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Category / Cinema
Disney’s Moana as a Video Storybook
I was looking at the videos uploaded onto the Disney YouTube channel and I was surprised at how much content was on there for their latest film Moana. So, I decided to see how much of the story could be pieced together and found there was essentially quite a bit of the first half of the film freely available.
Needless to say, this is full of spoilers. The purpose is to help provide some joy to those of us who’ve seen the film but can’t wait until the home video release later this year to enjoy the various elements. It is truly a wonderful film and you can read my original review here, along with a fact sheet here.
After you’ve read it, make sure to pre-order your copy for home viewing in all its glory here!
Prologue
In a prologue, we learn about the mystical pounamu stone, which is the heart of goddess Te Fiti. Demigod Maui steals the stone to give as a gift to humanity, but as he escapes with the stone he is attacked by Te Kā, a lava demon, in the process losing the pounamu heartstone along with a fishhook that grants him magical powers.
Act 1
1000 years later, our story begins with a small Polynesian island called Motunui. Here we find Moana Waialiki, a small child who is the daughter of Chief Tui and therefore set to become leader of the island tribe. As a baby, she appears to have a mystical connection with the sea.
A montage of Moana growing up occurs throughout the song “Where You Are” (video includes audio only). Her affinity to the sea is reinforced throughout the song, along with the importance of the natural crops and resources the island provides.
The islanders are growing in concern for their crops and fish, which are unexpectedly dying. Unbeknown to them, the cause of this is the missing pounamu heartstone.
Moana wishes to leave the island to find more fish, but her father wants her to stay on the island. She makes a first attempt at leaving the island via the song “How Far I’ll Go”, along with her trusty pet Pua the pig.
Moana has a chat with Gramma Tala to help decide what to do.
We are further introduced to the ways of Moana’s island via the song “We Know The Way”, which is a celebration of voyaging as the pride the fishermen find in their navigation and fishing skills. This is a musical interpretation of what Moana reads on the inside of a cave in ancient wall paintings.
Gramma Tala reveals that she has had the heartstone and gives it to Moana. She also reveals a hidden cave of boats from the island’s past life as voyagers.
Sadly, Gramma Tala dies, and with her final breath tells Moana to set sail. She does this, but unbeknownst to her she does this with incompetent chicken Heihei as her only companion. The “How Far I’ll Go” reprise plays.
Act 2
Moana encounters a terrible storm, which throws her from her boat and leaves her unconscious.
When she wakes, she discovers she is on a deserted island, though one other inhabitant is there: the demigod Maui.
Maui introduces himself, wowing Moana as he sings “You’re Welcome”. This is also a cunning ploy to steal her boat to escape the island, though he leaves her on the island alone and trapped inside a cave.
Moana breaks free from the cave and attempts to swim after Maui. The ocean helps reunite the pair.
They resolve their differences and Moana convinces Maui that to be a true hero he must return the pounamu heartstone to its rightful place to restore harmony to the sea, agreeing also to help him retrieve his magical fishhook on the way.
Shortly after, they encounter the coconut pirates Kakamora, who wish to steal the heartstone.
They then visit the giant crab Taratoa, who has a cave of jewels and gold that he uses to attract fish to his cave to eat them. He is in possession of Maui’s fishhook.
Maui and Moana work together to steal back the fishhook and they set sail again.
Act 3
Shortly after, Maui teaches Moana about “wayfinding” as he realises that she has never sailed before.
They set sail to return the heart to Te Fiti, but when they arrive they are attacked by the fire demon Te Kā, who damages Maui’s fishhook in the process and also repels them in their boat far out to the ocean. Maui leaves for fear of yet more damage to his hook, which will result in him losing his magical powers.
Moana returns to Te Kā alone, and as she does this Maui returns, having had a change of heart. This time Moana asks the ocean to help clear a path between her and Te Kā, and she sings “I Am Moana” to remind the goddess of who she really is, thus allowing her to restore her heart. With Te Fiti restored, she thanks Moana with a new boat and a replacement fishhook for Maui.
Moana says farewell to Maui and returns to her island, which begins to thrive under the new conditions.
Deleted Scenes
Disney have since published some additional scenes, destined for the Blu-ray (due out in March 2017).
Film review – Passengers (Morten Tyldum, 2016)
It’s fun to slam a bad film, isn’t it? Hand us a terrible film and we’re all there ready with our sticks to beat it down. It’s funny, because the filmmakers have no control over it and we get away with having a good laugh at their expense.
Passengers has been that film for the last couple of weeks.
I’ve had an article shared to me with some photos that prove how creepy Chris Pratt is in it. I had another one sent over about how it had failed at the box office after poor reviews. Generally the early reviews were positive, then the consensus changed and everyone has now decided it’s a poor film, so that’s the stance everyone has taken. Even positive reviews have misleadingly negative titles to ensure they don’t buck the trend (News.com.auhad a favourable review but they titled it “What was Jennifer Lawrence thinking?”).
The three people who sent me the above articles have no intention of watching Passengers. That is entirely their loss.
Passengers is an excellent film.
There’s more to this than the reviews have suggested
Spoilers now follow.
At its heart, it is a romantic drama that explores the relationship ship between James Preston (Chris Pratt) and Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), who are trapped in space on the Avalon spaceship, en route to the planet Homestead II. To make the 120-year journey, the crew and passengers are in hibernation pods, but Preston’s pod opens early and he is forced to fend for himself, physically and mentally.
Trapped in space alone, he eventually starts to consider waking up fellow passengers. As an electrician and mechanic, he can navigate the user manuals of the hibernation pods and is able to select who he wakes up based on video messages left on their personal profiles onboard the ship’s communication devices. He chooses writer Lane, a woman he has fallen in love with, and makes the unforgivable choice to wake her up, sentencing her to the same fate as him – certain death before anyone else wakes up.
The critics have centred on this decision as a blocker to any enjoyment. That is truly unfair. If they were handed the film to edit, presumably it would finish after forty minutes and we’d have a shot of Pratt’s character dying alone as an old man, trapped and miserable, yet having made the morally correct decision.
In Mark Kermode’s book Hatchet Job, there’s a brilliant passage on how Casablanca would have turned out if it had been shown to test screenings, with one of the greatest love stories of all time likely being changed to a happier yet implausible conclusion.
The same applies here.
This is a plot that is deliberately divisive, meant to create discussion. Some will argue that Preston was insane, on the cusp of suicide, and his relationship with Lane sustained him long enough to figure out there was a critical error with the ship, this saving the entire ship (with her help – it was a two-person job). Others will side with Lane’s stance immediately after she realises the truth; also quite justifiable due to the fact their entire relationship is based on a fundamental lie.
Either way, director Morten Tyldum fully explores every possible line of thought enough to allow the viewers to make their minds up, with enough space in the pace of the film for those thought processes to go to fruition during the film.
Pair this complex romance with some beuatiful visuals and some stellar performances from the two leads, and you get a film much better than the critics will have you believe.
You will be robbing yourself if you believe the negativity and don’t see this film for yourself.
Best Films of 2016
I’ve seen a lot of films in the last year, perhaps the most I’ve ever seen in a single year. It’s phenomenal given how busy I’ve been.
There were a couple of films I caught at the London Film Festival that I haven’t put in because they will be 2017 films. I may as well state that there is no way La La Land won’t make the list for 2017. It’s just that good.
I also decided I’d treat documentary films seperately because this year was the best in a long time for this genre. The top of the pile was probably Weiner, though there was a whole bunch of great efforts that will get their own article.
Here’s my top twelve, in alphabetical order:
Arrival
What I said:
“Arrival is one of the best films of the year. Gripping, intelligent, thought-provoking and stylish. A must see.”
Read the original review here.
Deadpool
What I said:
” It’s brash, it’s offensive and it’s graphic. It’s almost like a superhero film from an alternate reality, where the primary goal isn’t to sell action figures and lunchboxes. Its failings are more than made up for by how refreshing it was to see a completely different take on the genre.”
Read the original review here.
The Hateful Eight
What I said:
“This is a psychological mystery that isn’t afraid to maintain the whole story in complete isolation. It intertwines some laugh-out-loud moments with shocking gore in a way that only Tarantino knows how. It may not be his greatest achievement but it certainly doesn’t disappoint.”
Read the original review here.
Julieta
What I said:
“A beautiful work of art and a must see for anyone with a penchant for high quality cinema.”
Read the original review here.
Moana
What I said:
“The plaudits must go to Auli’i Cravalho, who comes in as a complete unknown and has delivered a lead performance that equals the best Disney has ever achieved. At just sixteen but with a voice as good as anything I’ve ever heard on stage, she has a very bright future indeed.”
Read the original review here.
The Neon Demon
What I said:
“This is a sensational film with a powerful leading performance from a girl just seventeen at the time of filming. Pairing this with such bold film making and the result was never going to be anything but an overwhelming success.”
Read the original review here.
Nocturnal Animals
What I said:
“If you’re interested in seeing Tom Ford’s latest then you need to know what you’re getting yourself in for. It’s a veritable misery-fest. And it’s absolutely breathtaking.”
Read the original review here.
Raw
What I said:
“Clearly, any film that can accurately depict a human devouring the flesh of a fellow human is going to turn some stomachs. It would be easy enough to nail the visual effects, make a shocking trailer and launch it out into the world. Where Raw will find wider success is the fact that there is a genuinely interesting and well-realised film beyond the surface, which justifies its critical praise.”
Read the original review here.
Room
What I said:
“It may not seem it but it’s a wonderful hidden gem, the quality of which will only become apparent once you’ve seen it. It is deliberately difficult but equally rewarding to witness. An early contender for one of my top films of the year.”
Read the original review here.
Spotlight
What I said:
“The film is now serving the same purpose as the original article: to shine a spotlight on a diabolical scandal that should have been eradicated decades ago. It is possibly the most important film you will see this year.”
Read the original review here.
Victoria
What I said:
“When I say one-shot, I mean one-shot: no trickery, no cut-aways, no cheating. That’s 138 minutes of film in one continuous take – a bold move that took three attempts to get right. It’s a glorious achievement and a wonder to behold, even though the film is perhaps flawed as a result of its own triumph.”
Read the original review here.
When Marnie Was There
What I said:
“Instantly it will strike you that it’s just as beautifully animated as anything we’ve seen before, with hand-drawn drawings taking us on the typically personal, solitary journey of the main character. Animation has seldom looked this good.”
Film review – Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)
For many cinema-goers, Arrival may have been one of the worst films of the year. For all its big-budget sci-fi overtones and its positioning alongside other space-based 2016 blockbusters such as Independence Day: Resurgence, Passengers and Rogue One, if you sought out Arrival expecting more of the same you may have been disappointed. Indeed, you will have been tricked into that much-elusive cinematic experience: thinking.
Set in modern-day USA, it stars Amy Adams as renowned linguist Louise Banks, brought in by the government to help humanity communicate with extra-terrestrial life forms that have mysteriously landed throughout Earth. She teams up with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to begin to decipher their language and understand why they have chosen now to begin communication.
Amy Adams as linguist Louise
What screenwriter Eric Heisserer has set out to do – and succeeded – is position the viewers in the shoes of alien lifeforms understanding Earth for the first time. In that sense, we are asked to consider the absurdity of the fact that so many countries have ongoing conflicts, unable to get along with one-another.
It may be set in the USA but you would be mistaken in thinking this was a lazy choice in making the Americans the saviours. The decision was more likely financial. Sure, the hero could have been from Pakistan or Chile, but this would have seriously hindered sales in the USA and all other countries where English is either a first or second language.
Amy Adams, as always, puts in a brilliant turn as the determined linguist Louise. She’s a likeable and versatile actress, perhaps at the top of her game right now, and it is a crime that not one of her five Academy Award nominations has thus far earned her a win. Perhaps this year, with a potential double-nomination for this and Nocturnal Animals, we’ll see her rightly rewarded.
Arrival is one of the best films of the year. Gripping, intelligent, thought-provoking and stylish. A must see.
Best Documentary Films 2016
There were so many great documentary films unleashed on the world in 2016 that I felt it was worth pulling them out of my main list.
The best of the bunch is Weiner, the completely bizarre fly-on-the-wall documentary of Anthony Weiner as he repeatedly details his own political career. The rest are more than worthy of a viewing.
Weiner
What I said:
“As a documentary, Weiner is about as good as it gets. It isn’t putting the pieces together after an event, instead getting lucky and being able to present a truly spectacular political scandal from the inside of the bubble. The characters are their interactions are as captivating as any fictional story.”
Read the original review here.
A Hard Days Night: The Beatles, The Touring Years
What I said:
“It is a truly brilliant piece of documentary film-making, managing to tell the familiar story with a flurry of individual memories that bring to life again a rise to stardom that has not and will not ever be replicated.”
Read the original review here.
Life, Animated
What I said:
“The film may take a look at only one man’s struggles with autism, but the focus shifts from him to those around him: his parents, his brother, his girlfriend, the professionals helping him through his condition. In this way, we see how his autism affects those around him. The result is arguably one of the most important films about autism ever made.”
Read the original review here.
Dancer
What I said:
“Most insightful are the interviews with his mother and father. Clearly huge sacrifices were made throughout his life to get him to where he is now. The film leaves it open as to whether either of them regret putting him through it, and it’s not something that ever really needs an answer. He certainly has a different life to the one he would have had if he’d stayed in Khersan, Ukraine.”
Read the original review here.
Sour Grapes
What I said:
“The film builds up a balanced picture of Kurniawan and the people he had been associating with in these wine tasting circles. It follows him as he befriends the self-professed ‘Angry Men’ group in LA over a period of several years, buying up key vintage wines, developing his palette to unrivalled levels and becoming a key player in the wine buying and selling scene. The results are nothing short of fascinating.”
Read the original review here.
The Hard Stop
What I said:
“‘The Hard Stop’ is one of the most important documentary films to hit the big screens this year. Out of necessity, it is rough around the edges. It has, at the heart of it, some of the greatest social themes facing Britain today. A riveting watch.”
Most viewed reviews of 2016
Writing these blogs is a weird and wonderful endeavour. Some of my most treasured works will get such a small amount of traffic it can be extremely disheartening. Other times, I get a silly amount of traffic for a review and I will never understand where the differences are made.
Here are the top ten most accessed review pages for this last year.
Dancer
Headshot
Looking for a Home
Your Name
A Bigger Splash
So what does this tell me? Clearly films that are mainstream do less well, whilst the ones listed above are all certainly out of the mainstream and I guess more likely to appear sooner on popular search engines.
Interestingly, three of the films are for the Asian continent, with the majority of views arriving from the country the film was made in. I guess I can say that I was big in Japan this year.
Thank you to everyone for your continued support!
Best Albums 2016
Here’s a quick list of my favourite albums of 2016. In no particular order, although I suspect Gregory Porter edges it in terms of listens for the year, closely followed by Mr Bowie.
David Bowie – Blackstar
Gregory Porter – Take Me To The Alley
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool
Travis – Everything at Once
Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein – Stranger Things Vol. 1
Michael Kiwanuka – Love and Hate
Takatsugu Muramatsu – When Marnie Was There Soundtrack Music Collection
Ed Harcourt – Furnaces
Film review – A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983)
An infrequent but nevertheless joyous family tradition of mine is to catch up with the tales of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker and his family in Bob Clark’s adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s semi-autobiographical stories. It covers his pursuits in the lead up to Christmas to convince his family, teacher and a department store Santa to deliver him a Red Rider Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas, despite the fact he will inevitably poke his eye out.
The famous tongue on the lamppost scene
The film was made in 1983, but is set in early 1940s USA. It is heaped in nostalgia for an era that many of us now can’t remember, but somehow feel represents our past. It is a past that is entirely more innocent: be it the kids crowding around the radio for their favourite show, or the punishment for swearing (the classic bar of soap in the mouth), the music and the cars. It sends a strange shot of emotion across me as it reminds me of growing up, despite the fact I was born after the film was released.
The script doesn’t really follow any real character development, instead taking on a mode of storytelling via a series of vignettes that dip into various tales. It works because each mini-tale is absolutely hilarious, and the actors are all clearly having a lot of fun with the material. I defy anyone to not find at least one part of the story they can relate to.
Above all else, it’s simply hilarious.
Please seek it out and spread the word. This film needs to be enjoyed by more people than are aware of it today.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Hope you all have a fantastic day whatever you get up to. Don’t eat and drink too much! Oh wait, yes totally do that. It’s Christmas!
Cinema, etc. 