Just a quick post right now inviting you to stop by my pal Ryan Dosier's new blog The Muppet Mindset, which contains user-submitted reviews and opinion pieces on recent events in the wonderful world of The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop and The Muppet Studios. I will stop by occasionally to contribute material to Ryan's blog. In fact, I already have stuff up! You can check out my review of the recent 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition of Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird here: http://themuppetmindset.blogspot.com/2009/08/follow-that-bird-special-edition-dvd.html
In other news, I hope to have a review of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds up by Labor Day. Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. Ciao!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 5)
That's the story. I told everything that needed to be told. I suppose it's time to talk about what we learned today -
And so what we have learned applies to our lives today,
and God has a lot to say in His Book.
Oh, come on! It doesn't work like that! This is a blog!
You see, we know that God's Word is for everyone;
and now that our song is done, we'll take a look.
Sorry about that. But anyway, I learned a lot from those few weeks of being a club president of something that could have been big. I'll summarize these lessons each individually.
Leadership is not meant for some people. I'm one to come in on a strictly creative level. I'm a writer/performer but I never again want to be in a presidential position, a task I seldom enjoyed. I want to be equal with my colleagues. Everyone should be able to put something in. In terms of things like this, all for one and one for all is a very good way to define this. Someone will have to take on a different position depending on their qualifications and all are needed.
Starting bigger is not always better. Looking back, I had to be crazy to think I could put together the funds and planning for a big-budget variety show in two-and-a-half months. These things can't be rushed like that. Even with the school plays, planning begins at least six months in advance with preliminarily work. As an analogy, I'll use Pixar. It took Pixar six years between founding 1982 to get a motion picture deal with Disney in 1992 and another three years before Toy Story came out. Had Pixar jumped into feature animation right out of the gate, Toy Story could have made the earliest VeggieTales videos look like Up by comparison. It was a huge mistake to throw people into a huge project like the Puppetry Club variety show.
Being an individual is sometimes better. My original intent with the club was not to get another picture in the yearbook but rather to try to get people to follow in my long path of the art of puppetry, keep things going for even years after I've graduated. But the thing I realized is that people loved my work for years without having an apprentice of sorts or people following me. By the end of the school year, I realized I was much better off a solo act while still in public schooling. Being a one-of-a-kind is a lot better off than being in a leadership position like I had.
So there you have it. I have seen the enemy and he is me. I built the club on my strengths and my weaknesses killed it. My intentions were generally quite good but I had no experience or knowledge managing people or leading teams to accomplish goals. This experience will hopefully be the final time I will have to go through such an endeavor again. It's just not the thing for me.
There. I said it.
And so what we have learned applies to our lives today,
and God has a lot to say in His Book.
Oh, come on! It doesn't work like that! This is a blog!
You see, we know that God's Word is for everyone;
and now that our song is done, we'll take a look.
Sorry about that. But anyway, I learned a lot from those few weeks of being a club president of something that could have been big. I'll summarize these lessons each individually.
Leadership is not meant for some people. I'm one to come in on a strictly creative level. I'm a writer/performer but I never again want to be in a presidential position, a task I seldom enjoyed. I want to be equal with my colleagues. Everyone should be able to put something in. In terms of things like this, all for one and one for all is a very good way to define this. Someone will have to take on a different position depending on their qualifications and all are needed.
Starting bigger is not always better. Looking back, I had to be crazy to think I could put together the funds and planning for a big-budget variety show in two-and-a-half months. These things can't be rushed like that. Even with the school plays, planning begins at least six months in advance with preliminarily work. As an analogy, I'll use Pixar. It took Pixar six years between founding 1982 to get a motion picture deal with Disney in 1992 and another three years before Toy Story came out. Had Pixar jumped into feature animation right out of the gate, Toy Story could have made the earliest VeggieTales videos look like Up by comparison. It was a huge mistake to throw people into a huge project like the Puppetry Club variety show.
Being an individual is sometimes better. My original intent with the club was not to get another picture in the yearbook but rather to try to get people to follow in my long path of the art of puppetry, keep things going for even years after I've graduated. But the thing I realized is that people loved my work for years without having an apprentice of sorts or people following me. By the end of the school year, I realized I was much better off a solo act while still in public schooling. Being a one-of-a-kind is a lot better off than being in a leadership position like I had.
So there you have it. I have seen the enemy and he is me. I built the club on my strengths and my weaknesses killed it. My intentions were generally quite good but I had no experience or knowledge managing people or leading teams to accomplish goals. This experience will hopefully be the final time I will have to go through such an endeavor again. It's just not the thing for me.
There. I said it.
The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 4)
I stayed off Facebook the rest of the day after I sent that e-mail and went to school the next day without any qualms. My day went pretty normally. After school I went home and did my daily Puppetry Club Facebook group check and noticed the group had one less member than yesterday. After looking through the group members, I realized that it was that same girl I singled out in the e-mail who left the group. It was then I realized what I had done. I was devastated, nearly cried myself to sleep that night and was excessively grumpy to everyone the rest of the week. I spent the rest of the week avoiding her, terrified of her. It didn't help we had two rehearsals that week where I would have to be around her. Since this was right before our President's Day week-long break, I figured I'd let it lie low, keep quiet and hope she forgets by the time we get back.
Perhaps it was my temper in that e-mail and the end result of it, but at those two rehearsals the reception toward the club was the same as it had been before: nobody cared. Not a single soul. I had pushed the boulder over the hill and was able to keep it up there with persistence up this was probably about the time it began to roll back down.
That week after when I was in Orlando, rather than spending a night in Mickey's part of town I sat out on the deck of my hotel room looking out at the on-property golf course and, farther back, the taller structures in Disney World you could see from the hotel. I was thinking over everything that had happened over that last month. I came to a final decision: we had to scale back. With that, the 2009 Puppetry Club variety show was officially canceled. With our big project in the can, for the first time I didn't have a solution.
When we came back from President's week break and I broke the news to the three people who had stood by me through thick and thin, they were not over-the-top surprised. I told them I had no idea what we were going to do and I'd keep them posted if anything were to come along. That was the last meeting. We never got together as a group again.
That wasn't completely my fault. My school's production of Little Shop of Horrors was the next week and the week after that (note to all: Hell Week will be the most time-consuming thing you'll ever encounter), the overtly-silly award ceremony wherein I was performing for the second year in a row was two weeks after the end of Little Shop, I got roped into other puppeteering gigs for weeks afterward, not to mention I had other school work to keep track of. The club periods went by without the Puppetry Club being brought up once, I crawled back to the TV Studio/AV Club instead. With the final club period of the school year having passed - it was all over. Puppetry Club would be a thing of the past.
But I realized something through all these performances. All the years I had been doing puppet shows and people loving them, I have always been a solo act. The thrill of having an accomplishment that you made the initiative with alone is so much rewarding in that you have to handle everything on your own. That doesn't go for everything, but with puppetry and for me at least, it goes very well. I didn't need a club or a show to show that, and I was much happier without the burden of having handle a group like that, something I'm clearly not the person to do that. I've taken everything I created for the club and now put under my new puppet troupe which emphasizes it's my troupe, this is entirely a BobThePizzaBoy project. I haven't really gotten off the ground with it just yet but, call it arrogance if you want, I have a very good feeling this future project could me a lot more happiness than the Puppetry Club could have ever brought.
Perhaps it was my temper in that e-mail and the end result of it, but at those two rehearsals the reception toward the club was the same as it had been before: nobody cared. Not a single soul. I had pushed the boulder over the hill and was able to keep it up there with persistence up this was probably about the time it began to roll back down.
That week after when I was in Orlando, rather than spending a night in Mickey's part of town I sat out on the deck of my hotel room looking out at the on-property golf course and, farther back, the taller structures in Disney World you could see from the hotel. I was thinking over everything that had happened over that last month. I came to a final decision: we had to scale back. With that, the 2009 Puppetry Club variety show was officially canceled. With our big project in the can, for the first time I didn't have a solution.
When we came back from President's week break and I broke the news to the three people who had stood by me through thick and thin, they were not over-the-top surprised. I told them I had no idea what we were going to do and I'd keep them posted if anything were to come along. That was the last meeting. We never got together as a group again.
That wasn't completely my fault. My school's production of Little Shop of Horrors was the next week and the week after that (note to all: Hell Week will be the most time-consuming thing you'll ever encounter), the overtly-silly award ceremony wherein I was performing for the second year in a row was two weeks after the end of Little Shop, I got roped into other puppeteering gigs for weeks afterward, not to mention I had other school work to keep track of. The club periods went by without the Puppetry Club being brought up once, I crawled back to the TV Studio/AV Club instead. With the final club period of the school year having passed - it was all over. Puppetry Club would be a thing of the past.
But I realized something through all these performances. All the years I had been doing puppet shows and people loving them, I have always been a solo act. The thrill of having an accomplishment that you made the initiative with alone is so much rewarding in that you have to handle everything on your own. That doesn't go for everything, but with puppetry and for me at least, it goes very well. I didn't need a club or a show to show that, and I was much happier without the burden of having handle a group like that, something I'm clearly not the person to do that. I've taken everything I created for the club and now put under my new puppet troupe which emphasizes it's my troupe, this is entirely a BobThePizzaBoy project. I haven't really gotten off the ground with it just yet but, call it arrogance if you want, I have a very good feeling this future project could me a lot more happiness than the Puppetry Club could have ever brought.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 3)
From my standpoint, things were looking pretty good. The Puppetry Club had taken off to a group of members pretty much equal to the number of students in the fall plays every year, I was working on a grant application to get money from the school board's education foundation, contacting puppet builders about getting professional Muppet-quality puppets built just for our show, looking through which puppetry techniques beyond hand puppets were worth encourage within the club, planning a "backstage" plot for the show as well as adapting the Oklahoma! sketch from Sesame Street to stage with new characters (never seen it? Here's a comic relief break for you then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9g62YE1N4). I was a race car well into the Daytona 500. But with ever car race, a crash is bound to happen. It was happening on the day of our first formal meeting.
I once again messaged the Facebook group about a meeting the next day after school. The next day came and only three people showed up. We had a very dedicated young woman who cared dearly about our work and two freshmen boys who were pretty interested and had the potential. Our seniors who seemed oh so interested, and took up a good percentage of the Facebook group, failed to show up. As one of the boys told me, none of those seniors were actually interested in the club. I sank a little inside but kept up my perkiness even though I was angry as hell.
I will say one thing though if I may: if anything good came from the Puppetry Club, a lot of great ideas and characters I refuse to let be put to waste came out of my brainstorming. I now have a stable of characters I want to acquire and hone up. There's Conrad the Otter, the quintessential "Kermit-in-an-otter's-body" who gets a bit more hot-tempered, who was our mascot and would be the MC of the variety show (in actuallity hosted by me). Conrad's closest buddy was Ollie (his name is actually now Milo), an incompetent and silly monster who was always going to be a live-hand puppet. At first he started as a Fozzie-type but now as Milo the attire and humor of Weird Al Yankovic, the voice of Daffy Duck, the "lovable goof" mindset of Larry the Cucumber and general personality traits of Fozzie. Next we have Lucy, who went through the most dramatic changes. At first she was a humanoid who looked like Muppet Janice and had a thing for Conrad. Now she's Belle, a Scarlett O'Hara-like white dog that Milo has a thing for. Then there's Snook the Skunk, an adolescent-in-behavior skunk who only had his name to Karl. I'd go on about the lesser characters, but those were always really my "Fab Four".
Here was the catch: I could tell early on that these weren't guys who could really portray those characters to their potential. None of them were really actors or had the kind of personality you really need for theater. But they did have potential to be great supporting players, especially considering I needed people to handle sketches while I wrote the backstage plot and picked out some of the music (I always envisioned a finale with all the club members with puppets, our guest performers to help round out the show and our school's music chairman all around a piano singing "The Rainbow Connection" for instance. I also wanted Conrad to sing "Bein' Green" in the midst of the backstage plot, but that's for another time). I tried to schedule a repeat meeting for those who missed it but were still interested... but no one responded to my request. At last, I finally said "Screw them. I can re-build a new group in no time!" Ha-ha, what a funny thought.
It was around that Friday that I went to a rehearsal of my school's spring production of Little Shop of Horrors. The director made the gracious decision to let me perform the first Audrey II puppet. If you know the show, this is the puppet that appears in the "Grow for Me" number when Seymour discovers Audrey II feeds off blood. This new casting choice seemed to be a green light to do something I really regret: I sent out an e-mail to the cast (some adults involved with the production also received the e-mail, but I never heard any complaining) trying to encourage people to join the club. While it seemed harmless enough, I should note that one of those unreliable seniors was an Urchin in this very production of Little Shop, someone I had a huge on-and-off off-and-on crush on all through our three years we were classmates and was already on thin ice with anyway. My anger toward her not showing up to meetings overshadowed my love for her for most of that week and I don't remember exactly what I wrote in that e-mail but it was something along the lines of "... aside from an unreliable group of juniors and seniors (including someone in the cast who I won't name here), but that just comes with making a group on Facebook..." I pretty much singled her out in the e-mail without even mentioning her name. I didn't even think that I clicked the "Send e-mail" button that I'd be kicking myself in ass for it later.
I once again messaged the Facebook group about a meeting the next day after school. The next day came and only three people showed up. We had a very dedicated young woman who cared dearly about our work and two freshmen boys who were pretty interested and had the potential. Our seniors who seemed oh so interested, and took up a good percentage of the Facebook group, failed to show up. As one of the boys told me, none of those seniors were actually interested in the club. I sank a little inside but kept up my perkiness even though I was angry as hell.
I will say one thing though if I may: if anything good came from the Puppetry Club, a lot of great ideas and characters I refuse to let be put to waste came out of my brainstorming. I now have a stable of characters I want to acquire and hone up. There's Conrad the Otter, the quintessential "Kermit-in-an-otter's-body" who gets a bit more hot-tempered, who was our mascot and would be the MC of the variety show (in actuallity hosted by me). Conrad's closest buddy was Ollie (his name is actually now Milo), an incompetent and silly monster who was always going to be a live-hand puppet. At first he started as a Fozzie-type but now as Milo the attire and humor of Weird Al Yankovic, the voice of Daffy Duck, the "lovable goof" mindset of Larry the Cucumber and general personality traits of Fozzie. Next we have Lucy, who went through the most dramatic changes. At first she was a humanoid who looked like Muppet Janice and had a thing for Conrad. Now she's Belle, a Scarlett O'Hara-like white dog that Milo has a thing for. Then there's Snook the Skunk, an adolescent-in-behavior skunk who only had his name to Karl. I'd go on about the lesser characters, but those were always really my "Fab Four".
Here was the catch: I could tell early on that these weren't guys who could really portray those characters to their potential. None of them were really actors or had the kind of personality you really need for theater. But they did have potential to be great supporting players, especially considering I needed people to handle sketches while I wrote the backstage plot and picked out some of the music (I always envisioned a finale with all the club members with puppets, our guest performers to help round out the show and our school's music chairman all around a piano singing "The Rainbow Connection" for instance. I also wanted Conrad to sing "Bein' Green" in the midst of the backstage plot, but that's for another time). I tried to schedule a repeat meeting for those who missed it but were still interested... but no one responded to my request. At last, I finally said "Screw them. I can re-build a new group in no time!" Ha-ha, what a funny thought.
It was around that Friday that I went to a rehearsal of my school's spring production of Little Shop of Horrors. The director made the gracious decision to let me perform the first Audrey II puppet. If you know the show, this is the puppet that appears in the "Grow for Me" number when Seymour discovers Audrey II feeds off blood. This new casting choice seemed to be a green light to do something I really regret: I sent out an e-mail to the cast (some adults involved with the production also received the e-mail, but I never heard any complaining) trying to encourage people to join the club. While it seemed harmless enough, I should note that one of those unreliable seniors was an Urchin in this very production of Little Shop, someone I had a huge on-and-off off-and-on crush on all through our three years we were classmates and was already on thin ice with anyway. My anger toward her not showing up to meetings overshadowed my love for her for most of that week and I don't remember exactly what I wrote in that e-mail but it was something along the lines of "... aside from an unreliable group of juniors and seniors (including someone in the cast who I won't name here), but that just comes with making a group on Facebook..." I pretty much singled her out in the e-mail without even mentioning her name. I didn't even think that I clicked the "Send e-mail" button that I'd be kicking myself in ass for it later.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 2)
I did some research. Plymouth-Canton Education Park, a three-high school complex in Michigan, has had a puppetry club going since 2005 which sparked near-immediate interest and performs a variety show each year. Then again, PCEP is a HUGE school compared to mine, something I did not think about. I began to mentally plan out a calendar in my head. In January we would start and gain interest quickly, February would be devoted to planning stages such as writing sketches, starting to build puppets and such, March would be a rehearsal month and April would be our big variety show. It seemed reasonable, pretty much 2 full months of prep work, just as long as the spring musical takes. My ambitious plan could be done. Proposal in hand, I went to our school's principal to pitch. He was supportive and said to get 15 signatures of people who would be interested.
A few weeks later, I got all the signatures I needed and we were given the green light. My Journalism teacher stepped in to be the club's adviser and we were on the fast track to being part of the school's extracurricular list. By now, I should have realized the one huge flaw: I was pinpointing on a January start date right at the end of the first semester. By now, most students have their clubs all selected and seldom have space for others. That was a definite strike. I hung up flyers all around the school advertising the club with the catchy slogan "All hands in," but the only people asking and were interested in what we were doing were teachers. On that day of our first meeting, nobody showed up without me bringing them. Only one person [as well as two others who joined through personal swaying] showed any interest and stood by me in this entire catastrophe. In a last-minute decision, I ran around the school with one of my puppets trying to encourage people to come to the classroom we were holding the meeting in. Two senior girls came up to me wanting to see the puppet and seemed legitimately interested in what we were doing. They were popular enough that word-of-mouth could easily spread from them and we could have a strong membership increase.
A few nights later, I made a group on Facebook to keep in touch with all the Puppetry Club members. I invited all the five people who I had succeeded in getting to join and sent out a message explaining our future and moreover encouraged our existing members to encourage their friends to join. One of these senior girls immediately invited a lot of people from her social circle to the group. I put it aside and went to go watch The Simpsons. When I came back a half-hour later, the group had increased from six to over twenty members. I was so happy I felt like crying. And dancing. My confidence boomed to new heights, the club had taken off the way I wanted it to... or so I thought. Filled with euphoria, I messaged all the members on Facebook telling them we'd have a second meeting the week after mid-terms ended. Little did I realize that things were about to unravel in ways I didn't expect.
A few weeks later, I got all the signatures I needed and we were given the green light. My Journalism teacher stepped in to be the club's adviser and we were on the fast track to being part of the school's extracurricular list. By now, I should have realized the one huge flaw: I was pinpointing on a January start date right at the end of the first semester. By now, most students have their clubs all selected and seldom have space for others. That was a definite strike. I hung up flyers all around the school advertising the club with the catchy slogan "All hands in," but the only people asking and were interested in what we were doing were teachers. On that day of our first meeting, nobody showed up without me bringing them. Only one person [as well as two others who joined through personal swaying] showed any interest and stood by me in this entire catastrophe. In a last-minute decision, I ran around the school with one of my puppets trying to encourage people to come to the classroom we were holding the meeting in. Two senior girls came up to me wanting to see the puppet and seemed legitimately interested in what we were doing. They were popular enough that word-of-mouth could easily spread from them and we could have a strong membership increase.
A few nights later, I made a group on Facebook to keep in touch with all the Puppetry Club members. I invited all the five people who I had succeeded in getting to join and sent out a message explaining our future and moreover encouraged our existing members to encourage their friends to join. One of these senior girls immediately invited a lot of people from her social circle to the group. I put it aside and went to go watch The Simpsons. When I came back a half-hour later, the group had increased from six to over twenty members. I was so happy I felt like crying. And dancing. My confidence boomed to new heights, the club had taken off the way I wanted it to... or so I thought. Filled with euphoria, I messaged all the members on Facebook telling them we'd have a second meeting the week after mid-terms ended. Little did I realize that things were about to unravel in ways I didn't expect.
The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 1)
At the end of this past school year, my first thoughts were "Where did I go wrong?" I used eye-catching promotional tools, had ideas that most were supportive of and a steady schedule that we could make reasonable deadlines with. But nobody cared. Nobody ever stepped up and said "Hey, this sounds cool. I'll stick by this, it could be fun." The Puppetry Club was nothing short of a spectacular failure no matter what angle you look at it from.
So what killed the Puppetry Club? Pour yourself some tea and I'll tell you the real story with a nice prologue and all!
I've always been an advocate of the saying "Each and every one of us has a quality that's different, we can either embrace that quality or hide it and become a face in the crowd." (I very well should be, that's a quote of my own saying) As my friend Minesh responded to that quote with (toward me) "You love puppets and are not afraid to show the world regardless of what they think and I respect that a lot." I've always been like that.
I suppose it all started with Sesame Street as a youngster. It was always my favorite show even after all my classmates ditched PBS for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (Disney Channel was not yet the powerhouse it was today back in 1998); I couldn't help but slip back toSesame Street Sesame Street
If you remember back to 1998, Children's Television Workshop was underway with a huge marketing push forSesame Street
In 2002, my puppet repertoire had built to four puppets from that same company (a lamp, a black boy, a green alien and a red "cartoon") and, inspired by watching re-runs of Jim Henson's early guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (I'm probably the only kid in the 21st century who watched Ed Sullivan re-runs at 10), I did a puppet show in my elementary school's 4th/5th grade talent show. Then I returned as a 5th grader the next year and then did a puppet act in my middle school's 8th grade talent show, and then in 10th and 11th grade performed at my school's award ceremony (which always feels more like Monty Python's Flying Circus than the Oscars).
Through all of these performances I've been able to gain a small cult following at school. I'm known for being the puppet guy; it's what people associate with me the most. It was around this time I decided I was going to do something with it to create a legacy at school, something I could come back and see still functioning. A new generation of students would be able to keep the art of puppetry in good hands. I was going to start a club.
So what killed the Puppetry Club? Pour yourself some tea and I'll tell you the real story with a nice prologue and all!
I've always been an advocate of the saying "Each and every one of us has a quality that's different, we can either embrace that quality or hide it and become a face in the crowd." (I very well should be, that's a quote of my own saying) As my friend Minesh responded to that quote with (toward me) "You love puppets and are not afraid to show the world regardless of what they think and I respect that a lot." I've always been like that.
I suppose it all started with Sesame Street as a youngster. It was always my favorite show even after all my classmates ditched PBS for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (Disney Channel was not yet the powerhouse it was today back in 1998); I couldn't help but slip back to
If you remember back to 1998, Children's Television Workshop was underway with a huge marketing push for
In 2002, my puppet repertoire had built to four puppets from that same company (a lamp, a black boy, a green alien and a red "cartoon") and, inspired by watching re-runs of Jim Henson's early guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (I'm probably the only kid in the 21st century who watched Ed Sullivan re-runs at 10), I did a puppet show in my elementary school's 4th/5th grade talent show. Then I returned as a 5th grader the next year and then did a puppet act in my middle school's 8th grade talent show, and then in 10th and 11th grade performed at my school's award ceremony (which always feels more like Monty Python's Flying Circus than the Oscars).
Through all of these performances I've been able to gain a small cult following at school. I'm known for being the puppet guy; it's what people associate with me the most. It was around this time I decided I was going to do something with it to create a legacy at school, something I could come back and see still functioning. A new generation of students would be able to keep the art of puppetry in good hands. I was going to start a club.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Poyno is a small delight
At the end of the day, Hayao Miyazaki's latest film Ponyo really is a children's film. It is not as complex in character development as Spirited Away and lacks the quirky tone and humor of Howl's Moving Castle. Comparing it to this year's animated films, it doesn't have the emotional depth of Up or the eye candy of Coraline but it's well ahead of Monsters vs. Aliens in quality. With these comparisons, you'd think that I hated Ponyo. That is far from the truth. It is an excellent film, but it's a tad on the simple side.
Chuck Jones once said that with great animation, you can turn to sound off and still know exactly what's going on. Ponyo is an incredibly good example of this. In that regard, it's an excellent visual movie. The scenes focusing on the human characters (Ponyo in human form, Sosuke, Lisa, the elders) are pretty much standard anime style humans, perhaps that is intentional on Miyazaki's part but it imparts the tone of the movie perfectly with this normality of life contrasting with the fantastical wonder of the fish characters. Poyno in her goldfish form really is one of the cutest characters in an animated film I've seen in a long time, in every picture I see of her she always puts a smile on my face and I also loved the design of Fujimoto, Ponyo's father. The animals and other fish managed to combine cartoon-like qualities with a degree of realism, Studio Ghibli has always been great with that.
In regards to the English dub cast, Ponyo has gone all out with bringing in talent from all levels of the entertainment industry. Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas, the younger siblings of Disney recording artists Miley Cyrus and the Jonas brothers, voice Ponyo and Sosuke respectively. It is clear that these two are only in the movie for the sake of bringing in the Disney Channel crowd but it really is good casting. Jonas brings in the perfect tone that a little boy his age should have to the character, Cyrus' lines are for the most part yelling of words Ponyo picks up being around Sosuke and Lisa. Ponyo could have easily been voiced by any little kid but Cyrus does bring a degree of innocence into the character that makes her adorable. Other cast members include Tina Fey of TV's 30 Rock as Sosuke's mom Lisa who, while very entertaining, seems to be channeling Liz Lemon a bit too closely most of the time. But Liam Neeson steals the show as Fujimoto. He strikes as a great comedic actor who is very subtle but brings out the humor in the character. I sat there having a hard time believing this was the man who 16 years earlier was playing Oskar Schindler in what is probably one of the most heartbreaking movies out there.
I can't stress enough that this movie is as simple as simple can get. It's a Miyazaki movie for the Sesame Street set, but the rest of us will be extremely entertained by the free-spirited tone the movie has. It's a small movie, yes, but it's a fun ride. I give Ponyo a good 3 out of 4 stars.
Chuck Jones once said that with great animation, you can turn to sound off and still know exactly what's going on. Ponyo is an incredibly good example of this. In that regard, it's an excellent visual movie. The scenes focusing on the human characters (Ponyo in human form, Sosuke, Lisa, the elders) are pretty much standard anime style humans, perhaps that is intentional on Miyazaki's part but it imparts the tone of the movie perfectly with this normality of life contrasting with the fantastical wonder of the fish characters. Poyno in her goldfish form really is one of the cutest characters in an animated film I've seen in a long time, in every picture I see of her she always puts a smile on my face and I also loved the design of Fujimoto, Ponyo's father. The animals and other fish managed to combine cartoon-like qualities with a degree of realism, Studio Ghibli has always been great with that.
In regards to the English dub cast, Ponyo has gone all out with bringing in talent from all levels of the entertainment industry. Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas, the younger siblings of Disney recording artists Miley Cyrus and the Jonas brothers, voice Ponyo and Sosuke respectively. It is clear that these two are only in the movie for the sake of bringing in the Disney Channel crowd but it really is good casting. Jonas brings in the perfect tone that a little boy his age should have to the character, Cyrus' lines are for the most part yelling of words Ponyo picks up being around Sosuke and Lisa. Ponyo could have easily been voiced by any little kid but Cyrus does bring a degree of innocence into the character that makes her adorable. Other cast members include Tina Fey of TV's 30 Rock as Sosuke's mom Lisa who, while very entertaining, seems to be channeling Liz Lemon a bit too closely most of the time. But Liam Neeson steals the show as Fujimoto. He strikes as a great comedic actor who is very subtle but brings out the humor in the character. I sat there having a hard time believing this was the man who 16 years earlier was playing Oskar Schindler in what is probably one of the most heartbreaking movies out there.
I can't stress enough that this movie is as simple as simple can get. It's a Miyazaki movie for the Sesame Street set, but the rest of us will be extremely entertained by the free-spirited tone the movie has. It's a small movie, yes, but it's a fun ride. I give Ponyo a good 3 out of 4 stars.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Muppets, Money and More Junk Around the House
Perhaps it's just me, but it seems so shocking that whenever stuff I want to get comes out, there's always more stuff surrounding it. This summer especially I went spending-crazy and I'm not even employed! Buying both cover variants of BOOM Studios' The Muppet Show Comic Book and Muppet Robin Hood take a lot of my bank account and buying the Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry Hallmark ornaments by second-hand dealers on eBay killed my PayPal account and then there was that 2-disc DVD of Coraline that I went through hell to get and then buying UHF and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters off Amazon. I spent a ton of money over the summer so far and I'm taking a break... only to put more money toward more Muppet and animation stuff.
So September 22 brings the US release of the fourth Wallace & Gromit short A Matter of Loaf and Death, very exciting stuff. I assume "hey, this would be a good time for me to upgrade to DVDs of the first three shorts." Thankfully, a four-disc box set is coming out the same day with all four of them for a pretty decent price. No complaints.
A week later, we got the DVD release of last year's A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa. Might as well get it early so I can get better stuff for my birthday and Christmas. Not the best Muppet production, but I'm a completist I'll get some use out of it. A little bit more money to spend, but it's not too much trouble.
November then will come and gets crazy as hell. November 3 brings out the final season of Fraggle Rock finally out on it's own after a 364 day wait after that horrid complete series set and then the next week a triple hitter of Pixar's Up, a special Sesame Street 40th anniversary DVD and a coffee table book also commemorating Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. WOW.
Now, I know your wondering about why I'm complaining about spending so much money when it's my choice. Well, in actuallity, my birthday is in November and I'm expecting at least Up and the Sesame Street stuff and I'll probably hold off Wallace & Gromit till Christmas. But the thing is, as I mentioned in my introduction post, I'm a puppeteer trying to make ends meet to be able to acquire puppets. I'm targeting getting a custom-built monster puppet that will be at least $200. I have the money but I just want to have a certain amount before taking the plunge to getting a puppet, which is hard considering I'm unemployed and try to live off change and my bank account. But, considering how much I've spent over the year, it's just a pain to get the funds. I've been selling stuff on eBay with little avail but, damn, being a Muppet and animation fan is expensive work!
In better news, I'm going to see Ponyo with family friends on Tuesday and will try to see World's Greatest Dad (starring world's greatest comedian Robin Williams!) if it expands. Expect reviews for both. I will also begin "The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club" series as my fifth post on this blog. So wait two posts and my tragic tale will begin to be told, because it has to for future generations who put together clubs at their school don't make the same mistakes I made.
So September 22 brings the US release of the fourth Wallace & Gromit short A Matter of Loaf and Death, very exciting stuff. I assume "hey, this would be a good time for me to upgrade to DVDs of the first three shorts." Thankfully, a four-disc box set is coming out the same day with all four of them for a pretty decent price. No complaints.
A week later, we got the DVD release of last year's A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa. Might as well get it early so I can get better stuff for my birthday and Christmas. Not the best Muppet production, but I'm a completist I'll get some use out of it. A little bit more money to spend, but it's not too much trouble.
November then will come and gets crazy as hell. November 3 brings out the final season of Fraggle Rock finally out on it's own after a 364 day wait after that horrid complete series set and then the next week a triple hitter of Pixar's Up, a special Sesame Street 40th anniversary DVD and a coffee table book also commemorating Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. WOW.
Now, I know your wondering about why I'm complaining about spending so much money when it's my choice. Well, in actuallity, my birthday is in November and I'm expecting at least Up and the Sesame Street stuff and I'll probably hold off Wallace & Gromit till Christmas. But the thing is, as I mentioned in my introduction post, I'm a puppeteer trying to make ends meet to be able to acquire puppets. I'm targeting getting a custom-built monster puppet that will be at least $200. I have the money but I just want to have a certain amount before taking the plunge to getting a puppet, which is hard considering I'm unemployed and try to live off change and my bank account. But, considering how much I've spent over the year, it's just a pain to get the funds. I've been selling stuff on eBay with little avail but, damn, being a Muppet and animation fan is expensive work!
In better news, I'm going to see Ponyo with family friends on Tuesday and will try to see World's Greatest Dad (starring world's greatest comedian Robin Williams!) if it expands. Expect reviews for both. I will also begin "The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club" series as my fifth post on this blog. So wait two posts and my tragic tale will begin to be told, because it has to for future generations who put together clubs at their school don't make the same mistakes I made.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
My thoughts on the Marvin the Martian movie
In case you have no idea what's going on, I'll give you the skinny.
That is an article from July 2008 via Variety Magazine, at this point, I really didn't think too much of it. A few weeks ago however, Box Office Mojo confirmed a release date of October 7, 2011 for Marvin the Martian. At this point, I fell very on-the-fence about this movie.
I like to think of myself as a pretty good Looney Tunes fan. In 2003, I was one of the few souls who saw Looney Tunes: Back in Action in theaters on opening weekend. I have all the Looney Tunes Golden Collections box sets (which are fantastic DVD's no home should be without). This past New Year's Day, when Cartoon Network aired an all-day Looney Tunes marathon, which was the first time they aired on CN since 2004, I kept my TV on Cartoon Network till the second the marathon ended. As you can tell, I'm a pretty devoted fan and since Warner Brothers' efforts to care for the characters are so far and in-between, I like to support them every way I can. But if there is one thing I've dreaded, it's taking the Looney Tunes characters and making them computer-animated. I have nothing but scorn for seeing classic cartoon characters like Bugs and Daffy being done on a computer. It's just such an awkward transition and it just doesn't work for me.
Still, this is such a hard movie for me to support. After Looney Tunes: Back in Action down and out bombed six years ago, I thought the Looney Tunes characters would never come to the big screen again. In that regard, it makes me happy a movie like this coming. It's not my top movie to see in 2011 (quite honestly, I'm more excited for Cars 2, The Bear and the Bow, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America and Green Lantern myself) but I can't help but feel the need to support it. So, despite it all, expect me in the theater seeing Marvin the Martian in October 2011 just out of hoping something positive will come out of it... but I won't like it.
And one more thing... if it's a Christmas movie, why release it Columbus Day weekend?! Some thing will just never make sense.
Warner Bros. is launching development of a "Marvin the Martian" feature at Alcon Entertainment, with principals Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove producing along with Steve Crystal.Project will blend live action and CGI.
Marvin was created by Chuck Jones and made his first appearance in a Looney Tunes cartoon in 1948. The character was often intent on blowing up the Earth, only to be foiled by Bugs Bunny.
Crystal, a former Warner exec with a first-look deal at Alcon through his Charlie Co. banner, developed the pitch as a Christmas story, with Marvin coming to Earth to destroy Christmas but being prevented from doing so when he’s trapped in a gift box. Alcon’s out to writers and directors.
Johnson and Kosove told Daily Variety that "Marvin" will be aimed at the family demo along the same lines as Alcon’s "Racing Stripes" and "My Dog Skip."
Alcon announced in May that it had raised $550 million in private funding and extended its deal at Warner, with the studio agreeing to distribute 15 Alcon pics domestically over the next five years, including the already-released pair "P.S. I Love You" and "One Missed Call" plus "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," which opens Aug. 6.
That is an article from July 2008 via Variety Magazine, at this point, I really didn't think too much of it. A few weeks ago however, Box Office Mojo confirmed a release date of October 7, 2011 for Marvin the Martian. At this point, I fell very on-the-fence about this movie.
I like to think of myself as a pretty good Looney Tunes fan. In 2003, I was one of the few souls who saw Looney Tunes: Back in Action in theaters on opening weekend. I have all the Looney Tunes Golden Collections box sets (which are fantastic DVD's no home should be without). This past New Year's Day, when Cartoon Network aired an all-day Looney Tunes marathon, which was the first time they aired on CN since 2004, I kept my TV on Cartoon Network till the second the marathon ended. As you can tell, I'm a pretty devoted fan and since Warner Brothers' efforts to care for the characters are so far and in-between, I like to support them every way I can. But if there is one thing I've dreaded, it's taking the Looney Tunes characters and making them computer-animated. I have nothing but scorn for seeing classic cartoon characters like Bugs and Daffy being done on a computer. It's just such an awkward transition and it just doesn't work for me.
Still, this is such a hard movie for me to support. After Looney Tunes: Back in Action down and out bombed six years ago, I thought the Looney Tunes characters would never come to the big screen again. In that regard, it makes me happy a movie like this coming. It's not my top movie to see in 2011 (quite honestly, I'm more excited for Cars 2, The Bear and the Bow, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America and Green Lantern myself) but I can't help but feel the need to support it. So, despite it all, expect me in the theater seeing Marvin the Martian in October 2011 just out of hoping something positive will come out of it... but I won't like it.
And one more thing... if it's a Christmas movie, why release it Columbus Day weekend?! Some thing will just never make sense.
Welcome to my blog!
OK, boys and girls, welcome to BobThePizzaBoy's brand new blog. I'm BobThePizzaBoy, a now 17-year old high school student in the depths of Westchester County, New York. You can call me BobThePizzaBoy or John, either or is fine but I don't really want to post too much about my personal life, I will however tell you about some of the things I will do for this blog. Everyone has their niches and your about to see mine:
1. Jim Henson is my mentor. I love the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggles, Dark Crystal, the list goes on. This lifelong love for Henson has also brought about a hobby in the puppetry arts, which I have perfected during 76% of my thirteen years of public schooling. As we progress further into 2010, I'm hoping to have funny puppetry-related stories (I have one that I'm holding off until exactly two years after the night it happened. March 6, 2010 you can expect some major lols, trust me...) and some less funny stories (I'm contemplating writing a series on the rise and fall of Puppetry Club, more on that if people really want to read it). Moreover, whenever a new Muppet product comes out, be it a special or movie or stuffed animal even, expect a critique from me on it.
2. I have always had a strong interest in the animation industry. In my youth, I went through a Nicktoon stage, a Pokemon stage, a One Saturday Morning stage and a VeggieTales stage. As I got older, I got very interested in Looney Tunes and other older classic animation and then The Simpsons. Actually, I wanted to be an animator as a youngster before going into puppetry but I've always been fasinated by the work of animation greats like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera and then more modern animators like the folks at Pixar, Aardman and Hayao Miyazaki. Expect critiques on current animated movies and random thoughts on other cartoons in the future... my next post after this will actually be on an upcoming live-action treatment of one of my favorite cartoons.
3. Random stories from my personal life will be a staple of this blog. I have plenty of humorous stories to tell that don't have anything to do with puppets or cartoons. I'm involved with high school theater and backstage it really is a jungle, random stories about friends, funny observations on life itself, my ever-changing crushes, the 3/6/10 story (mark your calendars NOW people!). To those who are involved in these stories, please note that FIRST NAMES WILL BE USED BUT LAST NAMES WILL NOT. These stories can be about anybody and everybody, nobody is safe but I do have a heart and will not directly indentify people.
Depedning on how this goes, there will be more or maybe less but I'm just here to provide my observations on the world and I don't really care who reads this. Have fun and enjoy, children!
1. Jim Henson is my mentor. I love the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggles, Dark Crystal, the list goes on. This lifelong love for Henson has also brought about a hobby in the puppetry arts, which I have perfected during 76% of my thirteen years of public schooling. As we progress further into 2010, I'm hoping to have funny puppetry-related stories (I have one that I'm holding off until exactly two years after the night it happened. March 6, 2010 you can expect some major lols, trust me...) and some less funny stories (I'm contemplating writing a series on the rise and fall of Puppetry Club, more on that if people really want to read it). Moreover, whenever a new Muppet product comes out, be it a special or movie or stuffed animal even, expect a critique from me on it.
2. I have always had a strong interest in the animation industry. In my youth, I went through a Nicktoon stage, a Pokemon stage, a One Saturday Morning stage and a VeggieTales stage. As I got older, I got very interested in Looney Tunes and other older classic animation and then The Simpsons. Actually, I wanted to be an animator as a youngster before going into puppetry but I've always been fasinated by the work of animation greats like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera and then more modern animators like the folks at Pixar, Aardman and Hayao Miyazaki. Expect critiques on current animated movies and random thoughts on other cartoons in the future... my next post after this will actually be on an upcoming live-action treatment of one of my favorite cartoons.
3. Random stories from my personal life will be a staple of this blog. I have plenty of humorous stories to tell that don't have anything to do with puppets or cartoons. I'm involved with high school theater and backstage it really is a jungle, random stories about friends, funny observations on life itself, my ever-changing crushes, the 3/6/10 story (mark your calendars NOW people!). To those who are involved in these stories, please note that FIRST NAMES WILL BE USED BUT LAST NAMES WILL NOT. These stories can be about anybody and everybody, nobody is safe but I do have a heart and will not directly indentify people.
Depedning on how this goes, there will be more or maybe less but I'm just here to provide my observations on the world and I don't really care who reads this. Have fun and enjoy, children!
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