Nov 6 2008 New 'Tale of Despereaux' Trailer Bans Soup, Rats

Here's the new trailer for Tale of Despereaux, the animated movie involving difficult-to-spell CGI rodents and soup that isn't Ratataouille. Summary!

Once upon a time, in the faraway kingdom of Dor, there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King broken-hearted, the Princess filled with longing and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this land…until Despereaux Tilling was born.

A modern fairy tale from visionary filmmaker Gary Ross, together with directors Sam Fell & Rob Stevenhagen, The Tale of Desperaux tells the story of several unlikely heroes: Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), a brave mouse banished to the dungeon for speaking with a human; Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a good-hearted rat who loves light and soup, but is exiled to darkness; Pea (Emma Watson), a Princess in a gloomy castle who is prisoner to her father’s grief; and Mig (Tracey Ullman), a servant girl who longs to be a Princess, but is forced to serve the jailer (Robbie Coltrane).

My issue with this movie is that, if you watch the trailer, you see its entire plot hinges on the king banning rats and soup from his kingdom, which makes no sense. How do you ban rats? Tell them they're banned? Make little "no rats" signs? There's no way to ban rats. As far as I'm concerned, rats have always been banned. I have never willfully accepted co-habitating with rats. For me, a rat ban does not work as a plot device.

And don't even get me started on banning soup. No legitimate king would ever ban soup. Monarchies are too historically rooted in Panera Bread franchises to ever allow that kind of drastic change.

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Jun 27 2008 Trailer for 'Tale of Despereaux', Which Isn't Anything Like 'Ratatouille'

Tale of Despereaux? More like Tale of Desperation! Because Universal is so desperate to continue the Finding Nemo/Shark Tale, Bug's Life/Ants, Toy Story/Plaything Narrative tradition of repeating animated movie concepts that they've made a film about a foreign-named mouse in a kitchen! Talk about desperate! Or maybe they just logically purchased the rights to a Newbery Award-winning children's book that's coincidentally about a mouse, since mice like Mickey, Fievel, and Stuart Little have been common and popular protagonists for some time. But I'll continue to call it desperation.

Anyway, the trailer is under the cut.

Continue Reading " Trailer for 'Tale of Despereaux', Which Isn't Anything Like 'Ratatouille' "

Jun 20 2008 'Diminished Capacity' Poster Looks Great if You Voted for Nixon

I like Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, and Virginia Madsen as much as anyone, but I dare say a poster has never bored me more than this generically pleasant image. And it's so keenly targeted to a Baby Boomer demographic that it might as well come with a hysterectomy.

'Diminished Capacity' Poster Premiere [Cinematical]

Nov 9 2007 IMDB Treating Chimps Like Man

While looking up something about Mathew Broderick on IMDB (it turns out the "trivia" section doesn't say how he keeps his boyish good looks), I came across the listing for 1987's Project X, starring the young actor as an Air Force cadet in charge of watching some chimpanzees being used in a project.

This alone didn't bother me that much--movies like Ed and MVP: Most Valuable Primate have numbed me to the terrible genre that IMDB has dubbed "simian fiction"--but what did fill me with unbridled rage was noticing that not one, but ten chimps are given higher billing than Matthew Broderick.

Don't get me wrong; I couldn't care less about where his name appears in the credits. The issue is this: why are we treating screen monkeys like actors? (Moreover: people.)

Jesus, they're trained animals. It's not like they're up there actually emoting. Having some peanut butter smeared on your gums to make it looks like you're talking, or jumping up and down as your trainer waves a baton, should not qualify you for your own IMDB listing.

What is the point? Am I supposed to know these guys, have favorites?

"Who is that playing Goofy? He's really good. Wait, that's Okko? I love Okko! I thought I recognized him. He's my favorite screen chimp."

Are there legitimate reasons for this to exist, outside of angering me? Who is your favorite screen chimp?