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J.D. Hansel

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Musical

Horse Feathers Review

January 20, 2018 by JD Hansel

My main problem with Marx Brothers films, with the exception of Duck Soup, is that they are not Duck Soup.  When it comes to film comedy, that movie pretty much sets the bar for me.  I’m not sure why Duck Soup works – it feels like it shouldn’t – but it does.  Maybe it’s just one of those “lightning in a bottle” things.  Consequently, Horse Feathers isn’t everything I might hope for, but fortunately, it’s pretty darn close.

This is a good movie for college students to see.  It offers some catharsis in this crazy phase of life to think that maybe the reason why everyone at your university hates the administration is that the president is a bozo like Groucho.  With as many comedy films have taken on academia, it still hasn’t gotten as much spoofing as it deserves, so it’s nice to see the Marx Brothers take on the subject.  It’s also not one of those Marx Brothers films that tries to shove a serious romantic plot into the film alongside the Marx antics, so it’s light on the boring scenes.  It’s one of those films that I’d like to have on in the background at parties – it’s something fun that I could watch over and over again, but I don’t feel like I lose much if I don’t pay attention to the plot.  It’s more about the lunacy of the characters and the highly hilarious (albeit very stupid) jokes, which are all I need to have a really fun movie night.

Filed Under: Film Criticism, New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1930s Movie Reviews, 1932, Comedy Classics, Four Stars, Groucho Marx, JD's Favorite Movies, JD's Recommended Viewing, Marx Brothers, Musical, NR, Pre-Code

Coco Review

January 17, 2018 by JD Hansel

The general rule of thumb when it comes to my opinions on Pixar films is this: other people complain about the ones I like, and I complain about the ones other people like.  I like a different tone and sentiment than the one Pixar usually offers, and it’s the tone they offer that makes so many people love Pixar.  It’s obviously more complicated than this though – even though I’ve heard people complain plenty about Inside Out, it’s generally regarded as a great Pixar movie, and I’m actually in the camp that really likes this one.  My brother, a far bigger Pixar nerd than I, also loved Inside Out, but I like Coco a heck of a lot more than he did, and it’s hard for me to understand this disparity.

The main reason why he didn’t like the movie is that, according to him, it doesn’t feel like a “real” Pixar movie.  He likes how most Pixar films give humanity or “souls” to objects and species that we generally don’t think have them: bugs, toys, cars, rats, monsters, robots, Scottish people, etc.  That being said, The Incredibles doesn’t do this, and Cars 2 does, so go figure.  He does have a point though: Coco feels more like it could come from Disney’s name-brand animation studio just as easily, and it does feel a little more formulaic and cliché than Pixar’s average feature.  (He noted that The Emoji Movie, which came out first, has a remarkably similar plot, and yet The Emoji Movie is the one that gets points off from critics for being too cliché.)  So I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the film as much as I did.

To be fair, I actually have a bias towards this film – one of the makers of the film came to my college campus and gave us a sneak peak, so I feel a special attachment to it – but according to Rotten Tomatoes, 224 out of 232 critics also liked it, so there must be something here.  Part of why it works is the very fact that Pixar was trying to do something different.  They told a different kind of story than usual with a different style (certainly with darker comedy than usual), and their experimentation shows that they have some range.  The visual style is particularly dazzling, and I think the introduction of this new color pallette to the (generally bland) look of CGI animated films is one of the best things to happen to the animation industry in a decade.

More importantly though, much like with The LEGO Movie, this film knows what it’s doing when it uses the clichés.  It’s taking a formula we’ve all seen before and using it to fully show off a fresh, vivid, imaginative, and highly detailed world.  Pixar is using every trick in the book here – even tricks going back to “Skeleton Dance” – to give us an old-fashioned fantasy adventure film with lots of great music.  Even the film’s opening narration uses a kind of visual storytelling I’ve never seen before, and it serves as a great callback to old shadow puppet shows.  It’s also worth noting that this film will be, for many American children and probably a number of American adults, the first time they see a film that expects them to identify with an explicitly Mexican protagonist, which also makes the film feel fresh to me.

Still, I think I’m mostly pulled in by the emotion in the film.  Pixar hasn’t done a lot of movies about artists.  They’ve done films about characters who want to find their families (Finding Nemo), characters who feel rejected by their families (Toy Story), characters who miss their dead family members (Up), characters who have dysfunctional families (The Incredibles), and so on.  This is a story about family as well, but much like The Little Mermaid, it’s a good, old-fashioned story about someone who wants to do something that’s considered acceptable by the powers that be.  It’s a film about an artistic rebel – and a far more relatable one than Remy.

It’s always music and the arts that grab me emotionally, and this film does a beautiful job of depicting not only how music can connect people and bring out the best in people.  It perfectly captures the experience of being a kid who forms a bond with someone he’s never met because they speak the same artistic language and share a special passion.

I used to be that kid.  For me it was people like Jim Henson.  I can’t help but wonder who it will be for the kids who see this film, and wonder what lives they’ll lead because of it.

Filed Under: Film Criticism, New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 2010s Movie Reviews, 2017, Action & Adventure, Animation, Disney, Family, Fantasy, Four Stars, Halloween Movie, JD's Recommended Viewing, Musical, PG, Pixar

The Nightmare Before Christmas Review

December 25, 2017 by JD Hansel

This film has been a source of inner conflict for me for a long time.  I saw most of it years ago, but I couldn’t finish it.  I found it too boring, even though I recognized its creativity.  I thought that I could overcome this dilemma by coming back to it a few years later, but sadly, I’m still caught in the same spot.

This film is brilliant.  Its visuals are absolutely stunning, and the attention to detail is so praiseworthy that one would have to bow down to Henry Selick in order to overstate how great the detail is.  Even the very idea of the film, with all of its characters and little gags, is pure genius.  In a way, I love this film.  The problem is that it gets very dull very fast.

The reason for this is that the film only has one note – or at least it holds the same note too long.  There are a few moments that stand out in the film as contributing something different to the film from its usual aesthetic: the scene in Christmas Town, the scene in which the toys attack the children on Christmas, and the scenes in which Santa is in the clutches of the Boogie Man.  All of these scenes are strong, and I like them a lot – the first is charming, the second is very Gremlins, and the third is very Tim Burton.  Apart from these, however, most of the film is just the same few feelings and motifs on repeat.

Some of this is due to the writing, and the actors might be partly to blame also, but this one mostly falls on Elfman.  “This Is Halloween” is a good, catchy song, but almost all the other songs run together and are nearly impossible to tell apart.  They all use the same few chords and are very limited in the emotions they express.  Consequently, the film feels like a broken record.  So I don’t think I could stand to watch this film every year, but since there’s clearly a lot to love hear, I’ll try to squeeze it in a couple times a decade.

Filed Under: New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1990s Movie Reviews, 1993, Animation, Christmas & New Year's, Family, Fantasy, Halloween Movie, JD's Recommended Viewing, Musical, PG, Stop-Motion, Three and a Half Stars, Tim Burton

White Christmas Review

December 21, 2017 by JD Hansel

Some films are great entertainment, and others are high art, but some just need to serve a function.  This film is functional: it puts the spectator in a Christmas mood.  Using many of the tools and tricks of other classic musicals of its day, regurgitating old tropes, it makes the viewer want to watch it not for its own value, but because it is clearly the kind of film that ought to be on the TV set during the holidays.  It has the usual problems of musicals from the 1950s, most noticeably unnecessary musical numbers, and it has a heaping dose of the 1950s’ nostalgia for older times, even though those older days were far worse than the film’s own time.  Heck, if I have to watch one more classic movie that tries to romanticize minstrel shows, I might vomit.

Still, as one would expect, it has some amount of good music, good performances, and good visuals.  Danny Kaye demonstrates why he is an underrated legend of the silver screen, and the finale even grabbed my heartstrings a little.  At the end of the day though, the film isn’t trying too hard to be very good, and I hesitate to say it is good.  This was never anyone’s passion project.  It’s just fluff.  Fortunately, once the holidays roll around, I’m kind of in the mood for fluff.

Filed Under: Film Criticism, New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1950s Movie Reviews, 1954, Approved, Christmas & New Year's, Musical, Three Stars

An American in Paris Review

June 22, 2017 by JD Hansel

Gene Kelly was working on this legendary musical at the same time as he was working on another: Singin’ in the Rain.  Unfortunately, it’s quite clear which of these two films had the most thought and work put into it – not American in Paris.  The film toggles between one story about Gene gaining recognition for his painting, which doesn’t really go anywhere, and another story about Gene falling in love with (and creepily forcing himself upon) a beautiful dancer, which is mysteriously resolved without explanation, all with unrelated musical numbers popping up throughout.  How charming.  Of course, one might say I’ve just described the average classic musical, and that may be true, but I wanted something better than average from a film with this level of status.  I wanted something more than an excuse for another jukebox musical for Gershwin songs, and this doesn’t offer that much more.

Yet, oddly, it still is charming and delightful.  Gene Kelly’s character, as much of a creep as he may be, is still likable, and his dances are still captivating.  The character dynamics and storytelling techniques are incredibly fascinating – has anyone ever heard of another film doing an opening voiceover like this film’s?  The visual styles used in some of the musical numbers are absolutely outstanding, with sets and color palettes that are not only gorgeous, but quite creatively and intelligently used.  I’m probably giving this film too much credit for its aesthetic accomplishments, but when a film knows how to do really cool ballets, that shouldn’t go unappreciated.  I can easily give the movie a hard time for being irritatingly flawed, but when a film has a great cast, likable characters, smart dialogue, lovely production design, careful artistry, and catchy music, I can’t help but give it my approval.

Filed Under: Film Criticism, New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1950s Movie Reviews, 1951, Approved, Essential Classics, Gene Kelly, Musical, NR, Romantic Comedy, Three and a Half Stars

Alice in Wonderland (1951) Review

April 29, 2017 by JD Hansel

Thanks to Tim Burton, this movie is sometimes called “the good Alice in Wonderland.”  I understand why – nostalgia goggles can do that to even the best of us.  The problem is that this movie just isn’t very good.  Sure, the 2010 film has problems and may be highly annoying to some, but at least its story is actually a story.  The original Lewis Carroll story isn’t a story.  It’s a drug trip.  And that’s what this movie is as well.

Now, I don’t want to fault the movie for problems it could not help but inherit from its source material, which is the only reason I’m giving this movie such a high rating – if Disney had come up with the story, I’d be giving it two and a half stars at best.  I’m still not even sure that the other elements of the movie merit this rating, because a lot of the film is just unbearable.  Surely Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum could have been done in a way that’s less excruciatingly irritating, and surely certain parts of the story could have been given a few more small splashed of humor.  The soundtrack is so-so, with some songs I really like a lot, others I think do the job just well enough, and others I find either forgettable or stupid.

So, I’m giving this a nice rating because of two redeeming qualities: first is the casting of a few of the main characters.  I really like the Cheshire Cat in this movie, and the Mad Hatter is one of the great Ed Winn performances.  The one who really steals the show, however, is Alice, voiced by Kathryn Beaumont.  Her voice is absolutely perfect for the part, and perhaps just perfect in general – I could easily listen to it all day.  The second redeeming quality is the visual style, as this might just be, in some respects at least, the most visually pleasing animated film I have ever seen.  It’s got all of the curves and colors one would want a trippy wonderland to have, and its style also serves to mark its particular moment in animation history.  The resulting film is one that I don’t enjoy watching very much – it was a struggle to finish it quite frankly – but I do enjoy looking at it and listening to it, so I’ll let it slide.

T

 

Filed Under: Film Criticism, New Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1950s Movie Reviews, 1951, Animation, Disney, Essential Classics, Family, Fantasy, Fantasy Worlds & High Fantasy, G, Musical, Three Stars

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