The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

1977 mass murderer animated biopic

Rating: 16/20

Plot: All his neighbors said that he seemed so normal, but young Christopher Robin had more than his share of dark secrets. It all started with an unhealthy attachment to a stuffed bear which he called Pooh. Pooh was purchased with pants, but Christopher Robin, one afternoon when playtime got a little out of hand, removed and set them on fire along with his own. That should have served as the first warning for his parents. Classmates would laugh at Robin and his "silly old bear," and his elementary school teachers would say, "Christopher Robin, I've told you before to keep your Pooh out of here!" His peers would laugh and point, and eventually something inside of young Christopher snapped. He assembled a small army of deadly stuffed animals and embarked on a murderous rampage of revenge during which many of the classmates who ridiculed him would wind up eviscerated. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh chronicles his early life.

Disney does English kiddie lit really well, previously evidenced by their extremely erotic version of Mary Poppins. Now there's a movie that makes me horny just thinking about it. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh fails to make me horny (at least not anymore), but I still think it's an underrated Disney classic. It's obviously animated with a limited budget, but I think that adds to the charm. It's simple and extremely innocent, just like its source material. A.A. Milne's stories are great on their own, so Disney didn't really need to sprinkle too much of its magic all over this and overly complicate things (see the cgi Winnie the Pooh animated television series). The voice work is wonderful, especially Sterling Holloway as the titular bear and Paul Winchell as Tigger. After the feature, there was a little documentary where you get to see Winchell doing the Tigger voice. I'll admit that that footage DID make me a little horny. I really like how Tigger says rubber. "Their legs are made out of rubba!" Oh, and Ron Howard's brother Clint does the voice of Roo in this. I also like Sebastian Cabot's playful narration. The narrator and characters talk to one another which, even as a kid, I thought was kind of neat. This movie also frequently reminds the viewer that it's from a book, using turning animated pages and words cleverly. You get to see Pooh hopping on words or flying on a balloon from one page to the next. There's some music, simple childish music that kind of gets stuck in your head. I'm not sure how I feel about the Pink Huffalumps on Parade sequence that was straight out of drunk Dumbo's subconscious or the added gopher character who just seems extraneous. I asked Jen, "Why's that thing in this? He's not in the book." As if on cue, the character said, "I'm not in the book." I guess that's kind of funny.

Dang it. Why did I have to mention Mary Poppins? Now I won't be able to get anything done all day.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

1975 movie that should be on everybody's top-500 list

Rating: 20/20

Plot: McMurphy is lazy. Unfortunately, he's also a criminal and has to serve time in prison where they'll make him work. But he's got a plan--pretend to be insane so he can be transferred to a mental institution and serve out the remaining days of his sentence without having to work. He adds a little chaos to the gentle existence of the asylum, changing a few inmates' lives for better or worse. He also finds an enemy in the head nurse--Nurse Ratched.

I could have sworn that this came out in 1973.

First off, I'd like to point out that I don't see Nurse Ratched, stoically played by Oscar winner Louise Fletcher, as the real villain. She's a bit passive-aggressive maybe and gets on McMurphy's nerves, more as a symbol or maybe as a woman than through anything she actually does, but it's not like she's outrageously malicious or anything. McMurphy's biggest antagonist is himself, and each time I watch this, I see Nicholson's character as a failed Christ figure who, although he does do his part to save a soul in the end, ends up getting in the way of himself as he tries to do fulfill whatever mission he might have. He takes his "disciples" fishing, retiring to the bowels of the stolen ship in order to have sexual relations with a woman (don't think Jesus did that), and botches a few miracles. Jack's electric in this, really one of my favorite acting performances ever. I love the last moments of the big going-away party at the end when McMurphy sits and waits for Billy to finish doing his business. There's an extended shot of just Jack's face, and his expressions in that fifty seconds or so show loss, optimism, fear, indecision, happiness. Amazing stuff. But the ensemble cast around Nicholson is also great, portraying these crazies in a way that doesn't blow them up into comic figures (though there is plenty of comedy here) but creates these very human moments where you really feel the characters' pain. Observe that first therapy session--you have the circle of guys who can communicate, eventually fit in with society again, or whatever surrounded by all the lunatics who will never fit in again, the ones who stand in the background staring at nothing, hit a punching bag with a cane with a persistence that makes him almost a hero, or elegantly dances to the music in his head. I really like the expression on Harding's face when he realizes that nobody will help him with his problem. During that entire scene and probably all the conversations the "group" has, director Forman uses close-ups and distance shots perfectly. Danny DeVito (I'm counting him as a little person, by the way) is really good as Martini, William Redfield could easily have won something as Harding, Christopher Lloyd plays ornery and angry so well as Taber, and Brad Dourif and his Lyle Lovett-esque hair are heartbreakingly good as Billy and Billy's hair respectively. And Will Sampson is unforgettable as the Chief. I love that scene where he's striding across the court during that basketball game, the first time his character shows any personality whatsoever. He says so much for being a mute. I also like the nurse who is always with Nurse Ratched but whose only line is a lengthy scream near the end of the movie. When I saw this movie as a youngster, its themes of conformity and freedom resonated. I think it's captured best in the looks on the inmates' faces when Nurse Ratched asks, "Did Billy Bibbit leave the grounds of the hospital?"

Now, let's see why this isn't on Cory's top-500 movie list.

Marwencol

2010 outsider artist documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Mark Hogancamp was severely beaten outside a bar by a few thugs. He wakes from his coma brain-damaged and traumatized and instead of dealing with a complicated real world that he can't control, creates a World War II town called Marwencol with soldier action figures and Barbie dolls that he can. Elaborate stories of romance and adventure develop in Marwencol, and Hogancamp photographs it all. Eventually, his "art" is discovered, and Hogancamp gets to show off his world at a New York City art show.

If you enjoy outsider art or stories about outsider artists like me, Marwencol's definitely a movie you should check out. It's the lone film of director Jeff Malmberg (although I do see film editing for fine works of art like The Hottie and the Nottie is on his resume) and he does a fine job giving us Mark's story objectively. The more Hogancamp's character develops in Marwencol, the stranger he gets, but Malmberg passes no judgement and it's obvious that his subject trusts him and considers him a friend. And I think that's what makes this so good. Hogancamp lets Malmberg into his little world, and we get an intimate look at both the little world and at its creator. Details about the latter (how he walks his army figure's Jeep every day; his love interests; some odd little surprises near the end) are interesting, but this movie's got another layer when the plots and subplots in Marwencol are shared. A lot of those reflect how Hogancamp sees his reality and how he deals with the trauma and the loneliness he feels after the attack, but they're also cool little fictions, the sorts of stories that Tarantino could probably tell really well. A third layer deals with Hogancamp's introduction to the world as an artist, something I'm not sure he's entirely comfortable with or really even cares about. It raises those questions about the purity and purposes of art. There's no denying that he stills of his characters interacting in Marwencol are pretty awesome though. I'm really really glad that Hogancamp shared this world with Malmberg and that Malmberg shared it with us in this great little documentary, a fascinating glimpse at a troubled mind and the very positive way that those troubles are dealt with.

Hogancamp's pictures:

Mary and Max

2009 cartoon

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Lonely 8-year-old Australian Mary befriends lonely autistic Jewish New Yorker Max after randomly pointing to his name in a directory and writing him a letter. They have the Noblets and a love of chocolate in common, and apparently, that's enough. They're pen pals for twenty years.

So there's a glut of animated movies these days--the traditionally-animated, the computer-generated stuff, other styles like that disturbing rotoscope stuff used in The Waking Life and those commercials. My favorite, without a doubt, is claymation, and since Mary and Max is a beautiful example of that technique, you're probably going to wonder if there's some bias. Probably. However, I did watch this twice just to make sure. What I noticed the second time--there certainly is a lot of farting in this movie. So if you're a fan of both claymation and farting (I consider myself an aficionado of gassy emissions humor), you'll probably love this. It's more than just farting though. This is one of those types of animated flicks that captures humanity much better than actual actors can. Max tells us that humans are "complicated souls," and I just love how simply Adam Elliot's little movie describes the key to surviving in a really ugly world with some really ugly people--find somebody beautiful to cling to. The claymation is stunning and enhances the storytelling. The settings are stark, bringing the focus to the two characters. Mary's Australia is colorful but bleak, littered and scabbed and occasionally dangerous. Max's is bleaker because it's mostly without color, just splashes of red to interrupt the grays and darker grays. His New York is as grotesque as the big city in The Triplets of Belleville and humorously almost vacant. There's a homeless guy, a woman who zips by on a scooter a few times, and a punk rocker who reappears, but the New York streets are otherwise empty. Their worlds have ugly and mean in common, but their relationship, although borderline creepy/inappropriate, makes them livable. Mary and Max is insanely funny, filled with ideas that seem torn from Roald Dahl's notebooks and quirky Amelie-esque narration and tangents. Watching this a second time, I noticed a lot of funny little details. The movie is also very touching. There are holes in each of the characters' biographies, but you really get to know them in this intensely intimate way, and you feel their ups and downs deeply. I also appreciated the very realistic and touching portrayal of Aspergers. This is a beautiful looking and beautifully-constructed little movie that further supports my belief that 2009 was the best year for animated movies. As always, I've put almost no thought into that belief. I don't have to put much thought into whether I love this movie or not though.

My favorite scene has a mime in it.

One more 2009 animated feature to watch, the French A Town Called Panic that looks like it could be a religious experience.

Big River Man

2009 documentary

Rating: 17/20 (Dylan: 20/20)

Plot: Fifty-four year old Slovenian national hero Martin Strel has swum the Danube. He's swum the Yangtze. And he's swum the Mighty Mississippi. Now it's the Amazon's turn. This documentary covers his 66-day swim of the almost 33,000 mile river with the help of two bottles of wine a day and a funky mask. Along the way, he loses his mind and enters the 4th dimension.

I learned a lot about Slovenia from watching Big River Man. They enjoy horse burgers there. Horse burgers are a little like chicken burgers but made from horse. Slovenia itself is shaped like a chicken. Slovenia is the DUI capital of the world. There's a "Learn the English Language" recording that teaches Slovenians to say "I am a drug dealer." This is a documentary you'll watch and wonder if it's real or not. Strel seems fatter than life, and the film just seems too funny to be legitimate. In fact, Dylan and I stopped watching this to do a little research and found out that the guy is real and has completed these amazing swims. He's just got more than the average amount of crazy, the type of fellow that Werner Herzog wouldn't mind following around with a camera for a while. This documentary blends hilarity and adventure so well. You get the impression that Strel's navigator, a guy with no real training in navigation, and Strel himself are hamming it up a little for the camera as they gradually lose their minds, but there's something eerie as well as hilarious in the way the swimmer's mind is completely gone in the last stages of his Amazonian swim and in the time following the feat. I still have no idea what he was talking about when he claimed he had entered and was stuck in the fourth dimension, and there are great scenes where he fashions a goofy mask to protect the skin of his face from the sun, runs off with his navigator and is later found naked and unresponsive on a beach, smears mayonnaise on his head and tries to use jumper cables to electrocute parasites that have attempted to burrow into his skull. He also references an Amazonian penis fish that enters the body via the urethra. And when they do, according to Strel, "no more penis." This is an adventurous journey into dementia with some nice hippie environmental messages built in, and it's one of the most bitchin' documentaries I've seen in a long time.