Having Nightmares with Disney (or:10 Creepy Disney Moments) - Part 2

If you've missed the first part of this list, you can check it out here!

5. Pocahontas: “Savages”

Released in 95, Pocahontas was NOT the success Disney staff expected. And I know why.

Because Pocahontas and John Smith are BOOOOORIIIING. The raccoon Meeko, the hummingbird Flit and Percy the pug are way more interesting. The talking tree makes me yawn, and chief Powhatan leaves much to be desired in the "princess's father" category (Powhatan is not funny, with his "steady as the beating drum" talk. Snooze fest!). And Pocahontas' best friend is a bitch. An honorable mention is due to the young British settler Thomas, who is endearing and the only character in the movie to feel that genocide might be wrong. Also noteworthy: he was dubbed by none other than a young Christian Bale. 

"I'M BATMAN"

But the visual and the soundtrack are very superior to the film. And the song “Savages”, in particular, that shows both British settlers and native Americans preparing themselves for war, is spectacular:

This sequence is great, the music is impressive, but singing about genocide is... dark; definitely not a movie to be watched around Thanksgiving, if you ask me!

Another thing that did not help the movie (for me) was Mel Gibson dubbing John Smith. You can hear the crazy in his voice!

"...and that's how the Jews killed Our Lord and Savior."

In the end, Disney makes settlers and native Americans happily helping each other.

4. The Princess and the Frog: Dr. Facilier's death

In 2004, Disney promised not to make any more traditionally animated movies – thank God they went back on their word and released The Princess and the Frog in 2009.

The film introduces the first-ever African-American Disney princess, and it takes place in New Orleans in the 20's, with lots of voodoo, jazz and Cajun accent.

When the villan, the voodoo witch doctor Facilier (love child of Cruella de Vil and Cap. Hook), fails to fulfill his part in the agreement he had with the voodoo powers that be, (his “friends on the other side”), punishment does not tardy:

“Pompompompompom ARE YOU REEAAADY?” Oh. Dear. God. Those little voodoo dolls coming out of the ground, Facilier's desperate face – printed forever on a pillar – plus the chanting all make for a real nightmare.

Once again: chanting never helps.

3. The Black Cauldron : The Horned King's death

Never heard of this movie or don't quite remember it? That's because Disney does not want you to remember this flop from 85.

Based on the book series The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, the movie is about young “assistant pig-keeper” Taran, who must stop the Horned King (very Ring Wraith looking, by the way) from getting the Black Cauldron, which can give him a legion of undead soldiers. This film and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are considered to be Disney's darkest movies ever. Not to mention the story is, frankly, a mess.

And this movie was SO dark that drastic cuts had to be made before its release; one of the deleted scenes, for example, showed a man's flesh being dissolved by a deathly mist (not pretty, but if you want you can see it here), while another displayed one of the undead soldiers killing a man by slicing his neck and torso. Nice. These cuts were so abrupt that they even left a perceptible jump in the soundtrack.

But even after cutting the strongest scenes, the reception was not good, loosing at the box office to the likes of the first Care Bears movie. (!) 

Aaaaaaand here is the scene where the Horned King dies, sucked into the Black Cauldron.

 Lovely scene.

2. Fantasia: “Night on Bald Mountain”

Fantasia was a grand project, but not a lucrative one.

The timing for it was bad: releasing a movie in the midst of the Second World War (Fantasia was released in 1940) meant not being able to count on the European market; and as it had been a very expensive movie to make, the studio did not have the necessary profit to cover the expenses it'd had. The movie was said to be a  “remarkable nightmare”. One critic said it was “for adults and very nerdy kids”.

Since I've always been very nerdy, I LOVED Fantasia when I was a kid. Except for the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment. It shows the demon Chernabog summoning evil spirits and hellish beasts at midnight; they all dance and fly across the air, only stopping upon hearing some Ave Maria chanting in the distance, along with the sun rise.

Another item on my “fast-forward list”. It terrifies me to the very core of my soul until this day. And though I find it fascinating nowadays, it's so grotesque I think wouldn't let my kids watch it before they were, I don't know, 15.

1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame: “Hell Fire”

This 96 movie is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, a horrible adaptation of Victor Hugo's book The Hunchback of Notre Dame – but BOY is it an excellent film! 

The story is good if you don't think of the original book, the visual is dazzling, and the soundtrack basically told many other Disney songs they could suck it.

But Hunchback is too dark: Quasimodo is tortured by the Parisians, Esmeralda is way too sexy, the 15^th century Catholicism is to heavy for a child to really understand, and even the vocabulary used might be beyond some children's grasp sometimes. No wonder they released Hercules the following year, a bunch of sparkly colorful nonsense.

But Judge Claude Frollo's moral dilemma, torn between his religious duty and devotion and his lust for Esmeralda, is the scariest aspect of the movie (starting at 0:42):

I must say: one doesn't understand what Frollo's actually going through here till after one's puberty. 

Frollo is guilty of religious hypocrisy, lust, attempted genocide, psychological oppression, murder and what has to be The Most Demented Disney Song Ever. 

Creepy lecherous old man.  

Having Nightmares with Disney (or: 10 Creepy Disney Moments) - Part 1

I'm not ashamed to say out loud that, though I'm pushing 30, I still love Disney movies, and cry each time I see Aladdin freeing the Genie or Mufasa dying and Simba trying to wake him up.

It beats Bambi's mother's death anytime. [sobs]

Disney movies are extremely beautiful, animation and story-wise, not to mention the breathtaking soundtracks. And the children can usually learn something from it.

Usually, not always. Signing pacts with the devil doesn't exactly scream filial obedience.

Nevertheless, sometimes Disney awards us with scenes and/or songs that are truly nightmare-fuel. After all, sleeping soundly is totally overrated.

10. Tangled: “Mother Knows Best [Reprise]”

I LOVED Tangled! It's a great movie with great soundtrack and characters (specially the über charming Flynn Ryder, and I'd been waiting for so long for another captivating Disney princess like Rapunzel) and does not fail to entertain. It's simply adorable.

Rapunzel's been locked in a tower for her whole life of 18 years. When runnaway dashing thief Flynn Ryder breaks into the tower to flee from the law, the girl sees in him the opportunity she needs to leave and make her dream come true: see the floating lanterns that appear in the night sky on her birthday every year.

As I said, it's an adorable movie. IF you don't count the scene when the witch who pretends to be Rapunzel's mother, Mother Gothel, finds Rapunzel in the forest and puts her DOOOOOOOWN.

 “Why would he like you, come on now, really? Look at you! You think that he's impressed?” Jeez. That's exactly the kind of mother that pushes their 15-year old daughters in the direction of anorexia.

9. The Beauty and the Beast: “The Mob Song”

Released in 91, this was the studio's biggest hit since the 40's. It also made history by being the first animation to ever be nominated for an Academy Award of Best Picture (back when the nominees amounted only to 5). It was nominated for Best Original Song as well, for 3 different songs (“Belle”, “Be Our Guest” and “Beauty and the Beast”), taking the award with “Beauty and the Beast” AND for Best Original Score.

Belle is the only person to have ever taken the risk to get to know the Beast, and they fall in love. But the villagers, as good villagers always do, decide to march to the Beast's castle with torches and pitchforks.

Gaston is not so great a villain, he's much more of a jerk, really. BUT he casts a whole new light upon himself while leading the villagers. The line “We don't like what we don't understand” is very medieval and always current. Collective hysteria can be terrifying.  

8. The Little Mermaid : Ursula's death

Disney had been having a bad time up to 89, with their movies underperforming at the box office; but upon the release of The Little Mermaid, what is today known as the “Disney Renaissance” began, i.e., it was the beginning of a new golden era for animated movies: unforgettable classics for the audiences and astronomic profit for the studio. (It ended in 99 after Tarzan. In my opinion, it's no surprise.)

The story is great (albeit greatly distorted from the original tale) score and songs are addictive ("undah tha sea, undah tha sea, dahling it's bettah, down where it's wettah, take it from me!"), Ariel is charismatic, Eric is the first prince to have not only a name but also a personality...

Yes, nameless bland Cinderella prince, I'm looking at you.

...Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle are great sidekicks, and Ursula is a fantastic villain, specially in her scary-but-fascinating looks.

And the way she dies is just plain frightening.

When I was a child and watched this on tape, I'd always fast-foward it, cause I was shit scared of this scene. Dying impaled is already quite ugly, but the added lightnings, her skeleton and her tentacles wrapping around the ship are the cherry in a cake of sheer horror.

7. Dumbo: Dumbo and Timothy Drunk

Dumbo (1941) lasts for mere 65 minutes, and it's gotta be one of Disney's most charming and unpretentious movies ever.

The baby elephant Dumbo suffers bullying from everybody around him (animals and people alike), because of his ginormous ears. But when he learns to fly using those ears (with the help of some offensively stereotyped crows), he quickly becomes the main attraction in the circus. And they all lived happily ever after.

But before living happily ever after there was this petrifying scene when Dumbo and his mouse mentor Timothy get accidentally drunk, after drinking water mixed with champagne.

I used to fast-forward it as well. I mean, dude: There's an elephant made of other elephants, and its eyes become pyramids, and from behind them comes a camel-elephant that turns into a serpent that turns into an odalisque, and her belly turns into an eye! This must be the devil! And their CHANTING “pink elephants on parade” really doesn't help.

6. The Lion King: “Be Prepared”

Released in 94, this movie remains as one of the studio's biggest successes ever – and it still is one of the most lucrative animated movies in history. Another record: Mufasa's death, plotted by his brother Scar, is definitely one of the saddest Disney scenes ever, and it must've made thousands of kids cry around the globe at the same time.

Besides the amazing score and soundtrack by Elton John, a Hamlet touch to a great plot, Darth Vader talking to Ferris Bueller through the clouds and a Mr. Miyagi baboon, The Lion King also stands out for having one of the darkest songs, showing Scar and the hyenas' ambition.

That surely is a very accurate recreation of Hell. Everything in green and red, bones and decomposing carcasses everywhere... *shivers*. Notice the fact that Scar basically kills a hyena, making it fall into one of those hellish fissures! And the evil-faced hyenas marching is the epitome of nazi terror. In the end, they all rise as if from Hell. And though this can be quite frightening, I just can't help loving this song, it's very catchy!

I can't help loving Jeremy Irons, either. Jeremy, please marry me. 

To be continued...

Guilty Pleasures IV

1.Dawson's Creek

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 14, you must've at least heard of this show. It was one of the most popular teenager tv shows ever. Instead of having an incestuous group of rich teens, you had an incestuous group of teenage small-towners – with a vocabulary range to put to shame a Nobel winner.

Place: Capeside. Your (so-called) protagonist: 15-year-old Dawson, an only child and movie buff; his best friends are Joey, a sulky girl whose dad is in jail, and Pacey, the local ne'er-do-well. And to disrupt this already disfunctional little group comes Jen, a large-breastedblonde from the big city – she's seen and done it all!

The story: Joey likes Dawson, Dawson likes Jen; Pacey likes the teacher; now Jen likes Dawson, but Dawson's dating Joey; they break up; Joey and Dawson are back together, and break up; the new character Jack finds out he's gay; Dawson finds out Joey and Pacey are together now and flips; their friendship's over; Dawson makes his infamous “crying face”; Pacey and Joey break up; they all go to college, except Pacey – he becomes a cook. (?)

Dawson's dad dies, and because of that he can't be with Joey (??); she dates a bunch of guys, including the one from One Tree Hill; somehow, Joey's become the protagonist of the series; Dawson sleeps with Jen; Pacey becomes a stock broker. (???); Pacey and Joey get back together, and break up again. Dawson and Joey finally sleep together, but it doesn't work.

Big finale: Dawson's the director of his own teenage series; Pacey goes back to being a cook, and gets back with Joey forever; Jen dies of a heart condition she's always had, but that no one had ever mentioned before. But that's fine, cause Jack's the guardian of her child (????).

That's the story of the entire 6 seasons.

One of the things that has always amazed me is this: Dawson was the hero, and it all boiled down to the big question: who will he choose? Jen or Joey? And then somehow, either because Dawson was annoying and vanilla or because the actor James Van Der Beek did a terrible job (and was too old to be playing a teenager), at some point along the way Joey became the protagonist, and the big question turned into: who will she choose? Pacey or Dawson?

But the something that bothers me above all else is the dialogs. Vocabulary worthy of an English Ph.D. in Formula 1 speed. Who the fuck talks like that?!

Ok, let me reiterate that: what teenager talks like that? Or: Who talks like that and is not a pretentious douchebag?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me illustrate it:

"DAWSON: In the best, most desirable way -- you scare me. But I love the way you scare me but it makes me nervous and then I say or do something really stupid so I spend all this energy coming up with ideas to be smart so that you don't think I'm stupid and those ideas inherently backfire therefore making me look more stupid. It's a vicious circle, Jen and I'm at the end of my rope because all I really want to do is kiss you and feel if I don't kiss you soon I'm gonna explode."

"JOEY: What you’re telling me is that you’re the innocent victim of some behavioral psychology experiment gone horribly awry?
PACEY: Yes.
JOEY: And you’re desperately in need of some able-bodied female to help you provoke some preconditioned, Pavlovian homework response?

PACEY: Yes."

"JOEY: Your girlfriend offers her lips to you in the spirit of teenage lust and you'd rather watch the "E! True Hollywood Story" on Danny Bonaduce for the fourth time?"

Yeah, 15-year-olds use words like “inherently”, “behavioral psychology”, “able-bodied female”, “preconditioned Pavlovian response”, “the spirit of teenage lust” all the time. C'mon, teenagers don't even know the meaning of those words, most of the time. Granted, I used to talk like that when I was 14, 15. But I was an extremely pedantic teen, so there you have it.

And still, whenever I catch it on TV, I watch it – wholeheartedly. Can't tell you exactly why. But I guess it's Pacey, I just find him so charming! No wonder Joey picked him in the end – who would wanna stay with whiny, annoying Dawson?! 


Not to mention that the actor who played Dawson, James Van Der Beek, did nothing worthy of notice after this show - while the others went on to do other stuff: 

- Joshua Jackson (Pacey) starred in those Duck movies about hockey (ok, perhaps that's not what success is about...), and now is one of the main characters in "Fringe"; 

- Michelle Williams (Jen) married Heath Ledger (it doesn't get better than that), and was nominated three times for an Oscar - man, she played Marilyn Monroe on the big screen! And she actually won a Golden Globe; 

- Katie Holmes (Joey)... well, we all know about her, right? She's Mrs. Cruise now, she appears in movies every now and then, and she's got the most annoying Hollywood child ever. She may not be the best actress nowadays, but she's definitely a celebrity;

- James Van Der Beek... meh.

Anyway, there you have them: my 7 guilty pleasures. They're so guilty they almost feel like the 7 deadly sins, really. And we know what the forbidden fruit tastes like!

But you know. God forbid I ever tell any of those things to one of my friends, face to face!

You gotta love the Internet.

Guilty Pleasures III

2. Twilight

Don't even know what to say here. I'm terribly ashamed of myself. The story sucks, the characters suck (BAD), and the writing is appalling. I refuse to acknowledge that Meyer's got the same college degree I do: English. I say bullshit.

Ok: Edward Cullen is extremely charming, once you get past the whole “I wanna drink your blood, and I watch you sleep every night” thing. His family can also be quite interesting: Carlisle is very easy to like, as are Alice and Emmet. Esme is completely null, of course. And Rosalie is made to be hated. Jasper is also meant to secretly be the bad-ass of the family, which is why he's my favorite.

Jacob is a cutie too. (And talk about abs, huh?) 

All of that, however, occurred to me only at first. I finished the 4^th book with a whole “wow, that was a great story, if you overlook the vampire-absurdities and bad sentence constructions!” Two days later I stopped to think about it; suddenly, I was all “Wtf did I just read? Did I actually pay money for that shit?! Oh dear God, Heaven forbid people know I read THAT.” Hindsight is a bitch.

Edward treats Bella like a retarded child all the way; besides, he's ridiculously over-dramatic. And yes, I know, he's supposed to be 17. Teenagers are dramatic. But actually, he's a 100-year-old 17-year-old. He's been around for more than a century. I think, think, that's time enough for one to grow up, right? Like, he should be an old soul, in the body of a 17-year-old guy. Instead, he acts and talks like a 15-year-old girl. What's up with that? And the other Cullens, even the cool ones like Jasper, don't have any other layer to them. They're shallow, all made up of one or two characteristics only: Carlisle is prudent, Esme is gentle; Emmet is strong, and Rosalie a bitch; Alice is the fashion-crazy chick who can see the future and Jasper, the silent one; Edward, of course, is all kinds of royalty: prince charming and a drama queen; Jacob, the loyal guy, with an acute case of unrequited love. That's it, and that's all. They don't have anything else, there's nothing more than meets the eyes. There's no character development, not even for Bella, who's supposed to be the heroine! If there's no character development, your story's devoid of any kind of meaning, just so you know, Meyer.

You know what else bugs me? The amount of make-up on the Cullen family, dear God! And their hair, what's wrong with their hair?! If they needed blond people, why didn't they cast blond people, instead of Peter Facinelli (as Carlisle), Jackson Rathbone (as Jasper) and Nikki Reed (as Rosalie)??? Just take a look at the pictures linked and see for yourselves. It's like Jessica Alba being cast as the Invisible Woman all over again. Yes, she's gorgeous, but is she blond? *sighs*

And do NOT get me started on Bella. I know many girls relate to her and all, but when you're older than 20, you can see that girl's utterly retarded. And Kristen Stewart's horrible job as Bella has done nothing whatsoever to improve the character. She's, like, Hayden Christensen's female counterpart.

And yet, I know all of that. Cause I read the books. And at the time, enjoyed them *facepalm*

AND, and: the birth scene in Breaking Dawn Part 1 is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. 

Admitting Guilty Pleasures II

 4. Boy bands

Their time is long long gone, along with my teenage years. Those bands started falling apart, and each of the singers went after their solo careers (or NASA careers – yes, I'm looking at you, Lance Bass. What the hell were you thinking? NASA, seriously?! Yeah, right, you can sing Bye bye bye to that).

They all sang pretty well and the music in itself was always either rather groovy or quite pretty. But C'MON, have you listened to the lyrics?

The Backstreet Boys' I want It That Way: “You are my fire, the one desire, believe when I say, I want it that way”.

We've Got It Goin' On? “Jam on cause Backstreet's got it, come on now everybody we've got it goin' on”.

Incomplete: “Empty spaces fill me up with holes, distant faces with no place left to go”. How clever!

'N Sync's I Need Love: “I need love, you need love, we all really need love. All I want, all I need, we all really need love”.

Tearing Up My Heart: “It's tearing up my heart when I'm with you, but when we are apart, I feel it too, and no matter what I do I feel the pain, with or without you.” #U2feelings?

5ive's Everybody Get Up: “Everybody get up, singing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 will make you get down now!” Yeah sure, whatever British dudes.

And don't even get me started on Westlife.

No matter how well they sing those songs, the lyrics always remind me of a wine tasting session: whiny and cheesy. Those songs only talk about three things: a) a girl the singer loves but can't have – she's either friend-zoned him, or she's dating some jackass; b) a girl who left him cause of some stupid mistake he made, and now the singer's begging her to come back; c) a girl he used to love and now hates cause she left him (usually for some other guy with more money).

However, there's a reason why I know their lyrics well enough to write them down without having to google them. I still have all of them in my iPod, and yes, I still listen to them. Just yesterday I was cleaning up while singing It's Gonna Be Me. I like to listen to those horribly tacky songs, and I like to sing along, and make faces while at it.

In my iPod, all of those boy band songs are in a folder called “Things I'm not proud of”. But they're all there. And when the Backstreet Boys came to Brazil last year, I went to their show. Proudly. Or almost.

Also: I still have a HUGE crush on Justin Timberlake. Britney seriously lost the best catch in Hollywood. 

3. High School Musical

VanessaHudgens HAS to be one of the most annoying actresses I've ever seen. Her pretty face is too small, her voice is too pitchy, and everything she says sounds annoyingly self-righteous. Besides, her character in the movie, Gabriella, is ridiculously exasperating: she's pretty, she's part of the scholastic decathlon team, she can sing well, she's incapable of harming anyone, or saying anything mean, she's C'MON! If there's one thing Hollywood producers, executives and screen writers have yet to learn is this: perfect protagonists are impossible to empathize with. We like to see flawed characters, characters that mirror ourselves. Which is why most people end up rooting for the villain or the underdog rather than the hero/heroine of the story. A thoroughly nice beautiful girl that can do everything perfectly is definitely not the mirror of the average Jane.

Same thing goes for Zac Efron's character, Troy: he's abusively handsome, a nice son, a nice friend, a nice student, a nice boyfriend, the complete jock, captain of the basketball team, he can sing well, AND he's got loads of charisma (something Vanessa Hudgens definitely lacks). Again, not your average Joe.

The premise of the movie is also kind of stupid: Troy and Gabriella's friends have a hard time understanding that they have other interests? They can't accept the fact that those kids might be interested in something else other than playing basketball/studying Math? What kind of world is that where people can only like and be good at one thing??

And yet, I've seen the three movies, I've got the complete soundtrack in my iPod, and I can sing almost every song. And I have a blast every time I watch the movies/listen to the songs. A few things that occur to me in my defense: 1. Zac Efron is really handsome and charismatic; 2. the songs are nice to sing along; 3. the “villains” are funny as hell; 4. it's better for a child or a teenager to be watching this than some movie full of violence and sex. Am I right?

To be continued...