the groundhog day project

One thing about Big Hero 6 --the reason the film works well despite whatever flaws it might have--is that its structure is basically textbook feature film. You've got your small catalyst at 10* minutes in--Hiro meets Tadashi. Dyer (2010) specifies that the small catalyst be something that "happens to the protagonist, and not... an action that the protagonist takes. We've already got the setup of the status quo. Now, we're moving into what will change it. Notably, it was not getting arrested that turns Hiro around. It was seeing that there were better things that he could do with his intelligence (just as his brother suggested). Dyer also suggests that a character should state the theme of the film early on, and there are important lines the clearly set up the plot, all from Tadashi. He asks Hiro, "When are you going to do something with that big brain of yours?" He asks Hiro, "What would mom and dad say?" And, after offering Hiro a ride, he tel...

We interrupt your regularly scheduled social justice warrior vs Big Hero 6 blog post for an interlude. See, today I saw Alien: Covenant in the theater and I feel the need to defend it. I also felt the need to defend King Arthur: Legend of the Sword last week but never quite got to it because my intention to watch 2004's King Arthur to stay on topic got a little sidetracked by obituaries and slinkies and The Fifth Element and Big Hero 6 . And the latter got a little... heavy? A little full of itself--my discussion of it, I mean. Not that such an approach is something new for me. As I told my students today (specifically regarding fairy tales and our breakdown of the meaning of "Little Red Riding Hood" but it can be cross applied quite readily to breaking down film), finding the flaws in something doesn't make it bad. Sometimes it can even make it more enjoyable. I mean, look where you're reading this-- The Groundhog Day Project . Watched that one over 400 time...

Today, I came to appreciate the sound design of Big Hero 6 while thinking of the next step in reifying my social justice warrior interactions with film. See, I had the movie on in the kitchen while making dinner, had my wireless earphones in, and while I could see the screen if I turned my head, mostly I was just hearing it. The sound in the opening bot fight, for example, was amazing. And, for the record, I like this movie. A lot. I gave it a 9 on IMDb. (You should know how my IMDb scoring works, I suppose, to be sure what that means. For example, while The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction get 10s from me, so does La La Land , which I think is a fundamentally flawed film, and Toy Story and The Big Lebowski and Zootopia and Sling Blade , Jaws and Deadpool . Now, as much as there was talk last year about Deadpool being nominated for Best Picture, I don't think it should have even been considered for that. Best Picture is a different sort of ideal. While Get Out earn...

Speaking of different cultures and different viewpoints, according to Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku , before Big Hero 6 even came out, some South Koreans were upset over "alleged Rising Sun imagery" in the film. One movie, one story, many interpretations and interpolations. For example, Sharon H Chang, whose blog I cited yesterday, goes beyond just the racial makeup of Hiro and Tadashi (and the Japanese imagery throughout San Fransokyo). She writes: The film also plays sardonically with racial stereotypes in a manner much appreciated. Of course Hiro is Asian and super smart, but he's also hip, trendy and the hero . Fred, the not so sharp science groupie who just hangs around turns out to be extraordinarily and inexplicably rich; hilarious fun-poking at unearned white privilege/wealth. Meanwhile, Wasabi, cautious, smart and orderly, is thankfully far from typical depictions of large Black men as 'dangerous' and 'threatening.' (Admittedly the female characte...

I was reading recently about folklorists having a problem with Joseph Campbell and his whole monomyth The Hero with a Thousand Faces thing. The hero's journey and all that generic crap that gets recycled again and again in modern stories, especially film, especially action or fantasy. Sara Cleto argues, in the above linked article: Campbell's approach tends to direct the read [sic] back to themselves and their own culture. By saying, "hey, it's really just the same story over and over, we are all basically the same, and it [sic] great!" He ends up erasing the differences, and it has a flattening effect on the stories. Nevermind my own contention that all movies are all other movies, and every story is the same story, let's side with the folklorists for the moment. Besides, my arguments regarding identity and the self suggest that the differences are what matter anyway. Sure, there may be a backbone, or several different backbones, on which all stories ...

Nope, no slinky . Just nerds using science to be superheroes. Or maybe I should explain the slinky thing. Except, it's not a. Slinky thing. That name is misleading. The slinky was more important as a metaphor for big, shiny movies that more people go see. The first reason. But the second reason was really just why I chose to write about, or inspired by, Obit. instead of 2004's King Arthur . Watching Obit. I was reminded of how I used to write about obituaries early in the Groundhog Day Project . In retrospect, that came from two things: depression and one of the central conceits of Groundhog Day , the measure of a person. Which is also a necessary part of movies like the new King Arthur: Legend of the Sword , or Big Hero 6 , or The Fifth Element . Korben Dallas is measured and mankind is measured accordingly. King Arthur, especially in Hollywood films insisting on origin stories, must be measured as worthy of being king. (However, the sword-in-the-stone bit sets up a bit t...