Movie Review: "Zootopia"

Zootopia (2016)

PG

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush (co-director)
Writer                                   Jared Bush and Phil Johnston (screenplay)
Music                                    Michael Giacchino
Art Direction                        Matthias Lechner

Ginnifer Goodwin               Officer Judy Hopps, European Rabbit
Jason Bateman                    Nick Wilde, Red Fox
Idris Elba                               Police Chief Bogo, Cape Buffalo
Jenny Slate                           Dawn Bellwether, Asst. Mayor, Sheep
Nate Torrance                     Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, Cheetah
Tommy Chong                     Yax, Yack
J.K. Simmons                       Mayor Lionheart, Lion
Shakira                                 Gazelle, Thompson’s Gazelle
Maurice LaMarche             Mr. Big, Artic Shrew
Alan Tudyk                          Duke Weaselton, Least Weasel
Raymond S. Persi               Flash, DMV Agent, Three-Toed Sloth

 

“No matter what kind of person you are, I implore you. Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you.”

Disney’s new animated movie, “Zootopia” is the 55^th in their Animated Classics series, and in all likelihood will be one of their highest grossing feature films as it has earned over $1 billion worldwide in only few months since its opening, placing it at number 25 in the highest grossing films of all time. It is at the same time a thoughtful film with a message about prejudice and stereotyping, another message about reaching for the stars, and a buddy-cop movie made with astonishing technical expertise in terms of animation. It is in several ways quite in keeping with Disney’s recent formula for success: a movie centered on a “princess” that has more moxie than all around her, with a story line pumped up with a little comedy and a lot of heart. It is also something of a departure from recent Disney films in that all the characters are essentially human personalities in various animal forms. It is in short an interesting mélange of genre.

The story begins with a young hare, Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) playing in a school play. She and several of her comrades enact a play that describes how animals have evolved from savages in an intellectual if not physical sense. There are physical components, too: they walk upright and speak. I found this small side story intriguing as to me it implied the writers (Jared Bush and Phil Johnston) were seeking to establish an immediate animal parallel to the human world we live in. However, the play also creates a curious demarcation to this fantasy world: the animals that evolved were the mammals alone; one is left to wonder about the reptiles, fish and so forth; or even more to the point, what became of the primates?

Well, back to the story… Judy will finish her play with the declaration of her desire to become a policeman, the first bunny to do so in their capitol city of Zooptopia, or anywhere else. Her parents are distraught and will try for most of the film to dissuade Judy from a position that places her in danger. But Judy will not be dissuaded. She will face her parent’s opposition, the opposition of her Cape Buffalo supervisor, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba in his second animated flick of 2016 – see also “Finding Dory”), the derision of her fellow, though gigantic (on a bunny scale) police comrades, and most significantly of a certain fox soon to make his appearance in the story. Bogo in an expression of his displeasure (dare I say bigotry) about having a bunny on his squad will assign Judy to meter maid duty. In one fell swoop, the writers have incorporated both a form of racism and sexism into Bogo’s action.

Judy will lift up her chin and decide to outdo, as a meter maid, what Chief Bogo assigns her to do. In the course of her duties she will encounter a raconteur of a fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). The movie will take a while to explain it, but he too has been the recipient of bias that is based on his species and its reputation as being a predator that cannot be trusted. He has as a result decided to better everyone’s expectations of him and be the best fox at being a fox that is someone who can (can I say it) out-fox everyone around him. This leads him into some shady realms, legalistically speaking. Unfortunately for Nick, Judy out-smarts him and forces him into an alliance with her as she pursues a case that Bogo very reluctantly gives her. Over the course of the film, they will move from antagonists to the closest of allies, and of course solve the mystery of the case assigned to Judy.

In terms of writing, “Zootopia” tackles some heady topics, especially so for young children. Judy will experience bias and bigotry that is aimed solely at her as a young woman/hare with dreams. Her dreams are hers to pursue and after finishing first in her class at the police academy, she should have had a clear shot at working towards a fulfillment of her dreams to the extent that her abilities would take her. Instead, her large, male and fearsome boss would do everything in his power (initially) to frustrate her at doing her job. Such counterproductive efforts would stiffen Judy’s resolve – the lesson of her story, as well as the truly marvelous song by Shakira, “Try Everything” is a lesson very well suited to youngsters. However, there is another theme to Judy’s travails and to the case she is working on: racism and stereotyping. To my perspective, the exploration of this topic is the only flaw in the film. It is not a flaw in terms of discussing it with children, but in the nature of the parable used by this film to explain it to kids. That parable is centered squarely on the real life reality of prey and predator versus this film’s use of that dichotomy as a means to define racism. Here’s my problem: is it racism for a prey animal to fear a predator? This movie says yes due to the prey and predator’s evolved state in this movie. I say, the parable is confusing enough to begin with, but when the story line requires certain prey animals to resume their predator status due to a plot point I won’t reveal here, then I repeat, the parable has uncertain footing in its path to child enlightenment. I applaud the effort, but I feel the writers should have kept to the simpler theme of personal goals versus personal bigotries. I agree this concept overlaps with racism, but for an audience composed to a great extent of children, this would have worked better in my opinion.

Technically speaking, this movie is flawless. The animation of illustrating animal characters that retain some of their animal-like movements (watch closely as Mrs. Ottern embraces her husband in the hospital – it is awesome from an animation viewpoint) and at the same time introduce some very anthropomorphic movements (watch Judy’s hips sway as she leaves Chief Bogo’s office). I really liked the direction that is used during Judy’s first time entrance to Zootopia by train and via each of the various lands/climatic niches that make up Zootopia. Her entrance is incredibly enhanced cinematically by varying the camera angles to emphasize what she can she out her window or of her as she reacts. And this entire sequence is really improved with the soundtrack that has Shakira singing the song about her/everyone’s dreams as Judy enters the city where she hopes to live those dreams.

And one small last point, this movie is almost, almost completely straight in terms of tone used in telling the story. Judy and Nick will interact as two adults who do not know one another, then two that respect one another, and finally two who really like (love?) one another. It is really an adult story about solving a crime and two adults working together to do so. But there is comedy in this movie. It is not frankly included in a manner normally used in buddy cop movies, but adheres more closely to a traditional Disney brand of humor. Without revealing too much, I will say only that the writers have taken the concept of every person’s frustration at standing in a long line at the DMV and combining that frustration with a member of the animal kingdom most likely to be the best candidate for a job of frustrating those in line wishing the line would move faster: a sloth. There is also a little inside joke that involves the pronunciation of the word “weasel” in the animal sense of this movie versus a different sense in Disney’s hit from 2013's, “Frozen”. Both movies employ the same voice actor (Alan Tudyk) and the same names of duke and weasel. Watch for it, it’s a cute point for the adults in the audience, while the sloths are hilarious for adults and children alike (my granddaughter’s laughter was astonishing in volume).

Go see this movie. You will truly be happy that you did.

Book Review: "Beloved" by Toni Morrison

Beloved (1987)

Four and Half Stars out of Five

Toni Morrison

The question of whether or not of whether America is “post-racial” is one that has come up many times since the presidential election of Barak Obama in 2008. And in one sense it is one of several themes that run through Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel “Beloved”. This tragic story of the direct and indirect effects of slavery on African-Americans has rarely if ever been told in a more trenchant and disturbing manner than in this novel. How could a young mother be so pushed to the edges of fear and desperation as to feel that her children’s best hope was to die by her hand rather than to be returned to slavery? How can America so badly remember, so badly misunderstand the effects of slavery and the 150 years of ongoing bias and persecution of a people?

Morrison employs her form of magical realism coupled with a non-linear technique of story-telling in “Beloved”. The non-linearity and the multiple-narrative prose that she uses is such that many readers will find this book a daunting challenge just from a structural perspective alone. “Beloved” is based on the true story of Margaret Garner. She was an escaped slave from Kentucky that was returned from Ohio courtesy of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. In Morrison’s story, Sethe the mother of two boys (Howard and Buglar) and one 2 year girl (“already crawling baby”/Beloved), and pregnant with her second daughter, Denver escapes from the Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky. Following her horrific rape and whipping at the hands of a local known as School Teacher, she reaches Cincinnati and the home of her husband’s mother, Baby Suggs. Following 28 days of freedom, a search team has found her and aims to return her and the children to Kentucky. Sethe intends to kill all of her children to prevent such a life being once more forced on them. She kills only the two year old girl, "already crawling baby". Since all are considered property she is not sentenced for murder but only for the destruction of property. She exits jail after a few years to the widespread rejection of the Black community in Cincinnati. Baby Suggs takes her back in and provides her shelter at 124 Bluestone Road.

The home at 124 Bluestone Road becomes haunted with a spirit; “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom”. (The home at 124 Bluestone Road is such a singular literary invention that in “Beloved” it assumes the role of another character in the book; it is clearly one manifestation of the Beloved character and all she stands for.) In time, Paul D, a brother of Sethe’s lost husband and father to her children (Halle) arrives at the house on 124 Bluestone Road. He drives off the spirit, but in her place shortly thereafter appears a young Black woman who claims with halting speech the name of Beloved. The now grown second daughter of Sethe, Denver recognizes almost immediately that this is the lost baby, but in an adult's body. Neither Paul D nor Sethe draw the same conclusion initially, though Paul D is compelled to the leave the house by seemingly supernatural means. In time, Sethe recognizes Beloved as her lost child, the child she killed with a hand saw’s slice across the throat. Following Paul D’s departure, life and the narrative style at 124 Bluestone Road become chaotic, almost hallucinogenic. Eventually, Beloved departs and a sense of normality returns.

Of the themes that run through “Beloved”, the racial divide between Black and White people is the one that I cannot but think is the most dominant message to be grasped at by a white man such as myself. In contemporary events, one sees almost daily news reports of the trials young Black men in America face: pointlessly being stopped in traffic by the police, being asked for receipts for bicycles that they are riding when stopped, being shot to death (or strangled or having their necks broken) when unarmed and being guilty in many cases of being black and little else. As damaging as this situation is in early 21^st century America, one still does not get even a glimpse the depth of the divide between the races as seen from the Black perspective in “Beloved”. Reading the descriptions of the surrounding “whitepeople” and their communities on the Black community, one could easily be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that the two races in question were neither of the same species or even the same planet. The slaves and former slaves in “Beloved” speak with unerring consistency of the craziness of the “whitepeople”; not their lack of morality, but their craziness. The behavior of the oppressive race on the oppressed is so far from the latter’s understanding, they don’t even try to explain it in terms of a lack of morality. It simply makes so little sense, the “whitepeople” can only be thought of as deranged.

The concept of an isolated and self-sufficient Black community is another theme that runs through “Beloved” as well. There is a sense of morality, of acceptance for some acts and not for others that stand alone from any judgement from the outside White community. If Sethe’s actions were to be best understood by any people, then surely the former slaves of Cincinnati would be that people. But they reject Sethe’s murder of her infant daughter by isolating her for over 10 years, the entire youth of Denver, Sethe’s youngest daughter.  Yet when Denver does leave her home at 124 Bluestone Road due to starvation, she is readily supported by that same surrounding Black community. They won’t let her pay for the food she needs, but they will give it to her. And finally during the climatic closing scenes, a group of Black women that had tolerated the malevolent spirit within the house will not tolerate the danger that same spirit made manifest in the adult Beloved poses for Denver, for Sethe, for the community and its sense of right and wrong.

From the community’s sense of self the story also delves deeply into the individual’s sense of self. Each of the Black characters in “Beloved” is a slave or a former slave at some point in the book’s narrative. Each of these individuals carries acutely awful memories of the treatment while slaves: Sethe’s whipping and loss of her baby’s milk, Halle’s silent witness of those events, Paul D’s multiple attempts at escape and the metal chain around his neck once re-captured, Baby Suggs’ poorly mended broken hip; the list goes on and on for each. Each of these former slaves carries memories that are so painful, they must suppress them with “re-memories”. This is an attempt to create a reality they can live with, but one that prevents them from being truly who they are. Each of these people has their own brand of “craziness”; it is the only way they believe they can survive.

For Sethe, Beloved and Denver the problem is most acute. The early parts of the book describe with astonishing pain the loss that Sethe feels when her milk for the infant Beloved is stolen from her. She has just been raped and whipped nearly to death, but she is heard only lamenting the loss of the milk. She has had a vitally important connection to her daughter taken from her. It is perhaps a metaphor for all the family disruptions that took place for slaves when their owners would sell their children to another plantation. Again this sense that the owing race was in fact acting as if they were two species instead of one, but for Sethe and her contemporaries, it was far more personal. The connection between a mother and her child has few parallels in human life, and it has just been cavalierly destroyed with as little compassion as if the owner had sold some livestock.

So, is the adult Beloved the physical manifestation of the spirit that once haunted 124 Bluestone Road or is she another lost child looking for her mother? A case can be made for either explanation. There is little doubt by the views of the household members of 124 Bluestone Road (or of the surrounding community) that the house was haunted. There is the apparent cut on the adult Beloved’s neck and her initial halting speech and walk that would suggest she is still learning how to talk and walk (just as a baby). And there is Morrison’s persistent use of Magical Realism as her genre of choice. A ghost story with deeper layers is not at all beyond her reach. At yet, consider the novel's inclusion of story from a youth having seen a naked woman running from 124 Bluestone Road on the day Beloved disappears. And also consider the wider implications of multiple mothers and daughters looking for lost daughters and mothers following the civil war. The story is compelling from either point view, as an allegory or as a description of a wide spread horror with few parallels in history; certainly few in American history.

“Beloved” ends with an epigraph from Romans 9:25: As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people, I will call my people, and her who was not beloved, I will call ‘beloved’”. Could there be a more compelling, more human plea for compassion and recognition of a people to be treated and considered human by all that surround them? Not just say that they are equal and regarded as so, but also to love and accept them as so. “Beloved” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction 1988 and has been voted the best American novel for the period of 1981-2006. It is indeed a difficult book to work through, but like James Joyce’s Ullysses (with whom it shares some structural similarities) this is a book well worth making the effort to do so.

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

 

Book Review: Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

1987

Drama

4.0 stars out of 5

Tom Wolfe’s book from the late eighties about life in New York City in the late eighties is a very hard book to read. Not because it is poorly written – it is superbly written; but rather because it is about a time in American history and about a group of people that are painful to read about.

The book explores many themes besides the tenor, the zeitgeist of the times. To be sure, the violence and racism of the late eighties in America are a compelling topic. But Wolfe uses this theme as a framework to explore human nature across many of societies strata; an exploration with a very jaundiced point of view.

We meet Sherman McCoy as a seemingly very succesful  Wall Street bond salesman;  in his own self description, a Master of the Universe. Sherman’s vanities do not stop with his success at work, he is equally or even more vain of his Knickerbocker family history, and even of the size and nature of his chin. Sherman being a Master of the Universe needs of course the perfect mate, and since his wife Judy has started to age, Sherman takes a mistress, Maria Ruskin. Maria is of course vain about her beauty and ability to control men to get what she wants.

The story arc of the book follows Sherman and Maria on an ill-fated trip into the Bronx where they accidently run down a young African-American youth, who later dies from his injuries. A consequence of this accident, permits Wolf to introduce an English ex-patriot/alcoholic newspaperman (Peter Fallow)  to start the drum beat of public opinion to find the “hit and run” Sherman and Maria. Exhorting the local populace is the “Reverend” Bacon, while the assistant DA assigned to the case (Larry Kramer) flexes his neck muscles. Kramer simultaneously tries to convict Sherman once he’s been found and to seduce each attractive young woman he meets on the jury.

Part of the humor of the book is to view the various vanities of each character through the eyes of the other characters: Larry continously flexes his muscles and Sherman frequently juts his jaws to the bemusement of various on-lookers – meanwhile, both Larry and Sherman believe most intently that they are impressing rather entertaining their audience.

The reader could read the book with a view to the big story arc of Sherman’s fall in order to see how the climax and its resolution are treated. But I think a far better view to this book is to carefully explore with Wolfe the various characters and their vanities, and then watch how Wolfe destroys each one. To his credit, by the book’s end, I think Sherman is the only one who ever puzzles this out. And for me, this is what made reading the book worth the effort. Truly, this is a book of characters that I found myself endlessly hating, and hating for their vanties. By the book’s end though, I was forced to face my own vanities (they are multiform) and wonder how I would have functioned had I been one of the characters in the book. In fact, this book like many great books is a useful tool for self-exploration.

Note to the Reader: I had read this book in an effort to start a pet project that compares good books to the bad movies made from them. The DePalma movie Bonfire of the Vanities incomprehensively starring Tom Hanks as Sherman and Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow (not to mention several other very odd casting choices)has been widely panned. I thought then to compare the two in a later review. But having read this book, I may re-aim myself to compare bad books made into good movies. Two of my favorites being “Bridges Of Madison County” and “A River Runs Through It”: two pretty mediocre books made by Eastwood and Redford into profoundly good movies.