BEFORE: OK, thematically this one may not belong here, but really, what movie belongs anywhere? It's all up to me, so if it links, it fits. But this film has been on my lists since it came out in 2015, probably, or at least 8 years or since whenever it was listed on AmazonPrime. The cast has no major stars, so I'd kind of relegated myself to the fact that it was just going to be taking up space on the list until the end of time, and I'd never be able to link to it. But then I saw an opportunity to put it between two films with the same actor, as the middle of a loose trilogy, and really that can be the best way to get rid of a stubborn, unlinkable film. And since a certain sequel about magician bank robbers is still not streaming for less than $10, I don't think I can fit that one in at the end of the month, so that frees up a slot. I had tried to under-program this month and leave two or three slots in case I was busy working, but then, you know, the "Freaky Friday" movies happened and now this, and two other films I saw similar opportunities for, so OF COURSE the month filled up and I can't take a day off from movies now. OF COURSE.
Owen Teague carries over from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth" (Movie #3,821)
THE PLOT: Based on the book covering the early years of Walt Disney's career.
AFTER: When I was in grade school I read a library book about Walt Disney - this and George Lucas's bio, which I read in high school, kind of set the tone for my work aspirations. So I knew that Walt Disney grew up on a farm. How do you know when someone grew up on a farm? Don't worry, they'll tell you all about it. But my mother had taken me to see just about every Disney film, not only the current ones, but in those pre-Star Wars and pre-VHS days they'd bring the old Disney films like "Snow White" and "Fantasia" back to theaters on a regular basis, so even if it was "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" if Disney was playing at the cinema, we were there. And then later I got one of those hand-held viewers with cartridges that played key scenes from Disney movies, like ViewMasters that moved, and I would sit there and watch Mickey Mouse shorts frame by frame just to see how images moved. So yeah, all that developed a fascination for animation years before I ever worked in that medium - once I got to NYU and saw the opportunity to MAKE movies, it was like a drug habit, although the high kind of wore off and instead of kicking the habit I just looked for more intense experiences, until I ended up producing a few animated features, then running the business end of a studio for a couple decades.
So I might know a few things about this - but that part of my life is over, I'm looking back on it with a different perspective, and the knowledge that if somebody wants to make another documentary about independent animation, they might want to talk to me. I watched "Claydream" and "Animation Outlaws" last year in the Doc Block, but I'd already had a front-row seat for the demise of Will Vinton Studios in real life, and I knew the filmmaker of the other doc and several of its subjects. Imagine if you were a roadie on rock tours for most of your career, watching a film about the concerts you served at would probably not interest you, because you were there. Been there, done that. So today I learned about the early days of Disney Studios (or Laugh-o-Grams, or whatever) and essentially, it's not something I didn't already know.
In the days before he had his empire, the young Walter Elias Disney just loved drawing, mostly animals on the side of his father's barn, which earned him a proper whipping - because that was parenting in the early 1900's. Walt was also a failed actor, which I think is how many filmmakers start out - you just keep failing upwards, really. Animation as a medium was in its infancy, even film hadn't been around for very long, so there was a chance for Disney to get in on the ground floor. He started out making animated shorts that nobody wanted to see (based on newspaper headlines, a terrible idea) and not charging enough for them, so he didn't make any profit. That's a rookie mistake that he never made again. But he was in deep and owed money all over town, he couldn't pay his staff with checks that wouldn't bounce, and owed back rent on his apartment AND his studio. Wait, this part feels very familiar to me, being the one who had to move negatives and furniture out of several NYC studio spaces over the years once the landlords learned the hard way not to rent to animators....
After his studio in Kansas City closed down, Disney moved out to Los Angeles, where his brother Roy was being treated for tuberculosis (I'm not sure why that disease had such a stigma to it, that Roy and his wife wouldn't talk about it) and found that there was a whole new city full of people who hadn't learned yet not to invest their money in animated films. Disney was making half-animated films with live actors in a series called "Alice's Wonderland" and after several shorts made for a NYC distributor named Margaret Winkler, he found out the hard way that he didn't OWN the shorts, his arrangement turned out to be work-for-hire and Winkler and her husband Charles Mintz had filed copyright on them, so he couldn't sell them to anyone else. This means Disney had been PLANNING to sell them to multiple parties, he was trying to game the distribution system and then learned the law wasn't on his side. Another rookie mistake, but he never made it again (he just found new mistakes to make, apparently...). So he went from making cartoons nobody wanted to see for no profit to making cartoons that people DID want to see, but again for no money. Once Disney finally hit on the idea of making cartoons that people did want to see for profit, well, then there was just no stopping him. Jesus, that only took him TEN YEARS of bounced checks to figure it all out.
While finishing the "Alice" films, distributor Charles Mintz sent his brother-in-law, George Winkler, to L.A. to supervise the studio, and also sabotage (intentionally or perhaps by accident, this is a bit unclear) the productions and also undermine Disney's authority and steal his best talent for other studios. Yep, the animation industry is a fun one, isn't it? Walt and his indentured artists get hired by Universal to create films starring Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit, and again, it's a work for hire, the character is owned by Universal so (eventually) Disney gets the bright idea to create a NEW character that he would own himself, and have complete creative control over. Well, as I often say, if you can't get smarter over time, at least try to get a little less dumb. That's Disney in a nutshell, it only took him another decade to be the complete control freak we now know him to be, with bottom line profits driving the bus, stealing the stories from fairy tales and then copyrighting films like "Snow White" because the original authors neglected to do that.
Once the company decides to hire women to do ink & paint, and pay them much less than men (because that's what you did back then), we see Roy Disney telling Walt there would be no time for romance, so CLEARLY that was a problem for Walt, that he was infamous for office-based romances (because that's what you did back then, too). There's no getting around it, I mean of course it was a different time, but it was before there were HR violations and decades before #MeToo was a thing, and while I'm not putting Disney in the same category as Harvey Weinstein, obviously there was something of a problem there. The animation industry is a bit infamous for this, I mean John Lasseter lost his job at Pixar because he hugged people without consent - I'm assuming this was all rather innocent but who knows - and then read up on John Krisfaluci from "Ren & Stimpy" sometime when you get a chance. Other male animators have been known for "grooming" young female animators trying to break into the business, just saying.
Yes, Walt Disney did marry Lillian Bounds, who worked for him inking and painting - that still does NOT make it OK by today's standards. He was her boss, therefore in a position of power and therefore this would have been frowned upon in current society - they had kids together, they were together a long time, still you have to question how it started.
While I was working in animation, I found myself working for an animator who wanted to make a mockumentary about Hitler, and since Hitler was a failed art student there was a comparison to be made there between Hitler and Disney, I'm not saying it's accurate because it was done for comic effect, but you can draw some parallels, in terms of motivation to succeed, a thirst for power and maybe if Hitler had gone into animation they would have been on the same path - Disney also annexed a bunch of land in Florida and California for his theme park "kingdoms", is that really any different from taking over France and Poland? Or Venezuela and Greenland? Just saying - there's a Hitler/Trump/Disney path to money and power, sure they seem like three very different people, but are they? Or is it all the same, just men taking advantage of the public by swindling them out of their money and rights. Maybe the only difference is that nobody reads a book about Hitler and thinks, "Yeah, that's going to be me someday..." or at least we hope they don't.
According to this logic, today's film and last year's film "The Apprentice" are essentially the same film - and yeah, that tracks. Two powerful businessmen are seen as they learn the ins and outs of business, often the hard way, and they fail upward to positions of power. And let's just gloss over the mistreatment of women and massive debts incurred along the way...
What I have learned about the mental process of film directors I know call "artist brain", a phrase I learned from a current co-worker. This delusion occurs after someone has had success in the filmmaking genre, and symptoms include being terrible at business affairs, not listening to others about the "right" way to do things, and generally ignoring advice about cutting costs and being prudent with money. Because the next deal is right around the corner, and it's going to pay all of the back rent and the back salaries and then the studio's going to be right as rain, at least for the next two or possibly three months. So there's no question in my mind, Disney had "artist brain" which meant that HE was right and everybody else was wrong, he was always looking for the next big thing, he just happened to hit it big with Mickey Mouse and then built his empire around that and "Snow White" and everything that came after that. But you never hear about the decade before that, the lean years where he screwed up and failed to learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile all the other animators from the early days, like Friz Freleng and Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman went to work for other companies, because they DID learn from their mistake, which was to work for deadbeat Disney.
But the biggest problem with this movie is how DRY it is - it almost feels like somebody read that exact same book about Disney that I did back in grade school, made a list of all the different facts about him and then made sure each one appeared in the film's dialogue at least three times. They also found a way to make animation production boring, and I can tell you after 31 years of working in animation studios that it's NOT usually like that. It was stressful and exhausting and a pain in the ass and often a whole lot of fun, but it was never boring.
Directed by Khoa Le
Also starring Thomas Ian Nicholas (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), Jon Heder (last seen in "When in Rome"), Armando Gutierrez, David Henrie (last seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2"), Jodie Sweetin, Taylor Gray (last seen in "Saturday Night"), Kate Katzman, Conor Dubin, Hunter Gomez (last seen in "Middle Men"), Timothy Neil Williams, Ayla Kell, Arthur L. Bernstein (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Frank Licari, Flora Bonfanti, Natasha Sherritt, Sheena Colette, Haley Swindal, Randy Molnar, Nicolas D'Amico, Justin Bowen, Tamela D'Amico (last seen in "Jupiter Ascending"), Donn Lamkin (last seen in "The Men Who Stare at Goats"), Brian Brightman (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Lee Broda (last seen in "The Vault"), Noah Forgione, Beatrice Taveras, Demitri Vardoulias, Maralee Thompson, Evan Huit, Briana Colman, Alex Higgins, Guy Morgan, J-C Roy, Alexander Leaty, Michael Rubino, Grace Flatscher, Christopher Dosen, Nancy Barber, Tara Dane, Jamie Suraci.
RATING: 4 out of 10 packs of cigarettes (again, it was a different time, back then you could smoke indoors or on a train, next to children - but since Disney died of lung cancer I have to point this out, maybe he wouldn't have been so far in debt if he had just stopped spending the studio's money on ciggies)
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