The G-String Snaps

14 March, 2009 at 7:17 pm (Uncategorized)

Hello to all,

just by chance i was passing Aikmens on the way out the other night and i heard my favourite band playing. Nat and I went in and the G String Snaps were in the middle of their epic “Nefertiti was a Queen.” the full band was there, the bassist, percussonist, dude on the harmonica and clarinet and of course the usual duo of lead guitar and vocalsit/ rhythm guitarist. After their set, i went to ask if they had any CDs, and managed to obtain one. apparently the guy recognised me from the time they’d played at the union, and said i could have a CD for free. So, currently i’m listening to their hit “Leader is Down.” i was thinking about Disney recently. i had heard that Julie Andrews was drunk for the entire filming of Mary Poppins, and my friend, Peter Aitken, had said that the film wouldn’t have worked any other way. but now with the sinster alliance with Pixar, Disney’s gone down the drain. Toy Story was certainly the end of good Disney. Can anyone imagine the Lion King if it were made today? Scar just wouldn’t be the same in CGI! so, i’ve decided to make a list of five Disney films which couldn’t be recreated nowadays for various reasons.

1)Bambi.

Yer, starting from near the beginning of the animation career, released in August, 1942, this was the 5th Disney animation to be made. Still one of the classics, beautifully draw (unlike more modern Disney films) and charmingly written, if made today it would fall victim to far more of the dumb-animal cute-creature cliche-stereotypes which over-run later Disney films. Could the hunting scene be so successfully reproduced? Doubtful, nowadays it would have to be over-dramatic, not wrought with sensitive confusion like the original scene. the fight scene Bambi is involved in could never be that frightening or dramatic, nowadays it would have to have some comic element or shadow play. overall, Bambi is a great film, with so many beautifully drawn scenes, stylized and set to fantastic music that Disney’s newer films have forgotten.

2)The Jungle Book.

This is another that due to its animation and musical score could never be bettered by modern Disney. Nowadays it seems like Disney films have forgotten the gentle musical interludes which introduced people to all sorts of musical styles, primarily an easy kind of swing or light jazz with the Jungle Book. the animation was so precise but didn’t overuse primary colours, giving t a rich, toned appearance. making Baloo or Shere Khan into rounded computer graphics would be blasphemous.

3)Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

An utter classic, set during the second world war, involving magical trips to mysterious islands and walking armies of plate armor. this would be awful if recreated in CGI – one of the beautiful things about this film was the rough placement of cartoon characters in real-time film. the hand-drawn characters added to the bizzare idea that a magical amulet had created a colony of talking, sociable animals. in addition to this, i doubt Disney would ever implement magic as a plot device to save England from the Nazis in this current climate of anti-witchcraft film-making (with the exception of Harry Potter of course, which isn’t Disney and is being released later this year).

4) Mary Poppins.

could Disney make a film today which actually handles reality? Mary Poppins deals with childhood, money, work and death. when was the last time a Disney character died of laughter or went free-running with the dirty working classes? is it just me, or has Disney forgotten that it used to make films about Britain? Where is the character in today’s Disney films who feeds the birds or talks to their umbrella? could Disney make something nowadays that was so stark and real, but so surreal and amusing at the same time? not only that, but the simplicity of the music and the clever lyrics haven’t been equaled since.

5) The Sword in the Stone.

Definitely one of my all time favourite films, mainly for the line “Blow me to Bermuda!” uttered by Merlin, who was to me the archetypal wizard. when it comes to Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings, i always picture the wizards (especially Gandalf and Dumbledore) as Merlin from this film. the references to our modernity placed in medieval times is marvellous and the meandering plot line is something which Disney have seem to have forgotten as of late. this film is less about the telling of a story, more about characters and incidents. Merlin seems like an incapacitated old man and a wonderful conjourer all at the same time, but the main star is his owl, Archimedes. we havn’t seen a Disney film set in the depths of time for a long while and trying to achive a dated appearence in CGI just couldn’t work.