Category Archives: animation

The Curator of Schlock #378: Mary and the Witch’s Flower

22 Friday Apr 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #378 by Jeff Shuster

Mary and the Witch’s Flower

Kind of like a Ghibli movie.

The nightmare was over. Operatives from the Canadian government had infiltrated a marsupial slaughterhouse in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Edwige, my kangaroo companion, and myself were saved. All of the surviving animals were to be transported to animal sanctuaries. And then Larry, the Don Knotts looking special operative, gave me some bad news that hit me straight in the gut. I had to say goodbye to Edwige.

A few weeks back I reviewed Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, an attempt by a Japanese animation company to produce a movie in the style of classic Disney animation. The critics lambasted it and I felt the need to defend the movie because, at the very least, it was pretty to look at. But looks aren’t everything and, in retrospect, Little Nemo proved to be a hollow experience as the protagonist was a bit of a floater. This brings us 2017’s Mary and the Witch’s Flower from director Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

Mary and the Witch’s Flower is the first feature film of Studio Ponoc, a company formed by Yoshiaki Nishimura, the former lead producer of Studio Ghibli, a production company said to rival the Walt Disney Studios in terms of quality animated features for children and adults, Why did he leave Ghibli? Well, the studio shutdown following Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement, Miyazaki being one of the great living legends of animation. Unfortunately, this must have left many of the animators out of a job so they went with Nishimura to form a new studio and keep the style of Studio Ghibli alive.

On the surface, Mary and the Witch’s Flower has the look and feel of a top notch Studio Ghibli production. The movie is based on the children’s novel The Little Broomstick by English author Mary Stewart. Studio Ghibli had also produced movies based on English children’s novels such as The Borrowers by Mary Norton and Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Studio Ghibli English dubs are also known for featuring top talent and Mary and the Witch’s Flower features Ruby Barnhill, Kate Winslet, and Jim Broadbent.

With all of these elements coming together, we should have a movie set to rival any that Studio Ghibli had to offer, allowing Studio Ponco to carry on the legacy. Unfortunately, the experience left me feeling flat. Yes, the animation itself is up to the level of a Studio Ghibli production, but our heroine isn’t up to the Ghibli standard. Sheila O’Malley of RogerEbert.com is spot on when she says, “There’s no real inner conflict in the character, informing her choices (consciously or unconsciously).”

I remember in Kiki’s Delivery Service how Kiki loses faith in herself or how Chihiro breaks down after surviving her first night in the bath house of the spirits in Spirited Away. I’ve heard that Hayou Miyazaki has come out of retirement to make one final movie, How Do You Live? After that, it may be the end of an era for this style of animated movie, much how classic Disney animation has faded away; so too may Ghibli.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #376: Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

08 Friday Apr 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #376 by Jeff Shuster

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

Is it anime?

You ever watch a man get eaten alive by Tasmanian devils? I have. You ever watch a man get eaten alive by Tasmanian devils while trapped inside a cage with a kangaroo named Edwige? I have. You ever watch a man get eaten alive by Tasmanian devils while trapped in a cage with a kangaroo named Edwige while blowing bubbles with sour apple flavored Bubblicious bubble gum? I have.

Jealous much?

This week’s movie is 1992’s Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland from directors Masami Hate and William Hurtz. At some point, I hope they make a documentary on the making of this motion picture as it had been stuck in development hell for about fifteen years. Producer Yutaka Fujioka wanted to enter the U.S. market with a feature length adaptation of a classic American comic strip by Winsor McCay. Names attached to this production include Ray Bradbury, Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Brad Bird, and Chris Columbus to name a few.

From what I can gather, this movie was an attempt by a Japanese animation studio to create a feature in the American style of animation, something akin to what the Walt Disney Studios would make. Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland had an estimated budget of $35 million dollars, but only made $14 million at the box office. I have to say, growing up I’d never heard anyone talk about this movie. It most likely was overshadowed by the recent Disney offerings of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

I did a little digging and found an old Siskel & Ebert clip where they were not too kind to this movie. In Roger Ebert’s review, he states “Nemo himself has the IQ of an eggplant, but at least he doesn’t talk much.” Who is Nemo? He’s a 7 or 8-year-old boy with a wild imagination. When he goes to sleep, he dreams of piloting his bed through the summer sky and getting chased down by choo choo trains. Nemo also has a pet flying squirrel named Icarus because why not.

The circus is coming to town and Nemo begs his dad to take him, but Nemo’s dad is too concerned with grown up stuff like working and putting food on the table and a roof over their heads. I’m also not sure that Nemo deserves to go to the circus as he tries to steal a piece of his mother’s pie after promising not to. Nemo falls asleep and is awakened by a Professor Genius and his troop of circus performers. He presents Nemo with a gift from the Princess Camille of Slumberland, a box of fancy cookies she baked herself.

Professor Genius tells Nemo that he’s to become Princess Camille’s new playmate so off to Slumberland they go, in a dirigible no less. Slumberland is an amazing place with tall buildings and fireworks and fireworks shaped like buildings. He meets King Morpheus, a rotund fellow who makes him his heir and gives him a special key that can open any door in the kingdom. Nemo is told not to open the door with a dragon symbol on it. A grifter named Flip (voiced by Mickey Rooney) convinces Nemo to open the door and, wouldn’t you know it, the evil Nightmare gets out and kidnaps King Morpheus.

So Nemo makes stupid decisions while in Slumberland, but how many of us make smart decisions while in a dream? I didn’t like the main character. I didn’t hate him. Nemo is just kind of along for the ride along with the audience. Apparently, this movie was released in Japan three years prior to the American release and I’m curious as to whether the Japanese version had a different script. You can catch the English release on Amazon Prime streaming.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #375: Robot Carnival

01 Friday Apr 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #375 by Jeff Shuster

Robot Carnival

Nine animators, One vision.

An army of rabid Tasmanian devils rushed the security guard and myself. I did what any sane person would do and ran for my life. Edwige, my kangaroo companion and two other kangaroos were locked away in cages. I slid the latch off of Edwige’s cage and crammed myself inside. I watched in horror as the Tasmanian devils lunged at the security guard, sinking their jaws into him. — To be continued.

This month is Anime Month on this humble schlock blog. I’ll begin with the feature that got me Japanese animation in the first place, 1991’s Robot Carnival. I don’t list a director as this an anthology film made of up many directors that includes a who’s who of the Japanese animation industry of the time such as Koji Morimoto, Hidetoshi Ōmori, Yasuomi Umetsu, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Manabu Ōhashi, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Takashi Nakamura, and Katsuhiro Otomo. Each of these directors was given a task: create a short film involving robots.

Robot Carnival might be the closest you’re ever going to get to an anime version of Walt Disney’s Fantasia. No classical music here, but you do get an excellent electronic score by Isaku Fujita  and Joe Hisaishi, the latter best known for composing the scores for the films of the great Hayao Miyazaki. Like Fantasia, most of these shorts have no dialogue, In fact, the short Nightmare is a direct homage to Night on Bald Mountain segment from Fantasia.

I first caught this movie on the Sci-Fi channel back in the fall of 1993. We were visiting a family friend over the Thanksgiving holidays and they had this wondrous device called a satellite dish that gave me access to channels I had never seen before. One of these channels was the Sci-Fi channel and they were showing a movie called Robot Carnival during an anime marathon. I would sneak watch when no one was around, absorbed in the state of the art animation I was seeing on screen. I wouldn’t get another opportunity to watch Robot Carnival until I got regular access to the Sci-Fi channel years later.

I picked up the VHS at a Suncoast Video in 1996. I watched repeatedly and worried about wearing the tape out, a common problem back the days before DVD. I was an early adopter, picking up my first player in 1998. I waited patiently for Robot Carnival to make its DVD debut in North America, but it would not get an official release until about seventeen years later. And when it did come out on DVD, the shorts were in the wrong order!

Allow me to explain. Depending on which version of Robot Carnival you watch, the shorts are presented in a different order. There is the Japanese original, the North American theatrical, and the North American laserdisc. When Carl Macek released the movie in theaters, he wanted the reel changes to occur in-between the shorts so as not to disrupt them. The Japanese producers allowed him to do this. I figure the laserdisc order was changed so as to disrupt the movie as little as possible when you needed to flip the disc. Yes, you needed to flip LaserDiscs over to watch the second half of the movie.

I learned all of this from the wonderful supplements on Blu-ray release from Discotek Media. And the great thing about the Blu-ray is that you have the option of watching the shorts in the original Japanese order, North American theatrical, or North American LaserDisc. The North American LaserDisc order even has a fake LaserDisc load screen. Obviously, great care was taken to make sure the fans of this movie can watch their preferred version.

I guess I haven’t said much about this motion picture because you need to just experience Robot Carnival for yourself. It is available to stream for free through several apps such as Tubi, Vudu, and Pluto TV. Jonathan Greenall of CBR calls Robot Carnival an “unsung anime masterpiece.” He’s not wrong so check out what was for the longest time my favorite movie.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #373: The Secret of Nimh

11 Friday Mar 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #373 by Jeff Shuster

The Secret of NIMH

I like cartoons. Stop giving me grief. 

We heard the screeching, a sound of hellish death coming from beyond. The factory security guard brandished a taser and I wondered why we hadn’t run away with the rest of the factory personnel that had nearly trampled us. A factory employee, bloodied and limping, staggered toward us. He was missing an eye and his right hand covered the crimson stump that was now his left. The poor man collapsed, crying out, “They’re loose! The devils are loose!” — To be continued.

This week’s movie is 1982’s The Secret of NIMH from director Don Bluth. I’d completely forgotten about this movie. The DVD release seemed lacking so I never snagged it. Yet I remember watching The Secret of NIMH over and over again on Showtime when I was kid. I was an animation snob then, cutting my teeth on classic Disney shorts like Silly Symphonies.

I have to give Don Bluth and his team of animators credit. After defecting from the Disney company, they went all out to create a feature on par with those created in the glory days of the Walt Disney Animation Studios. The movie centers around Mrs. Brisby, a widowed mouse and mother of four children, one of whom has pneumonia.

The sick child’s name is Timothy. She’s been advised to keep him on bed rest for four weeks or he may die. The only problem is the farmer’s plow is coming early this year. If Mrs. Brisby doesn’t move her family, they all will die.

This simple conflict sets up an amazing journey for our main character that brings her to seek counsel with the Great Owl, a terrifying giant with glowing eyes. He tells her to seek out the Rats of NIMH, hyper intelligent creatures who may know of a way to move her house without her son having to leave his bed. We learn that rats had been experimented on in a lab, injected with a drug that raised their intelligence to that of a human. And we learn that some mice had also been given this drug, including Mrs Brisby’s late husband, Jonathan.

The Secret of Nimh features an all star voice cast that includes Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Dom Deluise, Arthur Malet, Hermione, Baddeley, Shannon Doherty, Will Wheaton, and John Carradine. The movie’s score was composed by the great Jerry Goldsmith, who also scored Poltergeist that year. The Secret of NIMH had stiff competition that summer as it had gone up against such movies as Blade Runner, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Conan the Barbarian, TRON, and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

What stood out for me when watching The Secret of NIMH so many years later is how it makes a simple farm into a c world fillemplex with danger and mystery. A family cat becomes a fearsome monster, a farmer’s plow becomes a force of nature, and a rose bush becomes a city of marvels. I hope this movie gets a proper remaster some day as it stands as the pinnacle of animated feature films from the 1980s.

 

Episode 511: David A. Bossert!

19 Saturday Feb 2022

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Episode 511 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

On today’s show, I talk to Disney artist and historian David A. Bossert about the astounding career of Claude Coats, the flexibility required of Disney artists, and the power of saying yes to new professional challenges.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

ScribophileTDO listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

The Kerouac Project of Orlando is open for applications for its residency program.

Episode 511 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Buzzed Books #95: The Art of Soul, The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon, and The Art of Luca

18 Tuesday Jan 2022

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Buzzed Books #95 by John King

The Art of Soul,

The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon,

and The Art of Luca

As a lifelong fan of Disney films, there’s not much nostalgia in my obsession. I have never found ways to make Condorman, The Fox and the Hound, or Herbie Does a Thing important or fun or profound. The only connection I feel between my childhood and films I saw then is how the great films still loom in my imagination. In the 1970s, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Star Wars, and The Rescuers would repeat in my mind for months after seeing them in the theater. One movie ticket provided me with rich experiences that endure.

Sometimes, though, the art and music of Disney films transcend the actual overall film itself, such as Alice in Wonderland (1951). Oliver Wallace’s score, sometimes combined with Lewis Carrol’s poetry as lyrics, is a wonderful soundscape; the 1997 compact disk release interpolated dialogue and sound effects, in essence creating a sonic film for the mind that is a better experience than the film. The film itself quivers with the miraculous design work of Mary Blair. Alice in Wonderland has some colorful, very daft scenes. But the parts surpass the whole. Listen to the soundtrack in the dark instead.

Such have been my musings while considering the extraordinary Disney titles recently released by Chronicle books. Chronicle publishes Didier Ghez’s exceptional series, They Drew as They Pleased, which unveils never-before-seen artwork from the developmental stages of classic Disney films.

Separate from Didier Ghez’s series, Chronicle also publishes volumes devoted to the creation of recent offerings by Pixar and Disney, such as Soul, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Luca.

The Art of Soul is one of my favorite books in my Disney library for how well the volume allows me to appreciate the mind-bending, yet somehow familiar visual grammar of the film.

The running time of Pixar’s Soul might be too short, which is to say, the visual experience is too sublime to appreciate in real time, with the film’s half-abstract, celestial sense of realms for the creation and dissolution of souls and, in contrast, the film’s densely realistic New York City.

As an animation nerd, I am also gratified to learn more about how the designs of Soul were worked out, with digital sketches that look rather like hand-drawn sketches—with enough practice, digital work was certain to catch up to hand-drawn illustration.

And The Art of Soul also focuses on the designs within the designs, such as jazz signage. In this deeply original film’s design art, I can see elements of Modern art, along with jazzy resonances with Disney’s 101 Dalmatians and the “Rhapsody in Blue” portion of Fantasia 2000. This book is both frozen in time—allowing the reader to experience the art as slowly as the reader wants—and also bursting with the intelligence and inspiration of the film’s creation.

I liked Raya and the Last Dragon. The Chronicle book may persuade me that the film is better than I thought. On my first viewing, the narration seemed a touch glib, the setting seemed too allegorically on-the-nose, and the water dragon seemed too goofily comic. I suspect that the filmmakers aimed for a YA audience, a demographic that clearly isn’t me.

The mythic setting of Kumandra seemed like a generalization of lots of Asian tropes and imagery, and this seemed indiscriminate to me when I watched the film. The Art of Raya and the Last Dragon points out that the inspiration for the film was Southeastern Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. So I was partly right, but in a wrong way.

In the Chronicle book, the different regions of the Dragon Lands—Heart, Spine, Talon, Fang, and Tail—are explained in terms of philosophy, architecture, and costuming. The art is transcendent, reminding me of how beautiful the film is, all while encouraging me to look deeper into its world-building.

The Art of Luca focuses on Italy, tales of merfolk, and friendship. The film is a charming meditation on childhood conflicts and life in a seaside Italian village in the 1950s. The art style is vibrant and iconic, yet original. For example, the merfolk’s design do not look like mermaids from Peter Pan or The Little Mermaid, but more humanoid, like transitioning-tadpoles, with cartoony, detailed faces.

The settings of the seaside village and the ocean are stunning (reminding me of the contrasting settings of Soul). The claustrophobic clustering of colorful dwellings in the hilly town of Portorosso makes me want to live there, in a modest, beautiful, shabby place in a time when a Vespa was the most beautiful thing in a beautiful world. The dark aquamarine of the underwater world somehow feels spooky, yet comforting, a dreamscape that makes the merfolk seem like a realistic possibility.

The character designs, even the human ones, are memorable.

I cannot assert this enough: I tend to take for granted how sublimely beautiful Disney and Pixar films are. Seeing the storyboards, character design, and concept sketches in so many styles is a gift that Chronicle brings to animation fanatics.

Enrico Casarosa, the film’s director, makes this unusual plea at the end of his introduction to this book: “I have a favor to ask … Reach out to that friend you once had from those formative days of awkward adolescence and self-discovery. It’ll give you the opportunity to tell them how important they’ve been in your life. I bet they might even remember some hilarious moments you’ve long forgotten.” This is true of friends, but also true of the great films I and my friends love, Disney and Pixar films among them.

John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #151: Dolly Parton Reference

01 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #151 by Drew Barth

Dolly Parton Reference

It’s finally a Wednesday… Finally here… Wednesday. And that means it’s a Jojo Wednesday this week. A bit over two years since the conclusion of the animated adaptation of Hirohiko Araki’s Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, we’re finally at the premiere of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean. Although this one is a little different, with it being shown exclusively on Netflix, it is still nice to see Stone Ocean animated in all its batshit-road-trip-across-Florida-insanity

Stone Ocean is the sixth part of the long-running manga, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The series as a whole is centered on the Joestar family and their bloodline throughout the decades—their battles, their deaths, and everything else that can happen around them. Stone Ocean follows Jolyne Cujoh, daughter of Stardust Crusaders’ protagonist Jotaro Kujo, and her incarceration in Green Dolphin Street Prison in Port St. Lucie. Jolyne, along with fellow prisoners Hermes Costello and a sapient colony of plankton inhabiting a dead woman’s body known as Foo Fighters, must unravel the mysteries of Whitesnake—a malicious force that can trap people’s memories and Stand abilities in physical disks. As mysterious as it is dangerous, Whitesnake has stole the memories and Stand of Jotaro Kujo and will attempt to kill Jolyne multiple times through surrogates to prevent her from taking back her estranged father’s discs. It’s a lot and this is maybe the first couple volumes out of seventeen.

From the bits and pieces we’ve already seen of the animated series, David Productions is going to be following the source material very closely—from the designs of Stands like Stone Free and Weather Report to the layout of Green Dolphin Street Prison itself. And because of that, there has always been an odd discussion surrounding these adaptations and that’s if someone should read the original manga first. And, normally, I would say yes. But despite Stone Ocean concluding in 2003, there has yet to be an official release of the manga in the US. The previous part, Golden Wind, only started getting its official manga releases in August, but there hasn’t been much of Stone Ocean just yet. And that’s definitely a shame as Stone Ocean was one of those pivotal moments in Araki’s development as a mangaka. The style we see him ending this part with is the style that has become his most iconic over the past twenty years with everything from fashion spreads to new covers for series re-releases. It feels like all of that started with this part of his manga, but we’re still not allowed to see it in English officially just yet.

As always, I’m going to evangelize Jojo as one of the best shonen manga ever released and this animated adaptation is likely going to continue my trend of evagelization. And for good reason. I’ve written previously about some of the major issues with shonen manga and Jojo’s supplanting of those tropes in favor of more sectional storytelling. I’m also excited for this entire series to be animated as it ends on a note very few manga have approached, but it’s something that many western comic fans will be very familiar with.

Get excited. Get free.

Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331 & 485) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

450: Tron Legacy Roundtable Discussion

12 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by in animation, Disney, Episode, Film, Science Fiction

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Episode 450 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, I talk with Julian Chambliss, Leslie Salas, Todd James Pierce, and Jeff Shuster about the legacy of Tron Legacy (2010) and Tron (1982) and Tron Uprising (2010) and many other things.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTESScribophile

  • TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
  • RIP, Zoe.

Episode 450 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #332: The Black Cauldron

20 Friday Nov 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #332 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Cauldron

I liked it!

Wally has kept me locked in my bedroom as I churn out pages for a spec script that reads like My Dinner With Andre, but with vampires.

schlock mansion

Wally figures once we pique the interest of Hollywood execs, he can pressure them to choose him as director. Of course, he’ll insist on directing the scenes at night. I keep trying to explain to him that nobody buys spec scripts anymore!

Tonight’s movie is 1985’s The Black Cauldron from directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. This Walt Disney production with a sordid reputation is is based on The Chronicles of Prydain series of children’s fantasy novels written between 1964 and 1968 by Lloyd Alexander. The House of Mouse snatched up the film rights in 1971, but the film suffered a deeply troubled production.

I remember The Black Cauldron being hyped by Disney back in 1985 along with the movie Return to Oz (another problem release for the studio). That summer, my mother took me to see The Black Cauldron and I remember liking it at the time. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. The estimated budget was around 44 million, but the box office only took in 21.3 million.

This was my first introduction to a box office bomb. The news media tore into it, calling it one of the worst movies of the year. The Black Cauldron had a eputation of being too dark and scary for children (the same could be said for many children’s movies from the 80s). I also remember fans of Lloyd Alexander’s work dismissing the film as it deviated quite a bit from the source material.

The Black Cauldron faded from my mind. I never got the chance to re-watch it during my childhood. The movie became one of these forbidden Disney movies like The Song of the South. The Black Cauldron hadn’t gotten a VHS release nor was it aired on The Disney Channel.

Whenever someone tells you that you can’t watch a movie, you want to watch it all the more.

The Black Cauldron had received a European home video release and I managed to get my hands on a crummy bootleg while studying film at community college. Disney eventually relented and gave The Black Cauldron a home video release in the late 90s. I eagerly purchased a copy, but again the quality wasn’t ideal. Disney must have used the cheapest VHS tapes they could find and the movie was pan & scan which is a problem for movies shot for widescreen. Years later, Disney would begrudgingly release a decent print of it on DVD (a Blu-ray has yet to be released), and I believe you can catch it on Disney+.

Is The Black Cauldron worth your time? Shot on 70mm, it is one of the most gorgeous animated features I’ve ever seen. John Hurt voices The Horned King, a skeletal menace WHO has to be the scariest Disney villain I’ve ever laid eyes on. Elmer Bernstein provides a score that is both haunting and enchanting. Is the movie good? Yes, and good is good enough for your curator of schlock.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #327: Starchaser

24 Friday Jul 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #327 by Jeff Shuster

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin

Still better than Rise of Skywalker

As I’ve stated. I’ve been residing in a wonderful, antebellum mansion with my manservant, Jervis, blissfully sheltered from the chaos of the outside world. My role as curator of The Museum of Schlock is becoming a distant memory, but I almost feel too at ease in this place. There is one thing that bothers me though. The door to the basement is locked. I want to know what’s down there. Jervis says it’s just a bunch of canned preserves, to not worry myself about it. Still, I have to see it for myself.

starchaser4

This week’s movie is 1985’s Starchaser: The Legend of Orin from director Steven Hahn. I was a child in the 80s and somehow this one never made it on my radar. Starchaser is an animated science fiction that borrows from Star Wars. You’ve got a young hero wielding a sword of mysterious energy, a surly smuggler, a princess in distress, a villain clad in black, weird aliens, funny robot companions, and spaceships galore. A major selling point of this movie is that it was billed at the first animated 3D movie.

starchaser1

It’s strange to watch Starchaser for the first time after I’ve been subjected to Stars Wars Special Editions, a prequel trilogy, a sequel trilogy, spinoff movies and animated series. I’m not saying that I’m sick of Star Wars; it’s just that I’m sick of Star Wars. I think I was 6-years-old when I saw Return of the Jedi. The movie came out. It was a big deal, but it left theaters and everyone seemed to move on from Star Wars. As cool as my Star Wars toys were, I moved on to Indiana Jones and Universal Monsters action figures. Other kids started obsessing over He-Man and Transformers. Star Wars felt kind of done.

starchaser_3

I can only imagine that Starchaser: Legend of Orin was an attempt to rekindle that flame since George Lucas had moved on to other masterpieces like Howard the Duck. Don’t be blinded by nostalgia. The 80s was an odd decade for popular culture and it seemed for every hit, there was a miss. Starchaser was critically panned upon release, many dismissing it as a nothing more than a Star Wars knockoff. I watched an old At the Movies episode, and Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert weren’t kind. In fact, I think Siskel wondered if the producers of this movie might be hearing from George Lucas’s lawyers.

starchaser2

However, Siskel and Ebert did make one interesting observation. They were impressed with how the movie did 3D. Instead of launching objects at the screen, Starchaser played around with depth of field. Could it be that the technology employed in our modern 3D movies was first pioneered in an animated Star Wars knock-off from 1985? I don’t know. It might be worth investigating.

That’s all I’ve got for you this week.

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.