Posted: 5/23/15 at 11:58pm
Saw it tonight. The dialogue was awfully corny, but I really liked the message of optimisim and it was one I really agree with. Nice visuals too. Worth a look if you're interested, though Disneyland is a lot more fun.
Posted: 5/24/15 at 1:09am
I have no interest in the Ayn Rand fever dreams of writer-director Brad Bird… except insofar as when he uses the exact words Liza'sHeadcase uses to cover up the truth of his politics:
Bird has previously dismissed any Rand comparisons as “ridiculous,” calling himself a centrist who “feel[s] like both parties can be absurd.” One or two ideological slips are easy to brush off, sure, but with Tomorrowland, Bird has produced four unmistakably Objectivist tracts. There are coincidences, and then there’s proselytizing.
Updated On: 5/24/15 at 01:09 AM
Posted: 5/24/15 at 6:13am
Was never bored, but what a mess of a film. The environmental message comes at you like a 70"s Time Square hooker, and ends in an awkward quasi paedophile moment.
Posted: 5/24/15 at 10:22am
rosscoe(au), do you mind providing some spoilers on the ending? I have no desire to watch what sure looks like a mess of a movie but I'm intrigued.
Whoa, FindingNamo, I had no idea. I loved THE INCREDIBLES and thought MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4 was so well realized, what a disappointment!
Posted: 5/25/15 at 9:09am
I haven't seen Tomorrowland but the Ann Raynd subtext in Ratatouille and The Incredibles seems like a giant stretch.
Posted: 5/25/15 at 10:45am
Oh it's definitely there in The Incredibles. As much as I enjoyed it, I remember thinking it at the time. But Rand's themes can be made to sort of work in a cartoon world.
I loathed Ratatouile. Everything about it.
Posted: 5/30/15 at 7:27am
I liked The Incredibles--but I haven't seen it since it came out. I actually agree with Namo on Ratatouille. But Brad Bird's best film remains The Iron Giant, and I see no Ayn Rand in there. Which is all about how people are better if they work together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgjmFBX34zc
Maybe that's just how I choose to read it--and I am a huge anti-Rand (is there a fan club for that?) but:
:Take his feature debut, 1999’s The Iron Giant. On the surface, it’s a charming cartoon about a boy and his alien robot. Yet the film spends an awful lot of time and energy developing a deep mistrust of government forces, especially military bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to destroy something they don’t understand, something spectacular.:
That's like saying Pinocchio or ET expreses Randian philosophies. I am not a Rand fan but both films show to a deep deegree about how important it is to work together and how things are lost when we don't (and yes they distrust the government but how many films do that?)
Updated On: 5/30/15 at 07:27 AM
Posted: 5/30/15 at 7:51am
Ray the film ends with Frank ( Clooney ) having to send Athena ( an Android who is forever 14 ) to her death to destroy something, Frank had a crush on her forty years before and looks at her in a creepy paedophile longing way , it's both creepy and semi sexual at the same time!
Posted: 5/30/15 at 12:03pm
Is Frank's last name Roark?
And you're gonna hear me roarrrrrrrrk...
Posted: 5/30/15 at 4:45pm
I think Brad Bird's messages could be called libertarian--and misguided. But I don't see them as full on Randian.
Posted: 5/30/15 at 6:14pm
Ayn Rand came up in the Fresh Air review of Tomorrowland, too.
Posted: 5/30/15 at 8:42pm
This is what one of my facebook friends said (quote used with permission)
Even the trailers for Tomorrowland (all I've seen so far) make it look like a Disneyland version of The Fountainhead. Where I think that article goes wrong (I've just skimmed it at this point) is where it tries to shoehorn it into Bird's oeuvre as a kind of auteurist theme. The Incredibles embraces a kind of superhero elitism, it's true, but that's inherent to the genre. It's a long jump, though, from the notion that people should embrace their strengths to Howard Roark blowing up buildings. If forced, I could see a sort of libertarianism in Bird but turning him into Ayn Rand is just the sound of a writer grinding his axe.
Posted: 5/30/15 at 10:43pm
I feel like they weren't turning him into Ayn Rand, just pointing out he's an acolyte. Like the drummer of Rush.
Posted: 5/31/15 at 2:27pm
FindingNamo, I feel like the back-and-forth about possible "Randianism" in Brad Bird's movies isn't conducive to enlightening discussion. Wouldn't it be better to identify the specific problems you have with the movies and talk about that? I'm not going to put myself into the position of being a Rand apologist, but I may be interested in defending Ratatouille, if I can clearly identify your problems with it.
Posted: 5/31/15 at 6:27pm
This is not a trick question
What is the last Clooney movie that was a hit and actually made money?
Updated On: 5/31/15 at 06:27 PM
Posted: 5/31/15 at 6:47pm
K, I just hated Ratatouille as a movie. I hated the voice performances, everything.
Posted: 5/31/15 at 10:59pm
My husband and I saw it yesterday. After an hour into the movie I asked my husband if I missed something. I asked what was this movie about as it was full of special effects but barely a plot. What we got out of it is dreamers and optimists change the world and people who give up and lose their creative spirit are doomed. Tons of special effects but it took a while for the story. Athena was mesmerizing and reminded me of a young Audrey Hepburn. A bit preachy at the end but I liked Adaline better.
Posted: 5/31/15 at 11:43pm
"This is not a trick question
What is the last Clooney movie that was a hit and actually made money?"
I think GRAVITY qualifies, doesn't it?
Posted: 6/1/15 at 1:04am
a lot of gun nuts really crack down on iron giant for the whole "guns are bad" thing. i believe hogarth (the protagonist) outright says "guns kill." i have to say, 99.9% of libertarians in the US would never be caught dead saying that.
if one watches the commentary track, the crew really loves the parody they made of "duck and cover" films, which supposedly taught viewers how to seek shelter during a nuclear strike. it was with the full realization that such films were propaganda designed to sway the masses into believing we could survive a nuclear holocaust if it ever came to that--when really the chances of the general populace surviving ground zero of a "nuclear exchange" was nil. seemed very anti-reaganish to me, really, a stance most modern libertarians would not assume. if you grew up in the 80s, i believe it was not uncommon for boys to play at "building a nuclear shelter," as if that would do anything.
Posted: 6/1/15 at 2:58am
Namo, did you even hate the delicious food animation?
I'm watching it right now and oh how good it makes French food look!! (well French food is pretty damn delicious anyways, but...)
Posted: 6/1/15 at 10:58am
Yeah, I have no rational explanation for it, but even that repulsed me. I generally LOVE Patton Oswalt, but his vocal performance completely grated on me.
If you grew up in the 80s, i believe it was not uncommon for boys to play at "building a nuclear shelter,"
I don't think that was a thing.
Posted: 6/1/15 at 12:01pm
I don't think it was a thing in the 80's either. Duck and cover was more of a late 50's early to mid sixties thing. I remember doing the "if you saw flash" duck and cover exercises in Middle School.
I remember one classmate as we quicklyfiled out of the classroom to get away from the windows and squatted by our lockers, arms over head say,
"We'd all be dead right now it there were an actual blast!"
Posted: 6/1/15 at 1:02pm
if you grew up in the 80s, i believe it was not uncommon for boys to play at "building a nuclear shelter," as if that would do anything.
It would have been highly uncommon. We were more likely playing "Red Dawn".
Posted: 6/2/15 at 11:31am
OMG as a child of the 80's I never played "building an nuclear shelter but I definitely played Red Dawn.
We were never told to hide under desks. But I do remember the TV movie The Day After scaring the crap out of me.
Posted: 6/2/15 at 11:33am
Red Dawn and The Day After were the two pop culture events. The third, if we're being generous, was Sting wondering in song if the Russians loved their children too.
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