Anastasia

In and around the late 1990s, Fox gave directors Gary Goldman and Don Bluth a seemingly simple choice; either make an animated adaption of the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ or of a 1956 film loosely based on a woman who claimed she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the daughter of the last Russian tsar, murdered by the communists in 1918. Well, if you were making a children’s movie, would you not choose the second option too?

Okay, if you have never seen this movie and have no clue who Anastasia was, I am more than willing to provide you with a bit of historical background; if you really don’t give a shit, I’d suggest that you move onto the next paragraph. As I already mentioned, she was the daughter of the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas Romanov II. In 1917 he was overthrown by a provisional government and they were overthrown again in October of the same year by the Communist Bolsheviks. The royal family were imprisoned and during the civil war, orders were given for their execution. In the years to come, rumours began to circulate about how Anastasia possibly escaped death. Many woman stood up and claimed to be the Grand Duchess, the most famous being Anna Anderson, who apparently ended up being perfectly insane. In 1991 the site where the Tsar, wife and three daughters was revealed but his son Alexei and a daughter (either Anastasia or Maria) were missing. Mind you, since 2009 all the bodies have been found and accounted and while the mystery of Anastasia is coming to an end, the tremendous impact on Russian history and myself, personally will not be forgotten anytime soon.

Welcome back non historians! Our story begins while Anastasia is 8 years old; the evil Rasputin has placed a curse on the Romanov family and basically sentenced them to death. The Tsar’s Winter Palace is then under siege and Anastasia escapes with her Grandmother who manages to get on a train out of Russia while Anastasia gets separated from her and hits her head on the platform. Ten years on and it’s clear that Anastasia has got amnesia and is now an orphan who has adopted the name Anya. She leaves the orphanage and decides to go to Paris via St Petersburg as she believes that she may have family there. While she’s there she meets the always sexy Dimitri and Vladimir, two con artists who are holding auditions to find and actress to play Anastasia in order to present her to her Grandmother for a cash reward. Naturally they pluck up Anya, being the image of the Grand Duchess and they take her along to Paris. It’s a win- win for everyone, until Rasputin rears his ugly head. He realises that his curse was not fulfilled as one Romanov is still alive so he tries to use all his cunning and sorcery to kill Anastasia. Saying much more would ruin the epic climax of the film, so it’s best I stop here.

Anastasia will always be a nostalgic favourite of mine and it doesn’t surprise me that this is Don Bluth’s highest grossing film to date. Like most of his movies, that I can recall, Anastasia is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and truly fuel for the imagination. The characters, while being a little slapstick here and there, are very human and believable; I love how Anya doesn’t pretend to be more than she seems to be or get up her own arse when she finds out that she’s a princess. The musical numbers are catchy beyond belief and the plot, while not being 100% historically accurate is easy to follow because of it’s directness but still gives the enchanting atmosphere that would commonly be associated with royalty and princesses.

Who would think that such a debatably dark premise for a children’s animated movie would work?

The Brave Little Toaster

Every time I bring up The Brave Little Toaster I either get a nostalgic or utterly confused reaction from friends, sometimes both. It would be one of those movies that you’d find on RTE 2 at 10am during the school holidays or nestled in a comfy corner of the children’s section of your tiny, local video shop. It’s an overlooked Disney classic and it just might have a special place in your heart, even if you haven’t realised it just yet.

Out story follows Toaster, Lampy, Radio, Blanky and Kirby; a few anthropomorphised household appliances as they leave their abandoned home in the countryside to search for their owner, to whom they refer to as ‘The Master’, in the big city. It’s a pretty basic plot, as plots go but don’t let the simplicity fool you. The Brave Little Toaster has been branded as one of Disney’s darkest animated films ever! If you thought the loss of Mufasa or Bambi’s mum was bad, well I’m going to make a rough estimate that 7 characters die mid song, one minor has it’s motor taken out with a screw driver and at the beginning Air Conditioner get’s so angry, he literally explodes. Why doesn’t Disney make movies like that anymore?

I feel odd to say but The Brave Little Toaster made me feel completely on edge, but not uncomfortably. There was a lot of spontaneity and a tonne of moments rational thought really couldn’t explain but it was entrenched in a deep and well thought out composition and structurally it was entirely sound.

I know I haven’t done the greatest job of explaining the entire basis of the film but some of it is inexplicable and it’s really something that you should take a mere 90mins to experience. It has the adventure, characterisation and of course, animation that I feel modern children’s ‘classics’ don’t address anymore. I’m really not surprised that, according to Wikipedia, many of the members of the Pixar studio including John Lasseter and Joe Ranft who both worked on Toy Story, along with many Pixar classics, worked to make The Brave Little Toaster possible. It’s truly an overlooked animation of epic proportions.

Avatar Review

I’m literally just in the door from seeing Avatar and I think I’m going to make this a pretty short and straight forward review as there’s nothing that I’ll say that many other reviewers haven’t already touched on. I was lucky enough to see it in 3-D and it was absolutely stunning. It was hard to resist reaching out in a futile attempt to touch the realistic use of special effects. I have heard that seeing it in 2-D is a waste of time and money since this glorious epic is purpose built for the third dimension but I can’t really make a solid judgement on that front for obvious reasons.

Plot wise, it was alright. Of course, it could’ve been better but I think this is a movie for admiration of cinematography and beauty than a subversive storyline. I did find myself easily disregarding names of characters and locations due to being immersed in innovative visuals. The story wasn’t emotive enough to make me cry and I didn’t laugh a whole lot either but it did effectively get it’s point across and once again cinema made me see that humans are twats who, after destroying their own world, have decided to mess with someone else’s. Dancing with Wolves and Pocahontas let us coil in shame as we witnessed an account of how the Western world wounded (to say the least) the Native Americans, Schindler's List let us observe how we turned on our own Western lifestyles so tragically because of religious and cultural hate and now Avatar is a vision of how we will possibly treat races on other planets in the future. This movie, like many others past and to come, has successfully made me ashamed to be human.

In conclusion, this is a must see just because it is the dawning of another new age of cinema. It’s a ground breaking epic and it defiantly has a better plot than James Cameron’s last real blockbuster Titanic and let’s face it, I think a lot of people went to the cinema to see that just to see the fail boat sink. He’s constantly pushing the bar and I’m keen to see what’s next, no doubt, it will be very pretty to look at.