MY MOVIE SHELF: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 135  Days to go: 94

Movie #303:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit

A lot of these movies that were innovative and amazing back when they came out are naturally a bit outdated now, but Who Framed Roger Rabbit still impresses the hell out of me. It sets the bar, really, for this time of seamless integration of cartoon animation and live action. I mean, I haven’t seen Space Jam, but I’m willing to bet Who Framed Roger Rabbit is better.

For one thing, Who Framed Roger Rabbit has a solid plot and is an entertaining movie outside of its gimmick. It’s an old school P.I. story with a film noir wink. Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is the washed up detective roped into a case that turns out to be more than he bargained for. Dolores (the impeccable Joanna “I’m right on top of that, Rose!” Cassidy) is the good woman at his side, despite his downward spiral since his brother’s murder and his subsequent fall into the bottom of a bottle. Roger (Charles Fleischer) is our wronged husband, set up for murder. He just happens to be a cartoon. And his wife, Jessica (Kathleen Turner) is your basic femme fatale, only without the fatale part. (She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.) Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) is the scary hardass arm of the law out to get them all. It’s the type of movie that has a format and a formula, but the notes it hits don’t feel like tropes because of the creativity and the freshness brought on by the angle of toons living amongst us, and Toon Town being a real place that they’re all from.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit doesn’t just adopt the feel of a forties mystery, though. It also adopts the style and feel of a classic cartoon. There are sight gags and the physics are fluid and stretchy (particularly in Toon Town) and there are jokes, jokes, jokes. The movie is silly and joyful, even when it’s dark. There are heroes and villains, but the stakes are delightfully cartoonish. (Most of the time. Dip is pretty scary, especially considering the brutal way Doom straight up murders that shoe.)

My favorite parts of the movie, though, are the little things. When Roger puts his hand on Eddie’s brother’s chair, he leaves a mark in the dust on it. When Roger peeks through the hidey hole at the bar, his eyeballs knock over a beer bottle. When Eddie is hiding Roger in his sink and lets him up to breathe, he spits water everywhere. I love all these tiny details. And I love Bob Hoskins. And I love Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

“You mean you could’ve taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?”

“No, not at any time, only when it was funny.”

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: Mermaids

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 199  Days to go: 203

Movie #178:  Mermaids

I really relate to Charlotte Flax (Winona Ryder). I was never as crazy as she is, but I get her. Those middle teen years are brutal. Charlotte lives with her mother Mrs. Flax (Cher) and little sister Kate (Christina Ricci, even more wee and adorable than she grew up to be), and every time Mrs. Flax feels restless or in need of a change, she packs up the family and moves to wherever her fancy strikes. It’s something she talks about with regard to her love for cars — the freedom to leave, to go where she wanted, to live life by her rules — that started back when she was Charlotte’s age. Charlotte hates everything about it.

Mermaids is such a special film because it explores the relationships of mothers and daughters in ways most movies don’t. It focuses on the relationship when it’s perhaps most volatile, but in a way that neither undermines nor champions either side. Charlotte and Mrs. Flax both have valid opinions and they both have unreasonable expectations. They both make smart decisions and they both make huge mistakes. It’s in this way that Mermaids is actually able to create a relationship filled with strife that still feels authentic and full of love.

Mrs. Flax is a woman who has been burned before. Charlotte’s father left her the day Charlotte was born and from that point on, it’s seemed, especially from Charlotte’s viewpoint, that Mrs. Flax has spurned any kind of commitment, from romance to full meals (Mrs. Flax only cooks hors d’oeuvres). Meanwhile, Charlotte longs for stability. She fantasizes about her father (a sort of “grass is greener” compulsion I understand quite well) and scorns her mother and desperately finds to find a place for herself that is the opposite of her mother’s life.

For Charlotte, this idyllic life is currently focused in Catholicism, despite her family being actually Jewish. And as someone who felt pretty lost herself around this age, I fully understand that need to embrace something sturdy and reliable, something that promises solace and answers. Of course, mostly Charlotte just manages to confuse herself and by the end of the film has found a new obsession.

Catholicism isn’t her only obsession in the film, though. The more fervent, all-consuming obsession of Charlotte’s is Joe (Jake Ryan himself, Michael Schoeffling) — convent caretaker and school bus driver extraordinaire. In direct conflict with her quest for religious purity, Joe has turned Charlotte into a raving horndog. Brilliantly, Mermaids addresses the sexuality of a teenage girl with frank sincerity. She is filled with lustful thoughts and desires. She is curious and naive and worldly, all at once. She is growing into womanhood in physical and emotional ways, and her sexuality isn’t left out of that journey. That’s what adolescence feels like, and not nearly enough movies (especially in 1990) spoke to those things in honest and straightforward and believable ways. I love Mermaids for that.

I also love how it deals with an idea I’ve thought quite a lot about: how as a teenager you push away from everything your parents stand for, and how your children will push away from you, and how the cycle will repeat itself into infinity. And yet, even as you lead your life in opposition to your parents, you still wind up becoming them. It’s a fascinating, disturbing, mind-boggling phenomenon, and it’s as common as dirt. Mermaids portrays all that really well too.

The other great thing about Mermaids is Bob Hoskins, who plays Lou. Bob Hoskins is not your typical romantic lead, and yet when Mrs. Flax tells Lou he’s a sexy guy, you believe her. He is clearly, openly into her. In a big way. And they have a ton of natural chemistry that sizzles on the screen. I love how accepting he is of her and how unafraid he is to call her on her bullshit. He’s simply perfect for her, and to be honest, when Hoskins died this year all I could think was how devastated Mrs. Flax must be. They make quite a couple.

Also, can someone hook me up with a Mrs. Flax as a Mermaid costume? I’d be really grateful.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Hook

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 233  Days to go: 238

Movie #144:  Hook

Hook is an interesting movie — kind of sad, kind of sweet, kind of weird, and way too long. Based on the premise that the original Peter Pan story really happened, it posits that Peter (Robin Williams) eventually stayed with Wendy (Maggie Smith) in London — having fallen in love at first sight with Wendy’s granddaughter Moira (Caroline Goodall) — and grew up to be a boring, old fuddy-duddy named Peter Banning who has two kids, Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and Maggie (Amber Scott). But when the Banning clan travels back to London to visit Granny Wendy, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) returns and kidnaps Jack and Maggie to incite a war with Peter.

Spielberg has an affinity for father-son stories, and Hook delves into that quite a bit. Peter is a busy and important businessman with little time for family commitments — he takes a call (on a GIANT flip phone) during his daughter’s play and he misses Jack’s baseball game entirely. He doesn’t like his kids running around or making noise or being childish, and he frequently tells Jack, especially, to grow up. So when Jack finds himself in Neverland, and his father once again disappoints by not making enough of an effort (in Jack’s mind) to save them, Jack is easily swayed by the encouragement of Captain Hook and soon forgets his parents altogether. (Neverland makes you forget.)

Peter has also forgotten, but what he can’t remember is his life in Neverland, his life as Pan. “He can’t fly, he can’t fight, and he can’t crow,” as new Lost Boy leader Rufio (Dante Basco) points out. But Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) believes in Peter, and she convinces the Lost Boys to give him a chance. Bit by bit, he regains his memory and his playfulness and even his happy thoughts, naturally saving the day and returning home to their Happily Ever After, but the movie is clunky in several areas.

The casting of Hook is very, very weird. Robin Williams makes a great Pan, in theory, but he’s more than a little disquieting as a disapproving parent. Julia Roberts is an odd choice for Tinkerbell, in just about every conceivable way. I like her a lot, and I don’t mind the performance, but it’s a strange fit. Dustin Hoffman affects an unusual voice for Hook, and plays him with far more severity than the blundering silliness that had heretofore been a hallmark of the character would seem to call for. Meanwhile, Maggie Smith was only 57 when this movie came out and yet she’s costumed to look older than she currently does, actually approaching 80, on Downton Abbey. And there are all sorts of cameos that make no kind of sense at all: Phil Collins as a detective, David Crosby, Jimmy Buffett and Glenn Close as pirates, and a smooching George Lucas and Carrie Fisher just because.

Bob Hoskins actually works pretty well as Mr. Smee, but where the real casting triumphs are fall within the Lost Boys. Rufio is cocksure and swaggering — a confident leader with no use for this old, fat Peter. But he’s also just vulnerable and jealous enough to feel threatened by the Lost Boys’ faith in Pan. When his arrogance is struck down in a fight against the pirates, it’s an honest loss felt by all. The rest of the boys, too, are all adorable moppets with varying levels of smudged-nose adorableness and enthusiastic roughhousing, with the cream of the crop easily being Raushan Hammond as Thud Butt — a super cute, rotund little man who literally rolls himself into a ball to knock down some pirates in battle. He’s sweet and earnest and oh, so lovable. His genuine glee and awed pride at receiving Pan’s sword warms the heart for days.

The story itself is also a bit awkward and labored, but really seems to lend itself to being more enjoyable the more you disconnect from your rational mind — much like Peter needs to do in order to find his Pan. If you open your imagination and childlike spirit, the film can be quite touching and fun.

Sadly, not even childlike imagination can save Hook from being way too long. It could easily lose thirty minutes and probably be a much better film for it, but I still find it hard to let this one go. I keep it on my shelf through thick and thin because something in it just appeals to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lost my marbles.