betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 11, 2012 1:42:12 GMT -5
well, I am not pretending to pass as a movie critic, this is only a brief comment on the movie : Brave – Disney/Pixar 2012I had the awesome chance to see “Brave” on June 10th. The movie was one of the highlights of closing night of the Seattle Film Festival (marathon of a festival, 24 days festival, more than 400 movies shown). First let me talk about the interest in the movie. I got my ticket as soon as it went on sale online. Next day, totally sold out. That was the first indication that this movie was something big. Today, we arrived hour and a half before movie time (as movie theatre is inside a Shopping Mall I thought …”I will pick my ticket and have some time to do some window shopping” … wishful thinking…) . When we get there, there were already about more than 100 people in line. Another point, demographics. Every time I want to go see an animation, I should use any excuse to take with me some of my friends’ kids so I am not the only adult in line at the movie theatre. Today, 90% of the people attending were over 25. Interesting. We got into the theatre – but not before strong security (all cellphones were taken out, no cameras, every bag checked, metal detectors searching for recording devices). Movie theatre was completely packed. There, the first surprise: the Pacific Northwest Junior Pipe Band was setting up the atmosphere (http://www.nwjpb.org) and then a Pixar short was shown :“La Luna”. Very cute. And here we go. Visually, I think is one of the most advanced shows of what Pixar can do. And we already know they can do amazing stuff. It is simply stunning. It certainly feels that you are in the middle of the Highlands. One of the first scenes shows a fly by over a castle and I could only think “that is Loch Ness!” and feeling a bit of nostalgia considering that almost exactly a year before I was there. That is how amazingly real it feels. For all purposes you are in Scotland and for a minute you forget it is animation. You can say the story is not original -teenager rebelling against her mother, spells that go awry- but that doesn’t take away the magic. It is sweet, funny and emotional. Kelly Macdonald does an amazing job as Merida, and Emma Thompson is as bit as regal as you can expect. And what to say about Billy Connolly (King Fergus), he has some of the funniest scenes in the movie, the big strong King with a soft side. I was expecting to see (well, hear) more of Kevin. Young McGuffin is so funny… and yes, there is no way to understand a word of what he says! (Still trying to figure it out how they will translate the effect when dubbing the movie to other languages). The three Lords are generators of a good portion of the conflicts, but showing great Scottish proud and big hearts. I have seen a couple of very small kids that were a little scared of certain scenes (well, we all know there is a bear involved, not giving more details ) but other than that they were clapping and laughing as much as the adults. Just a note: in typical Pixar fashion, stay until the end of the credits…. I certainly hope the movie is the success it deserves. Good job Pixar!
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 11, 2012 18:07:15 GMT -5
Brave Review Pixar's latest is more traditional Disney than groundbreaking Pixar. Set in the medieval Scottish Highlands, Pixar’s new film Brave follows Merida (voiced by Boardwalk Empire's Kelly Macdonald) who is, like so many of her Disney counterparts, a princess in her late teens. There's nothing Merida loves more than riding her horse Angus and firing her bow with Katniss/Robin Hood-level accuracy. She's a rough and tumble girl not cut out for the prissy and controlled life of a princess. That’s the crux of her ongoing struggle with her well-intentioned, but overbearing mum, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), who is somewhere between a stage mother and a drill instructor. Merida wants control over her destiny, but Elinor will have none of that. The queen has even arranged for Merida to meet potential marriage suitors – bumbling rival clans voiced by Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd and Craig Ferguson -- in an occasion that’s festive for everyone but the princess. After embarrassing her mother and her suitors at her betrothal ceremony, Merida flees into the woods. There she discovers a Stonehenge-style ruin and encounters some magical beings, including an old witch who grants Merida’s wish to change her mother so that she can then change her fate. Alas, Merida comes home to some startling results and spends the rest of the movie trying to undo her reckless mistake. Brave excels most on a technical level. If you thought Disney did a stellar job of animating Rapunzel's hair in Tangled then wait until you see what Pixar does with Merida's wild scarlet locks. The movement of and detail in her unruly curls is amazingly life-like. Pixar just keeps getting better and better at rendering textures and elemental effects. Brave is a visually sumptuous experience, and its 3D fully immerses you in its mythic version of old Scotland and its misty Highlands. Patrick Doyle’s score and Julie Fowlis’ Gaelic songs are likewise lush and atmospheric. Much of Brave’s humor is derived from the brawling, boorish behavior of Merida's Scottish clanfolk, particularly her ogre-sized, doting dad King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and her triplet little brothers, cute mischief-makers with hair as fiery red as hers. Imagine Tangled’s Rapunzel being raised by the Vikings from How to Train Your Dragon and you get the idea. Brave wisely forsakes the well-worn wicked stepmother/stepdaughter, father/daughter and princess/prince relationships in favor of the more complicated, yet loving bond between a headstrong mother and her equally stubborn daughter. And yet despite that smart choice, Brave still never manages to become more than a traditional Disney princess tale. The narrative is surprisingly rote for a studio whose mantra is that story is everything, and it’s chock full of the usual “girl power” tropes and comeuppance moments one would expect. There’s simply not a lot of new ground covered here, and the film isn’t funny or charming enough to absolve these narrative shortcomings. While a technical marvel, Brave is ultimately a lesser effort from a studio known for breaking new ground with such modern classics as Up, Toy Story, WALL-E and Finding Nemo. One wonders whether Pixar has moved into a new era where they will (gasp!) make decent, but not great movies, not unlike the Disney animation output of the 1960s-‘80s. That Brave will be a success is a foregone conclusion; one trip to any Disney store will illustrate just how many kids already know who Merida is and can’t wait to see Brave. However, there was a time not so long ago when people of all ages were amped for Pixar movies. Grownups will appreciate the artistry that went into making Brave, but they’ll likely leave yearning for the transcendent Pixar they fell in love with. www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/11/brave-review#comment-554744379
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 21, 2012 22:21:57 GMT -5
DISNEY / PIXAR Brave Disney princesses have a rough time with the women who run their lives. The female authority figure is usually a stepmother — in Disney animated features, the inevitable phrase would be “wicked stepmother” — who offers Snow White a poisoned apple, forces scullery work on Cinderella and, in Tangled, locks Rapunzel in a high tower for her entire childhood and most of her adolescence. The millions of actual stepmoms, among all the postnuclear families in the world, must think of these portrayals as libel. They should bring a class-action suit against the Walt Disney Company and picket its Burbank headquarters. Up in the San Francisco suburb of Emeryville, where the Pixar kids play, movie mothers are nearly invisible. Virtually every one of Pixar’s CGI masterpieces (or, in the case of Cars and its sequel, Mater-pieces) is a buddy film limning the virtues of camaraderie. The studio might be a boys’ treehouse with a warning sign nailed to the front: NO MOMS ALLOWED. And, until now, no women directors. Before Brave, Pixar’s old-boy network had never designed a feature film around a female character, never put a woman in charge of it. As director, Pixar boss John Lasseter brought in Brenda Chapman, who had co-directed DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt in 1998 and who had a scenario based on her complex relationship with her own young daughter. Presto: Gender equality in the world’s premier animation house! Except that Chapman was removed halfway through in favor of Mark Andrews, a Pixar veteran who served as co-writer and second unit director of John Carter. There were whispers that Chapman had got lost in the thickets of story, that the movie needed a hand — a man’s hand — to make it more of an action film, less a Mother’s Day card. The story — of a rebellious princess who battles an imperious queen and is beset by magic spells — is a twist for Pixar but as familiar to its parent company Disney as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast and The Princess and the Frog. One big difference: the woman who makes the heroine’s life miserable is not her stepmother but her own mom. In ancient Scotland, Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) is a lass as wild as her curly red mane. An expert in archery, like The Hunger Games’ Katniss, Merida feels closer to the bear-hunting machismo of her father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), than to the civilizing demands of her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson). She snorts when she laughs, filches food from the pantry, just because she can, and runs free through the bar-infested woods. She’s both a tomboy and a sullen teen who responds to her mother’s every request by flopping on the nearest piece of furniture and whining, in two harsh syllables, “Mah-ahm!” When the Queen imports three unsuitable suitors as prospective husbands, Merida causes havoc in the realm by declaring she’ll marry no one but herself. “I hope you die!” she screams at the woman who gave her life. In a rage, Merida visits a witch (Julie Walters), hoping for a magic spell that will change her mother. It does. Reviewers’ etiquette requires that we speak no more of it. If you want to know what happens in the movie’s Act Two, buy a subscription to TIME and read the review in last week’s issue. Replacing the person in charge is a Pixar tradition (it happened on Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, WALL•E and Cars 2), but the creative tension between two directors, a man and a woman, is evident from the tug of tones in Brave’s telling: part hearty, part heartfelt. The movie spends its first half in brawny highlands humor — fighting, carousing, spit takes, guy stuff — and a lot of Scots stereotyping, as if they were Australians or something. Then it abruptly left-turns into the primal bonding of mother and daughter. However Manichaean the process of creating the movie, Brave is visually organic. It jettisons the sleek old Pixar shapes of toys, cars and robots — all relatively easy to animate — for images of untamed nature, from Merida’s hair to the copses and crags of imaginary Scotland. Visually the most ravishing and complex Pixar movie, Brave evokes memories of Walt Disney’s early experiments with the multiplane camera, but with the more persuasive intricacies available to CGI artists. The movie takes nearly an hour to reach its central themes: that someone we think is a beast may love us to pieces, that teen rebellion can have dreadful consequences and that, sometimes, even a Scots mother can have a Brave heart. By the climax, at which all right-thinking viewers will have dissolved in a puddle of warm appreciation, the new Pixar film has earned two cheers and a big bear hug. Now maybe some animation studio will make a really radical movie: one with a nice, caring stepmother. entertainment.time.com/2012/06/21/pixars-brave-the-princess-and-her-unbearable-mom/
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 21, 2012 23:33:59 GMT -5
Brave BY ROGER EBERT / June 20, 2012 cast & credits Merida Kelly Macdonald Fergus Billy Connolly Elinor Emma Thompson Dingwall Robbie Coltrane Macintosh Craig Ferguson MacGuffin Kevin McKidd The Witch Julie Walters Pixar/Disney present a film directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman. Written by Andrews, Chapman, Steve Purcell and Irene Mecchi. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG (for some scary action and rude humor). "Brave" is the latest animated film from Pixar, and therefore becomes the film the parents of the world will be dragged to by their kids. The good news is that the kids will probably love it, and the bad news is that parents will be disappointed if they're hoping for another Pixar groundbreaker. Unlike such brightly original films as "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo," "WALL-E" and "Up," this one finds Pixar poaching on traditional territory of Disney, its corporate partner. We get a spunky princess; her mum, the queen; her dad, the gruff king, an old witch who lives in the woods, and so on. The princess is Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald), seen in an action-packed prologue as a flame-haired Scottish tomboy whose life is changed by an early birthday gift of a bow, which quickly inspires her to become the best archer in the kingdom. Then we flash forward to Merida as a young lady of marriageable age, who is startled by request from Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) to choose among three possible husbands chosen by her clan. Nothing doing, especially since all three candidates are doofuses. Merida leaps upon her trusty steed and flees into the forest, where her friends the will-o-the-wisps lead her to the cottage of a gnarled old witch (Julie Walters). She begs for a magic spell that will change Queen Elinor's mind, but it changes more than that: It turns Elinor into a bear. Witches never know how to stop when they're ahead. Luckily, the magic spell comes with an escape clause. Merida has exactly two days to reverse the charm. After she and her mother absorb what has happened, they begin to work together and grow closer than ever, even though the queen cannot speak. There is a tricky complication. King Fergus (Billy Connolly) had his leg bitten off by a bear (in the prologue), and has been indisposed toward them ever since. Unsurprisingly, when he sees his wife as a bear, he fails to recognize her. And so on. This is a great-looking movie, much enlivened by the inspiration of giving Merida three small brothers, little redheaded triplets. The Scottish Highlands are thrillingly painted in astonishing detail, and some action shows Merida's archery more than equal in assorted emergencies. "Brave" has an uplifting message about improving communication between mothers and daughters, although transforming your mom into a bear is a rather extreme first step. Elinor is a good sport, under the circumstances. But Merida is far from being a typical fairy-tale princess. Having flatly rejected the three suitors proposed by her family, she is apparently prepared to go through life quite happily without a husband, and we can imagine her in later years, a weathered and indomitable Amazon queen, sort of a Boudica for the Scots. "Brave" seems at a loss to deal with her as a girl and makes her a sort of honorary boy. rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120620/REVIEWS/120629997
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 22, 2012 11:31:03 GMT -5
Pixar's 'Brave' hits mark with mother-daughter storyline By Robert Horton, Herald Movie Critic Is "Brave" not quite up to the usual Pixar standard, as rumors had it? Does it lean a bit more in the direction of "How to Train Your Dragon" than, say, "Toy Story" or "Finding Nemo"? Yes, probably. But if the movie isn't up at the level of "Up," it's still a skillful piece of entertainment, with a plucky heroine and an offbeat setting. And nobody's at that top Pixar level all the time, even Pixar. "Brave" is set in ancient Scotland, where a mighty one-legged chieftain-king (voice by Billy Connolly) and his sensible queen (Emma Thompson) are sometimes exasperated by their willful daughter, Merinda (Kelly Macdonald). Her birthright makes her a princess, of course, but the Pixar people take some pains to rub the sheen off the usual Disney princess (even if Pixar is now aligned in business with Disney). Merinda does adventurous "boy" things, shoots arrows like an Olympic athlete, and resists all efforts to marry her off to neighboring princes. The opening half-hour of "Brave" concentrates on this, with plenty of slapstick. It's amusing, if not exactly exciting, and it's almost as though the movie is ignoring what turns out to be its actual subject. That subject is the relationship between Merinda and her mother, which becomes more significant as the movie develops. The mood shifts to a dark, fairy-tale tone, as Merinda's encounter with a forest witch (Julie Walters) leads to some uncomfortable complications. I liked the movie more after that, although it vaguely feels like different stories stitched together. Merinda makes for an appealing heroine (Kelly Macdonald does a spirited vocal performance), even if her shimmering mane of red hair frequently upstages her -- that hair must mark a new benchmark in digital animation. The film's in fun but not overbearing 3-D in some theaters. Some of the interior scenes are so dark they were difficult to see, but given the unpredictable vagaries of movie projection in otherwise state-of-the-art theaters, I might have watched the preview in a room with the wrong equipment or something. You take your chances in the digital era. Fairy tales tend to have a dark nature, and this one's no different, which explains the PG rating; some scenes of hunting dogs on the prowl and key characters in peril will undoubtedly be too much for younger members of the potential demographic. "Brave" has a genuinely thoughtful mother-daughter subject within all the other silliness at play, and that's what should make it memorable. It won't hit deep the way other Pixar pictures have, but it'll stick around in its own way. "Brave" A plucky girl in ancient Scotland has adventures while her parents seek to marry her off, a tale that turns darker and more interesting after various transformations in its second half. This film isn't as enchanting as previous Pixar efforts, but the mother-daughter relationship at its center is well-drawn. Rated: PG for subject matter. www.heraldnet.com/article/20120622/ENT/706229989
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 22, 2012 14:41:16 GMT -5
'Brave' is beautiful, but doesn't have the heart of most Pixar films There's a famous Shakespearean stage direction -- "Exit, pursued by a bear." Scottish princess Merida is the star of the new Pixar movie "Brave," but a bear plays an important role too. By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper REVIEW: As a mother of a young daughter, I've been eagerly awaiting Pixar's "Brave" for months. Who can resist those breathtaking trailers, as Scottish princess Merida's flaming curls whirl around her head like butterflies while she takes aim with her bow and arrow? "Brave" has a promising start. Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) is obviously beloved by her parents -- goofy giant dad (Billy Connolly), who loses a leg to a legendary giant bear, and queenly mum (Emma Thompson). They give her a bow and encourage her to learn archery and lose herself in wild afternoons riding her giant Clydesdale, Angus. But she's still a princess, and when Merida gets older, she's expected to marry one of the three heirs to the other Scottish kingdoms. Man, are they losers. As you've probably seen in the trailer, Merida bests them all in the archery contest, even splitting the arrow of the one hapless prince who accidentally managed to hit the bullseye. But when even that won't convince her parents she's not ready to wed, Merida turns to witchcraft. And then things start to get kind of dull. A curse is put on the queen, and daughter and queen drag each other around the castle and the woods trying to hide things from Dad and the visiting heirs and their entourages. This part of the film kind of goes on. And on. And on. There are some touching bits, as Merida and Mom realize they really need each other, but there are none of the tender Woody-and-Andy moments that make "Toy Story" so wonderful. You feel like the film wants to deliver a touching message about how moms and daughters need each other, or perhaps about how girls aren't possessions to be married off without their consent. But when the second half of the film is mostly clowny slapstick, it feels like the script pages with those messages got left behind in the editing room. The rest of the film has all the Pixar outward charm with little of its heart. Merida's redheaded triplet brothers are barely in it, but they deliver a few fun scenes. ("Don't just play with your haggis!" scolds the queen at a meal.) And there are some great lines. ("We'll expect your declarations of war in the morning," chirps Merida as she muses on how her parents could get her out of the bethrothal nonsense.) Sadly, "Brave" doesn't land on the top shelf of Pixar films next to "Toy Story" and "Cars." But as they say about pizza, even a not-so-great Pixar film is still pretty good. Young children will enjoy it, and they'll also like the sweet little short film "La Luna" that airs before it. Kudos, as always, to Pixar for making these little extras. entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/22/12299924-brave-is-beautiful-but-doesnt-have-the-heart-of-most-pixar-films
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 23, 2012 22:23:49 GMT -5
'Brave': Pixar's latest is lovable and endearing "Brave," the new offering from Pixar, isn't as good as the studio's best ("Finding Nemo," "Ratatouille," "Up"), but it's a lovable, endearing film nonetheless, says Seattle Times movie critic Moira Macdonald. Directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman and featuring the voices of Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Craig Ferguson and others," "Brave" is playing at several Seattle theaters Once infallible, Pixar proved with "Cars 2" that it can stumble like any studio. So it's a relief that "Brave," though it doesn't rank with the very best of Pixar (to my mind "Finding Nemo," "Ratatouille" and "Up"), marks a return to form. The story of a princess in ancient Scotland who hopes to shake off tradition and choose her own fate, it's a lushly colorful and appealing tale, never quite sublime but always entertaining and often delightful. Merida (voiced charmingly by Kelly Macdonald, who I'll always remember as Maggie Smith's long-suffering maid Mary from "Gosford Park") is a headstrong teen, equipped with a live-wire mop of red hair and a trio of perpetual-motion little brothers who flit through the film like unusually entertaining fruit flies. In accordance with tradition, Merida is told by her parents, King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), that she must marry one of three preselected young men (the sons of lords, representing key clans). This doesn't sit well with Merida, who wants control over her life and soon follows a line of airy will-o-the-wisps through the forest to a mysterious witch/woodcarver (Julie Walters). A spell is offered to her that could well change her fate — for better or worse. Ultimately, "Brave" becomes a mother-daughter story, a dynamic that Pixar's never before explored in any depth. We watch as Merida unwittingly places her mother in peril, then must use her wits and strength to somehow save her. Along the way, we see Merida grow up, just a little; she still wants what she wants, but learns that a parent's wisdom matters, too. Though things seem to wrap up a little too easily in the film's final scenes, and a few moments of dark peril seem unnecessarily scary for very young viewers, the technically ambitious "Brave" has a lovable, endearing quality that makes it irresistible. Perhaps it's Macdonald's lilting voice, tripping up and down as if it's dancing, creating a sense of conspiratorial intimacy. Perhaps it's the funny supporting cast (and yes, there's room here for Pixar stalwart John Ratzenberger, voicing a guard named Gordon), which finds freshness even in the old joke that some Scottish accents are unintelligible even to fellow Scots. Perhaps it's the movie's sheer prettiness, with its rainbow of greens and blues in the Highlands hills and lakes, or the way Merida's bouncing mane becomes practically a character in itself. (At one point, Merida is made to tuck her hair away neatly under a headdress; one rebellious tress keeps popping out, as if it has something it wants to say.) Perhaps it's those three little brothers, who quickly become an adorably redheaded sight gag. Or perhaps it's just that it's a sweet story, simply and gently told. Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movies/2018484265_mr22brave.html
|
|
betinad
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 1,789
|
Post by betinad on Jun 24, 2012 23:27:46 GMT -5
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer –
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new Disney princess has ascended to the box-office throne with a No. 1 debut for Pixar Animation's "Brave."
The latest from the makers of "WALL-E," ''Finding Nemo" and the "Toy Story" movies opened with $66.7 million domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday. "Brave" added $13.5 million in 10 overseas markets for a worldwide start of $80.2 million.
Featuring a feisty Scottish princess, "Brave" was the first of Disney's Pixar animations with a female protagonist. And it left American hero Abraham Lincoln in the dust.
The 20th Century Fox action tale "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" opened far back at No. 3 with $16.5 million, behind "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted." DreamWorks Animation's animated "Madagascar" sequel had been No. 1 for two weekends and added $20.2 million to raise its domestic total to $157.6 million.
"Brave" is the 13th-straight Pixar release to open at No. 1 since "Toy Story" launched Hollywood's age of computer animation in 1995. "Their track record is just unbelievable," said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "The Pixar brand just carries so much weight with the audience, it doesn't matter almost what the story is about if it has the Pixar name." The weekend's other new wide release, Steve Carell and Keira Knightley's apocalyptic romance "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," misfired with just $3.8 million, debuting at No. 10. The Focus Features film, playing in much narrower release than other top-10 movies, stars Carell and Knightley as heartbroken neighbors on a road trip as a killer asteroid hurtles toward Earth. Woody Allen's Italian romance "To Rome with Love" pulled in huge audiences in limited release, debuting with $379,371 in five theaters. That gave the Sony Pictures Classics release a whopping average of $75,874 a theater, compared to $16,028 in 4,164 cinemas for "Brave."
"Brave" features a voice cast led by Kelly Macdonald and Emma Thompson in a mother-daughter story of a young Scottish princess defying tradition that requires her to marry against her will. The film proved that audiences will turn up for a female hero, not just the male protagonists of past Pixar flicks, such as Woody and Buzz of "Toy Story," the robot of "WALL-E" or the rat and his chef buddy of "Ratatouille." "Brave" matched the $66.1 million debut of Pixar's "Cars 2," with male automotive lead Lightning McQueen, over the same weekend a year ago. "It is a phenomenal thing, these guys and their mastery of big storytelling and character development, delivering something that plays well to adults as well as kids, to girls as well as boys," Dave Hollis, Disney's head of distribution, said of Pixar. The audience for "Brave" did lean toward females, who accounted for 57 percent of viewers. Two-thirds of the film's business came from families, who also continued to flock to "Madagascar 3," making a rare weekend when two PG-rated movies led the box office. The R-rated "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" was a clever idea — the 16th U.S. president waging his own civil war against the blood-suckers of the republic. But critics were unimpressed, and action fans had only a passing interest in the movie, which featured relative unknown Benjamin Walker as Lincoln. Still, it was made for $69 million, a modest budget for a summer action movie, and 20th Century Fox had hopes it would hold up well over the next week or so before "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Dark Knight Rises" swoop in to take over cinemas in July. "It's actually a good start for this movie," said Chris Aronson, the studio's head of distribution. "This is an interesting and untested genre that I think audiences are going to continue to seek out. Mash-ups have been done, but the historical mash-up has not been done."
Estimated ticket sales were for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
|
|
|
Post by trinity on Jul 3, 2012 13:32:22 GMT -5
“I’ll be shooting for my own hand.”Pixar has done nothing for me since Up. I’ve never understood why people like the Toy Story movies as much as they do and the less said about Cars 2 the better. Now in what is a landmark moment that should have come a decade ago, Pixar decided to make a movie about women. Not only is Merida (Kelly MacDonald) the first female protagonist in a Pixar movie, this is the first time a Pixar film has focused on an exclusively female relationship: that of mother and daughter. Though destined to be a Disney Princess (another first for Pixar, getting a character into that vaunted club), Merida is a new breed. Gone is the tacit assurance that finding love and getting married is the apex of womanly existence. You have to hand it to Pixar: when they join a club, they aim to change it. Maybe this is because Brenda Chapman, getting credit both as a writer and director on the project, is a woman. She was the first woman to direct a major animated feature for a Hollywood studio (The Prince of Egypt). So there’s a lot of new ground being broken by Brave behind the scenes. In terms of quality, well, Brave is every bit as good as the typical Pixar movie. It’s got the same beating heart beneath the action and comedy, the same simple but completely human themes running through its somewhat fantastic story. Above all, it’s really about relationships between people and strong emotions expressed through clear, confident storytelling. This is another one of those cases where they make it look easy over there. It’s got a little The Little Mermaid mixed into its DNA and I don’t just say that because half the characters are gingers. There’s the same narrative of the rebellious young woman only this time, it’s her mother and not her father she’s rebelling against. Add in some colorful secondary characters, a magic spell, and some danger and you’ve got a solid formula that, while not groundbreaking, allows everything about Brave that is groundbreaking to breathe. Merida is on the cusp of womanhood and while her younger brothers have the run of the castle, she is subject to the courtly training of her imperious mother, the Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). With her more fun-loving and indulgent father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly) giving her a bit of freedom to explore her own identity along the way, Merida grows up with nothing but distaste for the life of a princess. It’s not that she wants to be a warrior or anything else really. She doesn’t know what she wants except the chance to find that out. She’s a cypher for the classic teenage coming of age story and even though this is medieval Scotland, it works. It works very well, actually. Brave deserves to be considered among the best of the Pixar films and I honestly don’t get the weirdly mixed reaction it’s getting. A lot is made in the film of Merida’s skill with a bow. I said she doesn’t necessarily want to be a warrior but she certainly enjoys the option. She likes exercise and physical stuff and looks up to her father, a legendary warrior. She wants to shoot her bow, which she is awesome with, and swing a sword. That’s not womanly, though, and so she wants to even more. There’s something in there about the gender assignment of cultural roles and it’s telling that Merida gravitates toward the trappings of a man while constantly being pulled in the other direction by her mother. It seems like an uneasy balance has been the status quo since Merida was a child. Now that she’s older, the leaders of the other regional clans have come to bid on her hand and so keep their alliance in tact. Rather than leaving it at “princesses must get married and that’s that”, the film offers a good reason for Merida’s situation. It’s not fair, like she says, but it’s culturally relevant and it’s got a practical purpose. Because they do the work to set that up, I figured the movie would end with Merida getting married or at least on her way to it. Mostly because this is inarguably better justification for the reinforcement of marriage as a normative than is present in virtually all the other Disney films that end with the “princess” getting hitched. But no, says Pixar, f*** that f*****g crap. If Merida don’t wanna, Merida don’t haveta. I think it takes a lot of nerve to keep Merida single by the end of the film, especially when they largely bought themselves out of the usual criticisms by actually taking the time to develop a context and establish some stakes (if she doesn’t, the clans will go to war). So bravo, Pixar. There’s no love story in this movie, except that of mother and daughter. Most of the movie is Merida dealing with her mother’s stubborn resolve that she marry one of the eccentric clan heirs, none of which are all that appealing to her (or us). Before long, Merida stumbles on that most tricky of solutions: magic. Encountering a crotchety but entertainingly crazy old witch –er woodcarver– Merida gets her hands on a magic cake that will “change” her mother. With the reckless assurance of the teenage mind, Merida immediately feeds this crap to her mom which turns her into a f*****g bear. Elinor is still mostly herself in bear form and it’s hilarious. They managed to create a sort of affected bipedal walking stance that she does in bear form and it never gets old. Slew me every time I saw it. Merida immediately recognizes the harm in what she did and the second act is the two of them trying to figure out how to reverse the spell. The answer is more or less clear, but the complication is that a demon bear named Mor’du ate Fergus’s leg a decade ago and the guy pretty much hates bears. His castle is full of stuffed bears, he wears a bearskin, and the family crest is bears. I mean, the guy has issues with bears. Pixar tried to keep this whole bear transformation thing mostly under wraps which I don’t get. I could understand if the worry was about unfavorable comparisons to Disney’s Brother Bear (ie: people calling this a Scottish reskin or something) but they don’t hold up so I really don’t understand. After the John Carter marketing fiasco and other weird crap going on over there lately, I just have to wonder if Disney’s marketing department decided to run their business like Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce after too many cocktails. At any rate, I spill the beans here because really, who cares? It doesn’t ruin the movie to know this, in fact it might even be more impetus to see it after the sort of “what is this really even about?” marketing. I mean, they changed the name of the film from (the more interesting) The Bear and the Bow to Brave for what reason? To evoke Braveheart as a way to sell the movie? Is it because they worried “boys” wouldn’t want to see a movie about a girl and figured changing the name would fix it, the same way they determined that John Carter of Mars would scare all the “girls” away from their already doomed movie? I mean what gives, Disney? You used to be good at this crap. Thankfully Pixar have created another masterpiece that should transcend any marketing or title issues. The setting and cultural material derived from it act as a character in the film, basically. The movie sometimes presents us with familiar, Scotland-lite cliches (haggis, unimaginative names, etc) but there’s a real love for both Scotland and the Celtic mystique that goes a bit beyond window-dressing. It’s present in the art of the film, the plentiful shots of mists and glens, lochs and woods, and the detail of the character design. Everything from knotwork to woad paint finds its way into this movie, and the warrior tradition of the Scots, including the virtues of bravery and honor, are embraced without stopping to dismiss violence to preserve the kiddie-movie shield. Of course it isn’t a realistic film, but it is authentic. Brave is not as action-packed as the trailers may have suggested. It has its share of 2012′s omnipresent bow porn, but it’s not like Merida is Mulan. Where its heart truly lays is in family drama, not dissimilar from The Incredibles (which had more ambitious scope but a less intimate story at the heart), with a heavy dose of comedy. Brave is a really funny movie, actually, though some of the best moments were in the trailers. Fortunately, all the stuff with the “wee devils” (Merida’s three brothers) is just for the movie. They are seriously a comedy trio of epic proportions. For all that the other stuff works, the best part of the movie is Merida and Elinor. They are both compelling versions of familiar characters and Pixar makes sure to show their work, as per usual, giving viewers reasons to sympathize with both and understand them even when they’re being horrible. Merida is as stubborn and selfish as she thinks Elinor is, and Elinor is too concerned with tradition and duty to see who here daughter even is. They both learn a lot about themselves and each other and it might sound cheesy, or even be cheesy, if Pixar’s writers and directors weren’t the absolutely best at this kind of story. The care taken with these characters and this truly uncomplicated story is an embarrassment to all movies that try to shorthand these types of relationships on the way to getting to the stuff no one cares as much about: self-involved mysteries, mindless spectacle, obligatory romance, etc. With some charm and wit, you can give even the simplest stories wings. And that’s Pixar’s secret. They know this and they know that the simplest stories, at their emotional core, are always the best and the most resonant. Maybe Brave, female-centric as it is, would have been impossible a few short years ago. Things have changed, though, and the evidence is everywhere. Nice to see Pixar getting on board. Brave is another in the vein of movies that I feel like are most “for” at the young women who’ve grown up interested in traditionally boyish stuff, whether it be a heroic narrative or swords and archery. Girls and young women who don’t automatically gender activities, objects, or points of view as they are so often brought up to. Just today my kid lamented that they don’t make enough “girl LEGO” and while I frown on her even caring about something like “girl LEGO”, I understand where she’s coming from at the same time. LEGO is a heavily masculinized toy and while I’d prefer it if Haylee wasn’t the kind of kid who cared about that, it’s not really her fault that she does and it’s kind of true that LEGO skews heavily to the normalization of a gender divide in their toys. That said, she also loved Brave and understood Merida so I can’t worry too much. Gotta trust that she grows up to put what she wants in her hand, whether it’s a bow or a hairbrush, and sees past whether it’s “for girls” or “for boys”. I hope the same for the potential audience of Brave. It’s a feminist movie, or maybe a post-feminist one, and that can only be a good thing for both boys and girls. Especially since, at heart, Merida’s story isn’t about being a girl but learning to recognize the space between duty to the self and duty to others, a major part of growing up for all genders and sexes in all cultures. thunderclam.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/ill-be-shooting-for-my-own-hand/
|
|