern animation as we know it.  He remains the most important example of an independent animator being able to make projects with a very personal, uncompromised artistic vision.  And that vision was daring, subversive, and often in direct opposition to the prevailing tastes and norms of the artistic establishment.  

One of the reasons I was so hesitant to explore Ralph Bakshi's work was the actual animation in his films.  With a much smaller operation and more limited funds than what the established studios were working with, the quality of the animation was always extremely haphazard.  You'd have incredible character designs, but in motion they were constantly off model.  Shortcuts were employed regularly, such as live action backgrounds and rotoscoped characters.  For a while, I latched on to the notion that rotoscoping - animation produced by tracing over live action footage - didn't count as real animation.  I got over this idea eventually, because I learned that all the major animation studios use reference footage to some extent, and the use of rotoscoping can create a very distinct, interesting aesthetic if it's done well.  And Ralph Bakshi understood how to do it well.    

One of the reasons that Bakshi survived in animation for as long as he did and got as many films produced as he did was that he evolved with the times.  He transitioned from his gritty "urban" films exploring city life to fantasy spectaculars like "Fire and Ice" and "The Lord of the Rings" in the 1980s, and helped kick off the television animation resurgence with "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" in 1988.  One of the important early transitional titles was "American Pop," an almost entirely rotoscoped animated film that played as a straight drama, and contained very little of the X-rated material that characterized Bakshi's first few features.  Instead of garish, oversexed caricatures, the film is about very down-to-earth human beings.  The story is a series of vignettes about a Russian Jew named Zalmie who immigrates to America to escape the pogroms in 1905, and the four generations of descendants who follow him, all lovers of music in one way or another, with the last finally reaching pop stardom in the present day.

I suspect that "Heavy Traffic" is probably the best representation of Ralph Bakshi's artistic style and rebellious verve, and "Fritz the Cat" and "Coonskin" have the greatest historical importance for their boundary-breaking impact.  However, "American Pop" is the only Ralph Bakshi film I truly love because I find the characters - a series of troubled, flawed men trying to find their way through different eras of American life - to be truly touching and relatable.  There are episodes of tragedy, grief, humor, and triumph that are presented with a sympathy and humanism I don't see often in Bakshi's other work.  "American Pop" feels like a very personal film, though Bakshi has claimed that the stories were based on the experiences of musician friends instead of his own life.  And you simply cannot beat the soundtrack, which features Jimi Hendrix, the Mamas & the Papas, Peter Seger, Sam Cook, The Doors, and Pat Benatar.  

The rotoscoped animation is stiff at times, but the visual storytelling is excellent, and the performances shine through the layers of abstraction.  This style felt awkward for Bakshi's fantasy features like "The Lord of the Rings," but not in "American Pop," which is designed to be a family album of a kind, and incorporates mixed media and other artistic devices, like the prologue sequence in Russia being relayed in woodcuts.  Historical events like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and WWII combat footage are recreated along with clips of the Nicholas Brothers and Jimi Hendrix, all rendered in the same rotoscoped visual style as the lives of our heroes, making them feel like they're part of one, heightened, slightly surreal animated  continuity.  I've never seen another film achieve something quite like this.   

Watching every Ralph Bakshi film was difficult, because many of the films have significant shortcomings, or have not aged well, and even the best ones are rarely to my taste.  However, the fact that they exist at all feels miraculous.  That animated movies this uninhibited, this outrageous, and this iconoclastic found an audience is downright inspirational.  And I can't think of anyone aside from Walt Disney whose work changed our understanding of what animation could and should be to such an extent, and left its mark on the industry forever.

What I've Seen - Ralph Bakshi

Fritz the Cat (1972)

Heavy Traffic (1973)

Coonskin (1975)

Wizards (1977)

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

American Pop (1981)

Hey Good Lookin' (1982)

Fire and Ice (1983)

Cool World (1992)

Cool and the Crazy (1994)

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"Ballerina" and "KPop Demon Hunters"

I wanted to say a little about the latest entry in the "John Wick" universe, "Ballerina," but I always find it difficult to write about these films because they're usually dealing in variations on the same set of well-worn action tropes, and I have trouble keeping the many different installments straight.  I enjoy watching them while I'm watching them, but often don't remember much about them afterwards.  "Ballerina" focuses on a new assassin character named Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), but all the usual hallmarks of a "John Wick" film are here, including John Wick himself.  He's figured prominently in the trailers and other marketing, so I don't think this is a spoiler.

I won't bother describing much plot, because the script by Shay Hatten is terrible.  Let's just say that Eve, who was trained to be one of the Ruska Roma ballerina assassins by the Director (Angelica Huston), is out for revenge against a cult leader, the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).  This means fighting her way across Eastern Europe in search of the cult's base of operations, and meeting other colorful characters played by Norman Reedus and Catalina Sandino Moreno.  As with the other films in this series, the primary reason why we're all here is for the action scenes.  "Ballerina" has several good ones, and takes the approach of having Ana de Armas use realistic tactics and moves for someone of her size and build.  In the early training sequences, she's told to "fight like a girl" and look for ways to turn situations where she's physically outmatched to her advantage.  Her action scenes aren't as visceral as the ones in "John Wick," but they're often just as inventive.  Keep an eye out for when the flamethrowers show up.      

I've been rooting for Ana de Armas to become an action star since I saw her as Paloma in "No Time to Die."  She was a fantastic Bond girl - charismatic, stylish, and had a wonderful rapport with Daniel Craig.  In "Ballerina" she nails the action without any problems, but Eve Macarro is such a bland, boring character.  I understand why they downplayed her physical appearance, covering her in coats and jackets to make her look more substantial against her opponents.  However, Eve is also humorless, seems to have no personality beyond working toward her revenge, and doesn't get to really connect to anybody beyond brief teamups.  I don't remember her getting a single pithy action hero line or exchange with anybody.  She has to be dead serious all the time, and it's such a shame.  I'd be happy to see de Armas return to this universe in the future, but only if she gets to play Eve as an actual human being next time.   

  

On to "KPop Demon Hunters," a Netflix original animated movie from Sony Pictures Imageworks, directed by Chris Applehans, who did "Wish Dragon," and Maggie Kang.  This one was a fun surprise, a fantasy action film about a K-pop girl trio, Huntr/x (pronounced "Huntrix"), whose members also secretly hunt soul-sucking demons between performances.  Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) are super popular and successful.  However, some of the demons have wised up, and formed a rival boyband, the Saja Boys, led by the hunky Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop).  The ensuing battle of the bands involves a ton of K-pop earworms including a single, "Takedown" sung by members of the real girl group TWICE.  And because we must have some K-drama to go with the K-pop, it turns out that Rumi is half demon!  And she's got feelings for Jinu!

I have had very little exposure to K-pop, or even American boyband culture, so the many references and in-jokes went well over my head.  However, "KPop Demon Hunters" works just fine even if you're not into K-pop.  The action is energetic, the humor is silly, and the animation is bright and appealing.  There are a few instances of 2D/3D animated caricature being pushed to extremes in some of the comedic moments, but for the most part the visuals stay pretty polished and aren't trying too hard.  I thoroughly enjoyed the colorful character designs, the fun vocal performances, and the spectacle of magical girl pop stars putting on a show.  There's a little self-mockery to keep things approachable - the other members of the Saja Boys are named Mystery, Romance, Abs, and Baby - but for the most part "Kpop Demon Hunters" is a K-pop love fest.  New song drops and media appearances are plot points, and everything is "for the fans."  It's also nice to see a ton of Korean talent involved, including Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Lee Byung-hun, Ken Jeong, and Joel Kim Booster in minor roles.

The best thing that the movie has going for it, however, is taking the music seriously.  This is one of the few animated films I've seen lately where the speaking and singing voices of the major characters are different, a practice that used to be commonplace.  The singing voices of Huntr/x are Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, with Andrew Choi for Jinu.  I'm not Korean and can't speak to the cultural bona fides of the portrayal of the Korean music industry or anything else Korean in the movie, but it's always a good sign when you can recognize those elements are there, and the Western audience isn't being obviously pandered to.  Will this work as a gateway for the curious to explore more K-pop music?  Hard to say, but this is easily the best animated musical I've seen since "Encanto," and its audience is going to want more.

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"I'm Still Here" and "A Complete Unknown"

Let's finish up the Oscar movies today.

"I'm Still Here" was a big hit in Brazil, a film about the arrest and disappearance of retired politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) when a fascist regime was in control of the country in the 1970s.  We initially meet Rubens and his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) living with their five children near the seaside, enjoying a quiet life out of the spotlight together.  However, after increased activity by far-left radicals, Rubens is arrested.  Shortly afterwards Eunice and teenage daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are also taken into custody, and Eunice is interrogated.  

What makes "I'm Still Here" a particularly effective piece of drama is getting the audience situated with the Paiva family first.  We watch the kids play, oldest daughter Vera (Valentina Herszage) preparing to go overseas, and Rubens working as a civil engineer.  The violence of the regime is only present in the background, through news broadcasts on the radio or snatches of conversations with friends.  A good amount of time passes before the police appear in the Paiva home, insisting that Rubens come with them.  And suddenly everything about the Paivas' lives is upended, with Fernanda Torres emerging as the lead of the film as Eunice tries to get answers and survive the abusive treatment of her oppressors.  The interrogation sequences are harrowing, but where the film really shines is in the aftermath, as Eunice struggles to keep her family going and maintain her resolve in her hunt for answers.    

I probably built this film up too much in my mind, because this was the hardest Best Picture nominee to actually find and watch in the runup to the Oscars, but I expected more from "I'm Still Here."  We watch terrible things happen to some good people, for apparently no good reason.  An epilogue twenty-five years later provides some closure, but no real answers.  Not knowing much about Brazilian history, and nothing about Rubens Paiva, I had to go and look up a lot of the missing context for the disappearances   after finishing the movie.  Torres's performance is very good, lovely and subtle for the most part, but I wish I could have seen more of what Eunice was up to during those twenty-five years the movie skipped over.  It feels like there was much more to the story than what we saw onscreen.

On to "A Complete Unknown," which is an interesting take on the life and career of Bob Dylan, played by Timothée Chalamet.  We get plenty of context for Dylan and his music, as "A Complete Unknown" focuses on the period from 1961 to 1965, when he moved to New York and became a part of the folk music scene.  We see him  befriend other musicians like Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) making appearances.  And when Dylan's star begins to rise, we see it in relation to the careers of the other musicians in his orbit at the time.    

I don't know much about Bob Dylan aside from his most famous songs.  I like the way he's portrayed here, first as a bright young discovery that everyone wants to know, and then as an increasingly frustrated artist who can't stand being pigeonholed in the folk genre, and eventually burns several bridges to get himself out.  He's shown from the POVs of several people close to him, including his girlfriend Sylvie (Elle Fanning), often being a monumental ass.  At no point was I able to see Chalamet as Bob Dylan, but he's charming enough and does a decent enough job with the songs, so I didn't mind.  I'm grateful that Chalamet didn't attempt to sound or behave more like the actual Dylan, which would have probably been very distracting.

The ensemble cast is great, with a magnetic Monica Barbaro leaving the biggest impression as someone I need to pay more attention to.  If you're a fan of folk music, "A Complete Unknown" almost plays like an all-star concert, with plenty of rousing musical interludes and nostalgic recreations of '60s New York.  Director James Mangold, who gave us a much more traditional biopic with "Walk the Line" twenty years ago, is very surefooted here, both building up and undercutting Dylan's image as necessary.  Though this never gets much into the biographical details, "A Complete Unknown" does an excellent job of getting across why Bob Dylan is famous, and how he fits into musical history.  And it's a good time at the movies too.    

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The Mysterious Emilia Pérez

"Emilia Pérez" is an odd movie.   And the more I learned about the movie, the odder it got.  This is a Spanish language musical about a transgender Mexican drug cartel leader, Manitas, who secretly transitions and creates a new persona - Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón).  All the creatives behind it are French.  The writer and director is Jacques Audiard, who won the Palme d'Or a few years ago for the Tamil language film "Dheepan," but mostly works in his native language.  French singer Camille wrote the songs.  The fabulous costumes came from a Yves Saint Laurent designer.  Everything about the movie strikes me as very French, despite three Spanish speaking leading ladies being given the opportunity to shine.  I understand why it's gotten some raves, because it goes very big and the performances are all very impassioned and melodramatic.  However, I've historically had some difficulty with French cinema, and could not wrap my head around this.

My first thought was that "Emilia Pérez" simply reeked of inauthenticity, both as a film about Mexican characters and as a transgender narrative - and boy have there been plenty of transgender narratives in film this year to compare against.  However, "Emilia Pérez" is a musical, and also arguably taking place in the heightened world of telenovelas - the famously melodramatic Latin American soap operas.  Karla Sofía Gascón is a veteran of the genre, having spent much of her early career in Mexico.  The unlikely plot, involving multiple twists and turns, mistaken identities, and the past coming back to haunt everyone, are familiar components of this kind of storytelling.  I'm not saying that the film should be forgiven for its glib portrayal of gender transitioning, or its simplistic take on Mexico, but I think the choices make more sense in this context.  "Emilia Pérez" is a fantasy, and some exaggerations are to be expected.

The best thing about the film is unquestionably the performances.  Zoe Saldaña made the movie for me as Rita Mora Castro, an Afro-Latina lawyer who Emilia hires in secret to facilitate her transition.  Saldaña gets to sing and dance and rage and take charge of the screen in a way that she doesn't get to often enough.  Selena Gomez has a more limited role as Manitas's abandoned wife Jessi, a wronged woman who is expected to put up with far too much.  I like her very much as an actress, but she feels a bit miscast, despite nailing her song numbers.  As for Karla Sofía Gascón,  she does what she can, but the character of Emilia Pérez is constructed of such disparate parts that often seem to be working against each other.  The whole plot is predicated on Emilia becoming a saintly figure through her transition, but gradually being undone by her inability to cut ties with her past.  However, Manitas and Emilia feel like entirely different people, and it was a mistake to not give Emilia any sign of internal life pre-transition.  Gascón has a wonderful presence, but ends up coming across as more of a caricature or icon than a full-blooded human being.

"Emilia Pérez" feels similar to "Annette," the Leos Carax musical with a similarly outlandish story that works best if you treat it as allegory.  A major problem I have with both is not liking the music at all.  In the case of "Emilia Pérez," it's entirely due to the style of the songs, which are mostly very internal and angst-ridden.  The language barrier is an issue for me, as is the total lack of any earworms.  I wonder if this would work better as a stage musical, since the plot is so disjointed and the ending is so abrupt.  I haven't yet mentioned an entire subplot involving Emilia falling in love with the widow of a man she killed, because it goes absolutely nowhere and I don't understand why it's in the film, except to give Adriana Paz a role.  Some of the fundamental construction of the story and music here is so lacking, it comes across as downright amateurish.  I don't speak Spanish, but there have been some significant complaints circulating about the misuse of dialects and local vernacular too.

I'm left wondering why on earth Jacques Audiard and his collaborators decided to make this film - about this subject matter, in this language, and in this format.  Audiard is a fine director, and I respect his commitment to showing us the human condition in many different forms, but this was clearly biting off way more than he could chew.  I'm not disappointed, really.  Just very puzzled and a little at a loss for words.  

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These Undiscovered Gems Aren't Gems

I spent a good amount of last month watching a lot of movies that I had been putting off seeing until after I was done with other projects  - mostly cult classics and obscurities that had been recommended to me at some point.  I enjoyed some of these, like the thriller "Brimstone and Treacle," with a young Sting, and "Pump Up the Volume," a teen angst movie with what might by Christian Slater's best performance.  I'll write up notes on these separately.

However, a lot more of these turned out to be duds.  Well, I want to be careful here, because some of these movies clearly mean a lot to people.  I didn't find these movies enjoyable to watch, whether it was because of their quality not meeting my (probably inflated) expectations or because, in several cases, they didn't age well.  None of these are interesting enough to write about separately, but I thought they might be worth writing about together.    

Let's start with a fun one.  David Mamet's 1997 film "The Spanish Prisoner" has a reputation for being an excellent confidence game movie, where there are twists upon twists and the rug is pulled out from under the audience's feet multiple times.  The trouble is that the film is totally hampered by the Mamet dialogue.  If you aren't used to Mamet characters' mannered, ornate way of speaking, it's incredibly distracting.  This is one of his first scripts without a lot of swearing in it, so maybe that also played a part.  Campbell Scott is fine in the lead role, and it's nice to see Steve Martin in a dramatic part, but the way the cons are revealed, one by one, is pretty predictable and too over-the-top to take seriously.  Mamet's "House of Games," a similar con game movie made about ten years earlier, works much better because the stakes are kept smaller and more believable.  

I can understand why "The Spanish Prisoner" would be impressive if you hadn't seen too many twisty films like it.  And I guess you would be impressed by 1995 indie "The Last Supper" if you hadn't seen too many black comedies that talk frankly about politics.  There are a lot of familiar faces here, including Bill Paxton, Cameron Diaz, Courtney B. Vance, Ron Perlman, and Annabeth Gish.  Five liberal grad students unexpectedly have a conservative ne'er-do-well in their midst at a dinner party, inadvertently kill him, and ponder doing it again to make the world a better place.  Given the current state of the American political climate, "The Last Supper" is very, very relevant to the world today, and I was hoping it would dig deeper into the Right/Left divide.  Instead, all the characters are pretty shallow, with the rightwingers being a collection of easy caricatures.  There are some smart ideas here, and the finale with a Rush Limbaugh stand-in is pretty satisfying, but overall "The Last Supper" is not enough.  It's got admirable ambition and it's  tackling big ideas, but the story falls apart under the smallest amount of scrutiny and the messages are so muddled it doesn't seem to commit to any position at all, except a weak appeal for moderation.  It's a movie of its time, which is fine, but far less cutting or insightful than it looked to be at the outset.

Finally, let's talk about "Cats Don't Dance."  I had pretty high hopes for this one, which was directed by "The Emperor's New Groove" director Mark Dindal.  I remember the discussion around this from the time of its release in 1997, because it was Turner Animation's big shot at making something that could challenge Disney, and it felt like the whole animation community got behind it.  However, I'm sorry to say that it hasn't held up well at all.  The villain, an evil child star named Darla Dimple, is still pretty funny and nasty in a kid-friendly way.  The rest of the showbiz story, however, doesn't work.  The hero cat, Danny, isn't just a naïve rube but an annoying showboater who I never felt like rooting for.  The other characters are underdeveloped and very one-note.  

Throughout "Cats Don't Dance,"  I couldn't help comparing it to Illumination's "Sing," which is also about animal entertainers with showbiz dreams.  Now "Sing" was a movie I didn't like all that much, but it handled the basic story beats and characters so much better.  "Cats Don't Dance" is clearly a passion project, and very well intentioned, but you can tell the filmmakers simply didn't have many resources and were aiming at a very safe family audience.  Even mediocre animated films these days are far more sophisticated.  I appreciated some of the Hollywood insider jokes and gags - the movie within a movie seems to be based on the insane production of the 1928 "Noah's Ark" movie - but "Cats Don't Dance" is the product of a bygone age, and best left to the viewers who grew up with it.     

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"Rustin" and "The Color Purple"

My two cents on more prestige pics, incoming.  

"Rustin" is one of those films that I like the idea of more than I like the film itself.  It's a biopic of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who is best known for organizing the March on Washington in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  Rustin is considered a controversial figure because he was a socialist and a gay man.  However, being active since the 1940s for a number of causes, his influence on the Civil Rights movement was enormous.  The film focuses on Rustin's relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. and specifically on the lead-up to the March on Washington.  

The film is designed for awards season, full of familiar faces playing important historical figures.  Chris Rock plays the head of NAACP.  CCH Pounder and Glynn Turman are in the mix as other organizers.  Aml Ameen delivers a very fine Martin Luther King Jr.  However, they're really just the backdrop for Colman Domingo's work as Bayard Rustin.  It's an instantly memorable performance, giving life to a character who feels incongruous to the way that the Civil Rights movement is usually portrayed onscreen.  Rustin is an out gay man who many of the rest of the Civil Rights leadership are uncomfortable with acknowledging.  But, of course, Rustin is unable to be anyone but himself.  He has to fight to be taken seriously, to get his ideas heard, and to do the work that he knows is possible.  I like the film best when it becomes a process story, and Rustin and his team are working out the logistics and PR for the March.  It gives Domingo the chance to really show off Rustin's gifts - his charisma, his persuasiveness, his unwavering commitment, and his ability to inspire.

All the right people are behind the camera.  Legendary theater great George C. Wolfe directs a script co-written by Dustin Lance Black and Justin Breece.  The Obamas' Higher Ground production company produced it for Netflix.  There's a new Lenny Kravitz song on the soundtrack.  However, in spite of this, "Rustin" doesn't feel like a big, important epic film, but rather something much smaller and scrappier - sort of epic-adjacent.  Though many famous figures pass through the frame, the scope of the film is limited to events that Bayard Rustin was directly involved in.  "Rustin," is about celebrating an overlooked man through all the work he did to make a historic moment possible.  And that's all it's interested in doing, which I appreciate.  

Now, on to the new film version of "The Color Purple," which I had a lot of trouble with.  I'd seen the 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, directed by Steven Spielberg, several times when I was younger, but at a point when I was probably too young for it.  It wasn't until seeing this version, adapted from the stage musical, that I finally worked out how all of the major characters were related to each other, and who was whose mistress or girlfriend or wife.  I also got a much better grasp on why there was controversy over the removal of a major LGBT relationship, and the negative depictions of so many of the black men in the story.     

I appreciate having a less whitewashed, more LGBT friendly, more nuanced version of "The Color Purple."  Ghanaian director Blitz Bazawule and screenwriter Marcus Gardley certainly address all the criticisms, and have their own distinct take on the material.  The performances are very good, especially Fantasia Barrino as Celie, Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery, and Danielle Brooks as Sofia.  Barrino and Brooks are both reprising their stage roles.  However, there are some fundamental problems here from the outset.  I haven't seen the stage musical of "The Color Purple," but I can tell there were a lot of songs cut, and a lot of story beats condensed.  At 141 minutes, which is shorter than the 1985 film, this version constantly feels rushed.  It feels like it's ticking off boxes, making sure all the important lines and plot points are accounted for, instead of letting the characters fully inhabit the universe and reach those moments organically.  I have no complaints about the songs or their energetic execution, but the added layer of unreality took a lot of getting used to.  

And while there were certainly improvements to some aspects of the film, I feel they could have been better.  The lesbian relationship is made more explicit, for example, but still rendered in very Hollywood terms with a fantasy dance sequence doing most of the heavy lifting.  The portrayal of Celie's oppressive husband Mister, played by Colman Domingo, is more sympathetic and complex, but the character ends up losing a lot of his impact as the chief villain.  It's also clear that the filmmakers were doing their best to avoid evoking the Spielberg version, and ended up undercutting some vital sequences.  The finale, for instance, makes the choice to have everyone in monochromatic clothing instead of the famous purple outfits, which is totally unnecessary and sacrifices a big thematic element.     

Points for effort, but the 2024 "The Color Purple" just doesn't work as a film as well as the 1985 one did, and I expect that it didn't work as a musical as well as the theatrical version.  It's fine as a showcase for some talented performers, and the discourse around it has been valuable, but I came away from the film itself with very mixed reactions.   

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My Favorite Norman Jewison Movie

I try not to let the passing of certain directors influence who I write about next, but I admit it's a futile effort.  Norman Jewison was one of the greats, with such an eclectic career that it's a little hard to believe that he was responsible for directing everything in his filmography.  He started his film career with Doris Day comedies and ended up being nominated for the Best Director Oscar three times in three different decades for films in three different genres.  He relished challenging social dramas, but was a deft hand at romantic comedies, thrillers, capers, and -  in a decade when they were not very popular - musicals.

It's a famous story that Norman Jewison had to break it to the folks who wanted him to direct the film adaptation of "Fiddler on the Roof" that he wasn't Jewish, despite his name.  However, he was being courted for the job because his resume had several excellent movies about fostering better cross-cultural relations like "The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," and "In the Heat of the Night."  And after Bobby Kennedy's assassination in 1968, Jewison wanted to make something positive and hopeful.  So his next film would be about Tevye the milkman, his wife, his five daughters, and the people of the little Jewish village of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia.  

I didn't see "Fiddler" until I was an adult, but I knew many of the songs from growing up in a musical household.  And after a single viewing of the film, it felt like an old favorite that I'd been watching all my life.  Aside from Topol I didn't know any of the actors, but the characters were so vivid and so well defined, it felt like they were all dear friends.  The age-old themes of tradition versus progress, love versus propriety, and the endless struggles with the generation gap were beautifully expressed in the context of a culture and religion that I didn't know very well, but found it very easy to relate to, with the help of Tevye's jovial commentary.  As many critics have pointed out, the musical's appeal was in its universality within a very specific experience.  And "Fiddler" reached a wide audience, topping the box office charts and winning warm critical notices.     

Jewison has appeared in several documentaries and other media about the film, talking about the production.  His approach seems to have been to get the best possible people involved, and to not fix what wasn't broken.  He loved the stage musical, having seen it in its opening week, and claimed to have cried through the whole second act.  He considered "Fiddler" an important work, and took the film version as seriously as he took any of his social dramas.  Cuts were made for easier adaptation to the screen, but the film was designed to be a roadshow musical, and enjoyed a brisk three hour running time.  This is almost certainly why I'd never seen it broadcast on television.  And though there was plenty of Jewish talent behind the scenes, including screenwriter Joseph Stein and the Misrichs, authenticity was sometimes still a battle. Jewison had to fight to get Topol cast instead of a bigger star, Zero Mostel, and to convince the great violinist Isaac Stern to contribute to the soundtrack.

It's the humanity of the characters that makes "Fiddler" so memorable.  Jewison could make pretty much any kind of film, but he once expressed that he had no interest in big action spectaculars.  He wanted to make films about people the audience could recognize themselves in.  And in "Fiddler," I recognized everybody from the busybody local gossip to the three hopeful sisters to Tevye himself, struggling in the face of a changing world, and soon to become another immigrant on his way to the New World.  It's been nearly twenty years since I first saw the film, and fifty years since its premiere, and it hasn't aged at all.

I'm well aware of the irony of writing this installment of "Great Directors" directly after the one for "The French Connection," which famously beat out "Fiddler" at the Oscars for Best Picture and Director, to Jewison's chagrin.  I happen to think that Jewison was right and that he made the better picture.        

What I've Seen - Norman Jewison

The Cincinnati Kid (1966)

The Russians Are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

Rollerball (1975)

… and Justice For All (1979)

A Soldier's Story (1984)

Moonstruck (1987)

Bogus (1996)

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"Only Murders," Year Three

Minor spoilers ahead.

There was never a more star-studded season of "Only Murders in the Building."  Not only do we have a victim played by Paul Rudd and a major suspect played by Meryl Streep, but the show's habit of having guest stars playing fictionalized versions of themselves is very much still a thing.  This year, Oliver Puttnam is back in the director's chair, and the big mystery revolves around the Broadway production he's determined to make a comeback with.  However, when the lead actor, Ben Glenroy (Rudd), turns up dead, Oliver, Charles, and Mabel have to figure out whodunit while making sure that the show doesn't fall apart.  

Our long list of suspects include cast members like Loretta (Streep) and Kimber (Ashley Park), producers Donna (Linda Emond) and Cliff (Wesley Taylor), an obsessed fan (Adrian Martinez), Ben's brother and manager Dickie (Jeremy Shamos), the camera guy Tober (Jesse Williams), a tough theater critic (Noma Dumezweni), and more.  Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton), a recurring Arconia neighbor from the first two seasons, becomes a series regular this year.  As for our intrepid trio, they're juggling mystery solving and Oliver's show with new love connections and some competing interests - which may spell the end of their podcast.  

Speaking of Oliver's show, the best part of this season is following the evolution of the nutty murder mystery musical "Death Rattle Dazzle" as it goes through rewrites, recasting, rehearsals, and all kinds of other behind-the-scenes chaos on its way to opening night.  "Only Murders" has always been a very New York show, and it makes sense that they should go full Broadway for a season, and make use of some of the local talent.  "Death Rattle Dazzle" is a ridiculous mystery where infant triplets may have committed the murder, and it's fun to see bits and pieces of it being performed throughout this season.  It also gives Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Meryl Streep a chance to sing on camera, which I appreciate greatly.  Quite a few other Broadway actors make appearances, and veteran songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman were recruited for the musical numbers.

I like that there's less emphasis on the trio's personal lives this year.  The show-within-a-show provides plenty of melodrama, so there's less pressure to make Charles, Oliver, and Mabel the source of the big twists and turns.  All the romances are kept to the background and play a fairly minimal part in the plot.  However, I will say that the flirtation between Mabel and the cameraman doesn't really work, because she clearly has much more chemistry with Theo Dimas (James Caverly), a season one suspect who returns for a guest appearance.  Also, the show's creators clearly took pains to give Streep and Rudd plenty of the spotlight - they're clearly both having a ball, and I hope other actors of their caliber will show up in future seasons.   

And I'm glad that there will be future seasons.  After year two, I was a little worried that the show was starting to run out of steam.  As much as I love the cast, I prefer "Only Murders" when it's about solving murders and less when it's about the main characters muddling through bad relationships, dark secrets from their pasts, and other things that feel like filler.  I noticed that almost none of these past issues played any part in the current season, and there was almost no mention of characters like Oliver's son, Charles' ex's kid, or any of Mabel's exes.  The writers had no trouble keeping things interesting this year though, and this season had no pacing problems or dull subplots, like there have been in the past.   

Crime podcasts may be on the ebb, but I hope "Only Murders in the Building" has a few more seasons left in it.  Onwards!

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"Wish" and "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget"

So, "Wish" is a financial disaster, and I'm afraid that it's mostly deserved.  The film on its own isn't bad, but looks woefully mediocre next to all the other animated features from the past twelve months that have managed to do just about everything better.  The Disney take on cel-shaded CGI looks a little basic next to the recent "Spider-verse," "Ninja Turtles," and "Puss in Boots" movies.  The characters are highly derivative from other recent Disney musicals, with leading lady Asha (Ariana DeBose) entirely too reminiscent of Mirabel from "Encanto" and Anna from the "Frozen" movies.  Worst of all are the songs, which are aping Lin Manuel-Miranda something fierce, but some with lyrics that are so inept as to be unsingable.  And if you've made a Disney soundtrack that is unsingable, you're in deep trouble.

The worst part of this is that the entire concept behind "Wish" is serving as a sort of origin story to many of the famous tropes and concepts from the Disney animated canon.  The Wishing Star from "Pinocchio" is its own character here, who comes down from the sky to help Asha when she wishes on him.  She lives in the kingdom of Rosas, where the sorcerer king Magnifico (Chris Pine) has manipulated the populace into giving him their deepest held wishes - which manifest as glowing crystal balls - and are sort of parts of their souls?  It's not very clear.  Anyway, Asha has help from seven dear friends, some talking animals, and eventually her own magic.  The Disney references come fast and furious.  But even if they're by design, it doesn't make the patchwork of familiar tropes less awkward or the story less half-baked.  Many of the recent Disney animated features have felt incredibly rushed, often with parts of multiple ideas weirdly mashed together in the script.  "Wish" is absolutely rife with this, especially the musical sequences that were clearly written for different characters, or different versions of characters.  

As a lifelong Disney animation nut, I can't say I didn't enjoy picking out references, or that Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine didn't try their hardest, or that there wasn't clearly a lot of love packed into the film.  However, like too many other Disney projects lately, "Wish" was clearly rushed out the door and suffered for it.  The attempts to be metatextual inevitably felt cynical and pandering, often due to the sheer volume and arbitrary nature of the references.  I've seen a few jokes online about how the movie was written by ChatGPT, and it certainly feels that way at times.  It irks me because I can see the potential for a much better film here, and the audience certainly exists for one.  However, by not taking more care with this production, Disney has not only flubbed "Wish," but it's flubbed what was supposed to be a celebration of Disney's artistic legacy, and now the movie stands for nothing except corporate hubris.

On to "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget," a direct sequel to the 2000 Aardman film "Chicken Run."  I was probably influenced by seeing this right after "Wish," but it was such a relief to see a competently handled, old school animated feature.  Aardman's stop motion animation has improved over the last two decades, and there's probably a lot of invisible CGI I'm not aware of, but there's still a lovely handmade quality to the puppets and their miniature world.  Several of the original voice actors have been replaced, notably Zachary Levi filling in for Mel Gibson as Rocky the Rooster, but you'll hardly notice after the first five minutes.  And instead of a prison escape movie patterned off of WWII POW action films, "Dawn of the Nugget" has a spy themed caper with a mad scientist and a few aesthetic nods to James Bond and the swinging '60s.   

   

There's not much in "Dawn of the Nugget" you haven't seen before.  Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky's daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey) is a mischievous little escape artist who runs away from the safety of the bird preserve to see the world.  She's quickly caught and sent to Fun-Land Farms, which looks like a chicken paradise, but is really a high-tech processing facility run by the nutty Dr. Fry (Nick Mohammed).  Ginger and Rocky, naturally, dust off their old capering skills to break into the facility and get Molly out.  However, there are many complications, including the return of their great enemy, Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson).  However, for me the familiarity was exactly what I wanted, particularly the well-constructed visual gags, the very British humor, and Babs (Jane Horrocks) being a cheerful dim bulb at every opportunity.  It's not nostalgia being evoked here, but instead a sense of continuity.    

Aardman films are few and far between, and I haven't seen one yet that I didn't enjoy.  "Dawn of the Nugget" often feels like a throwback to much older animated projects, but is constructed with such care and such commitment that I wish they made more like it.  I have no idea if modern kids will respond to its earnestness and cheesy punnery, but I adored every second. 

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About That "Little Mermaid" Movie

The most annoying thing about the live action Disney remakes of their animated films is that while these movies are  mostly awful, they're rarely completely awful, and can't be written off completely.  Most are watchable and some of them, occasionally, are pretty good.  It turns out that if you put enough talented people together with a large enough budget, inevitably they're going to figure out a way to be a little bit entertaining.  The new "The Little Mermaid," based on the 1989 cartoon version, has no good reason to exist, and features some truly boneheaded adaptation decisions, but as a whole this Disney remake is one of the better ones.  

I think it helps that the 1989 cartoon hasn't aged as well as some of the other Disney Renaissance blockbusters.  The characters are very thin, and culture has shifted a bit when it comes to teenage love and romance.  Rob Marshall, who last directed "Mary Poppins Returns" for Disney, doesn't change the story much and keeps most of the songs.  However, he smartly fills in some plot holes, updates the boy-girl dynamics, and changes the setting to the Caribbean to better accommodate a multicultural cast.   The new Ariel is played by Halle Bailey, who is very good in the part, though she has more of a pop voice than a musical theater voice.  Her Ariel is also quite a bit smarter and more resourceful than her animated counterpart.  Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) is still Caucasian, but the adopted son of a dark complexioned Queen Selina (Noma Dumezweni), ruler of their island kingdom.  Meanwhile, King Triton (Javier Bardem), the human-hating monarch of the seas, has fathered mermaid daughters of many different colors and complexions.  

The live action "Little Mermaid" is nearly an hour longer than the animated "Little Mermaid," which may test the patience of younger viewers.  However, the extra time is well spent.  The major characters are more fleshed out, and I'm happy to report that the romance is vastly improved.  Bailey and Hauer-King have good chemistry, and enough time onscreen together to actually form a connection.  It's only a few additional scenes, like Eric talking to Ariel about his adventures as a sailor, and Ariel finding a way to tell Eric her name while mute, but they do make a difference.  More emphasis is also placed on Ariel's relationship with Triton and the ongoing human/merfolk hostilities.  

As usual, the worst part of the adaptation is trying to turn the cartoon sidekick characters from the original film into more realistic CGI creations.  Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), Sebastian (Daveed Diggs) and Scuttle (Awkwafina) now resemble a real fish, crab, and sea bird, and it looks dreadful.  Scuttle getting a rap number (written by Lin Manuel Miranda, naturally) is a real low point in the film.  I'm an Awkwafina supporter, but she and Disney really need to take a break for a while.  Melissa McCarthy as the sea witch, Ursula, fares much better.  "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is the musical number that translates best to live action.  She doesn't get as much screen time as I would have liked, but she makes the appearances count.      

The 1989 "Little Mermaid" was the beginning of the Disney Renaissance, and I'm a little surprised that this adaptation took so long to reach our screens.  I suspect it has a lot to do with the technical challenges involved with doing so many nautical and underwater elements.  The film is very CGI heavy, with some visuals that work well, and others that don't.  The designs of Ursula and the mermaid characters, for instance, are great, but most of the other sea creatures are stuck in uncanny valley.  The  film is far more picturesque when it's on dry land.  Once again, underwater societies really don't work in anything even remotely close to live action.  

  

There's no end in sight for future live action Disney adaptations, despite their spotty track record.  And because I'm a Disney nerd who just can't resist, I'll keep watching them.  We have a new "Snow White" with Rachel Zegler and a "Lion King" prequel directed by Barry Jenkins up next.  Fingers crossed.      

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My 2023 Youtube Playlist

My yearly Youtube playlist is mostly made up of media ephemera that's difficult to categorize, and the only thing they really have in common is a strong musical element. Still, I think that they're worth recommending and writing about. This batch includes old variety show segments, deleted scenes, tie-in music videos, award show performances, and oddball musical numbers worth revisiting.

Mean Green Mother From Outer Space - Levi Stubbs sings this nominated song from "Little Shop of Horrors" at the 1987 Academy Awards.  Alan Menken wrote it specifically for the movie, so it was eligible, but it lost to "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun." 

Chuck E. Cheese - I have a fascination with weird pop acts from the '80s, so this 2022 Saturday Night Live sketch was catnip for me.   Bowen Yang and Benedict Cumberbatch appear as the synthpop duo Reflection Denied, filling in for the busted animatronics.  The song is legitimately fabulous and Cumberbatch's falsetto chorus is joyously absurd.  I have not been able to confirm who wrote this thing, but I will not give up the search.  

The Reindeer - Jim Henson's Muppets guest on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall in 1965.  This was the first appearance of The Reindeer, a quintet of fuzzy Santa's helpers who were still a work in progress.  Eventually they'd show up on other programs with ears and noses and more Christmas themed hijinks.  However, I love this first appearance, especially for the little exchange with Jim at the end.  

Bosom Buddies - Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur perform this number from "Mame" at the 1987 Tony Awards.  The lyrics are a little dated, but the leading ladies are immortal.  

Christine (Official Music Video) - Did you know that John Carpenter composed the scores to many of his beloved horror movies?  To celebrate the 2017 release of an anthology of his movie themes, Carpenter got to put together an official music video for the score of "Christine," which he cameos in as the driver.  It's also worth checking out some of Carpenter's non-score music, and their respective music videos.  

I Want To Be Evil - Eartha Kitt appears on the Swedish variety show "Kaskad" in 1962, singing as only Eartha Kitt can.  For an alternate version, check out Chiwetel Ejiofor's drag performance of this number in "Kinky Boots."

When I Grow Up - Tim Minchin and three of the Matildas from the "Matilda" stage musical  perform on Conan in 2015.  I couldn't find a clip with just the performance, so you'll just have to sit through Conan's interview with Minchin first.  

Bells and Whistles - Jane Krakowski plays the lawyer in the second season of "Schmigadoon!," which is patterned off of "Chicago."  That makes this a light spoof of Billy Flynn's "Razzle Dazzle" number, but Billy didn't have to dance in the courtroom in heels!

Clair de Lune - This lovely sequence set to Debussy's "Clair de Lune" was planned to be part of the original 1940 "Fantasia," but cut for time.  The animation was rescored and used in the "Blue Bayou" sequence from "Make Mine Music," but the original version was aired as part of a "Wonderful World of Color" episode in 1966.  It's available as an extra on several of the "Fantasia" home media releases.  

In Dreams - And finally, here's Harry Dean Stanton lip syncing to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," providing a break from the violence in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet."  We miss you, Harry. 

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