BEFORE: Here we go, the 300th and last film of the year, and the 4,000th film overall since I started this mad process. This also marks the third year in a row that I've watched a "perfect chain", 300 movies linked by actors - or archive film appearances of historical figures, those count too under my system. In a couple days, I'll try to break down the year somehow, to figure out who had the most appearances, and what screening formats were dominant during the year. (I already know I went to the movies just ONCE during this recovery year, I hope to change that during 2022.)
It's still a weird time that nobody could have predicted - the last two years have changed everybody's lives in ways that we didn't see coming. I have a different job, I'm not seeing my family for Christmas, and it's hard not to have a fatalistic view of things, given what's been going on in the world. So I didn't know I'd be HERE, mentally, when I reached this big milestone - but I guess I should have figured I'd be SOMEWHERE, I guess that's the best you can hope for these days, if you think about it. Anyway, I'm HERE, for what it's worth, and that's the best thing about my blog, it's a routine that helps to see me through, like the year's essentially over but I'm already looking forward to what I can watch in January, which all starts in under ten days.
Justin Edwards, who played the inspiration for the Ghost of Christmas Present in the last film, carries over to voice a cartoon pig, I think.
THE PLOT: Whoever thinks that the countryside is calm and peaceful is mistaken. In it we find especially agitated animals - a Fox that thinks it's a chicken, a Rabbit that acts like a stork, and a Duck that wants to replace Father Christmas.
AFTER: It's always a bit rough to try to judge these animated films, which are largely meant for KIDS, by the same standards as a movie made for adults, like, let's say, a biopic about Charles Dickens trying to write a book. A kid's just not going to get anything out of "The Man Who Invented Christmas", it's just going to confuse them, because they don't have the perspective necessary to understand a bunch of adult things, like worrying about supporting one's family or trying to write a book that will appeal to the masses, or bailing your deadbeat father out of debtor's prison. Kids are big balls of energy, with endless bouts of creativity, and they tend not to worry about whether the stories they make up are "good" or not, those are concerns that are outside their little brains, and society just hasn't beat them up enough yet for them to worry about the audience, they just barge right ahead with their stories. Which I suppose is a good thing, let them have a few years before they're self-conscious about what other people think, there will be plenty of time to agonize over critical opinions later.
And for the most part, films made for kids sort of reflect this, a lot of them are critic-proof, because film studios know that there's a market out there, parents all need films that their kids will stare at for 90 minutes or so, giving them time to get some chores done, or maybe just have a small window of peace in their busy, loud day. So we tend not to expect too much out of cartoons made for kids, maybe that needs to change - sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who will watch a cartoon made for kids and say, "Wait a minute, is this REALLY a good idea?" On some level, it just doesn't matter.
Thankfully, whoever made "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales" did at least take a few minutes for thought, they didn't just put a bunch of cutesy animals in a movie and make them dance and sing through the power of animation, they tried to tell a story (actually three stories) that had a point. These are animals that are more like humans, they're neurotic and they make mistakes, they eventually succeed at what they're trying to do, but it just isn't EASY. Every movie has conflict, sure, but it's a tough world out there for animals, especially when some of them want to eat the others. There are a few Dreamworks & Disney films that have sort of hinted at this, but the general feeling is that kids just aren't ready to watch one animal eat another, and that's how you get characters like an unlikely vegetarian shark, as seen in "Shark Tale". That's all well and good, but it's just NOT how the world works. So, are we really preparing our kids for the world, or are we going to keep coddling them?
So this is a cartoon world where the animals DO eat each other, even if we don't see it on camera. The Wolf, aka Mr. Wolf, seems like a nice enough chap, but is he? I can't help but notice that while he's chatting with the Pig, the Duck and the Rabbit, he's also preparing a fire and a pot of boiling water. This hearkens back to the old days of the Looney Tunes shorts, Bugs Bunny would sometimes end up in a pot of boiling water and when he'd ask if something was cooking, he'd be told that rabbit stew was on the menu, and then he'd sort of figure it out. In another segment here, the Fox can't seem to catch a chicken to eat, but then gets the bright idea to steal a few eggs and then hatch them, which will give him three chickens to eat, eventually. But then this idea has disastrous consequences, when the three chicks mistake him for their mommy and bond with him.
The first story is all about babies, too - only it revives that old chestnut about babies being delivered by storks, and not the proper medical way. Again, this seems unfortunate that society was so hung up about sex at one point that we had to create an impossible fairy tale about birds carrying babies through the air, just because we didn't want to have difficult discussions with kids about how they come into the world. Kids are smarter than you think, and they can handle a lot, what would be so wrong about them knowing how babies are born? They see pregnant women from time to time, so what happens, the baby grows inside the mother and then teleports to somewhere else, where a big stork wraps it in a white cloth to form a carrying device, and then flies it back to the parents? It's ridiculous. Then inevitably in the cartoons there's some kind of mix-up where the stork makes a mistake, or switches the babies, or can't finish the flight, and thus we all realize the unreliability of a stork-based baby delivery system. (To be fair, hospitals do make mistakes, too, it's rare but there have been a couple baby-switching problems.).
In "The Big Bad Fox", the stork crashes into a tree, and needs to rely on farm animals to get the baby to the proper address. Except the Pig, Duck and Rabbit have no idea where Avignon is in relation to where they live, they can't drive a vehicle, can't read a map, and they don't know how to deal with people and animals outside their little farm world. (The Pig works on the farm, but the Duck and Rabbit are more like clueless visitors, this more or less checks out. But the Duck can't swim? This seems unlikely...) BUT, they encounter a lost Chinese Tarsier (?) in the woods, and come up with the bright idea to mail the tarsier back to China, and as long as they're doing that, why not just mail the baby to her house, while they're at it? What could POSSIBLY go wrong with that plan?
The third story here is a Christmas story, which is why I tabled this film earlier this year - I think it could have fit between "Nanny McPhee" and "Nanny McPhee Returns", but come on, who wants to break up that pair? The Duck, Pig and Rabbit return, and while decorating the farm for the holidays, they mistakenly think that they've killed Father Christmas (Santa Claus) so the Duck and Rabbit decide to take his place, and take it upon themselves to deliver gifts around the world in just one night, just like he does. Umm, don't get me started on Santa Claus, because then we're back on coddling kids, and not telling them the truth about the world, and really, it's a whole thing. Would it really be SO wrong if the kids really knew where the presents come from? Come on, if your kid has a learner's permit and still believes in Santa Claus, you might need to have a talk with him.
For the third film in a row, I've seen actors performing more than one role - of course, this is a lot easier with an animated film where the actors just provide voices, and if you've got talented voice actors who can do different voices, then why not? In the third story, the Duck, Pig and Rabbit end up in an animal shelter, which is essentially a stand-in for a prison setting, and the "big boss" there is a bulldog who sounds almost exactly like Bob Hoskins, or perhaps Ray Winstone if Bob Hoskins is a bit before your time. But it's really Adrian Edmondson, who also provides the voice of Rabbit, doing double duty. Adrian's been around for quite some time, but he's most famous for playing the role of Vyvyan, the "punk" character on "The Young Ones" - but more recently, he played First Order Captain Peavey in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi", so let's agree that this is a versatile actor! Now I really need to add him to my "Wall of Fame", my collection of 8 x 10 photos signed by "Star Wars" actors, and I have over 120 in the collection to date. The problem with collecting anything - movies, comic books, autographs - is, what do you then DO with the collection, once it's grown large enough to be meaningful? My BFF always jokes that I should open up a "Star Wars" themed deli and hang the autographs on the wall, as if those actors or characters all came in, had a meal, and signed a photo for posterity. Someday...
Anyway, the animals here at least all end up learning something - or delivering lessons to the folks at home via their little morality plays. The Big Bad Fox learns that there's more to life than stealing chickens, and he may be at heart more maternal than he thought. The Duck, Pig and Rabbit learn in the first story that babies belong with their parents, and that you can't trust storks to deliver them. And then in the last story they learn that Father Christmas is really real, just very short, but if you think about it, that makes it easier for him to get down the chimneys! OK, well, as they say, two out of three ain't bad.
I'm sorry if you were expecting MORE somehow out of Big Movie 4,000 - honestly, so was I, but I maybe need to learn something too, not to put unrealistic expectations on any one film, or on some quite arbitrary number. SOME film was going to be Movie #4,000, but my system sort of prevents me from determining in advance what film that's going to be. It's enough that I had another Perfect Year, but when I watched "Parasite" way back on January 1, it was quite impossible to see what exactly would result at the end of the year. By the same token, I know my starting place for Movie Year 14, but there's just no way I can predict how it's going to end.
Also starring the voices of Bill Bailey (last seen in "Nanny McPhee Returns"), Tallulah Conabeare, Adrian Edmondson (last seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), Matthew Goode (last seen in "Birthmarked"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "A Cure for Wellness"), Phill Jupitus (last heard in "Shaun the Sheep Movie"), Marcel McCalla, Alexander Molony, Giles New (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Louie Loveday-O'Brien, Phil Whelans
RATING: 6 out of 10 Christmas gifts (that did not, repeat NOT, just fall from the sky)
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