Cinema Lounge, a film discussion group, takes place at 7:00 PM at Barnes and Noble, 555 12th St., NW in Washington, DC (near the Metro Center Metro stop). The group meets informally on the second floor in the open dining area, seated at round dining tables. You do not need to be a member of the Washington DC Film Society to attend.

Cinema Lounge is moderated by Daniel R. Vovak.

Are Animated Films for Children or Adults?

On November 16, 2009, we discussed "Are animated film for children or adults?" Beginning in 2010, there will be 5 nominees for best animated feature. (Normally there have been three.) The number of qualified applicants has increased, too, with likely hopefuls: The Princess and the Frog (2009), Planet 51 (2009), Up (2009), Coraline (2009), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009). The Toy Story films were rereleased because another film will be released next year.

Knowing that more films are being released in 3-D, someone asked if there are 3-D contact lenses available for people. After all, those 3-D glasses are flimsy, though the new glasses are not as funky as the old glasses. It seems like another 3-D phase is emerging in order to get people into the movie theatres. In the 1950s, 3-D movies grew in popularity, namely with House of Wax (1953). In the 1980s, there was another 3-D trend, with Parasite (1982), Friday the 13th 3-D (1982), Spacehunter (1983), Jaws 3-D (1983), Amityville 3-D (1983), and The Ice Pirates (1984).

Animated Films are no longer just a genre for kids, since some children-animated films are also marketed to adults, like: Waltz with Bashir (2008), Persepolis (2007), and Paprika (2006), Writer-director Richard Linklater has done a few of them, too. In Ratatouille (2007), every character had an excellent back-story. Brad Bird was brought in on the rewrite in order to salvage it. Pixar has a good track record, so their background is interesting.

Back in the old studio days, a studio's name stood for something specific. MGM represented big, lavish movies. Universal represented horror movies. Disney was animation films. Warner Brothers pushed gangster movies. These days, the studio logo doesn't mean much, versus the small studios, which still mean something. For instance, the Cohen Brothers are auteurs. Pixar has quality movies. It may not be good, but the name "Jerry Bruckheimer" does mean something, too.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was the first animated feature. Fantasia (1940) was later, along with Peter Pan (1953). Surprisingly, Walt Disney did not invent the character of Snow White. For instance, Aladdin (1992) was done a long time ago, including TV in 1952. Mickey Mouse was invented, along with Donald Duck, and many other popular characters, most of which are based on White characters -- not Black. It seemed like in the 1990s, every year had a big Disney film, which in many cases were musicals. With Toy Story, it was less hand-drawn and more computer-drawn. Now, with the Princess and the Frog, it will return as a hand-drawn movie. It is also the first mainstream movie with Black main characters. Song of the South (1946) is set in the south with many stereotyped Black characters, though obviously not available for distribution in the United States since the U.S. consistently tries to be politically correct rather than allow uncensored expression of the arts.

One person spoke about how Disney was once considering an amusement park in Manassas, Virginia but an outcry--partially aimed at Disney's dominate use of White characters--was part of the reason the park idea collapsed. For instance, how would Disney depict slavery (in a politically correct way) if the park was aimed at different eras in U.S. history? One of the discussion members in the audience revealed she had once worked for Disney. She said there was a script for all employees to refer to Walt Disney as simply "Walt," as if each employee actually knew him.

Watership Down (1978) was animated, with rabbits trying to escape, instead of animals escaping like in Animal Farm (1954). In The Secret of NIMH (1982), rats were escaping. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) was animated, along with The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), which was animated in more ways than one. Down and Dirty Duck (1974) was also animated. Howard the Duck (1986) should have been animated. Could that ever be remade? Some people thought it should be!

Roger Rabbit (1988) was a hybrid-animated film. Mary Poppins (1964) was live-action animation, though it was only for part of the movie. Tim Burton has a dark style with stop-motion, like in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Claymation (or clay-animation) is stop-motion but with clay, like the characters of Mr. Bill and Gumby. Nick Park still uses claymation with his company Aardman Animations.

Someone mentioned that some animated television shows were created to sell candy. They spawned movies, too, like The Rugrats Movie (1998). Twilight (2008) has dolls based on the characters. For boys, they sold dolls as "action figures," using a spin on the name to make the word sound less feminine. Waiting for Guffman (1996) has spawned action figures, along with My Dinner with Andre (1981), which is a pun in and of itself. George Lucas was a genius regarding ancillary rights. When the FOX people talked with Lucas about how he would be compensated, Lucas said he would take less money if he could control ancillary rights. The decision was so smart that when George Lucas won the lifelong AFI Achievement award, Carrie Fisher bitterly joked that Lucas controls the ancillary rights so much that whenever she looks into the mirror, she has to write Lucas a check.

What is animation's future?

Will animated films evolve into a hologram technology? No one knew for sure. Motion capture seems like a form of that. As the person moves, the characters look like wax figures, though they have mostly fixed the problems with the eyes. When animated characters don't look human, they are accepted as non-human; however, The Polar Express (2004) was creepy. Avatar (2009) will be all CGI, which should be interesting to watch. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) is not cutting-edge technology but it could popular (unless it tanks).

Many prequel characters in Star Wars were CGI. Someone said, "I stopped watching the movie because of the CGI. Beowulf (2007) was cool because they looked like people people, but then half way through I couldn't finish watching it." Another person added, "The same was true of Hancock (2008), which was good for the first half. Then in the second half they took the character seriously, which made no sense. Cloverfield (2008) was like Godzilla (1954) filmed with a cell phone. It was the same problem with The Blair Witch Project (1999); At some point, you drop the camera."

At the end of the discussion session, many questions remained. Is there any room left for traditional animation? Can there be a 360-3D Cinerama style film? Will the trend evolve into Where the Wild Things Are (2009), which combined animation with other technology? There is a famous quote about the movie business: "How do you make a small fortune in Hollywood? You start with a large fortune!" To make money in the future, animated movies may be the way to go for new filmmakers.