Disney’s The Black Hole film had it (kinda) right.

The Hubble Space Telescope has located a black hole that closely resembles Disney’s version from the 1979 film The Black Hole. NASA scientists hypothesize that the black hole at the center of the spiral galaxy NGC-3147 is starved of matter. This may account for the difference between this and other black holes resembling the one from Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film, Interstellar.

Black holes are thought to form an acceration disk from the massive gravitational pull swallowing surrounding matter. Matter-starved black holes apparently do not form acceleration disks. It seems that artist Peter Ellenshaw wasn’t wrong back when science was lacking an accurate description of black holes. Although Heaven and Hell probably aren’t in there, at least Disney got the look of the black hole right. 

Disney Parks Announces Smoker Accommodations

Disney Parks announced this week that smoking will be banned at all Disney theme parks.  While smoking will still be permitted on property, smokers will have to leave the theme parks (and their families) to get their fix.  This decision was applauded by non-smokers as a breath of fresh air.  Smokers have been very vocal as to their disapproval of the decision and have gone to social media to vent their un-filtered outrage.  They accuse Disney of discrimination and of shaming those who suffer from nicotine addiction.   While a Disney vacation is a magical experience, it can also be very stressful for individuals trying to manage Fastpasses while organizing the many advance reservations required to dine on any food other than turkey legs and chicken tenders.  The side effects of smoking cessation, even temporary, are increased anxiety, irritability, impatience, and increased appetite for sweets and carbs.  All of these factors may be amplified by the inherent stress of a family vacation.

Always on the forefront of customer service, The Disney Company has revealed new accommodations to help smokers, and the people who love them. Bob Chapek, Chairman of Disney Parks, addressed this issue. "We here at Disney want to ensure that everyone  has a pleasant and profanity free vacation experience at the Happiest Place on Earth." said Chapek.  "The new plan is broken up into 3 main components: Accommodation, Education, and Alternative Choices". 


For the "Accommodation" component, Disney has added smoking to the list of approved needs the Disney Disability Access Card program to ensure quick access to rides without subjecting the already anxious smoker to long waits, protecting them and those waiting in a three hour cue from the risk of verbal or physical attack. Additionally, Disney has established "Calming Stations" in the former sites of the now defunct Kodak Photo Spots.  Each station will be manned by caring and compassionate Cast Members and will be equipped with stress balls, massage chairs, and selections by musical artist Enya. 

Proposed "Calming Station" signage

For the Education component, Disney will include information regarding smoking risks with park maps and on the "My Disney Experience" mobile app.  The most exciting aspect of the Education concept is the return of the Kids of the Kingdom rebranded as The Nico-Teens!  The show will be updated to reflect modern sensitivities with a focus on smoking prevention. The newly titled "Nico-Teen Clean Lung Adventure" show will combine music and dance to extol the virtues and health benefits of smoking cessation to at-risk kids age 3 and up.  "Halfway into the performance, half of the Nico-Teens will have to leave the stage from the fatigue and shortness of breath brought on by smoking." said Chapek. "It will be a powerful lesson, done in the lighthearted spirit for which Disney is famous."

The Nico-Teens

The final component of providing "Alternative Choices" will allow nicotine addicted guests to explore a variety of replacement behaviors.  Convenient vending kiosks will be available serving jittery smokers with a wide selection of sweet and greasy food options, as well as supersized cups of  coffee. Chapek was most excited about the new "Gaston's Chew Spot" located outside Gaston's Tavern in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World. "Guests will have the opportunity to "Spit like Gaston" while competing with other tobacco chewing guests." Group and individual coaching sessions will be provided by experienced Cast Members, Chapek announced.  "Whether you have been dippin' for years, or trying it out for the first time, our cast will assist you with all your chaw needs. Disney has always strived to add new experiences that our guests can take home with them."

With guest attendance projected to be at an all-time high with the big drag of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, Disney is hoping to get ahead of the possible complications caused by unruly smokers in large numbers.  Disney's can then set it's sights on other societal issues.  "We have already begun work on defeating childhood obesity by banning large strollers from the parks." reported Chapek.  "The health and longevity of our money paying guests is our top priority."

The One with the Girl: Captain Marvel Review

Marvel broke new ground with The Black Panther, and then again, it didn't. While the setting and villain (the best sympathetic antagonist in all of the MCU)  had unique character and depth, the protagonist was cut from the same ilk as Tony Stark and Thor. I didn't find myself emotionally connected to any of those rich and powerful boys who find themselves in a jam. The same can be said of Brie Larson's Vers / Carol Danvers. Her presence itself breaks new ground for a female lead in a MCU film, although DC has been doing that since 2017. Other than that, her character isn't any more interesting than any other leading character, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

At the beginning of the film, Vers (pronounced "Veers") is a powerful member of the Kree, who she describes with elitist zest as "Noble Warrior Heroes". She is strong, powerful, stoic, and well, boring. She doesn't get much more interesting throughout the film, but that's not the fault of Larson. What follows is a not so compelling journey of self discovery in the classic sense. The film, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, can't figure out if it wants to be. It morphs from a sci-fi space flick, to a buddy cop movie, to a superhero movie while never fully commiting to any of those paths. The supporting characters are enjoyable, including a digitally de-aged Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury and Clark Gregg as a young Agent Coulson. The Skrull shape-shifter is played by the ever reliable Bill Medelsohn and is delightfully vibrant and eventually sympathetic. Trying to capitalize of the popularity of cute characters like Baby Groot, Boden shoehorns in a CG cuddly kitty named Goose who is taken in by the usually rough Fury.

Captain Marvel is standard Marvel fare that never rises above the fray, but it also doesn't sink below. The battles are exciting and flashy and the dialog between Danvers and Fury is clever. Unfortunately, neither reach the levels of Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok. The film goes out of its way to shove 90's nostalgia down your throat with the soundtrack and dress. Not to the point of being annoying, but to the point of being obvious, from the use of old tech to Danvers in flannel with a Nine Inch Nails shirt.

I mentioned earlier that none of these issues are necessarily bad. A female lead hero in the MCU should be ubiquitous by now and that fact that it isn't is a sad statement on how little we as a society have grown. The lack of long, drawn out exposition on Danver's struggles growing up (shown in quick flashbacks) supports the notion that a female lead doesn't need to be any different then her male counterparts. Seriously, do we even care what kind of father Howard Stark was or how Thor's childhood was? We get more background on Steve Rogers' struggles than Carol Danvers' and that's ok! With that being said, we should all look to Captain Marvel as what it truly is; another solid origin story to support another Avengers movie. It doesn't need to be anything else.

Marvel announces Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Comic Miniseries

While guests will have wait until Fall of 2019 to visit Disneyland’s new Star Wars themed areas, the journey to Black Spire Outpost on the planet of Batuu begins in April, in print form anyway.  Marvel Comics announced yesterday that a mini-series based on Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge will be released in April. The story will focus on an Ithorian trader Doc-Ondar and will take place in and around Black Spire Outpost which is the setting for the upcoming Star Wars themed areas for Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida.

While Marvel is tight lipped about the story, writer Ethan Sacks, in an interview with StarWars.com, provided some detail about what access the team had to Disney Imagineering and how it impacted the story:

Our series will give fans the chance to visit Black Spire Outpost months ahead of voyaging to Batuu in person. Armed with top-secret sketches and information from Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm, we are keeping this authentic to the spirit of this rich new setting. I’d tell you more, but I already have the death sentence on 12 systems….

Brucie and The Beast: Glass review

Before the acquisition of Marvel Studios, there were very few bonafide superheroes in the Disney catalogue. It wasn’t until M. Night Shyamalan’s  2000 ode to comic book culture, Unbreakable, that Disney (via it’s Touchstone Films Division) had a real super powered hero in the Bruce Willis’s David Dunn. Flash forward 17 years to Universal’s psychological horror film Split that anyone remotely thought that there would be a continuation of David Dunn’s story. As another of Shyamalan’s famous (or infamous) inevitable twists, the character appeared in final credits scene. Since the release there has been a quiet build-up of anticipation for a completion of the trilogy. That anticipation comes to an end with Glass.

The film picks up in the events following Split where James McAvoy’s character Kevin Crumb has been taken over by multiple personalities who collectively refer to themselves as The Horde, led by the animalistic personality known as The Beast.  Dunn and The Beast confront each other in the first act which is suprising being that the matchup of the two superpowered characters is the main selling   point for the film. Both are arrested during the fight and are sent to a psychiatric hospital under the care of Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Staple who specializes in treating individuals who view themselves as comic book characters. Also at the hospital is Unbreakable’s criminal mastermind Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson. Price is also known as Mr. Glass due to his brittle bone disease. A Dunn/ Glass reunion is something audiences were looking forward too, but proves to be uneventful being that Price is catatonic for two-thirds of the film.
There is a cast of forgettable supporting characters from the prior films: Dunn’s son, Elijah’s mother, and the lone survivor, and now Stockholm Syndrome girlfriend of the cannibalistic Beast. These characters do little to advance the story. Speaking of “story”, M. Night Shyamalan’s knack for using narratives to take the audience down divergent paths is present, but doesn’t pack the punch it did in The Sixth Sense or even Unbreakable, itself a love letter to comic book fans.

The plotlines of life imitating comic book art was ground breaking back in pre-MCU 2000. Now audiences are well accustomed to comic book story arcs and troupes. And that fact itself is what hobbles Glass from telling the story it is trying to tell. Shyamalan still feels the need to utilize exposition to inform the audience of something it already knows too well.  The film is far from a bust. The action sequences are thrillingly choreographed, especially when we see Dunn and The Beast face-off in evenly matched battles with no apparent CG enhancements. McAvoy transitions between Crum’s multiple personalities fluidly, even adding a few new ones. It is unfortunate that The Beast personality dominates the majority of screen time, but this isn’t Split. The score was disjointed, building to a crescendo at odd points in a few scenes, dampening the tension. There is ample enough fan service, especially when Glass and Dunn slip into their familiar costumes. And, of course the obligatory cameo by Shyamalan, which generates a few chuckles. The “big twist” at the end is basically just there.
The film does represent a unique partnership between two rival studios, with Universal handling the domestic distribution, and Disney the international. Maybe we will see a Split scare house at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. Here’s hoping we don’t get a David Dunn Stunt Spectacular at Disney Studios.  Glass is a fairly solid and fun superhero film that doesn’t quiet resonate as relevant in a world full of Avengers and Aquamen.  It’s not a bad film, it’s just 19 years too late.

A Very Black Hole Christmas

A current trend among cinema fans is to debate whether some films such as Die Hard or Gremlins are or are not Christmas movies. Many proclaim that merely occurring during the holiday qualifies a movie as being a holiday classic. On these merits, I state my case that Disney’s The Black Hole is a Christmas movie. I am going to go where no man has dared to go, but you will see that the end justifies the means. In 1978, Walt Disney Studios released their first PG rated film as an answer to the success of Star Wars, The Black Hole. The film tells the story of a failed mission of the spaceship Palamino to discover “habitual life in outer space” and the subsequent fight for the crew’s survival against a madman and his robots, a ghost ship The Cygnus, and the titular Black Hole.

While the merits of the film have been debated over the years, very little attention has been paid to the admittedly tenuous relationship between The Black Hole and Christmas. Although not stated in the film, the fantastic novelization by Alan Dean Foster places the discovery of the seemingly derelict Cygnus as December 24th.  Additionally, the comic strip adaptation by the legendary Jack Kirby places the Cygnus discovery near Christmas as evidenced in this panel:

A final and weakest connection is when the interior illumination of the seemingly abandoned Cygnus is triggered. The young hotshot member of the Palamino, Charlie Pizer, states that the ship lights up like a tree on Christmas morning. Right now you may be quoting Captain Dan Holland, saying “I think the guy is nuts,”  but I think it’s definitely worth investigating.
Although not part of most families’ Christmas playlist, The Black Hole deserves its place in the pantheon of holiday classics.

Disney goes to Hell!

The early days of The Disney Company was a time of experimentation.  Walt Disney and legendary animator Ub Iwerks were charting new ground with the first animated short with sound; Steamboat Willie.  The collaboration between Disney and Iwerks spawned two very different cinematic visions in 1929.  The Silly Symphony shorts, Springtime and Hell's Bells were markedly different in terms of style and theme. Whereas the Walt Disney directed Springtime was a happy, jaunty short featuring the new "more realistic" animation trend, Hell's Bells, Directed by Iwerks was a nightmare fuel driven macabre short in the older "rubber hose" style of animation.

The imagery included a lead devil directing his minion demons to milk fire from a dragon cow (seriously) and dance for his pleasure.  The obedient demons were rewarded by being fed to the Devil's pet, a Cerberus.  The demons eventually turn on their master and send the Devil to his fiery demise.  The short accentuates the vastly different surreal style that Iwerks pursued in spite of Walt's direction for happy, kid friendly fare, eventually leading to a rift and Iwerks' departure from the company.

It's not to far a reach to surmise that the depiction of the Devil in the popular retro-video game, Cuphead, would be inspired by Hell's Bells.  The short has achieved "Song of the South" type status and has apparently been shunned by Disney as it has not been released in any official format by the company.  Thankfully, the entire short is available on YouTube. The Halloween season is a perfect time to enjoy this lost Disney gem!