![]() Hot Jafar ( his official name, sorry, I don’t make the rules) doesn’t just want abstract power he also wants to invade a few neighboring countries, because why not. Aladdin and Jasmine bond over growing up parentless. The genie, who reads as culturally Arab, has a personal life and dreams of his own beyond escaping the lamp. On paper, Ritchie’s Aladdin offers several modern improvements: The script is especially good to Jasmine, who’s no longer the only woman in the movie and now has long-term political ambitions. Still, Ritchie and his fellow screenwriter, frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August, put in a decent effort to gloss over the previous film’s most glaring faults. Casting controversy threw further doubt on the whole project, as did a series of lifeless promotional photos and a recently released clip of a strangely sluggish musical performance from the film, featuring new genie Will Smith. Advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations were opposed to the film from its inception. But this particular remake fumbled from the start. So it’s easy to see why Disney executives might feel that Aladdin is worth updating, if only to overwrite many of its problematic elements. The opening song, “Arabian Nights,” originally contained the ridiculously racist line “They cut off your ear if they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” The citizens of Agrabah are frequently depicted as barbarous sword-wielders and sexualized belly dancers. ![]() Her father, the sultan, is a babbling, easily directed man-child. In the original Aladdin, Jasmine is a repressed princess whose ultimate aim is to gain enough independence to marry for love rather than political expediency, which made her strikingly evolved for the time but seems hopelessly limiting now. It’s important to acknowledge going into the Aladdin remake that, for all the 1992 film was a delightful, hilarious animated musical masterpiece, it was also dripping in Orientalism and harmful racist depictions of Arab culture. ![]() This Aladdin remake had a lot to overcome, and it at least makes an effort The other is a really crappy musical, presided over by a disappointingly hamstrung Will Smith. One is pretty cute: a pleasantly bland rom-com, with Massoud’s Aladdin and Naomi Scott’s Jasmine as adorable kids in love. The result is a film that’s divided into two entirely different entities. Much of the new story material written for the film works, and it’s enjoyable, if pedestrian, family fare.īut the terrible musical sequences, the lackluster CGI, and the strange creative and emotional restraint that permeates the film frequently flatten Disney’s original Aladdin into a cardboard version of itself. It is frequently quite charming, largely thanks to the efforts of Mena Massoud, who captures Aladdin’s irrepressible charisma every second he’s onscreen. Ashman originally pitched the film to Disney, but died during its development Menken contributed the score to the new film but only one new song, with lyrics by songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.Ģ019’s Aladdin tries its best to regenerate that magic, and to its credit, it finds some success. Then there’s the collaborative gifts of Disney’s musical auteurs, composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman. (2D animation is a dying style, and the computer effects that looked thrillingly state-of-the-art 27 years ago now look sadly dated.) Its reliance on Robin Williams’s genius improvisational skills led to its whip-smart, slightly manic screenplay, which was completely overhauled and frenetically rewritten under tight time constraints, not unlike the notorious crunch times that video game developers often push through today. The 1992 film’s 2D animated effects, at the time sophisticated and dazzling, are now largely passé. It was, like, the best experience.” Jes tune a Little raunchyĮX-Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson has kept quite coy about her rapper boyfriend Zion Foster since I revealed last year they were dating.īut he isn’t leaving much to the imagination, with X-rated lyrics about sex with a female partner on his new record.Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark “And we did that every day, playing out in the (open), and they didn’t want to leave. ![]() “So they’re playing . . . It’s like they’re doing a concert for the ocean, on the top of a mountain. He said: “A few months ago I was in Costa Rica, recording a new album with The Strokes, and we rented this house up on the top of a mountain and set the band up outside. The Strokes last year celebrated the 20th anniversary of debut album Is This It and they are working on a new LP with American producer Rick Rubin. Tickets for the show, which will also feature the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, go on sale this Friday at 10am. The Reptilia rockers, headed up by frontman Julian Casablancas, will appear at Luno Presents All Points East festival in Victoria Park on August 25.
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