June 21, 1996
Today, as I try to catch up on my slightly lagging retrospective, I will take a look at two movies released on the same day a year and a week ago. One is a lavish Disney animated musical, the other a violent Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle, each of those art forms seemingly just a little past their peak. Both are about an unusual man trying to protect a woman from bad guys, and they were tied for the most expensive movie of 1996, having budgets of around $100 million.
Disney had experienced the wildly successful “new renaissance” streak of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN and THE LION KING, followed by POCAHONTAS, which was a moneymaker, but not as much as its predecessors, and not as well reviewed (except by me). Now comes THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST directors Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise. Like POCAHONTAS it’s very Broadway influenced and addresses surprisingly heavy topics for a fuckin G-rated cartoon. It had a bigger budget and the animation is more showy, but in my opinion not nearly as appealing. With the villain in particular it kinda looks like they’re trying to do PRINCE OF EGYPT era Dreamworks but don’t quite know the style.
I’m speaking of the cruel, sexually repressed, genocidal Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay, TWINS), who is engaged in a bigoted crusade against the Romani people in Paris. In the opening scene he kills a fleeing immigrant holding a deformed baby. The archdeacon (David Ogden Stiers, BETTER OFF DEAD…, DOC HOLLYWOOD) witnesses the whole thing and guilts him into not dumping the baby in a well, instead agreeing to raise him as his own, by which he means name him Quasimodo and lock him in the bell tower of the cathedral. (read the rest of this shit…)
DISCLOSURE DAY is not related to the 1994, Seattle-set reverse sexual harassment/VR thriller starring Michael Douglas called DISCLOSURE, it’s merely Steven Spielberg (
This may be shocking to hear, but the entertainment industry in my opinion employs a high number of attractive people. And by my estimation Samara Weaving (
June 14, 1996
SIRĀT is an unusual movie – a Spanish film from French-Galician director Óliver Laxe, set in Morocco. It follows a man named Luis (Sergi López, PAN’S LABYRINTH), who brings his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez) and his dog Pipa to a rave out in the desert while searching for his missing daughter. (They’re not dancing, they’re just walking around showing people her picture.)
The movie is simple, primal, artfully repetitive, hypnotic. There’s nothing but sand and a few people, they set up their speakers, they put a beat on. It takes a long time before it changes at all. The droning on and on is the point. It makes perfect sense that the two Oscar nominations this got were for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. Funny to think about Academy voters watching very long scenes of what seems to just be real people letting loose in the desert. Ha ha, you had to watch that for your consideration.
FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE…
I LOVE BOOSTERS is a movie with ideas (arguably too many), style (in abundance), attitude (well earned), and an excess of exuberance. It works at a pace and a rhythm that can be challenging, could be annoying, could be hard to lock in on if you were distracted or in the wrong mood. If somebody hated it in the way I hated 
For a while it seems like every scene will be a conversation between characters ignoring an insane thing that’s going on that also requires your attention. An early example is the two main characters having a serious talk about their needs in life while shoplifting what I would consider to be an extremely conspicuous amount of clothes. They stuff their shirts so much they look like Klumps, but they continue their talk as they waddle across the parking lot to their getaway van, with little sense of urgency.
The martial arts movie THE FURIOUS is coming to American theaters this week, and one of the most no-shit-Sherlock predictions you could make right now is that it will be the action movie of the year. It’s an undeniable banger. Everyone who sees it mentions 
It was one of my most anticipated films even before it started playing film festivals and igniting explosions of superlatives. That’s because it’s an international supergroup, an ensemble of greats from several countries doing top level work for Japan’s two best fight choreographers, who have a good claim to being the current world’s best. The director is Kenji Tanigaki, long time Donnie Yen collaborator and action director for the incredible 
I must confess that I was really excited for MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. My childhood had its share of dumb cartoons and toys, but those spring-loaded muscle dudes were the ones that power-punched deepest into my brain. I don’t have strong opinions about the Eternian canon or whatever, it’s not holy scripture. It’s more like an incredible mural that I invest my own meaning into. The character designs and concepts, and also the overall aesthetic of fantasy barbarian paintings mixed with cyborgs and colorful vehicles shaped like spiders and sharks and buzzsaws and shit… it just makes me happy to think about it. I mean, there’s a castle with a giant skull on the front of it, and they gave that to the good guy! Even though by all rights the bad guy should’ve had it because he is a skull!
