Tiki Tiki (1971) [Fantasia Film Festival 2024]

Fantasia Retro 2024

Animation buffs might end up appreciating and loving this oddity by Canadian filmmaker and animator Gerald Potterton based mainly on how it was conceived. On its own, “Tiki Tiki” is a gigantic mess of a movie that tries to fit a square peg in to a circle hole. At seventy minutes, Potterton’s film is packed with about forty minutes of filler. Most of the filler is comprised of random scenes of people dressed as monkeys, and nigh endless musical numbers. And what kind of musical numbers per se? It’s mostly funk and soul music, which when viewed in context, is absolutely awkward.

Most times Potterton almost seems to forget that this is kind of an animated movie pitting his characters as back drops for an incredibly dull story about pirates and Monchhichis.

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Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

Now Exclusively in Theaters.

“Deadpool and Wolverine” is that example of what happens when young boys take their action figures and spend hours just smashing them in to one another. There’s not much of a narrative, but there are appearances from other action figures, and maybe even a transformer or two. That’s what watching “Deadpool and Wolverine” was like—and I’m still not sure if that is a compliment or criticism. For all intents and purposes “Deadpool and Wolverine” is fun, and Shawn Levy seems to have a good time satirizing Marvel Studios as well as the scope of comic book movies. But through it all, there’s a very low stakes, and pretty overcooked movie that painfully overstays its welcome.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Big House Bunny (1950)

Big House Bunny (1950)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Virgil Ross
Music by Carl Stalling

I know that I compare a lot of the premises for Bugs Bunny shorts to Tex Avery, but there’s no doubting that a lot of his influence remained on the Looney Tunes long after he left for MGM. Not only did he have an unusual albeit genius formula, but he was funnier in MGM because he was pretty much allowed to be as insane as possible. With “Big House Bunny” it feels like a plot for one of Droopy’s shorts where Droopy ends up at the wrong place while the warden would normally be the hilarious rival of the wolf.

That doesn’t hinder the entertainment factor of “Big House Bunny” it’s just that the concept for this short feels familiar in its ingredients.

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The Fall Guy (2024): Extended Edition [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]

Now Available from Universal Pictures.

If you told me that they were going to turn a somewhat memorable 1981 action series starring Lee Majors in to a big budget action comedy, I would have been very skeptical. Lo and behold there should have been a market for it, because “The Fall Guy” is all kinds of good Hollywood shenanigans. It’s loud, funny, and action packed, and stacks a respectable cast of big stars. This includes Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, both of whom are still riding the success of their huge movies from 2023. Sadly, that didn’t carry in to big numbers; that’s a shame since “The Fall Guy” has some big franchise potential.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Homeless Hare (1950)

Homeless Hare (1950)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Ken Harris
Music by Carl Stalling

A lot of Looney Tunes relies on the formula of the whole industrial revolution and the trampling of the environment. While most of it just used as a means of finding a catalyst for a narrative of the short, so many times these shorts always begin with the real bad guy of the piece. Either Bugs, or Daffy are minding their business and are interrupted by some company either destroying their homes, or demolishing some kind of ecosystem. Even shorts like the Coyote and Road Runner finds them primarily battling in man made roads, and train tracks and bridges. They’re rarely hunting each other in the wild, or in bushes, which is an interesting look at how much America was changing in this era.

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