Blu-ray Review: A Bug's Life (1998)

Click Here to Watch Video Clips From the Blu-ray

Since Disneyland is known as "The Happiest Place on Earth," it only made sense that Walt Disney Home Entertainment would become associated with Pixar Animation Studios. And this is especially fitting for--as every successive behind-the-scenes making-of-documentary has revealed over the course of Pixar’s unprecedented string of hits—Pixar Studios seems to be the happiest place on Earth to work.



Obviously not getting the memo that most people loathe their jobs, every time I catch a glimpse of Pixar-- and especially as witnessed in the recent feature-length documentary included on the WALL-E multi-disc DVD and Blu-ray release as well as in a few shorter extras like the "Filmmakers’ Round Table" on A Bug’s Life--it seems as though while they work incredibly hard at Pixar, their work is made all the more joyful since it’s derived from “play.”

And it’s precisely this sense of exhilaration of, “hey, I wonder if I could…” or drawing inspiration in not only the sources that amazed the filmmakers in their own lives but the very bugs and leaves outside their building that makes the films crafted by Pixar some of the freshest and most blissfully upbeat works being released today whether they’re animated, computer animated, or consist entirely of live action.



And over the years, they've managed to tap right into what makes a great story in addition to pinpointing how to marry the idea of a hero’s journey (and indeed the Joseph Campbell paradigm is a Pixar staple as it was for Disney) with so many inventive jokes that viewers need to take in their films at least a few times to catch a few throwaway lines of dialogue. Comprised with a plethora of in-frame gags that have threaten to get lost in their incredibly rich, detailed, and precise backgrounds, the Pixar works are equally dynamic since--with WALL-E being a notable exception-- they usually boast a rather large ensemble of characters.



Perhaps in terms of scope, their biggest challenge is evidenced in the 1998 feature A Bug’s Life, which-- following the international success of Toy Story-- sent filmmakers John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton looking for as the tagline promises “an epic presentation of miniature proportions.”

Noted in the Blu-ray's Round Table as the “hardest film” that Pixar studio has ever worked on yet the one that is still the most fun, it marked the last time that the entire company was all working together in tandem on the exact same film. And in this regard it was a necessity since-- despite the rather simplistic story about a lovable outsider hero-- the animators made it incredibly hard on themselves by tackling straightaway all of the toughest obstacles to incorporate in their medium. In other words, they did what most animated movies try to avoid at all costs in creating a “cast” of thousands and working with the difficult challenge of translucence, light and shadow by accurately depicting the world of bugs in the sun, in anthills, and more.



At its core, as countless fans, critics, and scholars have noted, the film’s plot blends the same premise utilized in Akira Kurosawa’s epic Seven Samurai (remade in the United States as one of the greatest westerns of its time in The Magnificent Seven) as well as the Martin Short/Steve Martin/Chevy Chase pre-Tropic Thunder style joke about actors getting mistaken for real life heroes in the ‘80s comedy Three Amigos.

However, intriguingly Lasseter cites two rather surprising influences on the Blu-ray. First he acknowledges that a screening of Michael Bay’s The Rock made him realize they needed to shift the focus from a gigantic ensemble to a main character (with Dave Foley’s bug standing in for Rock’s action hero Nicolas Cage). And secondly although perhaps less startling but still an intriguing choice since Pixar broke free from the musical mode of its associated company, the guys list the classic Walt Disney Silly Symphony short Grasshopper and the Ants as one that deeply affected the filmmakers and it's not only included here complete with an introduction by Stanton and Lasseter but can also be seen on Disney’s new Wind in the Willows release.

Yet masterfully and much like the studio did in similar efforts like Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. and others—even by going for something with a massive scope and A Bug’s Life-- the film by far surpasses them all just in its sheer magnitude and overwhelming amount of characters. Moreover, they were able to dwindle it down to precisely the right essence of what makes something a great story. Likewise, they concerned themselves with the goal that audiences of all ages would be with them every step of the way, especially children who found a majority of the humor of the same year’s thematically similar DreamWorks release Antz going way over their heads.

The plot of the film is rather simple. Namely, Kids in the Hall and News Radio’s funnyman Dave Foley voices the well-intentioned but accident prone ant Flik who-- after trying to stand up to the group of bullying and manipulative grasshoppers (led by Kevin Spacey as Hopper)-- finds he’s jeopardized his entire community when Hopper forces them to supply the grasshoppers with double the amount of food they’re usually forced to fork over.

Realizing there’s no way the ants will be able to supply the violent and intimidating grasshoppers and provide themselves with enough to eat, he’s ostracized by the ant colony’s royal council but promises the Queen (Phyllis Diller) and her daughter, the Princess Atta (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and the youngest royal highness Dot (an adolescent Hayden Panettiiere filled with pre-Heroes spunk) that he will return with a group of hired warrior bugs from Insect City.



Determined to find a tough crew to fight Spacey’s gang of grasshoppers-- in a freak coincidence and comical misunderstanding, he mistakes a newly fired troupe of circus bugs for the real thing and enlists them in his crusade for victory. Upon their return to Flik’s home, it doesn’t take too long for the circus bugs (including David Hyde Pierce, Denis Leary and others) to realize that instead of the entertainment gig they thought they’d book, they’d been hired as gladiatorial brawn. And although predictably Flik starts to become the fool of the colony once more, soon they all pull together to try and defeat the villains.

Filled with some great jokes that take advantage of the flawed communication as the circus group promises the ants “when your grasshopper friends get here, we are gonna knock them dead,” and a nice bit with Denis Leary as a ladybug named Francis who--perpetually tired of being mistaken for female because of his species—gets in touch with his maternal side, A Bug’s Life is a whole lot of fun, never overstaying its welcome in a brisk ninety-five minute running time.



Furthermore it simply dazzles with its incredibly detailed animation that's on display during some exciting action sequences that rival that of Michael Bay's Rock but Bug's Life surpass Bay's films’ tendency towards stock characters by excelling in bringing out the humanity, heart, and humor in its numerous supporting players.

Having delivered the film in DVD’s first ever all-digital video transfer for superior quality without “film” elements and even going as far as to ensure the full screen version of their film maintained the highest level of quality by handling it themselves to adjust the characters to ensure everything fit in the different frame size—the first ever CGI animated feature work to have been “presented in a scope ratio of 2:35:1”—that simply thrilled in DVD format, astounds on Blu-ray.



With gorgeous clarity of the highest order-- within moments, you’ll experience greater appreciation for the translucence of the leaves and color differentiation pouring out from every pixel in 1080 HD. And added to this is a spectacular sound mix as an English 5.1 DTS-HD master audio track that brings the multiple speaker theatrical sequence home to the point where you can even tell just watching it without a speaker hook-up as certain lines of dialogue go quieter in favor of the soundtrack making it beg to be appreciated with a first rate sound set-up.

Additionally, the disc that also includes the ever-popular BD-Live Network also gives fans redeemable movie cash to see Pixar’s new film Up along with an extra Disney File Digital Copy of the feature that is accessible on both Apples and PCs.

And although its characters aren’t as instantly or universally recognizable as Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story—A Bug’s Life’s phenomenal success including the sophisticated and sweet short Geri’s Game which earned the studio an Academy Award and further solidified their exceptional tradition of first-rate short films a la vintage Disney.

Likewise, it not only foreshadowed the studio’s reputation in the years to come but made its alliance with Walt Disney not only a match made in movie heaven but ensured that from then on, children’s entertainment would continue to improve, inspire, entertain, and above all provide unparalleled joy as Pixar and its many competitors all strove to raise the bar a little more with every film.

Thus in the end, while we can’t all be quite as happy at work as the folks seem to be at Pixar—it’s thanks to Pixar and other studios that help promise its audience that they’ll always be there the same way Disney was and still is to pick us up whenever we may need it whether its through the toys in Andy’s room or the country bugs that live just outside Insect City.

DVD Review: Fred Claus (2007)

Flying onto DVD & Blu-ray on November 25




Click Here to View the Trailer & Photo Gallery

Talk about the ultimate black sheep-- Jan Brady has nothing on Fred Claus. The older brother of the boy who would become St. Nicolas, Fred discovered at a young age that sainthood is a tough act to follow. Driven to rage by being constantly overshadowed by his brother's accomplishments and given an annual reminder of his success with the incessant caroling, holiday displays and more-- Fred (played by Vince Vaughn) decided that since he didn't want to join the family business making toys at the North Pole, he'd move to Chicago and become the polar opposite of his brother Santa (Paul Giamati).

Instead of selflessly delivering goods, Fred becomes a repo-man, taking away flat screen televisions and elaborate presents he sometimes moves directly into his own apartment and delivering monologues to his young neighbor Slam urging him not to "drink the Kool-Aid" that is Christmas by being "a cheerleader for Santa Claus," whom he likens to a megalomaniac embodiment of a shell game con artist. An inconsiderate and absent-minded boyfriend to the lovely British meter maid Wanda (Rachel Weisz taking on a Dickensian, wrong-side-of-London accent), when Fred ends up in the slammer following a hilarious confrontation with a veritable army of Salvation Army santas (that seem to be as stealthy as soldiers), he's forced to call his brother for help.

With St. Nick's wife Annette (Miranda Richardson) trying to convince her "closet-eater" husband to practice tough love which doesn't quite fit the saintly mandate, Santa strikes a deal with his brother offering him financial assistance for an upcoming business venture if he'll come work for the handout at the North Pole. Grudgingly, Fred agrees and predictably, he wreaks endless havoc from taking out his frustration with carols by inspiring an impromptu Elvis Presley dance party to helping a shy Elf (Christopher Guest and Kath and Kim scene stealer John Michael Higgins) make a love connection with the mathematically gifted yet Victoria's Secret styled hot elf (Elizabeth Banks) to getting in a wicked snowball fight with his brother until ultimately the family stages an intervention.

By this point the film which seems to draw a large majority of its humor from taking a cynical view of the holiday with mean-spirited jokes (think Bad Santa-- the PG rated version) begins to grow long-winded, not sure whether or not it's masquerading as a comedy about sibling rivalry a la Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's Stepbrothers or as a companion piece to the much lighter, brighter, and surprisingly contemporary yet nostalgic Will Ferrell vehicle Elf.

The beautifully packaged DVD and Blu-ray disc from Warner Brothers which offers feature length commentary by its filmmaker David Dobkin also adds more than twenty-five minutes of additional scenes, some of which further shift the story's theme from "naughty" to "nice" as well as the opportunity to view it in either its theatrical widescreen aspect ratio which is enhanced for widescreen televisions or in a formatted full-screen version to fit the standard square shape. Additionally, offering both language and subtitle options for English, Spanish, and French speakers-- one of the true audio highlights in its sharp Dolby Digital 5.1 surround is the movie's terrific soundtrack which contains not just holiday classics but other less-than-predictable songs which make the film much more effective including The Byrds' cover of Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages," although only certain numbers made it onto its incredible companion album you can explore below.

Filled with Vaughn's trademark whirlwind monologues and seemingly spontaneous references and jokes that make even uneven films like The Break-Up work, he elevates it well and the Jingle All the Way meets National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation inspired chaotic chase through the streets early on is a complete joy as is a ridiculously creative and funny meeting for Siblings Anonymous where recovering siblings like Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton, and Stephen Baldwin air their frustrations with their famous brothers. Yet, while that is hands-down one of the most ingenious portions of the film, especially when Stephen nearly comes to blows with Fred Claus until he begins repeating his mantra, "that's not Alec," the jokes and tenor of a film which finds Santa being threatened by a struggling economy when efficiency expert Kevin Spacey arrives all too ready to fire him with a three strikes system, doesn't quite know which audience for which it's playing.

Far too nasty for young children and with jokes such as the "I'm a recovering sibling" scene that are sure to go over their head-- it seems like it's shooting for the demographic Vaughn usually reaches of young men who latched onto his frat-pack comedy alongside Owen Wilson--Wedding Crashers (from Claus director David Dobkin who also directed Vaughn in the darker indie Clay Pigeons). Yet, in its indecision in awkwardly moving from a storybook like opening (similar to Elf which was made by his Swingers pal Jon Favreau) to an angry, embittered tale of family dysfunction that always comes to the front burner during the holidays, it loses some of its focus in an overly long second half.

Additionally, while we know it's Fred's story after all as our narrator reminds us, it is a Christmas movie and unfortunately, wastes its lovable Sideways and American Splendor curmudgeon star Paul Giamatti as a spineless Santa who eats his feelings to such an extent that he's developed acid reflux, insomnia, and problems in the sack. The same goes for the film's other Oscar winners and nominees like Kathy Bates, Miranda Richardson, Rachel Weisz, and Kevin Spacey (who does have one brilliant in-joke about wanting to be Superman as a nod to his Lex Luthor role in the newest Warner Brothers film) who aren't given enough to work with and especially in one plot that is endearing, too little time is spent on the cute John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks subplot.

Yet despite its many, many flaws, and an overwhelming urge to go back into the cutting room and trim away at least fifteen minutes, there's enough good stuff in the film to make it watchable and even memorable but it's muddled by its angry script from Cars and Bolt screenwriter Dan Fogelman (who despite this, deserves ample kudos along with story creator Jessie Nelson for a wonderful premise), that I'm guessing went through too many rewrites which led to such a thematically confusing finished product.

While for fans of Vaughn, like myself, who've been enjoying his career ever since he went to "Vegas, baby, Vegas," even though admittedly he seems to play the same character repeatedly (aside from a few wonderful against-type roles in movies like A Cool, Dry Place and Into the Wild), it's worth a look, especially if you have a thing for holiday movies and it makes a nice companion piece to the superior Elf.

Still unfortunately for Claus, Vaughn definitely said it best when he told Favreau he was "so money [that he didn't] even know it" in Swingers as ultimately, it's Favreau's Elf that in the future is destined to become a new contemporary Christmas classic.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

(Find Your Favorites Below at Amazon)

New on DVD for the Week of 8/17/08

I find I get an awful lot of phone calls from friends and relatives at the video store as they wander the aisles aimlessly trying to find something worth renting. While of course, I urge them to explore my DVD New Releases page which is filled with trailers and links, I thought I'd start adding a weekly update when new discs are served up that I've reviewed:

My pick for this week is the undeniably charming comedy, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams which is a much better female bonding film than the phony, agenda-driven and propagandist but artistically impressive The Life Before Her Eyes starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood, which also hits the shelves this week. However, there's another one that was just released that's sure to fly under the radar, especially for those without HBO (such as myself... who was lucky enough to see it in a "Free Preview Weekend"), namely the Kevin Spacey produced Recount ,which chronicles all the drama and craziness which ensued during and after the 2000 election. To explore the reviews, you can click on the titles in this paragraph or feel free to use the links below:

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

The Life Before Her Eyes

Recount

Recount

Director:
Jay Roach

While going through one another’s belongs in The Breakfast Club, a fellow student asks the nerdy “brain” (Anthony Michael Hall) why he would need a fake I.D., to which he replies so that he can vote. Although I was never the fake I.D. type, as a fellow uncool “brain” who started college at sixteen, I could definitely relate to Anthony Michael Hall’s wish and was less excited by the possibility of getting into bars or dance clubs and far more thrilled to finally have a voice in the American democracy when I turned eighteen. You can guess how popular this made me with my peers, which is probably the biggest reason that—even to this day—the average age of most of my friends is at least a full decade my senior. Despite placing the former, tragically deceased professor turned Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone on my personal political pedestal and being from the state where the most notable election was for an old friend’s dad-- Jesse Ventura, the registered independent former wrestler turned Minnesota governor-- the first election I was old enough to participate in was the 2000 presidential election.

I remember it like it was yesterday—knowing full well, I’d be leaving the cool Midwest temperatures to visit my grandparents in the state of Arizona which months later would become my home, I went down to City Hall in person to vote for Vice President Al Gore, having the strangest but surest inkling not to trust the idea of an absentee ballot by mail. It turned out to not only be a good decision but obviously the least of my worries when I sat on the edge of my seat well into the evening of the November 7, 2000 election. Certain that sooner or later the media-- and especially Dan Rather who by about ten p.m. was running out of an increasingly bizarre string of the strangest metaphors one could ever muster-- would finally stop “flip-flopping” their decision over who had won Florida similar to the way the news attacked candidates for “flip-flopping” on an issue, I kept waiting to hear the final word on who would be the next Commander-in-Chief.

And then it continued on well into the night until George W. Bush seemed to be the winner but just when we thought it was over, the next morning it continued again and rumors started pouring in with new phrases such as "butterfly ballots," “hanging chads,” and outcries of elderly and African-American voter suppression beginning to cloud over the election, leaving unprecedented chaos, mounting suspicion, outrageous disbelief, and disaster in its wake over the next several weeks until Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris began setting in motion the events that helped push the Supreme Court to uphold Florida’s ruling and serve up the White House to then Governor George W. Bush. And of course-- no matter which party you belong to—we all know how well that turned out! Still, now with the benefit of hindsight, it makes us infinitely aware in a post 9/11 world, that the pre 9/11 election was one of the most important on record.

Additionally what we didn’t know perhaps-- or what only some of us true news junkies who lived for the latest facts and figures back in 2000 with CNN blaring in the background and newspapers stockpiling on our coffee tables-- is the stuff of political infamy and it makes for highly compelling fodder in HBO’s latest made for premium cable film Recount. After the film’s producer, the recently deceased director Sydney Pollack found his health failing and therefore couldn’t helm the ambitious project, Meet the Parents and Austin Powers director Jay Roach stepped in, which despite seeming like an incongruous choice, turned out to offer the film just the right tongue-in-cheek, awkward, hilariously strange but unfortunately true tone he'd poured into the similarly pitched festival of discomfort, Meet the Parents.

An insider’s look at the events from the point-of-view primarily of one of Gore’s lead strategists, Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey), we follow Ron along with other Gore staffers Denis Leary’s Michael Whouley, and later their lawyer David Boies (Ed Begley Jr.) as they try to get to the bottom of just what went wrong in Florida. Using every legal recourse, they try to demand first a machine and then hand recount of the questionable butterfly ballots which found several elderly Democrats mistakenly voting for Pat Buchanan (who even admitted that his large number of votes must have been an error), and navigate the conflicting rules and biases from one Florida county to the next over how ballots with “dimpled” chads would be handled, while researching questions about military and absentee ballot legitimacy, a highly inaccurate count of voters turned away from the polls for having names similar to those of convicted felons, and voting machines that offer a different read every time. Of course, presiding over the chaos is the overly made-up and-- as the film illustrates-- the cheerleader puppet Harris (wonderfully played by Laura Dern) who seems so unfit for her position that she’s eager to not only seek advice from either the bible or any of Bush’s people including Tom Wilkinson’s James Baker and Bob Balaban’s Ben Ginsberg, but prefers to hide behind an unchangeable recount deadline unless of course—per her most cited alibi-- a hurricane hits the state of Florida.

While admittedly slanted to the left, perhaps the most fascinating thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls star turned scripter Danny Strong’s intelligent first time screenplay is the way that it manages to illustrate all of the madness and every possible solution including the arguments of both sides. Instead of narrowly offering one specifically definitive view of the situation or even by completely demonizing the questionable motives and back-room deal-making Republicans or celebrating the heroic underdog Democrats, Strong seems to argue that the entire process is filled with potential flaws with neither the hand count or machine count being ideal, showing the equal probability for both human and mechanical errors. And of course, all this is the key to stimulating excellent audience debate... and just think, Roach and Strong didn’t even begin to address the validity and wisdom of the electoral college! Although, as a passionate voter looking eagerly forward to casting a vote this upcoming November, I'm hopeful that this topic won't be explored in a sequel... now only if I could ensure the ballot, the chad, and the machine will read my choice for the Democratic nominee correctly.

21

Director:
Robert Luketic

Although I’m not one for gambling, blackjack is the type of game that can even make someone like me-- who earned her one and only grade of D in Math 90 and fulfilled her baccalaureate math requirement by knitting a scarf and writing a physics paper on string theory-- feel like a mathematical wizard. One only needs to count to 21 after all and if you can handle basic addition, you can play the game, but after hearing about the group of math geniuses from M.I.T. “Who Took Vegas for Millions” in the subtitle of Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction work Bringing Down the House, I realized that mastery of the game is best left to the experts and those who no doubt have never heard of math at the 90 level. While I didn’t have the opportunity to read Mezrich’s popular book, (caught up as I was in learning to knit), I received a crash course in the events in Hollywood's big screen adaptation called 21 directed by Robert Luketic.

The film stars up-and-coming talent Jim Sturgess (a.k.a. the dreamy lad from Across the Universe) as M.I.T. senior Ben Campbell who excels in his studies and extracurricular technology activities with his two best friends. Until he meets Professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey who also served as a producer on the film) Ben’s only experience with gambling is hoping for a long-shot full ride scholarship to cover the $300,000.00 price-tag of Harvard Medical School and feeling an attraction for his beautiful and far less socially awkward classmate Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth). That all changes when he’s granted access to a group he mistakes for a math club as Rosa coaches his brightest students including Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, and Jacob Pitts in the legal yet morally gray and incessantly frowned upon skill of counting cards in blackjack to take advantage of the game’s weakness which is that it can be beaten by the chosen few prodigies with the skills and time.

Employing a system of gestures and innocuous words that double for the table's count when it heats up or cools down, the team travels to Las Vegas on weekends where the nerdy kids become high rollers in casinos, suites and nightclubs. Dividing itself in half, the group consists of those who play the minimum and signal (mostly the women who unquestioningly abide by Rosa’s sexism) and the two “big players,” including Pitts’ Fisher who has begun to grow an ego and the newest participant Ben who, after initially turning down the opportunity, lets his hormones do the talking when Taylor pays him a visit at his after school job where he’s been granted a promotion to $8.00 an hour.

Although Mezrich’s book took place in the 90’s, Luketic’s film which is loosely based on the source material in a script by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb is set in present day where the hangers-on from the criminal traditions of old Vegas are finding themselves exceedingly pushed out by computer technology along with the sort of Disney World for adults that sin city has become. To this end, the film introduces Cole Williams, played by a fierce Laurence Fishburne as a security expert who uses his own card counting skill to catch scheming gamblers and finds his attention being drawn to the new casino wiz kid, Ben Campbell, playing under an assumed name who is beginning to find he’s changing with each successive win.

As scripted, the likable but bland Campbell is easily dominated by the more involving characters and I found myself wanting to know more about the females who play for a professor who tells Campbell “I don’t trust the girls." More specifically, in the case of Bosworth’s Taylor, her character's own heartbreaking experiences with the game were begging to be explored in greater detail, if only to inject a bit more emotion into this tale of logic driven, left brain geniuses.

While there are some major plot contrivances and dubious twists near the end of 21, it’s such a high energy and fascinating film which admirably makes intellect (instead of gambling) seductive that we’re willing to forgive a few instances of disbelief especially in the character of Spacey who seems a bit hard to believe, yet because it’s Spacey delivering these lines with crisp precision, we’re riveted all the way.