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It's been a weird past month or so, but I'm finally back home after all the travel and family emergencies.
I'll have a couple of things up in the next few days including:
Plus a little bonus side project while I was traveling that's just for fun that I hope people will appreciate.
In Dubai for a few days, so in the meantime here's a Nuhdle.
My Nose Is Not A Post
I'd like to take a moment to mention the passing of Leonard Nimoy memorably known for his work as Mr. Spock in the Star Trek franchise, on February 27th 2015. I grew up remembering Nimoy as not only Spock, but as the wonderfully villainous Galvatron from The Transformers: The Movie. He left an incredible legacy, one as a talent who was an actor, a poet, a photographer, and a director.
Among the many great entertainers out there, Nimoy was an icon, and an important part of pop culture, and us fans will miss him. In the words that he immortalized, where ever he may be:
Live long and prosper.
Magical Realism at its best/most terrifying.
Last weekend, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman won Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography at the 87th Academy Awards.
Birdman, which was a weird and gratifying film, falls into a genre that is close to my own heart, and what defines a number of my stories. I’m speaking, of course, of Magical Realism. With Birdman’s big win I felt that this might be a good time for me to speak briefly on the genre.
Magical Realism is taking fantastical elements and portraying them as commonplace in the ‘regular’ world. This is not the same as a story where a character enters a separate, fantasy universe, such as the Chronicles of Narnia or Peter Pan.
In those cases, the character is leaving the rational world and leaps into a strange land filled with mystery, or rather the unknown. Magical Realism, on the other hand, takes the same wondrous components and makes them out to be everyday occurrences in the real world. The metaphysical becomes physical.
Imagine Aslan the Lion around every Wednesday for coffee.
Perhaps you’ve seen Pan’s Labyrinth, Big Fish, or Amélie? These flicks are examples of the genre, the latter two being in my top films. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Hayao Miyazaki are two famous names you might recognize whose films contain, surprise, surprise, Magical Realism.
Birdman presented Magical Realism as an imaginative element brought out into the real world. The film, though it followed a number of themes and players (for the most part), is a visual account of the outlandish mind of Riggan Thomson, represented by this Birdman character. These sequences were a daydream extended into real life.
I like to tell stories about the mundane world with an added sprinkle of the spice of the fantastical, thus my devotion to the genre. Storytelling can be an extension of our own experiences; the worlds that I build are the same that you and I live in, with the same history, the same events, but off-kilter.
This genre allows me to portray my message, whatever it may be, in a way that opens it to a broader gallery of people. Perhaps what I love most about this genre is one of the ingredients that makeup the core of it: acceptance.
It represents accepting the bizarre and otherworldly into mundane lives, and in doing so, juxtaposes humanity and individualism as a whole. That supernatural beast we see is nothing more than a reflection, a divine mirror image, of ourselves. We escape our lives. We let loose.
Remember, we are all different and the same. We are all bizarre and human.
And that’s where the magic of storytelling comes from.
Where does Baymax stand in all this?
I recently saw Big Hero 6, Disney’s 54th animation in their coveted Animated Classics range of films, based on an obscure Marvel Comics property from the 90’s.
I was very excited for this film, which the creators made clear is not a Marvel comic book movie, going so far as to not have the Marvel logo play before the film, it delivered on many levels, and for a film not released under its high profile creator’s banner, it still had a fun cameo by Marvel legend, Stan Lee.
Even before I walked into the theater, I was considering this film a milestone.
Why?
Because of exactly what I mentioned above; Big Hero 6 is a Marvel property, taken from its mother franchise, and given new life to be immortalized as a Disney classic.
This is a major win for the comic book world.
Disney is known for adapting fairy tales, folk tales, and classic novella as part of the sacred Animated Classics films, but as with 2012’s Wreck It-Ralph, Disney has, post-millennium, been experimenting, and in recent years they’ve made strides in the right direction.
Big Hero 6 is the accumulation of The Great Comic Book Boom we are experiencing in our theaters and on our televisions. Disney was quick, since their acquisition of Marvel, to put this film together as a Disney property.
It’s impact and importance is that the 14 years of streamlined comic book productions since X-Men has finally branched itself out of the stigma of being just comic book movies.
Removing its ties to the comic company that founded it, on the surface at least, as members of Marvel were still involved in the creative process, was a bold move. Yet Disney managed to handle it with respect and create something unique for their own branding.
Those of us who always loved and indulged in comics as a reading medium now get to experience watching the general audience entertain the seriousness of our passions, whether labeled officially as a comic film, or inspired by a comic.
Our comic book world is expanding in a big way.
Ow My Foot!
This has been my past week and half-ish. Pain.
Also, I hope someone gets the title reference.
Froggy The Frog
Because coming up with a catchy title for a lazy doodle is hard work.
Haven't updated in a week, and missed this week's Nuhdle due to a foot injury (and a lot of pain).
I'll have a slew of stuff that was suppose to post during the week up in day or so.