The Jazz Singer- Back in Black-Face

This is the 50th movie to receive the No Spoiler Tags treatment and it is nearly the one-year anniversary of this blog, so it's great that The Jazz Singer offers me the opportunity to discuss movie history, old-timey racism, and to revive the theme that inspired this blog, the ending scene that ruins it all.

The Jazz Singer has a legendary place in movie history as the very first talkie. But watching it, it is actually less "talkie" and more "singie" as almost every word in the film is in musical form. Most of the film is in the silent picture speech card style. The real promise of the medium is only revealed in a brief song break when Jackie has a short conversation with is mother. A real conversation with rapid back in forth banter and not flapping lips followed by a card. All the intonation of actual speech is there. There are no missing lines as is common in the speech card format. For just a few seconds, The Jazz Singer feels like a truly modern movie.

The plot of the film follows a young man who is thrown out of his traditional Jewish home because of his love of jazz. He travels to London, changes his name, meets a girl and gets his big break back in New York. (As we all know, no new musical form can receive a widespread American audience unless it is stolen from black people and sung by a white guy from the British Isles.) The climax of the film comes on the night of his big debut on Broadway when Jackie must chose if he will be a jazz signer or a cantor. Unfortunately, this scene takes place as Jackie is applying black-face.

I think old-timey racism is hilarious. Not real, damaging racism, like the denial of rights and property and the treatment of minorities as second-class citizens, but blatant in-your-face racism that serves no purpose other than to insult, like black-face, is pretty funny in retrospect. It's funny because it highlights the stupidity of bigotry and winds up being more insulting to the bigot than their intended target in hindsight. Of course, these racist caricatures are still around today (For an example, see Nacho Libre. On second thought, don't.) and it is my sincere hope that one day we can all come together in a spirit of friendship and laugh at how ignorant we were now.

All that is to say that when Jackie, covered in black shoe polish, exclaimed, "I feel the call of my race!", I literally laughed out loud, but then I started thinking about the symbolism of the scene. I realized that the black-face was not specifically black-face, but represented the make-up and masks of the theater, the appeal of becoming someone else, and the joy of acting and singing. The scene was about who he wanted to be the tradition-bound cantor's son, Jackie Rabinowitz, or the jazz singer, represented by his theatrical make-up, Jack Robin. The black-face representing his false self covering who he truly was.

Eventually, Jackie chooses to sing at the synagogue, winning back his father's love, and shunning the theater. If only, the exit music started with the hand of the Cantor's ghost on his son's back. But there was one more scene, one where Jack Robin is back in black-face singing about his mammy on stage headlining a brand new production and completely ruining the ending. First of all, this is a significant plot-hole as his producer had made it perfectly clear that if Jackie skipped the opening night of his staring role on Broadway, that he would never be given another chance in the theater and the producer would have been totally in the right for ruining him. Secondly, after making a great sacrifice to finally earn back his father's love, Jackie has chosen to spit on his father's grave by once again defying his wishes. This also leaves us with an unanswered question of what happened to the congregation who are apparently once again without a cantor. And finally, the use of black-face here, without the symbolism of the previous scene and with the additional racism of singing about mammy, makes me think I gave The Jazz Singer too much credit in the previous paragraph.

And now in No Spoiler Tags, I don't have an ending tradition...AC/DC!

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes- And Then The Bombers Came...

Although I had never seen it before tonight, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (or more specifically its trailer) was one of the movies that inspired this blog. From the trailer alone, I could spot two critical errors which would make this film ridiculously stupid and stopped me from watching this movie earlier. (You don't often meet SAM six months before the movie is released.) And although there was a twist which almost cleared up these errors, they were still there and they made this film ridiculously stupid. Play along and see if you can find them.

The answers are it would be out of continuity with the original movie it was supposed to be a prequel of and there would be no realistic way that the apes could take over the world.

In The Planet of the Apes, we learn that the humans blew themselves up into near extinction after the astronauts blasted off during a still raging Cold War and in the absence of humans the apes evolved and took control, (That's not really how evolution works, but that's another rant.) but they are still not as smart as humans. Here is were the twist comes in and they release a deadly virus that opens up an opportunity for the apes. So, its not really The Rise of the Planet of the Apes so much as its The Rise of the Deadly Virus Accidentally Released by Unethical Biomedical Researchers Operating in Violation Safety Guidelines And I Almost Forgot There Were Some Monkeys, Too. The ending of The Planet of the Apes was to send a message that continued nuclear brinksmanship would inevitably lead to the destruction of mankind. But setting The Rise of the Planet of the Apes in the post-Cold War era leaves us with the unanswered question of why did we finally do it? Us maniacs! Why did we blow it up? Ah, damn us! God damn us all to hell!

The virus makes it a bit more realistic that the monkey revolution could have succeeded, but the concept still fall well short of the laugh test. The fact is humans have millions of years of experience and development into new and better ways to kill each other and a vast numerical advantage over the apes. We've got nukes, fighter planes, 7 billion soldiers, and Sun Tzu and the apes have feces throwing. (Our biowarfare programs are a bit further along.) The fact is the most realistic continuation of the story by the end of the credits the Air Force flies over the forest and ends the monkey threat. Unless the apes are Lawnmower Man smart, there is nothing they can do to stop that. (Evidence indicates the apes are around normal human intelligence and magic-powers-smart would be another strike against continuity.) There are between 170 and 300 thousand Common Chimpanzees left in the wild and even with a deadly virus outbreak, with a numerical advantage of more than 23,000:1, I think humanity has a good shot at taking out 300,000 Lawnmower Monkeys in an all out war.

P.S.-I know the difference between a monkey and an ape. I just don't care.

The Amazing Spider-Man- The Lois Lane Game

It seems only yesterday we were saying hello to Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and now we have a new Spider-Man, a more accurate to the comics Spider-Man, a better than 3 but not as good as 1 or 2 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man. I liked that Gwen and Doc Connors finally got some screen time and that the web shooters were mechanical again, but everything else could have been better.

Let's start at the end. The Lizard is about to turn the populous of New York into lizard creatures until Spider-Man switches the lizardizing serum for the back-to-humanizing serum thus exposing the entire populous of New York, of which only a tiny percentage were lizard creatures, to a powerful mutagen. This serum has not been properly tested for effectiveness at its intended purpose (i.e. curing mutant lizardism) nor have any side-effects been determined. And the effect on unaltered humans is completely unknown. All that is really known about this serum is that it dramatically alters DNA, so of course, it is perfectly safe to indiscriminately scatter over one of the largest cities in the world. This scene turns on its head what was otherwise a cautionary tale regarding the need for rigorous study regarding scientific, especially biomedical, research. Spider-Man should have stopped the lizardizing machine, cured Dr. Connors, and then tracked down the rest of the lizards and cured them one at a time. It's a more difficult, slower and more dangerous method and there are bound to be civilian casualties from rampaging lizards; however, New York City won't have cancer in five years.

Other than the fact that Spider-Man has probably killed thousands, this movie has a serious Lois Lane problem. Lois Lane is billed as the world greatest reporter, but she can't figure out that the guy she works with, the guy that keeps coming up with lame excuses to suddenly leave, the guy that is never around when Superman is, and the guy that looks an awful lot like Superman with glasses is in fact Superman. This huge blind-spot makes me question not just her ability as a reporter, but if she is intelligent enough to care for herself. So with that in mind, let's play The Lois Lane Game and figure out how long it should have taken various characters to guess Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

People on the Subway- Peter demonstrates his strength, stickiness and agility to a car-full of people. No one on the train recognizes him, but one of the passengers sells their story to a tabloid and the security cam footage goes viral on Youtube. Peter is recognized within three days.

Peter's classmates- Peter humiliates Flash using strength, stickiness and agility. He later throws a football so hard that it bends the uprights. Someone puts it together ten seconds later.

NYPD- A vigilante is targeting criminals with a very specific appearance. The police run a database search on people which match said description and find one is suspected of murdering Ben Parker. Police arrive at the Parker household and see that Peter matches the height and weight of Spider-Man. It takes a week for the pattern to emerge and Peter is under arrest within an hour.

Luckily, clouds of untested mutating agents raining down from above have never been proven to cure Lois Lane Syndrome. Side-effects include Hulking-out, Flaming-on, and slow and painful death.

The Lion King- The King of White Pride Rock

The Lion King is the greatest animated film of all time. The music, the characters, the Hamlet inspired story, and the incredible artwork combine to create something truly wonderful beyond any of the individual pieces. This magnificent piece of art represents thousands of hours of work by numerous extremely talented artists, musicians, and actors. I've seen this movie more times than I can count, but the opening sequence still gives me chills.

When I talk about traditional animation being innately better than computer animation, this is what I mean. Look at the detail in the illustrations and the expressionism in Rafiki's eyes. They can't do that with computers. These drawings have soul. That comes from a lot of hard work and love from the illustrators. Hand drawings can't fall into the uncanny valley like computer animation can. Brave may have been the prettiest computer animated film to date, but there's nothing in that film that comes close to the opening of The Lion King.

With all that said, this blog has delightfully perverted the way I watch movies and it is now apparent to me that The Lion King is so racist it could have been written by Walt Disney himself.

In the opening minutes of the film, we are told that all creatures have their place in the great circle of life, but seconds later we are informed that hyenas are not permitted on the lush prairies of the Prideland. (Prideland **Nudge** **Nudge** **Wink** **Wink** Know what I mean? Know what I mean?) They must be forcefully kept in their place. The hyenas are constantly battling starvation on barren lands while the lions live in opulence.

When Scar, takes power he's portrayed as evil. Why? Because, he supports desegregation. (Ok, so he did kill Mufasa, but that bigot had it coming.) When Simba returns, the Pridelands are dying, but it's not because the hyenas have over-hunted the land as the lions would like you to believe. It's because the savannah has been struck by a terrible drought. There is nothing Scar did or could have done to cause that. In fact, in a time of drought, a little extra hunting would relieve some of the demand for water and thus make the environment healthier, at least in the short-term. Scar and the hyenas are being scapegoated for a natural phenomenon so that the lions can justify their racism. Scar, by the way, is the only brown lion. All the other lions are blond (Aryans).

So while Apartheid was ending in South Africa, Disney was making a movie about how desegregation would destroy Africa. It's good to see Walt's legacy lives on.

Oh, and some of it might have been stolen from Kimba the White Lion.

I'm furry for Nala. That is all.

Brave- One Small Step for Woman...

Disney heroines have a long running theme of needing to be saved by a man. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are the most literal manifestations of this theme as they are trapped in a perpetual slumber until their Prince Charming kisses them and brings them back to life. (Move along, no symbolism to see here.) The Beauty and the Beast has an even more dangerous theme: it doesn't matter how much he yells and hits you, if you love him enough he will become Prince Charming. The moral of The Little Mermaid is that you should change everything about yourself to get a man. And even Mulan, with its ass-kicking warrior princess, hides that Little Mermaid theme under its girl power exterior.

But with Brave, Pixar shatters this theme that a woman needs a man both with word and deed. And Princess Merida thoroughly denounces her need for a man before saving the day...with sewing.

 

Oh well, that's progress, I guess. Women in the workforce and all.

Princess Merida does display an extraordinary amount of courage standing against tradition and a giant bear. But really, why sewing, Pixar? It kind of undercuts the message. Don't you think?

Okay, so the way the movie is cut it was probably the apology that cured the queen, but still that is radically different than how a male hero would have come to the rescue. Can you imagine Mufasa descending from the clouds to tell Simba, "Have a nice chat with your uncle and if you can gently remind him that renewable resources can become overtaxed if they are improperly managed. And remember [echo] it's your mom's birthday next week. You should give her a call. [Long echo and fade away.]"

With its castles, royalty, and magic, Brave is the Pixar movie which looks the most like a Disney film and it borrows heavily from several of them. The trailer promised Mulan with a Scottish accent. The deal with the witch is a callback to The Little Mermaid. The archery contest is out of Robin Hood.  But surprisingly, the Disney film it's most like is the one that effectively killed their traditional animation department, Brother Bear.

I shouldn't have to tell you it's good. Of course, it's good. It's Pixar. If things were fair, it would probably win Best Picture, but the Oscars have a terrible bias against animated films, comedies, and films intended primarily for children. But I doubt I will see a better film this year. [Update: I was wrong. Life of Pi should but won't win Best Picture.]

And it's beautiful, too. I had Lord of the Rings flashbacks during the landscape shots early in the film. The rules of 3D were followed almost perfectly. There were just a few shots with overly rapid movement. There were a number of dark scenes, but they never got too dark. Few films have ever used the 3D medium better.

Now, the updated Pixar rankings.

1. Toy Story 3

2. Toy Story

3. Up

4. A Bug's Life (Has been way underrated)

5. Finding Nemo

6. Brave

7. Toy Story 2

8. Wall-E

9. The Incredibles (Has been way overrated)

10. Monsters University (A high achievement in low comedy)

11. Ratatouille

12. Monsters Inc.

13. Cars 2

14. Cars (Will being about Pixar's inevitable demise)

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted- Your Most Recent Common Ancestor Would Be Ashamed

I was a little reluctant to see Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. I found the previous Madagascar movies to be very uneven. In the earlier films, the main characters were consistently unfunny. They were also weighed down with annoying lemur, but peppered with uproariously funny spurts of penguin. So, I went hoping to find enough penguin to salvage the rest of the film. The previous films were filled with verbal gags and reference humor which rarely landed, but the third movie completely shattered the old paradigm, opting instead for an explosion of rapid fire sight gags. The main characters worked much better when they had less to say and the lemurs were nearly cut out. It was a manic journey of light and sound. And it worked pretty well. Rarely have I seen a movie so blatantly and delightfully divorced from all sibilance of logic.

But for a film with such a geographically based title, it fails the subject pretty badly. The animals' first stop in their journey though Europe is the city of Monte Carlo in the independent state of Monaco. This is were we encounter our primary antagonist, DeBois, who is repeatedly referred to as French. She is clearly not part of an international unit as evidenced by her encounters with Italian authorities. So either she is an immigrant to Monaco, which is an unnecessary, confusing, and unexplained bit of backstory, or the filmmakers should have bought a map. This is why our kids our falling behind in geography.

We like to be open minded here at No Spoiler Tags. We approve of interracial and homosexual relationships and even polygamy, if it is truly consensual and involving partners of legal age. However, this film must be condemned for blatantly advocating a most wicked lifestyle choice: inter-species sex. We believe that a species is a group of genetically isolated individuals capable of producing genetically viable offspring and that attempting to produce hybrids makes a biologist's life harder. As it says in Darwin 3:14, "That's just icky." On the day of the Great Taxonomy, Almighty Linnaeus will cast the hybridizers unto the clade Hexapoda where they must spend all eternity amongst the Arthropods. Man-on-dog is the road to santorum. And furthermore, how does a lemur have sex with a bear, I mean physically, how does that work? He must have to stand on a table or something.

Yes Man- The Joys and Dangers of Living Weird

Here at No Spoiler Tags we fully support the concept of living weird. We believe "normal" is an insult and we crave new adventures. Yes, this site is primarily devoted to shining the cold, calculating eye of logic and science onto other people's imaginations and I've written a completely non-satirical piece on why you should give up on your dreams, but that is because we also believe that peculiarity must be tempered with practicality. Yes Man is a surprisingly not terrible movie about a man who cannot find the proper balance between the two.

Carl begins the film with a stick firmly implanted up his rectum. His friends, fed up with his constant dodging, are ready to dump him. He has closed his mind to the possibilities.

Then, he goes the other way. He becomes the embodiment of spontaneity and finds it exhilarating, especially as it involves fucking Zooey Deschanel. However, he is also repeatedly robbed, scammed, raped by an old lady, and generally taken advantage of by friends and strangers alike. Everything works out in the end for Carl, but in reality he would be broke in under a day (as he must buy everything an ad tells him to), fired in under a month (a lot of those loans look terrible and somebody's bound to use the opportunity to rob the bank), and probably dead in under a year (some combination of alcohol, drugs, and exhaustion, if nothing else). So, there is a serious downside to this lifestyle. (On the other hand, fucking Zooey Deschanel.)

Zooey Deschanel is actually the role model to follow in this movie. She embraces living weird, but maintains touch with reality. She knows no one wants to buy her crappy photographs or listen to her shitty band, but she contributes(?) to the local art scene because she loves it. This is what I meant in my give up on your dreams piece. You can be a rock star in your own mind, but know deep down in your soul that you truly suck. (For the record, my only readers are Russian spambots and I like it that way.)

The No Spoiler Tags Guide to Weirdness:

1. Weird is a choice.- You will never be bizarre if you don't put in the effort.

2. Remind yourself to be strange.- I watch one of these get out and do something movies, like Yes Man, about once every six months to shame myself into trying something new. (I signed up for golf lessons as soon as the film ended. Not that strange, but it is new.) Some better movies with a similar theme include The Dead Poets Society, Garden State and Stranger Than Fiction. I also happen to own the watch from Stranger Than Fiction (I had it before the film came out.) and I live in fear everyday that it will throw me under a bus if I disappoint it. You may find it useful to attach a death threat to a totem of your own.

3. Don't think, Just do.- If I give myself a chance to find a reason to back out, I usually will. So, I find a way to commit myself before I get a chance to think about the consequences. Buy your plane ticket and figure out how you're getting to the airport later. Yes, this is a contradiction to the first half of this piece when I encouraged insanity based on sanity, but you will usually know when something is bound to end poorly right away and can avoid the bad decision.

4. You will get hurt.- Last night, a pocket of air was begging to receive a double flying kick. (The air knows what it did.) The air, being a compressible fluid, was unharmed by my powerful blow. My leg, on the other hand, received a sizable gash as it caught on a sharp edge on a counter-top. I won't tell you to not perform impractical martial arts on fantasy opponents or even to check for sharp corners before moving spastically, that would defeat the purpose of such an action, but just know at some point you will get hurt. Physically, emotionally, financially. At some point, being weird will hurt. In the long run, I firmly believe weirdness will always pay off, but you'll get some scars along the way.

5. Don't listen to me.- This is your ride, baby. Don't be content to follow my rules or anyone else's. Find out just how far you can push the envelope. (Philosophical question: If you follow this rule, are you breaking this rule?)