Bright (Urban Fantasy)

Bright is an urban fantasy magical crime drama where a human cop

teams up with an orc cop to take down the bad guys in Los Angeles.

I found the initial pitch very intriguing, as I’m a big fan of both urban

fantasy and WIll Smith. It’s a movie produced by netflix. I had heard

previously it had mixed reviews, as it aimed to cover social commentary,

as well as high fantasy and intense cop drama. The set up seemed solid

enough, I liked the daughter and the orc character right off the bat. As the

movie progressed into more action I started to really dislike a lot of the

themes presented. Police brutality is a huge problem right now, and not

addressing it in a film that dealt with race and prejudice especially felt really

off. There was an enormous amount of violence against minorities which was

really hard to watch. A lot of the dialogue is really unnecessary, like the lines

about how orcs were always defense in football for being "built differently."

That connection was so unnecessary, the idea that some races were

biologically built differently.

The cinematography was cool, the costumes, special effects, and makeup

were all great. It was a fun world and overall, with dragons and fairies, and I

thought the concepts and characters were really solid, and if the execution

and story were a bit tighter, it would have been a really great and successful

film.

Hitchhiker's Guide = 42/42

The year was 2005, when was a young and dorky 10 year old first

experiencing 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on the big screen.

All I knew prior was that my father loved the book, which I've read

in more recent years. Now, 13 years later, I'm finally listening to the

original radio show, from 1978. I was interested to find that it was

based of a Lewis Carrell poem, "The Hunting of the Snark" which is

every bit as fanciful as his other work

Douglas Adams creates such a fun, silly world. It's certainty

quintessential sci-fi, but not the dark and morbid deep space

drama's we've seen previously. The writing is simple enough

for a kid to understand, but the concepts and world building are

engaging enough for an older audience as well. The writing is so

clever, so non-traditional.  

There's hilarious writing, such as:

“On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more

intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the

wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever

done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely,

the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent

than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

Combined with the more serious:

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes

wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”  

The mixture between the two is really lovely and engaging.

I never got past the first of five parts, but I'll defiantly put the rest of them

on my list.

Also watched the first episode of the television program, which kept that

fun retro vibe. Watching all of the vintage special effects for space travel

was a really fun throwback. The early CG work was adorable, and though

aspects were certainly dated, the strong story and humor held up.

Also including some character designs of a more modern imagining that I

liked, with the dream cast of Jeff Goldblum, Sophia Taylor Ali, and Donald

Glover. What a dream team!

Thoughts on Harassment in the Industry

For my protest and revolution class, we were urged to write a manifesto on something we were passionate about. After hearing the recent accusations of various animation executives, this is what I came up with.

    November 21st, 2017, headlines screamed that John Lasseter, Head of Disney animation studios, was taking a leave of absence caused by a number of sexual assault allegations.

    Horrific details were revealed, revealing he wasn't allowed to attend work parties without supervision. One female executive stated that “she didn’t realize part of her job description was “being groped by John Lasseter.” More and more stories, after a company wide ‘day of listening,’ made his 6 month sabbatical start to look like a longer sentence.

    “You were there in your place, being a girl,” said a former Pixar employee who described Lasseter whispering in her ear. “It minimized your point of view. There’s a reason that more women haven’t been creatively successful there. The leadership are men. They relate all in a certain way.”

    On March 4th, 2018, Coco won the Oscar for best animated feature film.
Just days afterwards, producer Darla K. Anderson formally stepped down from her position, after 24 years.

    What's more haunting,  Amid Amidi, Editor and Chief of CartoonBrew.com states - “One of the most damning revelations that has emerged out of the entire sordid Lasseter scandal is that his “missteps” were widely known to people who worked at the studio, and the studio’s management spent years protecting Lasseter at the expense of his victims.

    Disney president Ed Catmull production chief, Andrew Millstein, and corporate communications chief Zenia Mucha, among others, described him as “a crazy-horny 13-year-old who you have to keep in check all the time. But there’s no No. 2 for John. He’s the beating heart of Disney Animation and Pixar. He’s a genius. Nobody can do what he does.”

    How can an industry, which pushes for dreams coming true, freedom of expression, the good guy winning, pump out these sexist, overly entitled in positions of extreme power? The same is true across the film industry, as more and more names make come to light, the list grows longer by the month.

    Just last year, over 200 female and gender non-conforming animators signed an open letter to end harassment in the industry, after Chris Savino at Nickelodeon received over a dozen claims of harassment. This is a male dominated industry, and always has been. The solidarity between those that exist in contrast from that is growing, and must continue to do so.

    “We are tired of relying on whisper networks to know who isn’t safe to meet with alone.”

    Last year, Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon apologized for his own disgusting actions, sexual harassment and ‘Treating women like garbage.”
This past January, longtime disney supervising animator, Dylan Brown, was accused of similar allegations.

This is a problem. This has been a problem, for a very long time. 

    In 2015, I came across the book Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. It told the story of an unnamed woman, from the Ink and Paint department at old school Walt Disney studios. One of the Animators would spend his breaks bothering her, overstepping quite a few lines. In response, attached thumbtacks to her bra, and covered up with a sheer shirt which let him to an incredibly sharp wake-up call.
    Its chilling that conditions haven’t improved since then. The very beginning of the history of animated film, and conditions, power dynamics, relations, are just as bad.



sources:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/disney-pixar-john-lasseter-leave-allegations
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/10/20/ustoo-female-animators-tell-studios-this-abuse-has-got-stop/784794001/

How to Talk to the Moon at Parties

This week, I read a couple of things. I read 'The Distance of the Moon,' by Italo
Calvino, in addition to 'How to Talk to Girls at Parties' by Neil Gaiman, because
I saw the movie trailer and got very excited. This semester has really shaped
a love of Neil Gaiman's writing as one of my primary influences, especially as
I'm finding my footing as a wannabe writer. Written in 2006, my one minor
criticism is that Stella is a bit of the 'Born Sexy Yesterday' trope. I'm also worried
it'll be a little too much 'manic pixie dream girl.' Other then that the world was
very fun, like 70's Skins but with more sci-fi, which was a very appealing concept
to me. The Itty-Bitty hints of non-humanism were just enough to make Stella a
believable alien, but not enough to make it un-realistic or kitchey. The character
descriptions were still very endearing, I loved the line:

"He looked from her back to me, and he smiled his white smile: roguish, lovable,

a little bit Artful Dodger, a little bit wide- boy Prince Charming."

I found Stella much more interesting then any of the other characters, but that could
also just be my personal taste in characters. I could read her talk about outer-space
and her travels forever. Since the text is fairly short, I'm very curious to see how it will
be expanded into a full length feature film. I also loved the section where she's compared
to a poem. Including some illustrations from a comic that was made on the text,

illustrations by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.

"The Distance of the Moon" was also enjoyable. I tend to love text written about the
moon, but this was definatley different then what I'm used to. Climbing up to the moon
with a latter reminded me of that pixar short that came out a few years ago, 'La Luna.'
It was very surreal, and left a very 'melancholy achey' feeling. It was whymsical and
magical, so (shocker,) I was all in. I also really enjoyed this animated short that I found
based on it, including here.

Bloodchild Analysis

Octavia’s work is vivid, descriptive, and lush. The level of detail, from the
descriptions of the food to the gore was cringe-worthy, very well done
but hard to stomach.

I connected on a personal level, since I also have a sister I would do
anything for. Wanting to protect and save family is incredibly personal
and a character choice that makes sense.

Very creepy. It was interesting to reverse the role as was discussed,
though I agree with the discussion on what levels of ‘healthy consent’
were present. If his sister was being threatened and he stepped up to
save her, that’s being held over his head. Compare it to the hunger
games, Katniss never wanted involvement either.