Mickey Mouse Mondays: Week 10: Mickey's Follies

Mickey's Follies is comprised of a vaudeville-type revue being held in a ramshackle barnyard. Mickey cedes the screen to his opening acts for the short's first half. These performers include a quacking quintet of dancing ducks and an operatic, offkey pig, who is booed off the stage by the raucous crowd. The strangest and therefore most interesting section comes from a hen and rooster who throttle one another in a slapstick routine. After smacking and choking one another to the delight of the spectators, the hen pauses the shenanigans and mumbles something to the rooster before scuttling offstage. It looks as though the hen has excused herself to relieve herself and in a way she has. We see her climb atop a wooden box where she stresses and strains to expel an egg. As the egg tumbles down a series of pipes before landing in a pan for the audience to see and cheer, the rooster appears, puffing out his chest, another proud father. Despite their strange shenanigans, none of these performers have the panache of the follies' titular star.

Unfortunately for the film's sake, once Mickey does take over it is in the worst way possible, performing a hackneyed musical number in a completely uncharacteristic voice that is introduced boldly as Mickey's Theme Song. The song, officially entitled "Minnie Yoo Hoo", is the first original song written for a Disney production. "When You Wish Upon a Star" it is not. The song does fit its ramshackle performance but it does not leave much of an impression. It is a generic pop song of the day with Mickey Mouse talking of his "sweetie in the hen house". Before we start to think that perhaps the proud rooster may not in fact have paternal rights to the recently revealed egg, the camera cuts to Minnie in the audience, waving to her grinning, gesticulating beau.

Mickey hams his way through the tune and we get one more crowd shot which concludes with two cats falling through the roof an outhouse upon an unsuspecting pig. This would not be the last time that Mickey, the ostensible star of his shorts, stepped aside for the performances of other cartoon creations. These cameos would allow the studio to work with other designs and test out new ideas for future films. While some characters stuck around, none would come close to claiming the spotlight of the studio's flagship creation. That is, not until 1934 when another dancing duck, this one cursed with one heck of a temper, demanded to be seen.

Viewing Verdict: Avoidable

The George Sanders Show Episode II: Dead by Dawn Now Available!

On the latest episode of The George Sanders Show, Sean and I discuss two sparse Westerns, Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. We also touch upon the recent brouhaha over the protrayal of American Indians in film and offer up our picks for cinema's quintessential lonely picture. Feedback on the show can be directed to thegeorgesandersshow[at]gmail[dot]com. Giddy up.

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Mickey Mouse Mondays: Week 9: Mickey's Choo-Choo

The best moment of Mickey's Choo-Choo comes at the very beginning. We see a train chugging along down the track, happily making its own percussive soundtrack as it goes. Like the monkey drummer in The Karnival Kid, the music the locomotive generates is surprisingly contemporary. It calls to mind the rhythm bed that makes up German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk's landmark "Trans-Europe Express". The rest of the short is comprised of Mickey and Minnie making music once again with whatever objects they find before they are trapped on a calamitous runaway train car.

A lot of the gags here are recycled from previous shorts. Mickey plays the belly of a howling dog in the same gleeful, slightly sadistic fashion that he did the menagerie of Steamboat Willie. Later he checks his watch which is fastened underneath his skin, requiring him to "roll up his sleeve" in a fashion similar to the many casual mutilations of The Karnival Kid. A fantastic piece of animation in Mickey's Choo-Choo comes when the anthropomorphised locomotive slowly starts moving down the track. The animation clearly recalls the movements of a figure skater on the rink, pushing one foot back while leaning forward.

Running cow - Plane Crazy

Running cow - Mickey's Choo-Choo

Mickey's Choo-Choo is the first short to blatantly recycle animation from a previous film. This is not entirely unexpected considering the insane work schedule the small studio was undertaking. In 1929 alone Walt Disney released a dozen films. Keeping up with that work load must have been daunting. In Mickey's Choo-Choo we see a return of the beleagured bovine that previously attempted escape from Mickey and Minnie's wayward airplane in Plane Crazy. Here the cowering cow is besieged by the runaway train. The vehicle may be different but the motion and facial expressions are the same.

Viewing Verdict: Avoidable

Introducing The George Sanders Show!

News flash: writing is for suckers!

While I'm certainly sucker enough to continue typing away on this here sliver of cyberspace -- that is, when I finally get off my duff and start writing again -- I am henceforth diversifying my brand and reaching out to that coveted youth demographic by conquering that hip new technological wonder, podcasting! Yes, that's right, from now until the government finds out that all of my film rants are code for smashing the imperialistic state, I'll be yakking about films with my good pal, Sean Gilman, editor-at-large at the great The End of Cinema blog. We're calling the program The George Sanders Show because, well, we're morons. Each week we'll be discussing two thematically similar features, one old, one newer. We'll also jabber about recent news in the movie world, like how much Mark Wahlberg will be getting paid for voicing a pygmy in an upcoming DreamWorks cartoon, because that's what we live for. The inaugural episode is up now for your discerned palettes. It was recorded in Sean's kitchen which contains more Peanuts memorabilia than is probably healthy. Just setting the scene people.

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You can find more information about upcoming episodes at our shared page, thegeorgesandersshow.blogspot.com We can also be found lurking on the Twitter-sphere at -- excuse me, @GeoSandersShow. I'll post updates here as well when new episodes are released. This is truly some utter piffle.

Mickey Mouse Mondays: Week 8: The Karnival Kid

The Karnival Kid sees Mickey slinging hot dogs at a ramshackle fairground. He incurs the ire of a carnival barker whose showmanship is questioned by Mickey's unconsciously competitive and much more honest shouts. Mickey ends up moving his food cart elsewhere and he meets Minnie. The couple then play meet cute over a grill of living, dancing weiners. The short is slim on plot, almost entirely devoid of humor and unpleasant to listen to. The caterwauling that constitutes the two musical numbers is intentional but that does not make them any easier to stomach.

For the most part, The Karnival Kid is just plain weird. The aforementioned spotlight showered upon living hot dogs aside, a strange recurring gag throughout the short involves characters removing parts of their bodies or pulling back their skin. The first one to do it is Mickey, ever the gentlemen, who in lieu of tipping his cap to Minnie pulls off his ears along with the upper part of his cranium in deference to her. We even get a glimpse of the hollow hole inside his head. Shortly thereafter Minnie peels back her leg to retrieve money to purchase a hot dog. The gag is surreal and surprisingly disconcerting but the short doubles down and we get at least four such instances of casual mutilation, each version less effective than the last.

One promising element of the short is its inclusion of a larger character population. Earlier shorts, especially the last few, have seen mostly clones of Mickey and Pete as the tertiary characters. Here, the fairgoers represent the most diverse menagerie we have seen thus far. Of course, cats and mice still take center stage but we get glimpses of a monkey musician (whose beats sound surprisingly contemporary), as well as pigs, cows, and other barnyard animals. These characters have yet to be more fully integrated into the plots but their background appearances make the film's world feel that much larger and is a sign that the productions going forward will be richer.

Viewing Verdict: Avoidable

Mickey Mouse Mondays: Week 7: The Barnyard Battle

War is hell. It is chaotic, ugly, and dehumanizing. Rare is the film that manages to outweigh the death and destruction with the virtuous and noble. Certainly there are heroes but they too are forced to commit atrocities. The fifth Mickey Mouse short of 1929, The Barnyard Battle brings several iterations of war home, pitting a ragtag group of neighborhood mice against the hulking, vicious felines that stalk the land. The short depicts a sort of cinematic fever dream of war, incorporating imagery of the First World War - the trenches and inexhaustible barrage of bullets - as well as harkening back to the primitive reality of the Civil War, with a marching band playing "Dixie".

The film begins with enlistment and we see Mickey going through a demeaning physical, where he is stripped naked and his insides are throroughly examined by a sadistic superior. Deeming the recruit fit for death on the battlefield, the physician brands the cadet with a stamp on his buttocks. OK. Once the war begins, we get several wonderful shots of angled perspective, the two best being the introduction of the ugly, monstrous cats who stalk into the frame before swallowing it whole, and then the shot from the battlefield as bullets and cannonballs fly hither and thither, exploding directly in front of the camera, showering the screen with exploding boulders. The short once again showcases Disney's inherent grasp of music. At the onset, a bugler playing reveille strains so hard for the high notes that he loses weight. Later, holed up in a house with a submachine gun, Mickey runs out of ammo and must resort to using the keys of a nearby piano, which when fired plays a descending scale as the ivory flies out the window.

While The Barnyard Battle is short on plot, it crams a lot of scenes and gags into its seven minutes. The short feels much faster paced than those that preceded it. However, the best cinematic moment of the film is when the proceedings actually slow down. Pete has trapped Mickey in the house. Fearing for his life, Mickey finds salvation when he grabs a shotgun from a nearby wall. Unfortunately, the gun is nothing more than a toy, which Mickey learns only after pulling the trigger. Here the film slows down to a glacial pace as Pete towers over Mickey, fuming and preparing for revenge. Mickey meanwhile tries to play off the fact that he just tried to murder Pete. Whistling a tune, chuckling to himself and walking around in circles. The scene drags on well past the point of credulity - certainly Pete would have assaulted Mickey by this point - and turns into a sort mini-burlesque, with Mickey the hapless performer and Pete a captive audience.

Viewing Verdict: Worthwhile

Cinematic Capsules: March 2013

It's been ridiculously quiet around these parts as of late and for that I apologize. The main reason for the silence, besides the general busyness of this thing called life, has been that I've been watching Doctor Who almost exclusively for the last couple of months and so my film viewing has suffered immeasurably. And if there's one thing the Internet doesn't need more of is blogs dedicated to Doctor Who. All I will say is that I still think Sylvester McCoy is severely underrated.

Chillin'.

Some other housekeeping things that should be mentioned. I have recently joined Letterboxd and have written pithy things about the few films I have managed to squeeze in between City of Death and Remembrance of the Daleks. I am including those below as the capsule reviews for this month. I have yet to decide whether I will continue the Cinematic Capsules after this month or just use Letterboxd for that purpose, leaving this blog to the long term projects (I promise to start posting the Mickey Mouse Mondays more regularly) and for longer individual pieces. There is a handy dandy link to my Letterboxd profile under the Moving Sidewalks heading on the right of this page. And now without further ado, movies! Allons-y!

God Bless America (2012)

There are several laughs littered throughout writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait's revenge fantasy targeted at today's vacuous celebrities. The film is a mash-up of sorts of Harold and Maude, Idiocracy, and Natural Born Killers. Unfortunately, the bloody fun is all but derailed by a seres of strident soapboxing from the protagonists who soliloquize in scene after scene about the decline of Western civilization. Goldthwait's eye for satire, seen in his homages of reality TV, Fox News, and American Idol, is much stronger than his rants, which wouldn't sound out of place in a high schooler's notebook.

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)

The comparisons between Studio Ghibli and the Walt Disney Studios of old are legion, although frequently lazy or misguided. There are just as many differences between the two studios and styles as there are similarities. However, the comparison is particularly apt in the obsessive refinement and attention to detail that goes into every element of a production. Nowhere is that more apparent than in director Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of the juvenile novel The Borrowers. The Secret World of Arrietty boasts a fantastically realized and thoughtfully conceived world where little people live under the noses of humans. The sets and sound design are practically unparalleled in any contemporary production, animated or otherwise. Compared to a Miyazaki-directed feature, Arrietty is rather slight, but it is a breezy, enjoyable film.