Our Feature Presentation (25/50) -- Tangled (2010)

Of the over 50 films part of the Disney Animated Features canon, Tangled led me on the biggest emotional rollercoaster. I first caught wind of the project back in 2009, when it was titled Rapunzel, and, indeed, there was a Rapunzel teaser trailer that made its way onto the Blu-ray release of The Princess and the Frog. What happened from there, no one can truly know, but here’s what conventional speculation and Wikipedia tell us: The Princess and the Frog was a mild box office success, rather than the titanic megahit it was supposed to be, and Disney execs got a bit gun shy. The Princess and the Frog was marketed as a back-to-roots labor of love, similar to projects released in the 90’s; since that didn’t seem to work, Disney decided to give audiences a new vision of its Rapunzel project. From this bit of decision-making came one of the worst promotional campaigns I’ve seen in film, now titled Tangled, with trailers that made the movie out to be a hip, snarky take on the classic fairy tale, a la Shrek.

My antipathy for Shrek doesn’t run as deep as some in the blogosphere, but if there’s one thing that absolutely does not belong in a Disney project, it’s snarky, hipper-than-thou “attitude.” Granted, it’s not like Disney hasn’t attempted hipness, but the Disney Animated Features brand has lived and died by its sincerity, and even its most irreverent projects have had a strong emotional core. Fortunately, Tangled, turned out to be one of the most sincere projects seen from Disney in quite some time, with strong characters, a good story, and the sense never to posture as “above” the material.

Old-fashioned, yet still fresh, Tangled is an absolute goodie.

Tangled begins with a narration, where we learn about a centuries-old witch named Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) and magical flower that keeps her young. The local queen is expecting a child, though, and needs the flower to deliver the baby (in lieu of Rampion, I suppose), so the flower is found and given to her, and she safely delivers a happy baby girl. Gothel, however, steals the child, whose hair now possesses the flower’s healing power, and raises her in an old, obscure tower. Brokenhearted, the king and queen begin a tradition of releasing a series of paper lanterns every year on the missing princess’s birthday, as a way to remember her, and to find her if possible.

Cut to eighteen years later. Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is now a beautiful young lady, content with living in her tower, but for one thing: more than anything, she wants to see the lights that appear in the sky on her birthday. This would require leaving the tower, which, to Gothel, is completely out of the question. After a large row that ends in Gothel angrily telling Rapunzel that she can never, ever leave the tower, Rapunzel appears defeated in her desire to see the lights in person.

Ah, but enter Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), a crafty thief who has just stolen a crown belonging to the lost princess. After ditching his accomplices, the Stabbington brothers (Ron Perlman, Armie Hammer-style), Flynn hides himself in a non-descript tower… where he is promptly knocked over the head and captured by Rapunzel. Rapunzel offers Flynn a deal: if he will take her to see the lights, she will give him the crown. What follows is a bit of a road movie, where Rapunzel and Flynn learn about themselves, and grow closer together.

 

Prototypical Disney tropes and quippy dialogue meet in the best way possible, kinda like Rapunzel and Flynn in this scene.

I mentioned in my The Princess and the Frog write-up that Princess had an old-but-new approach to Disney filmmaking, a self-conscious throwback to the pictures of the Disney Renaissance, peppered with newer narrative ideas and details. Tangled, by contrast, has a new-but-old take on its conventions as a Disney feature; while it’s built with new-fangled, gorgeous CGI and 3D effects, it’s made with a much more traditional (and, frankly, much more Disney-esque) story progression, cast of characters, song style, the whole nine. I think it’s this sheer, unadulterated Disney-ness that gave Tangled such success; Tangled is the second-highest grossing Disney feature in the United States (after The Lion King and Aladdin), and gets the jollies of more people I personally know than any other Disney film of the past ten years (though The Emperor’s New Groove comes close).

And yet, for a movie so unabashedly sincere, Tangled is incredibly funny in a completely 2011 way. Small, slick lines creep their way into the dialogue (“Frankly, I’m too scared to ask about the ‘frog.’” “‘Chameleon.’” “Nuance.”), and it has a penchant for quotable deadpans like few other films in the Disney canon (“You should know that this is the strangest thing I’ve ever done!”). Tangled never tries to be above its fairy tale material, though, and gracefully treads the line between clever and smirking (as opposed to many of its contemporaries, which go for out-and-out troll face).

Good lines about in Tangled. 
"Oh mama, I have got to get me one of these."

Helping to sell the humor is Tangled’s cast of well-rounded, enjoyable characters. Rapunzel operates straight out of the Ariel school of strong female protagonists, but she’s given the chance to develop her character more often than not; I love her little “Eeep”s, and the scene where she rebounds between ecstatic and remorseful (“Best day ever! … I am a terrible human being.”) is one of my favorites. Flynn is a suave, Han Solo-esque rogue who isn’t quite all that he seems (original as sun in the desert, I know, but it works for him), and Levi gives an extra “aw, shucks” charm to him. Mother Gothel is a powerful diva of a villain, equal parts dangerous and drama queen; I also love her faux-motherly relationship with Rapunzel, and she manipulates her through guilt without Rapunzel’s knowing. Even the by-now-requisite animal sidekicks manage to stand out, using silent comedy to the best possible effect. Pascal, the chameleon, uses small, specific movements to sell his character’s humor, which Maximus, the horse, performs in huge, broad strokes—in a way, it’s almost like having Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in the same movie.

Speaking of non-vocal parts, I want to use this paragraph specifically to talk about Rapunzel’s parents, the king and queen. Both the king and queen are rarely seen in in Tangled, but they have one of my favorite scenes in the movie—it’s near the two-thirds mark, just before the first lantern is about to be released to the kingdom. The queen (whose resemblance to Rapunzel is remarkable) comes to fetch her husband. She fastens his cloak, meeting his eyes with a weak, sad smile, and we see a single tear fall from his cheek. Though the filmmakers do nothing to explicitly spell it out, we are able to glean exactly what is going through the king and queen’s mind: that what has been alluded to as a yearly festival is, in fact, a painful and vivid reminder of how, eighteen years ago, their only daughter was taken from them, and that time has done nothing to dull their hurt. Dear readers, it lasts all of twenty seconds, and it is HEARTBREAKING.

Their screen time is very brief, but the king and queen both create a lasting impression, at least for me.

Moving on. The animation in Tangled is absolutely gorgeous. In particular, the film makes delicious use of color, particularly the deep greens of the forest and royal purples of the kingdom. There are also a multitude of small details that help give the world its place, things like the textures on Rapunzel’s wall and Pascal’s scales, the small floating particles in the water, and the individually detailed hairs on Rapunzel’s head (they even get disheveled during a scene of conflict). Character animation is stellar as well; everyone looks soft, and different from other CG animated pictures. Lastly, Tangled makes perhaps the best use of 3D I’ve seen in any movie, and though I don’t feel like I’m less involved when I watch it at home on 2D, I sure wouldn’t mind paying to see it in 3D again.

Tangled also happens to be an excellent-sounding film. I consider myself a small Alan Menkin fanboy, and his score for Tangled is exceptional, especially the way he uses the score to punctuate gags and action moments. The songs aren’t stone-cold classics, but are more than pleasant, and while I don’t expect to find someone on the street humming “I’ve Got A Dream,” I could certainly understand if they wanted to.

I was pretty terrified when Tangled came out, but since then, it’s not only assuaged my doubts, but also has moved on to become one of my absolute favorite Disney films; not bad for a movie that just came out less than a year ago. Excellent characters and humor, fun songs, and a story that is all-but-guaranteed to leave a warm, gooey feeling inside the viewer, Tangled comes highly recommended, and is an absolute must-see for folks who are worried that Disney has lost its touch.

Top Three Songs

1. “Mother Knows Best (Reprise)”
2. “When Will My Life Begin”
3. “I’ve Got a Dream”

Favorite Scene

• Rapunzel first leaves the tower

Favorite Character

• Pascal

The Jar Jar

• Old Man

How I Watched It

With all of the prosal love and kisses I gave Tangled, you’d better believe I snagged this one the first day it was available. Tangled comes in three flavors: a single-disc DVD, a double-disc Blu-ray plus DVD, and a four-disc 3D Blu-ray that comes with the 2D version, a DVD copy, and a digital copy. My Samsung is not 3D-compatible, so I was more than happy to save ten dollars and buy the double-disc edition.

As expected, Tangled looks bloody fantastic in high definition. Colors are bright and saturated, and the small details I mentioned earlier are easy to spot with the enhanced resolution. I couldn’t use the surround sound with my review, but I have no reason to believe it would be anything less than at-least-pretty-good.

For a film that just came out last year, there is a surprising lack of bonus features. Included are several surprisingly-lengthy deleted scenes, a few alternate openings to the movie, and a small making of featurette, “Untangled: The Making of a Fairy Tale.” The featurette is hosted by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, and is all of twelve minutes long, and though it does have a few interesting bits, it’s too kid-centric and EPK-happy to be of much educational use to anyone.

To be honest, I’m a bit bummed by this release’s supplemental extras. Perhaps it would make more sense if Tangled had flopped at the box office, or if it was made a while ago, but Tangled was the 10th highest-grossing film of 2010, and the third-highest-grossing Disney film domestically. I suppose they figure the kids wouldn’t watch them anyway (they’re probably right), but I would love for more info about Tangled, especially since it has such a long and complicated development history.

Our Feature Presentation (24/50) -- The Black Cauldron (1985)

I mentioned earlier in my 30 Day Movie Challenge that the 80’s were a time for cheesy sword-and-sorcery flicks, and that’s exactly what The Black Cauldron is. Created to be the prestigious 25^th Disney Animated Feature, and morphing into an infamous nightmare of production, The Black Cauldron shares more of a pedigree with movies like The Sword and the Sorcerer than I ever thought reasonable. It harbors many ungainly elements shared by the genre, but also many of its charms, making The Black Cauldron a decent film for those who like corny high-fantasy movies. It’s not the epic that Disney set out to make, but neither is it as bad as one would expect from a movie that nearly single-handedly brought Disney to the brink of disaster.

The Black Cauldron takes place in the fantasy world of Prydain, and follows the exploits of a young man named Taran (Grant Bardsley). Taran is an Assistant Pig-Keeper, and would rather be off having adventures, but the pig he is assigned to watch, Hen Wen, is no ordinary pig—she’s an Oracular Pig, and can you show things that are, things that were, and some things that have not yet come to pass. It’s Taran’s job to keep Hen Wen from harm, but she is stolen by the Horned King (John Hurt) and brought to his lair at Barad-dûr (I may have gotten that wrong).

While infiltrating the Horned King’s castle, Taran is caught and jailed, whereupon he meets Princess Eilonwy (Susan Sheridan). The two rescue Hen Wen and make their escape with the help of the cowardly bard Fflewder (Nigel Hawthorne). Their quest is far from over, though, for the Horned King was using Hen Wen to find the Black Cauldron, a relic of an ancient time capable to summoning unspeakable evil (a My Super Sweet 16 Christmas special, no doubt). It’s up to Taran and his ragtag group of adventurers to find the Cauldron and destroy it before the Horned King can get his grubby little mitts on it.

"Now shall you deal with me, and all the powers of hell!"

Often credited as the movie that caused Disney to hire Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Eisner for the express purpose of saving the company, The Black Cauldron is more like the black sheep (bahaha) of the Disney Animated Features canon. It’s pretty hard to disagree with this assessment too; The Black Cauldron was the first Disney Animated Feature to not include songs of any kind, and its straight-faced emphasis on action and dark fantasy tropes make it unique even among other teenage boy-aimed films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and Dinosaur. In fact, if not for its Halloween-coinciding DVD release last year, I’d swear the Walt Disney Company was trying to bury the thing—it’s right up there with the package films and The Rescuers Down Under as one of Disney’s most obscure Features.

Part of what makes The Black Cauldron so unique is its incredibly 80’s-specific idea of high fantasy. Far from the clean, storybook ideals of movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Sleeping Beauty, The Black Cauldron has the same grimy feel as many fantasy movies of the time, and its preoccupation with exotic-sounding nonsense names (“Taran,” “Eilonwy,” “Ffleuder”) only helps to sell the film’s camp; Oliver & Company didn’t feel as 80’s as The Black Cauldron does. And yet this unintentional ridiculousness makes The Black Cauldron something of a campy good time, and I would recommend it to anyone with a taste for cheesy films.

Apart from the film’s unknowing goofiness, The Black Cauldron has a few other noteworthy qualities. The film is gorgeous, and looks every inch of its staggering $25 million budget. While the characters are a bit floppy, their actual animation is pretty good, with only Fflewder suffering from the sketchy looks of the line-transferring technology used to make Disney pictures. The Black Cauldron also uses 2.35:1 widescreen to good effect, showing off some ambitious “camera” angles, as well as several cool-looking lighting effects. One of my favorite aspects is the score, composed by Elmer Bernstein and displaying the best of 80’s fantasy adventure tropes.

The background are excellent, as usual, and the movie generally looks pretty good.

The film definitely has its blemishes, though. For one, the characters (and, as an extension, their voice acting) are pretty poor. Most of my trouble spots come from Taran, who acts whiny and pig-headed throughout. Yes, it’s a hero’s story of growing stronger and embracing maturity, but surely there’s a way to show that he’s in need of growth without making him so doggone annoying. Eilonwy doesn’t do anything special, other than not get on my nerves, and Fflewder’s pseudo John Cleese is decent, if uninspired. The biggest letdown, though, is The Horned King, who boasts an awesome-looking character design and fails to do anything of importance. Seriously, what’s the use of having an imposing looking villain if all he does is sit on a throne and bark orders?

The Black Cauldron also suffers from a wildly-inconsistent tone. From what I gather, The Black Cauldron was the last film to be put together using storyboard sessions (as opposed to a completed script), and brother it shows. A scene of peril will be immediately followed by a scene of dorky levity with little or no transition, like news reporters who go from a story about a grisly murder to one about waterskiing squirrels with nary a breath of pause. Apart from tonal issues, the film also constantly feels like it’s screwing around; there are places where the characters stop, talk, laugh, argue, and do all of the things that character-building scenes are supposed to do, but without actually developing the characters. The start-stop nature of the movie makes it feel like driving with a teenager who can’t work the clutch very well.

All in all, though The Black Cauldron isn’t bad enough that I would try to dissuade someone who wanted to watch it, and I would even recommend it to fans of cheesy B-movies. The film has a very strange and unique flavor, and though it’s not what I would call a “good” film, there are elements that are reasonably entertaining, especially for those with an open mind and a forgiving heart.

Favorite Songs:

• —
• —
• —

Favorite Scene:

• Hen Wen is abducted by the Nazgûl (I may have gotten that wrong)

Favorite Character:

• Princess Eilonwy

The Jar Jar:

• Gurgi (John Byner) and Creeper (Phil Fondacaro) (tie)

How I Watched It

Like I mentioned earlier, The Black Cauldron was released last October on DVD, no doubt to sell the film on its Halloween-based appeal (and to be fair, there’s a moment near the end that’s pretty darn occult). Despite having little to no fanfare, the picture quality is actually pretty good, and sounds good enough for my television.

I was even more pleasantly surprised by the extras. While there’s no real “Making Of” about The Black Cauldron (which, I imagine, would consist largely of every animator on the team going “F@$# this movie!”), it does contain something very rare for an animated film: a deleted scene, nearly completed and watchable outside of storyboards. Animated films are tremendously hard work to make, with each second of film-making requiring countless hours of drawing, clean-up, inking, voicing, and who knows what else. The deleted scene in question, which is an alternate take on Taran and co.’s encounter with the Fair Folk, is almost entirely finished, with voices, music, and almost totally-moving animation. For those interested in the creation process of animation, and how the finished product comes together, this is a valuable piece of supplementary footage.

Apart from the deleted scene, there is one other bonus feature: the 1952 Donald Duck short “Trick or Treat.” In it, Huey, Dewey, and Louie team up with a witch to get back at Donald after he skunks the boys out of their candy. It’s not a bad short, and features June Foray doing her usual old lady voice (how long has that woman been pretending to be an old crone? Almost 60 years now?).

Our Feature Presentation (23/50) -- The Three Caballeros (1944)

The Three Caballeros is the sister picture to Saludos Amigos, but the two could not be more different. While Saludos is a slight, low key film made mostly of cartoon shorts, Caballeros is a bat guano-loco mind-f@$# of a picture made mostly of The Insanity Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango. It does play host to some interesting live action/animation blending, and there are a few straightforward, amusing bits, but MAN this film is weird.

The Three Caballeros opens with Donald Duck receiving a large box of birthday presents from a Spanish someone. The first present is a projector, where Donald watches a few short segments on Latin American birds. The movie seems on track to be similar to its Latin predecessor (slight, segmented, reasonably charming), when who should appear but Jose Carioca (Jose Oliveira), the green, cigar-smoking parrot from Saludos’s concluding segment. Carioca shrinks Donald with some sort of drink (seven years before Alice in Wonderland, might I add), and the two explore a pop-up book about Bahia, Brazil, where Donald becomes quite taken with a Portuguese seller of cookies (uh huh).

Sure do love those Tagalongs, huh fellas?

After an MC-Escher-by-way-of-chalkboard train ride, the two arrive back in Donald’s living room, where they open the next present: a hyper-active, pistol-toting rooster named Panchito (Joaquin Garay). The three announce themselves as The Three Caballeros (hence the title), and celebrate with a piñata. Panchito then takes Donald and Jose to Veracruz, where the three dance and Donald becomes increasingly lecherous throughout. The two finally pull Donald off of the dance floor, only to take him on a flying sarape to Acapulco, where Donald goes positively Tex Avery Wolf on the Latin bathing suit beauties. It’s not meant to be, though; Donald merely ends up kissing Jose instead.

Here’s where the movie goes throws all semblance of sense out the window. Donald finally meets the girl of his dreams (for reals this time!), and her kiss sends him on an enormous LSD trip, finding her face in all of the flowers, only for it to turn to Panchito or Jose at the last minute. The onslaught of colors, sounds, and general buggery culminates in Donald dancing with several fields of cactus, before turning into a bull made of fireworks. The film then ends abruptly, as though no conclusion could possibly wrap up the phantasmagoria that was the last twenty minutes.

Your love, your love, your love is my drug(s).

I saw The Three Caballeros once when I was a kid, and didn’t remember much outside of the Acapulco scene before I rewatched it for this series. Holy buckets, this movie is EFF’D. More than Fantasia, more than Alice in Wonderland, The Three Caballeros is a pure D head film, worthy of shelf space next to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Good-Time Slim, Uncle Doobie and the Great ‘Frisco Freak-Out. The bright colors, rapidly-shifting scenes, and general lack of sense make this a prime candidate for movies watched while listening to a Sublime album. This is well and good for the gent that enjoys expanding his or her world through the art of cinema, but that’s not me—I watch movies to escape, and there are few places in The Three Caballeros I would like to escape to, if only because it would confuse the bejeezus out of me.

Most of my experience watching The Three Caballeros was spent in slack-jawed befuddlement, but there were a few places I truly, legitimately enjoyed myself. The opening sequence, a story of a too-cold penguin named Pablo, is my favorite in the whole film. Narrated by Sterling Holloway (!!!), Pablo goes through unsuccessful attempt after unsuccessful attempt to leave his frozen home of the North Pole for Acapulco. It’s a fun mix of broad comedy and Holloway’s trademark dry, observational humor.

The segment before Jose comes in, "The Flying Gauchito," isn't bad either.

I also love the song “The Three Caballeros.” In a movie whose music is largely uninteresting to me (not much of a samba guy), “The Three Caballeros” is a punchy, enjoyable tune bursting over with energy and melody. The lyrics are pretty fun too:

We're three caballeros
Three gay caballeros
They say we are birds of a feather
We're happy amigos
No matter where he goes
The one, two, and three goes
We're always together

We're three happy chappies
With snappy serapes
You'll find us beneath our sombreros
We're brave and we'll stay so
We're bright as a peso
Who says so? We say so!
The three caballeros!

The rest of the music is samba, which was never my favorite (too much Latin jazz in high school band), but oh man, that song is fun.

Three is a magic number.

The animation is pretty standard for the time: Walt was thigh-deep in World War II, forcing him to dial back his patented quality of animation for the sake of finishing the damn thing. It’s no coincidence the film looks like an extended short—production-wise, it is basically an extended short. There are a few nifty sequences where live action and animation interact, and these are pretty hit or miss. Some, like when Donald is acting a mutha-f@$#in’ P.I.M.P. up in Acapulco, look pretty good, but others, like when Jose sings with the cookie saleswoman, look slightly painful.

If you’re of the opinion that Disney needs to venture outside its box constructed of princesses and Broadway musicals, you may want to give The Three Caballeros a shot—its complete and total strangeness may be endearing for you. I sure as hell know I’m not going to watch it again for a while; there are many reasons why I may sit down to enjoy a movie, and having a mind-altering experience to a Sergio Mendez song isn’t necessarily one of them.

Top Three Songs:

1. “The Three Caballeros”
2. “Have You Been to Baia”
3. “You Belong to My Heart”

Favorite Scene:

• The Cold-Blooded Penguin

Favorite Character:

• Pablo

The Jar Jar:

• The Arancuan Bird

How I Watched It

While both Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros are available separately on DVD, I opted for this two-film package, partly because it’s convenient, but mostly because it was less expensive. Despite being basically brand new (it was released in 2008), the picture could use a little clean-up, especially during the live-action/animation scenes. This could very well be the fault of the source material, however.

Bonus materials are sparse. The DVD has two Backstage Disney features: “South of the Border with Disney,” which is basically Saludos Amigos Reloaded, and an excerpt from an interview with Walt Disney for CBC (a Canadian news channel, for the non-canuck reader). Also included are two Donald Duck shorts, “Don Donald” from 1937 and “Contrary Condor” from 1944. Slim pickings, considering how often The Three Caballeros has been rereleased.