IHAO on ... Galavant season 1

ABC has been doing a pretty cool thing.  You see, television is changing as a medium to broadcast entertainment.  With Netflix and the increase in DVD sales, but mostly Netflix, television channels need to produce content not only more often, but more efficiently to keep the audience tuning in.  But there has been no way to improve the actual amount of time it takes to make an episode of a television show: roughly 7 days for a complicated 30 minute show and 9 or 10 days for an hour-long show.  Yeah, look at those numbers.  Simple math let's you know that they have to start airing things before they are done filming an entire season.  On top of that, human decency means that there are times when those actors, grips, props guys, producers and the like all get time off, like Christmas.  Add in scheduling conflicts and random accidents, making a television show becomes a much larger endeavor.

So, like I said, ABC has been doing a pretty cool thing.  They have been creating short-run shows, with smaller episode orders, to fill in the gaps of broadcasting when their regular shows have to take the breaks in broadcasting that are inevitable.  Agent Carter is the post-WW2 super-spy Marvel show that filled the gap of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  But considering I just cannot get into Agents of SHIELD, I also didn't really give Agent Carter much of a thought.  But I have heard good things.  Wait, I'm getting off track.

So, as I've said a few times before, ABC has been doing that pretty cool thing.  And even cooler, their big show Once Upon a Time had to take a break, so they brought together a super talented group of people to make a short 8-episode musical comedy miniseries show, Galavant!  Hit the music!

See what I did there?

Galavant is a musical, made by everyone involved that made Disney's Tangled, except it is a tongue-in-cheek live action comedy.  It is ... pretty good.  Good enough that I wanted to talk about it with all of you folks.  The characters are all interesting, the performances are all fun, the sets are amazing, the costuming mostly great, and the story is classic.  It is one of my favorite things to talk about, actually, when it comes to how "silliness" affects narrative.  There are a few ways to do it.  There's to have a silly premise and then treat everything as seriously as you can, despite the silly, which I have really loved in One Piece.  Then there's having a serious premise, which then some silly things can happen but you stay true to your goals, which is how I like to run roleplaying games.  Then there's Galavant, which takes the piss right on the whole binary concept I just made up and goes straight down the middle.  The characters are all thought out and serious, except thy are ridiculous and silly.  The plot is a great fantasy plot, except some of the details are just ridiculous.  The musical nature of the show leads to comedic songs all the way through and meta-jokes, like asking when someone learned how to dance after a number, but then there's other moments of just straight drama.

Galavant is not going to be for everyone, mostly because it doesn't do one things straight through.  It enjoys every element it can have.  Serious songs, silly songs, important character beats, ridiculous ones, they are all mixed in.  And with that mixed bag, I would absolutely call Galavant a mixed bag.  I enjoyed quite a bit of it, and then I found myself going "meh" for bits of it.  Especially some of the songs, as they tend to always shoot for joke songs, and I really would like there to be a non-joke song every once in awhile so that I could just hear these good actors sing.

So why should you be excited for it?  Because it is a cool new way of thinking about television!  It is higher quality programming with a smaller episode order that is used as a win-win between bigger shows, but in fact is way better than the bigger show that surrounds it.  Once Upon a Time looks fake and CGI-y all the time, and the acting is so ponderous and heavy that it gets bogged down.  Galavant is able to do most of the same tropes, with better sets and costumes AND actors, with an amazing team, but it is a quarter of the length, so you can enjoy it and be done with it.  On top of that, the season finale absolutely shows that ABC is planning to give its audience even more, which is only a good thing in my book.

I would say give it a shot.  At 30 minutes and episode, and only 8 episodes, even if you don't care for a small part of it, it'll be over quickly, and you can move on to great other things.  Me, I'm excited.  Rutger Hauer, Vinnie Jones, that guy from Frankenstein's Army, two hot chicks, Magnitude, and the only good thing from Psych, all working together to make something with the guys who made Tangled, the last Disney musical.

Grade:B+

IHAO on ... Scrooge

I do not like the Christmas Carol.

Yes, yes, I'm a heathen, I'm wrong, I should be punished, yadda yadda yadda.  I do not like the story of a Christmas Carol.  While there are adaptations that have warmed my heart, like the Muppets and Mickey, most leave me cold, like Patrick Stewart's, Kelsey Grammar's, George C. Scott's, the list goes on.  But there is an old 1970s version, staring Sir Alec Guinness and Albert Finney which I have never seen, and for some people, it is there definitive version of the story!  So I strapped on my big boy pants, sat down, and got ready with a clear conscience to give this one a shot.  And ... it was fine.

Yeah, I was expecting something bigger.  But it was just ... fine.  It just kind of averaged out to a fine film.  And I say "averaged out" on purpose, because there is some stuff I love, and some stuff that I really hated.  And sometimes they are the same thing, actually.

Like ... let's talk about "scope."  Scope in a film is how enormous or small something feels.  Lord of the Rings films have ENORMOUS scope, and their influence vastly changed the scope of most films, making many adventure and fantasy films enlargen their scope when a smaller scope suited the story better.  Look at the Walden Media Chronicles of Narnia films.  They tried to emulate that enormous scope of the Lord of the Rings films, when those are really much smaller more intimate stories that use scope sparingly to really emphasize their points in the books and earlier, far superior adaptations.  And Scrooge's scope is very large.  It makes London feel bustling and big, and truly I loved that in the beginning, seeing the thriving city and the enormous sets.  But then you reach Scrooge's house where it is just ... empty space.   Or the scene where he walks through the city, finding people that owe him money and you start to get lost in a sea of faces that are hard to remember.  And all the pathos you are supposed to have for the Cratchets gets lost because of the soup man, and the puppet guy, and the old ladies, and the annoying kids.  And you reach the musical numbers which are all just huge and ... impersonal.  Or even worse, detrimental.

"Thank You Very Much" is such a bitter song because Scrooge doesn't get the joke.  He doesn't know what the people are really saying, and the entire song and filming of the sequence is ENORMOUS.  The entirety of this little burb of London is singing and mocking Scrooge.  Compare that with the scene from the Muppets Christmas Carol, where Scrooge watches in as his maid sells his curtains.  In the Muppets version (which I do believe is much closer to the written story, by the way) you watch as Scrooge starts to piece together that this is a future where he is dead, filling him with dread.  But with "Thank You Very Much" he doesn't get that.  Scrooge doesn't see that at all, he just goes along merrily, and the point loses all its nuance.  And then he goes to hell.

Oh yeah, he goes to hell in Scrooge.

Albert Finney is really good ... but also is directed to be very broad.  Everyone is.  Everyone's acting is just as broad as can be.  The nice people are the nicest.  The mean people are the meanest.  The jovial Scrooge at the end is big and just silly with joy!  And that is ... boring.  There isn't anything interesting, like with Uncle Scrooge from Mickey's Christmas Carol pretending to still be mean (again, a scene I do believe is in the original story) but having the hardest time because he is BURSTING WITH JOY!  That bursting is like ... ok, here's the difference between the acting.  Finney, in that final scene, is a bucket of joy.  Just a whole bucket that is filled with joy, and you can see it.  But Uncle Scrooge is a water hose of joy that is all kinked up as the joy builds up pressure trying to push its way out.  And the Uncle Scrooge version is just plain old better and more interesting as acting.

I think Scrooge is a very average film, filled with large, broad brushstrokes of skill.  It is not subtle, it is not realistic, and it loses all those little details that makes good adaptations of a Christmas Carol so great.  Scrooge is in no way bad.  But for me, it gets lost in the shuffle, and I cannot honest say that I really ever want to see it again.  If it was on, I may watch part of it.  But I'm much more likely to turn it off, or put on a version of a story I hate that actually ended up making me like the story.

Grade: C

Hey, guess what, tomorrow is CHRISTMAS!  So you can beat I won't have any reviews for tomorrow or Friday, because CHRISTMAS!  But, I will the next week start a whole week of 2014 in Review articles, including a special AMA about my favorite or opinion on "best" THINGS of the year!  It'll be a hoot!  It'll be wrestling, and tv, and movies, and randomness!  And it'll be glorious!  I'll see you guys on Monday for the BEST WRESTLING of 2014 review!

IHAO on ... Olive, the Other Reindeer

Nostalgia and Christmas go hand in hand.  I am perfectly happy to admit it, there are specials and movies from Christmas and my childhood that I love but are really not that good.  Chipmunk Adventure, how you spurn me with your sometimes great animation, awesome music, and mostly really terrible-ness.  And it is always crazy to me to find new nostalgia.  You know, kids films from when I was a teenager that never did anything for me, but for some people is what Christmas was for them.  Olive the Other Reindeer absolutely is that.

I totally get why this may be a loved special.  It is quirky, sometimes funny, very simple, very interesting, starring a cute dog.  Olive is a dog, but when things go poorly because of an evil mailman and Blitzen getting hurt, Santa cancels Christmas.  Olive misunderstands the radio when it talks about "all of the other reindeer" and thinks it is saying her name!  So she heads to the north pole with a penguin con artist to save Christmas.  And ... this special is ... wow, ok ... uh ...

I'm ... I'm just going to get on with it.

First, this thing is ugly.  Ugly character designs, really weird animation that baffles me.  They could have gone with cheaper flash animation or actual real animation, considering Matt Groening produced it.  It is based on a popular kids book, so that's good, but ... man, did I really not like this.  There are just some kinds of quirk that do not do well with me.  And while I like hidden adult humor in kids stuff, it really does need to be hidden, which isn't how this special treats it.

There is some crazy voice talent in this, including Drew Barrymore, Dan Castellaneta, Jos Pantoliano, Billy West, Jay Mohr, Ed Asner, Tim Meadows, Diedrich Bader, Tress MacNeille ... it is a nice long list of actors doing this one.  And they all stick out like a soar thumb.  Castellaneta has some amazing characters, but he also tends to recycle voices quite often, and the mail man is Robot Satan from Futurama which is ... actually pretty hilarious.  But not in the right way.

I dunno, this special isn't very good.  But it is also perfectly fine and enjoy incredibly enjoyable for some people.  My roommate got it for me last year, because it holds a special place for him and his childhood.  And that's kind of special.  I understand it.  I pull out Rankin and Bass' Twas the Night Before Christmas every year, and that movie is just as strange and oddly animated and ... ok, not AS oddly animated or nearly as strange ... and the music is way better ... ok so bad example, but what I'm trying to say is that while I didn't care for the special, and certainly don't think it is very good, I loved sharing a memory with him.  And THAT is why you buy movies for your collection, to share those memories and thoughts and opinions with others.  And Olive absolutely succeeded there.

Grade: D

IHAO on ... Popeye

/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\

Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 57% ; Audience 38%

Flickchart - 3778 of 28311 i.e. in the top five percent

IMDB - 5.1 rating

Metacritic - 48

Amazon.com - 4.0 stars

Popeye the sailor man *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous forearms of any person or character, and 100% the most famous eating habits to provide him with his heroic powers.  Robin Williams *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous obnoxious comedy career of any person or character, and 100% the most famous changing-funny-characters-in-kids-movies habits provided by his villainous pop culture powers.  Shelley Duval *toot toot* is a particularly famous actress, with perhaps the most famous tall stretched-like-Gumby body of any woman or character, and 100% is the only actress who could have played Olive Oyl.

I'm going to stop doing that.  I'm just wasting time.  I don't care how good the stats up there say this movie is.  Popeye sucks.

Goodnight.  I'm done.

What?  What do you want me to say?  After this whole week, after all the garbage I've had to sit through, you want me to actually give some kind of care in the world about the point-by-point analysis of one of the worst musicals I've ever seen in my life?  Why?  Why do you care?  You knew the movies I was reviewing this week were going to be terrible.  That's why they were suggested.  Why did I even do this to myself at all?

You know what, I got my pride.  I got my dignity.  I got my drive to actually make something of myself in the world through my writing and my critiquing of films suggested to me and that I search out for the entertainment and inform-ment of the masses ... of 30ish people that read this site.  Fine, I'll do it.

First things first, the production design is really cool.  They built a whole city on the cliffs, complete with working ships of fabulous design and all sorts of working parts and interesting, cartoony visuals.  The costuming and hair and make up for everyone is really awesome, too.  They all look like actually living cartoon characters, and when the film does little tiny moments of cartoonism, it works sometimes, mostly on the strength of the designs.  And every now and again, a joke works.  Not every joke.  Not even most jokes.  Some jokes.  But finding those good jokes is like searching for M&Ms in a bowl filled with flour ... with your mouth.

And that's all.  That's the end of the good things in this movie.  I couldn't even make it through the single paragraph in this review dedicated to good things about Popeye without pointing out its blandness and badness.  I ignored the part about how bland and boring all the color schemes are.  Everything is in browns and blues, and it just looks like mud and dirt and water and every now and again somewhere wears red.  It is maddeningly bland.

There is not a story, but a serious of happenings.  Popeye arrives.  Olive Oyl breaks her engagement.  They find a baby.  They go to the tracks.  Popeye wins a boxing match.  They meet Popeye's lost father.  Bluto captures Olive Oyl.  Popeye fights an Octopus.  Nothing segues from one thing to the next.  They just happen, with uninteresting, uninspired, boring and repetitive musical numbers mixed in.  You'd think with the energy and fervor of Popeye cartoons, that some of that would translate.  You'd think with the supposedly amazing group of people working on this film, it would be good.  But its award winning director, cinematographer, writer, and composer all just look like amateurs.  This movie makes it look like they just do not know what they are doing.  AT ALL.

The musical nature of the film is an after thought, which even the movie doesn't care about, so why the hell should I?  Characters constantly talk over the musical numbers, or other things are happening while people are singing and dancing.  Not high tempo singing and dancing though.  This movie must think it is in a backwards musical variation of Speed: if the tempo of a song goes above 60 bpm (beats per minute) then everyone in the audience will die in an explosion.  I wish I had.

Actually, can I be the guy on the motorcycle?  Also, this movie?  Gonna get a review soon.  It's nuts.

Ok, that isn't true.  I don't wish death on myself.  Or really on anyone in the movie.  The actors don't do a bad job of embodying the characters, and all have little bits and quirks to make them be more cartoony.  But the film itself doesn't care about that.  There's no focus given to any of it.  Everything is played basically straight, which brings everything down.  It takes all the vim and vinegar, all the lock, stock, and barrel, all the song and dance, all the FUN out of the movie.  This film is mirthless, and unenjoyable.  I don't hate it as much as I've hated other films ... but I certainly do hate it.  And it is absolutely terrible.

Grade: F--

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)  Grade: C
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)  Grade: D--
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)  Grade: F+
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)  Grade: F---
• June 7^th – The Cat from Outer Space (from Nicole Clockel)  Grade: B+
• June 8^th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)  Grade: F--
• June 9^th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!

And look at that, tomorrow we get to the surprise review.  I hope you are excited, because I bet I'll be making a bunch of you angry!!  See ya tomorrow!

IHAO on ... The Muppets Most Wanted

The Muppet resurgence was a very nice thing for this Muppets fan.  I've loved them for a long time, own as much of it as I can, think deeply about thinks I don't need to (like with everything) and just genuinely enjoy them.  My favorite Muppet film was Muppets Take Manhattan, and my favorite show was Muppets Tonight!, which is underrated in my humble opinion.  Then we had Jason Segal's loving film bringing them back, which was wonderful.  Now, we have a sequel, without Segal.  How did that one go?

This movie does a whole lot of things right.  It is funny, the music is catchy, the plot is new and original.  I don't love it, but I like it a lot.  But ... all right, if you'll indulge me for a second, let me talk about basic story plotting.

Woah, hold one there.  Time to just scroll to the bottom for the grade.

When telling a story, especially film or television, you generally will have a A-story and a B-story, a major focus and a secondary focus.  The A-story is the crux of the film where the B-story generally ends up dovetailing into the A-story as well.  Lots of films do this with a plot and a character arc as the A-story then B-story, like Johnny English for whatever reason I pulled out a reference to THAT film.  With that quick explanation said, here is Muppets Most Wanted A-story and B-story:

A-Story: An evil frog named Constantine has replaced Kermit and is going around Europe stealing the pieces necessary to steal the ultimate treasure, the crown jewels, culminating in a fake wedding.

B-Story: Kermit is stuck in a Siberian Gulag with a bunch of new prisoner characters and has to find a way to escape, culminating in a Gulag version of the Muppet Show.

Does something feel off there?  The main story is about the antagonist of the film, Constantine.  We should be watching a story about Kermit trying to get back to his friends, who are all duped by Constantine because he hides his mole and gives them everything they want, hurting the show in the process.  Instead, we have all the Muppets looking like idiots for not being able to tell the difference between the two of them, and yes, that is the joke, except we also spend 3 or 4 minutes at the climax with Kermit being upset about it and asking how they could possibly have not known?

That bit of plot was tricky, too, because Animal DID notice it wasn't Kermit ... but because the A-story is about Constantine, they can't have people figuring it out too fast, so it is just ignored.  There's a lot of little quibbly bits of logic within the plotting.

My two other major problems are about the music and the new characters.  The music seems rushed, and given no weight.  Songs just start out of nowhere and then finish to no consequence.  We don't get to sit with the songs, which are very good and funny, so despite how much I liked them, they just breeze by and eventually just stop being there right at the end, except for a corny version of "Together Again" where they say "Together again ... again" treating the song like a joke.

The other problem is new characters.  Each muppet film has introduced new Muppets, new characters we can love.  Great Muppet Caper introduced Beauregard among others.  Muppets Take Manhattan introduced Rizzo the Rat and his rats as we know and love them currently.  Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island both created new Muppets that show up in the background of other projects.  Muppets From Space gave us Clifford (to the wider audience), Bobo and Pepe.  And The Muppets gave us Walter and 80s Robot.  In this we ... had a Kermit clone.  And that's it!  Nothing else.  If we had focused on the Kermit story instead of the Constantine one, we could have met all sorts of new prisoner Muppets, who Kermit befriends and brings into the fold, because that's what he does!  But nah, we just need more cameos.  Lots and lots of cameos.

The fact that Stan Lee, Cameo King, didn't show up is absolutely shocking to me.

For all my thoughts and complaints, the film is fun, funny, and very likable.  I find it to have a big glaring problem in its plotting, which harms the film in other places, but other than that, it was real fun.  I miss Segal's presence, not as an actor, but as a writer.  But other than that, I'd give it a shot, even knowing it isn't up to snuff in my opinion to what it clearly could have been.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... Sound of Noise

Six musical terrorists hold a city hostage for 24 hours, and the only one who can stop them is a tone-deaf detective who just happens to be from a musical-prodigy family.  That is how an American film with the same plot and setup as Sound of Noise would have described it.  And it is basically accurate.  But it is missing the heart of the film, the essence of what makes it so good and intriguing.

I have come to really love some foreign films.  Other countries' films very rarely line up with the genre system American cinema uses.  And while our lines have been blending slowly, it is nowhere like a foreign film, which I suppose is part of their "foreignness."  Sound of Noise is a romantic comedy heist action mystery procedural action surrealist art film.  That just doesn't sound ... good, does it?  Well, it does kind of sound awesome, but it also sounds messy.  But Sound of Noise is a very tightly made film.

What the hell are you going on about?

I realize reading the past couple bits that I'm coming across a bit mad.  This is not an easy film to talk about, as you can see me struggle.  Let's just go bit by bit.

The acting is pretty good across the board, though nothing amazing or emotional.  Just all enjoyable and all well done.  The direction is very good, with lots of great little film moments and stagings that elevate the film incredibly well.  And the music is beyond reproach.  When a film is about music, you have to hope the music is great.  And Sound of Noise delivers, whether playing drums on a celebrity's stomach or using construction machines as a drum set.  This movie is like Stomp if that had a real plot.  Listen to the music wherever you can, because it is really great.  Probably because the Six Drummers all play themselves, so you have real musicians playing these parts.  I play piano and know a lot of about music, and all of the stuff you see is not faked or body doubled, it is them playing those instruments, and random objects, as far as I could tell.  That is an impressive feat.

The story is great up to a point.  Right around Act 3, they drop a lot of plot threads that built up the film and focus on a character story for our detective, which I do like, but it does leave a whole bunch of loose ends and could have people asking a bunch of logic questions.  Personally, I was along for the ride based on the characters, the music, and the art of the film.  They had me.  But there are large gaps of logic and plot that happen to bring about this change and progress.  The film also ends on a very quiet note, purposefully, but it does leave the film a little empty on the ending, lacking a lot of culmination.  It isn't unsatisfactory, it just hits its peak early for me and no longer builds to a climax and fervor I would have really loved.

Overall, I really like the movie, and cannot wait to share it with people.  It is a talking piece, and a film to be shared with others.  And the music is all just great.  I recommend the flick, especially for a large group.

Grade: B++

IHAO on ... Disney's Frozen

Frozen could have been the best Disney film in the past 20 years.  "Could have been" being the important phrase in that sentence.  That and "but it really really isn't" that is very much implied.  Of course, now it isn't implied, it is just told to you.  So there you go.

You're welcome.

To get it out of the way, the music and musical-ness of Frozen are its best attributes, and if that was all the movie was, it would be an A+ all the way.  Buy the soundtrack, and look forward to the announced Broadway musical version, which will be superior to the film in every way, and I very much hope that they get Josh Gad and Idina Menzel back on stage for their roles from the film.

The opening 10 or 20 minutes of Frozen are masterful.  Amazing.  Glorious.  Had me weeping and happy and thinking "Well gosh darn, how have I not heard about this movie being amazing, this is the best Disney film I've seen in forever!  I cannot wait to own this!"  Then another 10 or 20 minutes go by, and they are pretty good.  Then another 10 or 20 minutes go by, and they are ... fine.  And it just continues to deflate and lose interest.  Ultimately, it is still a good movie, but it could have been so much more.

The movie itself feels ashamed of its musical nature and fairy-tale genre.  The music is amazing and heartfelt and great, and then it just kind of trails off for jokes or action, then it just stops being a musical all together, with no songs or musical tropes or any of that just after the one hour mark or so.  And the fairy tale stuff just kind of gets lost in its manic attempt to do action and jokes and drama.  The timeframe of the film is so rushed that it really suffers giving any weight to anything the characters do.  There is no sense of difficulty or travel, they just pop about from one place to another, unless they have an action set piece they want to do.

The film is beautiful (for the most part), and the writing, while not amazing, is fun and in some parts very very good.  The snow looks great, and the world itself really does look Scandinavian, except for our two protagonists who look as un-Scandinavian as possible, with little tiny noses and the biggest daggum cartoon eyes.  Their facial designs off-put me, though everything else about them worked perfectly.

There is a heel turn to finally give the movie a real antagonist, but it shows up too late, comes out of nowhere and again, has no real weight to it.  And if the movie had just kept a hold of its musical nature, this could have easily been fixed with a Villain's Song, a time-honored tradition in Disney films.  But nope, it is just "SWEET CHIN MUSIC TO THE FACE" and bam, evil character now.

HBK, no!

I wanted to love this movie.  I watched the first 20 minutes thinking I would.  But it just settled into its uncomfortable shame, not wanting to alienate viewers by being a Disney fairy-tale musical.  Which it is.  Or is nominally.  And that killed it for me.  Buy the soundtrack.  Eventually watch the movie once.  But in the end, I left wanting to build a snowman, and forgetting the other 80 minutes of the movie.

Grade: B-
Soundtrack Grade: A++

VLOG: Tangled

With the site upgrade, I figured I should put up another video.  Booya.  My thoughts on Disney's Tangled.

I Have an Opinion ... on Snoopy, Come Home

The first, but I'm sure not the last, entry in the IHAO series that truely makes me vehemently angry, as we watch Snoopy fight the proletariat ... or something like that.