My reaction: Have you seen this movie? Chances are good you haven’t. I don’t know why no one has seen it. The Black Cauldron is starting to feel like the Disney movies of my childhood (which I would say start with The Little Mermaid). The animation looks familiar and the story arcs feel familiar. It’s all there.
This one is kind of a weird mishmash, though. They are constantly introducing new characters, but I’m not sure to what end. To be fair, it’s not like we’re sitting down and quietly watching these movies from start to finish. We miss big chunks of them, when B needs to drag us into another room and show us something, etc. He seems to especially need things during the ends of the movies. Mostly that’s okay, because we are super familiar with the movies. But with The Black Cauldron, there was a lot of “Wait, who are those fairies?” “Wait, why is that sword magical?” “Wait, what happened to Hen Wen?”
Also, this one is surprisingly scary. The villain – the Horned King – is purely evil, there’s nothing funny about him. He has no snarky sidekicks or charming one-liners, like most Disney villains have. There’s moment early on when the main character, a young man named Taran, is knocked to the ground by some dragons. When he gets up, his mouth is bleeding. You wouldn’t see that in Tangled, just saying.
The best part about watching The Black Cauldron was the series of selfies I took of the two of us, as I tried to get a good picture for this post. He was in a really smiley mood yesterday.
My reaction: This is yet another one of those Disney movies that I’ve seen maybe once. So I was very emotionally involved in, say, the opening credits, where Tod’s mother sacrifices herself for him right off the bat. Awww! I was also surprised later at the ferocity with which Copper vows to get revenge on Tod for Chief’s injuries. It wasn’t his fault! Just be friends, guys!
I just had to look up The Fox and the Hound 2, which I assumed would be like Lady and the Tramp 2, and focus on the offspring on the first movie’s main characters. But it actually takes place during Tod and Copper’s childhood together (which I thought was only like a week long), during which Copper is “tempted to join a band of singing stray dogs.” LOL, “direct to video” indeed.
Fun fact: Did you know that the name Tod (or Todd) originates from Middle English and means “fox”? Widow Tweed, the lonely crazy old woman who adopts baby Tod and is basically the cause of all this trouble because she doesn’t know that foxes aren’t tame, says she names him Tod because he’s “such a toddler.” But I think that Disney probably used the name because of its origins. They’re clever like that.
Drew says: I don’t think that puppy [Copper] is cute. I don’t like that his eyes are all sunken in.
My reaction: I don’t think I’ve seen this movie more than once or twice. In case you don’t know the plot, Miss Bianca and Bernard are two mice who are sent out from New York to rescue Penny, a little girl who’s being held captive in the bayou by Madame Medusa, a crazed jewel thief. Medusa is obsessed with finding the Devil’s Eye, a huge diamond that is hidden somewhere in a creepy cave that fills with water at high tide. Bianca and Bernard are assisted by some critter sidekicks.
Madame Medusa is a pretty scary villain. I mean, she is willing to drown Penny in order to find this diamond. Her alligators are named Brutus and Nero, which I think is clever. The critter characters are very “Cajun” – one of them just keeps giving people moonshine. That wouldn’t happen anymore. The animation is so 70s (in a good way). The music is so 70s (in a 70s way). I got a little misty when Penny got adopted at the end. I mean, that’s all she wanted in life. Isn’t that nice?
I have to admit it though…I think that I might prefer The Rescuers Down Under. We’ll find out for sure when we get there, I guess! (1990 – only 13 more years to go.)
Drew says: I think Miss Bianca might be kind of an idiot. Her reason for not wearing her seat belt on an open-air albatross that goes upside down, is that she doesn’t want to wrinkle her dress.
My thoughts: I guess it wasn’t until recently that I realized this was a full-length movie. I have seen the Little Black Raincloud section and the Pooh-gets-stuck-in-Rabbit’s-front-door sections many, many times. And I had the Heffalumps and Woozles song in a Halloween compilation VHS. But I don’t think I’ve seen the other stories before. Well, we did recently catch the end of the one where Rabbit tries to get Tigger to stop bouncing for good, on the Disney channel. (We often watch the Disney channel now. It’s fun.)
Winnie the Pooh is not my favorite. I mean, yeah, I definitely had t-shirts with the characters on them, but didn’t we all, in middle school?
Omg. Hold the phone. I JUST got the joke where Gopher keeps saying “I’m not in the book!” That went right over my head. Oy.
My reaction: I love this one. If I took a poll of 3o-year-old girls, I bet many of them would say they had a childhood crush on Robin Hood. I know he’s a fox (no, literally, the woodland creature). But I would also bet that Drew thinks Maid Marian is a babe. In fact…
I love the Robin Hood legend in general. The 1938 movie (The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland) is near and dear to my heart. Who doesn’t love the handsome, roguish protagonist who is an expert marksman, outwits the bad guys, and wins the girl? All while wearing tights??
But I digress. The fox version is very good too. And I’ve grown fond of Phil Harris, who we’ve now seen in The Jungle Book (Baloo), The Aristocats (Thomas O’Malley), and Robin Hood (Little John). I like his voice. Good music in this one. Lots of memorable moments and lines.
We tried for a double header this weekend, The Aristocats on Saturday and Robin Hood on Sunday, but we didn’t quite make it through the latter. So we watched the last half hour on Tuesday, which split it up weirdly. I won’t push it like that again. Just trying to catch us up by the end of this month, which is halfway through the year!
My reaction: There are a handful of lines from this movie I know REALLY well, because they were part of a preview on a tape I had of another Disney movie. Lines like, “You’re not a lady, you’re nothing but a sister,” “Scandalous,” “QUIET!!” and others. But I never had this movie growing up so it’s not one I’m super familiar with. This was probably the third time I’ve ever watched it. I think I vaguely remember watching it at the Ruffcorns’ house while babysitting their kids…
It’s cute, but I can see why it didn’t catch on. It just doesn’t have the spark that so many of the other movies do. I wonder if they were just trying out cats because 101 Dalmatians went well? It’s fun to see some of the repeated animation sequences – where they use the same molds but put the new characters in. An all-around pleasant morning.
Aaaaand as usual, this is the least blurry photo we could get. =)
My thoughts: This movie opens with Bagheera (a panther) discovering a child in the jungle. He says:
Many strange legends are told of these jungles of India, but none so strange as the story of a small boy named Mowgli. It all began when the silence of the jungle was broken by an unfamiliar sound. [Bagheera stops at baby Mowgli’s boat and hears him crying] It was a sound like one never heard before in this part of the jungle. It was a man-cub! Had I known how deeply I was to be involved, I would’ve obeyed my first impulse and walked away.
That is just not the way we’re supposed to think. We’re supposed to look back (on the big move, the great love, the child rearing, the life change) and say, “I’d do it again!” But maybe panthers don’t live by the same social mores than I do.
If you look back on something big that you did, and regret the entire thing, isn’t that ultimately regretting the person that you have become? The alternative is to look back on what you did, and justify any mistakes you made or struggles you went through, because they led to who you are now. And hopefully, you like the person you are now. That’s just some Jungle Book philosophy.
Walt Disney died in December of 1966, the year before this movie came out. I’ve never thought about the Disney filmography in terms of “during Walt” and “after Walt.” The story is that the studio closed for only one day before reopening and getting back to work on The Jungle Book. I guess that could be either sad or hopeful, depending on who you are in this scenario.
This whole post has gotten a little depressing. Which was completely not my intention. So I’ll leave you with this cute picture of a happy milk-face ignoring the (scary) end of the movie.
Lately I’ve been obsessing over two TV dramas: House of Cards (which has two seasons out on Netflix and if you’re not watching it right now you should be) and Game of Thrones (which is in its fourth season on HBO and if you’re not watching it right now you should be).
They’re both political dramas, although Game of Thrones is set in a fantasy world while House of Cards is set in good old Washington, DC. Let me get one thing straight: I do not care about politics. I don’t understand most of politics. The very word “politics” is boring to me. But these two shows are not just about politics. They are about manipulation, psychology, and (best of all) psychosis. They are about bad people doing terrible things for their own gain, and yet we tune in over and over again because we JUST HAVE TO KNOW what’s going to happen next.
One of my favorite characters on Game of Thrones is Petyr Baelish, or Littlefinger. I recently referred to him as “the Frank Underwood of Westeros.” Frank Underwood is the main character on House of Cards. It had just occurred to me at that moment how similar they are.
Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and Lord Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen)
Both of these guys are ruthless. They both want all of the power, right now, and will do whatever it takes to get it. But they’re not rash – they both have well-thought out plans, complete with backup plans, and backup-backup plans. Often, you think they’ve been foiled, only to find out later that they were just playing the other characters like well-tuned instruments.
Both of them have done (and will, I’m sure, continue to do) horrible things. Often, they’re doing these things to other characters who are genuinely likable. And yet…I still love both of these characters. I bafflingly, disproportionately, love them.
Is it just that I have a fondness for the character who somehow knows all, sees all, and masterminds all? For the guy who is always three steps ahead of the other guy, somehow even leading that other guy by the nose, making him think he’s making his own decisions, and then BOOM. Sorry, other guy.
I used to think I loved the Christ-figure – those Gandalfs, Dumbledores, and Aslans. They are also seemingly omniscient, and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of everyone. They are good guys, and they often come back to explain their sacrifice, to commend others for their sacrifices, and to bring the whole thing together in a happy (ish) ending.
Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), Aslan, and Dumbledore
Was it just that I hadn’t yet been introduced to the anti Christ-figure (not the “anti Christ”-figure, I want to be clear about that – just the anti- “Christ figure”) that I didn’t realize how much more interesting these characters could be? I mean, I cheered when the deceased Gandalf the Grey came back as Gandalf the White, sure I did, but was it really so surprising?
The good guy is more predictable than the bad guy. And the Christ-figure is the most predictable at all. We pretty much know the life lesson we’re going to learn from those guys. Stand up for your friends. Do unto others. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Love conquers all. Do the right thing. Stand your ground in the face of evil. Don’t give up on good. It’s kindergarten stuff at its core, whether you’re facing down the White Witch or the cyber bully or He Who Must Not Be Named.
The bad guys – the anti Christ-figures – are infinitely more interesting. What BS crazy thing are they going to do today in the name of getting one rung higher on the power ladder. They wouldn’t possibly – no one could – OMG DID YOU SEE THAT??
I never had that reaction to Aslan allowing Jadis to shave and humiliate him, I’ll tell you that.
So today I’m singing the praises of the guy who’s in control, the guy pulling the strings behind the curtain, the guy looking out for numero uno, even when it means stepping all over numeros dos through ciento. Because he’s keeping things interesting. Let’s give that guy a round of applause. (Just as long as he stays on our TV screens, fictional, and far away.)
Thoughts: Near the end of the opening song, which sets up the world of 6th century England (“A legend is sung of when England was young, and knights were brave and bold…”), Drew was like, “I have no memory of this song.” But I felt like my memories of this movie were all flooding back. When was the last time I watched The Sword in the Stone? A decade ago?
The DVD cover has Arthur pulling out the sword from the stone, which seems like kind of a spoiler, but I guess they can get away with it since the movie came out over 50 years ago.
Drew also pointed out about halfway through that there is basically no conflict in the film. There’s no king…but there’s also no deadline on when there has to be a king. Kay isn’t the nicest big brother, but he’s not all bad. Sir Ector seems pretty nice to Arthur, as 6th century foster fathers go. The pike is scary, as is the eagle, but neither of them is a threat once Arthur is human again. Madame Mim is scary, but then all Merlin does is make her sick and confine her to her bed…for a few weeks. What exactly is the conflict here?
Maybe that’s why the end is kind of weird. I think I recognized that as a kid…suddenly Arthur is the same 11-year-old kid, but wearing a robe and crown (over his regular clothes) and hanging out in a castle? What did he have to do to get to this place? Accidentally pick up a sword? Okay. And then Merlin comes back from 20th century Bermuda, which is funny because he’s talking about motion pictures and commercials, and Arthur and Archimedes are both like, “What’s that?” and then the movie’s over.
Don’t get me wrong – I liked it. It’s just easy to pick these things apart. And I like the Arthur legend – this makes me want to reread The Once and Future King.
My reaction: I have stuck this movie into my own personal Disney mind vault, among the Sword in the Stones and the Dumbos – a movie of which I know entire chunks of dialogue, and have certain favorite pieces of animation – but not one that I ever feel nostalgic for. I’m not going to pull this off the shelf and watch it on a rainy day. (That’s what makes this project so awesome…) Just the opening credits were a total delight. I love this animation. I love that Pongo is the narrator. I love that Anita and Roger, a newly married couple, are delighted by the prospect of 15 additional puppies (but it’s probably time to get those dogs fixed. All of them. Not so lucky now, are you, Lucky?). The music is great, the villains are great. This might be the first instance of Disney putting characters from an earlier movie into the film – Lady and the Tramp and a bunch of their cohorts are seen throughout 101 Dalmatians.
Others’ reactions: I was recently followed by an actual blogger (as opposed to the bots) – just a dad with disney questions. I read a bunch of his posts because yes! some of these are really good questions. In particular, I found myself thinking of his post about 101 Dalmatians while watching the movie. Dalmatian Defamation, indeed! Good luck, Roger and Anita!
The Cameraphone Diaries 