12 Days of Highly Tolerable Holiday Movies: The Nightmare Before Christmas

The third and final “Tim Burton” film in the 12 Days of Highly Tolerable Holiday Movie countdown is The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993). The guy has two favorite times of year and we all know what they are.

Jack Skellington, king of Halloweentown, discovers Christmas Town, but doesn’t quite understand the concept.

(the imdb)

Regarding just how much of a Tim Burton film it really ended up being, Mr. Selick told Sight and Sound in 1994,

It’s as though he laid the egg, and I sat on it and hatched it. He wasn’t involved in a hands-on way, but his hand is in it. It was my job to make it look like “a Tim Burton film”, which is not so different from my own films. …

… I don’t want to take away from Tim, but he was not in San Francisco when we made it. He came up five times over two years, and spent no more than eight or ten days in total.”

Be that as it may, Burton had conceived the project while still working for Disney back in 1980. It was originally a narrative poem. He began toying with the idea of making something of it. Disney agreed, and they discussed a short film like Vincent, or maybe a televised holiday special.

He shared his vision with friend Rick Heinrichs in the mid-1980’s, and the two worked up some concept art, storyboards, and even early character sculptures. By the time Burton actually had a budget for the movie from Disney, he was overextended across the board with Ed Wood and Batman Returns. He brought in his friend Mike McDowell, with whom he’d worked on Beetlejuice, but they couldn’t agree on a direction for the screenplay.

Burton reimagined the story as a musical and put together the bare bones of it with Danny Elfman’s help, also collaborating on most of the music and lyrisc. Then Caroline Thompson, who Burton worked with on Batman Returns, came in as a writer. She has also written The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands, and Corpse Bride. Caroline first came to Tim Burton’s attention because of a short story she wrote in the early ’80’s called First Born, in which an abortion comes back to life.

Director Henry Selick said in that same Sight and Sound article where he dissed Burton, “there are very few lines of dialogue that are Caroline’s. She became busy on other films and we were constantly rewriting, reconfiguring and developing the film visually.” Okay, Henry. We get it. You did it all, buddy.

In all honesty, the guy is an artistic auteur, with the attendant talent that entails, and it probably sucks for him to have to rely on other people so much in a project. And he probably did do more than anyone else. Hence: director.

In vino lepidopteras.

The stop-motion animation was produced by a crew of over 200 animators in San Francisco, headed up by Joe Ranft and Paul Berry. The production yielded some cool new inventions, including a silent alarm that went off if a light failed to go on during a shot.

For just one second of film, up to 12 stop-motion moves had to be made. Can you imagine this being done today? When even the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is done with CGI? I feel like there is an aesthetic suffering accompanying the automated innovations in the direction that film has been heading. I can’t see a production like The Nightmare Before Christmas, with the meticulous labor and attention to craft it requires, being approved and given a budget by Disney today.

Although that’s not totally fair, since they’ve been doing that 3-D re-release thing. I guess I should not be quite so cynical about The Mouse Who Sold the World. I just really, really dislike that company.

On the other hand, sourpuss Mr. Selick is something of a dear and mercurial curmudgeon to me. He has continued working in stop-motion since The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have a deep respect for the artistry in his body of work.

He has directed Coraline and James and the Giant Peach, and worked with Wes Anderson on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Although I find it curious that he seems to have had nothing to do with Fantastic Mr. Fox if Life Aquatic was Anderson’s first foray in to stop-motion (which, once you see Fantastic Mr. Fox, you feel like it should have been his exclusive genre all along: the static stiltedness of Anderson’s compositions, against which his wildly inventive dialogue is such a perfect foil, are absolutely born for stop-motion).

I’m guessing from the stories about the rest of Mr. Selick’s projects that they probably stopped seeing eye to eye on something and Anderson went his separate way.

Collaborator Joe Ranft, the one who headed up production in the City, the 415, the sparkly town where we leave our hearts, for The Nightmare Before Christmas, said that Selick “has a rock’n’roll meets Da Vinci temperament,” with bursts of brilliance and, occasionally, the passionate need for solitude.

Mr. Selick is presently working on an adaptation of the YA mystery-comedy Bunnicula, which makes me want to cry with joy. I only hope it is successful enough that they can do one of the sequels: The Celery Stalks At Midnight, which I have believed since I was seven years old to be the greatest pun ever written in my native tongue.

If you want more of the backstory on all this Nightmare Before Christmas production shenanigans, pick up a copy of the Frank Thompson book Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Film – The Art – The Vision, to read all about it.

All photos via the Pumpkin Patch.

Movie Moment — Breaking news, Three Musketeers, 2011, is in pre-pro!

At first I was totally dismayed and worried when I heard there’d been slated a new movie adaptation of The Three Musketeers because Dumas’ adventure books were such good friends to me for so many years (this clearly merits a re-read actually; it’s been too long). But then I saw that Paul W.S. Anderson was at the helm and my sphincter relaxed.

The lovely and talented Ms. Milla J.

Then I saw Milla Jovovich was in it — not because Anderson is her husband but because she is amazing and anyone who says otherwise can shut their piehole or I’ll shut it for them — and I did backflips. I’m going to dwell on this a lot until its release. For today, a quick look at the cast:

Lerman is on the left doing delightful jazz hands.

Logan Lerman (D’Artagnan) was most recently in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Two-bit Monkeyshines and the Missing Noxzema Pad as the titular Percy Jackson; the most surprising credit on his absolutely stacked resume is The Butterfly Effect. No one gives that movie enough credit. Pretend Hashton Euchre is someone else (as I have just done) and that movie is strikingly awesome. Anyway, I think this kid looks too young to play the dashing Gascon protagonist and I fear he was chosen to appeal to the tween demographic, which has even more worrisome ramifications because a faithful adaptation of the first book can only result in a PG-13 rating at best unless some Disney-style plot-monkeying has been done, but I look forward with cautious optimism to being proven wrong on all counts. Paul W.S. Anderson wouldn’t do me like that. We go back to Event Horizon, man: it’s us to the mortuary.

Wildly underrated darling Paul Dano. What a talent.

If I had been the casting director, D’Artagnan would be played by: Paul Dano or Emile Hirsch. Guys who’ve proven their chops in challenging, dramatic, serious roles (Little Miss Sunshine and Speed Racer, respectively) — just kidding, obviously in Hirsch’s case I am referring to the film adaptation of Into the Wild — and can handle the emotional demands of the part. Again, I would hope with all my heart that Logan Lerman proves me wrong. Good luck, kiddo: I really am pulling for you.

Very talented upcoming actor James Corden. Glad to see him cast in a big part, hope it is worthy of him.

James Corden will play D’Artagnan’s servant, Planchet. That he is billed up in the top 10 is weird to me, so they must have beefed up his part. The casting directors have gone the portly-servant-to-the-handsome-gentleman route with their choice, a trope so cliched as to almost be commedia dell’arte in its typecasting, but not quite that creative; just predictable. However, that is not the kid’s fault and I give James Corden props for having appeared on an episode of Dr. Who. I look forward to seeing what he brings to his perhaps-more-significant-than-normal portrayal of Planchet. (edit: Supafly Gordon Fraser has the skinny on the bigness of Mr. Corden; read all about his popularity in the UK in the comments — mystery solved to a satisfying and encouraging conclusion!)

I would have liked to have seen: a real skinny, fair, left-field, oddball hottie like Jesse Tyler Ferguson or Mike White.

Ray Stevenson is Porthos. He’s been working like a madman lately and clearly has the skillz to pay the billz, Big Budget Picture-wise: Cirque Du Freak, The Book of Eli, The Other Guys, and the forthcoming Thor are all recent credits — dude knows his way around an action flick, for sure. All in all, I approve. He is an Irish boy, so my hands are tied. It is a foregone conclusion that I will adore him. Porthos is the party guy of the Musketeers, so it’s also nice to see that Mr. Stevenson will get to play against type and not have to be strictly the big toughie, but get to enjoy a little wine, women, and song along with his usual dealing-out of ass-kickings.

My ideal casting: Donal Logue. Duh.

Matthew Macfayden has been cast as Athos. Most recently Mr. Macfayden played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, though his awesomest resume credit is from Grindhouse as “hatchet victim” in the Don’t segment. I wish I could put “hatchet victim” on my resume. Well, on reflection, I suppose not. “Hatchet survivor” is so much more optimistic. Macfayden’s most impressive credit is for the television special Nuremberg: Nazis on Trail, on which he served as the narrator for the episodes on Goering, Hess, and Speer. I admire that.

Athos is supposed to be the oldest of the group and kind of reserved, which works with Mr. Macfayden’s intelligent-but-pinchy face, like he worries a lot about things, but I’m concerned about him being too young and handsome to realistically portray Athos as older than this cast’s Porthos (above). Also, there’s the him-and-Milady thing. Milla is such a badass and so unthinkably beautiful and vital compared to his own type of fitness and vibe, that kind of sinewy, reedy runner build, so if they do any sexytimes flashback I’m concerned it will seem imbalanced. I’m afraid I have to glance askance at this casting and again just hope to be blown away when I see the movie.

I would have chosen: Clive Owen.

Luke Evans is set to portray Aramis, my favorite of the Musketeers. He is very multi-faceted as a character which makes him a satisfying companion to follow when you’re reading the adventures. Aramis is both bookish and restless; a dreamer who also plans; much more religious than the others but also given to double-dealing; patient in allowing his machinations to take shape but simultaneously governed by impulse and wild ambition, which he backs up with intricate, Machiavellian plots that generally succeed. He is somewhat the visionary of the group.

As far as face goes, Mr. Evans looks sensitive but smart enough to accurately portray Aramis, although I’d have preferred to see Cillian Murphy, who could have handled the breezy humor and abrupt mood shifts of Aramis’s temperament, and whose resume could use a famous-good-guy credit after turning in such impressively villainous performances in RedEye and the Nolan Batman films.

Then again, I prefer to see Cillian Murphy in just about anything. Mr. Evans is probably in due to being the sheriff’s henchman in Robin Hood and Apollo in Clash of the Titans, so he will be back in action with Mr. Macfayden. (Did the casting directors go directly to the sets for all these recruitments or is some incestuous, neopotic agency simply teeming with busy bees.)

In a perfect world: Cillian Murphy, as I have made abundantly clear.

Christoph Waltz has got the nod to play Cardinal Richelieu. You know him — Inglorious Basterds, a one mister Herr Landa? Guy spent the last twenty years working his ass off mainly on German TV and has totally earned his day in the sun. Good on him and I think he will bring an appropriately balanced Richelieu to the screen for maybe the first time ever: usually he is portrayed as a straightforward villain. Cardinal Richelieu is a more complex character than that — not as uniquely complex as Rochefort, who in the books eventually becomes friends with the Musketeers many years later, but still less one-dimensional than film adaptations traditionally demonstrate — and I hope for good things from Mr. Waltz.

I would have gone with: meh. I am happy with Christoph Waltz in this role. Richelieu is not the main or most intriguing villain of the piece and I like a capable, team player like Waltz in the part because I would hate to see him pull a Tim Curry-style upstaging of the next character on my list — Milady de Winter.

Milla for High Times, October 1994, related to her appearance in Linkletter’s Dazed and Confused.

Milla Jovovich plays Milady. Yes.

That’s all I have to say about the casting choice. Yes. Yes. I love her almost beyond expression, like admire her and genuinely wish good things for her despite having never met her but not in a crazy way, and I have seen all of her movies so many times over, particularly The Messenger: Joan of Arc — and now she is portraying one of my favorite characters from literature, my darling Milady de Winter? YES. Yes. I want to see this movie YESTERDAY.

I would have picked: OBVIOUSLY MILLA. She should just play all the parts and then go on tour with her live, one-man Three Musketeers and I will go to every show.

They’ve cast Mads Mikkelsen as the V.I.P. villain-cum-henchman Rochefort, seen most recently in Clash of the Titans (Draco) and Casino Royale (Le Cheffre). If this storyline is starting from the popular and most usual point for dramatic adaptations, when D’Artagnan first meets and joins forces with the Musketeers, then Rochefort is supposed to be memorably creepy and a figure of mystery for much of this film. His most overriding characteristic, besides his swordsmanship, is that as a character he is very, very recognizable. Mikkelsen looks great, but I’m not sure he will be creepy enough to believably carry such a stamp, if that makes sense? The very figure of Rochefort is supposed to inspire pervasive dread.

My choice: Crispin Glover, who must surely soon begin to enjoy a renaissance of mainstream key-playing work due to his successful reviews in Alice in Wonderland. He plays a good villain and some time under a sun lamp to gain a proper Gallic bronze would do him good anyway. Plus I think he is hot and I’ve always been a big fan.

Twinkle-Toes P. Banananose, the 4th, has been cast as the Duke of Buckingham. Anyone know anything about this guy? I couldn’t find anything at all on him. Seems he has no career whatsoever and is an utter nobody. What a shame. Moving on.

Alternate casting choice: ANYONE ELSE.

Lovely young Juno Temple (she knows what she has to do to get billed “and talented”) will play Queen Anne of Austria. She was most recently in Dirty Girl, a forthcoming bildungsroman epic of sorts with Milla in it, so I’ll know more about her as soon as it comes out, since, as I mentioned, I have sworn a blood oath of lifelong devotion to Milla Jovovich and would sooner pluck out my eyeballs and eat them than miss one of her movies — but, like I said, it’s not in a crazy way. Or anything. Ms. Temple seems a very young choice for a film that also has the Duke of Buckingham in the cast, because their affair is such a major plot point in the story of D’Artagnan and the Musketeers first collaborating to save the Queen’s honor and defeat Richelieu.

Prediction: the newest incarnation will not feature a Bryan Adams song.

Those who know only the Disney version will not be familiar with this twist — I know, how shocking that Disney whitewashed and played fast and loose with an adaptation of a literary classic; I am as surprised and chagrined as you are. What a terrible and uncharacteristic shock this is. Anyway, if the entanglement between Buckingham and Queen Anne starts now … and Twinkle-Toes P. Banananose, the 4th, is scripted to be pawing this poor kid on the screen … I’m going to be pretty skeeved out. I mean, I know she’s 21 and all, but … ew. He’s just so very ew. Showers are free — just go out in the rain, buddy.

My pick: Anne Hathaway. No brainer.

Final picture of Anne Hathaway for, you know … Science.

All in all, I can’t wait for a picture so close to my heart and directed by someone I trust to come out and I’m sorry but you must expect to hear plenty more about it.

Advice: HST umpteenth edition

“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile, and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.”

(Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time. New York: Summit Books, 1979.)

Doorway to “Values.” Get it.

“‘Happy,’ I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words like Love, that I never quite understood.

Most people who deal in words don’t have much faith in them and I am no exception—especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony.

I feel at home with these, because they’re scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest of a fool to use them with any confidence.”

(Hunter S. Thompson. The Rum Diary. London: Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1998.)

Set in San Juan, Puerto Rico, The Rum Diary is a semi-autobiographical but mainly fiction novel which the good doc wrote in the 60’s but did not publish until 1998, soon to be a major motion picture starring his good friend and somewhat of a mentee, Johnny Depp, who is probably excited as shit to get to do a project he believes in and not play Captain Jack Sparrow again. (Disney slipped a clause into his contract where they get to cut off his wife’s fingers if he doesn’t appear in their convoluted bullshit. Did You Know?)

Speaking of rum, I’m’a finish some housework, then grab a case of Diet Coke and scootch on down to C-town for some mandatory spirit-lifting, this-is-deep-shit, soul-plunging chitty chat time with Paolo and Miss D and this guy Sailor Jerry.

Last night we had pizza and busted out the Scrabble diamond anniversary edition I’d got Paolo for his birthday and I only beat him by ten points in the very last part of the game. This is completely unacceptable because I need to crush him and use his bones for jelly on a piece of toast I’ve made of bread baked from the dust of his finely-ground flesh.

We’re a little competitive.

It’s a rivalry that began in 1986, which makes it a needless game of oneupmanship old enough to vote, buy alcohol, and be in the second year of a postgraduate degree. Shit, maybe it's time to bury the hatchet. I'm sure it would make Miss D happy, although she says she has gotten used to our bickering. She just shakes her head at us, the poor girl.

We'll see. Don't take any wooden nickels, have a super-duper-neato Saturday, and I'll catch you guys on the flip!

Music and Movie Moment: Nancy Adams — “Love,” featured in the cartoon Robin Hood

Nancy Adams – “Love”

For me, Disney’s animated adaptation of Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is the definitive version of the legend, but it is widely documented that I am immature and impressionable.

If the love story between cartoon fox Robin Hood and cartoon vixen Maid Marian did not absolutely melt your young heart then we have nothing to offer each other and you are furthermore a robot who has not been programmed to know love.

Love, It seems like only yesterday
You were just a child at play
Now you’re all grown up inside of me
Oh, how fast those moments flee

Once we watched a lazy world go by
Now the days seem to fly
Life is brief, but when it’s gone
Love goes on and on.

Ooooooh Love will live
Oooooh-ooooh-oooh Love will last
Ooooooh Love goes on and on and on.

Once we watched a lazy world go by
Now the days seem to fly
Life is brief, but when it’s gone
Love goes on and on.

Robin Hood: We’ll have six children!

Marian: Six? Oh, a dozen at least!

Hoo! The lady would like to double down, Mr. Hood. Dag. This is a vixen with some serious brass balls.

Marian: Oh, Clucky, surely he must know how much I really love him.

Lady Cluck: But of course, my dear. Believe me, someday soon, your Uncle King Richard will have an outlaw for an in-law!

Hiss: Sire! Sire! They may be bandits.

Prince John: Oh, poppycock. Female bandits? What next? Rubbish.

Prince John: Robbed. I’ve been robbed. Hiss! You’re never around when I need you! Hiss — I’ve been robbed!

Hiss: Of course you’ve been robbed!

Little John: You’re burning the chow!

Robin Hood: Sorry, Johnny. I guess I was thinking about Maid Marian again. I can’t help it. I love her, Johnny.

Little John: Look, why don’t you stop moaning and moping around? Just marry the girl.

Robin Hood: Marry her? You don’t just walk up to a girl, hand her a bouquet, and say, “Hey, remember me? We were kids together. Will you marry me?” It just isn’t done that way.

Little John: Aw, come on. Climb the castle walls. Sweep her off her feet. Carry her off in style!

Robin Hood: It’s no use, Johnny. I’ve thought it all out, and it just wouldn’t work. Besides, what have I got to offer her?

Little John: Well, for one thing, you can’t cook.

Robin Hood: I’m serious, Johnny. She’s a highborn lady of quality.

Little John: So she’s got class. So what?

Robin Hood: I’m an outlaw, that’s what. That’s no life for a lovely lady, always on the run. What kind of a future is that?

Friar Tuck: Oh, for heaven’s sake, son. You’re no outlaw. Why, someday, you’ll be called a great hero.

When ABC used to have that Disney Sunday Night movies segment, I recorded this on to a VHS. Around a year later, one of the other networks ran Sixteen Candles, which, being a dutifully Molly Ringwald-worshiping young woman of the 1980’s, I naturally recorded, carefully fast-forwarding through Robin Hood to the blank remainder of the tape. Some time later that Spring were the televised Grammy awards, which I also recorded, on to that same tape, at the request of my mother because she had some kind of a PTA meeting/Tupperware presentation/murky, boring grown-up shenanigan to attend and my mom is a big Grammy guy from Way Back. She is a fan of Awards Shows in general. My mother approves of an industry’s recognition of those within it who have displayed special talents. She is a kind lady like that.

I rewatched the videotape a few years ago, beginning with Robin Hood for my kidlet, then Sixteen Candles while she napped, then all the way through to the Grammys, mainly on fast-forward with a nostalgic half-smile at the 80’s fashions, and then suddenly I stopped in awe — as a-ha performed “Take On Me” in cramazing outfits of formal ruffled tuxes and the keyboardist in mad rad white gloves.

So, to recap this little anecdote: 1. Robin Hood. 2. Sixteen Candles. 3. a-ha dressed to kill and doing “Take On Me” live at the 1986 Grammy Awards.

Best VHS I own? I think so.

Prince John: I sentence you to sudden, instant, and even immediate death!

Marian: Oh, no. Please. Please, sire. I beg of you to spare his life. Please have mercy.

Prince John: My dear, emotional lady, why should I?

Marian: Because I love him, Your Highness.

Prince John: Love him? And does this prisoner return your love?

Robin Hood: Marian, my darling, I love you more than life itself.

Oh, Robin, you’re so brave and impetuous.

Little John: And now, your mightiness, allow me to lay some protocol on you —

Prince John: Oh, no, no! Forgive me, but I lose more jewels that way…

There really was a King Richard the Lionheart and a younger brother named Prince John with his eye on the throne. In fact, John staged a rebellion when his older brother ascended to the throne in 1189 but it was unsuccessful and resulted in him being generally unpopular in his brother’s court, where he was called “Lackland” (because he was not the inheritor) and “Softsword” (I hope this is only a reference to being shitty at rebellions and not a veiled mockery of impotence. that happens to lots of guys and it’s nobody’s fault).

Richard and John (along with their brothers Henry and Geoffrey, all of whom attempted at one time or another to take the throne from their father) were Plantagenets, the sons of Henry II and the infamously strong-willed Eleanor of Aquitaine. This is probably why the mere mention of his mother makes John go on a thumbsucking frenzy in the animated film. Her husband Henry had her imprisoned beginning in 1173 until his death. He basically said something like, “You can’t come out ’til you stop helping our sons try to depose me,” and, indeedy, she was not released until Henry II died in 1189. (cf: The Lion in Winter.)

Eleanor was the most powerful woman in the High Middle Ages, a real force to be reckoned with, and, unusually, all sources contemporaneous to her life agree that she was not only outstandingly beautiful, but not voluptuous or blonde as was the ideal at the time — she was able to pass herself off in drag as a man even in her fifties, at a time when ladies had some pretty serious hams. (I love that the words “hams” and “cans” can mean any body part on a woman and work.)

In reality, when Richard inherited the throne in 1189 and went gallivanting off to the Third Crusade, it was Eleanor, not bonny Prince Johnny, who stood in for him. She even went to Germany and negotiated Richard’s ransom. Following his brother’s death without an heir, John ruled from 1199 to 1216 and was supposedly so dreadful as a king that the English swore never again to have a king named John.

True to their word, they haven’t.

(However, I’d like to point out that John signed the Magna Carta, a document which was in many ways the forerunner of democratic rule, while Richard started an abominable straight-up pogrom in London that killed thousands. I’m just sayin’.)

Wes Anderson recently featured this song on the soundtrack to Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is probably an homage, because he probably really liked this movie when he was a kid, too, because I did, and we’re probably going to get married someday and bang, like, all the time. Just all kinds of places, even, too. All over the house and the neighborhood, so much that they will rechristen our town Bang City. Bangsville. Bang Island. St. Bang’s Township, the jewel of Bangburg County, in sunny Bangland. Swing by and visit us at Banglots Village, elevation: banging.

People will call us all like, “What are you doing next weekend?” and we will be like, “Banging. We are emphatically not free for dinner,” and my mother will email me to sadly say in all caps, “E— WHY DO I NEVER HEAR FROM YOU ANYMORE,” to which I will reply, “It is because I am very busy doing all this banging of my husband, Wes Anderson.”

Not really. I’m not that interested in Mr. Anderson anymore. He is still a great director, but I no longer see myself banging him, certainly not all the time and definitely not while we are both married. I’d just been sitting on that little “banging” diatribe for awhile and wanted to use it.

Special thanks to the sources of these screencaps, cheesechimp and bottle_of_smoke in the Nostalgia Party No. 2 community on the lj.

An idea whose time has come

I saw Alice in Wonderland last night with Special K in 3D, and, though we both agree that the 3D felt tacked on and in no way enhanced the look of the film (we think Disney saw how successful 3D was getting and crammed it down Burton’s throat so he did the bare minimum required to satisfy them while still maintaining his vision), it did remind me of this badassical photography project I had to share!

Bust out them red ‘n’ blues.

Breasts … in … stereoscope!*

*(Please read that in the “Pigs in Space” voice.)

Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with 2 color glasses (each lens a chromatically opposite color, usually red and cyan). Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect. (the wiki)

This project, called 3DD, is something I saved on my computer before a crash. I lost all the credits. Someone please help, because I feel awful about losing my bookmark of the artist, and my google searches are just turning up useless nonsense about Lindsay Lohan (?) and digital porn.

Hey. Nice bongos.

Usually the main subject is in the center, while the foreground and background are shifted laterally in opposite directions. The picture contains two differently filtered colored images, one for each eye. (Ibid.)

When viewed through the “color coded” “anaglyph glasses”, they reveal an integrated stereoscopic image. The visual cortex of the brain fuses this into perception of a three dimensional scene or composition. (Ibid.)

Cool, yes?!

Final thought. Dig that jar in her hand in the above shot: “Kitchen Blend” of sprinkles. As though there are rooms or situations which would call for not only sprinkles, but a different blend altogether of sprinkles. Sprinkles appropriate to the locale. “Prison Yard Blend.” “Airport Bathroom Blend.” “Shallow Grave in the Wilderness Blend.” Don’t you hate it when you are digging a shallow grave in the wilderness and you realize you accidentally brought your Kitchen Blend of sprinkles? Like, Crap, this night just went in the toilet. Dang it — I brought the wrong sprinkles. Bummer City.

Movie Moment: “The Story of Menstruation.”

I am Mary’s poorly drawn ovary.

“The Story of Menstruation” is a Kotex-sponsored ten minute animated short intended for educational uses (Walt Disney, 1946).

It is narrated by an extremely serious but I think a little bit cranky older woman, who kind of sounds like Lady from Lady and the Tramp, or the dark-haired fairy in Sleeping Beauty: you know, that two-pack-a-day husk to the voice and sort of lecturing, grousy delivery, like she is about to threaten not to tip the waiter at a Chinese restaurant because he has not come back to refill the water, just generally kind of crabby and lightly gravelly in that weird old-people-racist way. Does this make sense? I think you know what I mean.

For the record, I’m not presently on the rag, I’ve just been organizing my bookmarks in to folders and I stumbled over my youtube link to this gem. Did a googly-moogly for screencaps cause I didn’t much feel like capping the whole thing myself, and found a set that were pretty much what I would have done, although I have supplemented with a couple stills of my own.

Why is nature always called Mother Nature? Perhaps it’s because, like any mother, she quietly manages so much of our living without our ever realizing there’s a woman at work.

Try not to throw yourself off-schedule by getting overtired, emotionally upset, or catching cold. And if your timing goes seriously wrong, or you’re bothered by severe cramps or headaches, you will want to talk to your doctor.

Are you getting this? Stop crying and don’t even think about sneezing — you might delay your menstruation, which makes you a failure. Don’t you dare trouble your doctor with your uncleanly shenanigans. (Clapping hands for emphasis) Timing! Is! Everything! You bleed right or you go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

What they are looking at is, like, this weird black puppy thing that floats up from the carpet, I think it is supposed to be a metaphor for all-women-share-this-secret? or some such likely chicanery.

The booklet [Very Personally Yours, provided by Kotex and meant to be passed out concurrent with the film’s screening in health classes] explores, among other things, that old taboo against bathing during your period. Not only can you bathe, you should bathe!

I have never heard of a taboo against that, because that is stupid and also gross. Unless they are referring to that murky, veiled crap in fucking Leviticus? Yeah, there is also shit in there about piercing the heart of a dove if you eat non-Kosher pork, and making a bunch of animal sacrifices for, like, pretty much every imaginable offense (where you would even get the number of animals necessary to slake Leviticus’s bloodlust is beyond me).

But if she be cleansed of her issue, then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take unto her two turtles, or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her before the LORD for the issue of her uncleanness. (Leviticus 15:28-30)

Turtles? Really? So every Israelite woman, if she was a woman of faith and law-abidance, is being told by Moses and Aaron that God said she should be going through 24 turtles a year? And she had to do this, follow through, sacrifice effing turtles? And every woman did it? Where are you even going to have that many turtles in the desert?! Doubt it. I’m coming right out and saying it: doubt it. Long story short, thanks for the concern about the taboo, Kotex-sponsored narrator, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been ignoring Leviticus for quite some time, ma’am.

Some girls have a little less “pep,” a feeling of pressure in the lower part of the body, perhaps an occasional twinge or a touch of nerves. But don’t let it get you down: after all, no matter how you feel, you have to live with people.

I have to what?! But these wolves are like family! “People?” I just don’t know about that.

(Damn near killed ‘im.) According to the wiki, Disney hired gynecologist Mason Hohn to make sure all the science was accurate. I take it he blinked during this drawing. I am not a stickler for biology, but I’m pretty sure my rectum is not just a tube with no discernible placement or beginning and ending, and I am almost positive my bladder and uterus are not shaped like golf clubs. Also, question: where is the vagina in this drawing? Why is the rectum even important to show? A tacit endorsement of anal, I say.

Menstruation’s relationship to readiness for sexual reproduction is absolutely never even once mentioned; you may imagine that sex itself also does not come up. But the production is, most film historians agree, noteworthily forward in its script — it is likely the first movie to use the word “vagina.” Too bad a crabby Virginia Slim smoker was the utterer and not someone more exciting and significant, like Bogie or Orson Welles. Wow, I now have to search every audio source possible to see if Orson Welles has ever been recorded saying “vagina.” Project! Anyway, like I said, the subject of exactly how babies get made is not broached, but the goal of getting a boy and making some in order to be all-growns-up is still endorsed.

I hope you have enjoyed and learned from “The Story of Menstruation.”

Most caps courtesy _sargasso on the lj. Thanks!