The Sword in the Stone (1963)

After a jazzy romp through modern London, Walt Disney jettisons us back in time for a medieval fantasy. Tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are ripe for film adaptations. The House of Mouse takes a kid-friendly approach by adapting the first installment of T.H. White’s series The Once and Future King. By doing so, Disney finds plenty of ways to dazzle the eyes but they come up short in the quest to dazzle the mind.

When King Uther Pendragon passes away a sword appears in a London courtyard. It pierces both an anvil and the stone beneath it. An inscription on the sword declares "Who so Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of England." Centuries pass and the stone is forgotten about by most. Forgotten, that is, until a young squire pulls the sword out without realizing what it is.

Did I just give the ending away? If you know nothing about King Arthur, then I apologize. For the 98% of you who already know this tale, you should know that this film has almost nothing to do with the titular sword. It merely bookends the tale of young Wart (Arthur), a peasant boy adopted as a student by the roaming wizard Merlin. Wart balances Merlin’s creative lessons with being a squire for his foster brother Kay, a wannabe knight.

Maybe it’s because I never read the book it’s based on. Maybe it’s because I’m not an aficionado of British fantasy literature. Maybe it’s because I’m an American. Whatever the reason, The Sword in the Stone just doesn’t do it for me. There are a number of cinematic weaknesses present but it’s all the style missteps that hurt it the most.

The Xerox animation technique that Disney started with One Hundred and One Dalmatians still looks rough. It helps the Middle Ages setting look appropriately grim and gritty but the sketch lines inside the animated characters are still distracting. The outlines of the characters flow well but the lack of consistency and continuity inside those lines makes the final product look a bit sloppy. That is not a word that should be used to describe a Disney product.

While One Hundred and One Dalmatians contained very few songs, this film tries to inject a little musical whimsy in its reels. The end result leaves a lot to be desired. None of the tunes are memorable and the most noteworthy song "Higitus Figitus" feels like a poor imitation of "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo." This is an even larger detriment than it initially appears, given that this movie is geared more towards kids. If the kids don’t come away humming the tunes, you’ve missed the mark.

Very few Disney films up to this point have focused so sharply on children. Peter Pan was the last production to do so but that was released a decade before The Sword in the Stone. Disney films have always played well with younger audiences but they have always worked for adults as well. This film marks the first sharp divide between content directed at children and content directed at adults. Merlin drops references to a number of people, places and ideas that will go over younger kids’ heads.

On the flipside, parents might not be as mesmerized with the colorful animation, especially not if they’ve seen plenty of Disney films before this one. That’s not to say that the animation is inferior. The Xerox technique is still heavily flawed but the animators pull off a few neat tricks throughout. Merlin’s lessons all involve turning himself and Wart into animals. When they transform, they still retain some kind of identifiable characteristic to provide a reference point. This is also the case when Merlin engages in battle with Madam Mim. All of their transformations flow seamlessly.

Despite its highly regarded source material, the story feels incomplete. From the beginning it’s obvious that Wart will be the one to pull the sword from the stone. There is no central conflict driving the story from Point A to Point B though. Merlin’s lessons are little more than fanciful vignettes to provide Wart with wisdom before he realizes why he needs it. These lessons have nothing to do with Wart’s reason for pulling the sword from the stone, so these sequences could, cynically, be viewed as candy-coated time killers.

The only magic in The Sword in the Stone lies within what Merlin conjures up on the screen. For whatever reason, none of the pieces typically found in the Disney ‘formula’ click this time around. While it still showcases plenty of skill by the animators, this is one of the few truly passable Disney films. It might keep the kids occupied for an hour twenty but if you have any favorite Disney films, my advice is to stick with them.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5

The Descent (2005)

Movies like this really bug me. Why spend the first half of a film building up real character development and legitimate tension if you’re going to squander it on cheap scare tactics and an antagonist that is utterly unbelievable? I enjoyed much of this horror film but try as I might, I just can’t give it the benefit of the doubt.

A year after losing her husband and daughter in a car accident, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is taken on a spelunking trip by her friends Juno (Natalie Mendoza) and Beth (Alex Reid). They hope the trip will help their friend recover from the depression she lives with. Along with three other women, they head into the heart of the Appalachian Mountains to explore what they think is a well-marked cave system.

Not long into their expedition, a tunnel collapse cuts off their only way out. Juno comes clean with the group and informs them that she thought it would be exciting to explore an unknown cave. With no way of calling for help, the women are forced to move deeper into the caverns in search of another way out. Claustrophobia and the dark soon become the least of their concerns when they realize that silent predators are stalking them in the shadows.

I’d like to sing a few of praises before laying into the failings of this film. First of all, I found it refreshing for a horror film to have an all-female cast. Is it a potentially manipulative move? Sure, but for the first half of the film there is no manipulation to be found. We learn a little about each of the characters and they are all likeable in one way or another. I’ve said it ad nauseam but it bears repeating- people are hard-wired to be concerned about women in danger. The fact that the script backs up that automatic concern with likable characters places it well ahead of most horror films.

One other ‘triumph’ is that, despite a cast of young women, The Descent never succumbs to lesbian hookups to appease the largely male-centric horror audience. There are subtle glances and non-verbal cues that suggest one of the girls might be a little bi-curious but the restraint employed saves the film. There is also no nudity in the film, which is a major accomplishment for a horror film featuring six beautiful women. All of this comes during the first half of the film, which builds it up into something that seems both plausible and acceptable.

The cinematography during many of the early spelunking scenes is quite good. You’d never know that the caves and tunnels are all set pieces. I especially liked the lighting. All too often you’ll find movie scenes in dark places are, remarkably, lit to the point that the audience and the characters can still see much of their surroundings. Not here. Tight camera shots and lighting based mostly off of the girls’ helmets and flashlights really build up the tension of claustrophobia.

The convincing woman-vs.-nature conflict plays out well, as the ladies struggle past a number of daunting obstacles. In fact, there is very little horror in the first half, which is a good thing. Sane horror fans never ask for the carnage to begin right away. This film might have been better had it just been about their struggle through the cave. It was convincing enough and would have afforded more opportunity to taut filmmaking.

But no, this is a horror film! Knowing that Sarah sees something lurking in the shadows is creepy enough. Hearing their strange noises in a dark, foreign cavern as the creatures follow our characters is doubly creepy. Seeing the freakish creatures? Not so scary. You would think that the legacy of Jaws and Alien would have convinced people that less is more. Sadly, we see too much of these baddies and far too often. They look like Gollum on steroids and are capable of crawling on the walls and ceilings like Spider-Man.

We are meant to believe that these creatures are humanoids that evolved over years spent in the dark, cold environment of the caves. What’s not clear is whether these creatures evolved from explorers that got trapped in the cave a century or more ago or if they pre-date those poor souls. Either way, anyone with a shred of common sense (or even a basic understanding of micro-evolution) will shake their head in bewilderment. Everything else about this film is so right on- why throw something so out there into the mix? Just make them inbred hillbillies or a satanic cult that uses the caves for sacrifices. Anything but zombie-esque humanoids!

The more I think about it, I shall show some remorse on The Descent. I was going to give it a lower rating but thinking about all that it did right makes it seem unfair to punish with low marks. That being said, this film could have easily scored a full point higher. That’s how much damage one heinous decision can do for a film. The first half? Pretty awesome. The second half? Formulaic nonsense. Pick a direction and stick with it. Until then, count me out.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

The Social Network* (2010)

What is the price of being a genius? To me, this is a central theme of 2010’s most talked-about film. This theoretical cost of intelligence is different for each person. For some it is financial. For others, it is relational. Others still cash it in for power. Occasionally, as happens in The Social Network, all three collide to form a train wreck that is fatiguing to watch but too interesting to turn away from.

After getting dumped by his girlfriend, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) gets himself good and drunk and retaliates by posting viscous blog entries about her. That same night, he hacks into many of Harvard University’s student databases to create a website where Harvard students can select who they believe is the hotter of two female students displayed on the screen. This little stunt explodes in popularity overnight, crashes the Harvard network and earns him six months academic probation. It also attracts the attention of the wealthy Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer). They approach Zuckerberg and recruit him to help code a Harvard-only dating website they have devised.

The membership exclusivity of the Winlkevi site resonates with Zuckerberg’s longing for an invite to one of Harvard’s ultra-exclusive final clubs. This plants a seed for a different kind of website in his mind, a seed that he fully intends to cultivate behind the backs of the Winklevi. With his friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) funding the project, Zuckerberg embarks on a history-making venture that sees him crossing paths with some of the wealthiest and most powerful investors in the nation. The end result is Facebook- an international sensation that becomes a financial success and a legal nightmare.

Virtually everyone knows about Facebook. It’s current, it’s hip, and the younger generations cannot comprehend why anyone isn’t or wouldn’t want to be on it. That being said, most of Facebook’s 700+ million users have, at one time or another, complained about its ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ approach to site changes and upgrades. This love-hate relationship, along with society’s bizarre (and, frankly, dangerous) tendency to envy and despise successful people, allows the filmmakers to produce something that is not for the Facebook faithful. Rather, it is geared more toward those who are looking for further reasons to hate on Mark Zuckerberg and his empire.

As a champion of proper context, it should be noted that this film is a highly sensationalized account of Facebook’s founding. It is based off the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, who set out to write the most interesting Facebook story possible, not the most accurate. No current Facebook employees were consulted during the writing of the book or the making of the movie, so you have to take this film with a huge grain of salt. That does not mean that you cannot enjoy watching it.

The smartest thing this film does is avoid a standard linear narrative. Instead, the narrative is broken into segments covering key points leading up to Facebook’s launch, success, and the lawsuits filed by the Winklevoss brothers and Saverin afterwards. Rather than simply saying ‘here’s the story of Facebook,’ we watch as Zuckerberg is forced to relive his dealings with the Winklevi and his former friend/business partner. Old wounds tear open during these proceedings, sending us back and forth through time. In this way, the audience gets the chance to judge this fictional Zuckerberg as he reckons with his own personal failings. The editing and cinematography during these segues and jump cuts are a real treat for the trained eye.

Jesse Eisenberg does a tremendous job as the unrepentant Zuckerberg. He talks, acts and sneers exactly like someone capable of programming a complicated website while drunk. The matter-of-factness in his delivery does the real Zuckerberg some justice. This is not the story of some average punk kid who gets extraordinarily lucky. The Social Network is a tale of a mind-bogglingly brilliant individual who gets extraordinarily lucky.

Eisenberg’s performance is backed up by a solid supporting cast. With a little help from the visual effects department, Armie Hammer does a splendid job portraying the entitlement-high Winklevoss brothers. Their smug and pompous demeanor is even less tolerable than Zuckerberg’s. Justin Timberlake will surprise many with his performance as Napster founder Sean Parker. He’s the perfect shoulder devil for the new millennium. Finally there is Andrew Garfield, who comes off as a natural with his frustration, anxiety and hurt. Eduardo Saverin is the only character worth any genuine sympathy in the film but director David Fincher deserves credit for not letting Garfield make the character too tragic. This is a story about a few children of privilege going to battle against each other, after all.

Is this fictional Zuckerberg an arrogant creep who knows he’s smart and is unafraid to mock you with his intelligence by waving it in your face? Could he rather be an exceptionally skilled young man who was led astray by paranoid and greedy business associates? The filmmakers certainly seem bent on leading you toward the former assumption but the film contains enough of a gray area for you to make your own decision on the matter.

The Social Network is a very well put-together film. The acting is splendid, the writing is crisp and appealing to modern audiences, and the pacing is just right. There are a few odd decisions made with camera focus here and there but the rest of it seems to fit. It’s always difficult to judge a contemporary film on its costuming and set design because you only take notice of it if they get something wrong. Time will be the judge of that aspect of the film and the entire film itself really. This film answers the question ‘is it too soon for a Facebook movie?’ Definitely not. The question now becomes ‘will this movie matter in 20 years?’ If Facebook continues to be a staple of our daily lives, the answer will be yes. If not, this film will become little more than a stylish footnote on yet another passing trend.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

For the first time since the 40s package films, a Disney movie does not begin with the opening of an old book. This is just the first of many differences in a new era for the studio. Whether they were aiming for a complete overhaul of everything Disney or not, there is something about this film that feels completely foreign, and I’m not talking about the London setting. Fewer songs, a new animation style, a simplified artistic vision, and a modern setting may shock fans of Disney’s two golden eras but the end result maintains the Disney standard of excellence.

Pongo, a Dalmatian, lives with his human, Roger, in London. After Pongo finds a wife for both himself and Roger (Perdita and Anita, respectively) he becomes the proud father of 15 puppies. He and his wife are thrilled at their blessings but their joy quickly turns to concern. Cruella De Vil, one of Anita’s former schoolmates, is mysteriously obsessed with acquiring the puppies at any cost.

After Roger refuses to sell the puppies to Cruella, she has a few of her lackeys break into the home and steal them. Desperate to reclaim their children, Pongo and Perdita use a country-wide network of dogs and other friendly animals to put out an alert. Thus begins a harrowing rescue attempt fraught with danger, not only from the winter-ravaged English countryside, but with Cruella De Vil hot on their tails in pursuit.

After all the lush and detailed art direction throughout the 50s, the animation of One Hundred and One Dalmatians is more than a little jarring. While they don’t abandon the multiplane camera, very little depth is put into the scenery. Disney’s emphasis on foreground characters grew during the preceding decade but this film takes a huge leap to keep the audience solely focused on the foreground.

Background elements like furniture and other décor are merely blobs of color with simple lines sketched over them to give the appearance of shape. Instead of a visually round environment, the only trace of three-dimensionality is with the characters and any objects they directly interact with. I spent much of the film in mental rebellion against this cost-saving venture.

The other major change is with the animation of the characters themselves. Beginning with this film, Disney became fully invested in the new Xerox photographing technology to cut costs. Prior to this move, Disney’s animators would sketch out characters on paper. These sketches would be given to re-drawers, who painted precise lines on animation cells. The Xerox method allowed the studio to eliminate the middle man and copy the sketches directly to the cells.

The end result quite literally resembles a moving sketchpad. By skipping the re-drawing phase, many of the animators’ reference and structural lines make it through to the final product. If it were an intentional move, it might be worth some merit but this effect is merely a by-product of an imperfect but cost-saving technology. The combination of this process and the art direction give One Hundred and One Dalmatians an unpolished look never before present in a Disney film.

This gritty/dirty quality is distracting at first but it actually works given the film’s modern setting. It helps make the city of London look appropriately blemished, while giving an edge to the countryside sequences. Fairy tales and fantasy adventures call for very crisp and clean environments but that same approach wouldn’t work for a story set in the real world. Even Lady and the Tramp had a bit of an edge to its street scenes. That doesn’t make this double whammy completely amenable, just tolerable.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians is still a fine Disney story. It promotes family values, persistence and kindness. Cruella De Vil is a little over the top and her motivation for snatching the puppies is kept a secret for too long. Knowing that motivation in advance really makes the timing of the reveal seem wrong. Leaking it a little earlier would help raise the dramatic tension during Pongo and Perdita’s search and rescue attempt.

The high point of the film has got to be the jazzy score. The opening itself is invigorating but a kind of free-wheeling attitude pervades much of the incidental music. This makes the film feel more contemporary than the actual setting of the film, I think. This might be one of the only of this film’s artistic decisions I can really get behind but the Disney team gets good marks for picking the perfect story to make these big transitions with.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5

Love and Other Drugs (2010)

The last decade has seen a positive trend in romance films. Instead of the insipid, paint-by-numbers rom-coms of the 90s, the new millennium sees filmmakers working hard to create an even weirder hybrid- the rom-dramedy. It is, thankfully, no longer acceptable for a romance to just be serious or just be goofy. The problem is that very few filmmakers have figured out how to make this new balance work. Such is the case with this film.

In 1996, Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) sees his budding career as an electronics salesman evaporate after getting caught having sex with his boss’s girlfriend. His well-to-do brother hooks him up with a job at Pfizer as a pharmaceutical salesman. Through his natural charisma and the tutelage of his regional manager (Oliver Platt), Jamie masters the art of wooing receptionists and sweet talking doctors into prescribing Zoloft and Zithromax.

Life throws Jamie a curveball when he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), an early onset Parkinson’s patient. She is reluctant to enter into a serious relationship with anyone due to her illness but Jamie works his charm on her. Maggie reciprocates by exposing Jamie to the other side of the pharmaceutical rat race, as she helps senior citizens make periodic trips to Canada to purchase cheaper prescription drugs. Jamie finds himself conflicted, especially after Pfizer’s release of Viagra makes him one of the top sellers in the company.

There are a number of good things going on in this film. You catch a glimpse of the cutthroat and unscrupulous (though oftentimes amusing) world of Big Pharma sales. On the flipside, you see the unfortunate side effects to all the patents, research, and marketing expenses- these new miracle drugs are so expensive that those who need it most cannot afford it. Then there’s the love story between a woman with heart-breaking condition and a man with every reason to avoid dating her. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, it is.

Love and Other Drugs is partly based on the book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. It’s one of those clever insider exposés that kept the book industry afloat between Harry Potter, Twilight and Dan Brown books over the past decade. The whole romance aspect is made up to make the story more appealing, which is certainly an accomplishment. Knowing this fact almost makes me think better of this film. Almost. Individually, I like each component of this film. As a collective whole, Love and Other Drugs is an uncomfortable and borderline boring experience.

Both of the film’s young stars perform well. Gyllenhaal exudes the Generation X slacker lifestyle with ease and it’s clear that Hathaway did her homework when it comes to Parkinson’s symptoms. She’s never over-the-top spastic but also never makes the life of such a person look easy. It’s not so much the characters but the performances of them that keep you interested in the film.

In reality, Jamie Randall is the kind of cocky, successful creep that nobody likes, let alone falls in love with. Sure, he may be cute and charming but he leads a hollow life. This is addressed in the film as his relationship with Maggie grows. Maggie, on the other hand, is an enigma. She’s willing to throw her body around for sex before the grip of Parkinson’s gets the better of her but she refuses to let anyone get close to her emotionally. I can understand not wanting to let someone get attached to you because eventually they’ll be more of a caregiver than a partner, but her lifestyle strikes me as self-destructive. You never get a sense for where or how this attitude developed, leaving her side of the story incomplete.

The first half of the film is witty, sleazy and everything you would expect from a snarky insider story. How much of the sales trade is played up for show is unclear, but it’s enough to keep you from supporting Jamie’s line of work. Jamie grows on you though, so you all but come to accept it as an extension of him. Then the second half of the film kills the party. Maggie’s life makes things serious and gloomy and it almost feels unnatural when Jamie begins to turn on a profession that offers him a generous paycheck and access to all kinds of top-of-the-line medicines.

Then there are the little details- the factual errors that drive me crazy and cost a notch or two on the rating scale. The film opens in 1996 with Jamie working in an electronics store. He’s trying to sell a couple of girls on a boombox that clearly belongs in the 80s. It also happens to be blasting out a Spin Doctors tune three or four years past its prime. The store also contains a few products that didn’t exist yet (widescreen flat panel TV’s and slim digital cameras- really?). They might as well have tossed a copy of Grays Sports Almanac in for good measure. Most people will totally miss this but you’ll definitely be asking yourself how Maggie can afford such a spacious, albeit rundown, studio apartment on waitress wages.

The good news is that Love and Other Drugs has decided to be a grown-up romantic comedy. The bad news is that it still hasn’t decided what it wants to be as a grown-up romantic comedy. This leaves the audience to question a lot of the filmmakers’ decisions, which is never a good thing. If you want to be a story about a slacker salesman who mellows out after finding the right woman, fine- tell that story. If you’d rather be a story about a guy who falls in love with a woman despite her failing health, fine- tell that story. Trying to do both at the same time simply doesn’t work.

RATING: 2.25 out of 5

Cimarron** (1931)

The fourth film to win Best Picture and the first of only three westerns to do so, Cimarron is a tale of how the West was tamed. It features big action sequences, a vast landscape, and tackles complicated moral and social issues of the Old West. What it doesn’t have is staying power. Here is a film that, while immensely popular initially, has not aged well one bit.

Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) is a Western man’s man. He feels the call of the wild and untamed wilderness and seeks to conquer it. Several years after settling the Kansas Territory, Yancey grows restless for a new challenge. When the US government opens up the Oklahoma Territory for settlement, Yancey forces his wife and son to join him as they once again try to make a home and successful enterprise out of new and dangerous land.

I can see how the need for escapist cinema made this film popular in the 1930s. That time period wasn’t too far removed from the Land Rush of 1893 depicted in the film. Perhaps at the beginning of the Depression there was still an urge to go West and make something of yourself. That mindset no longer exists today, however, and this is only one of many generation gaps that sabotage this film.

Yancey Cravat is the kind of hyper-masculine hero that only exists in fables anymore. Why? Because society now (rightfully) expects men to take responsibility for their actions. There are several references to a wild past, suggesting Yancey might, at one time in his youth, have been something of a rebel and not on the side of the law. He’s a crack-shot who is respected among some of the more notable hustlers and thieves of the region. Perhaps the trade-off for conquering a woman was settling down. It seems Yancey did so on his own terms in Kansas, because when he mentions the Oklahoma Land Rush to his wife, she seems to know exactly what it will entail.

Is Yancey arrogant and selfish for putting his own desire for adventure above the safety and security of his family? The current answer is yes. Back in the day, people might have sided with Yancey. His argument is that they could live their already comfortable lives in Kansas or make an even better life for themselves in Oklahoma, where there is no established bureaucracy to work around. Naturally, once they make something of themselves in Oklahoma, Yancey gets antsy for something else to conquer. It’s this farsightedness that makes it hard to like Yancey.

When you don’t completely support your main character (or in the case of a villain, completely hate), it’s hard to stay interested in a film. The glory days of wandering testosterone are long in the past and fail to resonate with modern sensibilities. Does this make Cimarron a bad film? No, but it makes it darn hard to watch.

Cimarron mostly scores well with me for technical reasons. The Land Rush sequence is epic in scope, featuring hundreds of carriages and covered wagons racing across the open plains. The rising city of Osage is impressive because everything looks authentic and it is interesting to see how the façade of the town changes over the film’s 40-year time span. That kind of attention to detail is worth noting.

Unfortunately, technical achievements will only carry you so far. The stereotypical portrayals of American Indians, Jewish peddlers and black servants are kept mostly in the background but they are noticeable. This is all added on top of the fact that only half of our lead couple has a firm grasp on what really matters in life. The end result is one those early Oscar winners that you just can’t quite put in the proper context. It’s a shame that some of the earliest Best Picture winners have been all but forgotten about. The same cannot be said about Cimarron.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

After four solid or better films, Walt Disney and his master craftsmen go out of the 50s with a bang. The combination of a classic fairy tale, gorgeous animation and a tremendous classical score, is it any wonder that Sleeping Beauty is perched high among the best of the studio’s work? Not only is this film one of my personal favorites from the Disney Vault, but it has all the credibility to back up the millions of fans who adore this picture.

A kingdom rejoices at the birth of a daughter for their King Stefan and Queen Leah. Everybody turns out to bestow a blessing upon the dear child- a neighboring king, dignitaries and magical fairies. The joy comes to an abrupt halt when an evil sorceress named Maleficent crashes the party. She places a curse upon the child, dooming her to die on her sixteenth birthday. After Maleficent disappears in supposed triumph, a good fairy does her best to counter the witch’s curse. In an extra effort to protect the child, three fairies take the girl away to raise her in the woods until her ill-fated birthday has passed.

On Princess Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, the fairies’ plan begins to unravel. The truth of her royal standing is hard for the beautiful girl to take, especially after falling in love with a handsome man in the forest earlier that day. To make matters worse, Maleficent has discovered the fairies’ hiding place and swoops in on them to execute her murderous plans. It’s up to the fairies and the handsome man from the forest (a prince, no less!) to save Aurora and restore happiness to the kingdom.

Can Disney do fairy tales or what? These classic tales of beautiful damsels in distress under the oppressive hand of witches and evil step-mothers allow Disney to pull out all the animation stops to create worlds as vivid and beautiful as the ones that exist within our minds. This time around, the Disney team takes an unexpected turn with their work. Many of the backgrounds replicate the look and feel of Middle Ages artworks. Trees and flags are tall and slender, there is a strong emphasis on vertical lines, and the detail is rich and all of it remains in focus.

The richness of many of the backgrounds makes it hard for the foreground to compete, leading the characters to have a flatter look than in previous films. This has been an ongoing trend for Disney productions throughout the 50s. The drive to cut costs hasn’t sacrificed too much quality yet though.

Disney’s obsession with this project comes out best with the music. Instead of risking comparisons to Cinderella by flooding the film with catchy tunes, Sleeping Beauty is built around a pre-existing score. Piotr Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous ballet composition sets the pace and tone of the film. I don’t if know the music used in this film was used at similar moments in the ballet but it matches the action and mood perfectly.

It is clear to see where Disney takes creative liberties with story elements and character personalities. Purists may complain but half the fun of watching the Disney version of a classic fairy tale is to see what little twists are put in. Sleeping Beauty makes bold steps forward while also remembering the classic films that came before it. Just like Snow White and Cinderella, Princess Aurora is friends with all the animals she meets. There is also a clever reference to Fantasia when the fairies are cleaning their cottage.

While the flat animation may not bother most (heck, many won’t even really notice it), it does hold Sleeping Beauty back a hair for me. With the art direction and the music, this film could have topped Cinderella. Instead, they are merely equals for vastly different reasons. Solid story plus Disney’s ingenuity equals a spectacular treat every time. This film marks the end of an era for Disney. Their second classical era closes out with a triumph that makes you yearn for the ‘good old days’ with every film released since.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Raising Arizona (1987)

If ever you wondered what inspired movie and TV show writers to cram endless amounts of intellectualism into characters of decidedly average means and intellect, this absurdist comedy is almost certainly on each and every list. I am sure that there have been numerous witty films using the same character-dialogue pairing as Raising Arizona. Given how near-sighted much of the film and television industries have been recently when looking for inspiration, however, the popularity of this early Coen Brothers film makes it an easy target for imitation.

Herbert “Hi” McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) is a petty thief who speaks like a literature and linguistics professor. Every time he is arrested for robbing convenience stores, he flirts with the same policewoman (Holly Hunter). Over the course of several arrests, he learns that she is newly single after a painful breakup with her fiancé. Upon his latest release from prison, he proposes to his beloved Ed (short for Edwina) and the two marry and settle down in a trailer in the middle of the Arizona landscape.

The pair is desperate to have children but they learn that Ed is infertile. Given Hi’s criminal history, adoption is also out of the question. After seeing a story about a local business tycoon and his wife celebrating the birth of quintuplets, Hi and Ed plot to kidnap one of the youngin’s under the logic that these people have more kids than they need or can manage. Keeping and caring for the child prove to be a challenge as Hi and Ed are beset by the police, a demented bounty hunter, and two of Hi’s bumbling prison pals who just escaped and are looking to make a quick buck with the reward money.

The nice thing about Raising Arizona is that it never plays out under false pretenses. From the very beginning, the characters’ behavior and the writing makes it clear in no certain terms that this film is not to be taken seriously. The trouble with this approach is that it doesn’t guarantee that some viewers won't try to take it seriously anyway. On the flip-side, this absurdist nature of this film’s comedy doesn’t allow for audiences to turn off their brains and chuckle it up for an hour and a half. You do get to turn off a great portion of your brain while taking it all in, but you also need to turn on a very small, specific part of the brain that doesn’t get used often enough.

Nicolas Cage espouses his lines with a dreamy, gentlemanly swagger. His prison pals speak in a similar manner but are nowhere near as eloquent as Hi. Ed, on the other hand, speaks a more normal language. She gets her moments of wordy glory but her common tongue and her spitfire personality plays well against Hi’s drifter-esque mentality. It’s the collision of these attitudes, speech styles and behavior that generate most of the laughs.

Some will find the wordplay over the top and unnecessary. But I ask you, what would this film have going for it otherwise? It would just be a kidnapper comedy with outlandish characters that don’t make sense. If nothing else, the Coen’s verbose script acts as a gateway to accepting the rest of the film. If you can gel with the script, all the gags and situational humor will be easy to digest. If you can’t get past the dialogue, you’re less likely to swallow everything else.

Much of the physical comedy is recycled from nearly a century of cinema silliness. The execution of these gags is always where comedy films rise and fall. Raising Arizona makes them work. The corny, pseudo-intellectual dialogue butters you up enough that everything else in this film is funny by default. The Coen Brothers know their broad target audience will already be having fun with the film and they continually go for broke with what moviegoers typically expect from a comedy.

Is it perfect? No, but you’ll most likely laugh your way through any logical flaws (if you really are determined enough to apply logic here) and other minor mistakes. That is the sign of a classic comedy that will be appreciated by generations to come. Raising Arizona is a fine blend of blue-collar and elitism, the likes of which may be imitated for years to come but never successfully replicated.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Amadeus** (1984)