Safe As Kittens: Movies and TV

Showing posts with label Movies and TV. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Almost Alice

In Tim Burton's 2010 movie 'Alice in Wonderland' Absolem the caterpillar states that Alice is 'Almost Alice' - and he was right.

As you will most likely know, the movie was based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and, in my humble opinion, does a fine job of bringing the novel to life (even though it changes quite a few bits).

Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) probably based his Alice on the real Alice - Alice Pleasance Liddell.

Alice Liddell was born in 1852 and in 1856 her family moved to Oxford where she first met Dodgson. In 1862, whilst on a boat trip with her two sisters, Edith and Lorina and Dodgson, Alice asked him to tell them a story; this story became 'Alice's Adventures Under Ground' and, subsequently 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.

Dodgson maintained a relationship with the Liddell family until 1863. Various sources suggest that Dodgson may have been obsessed with Alice or her sister Lorina and this forced the break with the family (Wikipedia has loads more on this).

Alice later toured Europe with her sisters Edith and Lorina. Later, it was rumoured that she may have been romantically connected with Prince Leopold. In 1880 Alice Liddell married Reginald Hargreaves in Westminster Abbey and they went on to have three sons (two of whom died in the First World War).

Reginald died in 1926 and in 1934 Alice followed him. She was cremated and her ashes buried in the graveyard of the church of St Michael and All Angels Lyndhurst, Hampshire.

If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll have noticed a distinct lack of blogging in 2016 - hopefully in 2017 I'll return to regular monthly posting (and hopefully the migraines will stay away...)

Catch You Later!

Credits:
Alice-in-Wonderland.net
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Liddell
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_Liddell_grave_in_Lyndhurst1.jpg
https://nhetic.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/mon-avis-sur-alice-in-wonderland/
http://www.playbuzz.com/shaythewolf10/which-tim-burtons-alice-in-wonderland-character-are-you
www.express.co.uk
https://uk.pinterest.com/cuzinelmer/alice-liddell-hargreaves/

Friday, 31 July 2015

We are the weirdos, mister

1990s Teen Witches

The 1990s spawned an interest in teen witchcraft. Not that teenagers were actually boiling up bits of frog to create love positions (well, some may have) but TV and movie producers along with publishers had tapped a lucrative market to capture the interest of newly empowered teenage girls with an interest in wicca, pagan beliefs and witchcraft and who had money to spend.

So where exactly did this interest spring from?

Paganism can trace its roots back to at least the 4th century CE. Contemporary Paganism started in the 19th century and Wicca in the mid 20th century. Modern Paganism subsequently developed in the 1970's and into the early 1990's and is "a synthesis of historical inspiration and present-day creativity" (Wiki).

Feeding into the interest in modern Paganism was the Goddess Movement where the focus is female rather than male dominated.

These beliefs were given a much wider audience with the development of the internet in the 1990's providing access to information and contacts to those who had an interest in 'witchcraft' and were seeking to know more.

Something else happened in the early 1990's - Third-wave feminism. Third-wave feminism expanded on second-wave feminism and incorporated institutional gains and also changes in western societies mind-sets with regards to sexual equality. From this came 'Girl Power', first coined by the band Bikini Kill (part of the Riot grrrl movement) and subsequently taken up by the Spice Girls.

So in the early to mid '90's we have two powerful forces coming together; contemporary Paganism and Third-wave feminism. Add to this a potential audience of teenage girls (and some boys) with disposable cash and the medium of the internet to spread the word.
The time is now right to make some money.

Spell books and 'potions' hit shops early on. They were relatively inexpensive and a new teen witch could be up and running in no time. But the real money was to be made in movies and TV.

First on the scene was Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) in 1992. This was a comedy horror about a cheerleader who discovers she is destined to be a vampire slayer.

Another 4 years passed until The Craft was released in May 1996. It's the story of 4 teenage witches living in LA; one of whom takes things a bit too far and goes bat-shit crazy. Worldwide this film grossed $55.6m.

In September of the same year Sabrina, the Teenage Witch hit US TV screens. It was the story of a 16 year old girl developing her magical powers. The series ran for 7 seasons and finished in 2003. Games, a live action movie and an animated series followed.

The series is based on the 1962 comic book:

From 1997 until 2003 the pre-eminent supernatural teen drama was Joss Whedons Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series). Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) was one of a long line of Slayers chosen to battle vampires along with her circle of friends known as the Scooby Gang, most notable of which was Willow Rosenberg (played by Alyson Hannigan) who played a powerful witch.

Overlapping in time with Buffy was Charmed which ran from 1998 to 2006. The story followed 3 sisters (The Charmed Ones) who protected the innocent from evil beings.

Predating all of these, however, was the 1989 film Teen Witch which had elements of both The Craft and Sabrina which followed.

Sorry if I've missed any - if you know of any more leave a comment in the box below.

Prior to writing this post I really had no idea where the teen witch phenomenom had sprung from. I expect there are plenty of other influences as well that academics will be better informed about than me.

There's more information here:
http://www.teenwitch.com

You may also be interested in The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture (Ashgate New Religions) by Hannah E. Johnston & Peg Aloi.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to consult it for this post as it costs about $90 and that was a bit too much to justify for one little blog post!

And finally here's the scene from The Craft that prompted me to research and write this post:

Catch You Later!

Monday, 13 October 2014

Ray Harryhausen

A few weeks ago I visited the Ray Harryhausen exhibition at the Bill Douglas Museum situated within the grounds of Exeter University. I'm afraid the exhibition has finished now but I took a few photos in case you missed it. I was hoping I could live blog but again I was thwarted by a lack of mobile internet - seeing as I was in the grounds of a university I had expected at least some signal but whatev. I also ran into another small problem with the pics; the exhibition itself (actually just 3 cabinets) was set-up opposite a floor to ceiling window facing the sun which resulted in some awful reflections and my phone's camera autofocus getting a bit confused.

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) was an American visual effects creator, writer, and producer. He worked on 25 films and numerous other projects from 1937 to 2002 with his most memorable works being Mighty Joe Young (1949), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981).

I grew up watching Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad films. For these films (and many others) Ray created a form of stop-motion model animation known as 'Dynamation' (explained here).

The exhibition displayed props and concept art from the following films:

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

The Valley of Gwangi

War of the Worlds

Mighty Joe Young

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

The Story of King Midas

The Story of the Tortoise and the Hare

Clash of the Titans

Jason and the Argonauts

My favourite has to be Talos from 'Jason and the Argonauts'. As a kid I remember seeing this colossal bronze statue come to life and thinking that even though it could move and appeared to be alive, it's blank, dead eyes betrayed its soulless existence (I was 8 so I didn't use those exact words but you know what I mean). I hoped that there was an island somewhere where these huge statues actually existed and that one day I might get to see them.

Even though the exhibition is over, if you're a film fan a visit to the Bill Douglas Museum is a must - it's quite small but there's so much packed in.

Here's some useful links and as always the full list of sources is at the bottom of the page:

http://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/

http://www.rayharryhausen.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talos

Catch you later!

Credits:
http://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/
http://www.rayharryhausen.com/dynamation.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-noteworthy-rip-ray-harryhausen-1920-2013-dirty-old-new-york-subway-hanekes-lessons
http://www.bookandnegative.com/gallery/the-art-of-ray-harryhausen/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/relive-ray-harryhausens-movie-magic-518692
http://bavatuesdays.com/talos/
http://dcairns.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/talos1.jpg
http://www.blackgate.com/2013/05/07/remembering-ray-harryhausen-through-ten-great-visual-effects-scenes/
http://www.moviefancentral.com/hubbs/top10s/27552
http://second-reel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/happy-birthday-ray-harryhausen.html
http://www.cinemaerrante.it/2013/06/12/cinema-errante-ricorda-ray-harryhausen/
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2003/01/14/at-sundance-ray-harryhausens-the-tortoise-and-the-hare
http://www.animationmagazine.net/top-stories/ray-harryhausen-talks-technique/
http://buzzdixon.com/art-2/the-era-is-officially-over-ray-harryhausen-1920-2013/
http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/film/ray-harryhausen
http://moozine.co.uk/2014/05/15/kaiju-review-2-the-valley-of-gwangi/
http://gwangipedia.wikia.com/wiki/Styracosaurus
http://cscottrollins.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ray-harryhausen-this-is-dynamation.html
http://gwangipedia.wikia.com/wiki/Sinbad
http://screenrant.com/ray-harryhausen-obituary/
http://ocdviewer.com/2014/02/10/mighty-joe-young-july-27-1949/http://imdb.com

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

And like the ancients we are Spirited Away

I realised recently that I hadn't watched any Studio Ghibli films for ages so I dusted off my copy of Spirited Away and settled down for 2 hours of escapism.

Near the start Chihiro's father says that the ruins they found must be the remains of an abandoned theme park - "they built them everywhere in the early 90's". This got me thinking - was this just for the story or were there really abandoned theme parks in Japan? A short Google later and the answer is a definite yes - there were quite a few but most of them have been closed down due to lack of customers or accidents. Most have also been demolished but there are loads of photos on the web taken before they vanished forever.

Pouring over the pictures made me think about whether Miyazaki based the buildings on any of the real parks. I started with the Wiki page for Spirited Away which states that some of the buildings in the film were based on the following:

The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei, Tokyo.
The Notoyaryokan, a traditional Japanese inn located in Yamagata Prefecture.
The town of Jiufen in Taiwan.
The Dōgo Onsen hot spring in Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku.
The Bunkyō bathhouse where Miyazaki grew up.

That bathhouse may be the Tsuki no Yu (Moon Bath) bathhouse built in 1933 in Bunkyō:

So no inspiration from the parks then...

I did, however, check Wiki for a list of Japanese theme parks to see if there were any that looked like the spirit village in Spirited Away. Here's the list from Wiki:

Expoland, Osaka, (1970–2009), Shinsekai, Demolished in 2009, turned into a farmer's market in 2010.
Takakanonuma Greenland, (1973-1999), Yuri, Watari District, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan - Demolished in 2010.
Gulliver's Kingdom, Kawaguchi-machi,Yamanashi prefecture Kappapia (now demolished).
Takasaki Kannon-yama Recreational Park (1961-2003), Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Demolished in 2008.
Koga Family Land (?-1988), Shiga Prefecture.
Luna Park, Osaka (1912–1923), Shinsekai.
Luna Park, Tokyo (1910–1911), Asakusa.
Nara Dreamland, (1961-2006), Nara, Nara Prefecture.
Yokohama Dreamland, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Kejonuma Leisure Land (1979-2000).
China Park of Heaven (1992-1997).
Western Village (1975-2007).
Russian Village (2002) Yamaguchi.
New Zealand Park (1990-2005).
Sports World Izunagaoka, (1989-1996), Demolished in 2010?
In addition there is Gluck Kingdom in Hokkaido (1989-2007).

Below are the pictures of locations and parks that were the inspiration for and resemble those in Spirited Away:

Nara Dreamland

Jieufen

The Notoyaryokan

Dōgo Onsen

Jieufen

If this has whetted your appetite you must check out abandonedkansai.com and totorotimes.com which are real treasure troves of decaying theme parks and hospitals.

Catch you later!

Credits:

http://www.japanican.com/content/en/special/bunkaisan/select/detail/notoya.aspx
http://treasure-everyday.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/taiwan-trip-dec-6-dec-17.html
http://images.travelpod.com/tw_slides/ta00/c93/f26/2-jiufen-old-street-keelung.jpg
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/china-park-heaven-tenkaen
http://www.haikyo.org/abandoned/amusement-parks/gluck-kingdom/
http://canaryblue.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/suburban-saturday.html
http://abandonedplaces.tumblr.com/post/1204959617/nara-dreamland
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345008/Photos-Some-worlds-beautiful-locations-civilisation-abandoned.html
http://www.tsunagujapan.com/ten-recommended-bathhouses-in-tokyo/
http://www.sunnypages.jp/travel_guide/traditional_tokyo/sento_public_bath/Tsuki+no+Yu+/4892
http://www.songlyrics.com/lily-madeleine/spirited-away-lyrics/
http://abandonedkansai.com/
http://www.totorotimes.com/urban-exploration/abandoned-hospitals-in-japan/
http://www.michaeljohngrist.com
http://www.Reuters.com
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.panoramio.com
Studio Ghibli Inc.
Optimum Home Entertainment