Demanding Better

It me, as they say. Not entirely (how many critics living today do we think have assistants like Anton Ego does?), but close enough.

I dredge up the comparison to Monsieur Ego because I’m sitting here thinking about how much more animation I’ve watched during the quarantine, because I’ve got so much more time to watch anything. And also I have a 5-year old who wants to watch stuff like Despicable Me, Trolls World Tour, and Garfield’s Pet Force while he is also stuck in quarantine at home.

(Quick sidebar, for anyone who read that last paragraph and asked, “Uh, what is Garfield’s Pet Force?” That would be one of three feature-length direct-to-DVD computer-animated films starring Garfield and friends. All three are among the most hideously designed computer-animated films I have ever seen, and they all operate within the premise that Garfield and his friends live in Comic Strip World, which is located adjacent to the real world and is where comic strips are filmed daily and then transmitted to the real world. Did I mention that the man who created Garfield wrote these? He did. They’re awful. I digress.)

Since we’re stuck at home, and since I just want to decompress when I can (writing about Disney is one way in which I decompress, as odd as that may sound), you may think that I’m just happy to watch anything. Ah, but think of that photo of Anton Ego above. Even here, even now, that’s still me. I continue to try to get my son to watch more of the animated classics from Disney. As I do this Disney Animation bracket thing, I’ve been thinking a fair deal about a lot of these titles, both in comparison to each other and in comparison to the films from other studios.

It is easy to criticize the films of Walt Disney Animation Studios. I do it often! But so much of the animated output from competitors outside of the House of Mouse (Pixar is its own unique thing, but a good unique thing) is pretty rough to sit through. There are many exceptions, to be clear. Laika has made some excellent and complex stop-motion animated films. I enjoyed The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie, in part because those were made by people who leaned into the silliness of taking intellectual property and turning it into cinema. And just last week, I rewatched The Prince of Egypt from the same studio responsible for Shrek. The 1998 retelling of the Exodus story ain’t perfect, but it’s the kind of movie I wish had redefined modern animation in the 21st century.

So yes, there are plenty of good mainstream animated films from non-Disney and Pixar sources. But I’m honestly repelled by the presence of pop-culture references, celebrity castings that exist simply so celebrities can appear in animated fare, mean-spirited humor, etc. that marks so many animated films these days. Even within that, there are exceptions. (It’s not mean-spirited, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has lots of pop-culture references and some very obvious examples of celebrity castings. It is also perhaps the best American-release animated film of the last 10 years.)

Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that even now, even as it might be easy to just sit back and not think about these movies, I am unable to back away from what may just be snobbery. Animation can be better. Animation should be better. Even now. Especially now. Disney and Pixar animation isn’t perfect. In the same way that DreamWorks, Illumination, Blue Sky, etc. all have standard choices that are largely formulaic, so too do Disney Animation and Pixar. But theirs are formulas that are more emotional, impactful, and visually interesting. (I can’t emphasize enough how badly the visual design of films like Shrek and Despicable Me fail to hold up over time.) So for now, I’ll just keep trying to steer my son away from the dreck. Fingers crossed that it works.

Your Recommendation for Today

In an ideal world, I’d be eschewing the Disney Animation bracket today and telling you to watch My Neighbor Totoro on Disney+. There was a long time when Disney had American distribution rights to many of the films of Studio Ghibli, including my favorite Miyazaki film, which celebrates its 32nd anniversary today. Alas, Disney lost those rights recently and Ghibli films will soon be streaming on HBO Max. (Disney’s loss.)

Or I could tell you to watch the 2011 Winnie the Pooh, which is up for a vote today. But no. Instead…

I’d like to recommend an imperfect but beautifully animated film from the 1960s, The Jungle Book. It’s funny, I was only recently head-scratching about the persistent fandom of Robin Hood, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that when I was growing up, twenty-plus years after this film was released in theaters, I watched this a lot. As an adult, I’m not quite as in love with The Jungle Book as I used to be. But the George Bruns score, so slinky and seductive (and recognizable to any fans of Adventureland in the theme parks), coupled with some killer musical numbers and richly detailed background animation is enough to push it over the edge.

You probably don’t need me to strongly recommend this one to you. But just in case, give the story of a man-cub a try.