Horrible Non-Horror! Pinocchio

I'm in a bit of a bind here, and it's a sad, sad place to be. Ever since I spent a chilly December night watching a chirpy voiced CGI nutcracker battle John Turturo dressed as a cross between Andy Warhol and an SS officer, in a world where big songs ended with a shark being electrocuted and Nathan Lane sang a song about the theory of relativity (because he was playing Albert Einstein).

Yes, you might say The Nutcracker In 3D kind of ruined me from ever experiencing anything as batship insane again.

Still, the Oscar winner's big budget Italian production (with a chunk of that change going to paying big-name salaries for the English dubbing) was so infamous a flop that it just had to land here in February's Salute Your Shorties, even though part of the film's biggest problem is that the title character is actually a full-grown man of average height.

Quick Plot: In a world where animals speak and children look like grownups but grownups act like children--

Yes, I'm already lost right there with you. Why do children look like grownups? Well obviously, because Roberto Benigni is hellbent on pulling a Paul Reubens and decided to give his audience a disclaimer in terms of its logistics within the universe. No, it doesn't make sense, nor does the etherealish conversation between an old man and the Blue Fairy about how, and I quote, "time doesn't exist, but now it's time to go since it's getting late." 

But...but...if time doesn't exist, how can you run out of it?

I need Nathan Lane in here with a physics lesson, stat!

Anyway, prologue aside, one day in this magical land built on a soundstage, a magical butterfly tips over a magical log and a magical carpenter makes a magical boy out of it.

Magical!

The only problem is that the boy is, to be frank, an asshole. I'd use harsher words, but I'm a lady, even if my cat toys say otherwise.

Available made-to-order here!

But he's just a kid! A MAGICAL kid, you say in Pinocchio's defense. Allow me then to describe this MAGICAL KID's first course of action upon animation: 

-Pinocchio trashes his kind but poor father's workshop, doing his best to break everything in sight

-Pinocchio runs to the streets to knock over fruit and vegetable peddlers' crates of goods

-Pinocchio steals the cane from a crippled old man

-Pinocchio uses the cane he stole from a crippled old man to chase a cat

-Pinocchio picks up the lids of garbage pails and clangs them together loudly

-Pinocchio tears down a clothes line

-Pinocchio scares a horse

-Pinocchio shakes a tree full of birds

-Pinocchio destroys a carton of wine. OF WINE

-Pinocchio shoots JFK

Fine, I'll admit I made up the last one, but I'm sure that was next on his list. My point is that Begnini's Pinocchio is a worthless, mean, destructive character who seems to try his hardest to make the audience wish for his death, only to then have the film tease us time and time again by putting him in scenario after scenario where he could and SHOULD die, then cruelly twisting the knife by giving him a second and third and ninetieth chance at a life he doesn't deserve.

I hated this thing.

Pinocchio has always been a tricky yet fascinating story because the very nature of its titular hero is to be naughty and make the wrong decisions. It's this boyish lack of compassion that sends the character down the rabbit hole of street crime, donkey transformations, and whale digestion, only to eventually overcome it all by learning to love and respect the father who had sacrificed so much for him. Yes, all that does indeed happen in Benigni's version, but does it have to be so insufferable?

Take, for example, Pinocchio s relationship with a talking cricket, voiced here by John Cleese. As soon as it starts talking, Pinocchio tries with all his might to crush the darn thing with his hands. In other words, Pinocchio TRIES TO MURDER THE CRICKET. That's bad, but you know what's worse? The fact that the Breckin Meyer voiced Pinocchio then asks Mr. Cleese "Has anyone ever told you your voice is REALLY annoying?"

At this point, what can a blogger do but sit back and sigh?

Pinocchio is a rather joyless film about a rather awful character, one who acknowledges that everything would be, and I quote, "a million times better if I were dead." And yet, SPOILER ALERT, he doesn't die. Not after he cons the Blue Fairy into giving him candy. Not after he ends up in prison and forms a weirdly homoerotic bond between a young lollipop fetishist. Not when he's dangled before a puppeteer giant with a hearty appetite for sort-of-puppet-boys. Not when he ends up in Funforeverland (seriously) and gets turned into a donkey later exploited at a circus by a ringmaster voiced by Regis Philbman.Now when he's thrown into the water to drown or forced into hard labor on a farm. He just...keeps...going.

This is a trying film, one that challenges its viewers--who in fairness, were supposed to be under the age of 10--to a game of endurance. I am one of those film nonsnobs who finds Life Is Beautiful a rather sweet and touching endeavor despite historiographical rewrites by contemporary society. I went into Pinocchio knowing that it had an ugly reputation, but not quite knowing why. 5 minutes into the film, that was cleared up.

There's something inherently sweet about how Benigni makes a film, always utilizing his wife and attacking his subject matter with his full heart. The problem with Pinocchio is that the film is nowhere near as charming as Benigni thinks it (or himself) is. The fantasy world is flat and ugly. The dialogue is rarely clever. Sure, the English dubbing feels (most likely) far more awkward and clunky than the original Italian, but that doesn't fix a script. Some sequences are too dark for kids, yet the entire tone feels shouted out as if aimed at a romper room. But what really dooms Pinocchio is Benigni himself, his natural innocence weirdly obscured by his decision to play a man-child. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING lovable (or likable, or mildly tolerable) about his Pinocchio  He's selfish, mean, uncaring, lying, and until the last 3 minutes of the film, simply a terrible human being. I don't know about you, but typically those kinds of characters do not endear me to their films.

High Points

I appreciate any film made in modern times that has the courage to go for something whimsical. Fantasies are not an easy sell, so just taking that chance is something

Low Points

Except when the something is Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio

Lessons Learned

The best way to get an unruly child to take his medicine is to call in creepy bunny children pallbearers

When giants get emotional, they tend to sneeze

Tangerine lollipops are the best

Randomly Creepy Scene If Left To Analysis

We all know that the Little Boy Playland (or Funforeverland, which I kind of want to visit on the name alone) is a trickster little village where young males are transformed into donkeys. What Pinocchio does, however, is include a beyond creepy sequence where a band of wealthy middle-age men come to tour its sale items, evaluating the sleeping boys mid-donkeyization with leering comments like “look at that pretty little muzzle!” and “this one looks built for hard labor.”

White slavery never looked so adorable.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Bad movie enthusiasts certainly owe it to themselves to tackle this Razzie darling. While the film is rather obnoxious, it's never really dull, meaning a masochist could certainly do worse things with his or her time. Netflix defaults to sending you the English language version, though the Italian original is also available. I doubt THAT disc includes the bonus feature where celebrities like Cheech Marin and Kevin James discuss the act of dubbing, so perhaps you want to choose wisely...especially for the brilliant cut of a baggy-eyed Breckin Meyer explaining how this was the hardest gig he'd ever had, immediately followed by John Cleese asserting how he essentially recorded his audio while doing his taxes because it was that easy. 

So I Finally Saw the Bratz Movie

Next to Paula Abdul, I am fairly certain that I, Emily Elizabeth Intravia, have invested more time and energy in Bratz: The Movie than any other mere mortal who has not gone on to receive a reward from it, monetary or otherwise. It all began when the first Netflix disc arrived with the radius drawn out as one giant crack. Bad luck, I thought, perhaps to be blamed on a careless mailman. I immediately requested a replacement, for it wasn’t the Bratz’s (Bratz’? Bratz’z? they never taught that sort of punctuation in college) fault that DVDs are a flimsy invention, and I had already vowed to watch the adventures of the live action version of a lawsuit-pending Barbie knockoff product line for The Shortening. True, the movie has nothing to actually do with dolls or the vertically challenged, but considering its inspiration—a multimillion dollar fashion toy empire coveted by children and hated by adults—it seemed like a good February fit. 

The gods of film did not agree.

Disc 2 arrived. As I removed it from its sleeve, I was reminded of any teenage character in a film with a penchant for self-mutilation. The DVD surface resembled a horribly scarred stab victim, crisscrossed with what I imagine were key marks or fingernail imprints. Somebody did not want me to watch this movie.

Here’s what I learned about myself from my Bratz experience: if I ever end up in a haunted house filled with a helpful ghost who tries, night after night, to convince me to leave before my soul is taken, I am as good as damned. I heed no warnings. I do not back away from evil. I listen to no one.

I requested a third disc. And it arrived. Unscathed.

Now armed with the knowledge that DVDs of Bratz: The Movie are an endangered species with a 33% survival rate, I decided it was my duty to thoroughly explore this special edition for future generations. Hence, rather than approach the film as one typically would, I turned on the director commentary track—yes, there is a director commentary track for the Bratz movie—and dove in.

Quick Plot: It’s the first day of high school for four over-accessorized clear-skinned teenagers who instantly vow to be friends forever, even though their interests in extracurricular activities don’t match. See, Cloe (answer you’re seeking: I don’t know if she’s aware that she spells her name wrong) is blond and a soccer star. Sasha is a black cheerleader. Jade is Asian and therefore, pressured by her mother to be the top Mathlete, violinist, and chemistry student. Then there’s Yasmin, whose thing is sometimes journalism, sometimes music, and when at home, being Spanish.

Oh, because you’re wondering, this is Yasmin:

Dios mio, amiright chicas?

At Carry Nation High, the class president/token blond villain Meredith enforces a rigid code of socialization, where jocks only play with jocks, Mathletes only math with other Mathletes, and Kids Who Dress Like Dinosaurs only dress like dinosaurs with Kids Who Dress Like Dinosaurs. It’s a cruel system akin to centuries of racial segregation, and when our perky freshmen heroines threaten the status quo, a movie plot is born.

I knew I was in for something terribly special/specially terrible when I chose to watch a movie based on a product that makes Barbie look Gertrude Stein. I knew this even more when the opening credits rolled with three magical words, the likes of which I haven’t seen since a certain Briard showed off his martial arts skills:

“And Jon Voight”

Midnight Cowboy. Coming Home. Deliverance. Bratz: The Movie.

The beauty of the American right to free choice is not lost on this man.

Voight plays a filthy rich high school principal constantly berated by his spoiled daughter Meredith and probably very uncomfortable in facial and ear prosthetics. Why does Jon Voight wear a fake nose and set of ears? Director Sean McNamara does not explain this (and yes, we can all probably figure it out on our own), although he does praise the Oscar winner for bringing his own ideas to his character and rewrites to the script. I don’t know about you, but this bit of trivia puts me in a confusing place: on one hand, it’s nice to know Voight doesn’t phone in performances, even when, you know, PLAYING A SUPPORTING ROLE IN THE BRATZ MOVIE. On the other, it’s almost sadder to know that someone with the talent of Jon Voight actually cared about this film. It takes the easy excuse of ‘he just needed a paycheck’ or ‘he was high on goofballs’ or ‘the director was dangling a Butterfinger just out of his reach’ out of the equation, making Jon Voight a true enigma for our time to ponder.

Less mysterious, but still noteworthy are a few other faces that stop by. Olympic silver medalist figure skater Sasha Cohen plays an unmemorable cheerleader. Tom Hanks’ Twitter star son Chet does, according to the director, his very own kung fu moves as a science nerd. Future Glee star Kevin McHale performs some slick boyband moves. Kadeem Hardison plays a divorced dad, Lanie Kazan is a Spanish/Jewish bubbie, and an elephant steals the show playing an elephant.

I am too good a person to insult any of the young actresses shouting “BFF!” over, and over, and over and over and over and over (and over) again. As pretty teenagers wearing tacky jewelry go, the girls are on par with any Babysitters Club caliber performance. A DVD extra includes a behind-the-scenes look at casting, where one producer notes “We were looking for girls who are not terribly defined.” I imagine this translates into “not TOO ethnic,” leaving us with one sorta Asian, a green eyed African American, and a hilariously strawberry blond Latina who confirms her background by knowing all the words to La Cucaracha and living in the kind of household that has a mariachi band stationed in the kitchen on a weekday morning.

No, I’m serious. Estoy seriouso!

“A lot of shoes were worn in this movie,” director McNamara notes on his solo commentary track. This comes only twenty minutes or so after he compares one of his shots to Hitchcock with a stunningly sincere sense of enthusiasm. A longtime Disney and Nickelodeon employee, McNamara has nothing but glowing compliments for his movie and cast, and by the end of the film, it’s almost hard to resist his Corky St. Claire confidence.  

High Notes

In perfect honesty, there are some positive messages to glean from Bratz: The Movie. The young actresses are thankfully less scantily clad than their doll namesakes (because to be otherwise is illegal at their age), and the characters do make valiant efforts to maintain good relationships with their friends and family. So while the results are laughable, I won’t fault the heart of the film. Just its skill.

Low Notes

Any film that features product placement for MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen has a hot seat reserved in hell

In a perfect world, and I say this knowing there’s a full-size recliner for me reserved in hell, the actresses playing Bratz would have gone through extensive head implants to better match their plastic counterparts

Lessons Learned

Real friends cancel their ski trips when their pals need a hand

Juggling is not talent show worthy

Divorce isn’t that bad, so long as you have two incredibly wealthy parents

Words that rhyme with brattitude include platitude, latitude, gratitude, and attitude

As Glee already taught me, high school is different today than in the late ‘90s when I was there: for the 21st century youth, it is no longer acceptable to participate in more than one extracurricular activity. Consider it the new 1-Child Act

Rent/Bury/Buy

Did Bratz: The Movie live up to my expectations? Certainly, but I never said I had good taste. This is as ridiculous as any entertainment based on skanky dolls ever was, made all the more so when you turn on Sean McNamara’s earnest commentary track. The DVD is embarrassingly rich in special features, with mini-specials on casting the leads, choreographing the music, and giving tips on how you—yes, YOU!—can dress just like your favorite Brat(z). Those with a soft spot for just-how-bad-can-this-be? will find plenty to enjoy here. Those with standards need not apply.

The Karate Dog (because any clever title I come up with will not be as amusing as "The Karate Dog")

The Karate Dog is one of those titles that one shouldn’t say without a smile, mostly because of the very insistent use of the article “the.” See, this ain’t Cop Dog or Ghost Cat: with a supporting performance from Pat Morita, that “the” is most definitely important.

Aaaaaaaand the movie features Jon Voight engaged in karate combat with a dog voiced by Chevy Chase that naked DWI country star Randy Travis wrote a song about. 

You can’t tell me you’re not smiling.

Quick Plot: Cho Cho is a Briard that can speak to his owner, Chin Li, a karate master with a mysterious but incredibly powerful green goo. Before you can say wax on, a band of ninjas break into Chin Li’s home to steal said goo, fighting the old man in the process and leaving him to slowly die of a heart attack while Cho Cho watches on sadly.

You know the phrase “phoned-in performance?” I think it can be used quite literally here, as Chevy Chase most likely recorded his barely caring dog lines via AT & T. Moving on…

Cho Cho is determined to catch the men responsible for his pal’s death and thusly does he team up with Peter Fowler (former porn star/MTV veejay/‘90s trivia question Simon Rex), a technologically obsessed nerd of a detective who seems to have no understanding of the word ‘warrant.’ Fowler is stuck with a crush on a sweet and naturally single young beat cop (Jaime Pressly, and only now do I realize how oddly spelled her name is) and a boss growing tired of his antics. Even though he doesn’t actually have any antics. “Tired of hero’s antics” just seems to be a thing that occurs quite often here in Animals Doing Human Stuff Month.

Anyway, some sleuthing leads Cho Cho and Fowler to the greyhound racetrack of one Hamilton Cage, a gloriously hammed up Jon Voight who is villainously using Chin Li’s goo as a steroid for his dogs…and himself, much to the comic value of later seeing Jon Voight engaged in karate.

With a dog.

A creepy CGI dog.

Shudder.

When making a talking, driving, karate chopping dog movie, a filmmaker like Bob Black Christmas Clark has a few decisions to make. Among the most important: how to make titular dog talk, drive, head a conga line, use a urinal, and of course, karate chop. This being 2002, animatronics were already on their way out in favor of cheap ‘n dirty CGI. But the late (and quite often great) Clark was a classy guy and wouldn’t quite let go of some good old fashioned canine trained thespians and puppet work.

Thusly do we arrive at this karate dog with a mixture of occasional awwwwws (because it’s a cute enough well-trained dog) and gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs (because CGI dogs standing on two legs and acting like humans is incredibly disturbing). Some people don’t like to see Muppets in full frame…

I do not like to see CGI dogs on two legs dancing in conga lines.

Or doing housework

Sadly once seen, the CGI dog conga line cannot be unseen, rendering The Karate Dog as scary an experience as Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things or Clark’s underrated gem, Deathdream. As if to further send younger viewers into immediate series of nightmares, The Karate Dog ends with Cho Cho performing Chantily Lace with a complete jazz band of other dogs, including a Dalmatian on bass. It just…ain’t. right.

I always considered myself an open-minded, liberal person. And yet hearing Chevy Chase’s lazy vocals come through the mouth of an awkwardly positioned Briard wearing a suit made me think “too far.” It’s as if Ally McBeal’s dancing baby fantasy finally found its canine counterpart, and it’s an awful, awful thing to behold.

What dark days we once lived amongst

High Points

There’s a wonderfully over-the-top, deep slow motioned voice “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo” shoutout by Jaime Pressly towards the film’s climax that I simply refuse to believe wasn’t placed there for hilarious, intentional comedy

Low Notes

When was the last time an actor playing a film’s title character didn’t get a credit? In a world of Mooses and Kumas, what a shame it is that the briard occasionally turned into a horrific CGI creation doesn’t get his own name listed in the part of Cho Cho

Lessons Learned

Talking like a human is like riding a bike

Every dog has his day...you know?

Just cause someone’s a dog doesn’t mean they can’t smell a rat

Early 21st century ninja villains were quite the fans of Momenshuntz

Look! It’s…

The voice of Lori “Kit Keller” scratching out the voice of Peter’s computer

And Hey! How About…

The fat guy from Varsity Blues as Hamilton’s son. Actor Ron Lester might very well have the saddest IMDB profile bio of anyone I’ve ever read: “Ron Lester gained celebrity status at an early stage in his career, but his draw in Hollywood seemed to be based on one physical characteristic - his weight. Obese since 5 years old, by the time he was 30 years old, Ron weighed 508 pounds. Hollywood hired him as the lovable fat kid but his health was in serious danger. With the support of his friends, family, and co-workers, Ron decided to go through an experimental (at the time) type of gastric bypass surgery that almost took his life. When he recovered from flat-lining on the operating table Ron began to lose the weight - and his celebrity identity. 348 pounds were lost in under two years and he's had 14 plastic surgeries to tighten and remove excess skin. Now Ron has a hard time getting the roles he once won. Admits food was his 'drug of choice' to cover up pain from often being the new kid in school (he changed schools often due to discipline problems), and the death of 22 close friends and family members throughout his life.”

Gee…well…um…dogs playing poker anyone?

And Wow! I can’t believe it’s…

The overused slide whistle from Ed making a cameo appearance to signify antics

Standard Animals Doing Stuff Trope Checklist

New Kid In Town: X

Recent Dead or Divorced Parent: Check (providing a karate master who feeds a dog qualifies)

Montage: X. I don’t want to talk about how disappointing that is

New Friendship: Check

Potentially Inappropriate ‘Friendship’ Between Child & Unrelated Adult (Human): X. I don’t think there is a single cast member under the age of 30

Evil Corporate Enemy: Check

Original Song: CHECK! Check INFINITY! Check AMAZING! Check Possibly Replacing the Song In Ozzie As My Wedding or Funeral or Wrestling Entrance music

Bully Comeuppance: X 

Small Town Values: X

Back To Nature Moral: X

Overall Score: 3/10. Though Randy Travis’ lustrous vocals kind of add one thousand and one million points…

A-Paws Meter

For all its ridiculousness, The Karate Dog isn’t quite as joyous as one would seem. Like all ADHS movies, there’s far too much human storyline that simply can’t compare to dogs playing poker, although when they DO play poker, they’re creepy CGI incarnations. That being said, The Karate Dog does have a lot of fun about it: Voight’s go-for-broke performance channels his Anaconda efforts, and the very fact that Randy “Naked DWI” Travis wrote a title song is the stuff made of greatness.