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September 27, 2005
Fun fall films full of fantastic frights and frills
Tim Burton, the man behind such ghoulish tales as Sleepy Hollow, has decided to follow up his 1993 masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas with The Corpse Bride, a tale of accidental marriage and ghostly encounters, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
In a fall full of potentially great movies, this one is a standout-a fantastic cast, a smart premise, and previews that will have you squirming for more.
All across campus, I’ve heard similar yearnings to see the film, and that’s started to make me wonder-when did animated films suddenly become a genre for adults. While, as an adult now (well, an adult who still gets care packages from his mother), I appreciate that there are movies for me in this growing genre, I still can’t help but wonder if we’re growing up a generation of children who aren’t going to have movie theatre memories.
It isn’t just Burton who has been gearing his animated films toward adults. The mammoth hits Shrek and Shrek 2 seemed to be filled with innuendo aimed right at the over eighteen crowd (how else to explain a Joan Rivers parody?), Pixar’s instant classic The Incredibles is more about middle-age then about superheroes, and Spirited Away is too escapist for most elementary students to appreciate. No, in recent years, studios have started to shy away from making films that appeal to all ages in animation, and have basically come to the conclusion that adults are the ones paying, they should get the product.
Or I should say quality product. After all, children still get movies made primarily for them, they’re just terrible. Disney’s atrocious Lilo and Stitch comes to mind, a tale so saccharine I went to a dentist afterward. Madagascar, a zoo tale as boring as a Jim Belushi sitcom, also springs to mine. True children’s animation has lost all of its bite, all of its magic.
Look at Pinocchio if you want a film to show how it truly used to be done. Here is a film that, while appealing to adults, is geared toward children. Yet, it has otherworldly magic and genuine scares (I often note the scene where Lampwick transforms from boy to donkey as one of the single most-disturbing scenes in all of film).
The latest bland fare doesn’t feel that children can handle scares quite as loud as Pinocchio’s, and so instead they parade around harmless aliens and cutesy sing-alongs.
In order for animation to go back to the children, studios are going to have to follow the lead of Finding
Nemo, a fish-out-of-water tale that manages to encompass the same qualities of Pinocchio-it’s magical (the ocean’s many caverns are explored), it’s thrilling (sharks, whales, and seagulls, oh my!), and it has solid writing.
Unlike Shrek the film doesn’t involve crass pop culture jokes that will be missed by the younger crowds, but instead has an array of visual gags that are timeless and appeal to all generations.
All in all, it is the sort of movie that adults and children can gather around the water cooler and discuss together.
For animation, the most escapist of all film genres, should truly be experienced by everyone.
Posted by msveum at September 27, 2005 12:10 PM
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