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Thursday, 03 September 2009 22:20

Yeah, I agree...Iron Giant Rocks

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 A recent Wired article spoke about how the movie "Iron Giant" combined a fun story, real emotion and a sense of hope - but that was ten years ago and nothing these days is really comparing to that.

The article mentions the recent "G-Force" in a negative light as to what Hollywood is up to today regarding animation.  Also, somehow, "Terminator Salvation" ended up in the mix of comparisons.  Perhaps if we just expanded the scope a tad and looked at the wonderful offerings from Pixar and Dreamworks we could see that there is indeed a ray of narrative hope being shined through the haze of video-game nonsense that seems to be flooding the market these days.

But is that video game nonsense bad?

It's no coincidence that some of the top rated animations are by Pixar - people still hunger for a well-told tale and Pixar more than delivers.  And Dreamworks has begun to find their level lately with their animation offerings.  "Kung-Fu Panda" is fun and solid story-telling.

But there's really nothing wrong some empty-headed nonsense every once in a while.  I mentioned this in an article I wrote about the death of story.  So we get silly mixed in with serious - that's really always been Hollywood.  In the 60's it was silly Doris Day/Rock Hudson romps with "Easy Rider."  The 70's gave us ridiculous Hippie films and Blaxpoitation with "Taxi Driver" and "Deer Hunter."  The 80's were John Hughes coming of age nonsensicals and "The Verdict."  There's always going to be a measured amount of goofy with the so-called art.  TV once gave us "The A-Team" along with "Hill Street Blues."  Today we have "Burn Notice" and "Rescue Me" - two shows wildly entertaining but about as different as ice and rice.

I loved "Iron Giant" when I saw it.  He's one of the very few action figures I own.  The other one or two are from "The Incredibles" - another Brad Bird product, by the way.  The IG story had heart, soul and just about any other type of spirit you can describe and it was great fun.  It made me laugh, made me sad - genuine sadness - it moved me and gave me such a strong feeling of completion at the end that I promptly went and saw it again.

But if the paradign has shifted, it's not apparent to me.  Brad Bird is still making films.  Hopefully the boys and girls from Dreamworks and Disney will be at it for a while longer (especially since Disney just bought Marvel.)  A big recent hit was "Slumdog Millionaire" and the Academy awarded "The Reader" and "The Wrestler" for various things.

I would hope that filmmakers will continue to tell real stories and not just fill dark spaces with bright lights and ordinance.  But I also hope they continue to do that too.  I like the variety, the changes, the trial and errors.  Now one knew "Iron Giant" would be the great film it was - until it was.  We have to continue to do that sort of experimentation.  Art is change.

We'll always have "Iron Giant" to hold up as a beacon - and we'll always have the silly and strange.  And at the end of the day there should always be a mixture - that's truly is art - pushing all sorts of boundaries, good and bad.

And you just never know what might come out of that mix - like the wonderful and underrated giant, "Iron Giant."

Read 1762 times Last modified on Wednesday, 05 August 2015 16:12
Published in Front Page Item - old
Mark Sevi

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