I own a copy of this poster, framed, and signed by Kirs Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, and C.W. McCall. I am very proud of this.

On my bookshelf, there’s an old VHS tape with a faded, hand-written label. It says, “Convoy, 1st Gen.” This is because in 2000, when I tracked down and rented a copy of the 1978 Sam Peckinpah movie, after years of searching, I was so excited that I made two copies of it. Then I made another six copies off of those two copies, and gave them away to friends. (I am blessed with the sort of friends for whom a bootleg copy of Convoy is a great gift.) Anyway, the “1st Gen” on the copy I’m looking at indicates that this one was dubbed right from the original. I’ve lugged it from apartment to apartment over the last ten years, even though I haven’t always had access to a VCR.

But I probably won’t ever watch it again. If I wanted to see Convoy now (and I kind of do, after writing the last paragraph), I could just put it on the top of my Netflix queue. They’d send me a nice new DVD that would look ten times better than my old videotape. Actually, I don’t even have to wait for the DVD. Convoy is currently a “Watch It Now” movie on Netflix, so I can stream it right to my computer. Or I can use my XBox to watch it on my TV. And if I wanted to buy it, the DVD is $13 via Amazon.

This is simultaneously awesome, and a teeny bit sad.

It’s easy to forget that only 15 years ago, finding a movie was a very different experience.

These cows almost killed Disney.

It was only five years ago that Disney ran up the white flag and did the unthinkable: it shuttered its 2D animation facilities. This is the Walt Freaking Disney Company: they invented animated movies as we know them. But a series of flops (Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range) at the same time as Pixar churned out a string of instant classics was too much for the Mouse House. They decided that the public clearly wanted computer animation, and that’s what Disney was going to give them.

Except that didn’t work either. 2005’s Chicken Little didn’t even make back its budget domestically. So in 2006, Disney took the if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em route, purchasing Pixar for $7.4 billion (which actually seems like a steal to me). The Pixar people were suddenly in charge of Walt Disney Animation… and the first thing they did was get the 2D animation department back up and running.

John Lasseter and Co. were betting that audiences hadn’t stayed away from Home on the Range because it was 2D. They had stayed away because:

a) It was lame, but more importantly…

b) a trio of sassy cows wasn’t what audiences wanted to see from Disney.

Anyone who’s been around a little girl in the last twenty years knows that the old Disney films still resonate, maybe even more than the new Pixar stuff. In 2009, the Disney Princess line of merchandise netted over $4 billion for the company. In a way, the continuing popularity of those 2D films is what enabled Disney to buy Pixar.

So when they set out to make The Princess and the Frog, they had a tricky task: produce something that recreated what people loved about the old Disney movies (especially the early-90s triumvirate of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin), but also something creative enough to get consumers back into the habit of reflexively going to Disney movies. It’s sort of like making a Bond movie–you need to stick to the formula, but also keep it fresh.

So how did they do it? Well, let’s go to the chart. (And by the way, bigtime Princess and the Frog spoilers begin now.)

A terrible plan.

Spoilers for 2012 follow. Although I’m not sure giving away the plot to a special effects pornstravaganza constitutes “spoiling” it. It’s a lot like revealing the plot to an actual porn movie–that’s not really why you rented it in the first place.

Roland Emmerich loves to destroy the earth. 2012 is his third disaster epic, after Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. But there’s one crucial difference this time around, and it’s not just the lack of the word “day” in the film’s title. In 2012, the leaders of the world know about the impending apocalypse. They have years to plan. But the plan they come up with is mystifying stupid. Basically, they keep the news very quiet while they construct a bunch of giant boats high in the Himalayas. This is largely financed by charging the richest people in the world one billion euros for tickets.

Deep breath…

1. Why not just tell everyone? Evil bureaucrat Oliver Platt explains that there would be complete chaos if the truth got out. The important thing is to preserve the human species, and if everyone knows they are going to die in three years, there’s no way they can pull off the logistics of building and stocking giant-ass boats. There’s a certain logic to that. But I also think that if everyone knows they’re going to die in three years, then everyone would work really, really hard to prevent that. Think about how many giant boats could be built if everyone in the world was spending every waking moment welding? Not to mention, the extreme secrecy means that 99.99% of the world’s smartest scientists never even knew about the problem, much less get a chance to solve it. I’m not saying anyone could have stopped the earth’s crust from collapsing. But they could have tried, or at least corrected some of the dumber parts of the ark plan. For instance…

I’ve cried at the movies in 2009 more than in any year I can remember. Partly, this is because, while The Wrestler was one of those movies that came out at like 11:59.99 9/10 o’clock on 12/31/08 to be considered with last year’s Oscar contenders, I saw it early this year. It was easy to forget it was an Aronofsky movie until all the men in the audience realized it was slowly climbing the turnbuckle to deliver an emotional flying bionic elbow (holding a folding chair) — and deliver it did.

Partly, it is because Pixar is a bunch of toolbags who have nothing better to do than make evocative, complex, heart-wrenching animated films that reduce even grown men to tears — haven’t you guys heard of special forces guinea pigs, for crying out loud?! At least throw your name behind an action-packed, rock ‘em/sock ‘em Christmas Carol-themed Jim Kerry-fueled stream of urine all over Charles Dickens’s grave in 3D. Frickin’ Pixar and its love and loss and the mature employment of its craft in the search for emotional and existential truth — it’s like they never even saw Shrek 2. The nerve of some people!

But the latest maybe-it’s-still-on-ceulluloid-maybe-it’s-digital-I-am-not-that-kind-of-movie-buff emotional wrecking ball is Best Picture contender Where the Wild Things Are.

(With an increase to 10 Best Picture nominees announced for the upcoming Oscars, I’m calling a nomination, but not a win, right now. This movie is the real deal — a serious/significant work of serious/significant art — and not even the special Oscar-laundering cinemas that stay open all night can open ten different movies on New Year’s Eve.)

I’m somewhat shocked the other Overthinkers haven’t tackled this film more yet — so much so that I’m going to break my post up into smaller pieces rather than barf it all out all at once, as is my usual custom.

Why is 2009 the year of tears? What did the movies discover in the last 12 months or so that turned on the faucets for such cultural luminaries as Fenzel from Overthinking It and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper?

It all starts with growing up, growing old, and early childhood development, taught by psychedelic Tony Soprano. . .

Matthew Wrather is joined by Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel (briefly), Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink the third dimension in movies.

Update: After recording was done, I heard the static on my line. Very sorry for the less-than-stellar sound quality. I’ll do better next time. —mw

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 68 (MP3)

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION TO THIS POST, WHICH WENT ON A STRANGE JOURNEY . . . A JOURNEY INTO THE WEST . . . A QUEST FOR A WISH . . . and how that wish went unfulfilled. Why did this introduction not result in a successful post on first attempt? Read on . . .

Dozens of you have asked me whether I’ve seen this movie and what I have to say about it. Well, I just watched it on DVD, and it made me a little sick to my stomach. So, read this article. You owe me.

To say my expectations were low going into Dragonball: Abomination (sorry, Dragonball: Evolution) would be an understatement. Even using that cliché to describe it understates the degree of understatement. This is a movie that deeply disappointed me even before it was even released – originally, it was to be a big-budget, live-action Dragonball movie starring Chow Yun Fat and produced by Stephen Chow that was released on my birthday.

It became clear early on that all was not right with this production. The leaked production stills were way off the mark in any sort of reasonable stylistic approach to the material, people were complaining that Goku was a white high school student, as opposed to the child Monkey King of ancient China. It began to come out that it was being directed by the Final Destination Guy, that the studio executives were doing their usual thing and forcing awful failures of artistic decisions on the production out of their own vanity and pigheadedness, and that producer and legend in his own time Stephen Chow had been effectively cut out of the loop. The release was delayed almost a year, presumably for Pluto-Nash-related reasons.

When it came out, the marketing was disastrous. It lost its “built-in audience” almost immediately, and it never found another one. There’s almost universal belief that this movie is awful, but even hardcore Dragonball fans have pretty much refused to see it.

Until now.

What I expected was an irredeemable accident starring the guy from War of the Worlds made by a bunch of people who stole the costumes and props from the people making the Dragonball movie and decided to shoot a random-ass CGI movie about bullshit.

What I got, well, it was certainly a failure. A huge failure. It deserved to bomb with every megaton in its payload. But it wasn’t an accident. It was something quite a bit worse. It screwed everything up on purpose.

Now, the fanboy in me could bitch and moan about it all day — there’s plenty for any fanboy to bitch and moan about. But let’s put that aside for a moment, and ask the real questions — find the real reason why this movie is the way it is, and why it failed in what it attempted to do.

This will be readable for non-Dragon Ball fans and probably include some good lessons. Because with a failure this big, there are plenty of lessons.

Power up, it’s time to Read More . . .

We join the rest of our generation in mourning the passing of John Hughes this week at age 59.

Why did Hughes and his teen-friendly comedies appeal to our generation in a way that subsequent directors did not? We can speculate all day, but I think it was for two reasons.

Overthinking It takes a moment to recognize the passing of Karl Malden.

Malden came up in the 50s with Newman, Brando and the rest of the new generation of Method actors. He didn’t have striking good looks or a silky voice. Instead, he had a bulbous nose and a comfortable, Middle American drawl. He wouldn’t draw the audiences in like Newman’s blue eyes or Brando’s sulky rebelliousness would.

Malden had a different edge. He had a face you could trust.

Up 2: Next Year in Jerusalem

“He caught him up, and, without wing
Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime,
Over the wilderness and o’er the plain,
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
The Holy City, lifted high her towers . . .

. . . There, on the highest pinnacle, he set
The Son of God.”

– John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book IV

The kindness of the world toward your existence turns out to be an illusion of youth, and all love dies. Man must keep his faith and promises, even as he ages toward death — find a place to stand firm, even as he falls.

Pixar’s Up and John Milton’s great poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are about more than what they have in common. A laundry list of their similarities would hardly be interesting (especially if you haven’t read the poems). But they meet at a critical and compelling place in what I like to call the Artistic Project.

This balloon is about to get heavy, so if at any point you need a little extra lift, bookmark this.

Now, let us go, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, to find our solitary way —

Over the past few weeks, thousands of students have graduated from college.  It’s a time to look toward the future, to hope and dream of what lies beyond.  The world may suck now, many graduates think, but soon, things will be different.  Things will be better.

Alas, as a pathological cynic, I cannot share their optimism.  It’s not only the broken economy, the faltering environment, and the continual abridgment of civil rights in America and around the world that put me in an apocalyptic mood.  It’s that, last week, Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian was the number one movie on the planet.

This is not to say that pop culture is circling the drain.  In the past month alone, I’ve cheered at the new Star Trek film, cried at the awesome, awesome last episodes of HBO’s In Treatment, and thanked America for having the wherewithal to vote the insufferable Danny Gokey off American Idol in favor of Kris Allen and Adam Lambert.  As soon as possible, I’m going to see Pixar’s latest, Up, and I’m sure I’m going to adore it as much as I adore Wall-E, Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo.   Oh, and soon in theaters there’s going to be a little movie called Harry Potter coming to a theater near me.  Sweet.

So why am I so despondent about the state of popular culture?  I assure you, Night at the Museum alone did not break my spirit.  It wasn’t news of the racist casting of the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie that did it, either.  The new “Karate” Kid set in China with Jackie Chan was almost enough to destroy me, but only almost.  The rash of board-game films didn’t help, either.

And then, last week, the final straw was gently placed upon the camel’s back.  And that straw was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Without Willow.  Without Angel.  And without fricking Joss Whedon.

Thanks, Hollywood.  You have finally thought of the Worst Idea of All Time.  No, scratch that.  You did think of making Bazooka Joe into a movie, didn’t you?  I’m positive there are even worse ideas in that collective head of yours…