Things got off to a late start tonight, as Les was giving me a guided tour to World of Warcraft (more about which elseblog), so we didn’t start being glued to the boob tube until 6 or so.
Which limited us to (gasp) two things:
Kay: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) — I remember when this movie came out, and how astonishing and funny it was.
And it’s still pretty astonishing and funny, melding live action with traditional 2D animation. And, more importantly, melding Toontown and all it implies with post-War LA. It’s weird and crazy and loony and zany and I just love it. Great world-building, mixed with a solid cast and excellent production values.
Deep, profound kudos to the various copyright holders that allowed Mickey, Bugs, Woody, Harvey, and all the other animated figures to all be present. Inconceivable today …
Dave: Doctor Who – The Movie (1996) — This was the mid-90s attempted revival of The Doctor, a Fox production shot in Vancouver (doubling for San Francisco), with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor (after we say farewell to Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh).
On the one hand, it sort of feels like a 90s TV movie, especially one meant to rope in an American audience (there’s a car chase, fergoshsakes, plus kissing). One has to wonder how life (and the franchise) would be different had it done as well, ratings-wise, in the US as it did in the UK. McGann’s Doctor is passionate, occasionally silly, pretty much in keeping with the tradition, and would have done a decent job had the series continued …
… but it’s difficult to see that we would have gotten the brilliance of the UK resurrection of the franchise. So maybe it’s just as well.
A good hour and a half to spend, but in the end it’s moderately big production values with a fairly thin plot.
Watched Rodger Rabbit last month with Mary, still a great movie.
Once when watching it with a friend, I mentioned that it was so well done that you didn’t even stop to think that it was a cartoon pulling on the character’s tie. My friend said, “Wait a minute Rewind it.” After watching the scene again, he exclaimed, “It’s a trick!”
And here I thought a cartoon character was really pulling on the tie.
>_<