Aaron Wallace's Blog

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Podis back… with a brand-new show title, format, and more. In this Season 14 debut, Aaron walks through 70+ years of Disney music history, treatment one song from each decade to in-depth discussion. 

Total runtime – 76 minutes

Download in iTunes | Direct Download

AS HEARD IN THE SHOW

Apple Music playlist corresponding to this episode

Spotify playlist corresponding to this episode

Bobby Driscoll arrest photo (as heard in the episode)

The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom 2020now available. Get it on Amazon. Or get a signed copy here. 

Hear Aaron and Jeff DePaoli’s deep dive into Mary Poppins(1964) on Dizney Coast to Coast.

Hear Aaron’s other recent podcast appearances:
• The Mad Chatters – “Disney Game Night IV” 
• The Mad Chatters – “The Sounds of Walt Disney World“
• Dizney Coast to Coast – “25 Years of Tower of Terror” 

SUPPORT THE SHOW

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While you’re there, “like” The Thinking Fan’s Guide on Facebook too!

CONTACT THE SHOW

Send comments, questions, and feedback to podcast@aaronwallaceonline.com — or you can record an audio file and email it in!

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Music copyright The Walt Disney Company; Disney Music Group, etc., unless otherwise noted. Original content copyright Aaron Wallace. On Main Street with Aaron Wallace is an unofficial fan podcast and is not authorized by, reviewed by, or affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, its affiliates, or subsidiaries. For more information, visit www.aaronwallaceonline.com.

Cover art designed by graphic designer Patrick Westmoreland, based on Aaron’s horribly-drawn original logo from way back in 2005. 

“On Main Street” lyrics and musical rhythm by Aaron Wallace. Vocals performed by Nicole Carino. Instrumentation arranged and performed by Carl England. Executive producer Aaron Wallace.

Cover art and theme song are the sole copyright of Aaron Wallace.

Download in iTunes | Direct Download

The post On Main Street: Season 14, Episode 1 (Main Street Music Hall of Fame) appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom 2020

The post The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom 2020 appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

SPOILER WARNING: What follows is more of an informal review (with immediate impressions after an initial viewing, largely recycled from my review on Letterboxd). It contains spoilers for 2019’s live-action The Lion King.

And the Oscar for Best Replicated Screenplay goes to…

We’ve heard a lot about how shot-for-shot remakes are pointless cash grabs, but I’m not sure I agree. To see an animated nature drama and think, “I wonder what this would look like in real life?” is not unreasonable, and so this film answers a natural curiosity. The act of adapting a shot from one medium of animation to another is itself a type of art, and there’s surely a lot to be learned (or observed) about both mediums in the process. So I welcome this remake to the table.

I just wish it brought more to the table with it. 

I’ve fallen in love with the live-action Beauty and the Beast (review | podcast), Aladdin, and The Jungle Book (review) because of the new ideas they’ve contributed to centuries-old stories. Does this take on The Lion King have any new ideas? Aside from giving Shenzi’s lines to Ed and making Shenzi HBIC, not really. And while I’m all for enriching the legacy of a character originated by Whoopi Goldberg, it’s not much to hang one’s mane on.

Watching these lifeless, expressionless animals  reminded me of Conan O’Brien’s old “Arnold Schwarzenegger by Satellite” bits. Neither the movement of their mouths nor their emotions ever fully rings true.

This is a remake that will live on as a soundtrack. For once, nearly all the singing is great (oy, Seth Rogen). Ditto the voice acting (well, Scar falls a little flat). Billy Eichner is a welcome surprise. Donald Glover can do no wrong. Beyoncé’s “Spirit” is an A+ song put to F- use in the film. Who signed off on that? 

I’m glad we got “Be Prepared” (after being told we wouldn’t). While the performance is a little clumsy, I find myself *most* interested in this movie whenever it does *something* different. Those moments are rare. 

If anything else in this remake endures, it’ll be the clip of Timon singing “Be Our Guest,” sure to be a divisive choice but one I loved. It fits the scene so well and pays homage to “It’s a Small World”’s feature in the original. I clapped in that moment. Most of the theater did too. But I also saw several people get up and walk out at various points, so YMMV. 

Disney really “put its behind in the past” this time, but my inner fan still had a great time watching this and will surely visit it again. At the end of the day, it’s still The Lion King, and that story still “moves us all.”  

SPOILER WARNING: What follows is more of an informal review (with immediate impressions after an initial viewing, largely recycled from my review on Letterboxd). It is filled with spoilers, so don’t keep reading until you’ve seen the movie.

Toy Story 4 may not reach the heights of adventure or emotion its predecessors achieved, but other film series should be so lucky as to have a fourth installment so worth watching. 

New themes, new emotions, new settings, new characters, hearty new laughs… all of them explored in a universe as familiar to us as the blankets on our beds. 

But at the same time, some of this is re-tread ground. We’ve already seen Woody try to persuade a newcomer that he’s a toy, and we’ve seen him on search-and-rescue missions before. And as Luke Bonanno points out, Randy Newman’s cues are largely recycled. I’m persuaded by Jonathan Harvill’s point that these things take on new meaning because Woody is essentially alone in them this time and under the weight of an existential crisis (paraphrasing). But watching it for the first time, I did feel the effect of diminishing returns during the first two acts.

However, I find myself intrigued by the movie’s darker edges (and even some of the darker visual tones… a few shots adopt something of a ‘prestige film’ aesthetic). 

There’s a more graphic focus on the toys’ anatomy than we have seen before, even in comparison to Woody’s unthreaded arm in Toy Story 2. Bo’s arm breaks right off, dolls’ stuffing is pulled out, toys are cut in half, Woody’s voice box is torn out from inside him. Milne’s Pooh stories do this same thing, but there, the point is to remind us that the characters exist only in Christopher Robin’s imagination. The conceit in Toy Story is different. Here, the toys are both real and alive, and Toy Story 4 seems newly interested in exploring the deeper implications of that. Woody and several other toys are starting to question the roles prescribed for them. There’s definitely an undercurrent of “the family you’re born into” (the one that buys you) vs. “the one you choose” (the one you escape to). And of questioning civic assumptions about what’s right (“having a kid” vs. doing your own thing). 

The brilliant critics on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour have some interesting ideas on reading TS4 as a film about parenting (and the pains of watching your children grow old), or even as a queer text. I’d like to add that there might be an anti-ageist reading available to us too.

There is one prominent senior citizen character in this film. Likewise, a number of seniors feature in the voice cast, some of them having been a part of this franchise since they were very much not seniors. I was particularly struck by the shot of an older lady in a bathtub with a glass of wine by her side. It immediately reminded me of Angela Lansbury’s Positive Moves VHS from the ’80s or an episode of “The Golden Girls” – the message being, “Don’t count us out.” (Probably coincidentally, Betty White is in the voice cast.)

The themes of feeling old and discarded might very well resonate with an older audience, and those themes might be sending a message to the rest of us too. Second Chance Antiques doubles as both an “Island of Misfit Toys” and a kind of nursing home for 70+-year-old white elephants.

There is A LOT to unpack here. And that excites me. 

But then we reach the ending. While it’s very sweet, I can’t help feeling that Woody and Buzz deserve a bigger goodbye. After three films that invested so much in building their relationship (and our relationship to them), I think they (and we) have earned more than a two-line parting.

For that matter, it seems unbelievable and a little bit cruel that Woody bids farewell to all his other friends — largely sidelined in this movie, which I think is okay — with a quick wave. Maybe that’s the point? Or maybe this isn’t really goodbye. Toy Story 5, here we come? I wouldn’t mind.

Us in 1998: Toy Story was so good, why do they have to make a sequel?

Us in 2009: Toy Story 1 and 2 were basically perfect, why do they have to make a third?

Us in 2018: Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 comprise the greatest film trilogy of all time. Why do they have to make a fourth?

— Aaron Wallace (@aaronwallace) November 12, 2018

See also: Why “Does it need to exist?” isn’t really a fair question to ask of art. 

 

 

The post Toy Story 4 Movie Review & Analysis (Spoilers) appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

Best Picture

At the outset, let it be said that Mary Poppins Returns was my favorite film of 2018 and should have been nominated here. Moving on…

Such a fascinating category this year. Roma is the consensus prediction — and it’s probably the most deserving of the pack — but truly, every picture in this category has a not-unrealistic shot of winning.

We usually look to the major ceremonies preceding the Oscars to gauge voters’ mindsets. This year, EACH of these eight have taken the top prize at a major predictive ceremony. Anything could happen. I’m making a (probably foolish) “no guts, no glory” prediction here: The Favourite.

Why am I betting against Roma? The things that most distinguish the Academy from other voting bodies are (1) a much larger group of voters, (2) a wider swath of technical craftspeople voting, and (3) a heavier executive presence, representing the “business” vote.

I think each of these things weighs against Roma. I loved the movie, but it doesn’t play with a general audience. Several of this year’s anonymous “Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots” have summed up Roma as “nothing happens,” and I think that sentiment is widespread. Roma is a critical darling, sure, but that only accounts for a fraction of the Academy voters. Among businesspeople — and, to some extent, among directors and craftspeople too (who very much value industry security as well as the importance of theatrical distribution) — Roma‘s small-screen Netflix rollout may be enough to keep it out of many voters’ top spot.

Why do I think The Favourite takes it instead? A gut feeling, really. Honestly, I can see The Favourite making a surprise sweep across all categories tonight. There’s a lot of last-minute buzz in its favor.

Then again, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, and Bohemian Rhapsody are just as likely. Even Black Panther has a shot (it will be a decent number of voters’ top choice, and A LOT of voters’ #2 or #3 choice).

The movie least likely to win? Probably A Star Is Born, because even though it’s great, it’s been forgotten.

Personally, I’m happy with any winner except Green Book or Bohemian Rhapsody. While I don’t dislike either as much as their biggest detractors do, they just aren’t in “BP” league, quality-wise.

Best Actor

The math tells us Rami Malek has this one locked up, the Bryan Singer controversy notwithstanding. He’s very good in it, but I’d have picked Bradley Cooper instead.

Willem Dafoe’s performance in At Eternity’s Gate is strong, but he’s held back by an otherwise weird and boring movie. Christian Bale isn’t bad but his makeup is better (and Vice is terrible). Viggo Mortensen in Green Book gives me the creeps.

Best Actress

Glenn Close all the way. The Wife is underappreciated and phenomenal. Her quiet, nuanced performance is in its driver’s seat. For her work here and in her career at large, the award belongs to her. That said, all five of these nominees are outstanding, and I’d applaud any winner here. Special shout-out to Melissa McCarthy, who we might start seeing in this category more often.

Julia Roberts and Emily Blunt should be in this category. That is all.

Best Supporting Actress

I figure The Favourite votes will split (a shame because Emma Stone is probably my top choice here), and that leaves Regina King, who was good enough in Beale Street and who voters are very eager to award.

Amy Adams is stellar in Vice but nobody wants to vote for Vice. Marina de Tavira’s performance in Roma is everything it needs to be, but it’s just too small for the Oscar. Even her nomination here was a surprise.

Best Supporting Actor

The math tells us Mahershala Ali will win. I’m making another “no guts, no glory” prediction here (one I’ll probably regret): Richard E. Grant. There’s been last-minute buzz in his favor, he has a long body of work the Academy would like to award — and might not always have a chance to (whereas Mahershala is young and has already become an Oscars mainstay), he has a lot of friends in Hollywood who will likely vote for him, and from what I hear, he’s been the toast of the town at awards parties all season. He’s also just a lot better in Can You Ever Forgive Me? than Ali is in Green Book.

Ultimately, I’ll support anyone other than Sam Rockwell, who is strictly doing SNL work as GWB in Vice.

Best Director

Spike Lee has a decent chance of winning here. Maybe even more than decent because, remember, the Academy membership changed significantly this year, and none of us can really know what that means in terms of votes yet. A more diverse voting body might be very eager to give Spike Lee his long-awaited win, even if BlacKkKlansman isn’t being looked at as his best work.

But it’s most likely going to Alfonso Cuaron, because Roma was one hell of a directorial achievement. Cuaron is a master and a genius, and Roma is his most personal and intricately made movie yet.

Honorable mention to Bo Burnham, who I’d have nominated here (and his movie, Eighth Grade, in our next category…)

Original Screenplay

The Favourite is a very screenplay-y movie. I’d call it a shoe-in.

Screenplay isn’t Roma‘s strength, nor First Reformed‘s (which I have to say I hated… but I’m alone there, I know). Again, everyone hates Vice. Green Book could win, but half the movie’s controversy has been lobbed at its screenplay, so that should knock it out.

Adapted Screenplay

BlacKkKlansman is the consensus prediction, and I agree. If it doesn’t win anywhere else, it should win here. Once again, though, I wish Can You Ever Forgive Me? would be given its due credit. That screenplay rides a fine moral line with a lot of insight, perspective, and suspense. Also, shout-out to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, another underappreciated (and under-nominated) gem.

Animated Feature

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse all the way. How funny that Disney has two very eligible features in the running, and they’ll both lose to a character Disney owns but in a Marvel movie they have nothing to do with. And Marvel isn’t even known for animation! Nor is Sony, really. Weird, weird, weird. But awesome, because Spider-Verse is next level.

Full disclosure: I haven’t yet seen Mirai.

Documentary Feature

Consensus says Free Solo and I won’t argue with that. It’s really strong — captivating and gorgeously shot — though it certainly doesn’t break new ground in terms of the format.

The two nominees that will most stick with me are Minding the Gap and Of Fathers and Sons. (RBG is informative, I guess, but so conventional… and it’s kind of lame that RBG is on board as producer, inherently limiting the film’s perspective.)

The only doc that really didn’t work for me this year was Hale County This Morning, This Evening. It gets credit for trying to do something different, but it simply doesn’t work.

By the way, where are Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Whitney, and Three Identical Strangers in this category?

Foreign Language Film

Roma. When you’re a major player in major categories, you should have FLF on lock.

Cold War has some buzz and another major nomination of its own. It was gorgeous to look at, but the story fell short for me. I suspect maybe for voters too.

Shoplifters wrecked me. Super powerful. It’s streaming online, so I recommend watching it. But it hasn’t really been a part of the conversation.

I still haven’t seen Capernaum or Never Look Away (hoping to soon).

Original Score

If Beale Street Could Talk will probably win this (maybe it’s only win). That score is gorgeous, though I like Black Panthers‘ and Mary Poppins Returns‘ scores even more.

BlackKklansman has an outside shot here, as in most categories. It boasts a unique score with a lot of feeling, tension, and vibe.

Original Song

Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” has this on lock. It’s a great song, but it breaks my heart that Mary Poppins Returns won’t win this one. “Where the Lost Things Go” is a very sweet song, but it’s a weird choice for nominee. Should have been “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” or “Nowhere to Go But Up” instead.

Hate to vote against J-Hud, but at least she’ll be performing tonight, along with the Divine Miss M. Can’t wait for that.

Sound Editing

Think of this as the “sound effects” category. It awards the making of sounds. Action movies & sci-fi tend to fare well here. You’d think Black Panther or First Man would win. But the experts are predicting Bohemian Rhapsody. I don’t know enough about sound editing to second-guess them.

Sound Mixing

Think of this as the “blending of sounds” category, or the “surround sound” category. Bohemian Rhapsody makes more sense to me here. Think about all those concert sequences (not to mention the blending of Rami’s voice with Mercury’s and that other guy’s… though that’s not really the kind of thing I want to award. It’s kind of gross.)

Cinematography

Poor Buster Scruggs. Probably the best cinematography of the year but it’s not even nominated.

Roma‘s gonna take this — stunning photography beginning to end.

Makeup and Hairstyling

This category is the one thing Vice has going for it. It’s hard to believe that isn’t Dick Cheney.

Full disclosure: I haven’t yet seen Border. (Has anyone?)

Costume Design

Five worthy nominees. I just really want Mary to win something, but it’s probably going to The Favourite.

Production Design

I’ll copy & paste from Costumes because the same comments apply: Five worthy nominees. I just really want Mary to win something, but it’s probably going to The Favourite.

Film Editing

Consensus says Bohemian Rhapsody. Seems weird to me, but I probably don’t know enough about Film Editing to intelligently disagree (except that it’s a lot more technical than what most of us conceive it to be).

Visual Effects

The Avengers might just be tonight’s only Disney winner out of 17 nominations.

The Shorts

As I press “Publish” on this article, I’m about to dive into this year’s short films. Hoping to update this after I see them. For now, here are my placeholder predictions:

• Documentary: Period. End of Sentence. EDIT: Just watched this. Very good. Check it out on Netflix. Also worth watching: A Night at the Garden (chilling, but there isn’t a lot of filmmaking involved). The narrative in Black Sheep is strong, but I didn’t care for the reenactments. Lifeboat was hard to sink my teeth into, though its story is worth telling. Hoping to see End Game soon.

• Animated: Bao. I’m here for a Pixar win but this one is just so weird. So far, I’d personally support Animal Behavior instead.

• Live-Action: Marguerite

Finally, to see my full ranking of the 70 films I’ve seen from this year so far, just click here: https://twitter.com/aaronwallace/status/1099697014152069120

Thanks for following along!

The post 2019 Oscar Picks & Predictions appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

August 9, 2019 (Anaheim, CA) — Guests of the D23 Expo 2019 in Anaheim, CA will have an opportunity to meet authors, podcasters, and YouTube personalities from the Disney fan community at the Laughing Place Booth on the Emporium Show Floor this year.

The Expo takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center from August 23 – 25, 2019, just blocks away from Disneyland.

Aaron Wallace, bestselling author and host of the web’s longest-running Disney podcast (On Main Street with Aaron Wallace) will be on hand to greet fellow Disney fans and to sign copies of his three latest books:

The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Epcot
The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom — 2020 *
Hocus Pocus in Focus: The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Disney’s Halloween Classic

The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Disney is a first-of-its-kind book series that explores the untold histories of Disney theme park rides and films while also creating new ways to think about Disney’s rides and shows. The books help readers discover why they love Disney in the first place, and then arms them with deeper levels of love and appreciation for the company’s finest creations. They are the first books to devote full-length, in-depth chapters to each individual attraction in the various Disney theme parks.

* Available in limited quantities.

Also joining the Laughing Place booth is Kyle Burbank, author of The E-Ticket Life: Stories, Essays, and Lessons Learned from My Decidedly Disney Travels (featuring a foreword by Aaron Wallace!) and author Jeff Barnes (The Wisdom of Walt). 

Special, Expo-exclusive combo pricing will be available at the booth on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (subject to change). For more, see LaughingPlace.com.

Other authors and/or book titles, yet to be determined, are expected to feature at the booth too.

Wallace and Burbank appear at the D23 Expo as special guests of LaughingPlace.com, one of the web’s leading and most widely respected sources for Disney-related news and entertainment. The Laughing Place booth will be located inside the D23 Emporium on the first floor of the Expo Hall (Booth #113E), across from the RunDisney booth. There, fans can find great new merchandise, giveaway opportunities, meet-and-greets, and more.

Wallace will make special signing and meet-and-greet appearances at the Laughing Place booth throughout the expo. Currently, the schedule for those appearances is as follows:

Friday 8/23
TBA

Saturday 8/24
TBA

Sunday 8/25
TBA
Last Call:
TBA

Appearance times may change without notice. For the latest updates during the Expo, be sure to follow @aaronwallace, @KyleBurbank, @JeffDePaoli, and @Laughing_Place on Twitter

All of Wallace’s books will be sold at the Laughing Place Booth during the entirety of the Expo — even outside of scheduled signing times — while supplies last. Fans who buy the book outside of Wallace’s scheduled appearance times can return later with their purchased copy for an autograph. 

Please visit this webpage or follow  as the Expo approaches — and throughout the event itself — for updates, any special offers, and more.

 

 

Wallace previously joined the Laughing Place Booth for D23 Expo 2017 and D23 Expo 2015.

The post D23 Expo 2019 – Aaron Wallace Book Signing at The Laughing Place Booth appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

Time to celebrate one of the most glorious years for the silver screen in recent history!

The Best Picture Nominees: Ranked & Reviewed

9. Dunkirk

Variably unfocused or over-focused, it’s more a scene than a movie, and that’s hard to align with the words “Best Picture.”

While I can appreciate the virtue of “making war feel real,” it’s probably time for the Best Picture race to stop taking that bait (see Hacksaw Ridge in 2016, American Sniper in 2014, Zero Dark Thirty in 2012, The Hurt Locker in 2009, and going back at least as far as Saving Private Ryan in 1998).

Dunkirk does something different with its shifting perspective, and I can admire the novelty, but it’s so much less complex than Christopher Nolan’s other work.

But hey, it made half a billion dollars worldwide and stands at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, so if you’re rolling your eyes at me right now, you’re in good company.

8. Darkest Hour

Ah yes, the other Dunkirk movie. If Nolan gave us too many perspectives on that battle with too little context, Joe Wright delivers an extreme opposite in Darkest Hour.

There’s a Where’s Waldo thrill in trying to find Gary Oldman inside Winston Churchill. The whole experience of watching Darkest Hour is forgetting that it’s Oldman, suddenly remembering in astonishment, and then forgetting all over again. It’s pretty incredible, and so is Wright’s visual flair.

But Darkest Hour‘s longest minutes grow politically dense… so let’s save this one for Best Actor and Makeup instead.

7. The Shape of Water

Now for the seven Best Picture nominees I genuinely loved!

The Shape of Water thrives on its themes and their execution, but not so much on its story, which is extremely watchable but also very familiar (so familiar that the infringement suit against it is pretty laughable… if Paul Zindel’s estate gets a check out of this, maybe they should pass it on Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont‘s). But it’s gorgeous in every sense.

I love #TheShapeofWater as much as it loves classic cinema and gorgeous cinematography.

The Hall of Presidents just reopened with Donald Trump inside, except it doesn’t look anything like the DT we’ve come to know and… know.

Within hours, the internet was speculating that Imagineers simply reworked the Hillary Clinton mold they’d already made, and I’d be pretty convinced, except that’s not really how Audio-Animatronics work.

So who is the new Animapresident supposed to resemble? I’ve narrowed my list of candidates down to 13:

1. Whoopi Goldberg as an old white man

Ironically, Donald Trump had a small role in this same movie (The Associate, 1996).

2. Michael Jackson as an old white man

You can almost think of it as a Captain EO tribute.

3. Newt Gingrich (an old white man)

Welcome to The Hall of Presidential Candidates.

4. The Mayor of Halloween Town’s Sad Face

It’s that look of “they elected me to protect the holidays.”

5. The Haunted Mansion Groundskeeper

Art by Terry Wolfinger

I can’t decide if the new Animatronic just saw a ghost or actually is one, but either way, I think they put him in the wrong building in Liberty Square.

6. Mad Eye Moody

JK Rowling’s sending Magic Kingdom a Cease & Desist right now.

7. The Sorting Hat

Trump reportedly wore the hat himself when deciding which party to run for.

8. Any given Ebenezer Scrooge

The Animatronic definitely looks like he hasn’t slept all night.

9. Emperor Palpatine

I promise I’m not making political commentary here… but maybe the Imagineers were? Because the new Trumpatronic is just two lightning bolts short of a Sith Lord.

10. This homemade Ursula cake

You tried, Imagineers.

11. Fat Bastard in Austin Powers 3

Somehow it’s the skinnier version that looks more like the AA.

12. Paul Bearer when he went blond 

It’s fitting that Trump’s robot pays homage to his co-star in the WWF.

13. Casper’s Uncle Fatso in drag

And you thought Trump wasn’t progressive.

In fairness, the POTUSes of the past haven’t had spitting-image replicas at Walt Disney World either.

  

…But this one seems especially “not my President.”

In case you think I have a political axe to grind, though, just know I’m very here for this Animatronic, whoever the hell it is. And since I recently renewed my Walt Disney World Annual Pass, I have 365 whole days to solve this mystery once and for all. Look for more in my upcoming 3rd Edition of The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom, where I’ll explore The Hall of Presidents in all its Trump-age largess.

The post 13 People Who Look More Like Disney’s Donald Trump Animatronic Than Donald Trump Does appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

Spoiler warning: this article divulges key plot points, surprise twists, and the film’s ending. You should not continue reading if you haven’t seen the movie. 

There is no score in mother! It’s as quiet as our theater was when the credits rolled. My friend and I instinctively broke into applause, and everyone else defiantly did not.

I’d call mother! divisive, but with audiences giving it an ultra-rare F, “unifying” might be a better word. My heart breaks a little for Jennifer Lawrence in all this, because mother! marks her third big bust with audiences in as many years.

Probably because people are so pissed, she and director Darren Aronofsky are scrambling to explain mother!‘s meaning in the media today, and I wish they wouldn’t. Sure, I picked up on the Biblical allegories (they’re fairly on the nose), but apparently that’s all Aronofsky meant to do with this movie. I would have sworn it was about so much more.

This raises a more important question about movies, their meaning, and who ultimately “makes” both those things. To get into that, I’d like to walk through what I found to love here — the things I excitedly rambled about to my friend on our way out of the cinema (and the things that Aronofsky apparently hadn’t intended at all).

So here’s what I think (thought? no… think) mother! is about…

The Vulnerability of Trust

Note: the characters don’t get names, so I’ll use the actors’ instead.

We sense that something isn’t quite right when Ed Harris shows up at Jennifer Lawrence’s door that first night, and so does she. Everything inside her screams not to let him in.

“We don’t know him,” she tells Javier. “He’s a stranger.”

But she trusts Javier. And he, apparently, trusts Ed. As it turns out, both their trust is misplaced, and it invites unimaginable chaos into their home.

This is the danger of trusting others, of letting people into our lives. If we must talk in Biblical terms, it’s the lesson of being unequally yoked. And it’s illustrated in horrifically impactful fashion during the first half of this film, when things haven’t quite gone bonkers yet — when we still trust Aronofsky to eventually explain everything and tie up his many narrative threads. As it turns out, that trust will be violated too. Lesson learned.

The Vulnerability of Creating Art  

There is a cyclical rhythm to mother!. The same thing keeps happening. I tried to get a sense of where the cycle begins and ends, and I started to sense a connection between chaos and birth.

Both protagonists are artists. Javier makes poetry; Jennifer uses paint and restoration to make “paradise” out of a rebuilt home. They bother offer their art to a public too. Javier’s poems go to his publisher and eventually a mass audience — devoted fans who soon turn his beautiful words into a rallying cry for melee.

Jennifer’s art gets a “wide release” all its own in the form of thousands of strangers helping themselves to her hard work, plopping down on unframed sinks and snatching bits of molding as souvenirs.

Like anyone who’s spent more than a day inside a film studies class, I have built-in antennae that go haywire anytime anything “meta” creeps onto a screen. “A-ha!” I thought. “This is Darren Aronofsky talking about his experience of making art that the public later destroys.” Apparently this is not what he had in mind.

Nevertheless, I’m taken by the notion that neither of these artists stops creating after the ruinous reception of their most recent works. They do it all over again. In fact, ruin seems to be the very thing lighting their spark. Javier starts writing again on the night a man is killed in his house. Jennifer is impregnated on that same night (pregnancy long having stood as a metaphor for artistic creation). Nine months later, she’s remodeled the house again. And then she and Javier each give birth on the same night: her baby, his book. And that’s when chaos strikes again.

This is the cycle of the artist: make something intimate, release it to the public, allow the public to wrest ownership of it, and then start all over again. Why? That seems to be one of the central tensions at play in mother!

The Vulnerability of Being a Woman

It doesn’t take Jennifer long to realize she needs to escape. But she can’t. Because the power in her home is entirely her husband’s.

“We want you to leave,” she tells Michelle Pfeiffer.

“He does?” Michelle asks, “or you do?”

Later, she implores Javier to tell their guests to go. “They’ll listen to you!” she cries.

She’s right. They would listen to him. But they won’t listen to her. She has no social power within that world. And so she resigns to imprisonment in her own home, where she’s made especially vulnerable by a condition her husband can’t know: pregnancy (and later, motherhood).

The Vulnerability of Living in a World Gone Mad

I woke up this morning, and the first few headlines I read were about North Korean defectors fearing the next nuclear move, terror attacks in London, acid attacks on the streets of France, and… an 11-year-old boy being “treated” to the chance to mow Donald Trump’s lawn?

I couldn’t help but think about the funeral scene in mother. Aren’t we all J-Law, looking at a world gone mad around us and wondering why no one else is making it stop? If helplessness is a horror, then the horror in mother! feels very fresh indeed.

Oh Yeah, and Some God Stuff Too..

Look, I’m always game for a good Bible allegory. My favorite Narnia books are The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle. And I get what’s going on here (kinda). Javier is God. Jennifer is Earth. Her house is Eden. Ed is Adam. Michelle is Eve. Their kids are Cain and Abel. The glass rock is the forbidden fruit. The baby is Jesus born in Genesis or something. Kristen Wiig is… well, I don’t understand everything, okay?

All of this is interesting to me. I think it mostly works. Aronofsky’s understanding of God isn’t mine, but I’m hip enough to Hollywood not to be surprised by that. So it’s fine. But this whole allegory thing simply isn’t what I’m here for.

Who Makes Movies? 

One of the first lessons we learn about movies is that directors make them, and we either like them or we don’t.

As a film student oh so many years ago, that was also the first thing I had to “un-learn.” It’s the single hardest thing about “reading” film, the single biggest idea that turns general audiences off from academics and film critics, and also the thing that ultimately led me to really fall in love with movies.

In a literal sense, directors (and other filmmakers, working as a team) make movies. But in an equally important and real sense, audiences make them too. It has to be that way because if a movie doesn’t mean something to you, it doesn’t mean anything at all. Your only sense of meaning is the meaning you make. And you make it out of the symbols the filmmakers put together for you.

This is the thing that makes film communication. It’s a back and forth, a bargained-for exchange. Directors put together signals and symbols, and we decode them. Some of those signals are easier to read than others, maybe because the filmmakers choose to attach their “signifiers” to easily decoded “signifieds.” Others are more abstract. The more abstract the symbols, the more likely it is a movie will mean something different to me than it means to you (or to the filmmakers).

It’s probably no coincidence that the four major themes I found in mother! are themes I spend a lot of time thinking about in my own life. I don’t expect they all occurred to anyone else in exactly the same way. Perhaps you had equally meaningful but altogether different readings. Or maybe you hated its guts (the way I do Black Swan‘s). That’s okay too. Whether we “like” a movie or not is ultimately an arbitrary checkmark (admittedly, I’m predisposed to this particular cast and to creepy old house stories, not to mention surrealist excess) — what’s interesting is why and how we got there.

I hope I’ve managed to share some sense of how I got to loving mother! and what it means for me. Maybe it’s fitting this movie comes on the heels of “The Summer of Twin Peaks,” an exceedingly cryptic and frequently frustrating art project that nevertheless fascinates me with the themes it explores by way of mood and vignette.

I may never fully understand what’s happening in mother! or Twin Peaks, but they’ve both given me frames of reference for exploring these same themes in other works — and in my own life — for years to come. Film has many purposes, but I see this as one of its highest. In that sense, mother! is one of the most rewarding movies I’ve seen in a long time.

The post mother! movie review appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.

The Great Movie Ride is closing for good, and to pay tribute, Aaron recreates the entire attraction experience in audio form, using dialogue and score from the movies themselves and a “best of” script combining elements of all the ride versions since 1989. Come along for this magical journey into the movies…

Total runtime – 33 minutes

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AS HEARD IN THE SHOW

• The Three CommentEars – an unofficial Disney audio commentary series by Albert Gutierrez, Kelvin Cedeño, and Pedro Hernandez

• Episode #150 of The Mad Chatters podcast: “Disney Game Night”

• Once Upon a Fairy Tale podcast by Dwayne Tan

• DisneyDwayne (Dwayne Tan) on Twitter

• Dizney Coast to Coast, co-hosted by Jeff DePaoli

• Daily Disney Decision, hosted by Jeff DePaoli

• “That’s Entertainment” by The London Symphony Orchestra

• The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Epcot (includes an entire chapter on the soon-to-close Ellen’s Energy Adventure at the Universe of Energy in Future World). Get it on Amazon or order a signed copy (or book bundle) here!

CAST

Tour Guide – Aaron Wallace

“Robert Osborne” – Albert Gutierrez (The Three CommentEARS)

Mugsy – Derek Lewis (The Mad Chatters)

Beans – Jeremy Crittenden (The Mad Chatters)

Squid – Matthew Price (The Mad Chatters)

Sheriff – Dwayne Tan (Once Upon a Fairy Tale)

Alien Announcer – Jeff DePaoli (Dizney Coast to Coast)

Temple Guard – Jeff DePaoli (Daily Disney Decision)

SUPPORT THE SHOW

Please leave a written review for Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Pod on iTunes!

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CONTACT THE SHOW

Send comments, questions, and feedback to podcast@aaronwallaceonline.com — or you can record an audio file and email it in!

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Pod is an official member of The Disney Podcast Network. http://www.thedpn.com

Music copyright The Walt Disney Company; Disney Music Group, etc., unless otherwise noted. Original content copyright Aaron Wallace. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Pod is an unofficial fan podcast and is not authorized by, reviewed by, or affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, its affiliates, or subsidiaries. For more information, visit www.aaronwallaceonline.com.

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The post ZADDP #82: The Great Movie Ride That Never Was and Always Will Be appeared first on Aaron Wallace Online.