Saturday, June 30, 2012
TINSELTOWN JOURNAL 30
Top 10 Most Traumatizing Movies About Toys
By Esther Inglis-Arkell
Today sees the release of Ted, the movie about a teddy bear who grows up and gets foul-mouthed along with his owner — and we're pretty sure anyone who still loves stuffed animals will be scarred emotionally. But no matter what, Ted can't be one of the most soul-wrenching toy movies — because so many other toy movies have already gone so much further.
Here are 10 movies about toys that will tear the hearts out of your kid's chests, and leave them in bitter shreds on the floor.
10. Labyrinth
Labyrinth is a great favorite among kids and young adults. Sarah goes through the Labyrinth to rescue her baby brother, who's been captured by goblins. All through the story, she encounters goblins and they all bear strange resemblances to the fantasy-themed toys that she has in her room. When she goes back, she begins to put away childish things and become a woman. That's the story. Here's the problem: most of her toys represent the heroes in her quest — but there are a few that don't, including the Fireys, a group of grotesque puppets that felt her up, harassed her, and then tried to yank her head off. No child needs to lie awake nights thinking, "Wait a minute. Which one of my toys is a groper? Could it be the one that I sleep with every night?"
Labyrinth is a great favorite among kids and young adults. Sarah goes through the Labyrinth to rescue her baby brother, who's been captured by goblins. All through the story, she encounters goblins and they all bear strange resemblances to the fantasy-themed toys that she has in her room. When she goes back, she begins to put away childish things and become a woman. That's the story. Here's the problem: most of her toys represent the heroes in her quest — but there are a few that don't, including the Fireys, a group of grotesque puppets that felt her up, harassed her, and then tried to yank her head off. No child needs to lie awake nights thinking, "Wait a minute. Which one of my toys is a groper? Could it be the one that I sleep with every night?"
9. The Velveteen Rabbit
How many stories have you watch a bunny realize their lack of social standing in every world, desperately vie for the love of someone fickle, and then weep in despair as they face being burned to death? How many? This is a brutal story about a toy rabbit who is mocked, throughout the story, by other toys and also by real rabbits. He learns that once he is loved by someone, he will become real. He becomes the favorite plaything of a little boy, who eventually gets scarlet fever and forgets about him when he's sent to the seaside to recover. And what happens to all the toys the boy touched? They have to be burned. At the climax of the movie, the abandoned toy cries a real tear, at which a point a fairy turns him into a real rabbit — leaving all the other toys to be burned to death, for the crime of the boy not loving them enough. This movie teaches children two important lessons: 1) Your entire value lies in people liking you, and 2) The only solution to your problems is silent despair.
How many stories have you watch a bunny realize their lack of social standing in every world, desperately vie for the love of someone fickle, and then weep in despair as they face being burned to death? How many? This is a brutal story about a toy rabbit who is mocked, throughout the story, by other toys and also by real rabbits. He learns that once he is loved by someone, he will become real. He becomes the favorite plaything of a little boy, who eventually gets scarlet fever and forgets about him when he's sent to the seaside to recover. And what happens to all the toys the boy touched? They have to be burned. At the climax of the movie, the abandoned toy cries a real tear, at which a point a fairy turns him into a real rabbit — leaving all the other toys to be burned to death, for the crime of the boy not loving them enough. This movie teaches children two important lessons: 1) Your entire value lies in people liking you, and 2) The only solution to your problems is silent despair.
8. The Nutcracker
Remember kids — you're never too young to have a bad acid trip! Movie versions of this classic story vary, but almost all of them have at least two of the following elements: a creepy uncle, abusive brothers, and a heroine who is being threatened by monster rats. In most versions of The Nutcracker, a little girl loves the Nutcracker so much, she trades all of her toys and candy to the Mouse King to save the Nutcracker from being torn to pieces. Unfortunately, her parents don't believe her plight, and the girl's family slaughters all the Mouse Queen's babies. The story ends with the doll not only coming to life, but marrying the girl and taking her away to the Doll Kingdom. You read that right: The kid is young enough for a nutcracker to be her favorite toy — and at the end of the story, she's getting married. Go ahead, kids, take a look around your room and decide which of your toys you'd like to marry.
7. The Christmas Toy
In this world, toys come alive whenever people are out of the room. There's just one problem. If anyone notices that a toy is out of place, that toy gets frozen in place forever. And I thought other films were out out to mess with kids' heads. At least other movies allow kids to hope that one day they'll see their toys moving around, and they'll become friends. This film lets kids know that their toys are alive and conscious — but if they actually make contact with their beloved toys, they'll murder the thing they love most. There's nothing like instilling in a person a sense that they must blind themselves to the quirks of the world, or they will ruin everything. Or the idea that they might have killed their toys forever by thinking, once, that they might have changed their positions on the bed. I'm willing to bet that this movie prompted more than a few stays in institutions.
In this world, toys come alive whenever people are out of the room. There's just one problem. If anyone notices that a toy is out of place, that toy gets frozen in place forever. And I thought other films were out out to mess with kids' heads. At least other movies allow kids to hope that one day they'll see their toys moving around, and they'll become friends. This film lets kids know that their toys are alive and conscious — but if they actually make contact with their beloved toys, they'll murder the thing they love most. There's nothing like instilling in a person a sense that they must blind themselves to the quirks of the world, or they will ruin everything. Or the idea that they might have killed their toys forever by thinking, once, that they might have changed their positions on the bed. I'm willing to bet that this movie prompted more than a few stays in institutions.
6. Indian in the Cupboard
In this movie, when a boy shuts a toy figurine in a cupboard and opens it the next day, the toy comes to life. When he shuts it in the cupboard again, it goes back to being a figurine. Fine. Except it turns out that the toys were people — possibly. They have memories of their entire lives, up to that point. This includes a Native woman who is painted with new colors, suddenly causing her to belong to a totally different tribe. It includes a medic, who was in the middle of World War I. This means that anything and everything about your life can be changed around, if some kid wants to do some customization work on your figurine. They hack off an arm, your whole life changes. They paint you to change your race, your hair, your nationality — someone could make you a Nazi soldier tomorrow, because they have to make a diorama, people. (Although that would be an amazing defense for murder: "I can't help being a criminal, your honor! Someone painted old-timey jailbird stripes on my outfit!")
In this movie, when a boy shuts a toy figurine in a cupboard and opens it the next day, the toy comes to life. When he shuts it in the cupboard again, it goes back to being a figurine. Fine. Except it turns out that the toys were people — possibly. They have memories of their entire lives, up to that point. This includes a Native woman who is painted with new colors, suddenly causing her to belong to a totally different tribe. It includes a medic, who was in the middle of World War I. This means that anything and everything about your life can be changed around, if some kid wants to do some customization work on your figurine. They hack off an arm, your whole life changes. They paint you to change your race, your hair, your nationality — someone could make you a Nazi soldier tomorrow, because they have to make a diorama, people. (Although that would be an amazing defense for murder: "I can't help being a criminal, your honor! Someone painted old-timey jailbird stripes on my outfit!")
5. Small Soldiers
Okay, imagine if the Punisher were suddenly transferred into the body of your G.I. Joes, and he was convinced that you'd done something very, very bad. That's more or less whatSmall Soldiers is about. Army toys gain sentience, and do battle with a set of monster toys, called Gorgonites. The trouble is, those monster toys are just looking for a way home, and are perfectly harmless. When a kid decides to shelter the poor Gorgonites, the army toys do things like kidnapping the girl he loves, and threatening to kill her unless he turns over the innocent monsters. It's pitched as a comedy — but it gets really dark, with the toy soldiers willing to do anything to carry out their genocidal mission. The kid responds by slaughtering all of the soldiers. He then sets the Gorgonites adrift in Yosemite National Park, on a toy boat, letting them believe that they'll be able to find their homeland. Somehow. In short, the toys are both despicable and pitiable.
Okay, imagine if the Punisher were suddenly transferred into the body of your G.I. Joes, and he was convinced that you'd done something very, very bad. That's more or less whatSmall Soldiers is about. Army toys gain sentience, and do battle with a set of monster toys, called Gorgonites. The trouble is, those monster toys are just looking for a way home, and are perfectly harmless. When a kid decides to shelter the poor Gorgonites, the army toys do things like kidnapping the girl he loves, and threatening to kill her unless he turns over the innocent monsters. It's pitched as a comedy — but it gets really dark, with the toy soldiers willing to do anything to carry out their genocidal mission. The kid responds by slaughtering all of the soldiers. He then sets the Gorgonites adrift in Yosemite National Park, on a toy boat, letting them believe that they'll be able to find their homeland. Somehow. In short, the toys are both despicable and pitiable.
4. Pinocchio
This, like The Nutcracker, is another nightmare turned into a film. Again, it's not so much the concept of the toy that traumatizes children (although at least no one has to marry Pinocchio), as the world the toy inhabits. It's a world of horrific dangers, abusers around every corner, and cruel moralizers. The proper penalty for a boy who cuts school to play a game of pool with his friend and eat caramel apples? Getting turned into a donkey, and sold as a slave to the operator of a salt mine. The penalty for telling a lie? Permanent nasal disfigurement. The penalty for wanting a career in show business? Being trussed up, threatened, and made to perform in a degrading stage show. Any time Pinocchio isn't directly on the path of righteousness leads to protracted disasters. The world is a terrifying, horrible place, according to this movie. And people should be afraid all the time. Do the wrong thing? Your parents will be swallowed by a freaking whale.
This, like The Nutcracker, is another nightmare turned into a film. Again, it's not so much the concept of the toy that traumatizes children (although at least no one has to marry Pinocchio), as the world the toy inhabits. It's a world of horrific dangers, abusers around every corner, and cruel moralizers. The proper penalty for a boy who cuts school to play a game of pool with his friend and eat caramel apples? Getting turned into a donkey, and sold as a slave to the operator of a salt mine. The penalty for telling a lie? Permanent nasal disfigurement. The penalty for wanting a career in show business? Being trussed up, threatened, and made to perform in a degrading stage show. Any time Pinocchio isn't directly on the path of righteousness leads to protracted disasters. The world is a terrifying, horrible place, according to this movie. And people should be afraid all the time. Do the wrong thing? Your parents will be swallowed by a freaking whale.
3. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys
As its title suggests, this movie includes a visit to the Island of Misfit Toys. Do you want to go there? Hell no — not unless you're a bigger Tim Burton fan than Tim Burton is. This is a movie in which the shoddiness of the animation adds to the overall creepiness of the movie. There's the same theme as some of the above films: Lost and rejected toys pine for the cruel children who abandoned them, only here they do it en masse. There's also a junkie element. The toys need children to make them feel good. The children will, inevitably, grow up and leave the toys behind. The toys suffer terribly. Do they change their habits? No. It's on to the next kid, knowing that as soon as the kid gets big, it'll be time to bring on the heartbreak again. Where is toy rehab when we need it?
As its title suggests, this movie includes a visit to the Island of Misfit Toys. Do you want to go there? Hell no — not unless you're a bigger Tim Burton fan than Tim Burton is. This is a movie in which the shoddiness of the animation adds to the overall creepiness of the movie. There's the same theme as some of the above films: Lost and rejected toys pine for the cruel children who abandoned them, only here they do it en masse. There's also a junkie element. The toys need children to make them feel good. The children will, inevitably, grow up and leave the toys behind. The toys suffer terribly. Do they change their habits? No. It's on to the next kid, knowing that as soon as the kid gets big, it'll be time to bring on the heartbreak again. Where is toy rehab when we need it?
2. The Last Mimzy
Imagine a story that's Twelve Monkeys for children, and you'll have a pretty good grip on The Last Mimzy. Toys come back from the future, when the world is a polluted wasteland, to bring present-day DNA forward in time, to rebuild the post-apocalyptic world. In this movie, there's a lot of woo-wooness, as kids learn to levitate things and communicate with insects (really), but it never soars into childhood wonder and excitement — because the end of the world is nigh. Even at the end, when it's implied that the DNA of one of the kids has saved the future — creating, I suppose, a bunch of severely inbred people — there's still that pesky apocalypse that the kids may very well have to face, without those friendly toys. Have fun!
Imagine a story that's Twelve Monkeys for children, and you'll have a pretty good grip on The Last Mimzy. Toys come back from the future, when the world is a polluted wasteland, to bring present-day DNA forward in time, to rebuild the post-apocalyptic world. In this movie, there's a lot of woo-wooness, as kids learn to levitate things and communicate with insects (really), but it never soars into childhood wonder and excitement — because the end of the world is nigh. Even at the end, when it's implied that the DNA of one of the kids has saved the future — creating, I suppose, a bunch of severely inbred people — there's still that pesky apocalypse that the kids may very well have to face, without those friendly toys. Have fun!
1. The Toy Story Films
Oh god. This. It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? In the first movie, it just starts with a toy's heartfelt song of love and devotion to a child, only to see the toy cast aside, ostracized, tortured, and nearly murdered. We also see toys, which we already know are sentient beings, tossed to dogs, blown up, and vivisected. But at least we get the joy of plausible deniability at the end, when it showed that the kid still loves his toy. The next movies rip that sense of security away. It turns out, nearly everything we do with our toys hurts them. We can't ever cast them aside, because that breaks their hearts. We can't avoid buying them, because that turns them bitter and mean. We can't play rough with them, because then we're torturing them. And we can't put them in toy chests, because those are like tiny toy prisons. Throughout the trilogy, the humans create what seems like Hell on Earth for those toys, over and over. And the toys take it, because they love humans in a totally codependent fashion — and because they have no choice. Every child is a toy abuser. Every adult is a nonentity, as far as toys are concerned. Every relationship ends in heartbreak. By the end of it all, you realize that that soldier that the evil kid blew up with a firecracker got off easy — at least it was over quickly for him. Pixar's most beloved series teaches kids that all their most beloved toys are trapped in a nightmare world that's not worth living in. Those movies should be banned, I tell you. Banned.
Oh god. This. It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? In the first movie, it just starts with a toy's heartfelt song of love and devotion to a child, only to see the toy cast aside, ostracized, tortured, and nearly murdered. We also see toys, which we already know are sentient beings, tossed to dogs, blown up, and vivisected. But at least we get the joy of plausible deniability at the end, when it showed that the kid still loves his toy. The next movies rip that sense of security away. It turns out, nearly everything we do with our toys hurts them. We can't ever cast them aside, because that breaks their hearts. We can't avoid buying them, because that turns them bitter and mean. We can't play rough with them, because then we're torturing them. And we can't put them in toy chests, because those are like tiny toy prisons. Throughout the trilogy, the humans create what seems like Hell on Earth for those toys, over and over. And the toys take it, because they love humans in a totally codependent fashion — and because they have no choice. Every child is a toy abuser. Every adult is a nonentity, as far as toys are concerned. Every relationship ends in heartbreak. By the end of it all, you realize that that soldier that the evil kid blew up with a firecracker got off easy — at least it was over quickly for him. Pixar's most beloved series teaches kids that all their most beloved toys are trapped in a nightmare world that's not worth living in. Those movies should be banned, I tell you. Banned.
Friday, June 29, 2012
SHIIZNIT 28
If the rest of this year's movie posters told the truth
Posted by Ali at 07:00 on 27 Sep 2011
Attention Stumblers! We have a new feature we think you'll like: If 2012's Oscar posters told the truth.
Jack And Jill
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows
Johnny English Reborn
Warrior
Real Steel
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
The Three Musketeers
Friends With Benefits
I Don't Know How She Does It
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Abduction
Contagion
The Thing
In Time
Drive
Puss In Boots
In conclusion, I have far too much time on my hands.
PROMETHEUS JOURNAL
Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts on How to Create a Great Space Movie
By Charlie Jane Anders
Jon Spaihts wrote five drafts of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, before handing it off to Damon Lindelof. He's also become known in Hollywood as the go-to writer for hard science fiction and space adventure, after his space romance Passengers landed on the Black List of the best unproduced scripts. And he's written two other space adventures, Children of Mars and Shadow 19. Plus the space-faring comic book adaptation World War Robot. And now he's writing the reboot of The Mummy.
We talked to Spaihts about why it's so hard to get a new space epic on the screen, and why he thinks he can make it happen. Plus the secret to convincing Hollywood to include real science in your science-fiction epics.
People have the perception that Prometheus was more of an Alien prequel when you were writing it, and then became less explicitly tied to Alien when Damon Lindelof took over. (There was even that fake "Alien Harvest" script.) Without giving anything away, is this a misconception?
There's some truth to this, although the story remains very much the story I began with. It's very hard to talk about this without saying too much.
It sounds like Ridley Scott was firing ideas at you nonstop. Was there anything Scott wanted you to include in one of the script drafts that you just couldn't make fit?
Ridley is a creative volcano and it was a major part of my job just trying to keep up with him. He's a marvel.
I wouldn't say there were any ideas I couldn't make fit, but certainly in our collaboration we explored a number of ideas that were ultimately left behind in favor of better ideas. Inevitable.
When creating an android character like David, how much concern was there about making him different from Bishop and the Replicants in Blade Runner?
The Alien universe has its own rules, and they extend to character archetypes. The android is one of these. It's always a challenge to honor the archetype and still find something new to do.
Ridley wasn't interested in repeating his own work or others'. He was always reaching for the new idea.
How much of the "searching for the origins of humanity in space" stuff was already in the story before Damon Lindelof came in? Was that always the reason for our heroes to go into space?
Always there.
Why is it so hard to get Hollywood to greenlight space adventures like your Shadow 19 script? Video games like Mass Effect make insane amounts of money, so why is it so hard for Hollywood to commit to similar movies?
There are some technical reasons why. In game engines, hard shiny surfaces are easy to render, while pliable or complex surfaces are hard. So in a game, spaceships, tanks and armored figures are very approachable subjects. It's a lot harder to render, say, a long-haired girl in a flowing dress chasing a shaggy dog through a garden. That's brutal geometry for a game engine. In games, scifi's easier to achieve than mundane reality.
With film, the opposite is true. Anything available in the real world you can just point a camera at. Fantastic things have to be built, physically or digitally, and that's expensive. Sci fi costs more in film.
All that said: scifi blockbusters have made mountains of money, and are over-represented in the top fifty box office hits of all time. The mightyAvatar first among them, with the Star Wars films and others trailing behind. Clearly the audience will turn out if you execute well. I think there's a ready market for grand space adventures.
But it's got to be a good story on every level: good characters, emotional arcs, sharp dialogue, comprehensible world, clear stakes… it's a lot to get right. There aren't that many people around who can do it well.
Have video games changed the way people think about this kind of storytelling?
Yes and no. Storytelling in games has matured tremendously in the past decade. Some really great work has been done. But the design requirements are totally different, almost the opposite of filmic storytelling.
The central character of a game is most often a cipher – an avatar into which the player projects himself or herself. The story has to have a looseness to accommodate the player's choices. This choose-your-own adventure quality is a challenge for storytellers and, I fear, militates against art.
A filmmaker is trying to make you look at something a certain way – almost to force an experience on you. Think of the legendary directors, whose perspective is the soul of their art. It's the opposite of a sandbox world. It's a mind-meld with a particular visionary.
Do you think films like Prometheus and Gravity could spark a new interest in big space epics that aren't based on an existing franchise?
I want to say yes, but I think those aren't the films for the job.Prometheus "shares DNA" with a pre-existing franchise, and what I know of Gravitysuggests it's a fairly grounded predicament movie, without the larger-than-life characters or fanciful story-world that would naturally give birth to a franchise.
To launch a new franchise you need both a strikingly imagined world with a conflict built into its bones, and vivid characters with heroic traits that allow them to the be the backbone of a series of stories. See "Star Wars."
On a related note, do you think either Passengers, Children of Mars or Shadow 19 will ever get made?
I think two of them are virtually certain to get made. But I won't say which two.
How do you create relatable characters in the midst of a story with power suits and cryogenic ships and alien worlds, and vast unimaginable distances?
You keep your stories rooted in the world we know. The more you re-invent, the harder your audience has to work to connect. If your fantastic world has recognizable families, or realistic workplace politics, or a spacefaring army that still dresses, walks, and talks like the army we know… then we have a starting place for that connection. Familiarity is an essential tool – and a great frame for your big re-inventions.
Above all, invest in the universal human experiences: love and heartbreak, ambition and frustration, rivalry and enmity. Loneliness, yearning, wonder.
In particular, how do you keep your protaganists likable when they make unlikable choices? I know Passengers revolves around a guy who is the only person awake on a ship full of people in cryogenic suspension, and he makes a pretty selfish choice to wake a woman from cryosleep so he won't be lonely any longer. How do you make him someone the audience will root for?
If your character does something indefensible and feels shame about that… well, who can't connect to that? We've all done that. I think it's easier to relate to that guy than to a paragon of virtue.
If your character sins and engages in denial or rationalization or other evasive behaviors… that's human too.
What's hard is relating to characters who seem to be fundamentally bad people: heartless, cruel, sadistic. Nobody likes a narcissist or a sociopath. But if your character's a good person who's done bad things… that's a different matter. Many good stories start there.
How do you check the science in your stories? Like, say, the notion in the Shadow 19 script that a planet with a higher level of background radiation has a faster pace of mutation and thus faster evolution, creating worse monsters for your protagonist to fight. Do you have science advisors that you run stuff like that past?
I'm a science junkie myself, so I usually go into a story with a pretty grounded scientific framework for my premise.
I also work with an organization called the Science & Entertainment Exchange, whose entire reason for being is to connect filmmakers with scientists to improve storytelling and better represent science in fiction. I've had invaluable conversations with scientists – real luminaries in their fields – through that organization.
When you're dealing with a project like Ashley Wood's World War Robot that's very impressionistic and almost like an art book, how hard is it to flesh out the mythology and backstory of why we're fighting robots on the Moon and on Mars?
That's not hard. That's awesome. I lean away from adaptations because I want to create the world myself; I want to invent the characters. That's where I get my fix. So source material like World War Robot, with its stunning images and evocative scraps of story, is perfect for me. A great palette to paint with, but lots of blank canvas left for me.
The stereotype that a lot of science fans have about science fiction movies is that the science is the first thing to go out the window in favor of cool ideas or whatever. How do you find ways to keep the science at least plausible?
For too many filmmakers, "sci fi" means "anything goes." Which leads in turn to arbitrary chains of events, or story rules that feel inconsistent or muddy.
Story flourishes under constraint. The more scientific limits you keep in place, forcing yourself to work within real rules, the more authentic your story will feel. I always fight for scientific rigor. Not just because I'm a huge geek, which I quite definitely am, but because I believe it makes for better stories.
How weird is it moving from hard science fiction to something like The Mummy, and do you think you have some room to expand the mythos of why there are mummies coming to life and chasing people around?
In Arthur C. Clarke's words, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So a world where black magic is at work is not that different from high science fiction. You still need rules, powers, a world whose history and sweep of events extends beyond the borders of the frame.
I'd never have taken the job if I didn't think I had something new to bring to it. I'm incubating a mythology I really dig – once more balancing the imperatives to honor the canon and the archetypes of the story universe, and to give birth to something new.
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