Well, here we go again ...

Sunday night is the BIG GAME! You know, THE big game -- the one we see every year between the New England Patriots (boo, hiss!) and the Indianapolis Colts (yay-rah-sis-boom-bah!). Yes, yes, I'm a Hoosier and a native of Indianapolis, so I can't help cheering for my Colts. However, even better than merely cheering for the Colts is having a front seat to the greatest rivalry in the modern NFL. Holy cow -- win or lose, how I love these matchups!

And I have to laugh -- OH how I have to laugh -- at the "Brady vs. Manning" arguments among fans. I swear, they're worse than "Superman vs. Green Lantern" arguments: "Oh, but Brady has more Superbowl rings!" "Yeah, but look at the stats! Peyton is a WAY better quarterback!" "No way -- BRADY is better!" "Brady needs the entire Patriots team to carry his ass!" "No he doesn't!" Blah, blah, blah, blah ...

(Then you have the "Brady-is-prettier-than-Manning" argument. Well, yeah, I'll admit that Brady perfectly fits the profile of the stereotypical handsome quarterback. I know the man is from Louisiana, but Manning looks and sounds so much like a big ol' Indiana farm boy that it's no wonder he fits in with us Hoosiers so well.)

Well, here are my two cents on the Manning vs. Brady argument -- and I'm not saying all this just because I'm a Hoosier. (Really! I'm not!) Let's face the facts, shall we? Professional American football is a sport -- and as such, ultimately, it's entertainment. Period. Yeah, you have athletes out there, but they're out there, really, to entertain the viewers. What the athletes do beyond that is up to them. Off the field, some of them are little more than high-paid thugs, while others actually do good things with the large amount of cash they earn. Both Manning and Brady are known for their charity work (though I would argue that Manning spends WAY more money and time on charity than Brady does, particularly through his PeyBack Foundation). In this respect, though, professional football players are like any other high-paid entertainers -- some are worthy of our attention and some aren't.

NOW, with that in mind, WHICH is the better Quarterback -- Manning or Brady? I say it's Peyton Manning, simply because, as a professional football player and, ultimately, entertainer, he's DAMN entertaining -- on AND off the field. (Seriously, what other quarterback have you ever seen standing on the field, flapping his arms, and yelling things like, "ICE CREAM ALERT!" during his pre-snap routine?) It helps that the man is a genuinely nice guy and funny as hell -- and deliberately so. There's a reason that Manning, and not Brady, is the NFL's most marketable player. If I gotta sit through a zillion commercials on TV OR online, I'd rather see Manning in them than Brady. At least there's always a good chance of getting a genuine, good-natured belly laugh out of 'em.

"Having a hard time sticking to that new diet?"


Squeaky-clean nice guy Peyton Manning helps the United Way -- sorta:


Actually, the whole Manning family is pretty funny. Gotta love Super Bowl winners Peyton and Eli picking on each other:

Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan?

Though it’s been common knowledge for a while that Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds will be portraying Hal Jordan in the upcoming live-action Green Lantern movie, I’ve been withholding my judgment about the whole thing -- at least up until now. You see, I’d never SEEN Ryan Reynolds in anything when he was announced for Green Lantern, so I couldn’t really say whether or not I was excited about him being Hal Jordan.

Well, Mr. Sea and I finally sat down and watched the movie The Proposal. Yes, yes, it’s a chick flick/romantic comedy, but I didn’t have any trouble getting Mr. Sea to watch it because he’s long had a crush on Sandra Bullock. (Besides, the characters portrayed by Reynolds and Bullock in The Proposal are book editors, which I found interesting -- and I must admit that a few things in the movie hit pretty close to home.) Cute movie -- nothing earth-shattering about it -- but both Mr. Sea and I were impressed by Mr. Reynolds. The man can do comedy, no doubt about it, but he also seems to handle drama well -- a perfect combination in ANY super-hero medium. He’s also VERY likable, which is also helpful.

The bottom line, though, is: DOES Ryan Reynolds (or, rather, the type of character he portrays) have what it takes to really be Hal Jordan? Let's see ...

Reasonably handsome without being baby-faced?

Well, he is a LITTLE baby-faced, but not overly so. Nice smile, too. He’s acceptable. Check.

Muscles?

Oh. My. God. CHECK! CHECK! CHECK! CHECK! CHECK! CHECK!

Charming, arrogant, and completely cock-sure of himself?

Check.

Killer with the ladies?

Check.

Often clueless?

Wow -- clueless AND prone to awkward situations. Double-check.

Nice butt?

CHECK.

Now I just need to see him get whacked in the head. That aside, though, I approve of Mr. Reynolds. Can’t wait to see him in his Green Lantern Corps uniform!

Mighty Mite as a puny Ghost Rider?

Well, no, not really -- though I am tempted to PhotoShop flames around her head. At any rate, in rememberance of Halloween past (like nine days ago), here are photos of Mighty Mite in her Halloween costume. Mr. Sea and I took her shopping for her costume a week prior. We let her pick out her own costume. Did she want to be a Disney princess, or Tinkerbell, or even a pirate princess? NO. She wanted to be a SKELETON, by gosh. I guess she really is my kid, huh?

Except she DID also pick out that bright pink jack-o-lantern you can see in the background ...

Free movie: Sita Sings the Blues

If you're a fan of animation AND classic jazz/blues -- and even if you aren't -- I highly recommend taking the time to download and/or watch Nina Paley's clever, full-length animated movie, Sita Sings the Blues. The movie is a bit hard to describe. The story involves parallels the artist has drawn between her own life and the life of Sita of the Ramayana. It's told via an odd combination of 2D animation styles, the Ramayana, and some 1920s blues recordings from jazz great Annette Hanshaw, with some Bhangra tunes thrown in for good measure. In all of cinema history, the movie's closest cousin is probably The Beatles' animated film, Yellow Submarine. Like Yellow Submarine, the animation in Sita Sings the Blues is primarily limited in nature -- but it doesn't matter because here, the STYLE is the thing. The film has earned mostly favorable reviews from the critics who have seen it, including Roger Ebert, who awarded it four out of four stars.

Now, here's where the FREE part comes in: Sita Sings the Blues, unfortunately, is tied up in all sorts of legal and distribution hassles, mostly dealing with very old copyright laws and with attempts by (far-right AND far-left) extremists to censor the film. To bypass the mess and make sure the movie gets to be seen by anyone who wants to see it, Nina Paley has made the movie available for FREE to anyone who wants to download it, burn it onto DVDs, show it publicly, you name it. Mr. Sea and I downloaded a hi-def version of it onto our PlayStation 3 the other night, and it looks as good as any other high-quality animated movie. We've also watched it three times already. Yes, we like it that much. The entire movie is also posted onto YouTube in one huge clip.

For more information about the movie and the artist, please visit Nina Paley's Website at www.sitasingstheblues.com. Support the artist with a donation if you can!

The darkness of Disney 14: The Headless Horseman

In 1959, Disney released The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, a package movie featuring animated adaptations of Washington Irving’s New England ghost tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Kenneth Grahame’s classic childrens’ novel, The Wind in the Willows. The two stories, so different from each other, made for a rather odd pairing, and indeed have been rarely shown together since 1959. The “Ichabod” segment – and its famous Headless Horseman scene -- became particularly popular on U.S. television throughout the 1970s, due to Disney regularly showing it on the television program, The Wonderful World of Disney, for Halloween.

Disney’s version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is narrated by Bing Crosby, is actually very faithful to Irving’s original story. Where it differs most is in the treatment of the Headless Horseman. Irving’s story leaves readers little doubt that Ichabod Crane’s rival, Brom Bones, is masquerading as the Headless Horsemen. However, Disney’s Horseman is a much more fearsome and apparently supernatural figure, causing audiences to doubt that Brom Bones has anything to do with the apparition. Ichabod Crane himself, along with his horse, is treated comically, but there’s nothing comic about the Headless Horseman. Upon initial release of the film, some audiences found the scene with the Horseman so frightening that many theaters banned the movie.

Happy Halloween!

The darkness of Disney 13: Mickey's Haunted House (with a Green Lantern angle)

“Haunted House” was the fourteenth and last Mickey Mouse cartoon released in Mickey’s debut year, 1929. In the cartoon, Mickey seeks shelter in a house that proves to be almost CRAWLING with skeletons -- and some genuinely spooky scenes. The cartoon bears more than a passing resemblance to "Skeleton Dance," and even includes some animation from that other cartoon, albeit with a twist. There's a strong reason for that -- "Haunted House" was released about the same time as "Skeleton Dance," and as Disney's then-main animator, Ub Iwerks was hard-pressed to ensure cartoons were finished in a timely manner.

Ub Iwerks was known to be a very prolific and imaginative animator, and was also known for his quirky sense of humor. He's credited by many as the true creator of Mickey Mouse, and he was Mickey's animator prior to leaving the studio in 1930. Failing to branch out on his own as an independent animator, Iwerks returned to the studio in 1940, where he developed into a special effects technician and expert on effects animation. His effects work eventually carried over to the Disney theme parks and other film makers, including Alfred Hitchcock.

I can't resist including this Green Lantern angle: After DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), the Green Lantern known as Ch'P was redesigned from a realistic-looking anthropomorphic squirrel to a very cartoony raccoon-like character with a decidedly Disney-ish appearance. Along with Ch'P's new appearance, he was given a new foe from his home planet of H'lven -- an evil scientist named Dr. Ub'x. Created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton, Dr. Ub'x was named after Ub Iwerks -- "Ub'x" being a short form of Ub Iwerks's name.

The darkness of Disney 12: Tarzan vs. Sabor

Disney's Tarzan (1999) is, to date, the most expensive traditionally-animated (that is, 2D/hand-animated) movie ever made, costing nearly $150 million U.S. to produce. Much of the film's cost was due to the Deep Canvas 3D backgrounds that the studio developed to make the backgrounds MOVE and appear much more realistic -- though still like traditional paintings. The investment paid off, and the film earned back well beyond its cost, making it the last big hit of the 1990s Disney Renaissance.

Many longtime Tarzan fans have criticized the liberties the Disney studio took with the story and characters, but one scene, in particular, earns praise from most viewers. The fight between Tarzan and the leopard Sabor is straight out of the comic strip artwork of legendary artist Burne Hogarth -- with a touch of Frank Frazetta thrown in for good measure. It's a dark, fierce, primal fight to the death, and it never pretends to be otherwise. Many movie fans acknowledge it as one of the greatest scenes in Tarzan's very long and varied film history -- and one of the best fight scenes in Disney history.

The darkness of Disney 11: Willie the Whale

As further evidence that Disney has never shied away from confronting audiences with death, there’s Willie the Whale, from the cartoon segment “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met” in the 1946 package movie, Make Mine Music. Willie is depicted as a sympathetic character (unlike the villainous Monstro the whale from Pinocchio) with the miraculous ability to not only sing opera but to sing in three different voices all at once -- tenor, baritone, and bass. The entire cartoon is narrated and sung by Nelson Eddy -- who, impressively, sings and speaks every part in the cartoon. The story: A famous opera impresario learns of the whale and, rather than accept that the whale is singing, believes instead that Willie has swallowed opera singers. He sets off in a hired boat to track down the whale and rescue the “singers.” As Willie is singing and imagining himself in operatic roles onstage at the Metropolitan Opera, the impresario harpoons and kills him. The story is intended to be a tragi-comedy, but the death of Willie is treated rather realistically.

Facing a studio strike, lost revenue, and further complications brought on by World War II, after releasing the feature Dumbo in 1941, Disney mostly turned away from making full-length animated feature films and instead made package films, or movies consisting of many different stories and segments “packaged” together. Package films, particularly musicals, were very popular with movie studios of the time, and popular with audiences as well. In total, Disney produced six package films between 1942 and 1949: Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). With the exception of Victory Through Air Power, Disney didn’t produce another full-length animated feature film until Cinderella (1950).

Technically, Fantasia was the first Disney “package film.” However, Fantasia has always been considered independent of the "official" Disney package films. Fantasia had required a great deal of commitment from the studio and had been very expensive to produce. Also, audiences of the time found it “pretentious,” as classical music was believed by many to belong primarily to “snobs.” The less expensive and more freewheeling package films were more palatable to 1940s audiences, and they proved to be popular and lucrative for Disney at the time. Fantasia lost money upon release, but the package films became box office hits. Ironically, Fantasia has gone on to become the most financially successful "package film" in movie history, while features like Make Mine Music have been all but forgotten by general audiences.

(Note: Willie the Whale, of course, is NOT to be confused with Free Willy, 1993)

The darkness of Disney 10: The Firebird

When Walt Disney first produced Fantasia (1940), he envisioned a project that would be constantly renewed, updated, and released with new segments of animation set to classical music. Fantasia, in concept, was to be an ongoing film series that always presented audiences with something new. Unfortunately, the first Fantasia proved to be too much ahead of its time, and audiences stayed away. The film lost money, and Disney was forced to drop the project -- though the studio did release a series of “package films” throughout the 1940s which carried on the spirit of Fantasia, albeit with then-contemporary music (mostly jazz) instead of classical. As the decades went on, however, Fantasia found an ever-growing audience and eventually became one of the most successful films in movie history. A sequel was finally released in 1999: Fantasia 2000.
The original Fantasia ends on a dramatic and somber note, with the famous “Night On Bald Mountain/Ave Maria” sequence. Fantasia 2000 wraps up on an equally dramatic note, though with a decidedly more "upbeat" finale than its predecessor. "The Firebird," based on the music of Igor Stravinsky, depicts a forest sprite, an elk, and the "firebird" itself caught up in a powerful cycle of birth, destruction, and rebirth. The Disney artists based the setting and backgrounds on the 1980 eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano. An impressive achievement of traditional and effects animation, the firebird is imagined as a ruthless, pitiless lava creature spawned by the volcano.

Fantasia 2000 was designed for and released in IMAX theaters, and then was later adapted for conventional movie screens. Due to the fact that it was produced prior to the year 2000, and many of its sequences and technologies influenced Disney artists long before the film was seen by the general public, some people consider Fantasia 2000-- and "The Firebird" -- the finale of the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s.

A related note: In 1977, animator Bruno Bozzetto released the movie Allegro Non Troppo (Not So Fast), a Fantasia parody/tribute. Allegro Non Troppo also has a Stravinsky "Firebird" segment, this one based on the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Instead of Eve eating the apple, the serpent swallows it, after which he evolves into a four-legged creature subjected to ever-increasing horrors of Western civilization.

The darkness of Disney 9: Pink Elephants On Parade

Directed by animator Norm Fergusen, "Pink Elephants On Parade" is one of the most famous sequences from the animated feature Dumbo (1941). Halfway through the movie, Dumbo the baby elephant and Timothy Mouse drink from a bucket of water that, unbeknownst to them, has been spiked with alcohol. In their drunken state, they're confronted with nightmarish illusions of pink elephants, which dance, contort, and convert into a myriad of forms to the sinister song "Pink Elephants On Parade," by Disney veteran songwriters Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington.

"Pink Elephants On Parade" is unusual for an early Disney feature segment in that it blatantly breaks the "fourth wall," or the boundary between fiction and the audience -- first via the elephants marching around the perimeter of the movie screen; and then via the song itself through the lyrics about "Technicolor pachyderms" (Technicolor being the color film process used by Disney). Disney cartoon shorts regularly broke the fourth wall, but the early features were generally off limits for this treatment (though the wisecracking Jiminy Cricket does flirt with speaking directly to the film audience through his narration and commentary in Pinocchio, 1940).

Disney studio artists have tried many times since to recapture the wild invention of "Pink Elephants on Parade." Notable attempts include "Heffalumps and Woozles" from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, 1968, and the Genie in Aladdin, 1992.

A bit of trivia: The term "pink elephants" as a reference to drunkenness is generally attributed to (or blamed on) author Jack London. He's credited with the first usage of the term, in his novel John Barleycorn (1913): "There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers."