Magic Marathon

Today we watched a lot of shorts as well as Bambi. Bridget was kind enough to have us over... for breakfast and lunch! I feel like there is a lot to write about, but I'll keep it brief...

I was interested in watching Ferdinand the Bull, since I knew that Elliott Smith had a tattoo of Ferdinand, (although his is the book version.)

These 5 films definitely had a theme-- young sensitive male characters coming into their own. No princess stories here.

Faced with expectation of society or fathers, they learned hot to both their strengths and weaknesses to their advantages to face adversity and to grow.

Ferdinand the Bull was the shortest. I especially liked how his mother accepted him as he was-- a loner, who just wanted to sit underneath the cork tree, and smell the flowers. Others were frustrated that he just wouldn't fight-- but he just had no desire to whatsover.

Similarly, The Reluctant Dragon would not fight the knight who would slay dragons. Instead, he would write poetry, take baths, play the flute, and have others over on HIS BELLY to eat jam-sandwiches and drink tea.

He didn't even know how to breathe fire. When the knight found out about the good dragon, they staged a fake fight to appease the townspeople.

Goliath II was maybe my favorite. You can watch it all on youtube if you want to check it out. Sweet. It is about an elephant ironically named Goliath who is the size of a snail, who can't keep up with the tribe. Genious. Taking place in the Jungle, it feels like the beginnings of the Jungle book.

Superstar mom who loves him despite his size. She keeps him safe in birds nests and saves him from a tiger named Rajah (sound familiar?)

Super lame dad who only accepts him when he's useful to the tribe. Within the first scene, mom says to dad, "SHAME ON YOU!" (for not accepting our son.) It is a happy ending, with Goliath getting placed with honor on his father's head, but it feels unresolved.

Johhny Appleseed was a liiittle cringe worthy in parts-- but I'm sure that anything about pioneers and involves native americans is. The lyrics of a song says, "there's plenty of room for you and me," and "there's nothing that will stop us." I guess that last line is true. My favorite scene is the end when Johnny's guardian angel comes to take him to heaven. He's lying among the apple blossoms in his old age with a white beard, still wearing that pot for a hat. I couldn't find a picture of it on the internets, but I found a painting done by Mary Blair. Her artwork inspired the concept art for the film: (and I may just have to do a post on her art, then make a trek to sanfran to check out her art in a disney museum.)

As for Bambi, I really couldn't remember much about it except for the traumatic mother's death scene. The film presents development really well. I'm taking a human development course right now, so it's on my mind. The first scene begins with all of the creatures of the forest running to go see the "prince" -- We see Bambi, just born. We see his first steps, his first word, him learning face recognition, (He calls a skunk "flower,") learning how to skate, how to fight and of course, twitterpation. We see all four seasons. Similar to Simba in The Lion King, we get to see Bambi's children as well.

Another observation is Bambi's absent father. He doesn't really come into the picture until the mother dies, and his other major scene is him saving Bambi from a fire. Tramua = dad's presence. The death scene didn't seem to be as traumatic for Finn as it was for me as a child. When the mother died, everything went Picasso blue:

"Hi, you must be my dad? I don't know either how to deal with my mom's death, or what to do with your sudden presence in my life."

A big observation we had in watching all of these movies right in a row was how much of the pure imagination of the scenes just aren't captured through today's CG. The details are out of this world.