100 movie spoilers in 5 minutes

The title says it all.

Death Notice (4): Michel Modo

Today let's devote some time to commemorate an actor whose name is probably unknown to most of you, although I'm sure you did see him in a movie. Michel Modo passed away on 25 September 2008 in a great indifference from the media — I even heard about his death just a couple of days ago, as I was on my way to Belgium, my mum telling me about news I could perhaps not heard of. Michel Modo was a comedian who formed a duo with (the late) Guy Grosso to become "Grosso & Modo"… Louis de Funès noticed them and gave them roles in the Le Gendarme… series from 1964 to 1982; they played Tricard and Berlicot. Michel Modo notably starred in On a retrouvé la Septième Compagnie as a German soldier ordering Tassin (Henri Guibet) and Pitivier (the late Jean Lefebvre) to "rester groupir":



He played another German soldier in La Grande Vadrouille (definitely one of my personal favourites as it comes to French films), this time having a squint:



(Michel Modo appears at 7:30 in this video.)

For a more exhaustive filmography, I refer you to the Wikipedia entry.

But for me his death leaves a big mark on French dubbing, for he lent his voice for the French version of films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (voice of R.K. Maroon, played by Alan Tilvern), Bean (dubbing George Grierson, played by Harris Yulin) as well as The Simpsons. Indeed, he was in charge of giving life to many a character, among whom: Seymour Skinner, Charles Montgomery Burns, Krusty, Clancy Wiggum, Dr. Hibbert, Marvin Monroe, Kent Brockman, Joe Quimby, Slideshow Mel and Slideshow Bob.

As Halloween was just a couple of days ago I found it appropriate to show you a "Treehouse of Horror": Treehouse of Horror XVIII:


As Michel Modo died, season 19 was in the process of being dubbed, so he was replaced in the five last episodes by Gérald Rinaldi, another renown voice actor — he notably lent his voice to the dino guard that gets eaten by raptors in Jurassic Park, Tim Curry in Home Alone 2, Jeroen Krabbé in The Fugitive and Mercredi in Robinson Sucroë… (And he was part of Les Charlots, famous for the song "Merci patron !" among others.) Michel Modo gave a very unique voice to the aforementioned characters, something that makes me love the French version — although I'm fond of the original version as well.

In order for you to make an opinion about Krusty and other's new voices, please watch Apocalypse Cow (or 'Tragédie bovine', (unproper) French title), from Series 19, episode 15.

The 100 voices guy

Simply amazing, although it's not perfect.

"The Cat Concerto"

The Cat Concerto is perhaps one of the most popular short cartoons ever created. In 1947 it received the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. It "stars" Tom (the cat) as a piano virtuoso giving a recital on the instrument Jerry (the mouse) lives in.



I LOVE Tom's face at 03:43 and the way the piano lid is slammed onto his fingers…

The theme that you hear, Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 by Franz Liszt, has been spoofed in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the piano fight scene featuring Daffy Duck and Donald Duck.



From Wikipedia:

Controversy

The same year MGM produced The Cat Concerto, Warner Bros. released a very similar cartoon entitled Rhapsody Rabbit. Directed by Friz Freleng, Rhapsody Rabbit featured Bugs Bunny opposite an unnamed mouse. Both shorts had very similar plots, and even use the same piece by Liszt.

Both MGM and Warner Bros. accused each other of plagiarism, after both films were shown during the 1947 Academy Awards ceremony. Technicolor was accused of sending a print of either cartoon to the competing studio, who then allegedly plagarized their rival's work.

Walt Disney: Emperor of Dreams

Here's the final version of my blog entry about Walt Disney, which I also posted on germ@namur. Maybe I'm just gonna change a few links, adding silly things (like the spoof on Honey I Shrunk the Kids).

Who has never heard of Walt Disney? This world-famous cartoon director and businessman was born on 5 December 1901 in Chicago, IL. He is an icon in American culture, as will be shown in this blog entry.

Walt Elias Disney started his career as an advertising illustrator, but failing to meet the success he desired, he left his hometown to go to Hollywood. He founded a cartoon production company (known today as the Walt Disney Company), and a couple of years later, his Steamboat Willie made him famous, with its introduction of the character of Mickey Mouse. This film was the first in an endless series of worldwide-successful cartoons such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland – among many others.

But Disney’s interest lay not only in cartoons, but also in live-action movies: he most notably produced Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews. Disney also invested his money and his time in the creation of an amusement park in California, Disleyland. This theme park was designed in such a way that all American families could walk in a fantasy world that would remind everybody of his cartoons, for instance by getting lost in Alice in Wonderland’s labyrinth. As a philanthropist, he decided to create a new university, CalArts (short for California Institute of Arts), in order to promote the creativity of talented people who would probably become prominent in the arts.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer on 15 December 1966 — he was a heavy smoker. An urban legend says that Walt Disney was cryonically frozen, but he was actually cremated. Despite his death, his work was carried on by others, through the Walt Disney Company, which is now owned by his offspring. For example, several other theme parks were built in Florida, Tokyo and Paris. Even a Disney Cruise Line was opened in the Caribbean.

As far as the movie legacy is concerned, the Walt Disney Company went on to make not only many other successful cartoons such as The Beauty and the Beast, but also live-action films among which Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and hybrid forms mixing traditional animation with live action, e.g. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The latter is the only film featuring characters from Disney and from Warner Bros. in the same frame.



For almost a dozen years, the Walt Disney Company has invested more and more money in computer-animated films, which notably resulted in the two Toy Story films. These were made by the Pixar Animation Studios, which are now owned by Disney. Their most recent released film is Ratatouille.

In conclusion, Walt Disney is considered as an important character in the American, but also world culture, which makes him a legend. His future-oriented empire is one of the most powerful, and it still has many wonderful stories to tell, making us wander in the utmost fantastic universe.



Simon Labate and Quentin Poncelet

Walt Disney: an Empire of Dreams

Professor Vandelanotte asked us a couple of months ago to write a post on germ@namur as part of a writing assignment. Here are the original instructions (no need to paraphrase them):

For this assignment you are asked to work in groups of two people to produce a blog entry and a short presentation on an assigned topic. These topics were chosen to reflect aspects of different anglophone cultures (in the UK and Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

This time, I worked with my good friend Quentin, and in less than an hour and a half, we came up with this text. And oh yeah, before I forget, the topic that we chose is Walt Disney. I opted for this because I know some of the cartoons and besides, it's a biography, which means it is easier than summarizing up a concept. (At least, that's what I think.) So you find our first draft version. I just added several links afterwards. I will also post the definitive version on this blog once it's corrected. (Thanks, Ruth!)

Who has never heard the name of Walt Disney? This world-famous cartoon director and businessman was born on 5 December 1901 in Chicago, IL. He is an icon in American culture, as it will be shown below.

Walt Elias Disney started his career as an advertising illustrator, but as he did not meet the success he wanted, he left his hometown to go to Hollywood. He founded a cartoon production company (known today as the Walt Disney Company), and a couple of years later, his Steamboat Willie made him famous, as it introduced the character of Mickey Mouse. This film was the first in an endless series of worldwide-successful cartoons such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland – among many others.

But Disney’s interest was not confined to cartoons, but also to live-action movies: he most notably produced Mary Poppins, with Julie Andrews. Disney also invested his money and his time in the creation of an amusement park in California, Disleyland. This theme park was made so that all American families could walk in a fantasy world reminding everybody of his cartoons, for instance by getting lost in Alice in Wonderland’s labyrinth. As a philanthropist, he decided to create a new university, CalArts (short for California Institute of Arts), in order to promote the creativity of talented artists who would probably become prominent in the arts.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer on 15 December 1966 — he was a heavy smoker. An urban legend says that Walt Disney was cryonically frozen, but he was actually cremated. Despite his death, his work was carried on by others, through the Walt Disney Company, which is now owned by his offspring. For example, several other theme parks were built in Florida, Tokyo and Paris. Even a Disney Cruise Line was opened in the Caribbean.

As far as the movie legacy is concerned, the Walt Disney Company went on to make not only many other successful cartoons such as The Beauty and the Beast, but also live-action films among which Honey I Shrank the Kids, and hybrid forms mixing traditional animation with live action, e.g. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This is the only film featuring characters from Disney and Warner Bros. characters in the same frame.



Since a dozen of years, the Walt Disney Company invested more and more money in computer-animated films, notably the two Toy Story films. These were made by the Pixar Animation Studios, which are now owned by Disney. Their most recent released film is Ratatouille.

In conclusion, Walt Disney is considered as an important character in the American, but also world culture, which makes him a legend. His future-oriented empire is one of the most powerful in the world, and it still has many wonderful stories to tell, making us wander in the utmost fantastic universe.

"Down Right Terrible"

Our friend TheNostalgiaCritic (aka thatguywiththeglasses) came up with a tremendous analysis of a movie called Super Mario Bros., based on the famous video game. Let's hear his message. Below, I listed a series of quotes which I absolutely LOVE! They're brilliant! So watch it to figure it out:



Here are my favourite quotes:

• The two Italian plumbers are played by a Britishman and a Latino. (…) THIS IS GOING TO SUCK ASS!

• (About Dennis Hooper)
  

(he)'s more a mix between Donald Trump and Doctor Evil. Disney's Reluctant Dragon would have been scarier than this.

• This only way to get it back for Mario is to use his balding Italian charm to seduce her. What people would do for a role!

• Most of the performances in this movie are down right terrible. I mean, I love Bob Hoskins, but after time it seems he's caughing up a hair ball. (Bob Hoskins uttering something hardly intelligible). And every time I hear that New York accent, I keep expecting Roger Rabbit to pop up. But by far the biggest award for killing your performance goes to the poopa-scoopa-gooba himself: Dennis Hopper. It's literally like he woke up every morning and just said to himself: "I'm not going to act today! I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's not going to be acting.". In fact, we haven't seen Dennis Hopper in a while, have we? But what do you expect when you're in movies where you're saying lines like:

  BA-BOMB!

• Let's hear that again:

  BA-BOMB!

• And this is why you don't see Dennis Hopper anymore. In fact, if you watch it in slow motion, you can actually pinpoint the moment where his career implodes in on himself. Watch:

  Baaaaaaa-booooooooomb! (Atomic bomb exploding)

• There's no other line in this movie that could destroy an actor's career, so quickly.

A monkey!

• Ok, maybe one other line. In fact, let's see these two lines one back to back:

BA-BOMB! // Monkey!
BA-BOMB! // Monkey!
BA-BOMB! // Monkey!
BA-BOMB! // Monkey! (ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED ACTOR)
BA-BOMB! // Monkey!
BA-BOMB! // Monkey!
BA-BOMB! // Monkey!

There it is. I hope you enjoyed this video and that, like me, you'd like to watch this movie just to see how it actually sucks taken on its whole. Two directors? Maybe because the first one gave up when he realized this would be worse than shit. Curious then that he didn't appear as Alan Smithee, then.

The Top 11 Scariest Movies of All Time

Welcome to the Halloween Theme Week! It means that this week, I plan to post videos relating to Halloween.

Today's video was made by thatguywiththeglasses (my favourite YouTuber) for his channel thenostalgiacritic (which had also been deleted by YouTube). He analyses the "top eleven scariest nostalic moments of all time. Why top 11? Because I like to go one step behind".



# 11: The Wizard of Oz

I definitely have to see this movie: it's a reference for many parodies. It's a little bit too kitschy for me, though.


# 10: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old version: 1971)

Never seen this one too, but just a couple extracts. Too kitschy as well.

"So, what's the deal, Wonka*?" [*pronounced as "wanker", I think…]

# 9: Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland

In French, I think it had the ridiculous name of "Bizounours"…


# 8: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (animated version)


# 7: The snake from Beetlejuice (by Tim Burton)


# 6: Ghostbusters

I was scared the shit out of myself by that ghost librarian when I was young!!

"… a spiritual nanny played by Peter MacNicol. Peter MacNicol is already really scary… Now imagine him in drag trying to play a Mary Poppinsish pedophile from hell and you got yourself a pretty nasty image."

# 5: The child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Never seen, but I heard of it, especially as a musical.


# 4: Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (again by Burton)

I saw this movie a couple of years ago, and I regret it… It's one of the dumbest (in the bad sense of the term) films ever. On the other hand, I rather like Big Top Pee Wee (shame on me).


# 3: Judge Doom from Who framed Roger Rabbit

This film stands in the my Top 10 Best Movies ever. I love Christopher Lloyd playing this part. He never blinks in the whole film… And the French version is great, too.

"The vilain is tall, is dark, is Christopher Lloyd…"

"… and you can count the bricks we shit after seeing this scene."

I just love this kind of expressions.

By the way, do you know why the title is written without a question mark? It's due to a superstition in Hollywood saying that you can never put such a sign in a title. Basically.


# 2: the clown from Poltergeist

I still have to see it. Another source of parodies.


# 1: the banshee from Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Don't know that one… But it looks scary… I mean back then it probably was.



Anyway, this is a great list, even though there are other monsters and creepy creaters that'd deserved to be on that list. I'm thinking about the wrath of God at the end of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, for instance.

Shame on Him! Quinquies: Michel Doomst

Have you ever heard of the little village (or, as they say in Flanders: gemeente) of Gooik, in the Province of Flemish Brabant? I admit I hadn't till I saw its mayor on television. But I'm sure you're wondering why the heck I'm talking about some obscure bloke from the Flemish rural catholic countryside: "What the hell is funny about a casual mayor?". I'm going to explain myself, of course, as I always does. (If not, drop a comment for my lack of cohesion.)

If I come to talk about people in this blog, that's either because I like them, either because I don't like them, either because they make me laugh (precisely because I like them or not).

(Do you still copy? See what I mean? If not, so be it.)

Well, what was I saying anyway? Oh yes, that mayor (or burgemeester) from Gooik. Well, guess what?
…
…
…
This is just a blank to give you time to have a think about it. I'm sure you can guess from the title: I've already written several articles that go in the same direction, making fun of a certain category of people. … No, it's not about rednecks, French "Jackys", Walloon barakîs and other Flemish Johnny's en Marina's.
…
…
…
And now? Did you have enough time to think about it? Or do you need one more minute, or one more clue? … No, it would be too easy. But anyway, I'm gonna put an end to this long wait now, because I'm sure you've already looked at the picture below, haven't you yet? See, I told you!

Yeah, as you can see, this guy is part of the large community of man who are too scared of showing bald flesh on their skulls… His name is Michel Doomst. He's thus the mayor of Gooik, as I said above. He's also a member of Parliament. His party is the CD&V, the leading party in Flanders. The first time I saw him, it was of course on TV. The first thing that came across my mind was yelling: "COMBOVER!" Indeed, as you can see several threads of hair were combed towards his fronthead, giving him that ridiculous appearance. If I were living in this remote village of Gooik, I surely wouldn't vote for this man. If you drop an "o" in his name and add an "e" at the end of it, you have the word "domste", which means "silliest". Quod erat demonstrandum. (Or if you just drop "st", you're left alone with someone called "Doom". A Doom that's not even a judge… What a pity. [Explanation for ignorants (if any): I'm cleverly referring, as an Easter Egg, to the brillant "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with Christopher Lloyd playing a certain Judge Doom.])

I know this is a shallow reason not to vote for him, but people voted for instance for the "beauty" (read: legs) of Freya Vandenbossche, who was in charge of Treasury. Later, she stated in a newspaper that she was hopeless in maths and that she didn't understand anything to economics… That's a true story. We're governed by a bunch of incapable people – who have to rely on capable advisors. (Most of them work for the ministry of Education of the Communauté française. The so-called programmes they came up with are too silly to be taken seriously.)

By the way, and before I go, this Michel Doomst appeared on TV because he was (and still is) an eager advocate of the so-called splitsing van de kieskring Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde. If you don't know what this awkward thing is, don't try to find out what it is: it's a symbollical division of a voting district around Brussels that is demanded by Flemish politicians. It appears that this division would cost several Flemish seats in the Parliament, but they don't seem to have noticed that… Anyway, that's an issue that they absolutely want to discuss as soon as the government is set. And for the record, the elections weren't taking place last sunday, but… nearly 90 days ago, on 10 July!!! … "At snail's pace", as they say.

PS. If you look at different pictures of Michel Doomst, you'll see that his combover's size changes from time to time. (And this reminds me of one of my former professors…)