Tagged: Disney

John Ratzenberger Talks About ‘Toy Story 3’

News
October 18, 2010

Toy Story 3, perhaps the best movie of the year, is being released on Blu-ray on November 3. In anticipation of the much-desired disc, Disney has provided ComicMix with a series of interviews, beginning with this chat.

Question: How does it feel to return to the role of Hamm in Toy Story 3?

John Ratzenberger: To be honest, it feels like I never left Hamm because I’m constantly asked about the character. I bump into people at airports or I meet people whilst picking up my dry cleaning and someone will always tell me, “My 4-year-old son, Jason, loves Hammie the pig.” I’ll usually say, “Well, get him on the phone.” So we call him up and the mother will explain, “Hi honey, it’s Mommy. There’s somebody who wants to say hello.” Then they hand the phone to me and I’ll do some Hamm for them, “Hey Jason, it’s Hammie the pig. I understand you’re not eating your spinach…” I’ve been doing things like that ever since the first Toy Story came out, so Hamm has never been too far away.

Question: How would you describe Hamm?

John Ratzenberger: Hamm is a wise guy. He throws his opinion out regardless of whether anyone’s listening or not, which is what makes him so much fun. He’s a smart Alec and he’s not so offensive that people shun him, but he makes sure his comments are heard.

Question: What do you bring to the role?

John Ratzenberger: I bring whatever I have in my bag of tricks. They let me play around with the script at times, so there are a lot of my own words are in the movie. That’s the nice thing about Pixar: they let the actors experiment.

Question: How much fun did you have in the recording booth for the movie?

John Ratzenberger: Recording the voice of Hamm is always a great experience, but all of the heavy lifting has already been done because the guys at Pixar spend four years working on the story before I’m called in. All I have to do is give them five different readings of the same line so that they’ve got a variety to choose from. That way, they’ve got a great potpourri of lines to choose from. (more…)

Marvel Television Surrounds ABC-TV!

News
October 17, 2010

When Disney bought Marvel, the movie rights to the majority of their big-name properties were tied up. They still are. But now that writer Jeph Loeb is head
of Marvel television, he’s been pitching a bunch of properties to ABC-TV, which, of course, is owned by Disney. You might have heard that The Incredible Hulk is in development – which is not the same as being green-lighted. That’s kind of remarkable as Mark Ruffalo, movie’s third Bruce Banner, has been signed to do three Avengers movies as well several Hulks.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t do television at the same time. I think Ed Norton’s chance at going green again is only slightly better than Bill Bixby’s, but Ed’s extremely talented and, hell, I don’t have to work with him.

There’s two more Marvel properties on the short list: Cloak and Dagger, which is presently sans comic book, and The Punisher, who is three movies shy of being a star. Maybe the small screen is a warmer environment.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Heroes for Hire is being kicked around;
this show would focus on Luke Cage; I don’t know if Iron Fist would be in it.
But “Heroes” IS plural. His comic book wife, Jessica Jones, is on the list with
her own show. It can’t be called Alias, so they’ve titled it Alter-Ego. This should not be confused with Roy Thomas’s character of the same name, nor his monthly fanzine of the same name.

Jack Kirby’s The Eternals is being considered. Even with CGI I don’t see this being as strong in live action as it would be in traditional animation, but I doubt ABC has the guts to do that. Stepping out of the pages of Marvel’s recent mega-crossover, The Hood is on the list. I guess ABC needs a nice family-oriented show starring a ruthless villain. Everybody’s favorite private eyes, Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, are on the list under the title Daughters of the Dragon. If they can cast the right sexy babes, this one is a shoo-in. Not so much the other two on the list.

ABC is looking at Ka-Zar. I don’t know if the teevee world is ready for the return of Tarzan, but my guess is that if it is, it would be looking for a show called “Tarzan.” Finally, there’s Agents of Atlas. Marvel just cancelled this title, which pisses me off because I love it. Is the world ready for a talking gorilla, a guy from Uranus, and a female Sub-Mariner? Well, this is an election year.

Mind you, even though ABC and Marvel are both owned by Disney, the network is not obligated to pick up any of these shows and most certainly will not pick them all up. But it would be kind of fun if they picked up a couple so they can do Marvel-style crossovers.

Disney Explores its Rich History in 3 Documentaries

News
October 11, 2010

Walt Disney is one of the first entertainment companies to carefully archive its creative works. As a result, as the films were retired and then re-released to the next generation of children, they had a plethora of material to work with in order to freshen the content and marketing. This has led to quite a number of wonderful books exploring the rich corporate history.

Now, three documentaries are being released on DVD next month, adding a new dimension to exploring the stories behind the magic. Waking Sleeping Beauty, The Boys and Walt & El Grupo are now available for pre-order at www.DisneyMovieCollections.com.

Far from a fairytale, Waking Sleeping Beauty is an unprecedented eye-opening look at the conflict, drama and tension that ushered in the second chapter of Disney’s animation legacy – a decade of unparalleled creativity that included The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, told by the people who were actually there.

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story is an intimate journey through the lives of Robert and Richard Sherman, the astoundingly prolific Academy Award®-winning songwriting team. While their songs – “A Spoonful Of Sugar (Mary Poppins)” and “I Want To Be Like You (Jungle Book),” to name a few – celebrated family entertainment and happy endings, their life together was not as harmonious. Go behind the scenes, including interviews with Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, Roy E. Disney and many more, for a fascinating glimpse into how Walt Disney used the language of music to bring the brothers together, creating a cinematic legacy like no other.

When the U.S. Government asked Disney to be a cultural ambassador to South America, the stage was set for Walt’s very own real-life adventure. With a group of handpicked artists, later called “El Grupo,” Disney’s WWII road trip achieved the impossible – goodwill – and in the process paved the way for two classic Disney films, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. Brought to life through rare footage and enriched with never-before-seen bonus features, Walt & El Grupo is a story of inspiration, joy and hope you won’t soon forget.

Each DVD Includes:

An exceptional look at Walt Disney and the studio from yesteryear
Rare footage and interviews from Walt Disney insiders
A unique, collectible piece of Disney history
Extensive Bonus Material, taking you deep into the stories .

When you buy all three DVDs before November 29th, you’ll also receive three collectible 8×10 lithographs free. We strongly suggest you consider these when you begin your holiday shopping.

ComicMix Six: Best NYCC 2010 Announcements

News
October 11, 2010

The ComicMix team was on the ground at New York Comic Con this past weekend – but we were having too good a time bumping elbows with the luminaries of the comics industry to report on every panel. But now that we’re back on the grid, here are the ComicMix Six best announcements to come out of the weekend.

Holding The Line At $2.99 – Easily the most-discussed announcement of the weekend were the Big Two each announcing their own initiatives for keeping their publishing line at a $2.99 cover price. DC is doing it by cutting story pages from 22 down to 20 and eliminating most co-features in their most popular titles, but reserving the $3.99 and up price points for “premium” titles like annuals and specials. For Marvel’s part, they’re not going as far, with only a commitment that all new titles launched in January will be $2.99 – but they say that they can be flexible on that price because of the success of their digital comics program. Which is a nice segue to…

Dark Horse, DC Destined for Digital – Dark Horse announced that rather than partner with Graphic.ly or other digital comics providers to serve as distributor, as the other major publishing houses have, they’ve put together a “proprietary bookshelf app” for web browsers and Apple iOS devices. The benefit of rolling their own store? No censorship and a $1.49 price point for single issues. Additionally, while specifics are hard to come by, Dark Horse says that they’ll be providing brick-and-mortar comic book stores with “exclusive digital content.” Meanwhile, DC reaffirmed their commitment to making digital copies of comics from their archive available and announced expanded support for day-and-date digital releases. DC also announced a Google Android app for their comics will be made available in the near future.

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Building Beauty’s Beast

News
October 10, 2010

Glen Keane, one of Disney’s current Nine Old Men and a master animator, spoke with the press on Tuesday, the day Beauty and the Beast made its debut on Blu-ray. Walt Disney Home Entertainment provided ComicMix a transcript of the discussion, moderated by Mindy Johnson, and below are excerpts from that discussion.

Mindy Johnson: Ttoday we’re going to get a rare opportunity to take a look at the building of Beauty’s Beast, one of the most iconic characters today. And here we are with Glen Keane, who is just freshly back from Paris, and you spent several weeks there, Glen, preparing for an upcoming show. Is that correct?

Glen Keane: Yes. Yes. I’m actually having a – my first art show, where I’ll be showing a little bit of a retrospective of my animation drawings, my rough drawings, some from Beauty and the Beast, as well as the rest of my career. And then, that’s a third of the show. The other two-thirds are actually drawings from my sketchbook, speaker drawings, things that I’m going to actually be selling.

But the idea is to give an insight into what goes on in the life of an artist who is an animator and where do you get your inspiration. And actually, those are a lot of the things that we’ll be talking about today specifically about the character of the Beast.

But this show is at the (Arloudic) Gallery on the Ile Sainte Marie in Paris on November ninth, yes, so I’m excited about it. If you’re there, you’re welcome to come to the (Vernusage) and it will be there for, I don’t know, a good month.

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Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’

Reviews
October 8, 2010

The climb back to not only respectability but creativity was a long painful one for Walt Disney Studios but you could see bits and pieces of improvement throughout the 1980s. [[[The Little Mermaid]]] in 1989 was the first serious indication that the animators found their mojo. As a result, audiences were primed and ready for 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. What they didn’t anticipate was just how magical and wonderful the film would be.

Clearly, one of the crown jewels, the studio has polished their gem to a bright luster in the just-released Diamond Edition. There are a variety of formats including the combo pack which has the movie on standard DVD plus two Blu-ray discs chuck full of goodness.

First of all, you get three versions of the movie: the original theatrical release, the extended edition (containing the number “Being Human”) and the work-in-progress print which was screened in New York a year prior to release that gave everyone a hint at how special this film would be. While the animation shines in DVD, it’s glorious in Blu-ray, complete with spectacular sound. If anything, the high definition images are too clear so you actually see animation flaws here and there. Watching the film lets you lose yourself in the finely crafted story with lush visuals and lovely tunes.

The classic tale was reimagined in England under a different creative director and when the first 18 minutes of storyboards were presented, the Disney executives, including Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, didn’t think it was quite right. They trashed six months of work and reassigned roles. At that point, it was also decided to add music and that is when the creative problems plaguing the story got solved.

Fortunately, the team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were fresh off The Little Mermaid and stepped in. Ashman was ill, dying before Beauty was released, but did some of his finest work. The finished results had all the Disney magic generations had come to expect and added at least one new generation to its collection of believers. The story of Belle and the Beast is dramatic, emotional, humorous and touching. There are wonderful supporting characters, memorable songs, bits of business for adults and plenty of action for all. No wonder it received a Golden Globe and was nominated for Best Picture, forcing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create a separate category.

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Paige O’Hara, the voice of Belle, on being part of ‘Beauty and the Beast’

News
October 3, 2010

On Tuesday, the eagerly-awaited Blu-ray edition of Beauty and the Beast finally comes out and Walt Disney has been making certain we all know it. Yesterday, we presented a chat with Alan Menken, who helped make the music sound so wonderful. Today, we hear from Paige O’Hara, the talent voice actress who made Belle a memorable heroine.

Question: Did they incorporate any of your features when they drew Belle?

Paige O’Hara: Oh yeah. The eyes and cheekbones and the way she raised her eyebrow and pushed her hair out of her face—that was me. Little things and expressions. When I looked at the wall, there were pictures of Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn up, and my little funny picture was there too. The fact that she wasn’t so perfectly beautiful made the film that much more successful. She is a little odd. Of course that’s the character and I identified with her. I was odd as a kid. I was into Gershwin. I definitely identified with Belle. More girls than not feel that way I think.

Question: How excited were you to be part of such a legendary Disney title?

Paige O’Hara: You know, Mary Poppins is my favorite film and I loved Bambi and all the other Disney animated films. I was always an artist as well so I appreciated the animation too. Playing Belle was a dream come true.

Question: The film won two Academy Awards. Tell me what it was like being there.

Paige O’Hara: Oh it was incredible. It is the only animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture so it holds that stature as well. I was really excited. We had heard rumors about the songs being nominated and there was a lot of discussion about celebrities performing our songs, but Mr. Eisner and Mr. Katzenberg insisted that the original artists get to sing their songs. That was really, really wonderful. It was the only time I sang with Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach. Angela introduced me at the Academy Awards. I remember we were backstage and of course I was going to be singing live which was scary so I was shaking. She was shaking too. She patted me on the butt and said if, “I had your voice, I wouldn’t be shaking. Don’t be nervous.”

Question: What else do you remember about the experience?

Paige O’Hara: It was fun being a part of the parties. Honestly, the worst part about the Oscars was that I didn’t like my dress—the one I performed in. They told the designer to put me in blue and it was this blue and white dress that looked more like Bo Peep or Dorothy. It was way too frilly and not very “Belle-y.” It was a checkerboard pattern. I had to perform in that dress, but afterwards I got to change into a beautiful Bob Mackie teal green gown. I even made one magazine’s Top 3 Best Dressed list!

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Alan Menken Revisits ‘Beauty & The Beast’

News
October 2, 2010

In case you missed it, Walt Disney is finally releasing their wonderful Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray this coming Tuesday. The movie, which earned an Academy Award nomination for best picture, is getting the full PR treatment and they provided us with this interview with composer Alan Mencken, whose work with the late Howard Ashman re-energized the films during the 1980s and 1990s.The combo pack will include the Blu-ray, a standard DVD and a digital copy for your personal use.

Alan Menken has composed huge hits such as THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN, HERCULES, POCAHONTAS and ENCHANTED and has won more Oscars than any other living person. He sat down for the following interview.

Question: You have been involved with so many wonderful Disney films, what does BEAUTY AND THE BEAST mean to you?

Alan Menken: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has been a perennial favorite of people who love Disney animation. They have a continued appetite to know more about it and to see it enhanced. That is incredibly gratifying. I love the film too. I just watched it again and it is gorgeous. It is possible that it is even more beautiful than it was when it debuted. It is very gratifying to have this “Diamond Edition”.

Question: Can you explain what it was that you did musically with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST?

Alan Menken: All Howard and I did was to tell the story, which is very romantic. The setting is timeless and I just went to my gut, which is what I always do. With this one, Howard was in his last days, although at the beginning I didn’t know that, but by the end of working on it, I knew that this was a great artist’s last creation. I am sure that emotion informed what we did. We worked with a palette of French and classical and Broadway music and it was a culmination of a certain kind of emotion for us. Also all these projects we do – whether it is THE LITTLE MERMAID OR BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or ALADDIN – are homages. This one is an homage to the most romantic parts of the Disney canon. Maybe I was channeling something special I don’t know, but it was clearly romantic and timeless and I credit Howard with a lot of what we came up with.

Question: The music has everything: from poignancy, to humor and ultimately joy, how did you convey that spectrum of emotions?

Alan Menken: That is what we always aim to do. As an ideal, the Disney musical is always a combination of things that are joyful and things that are wistful and scary too and BEAUTY has all those elements. I can only be as good as the stories I am telling and the characters that I am bringing to life. And with this film we were bringing some powerful things to life.

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INTERVIEW-MATT MORING, PUBLISHER, ALTUS PRESS!!!

News
October 1, 2010

AP: Matt, thanks for taking the time out to visit with ALL PULP. To kick this off, can you share some personal/professional background about yourself?

MM: Sure, I’m a web/graphic designer who’s worked in publishing for a number of years. In the past, I’ve put this art background to use doing artwork reconstruction work for Marvel, DC, AC, Disney, etc., for their various golden- and silver-age reprints.

But I’ve always loved pulps and I thought I could do at least a serviceable job in making attractive pulp reprints that matched their “cousin” hardcover comic reprints that Marvel and DC are doing.

AP: You are the head man behind Altus Press. What is Altus Press in terms of what it produces and its mission and purpose?

MM: Honestly, it’s to produce the books that I’d like to personally have on my bookshelf. That doesn’t just mean producing a collection of, say all the Secret Agent X stories just because I want them, but making them the de facto place to get these classic stories. In this case, all the Secret Agent X stories have been reprinted in one place or another, in one format or another, over the course of nearly 50 years. So my hope is that my Secret Agent X volumes will allow fans to toss out all those mis-matched reprints they already have–whether they’re the 60s Corinth paperbacks, Hanos digests, Bill Blackbeard photocopies, PDFs, etc.

In addition, I want to share with as many people as are interested all the interesting pulp stories that I’ve encountered, and there seems to be an endless supply of such material. The more I learn, the less I know, as the saying goes.

AP: Altus Press is well known for its collections of reprinted material, a lot of it thought long lost to the public at large. Can you give us a list of what characters you’ve got in your stable of reprints?

MM: Certainly. I try to do a healthy mix of “done in one”-type collections as well as multi-volume series. Some of the characters include Ravenwood, Mr. Death, Diamondstone, Doctor Death, Johnny Saxon, Ka-Zar, Ki-Gor, Jim Anthony, Polaris, Secret Agent X, Armless O’Neil, Seekay, The Bat, The Black Bat, The Cobra, Sheena, Senorita Scorpion, The Griffon, The Crimson Mask, Red Finger, The Man in Purple, The Black Hood, The Secret 6, The Purple Scar, The Blond Adder, Thunder Jim Wade, and many, many more that are on their way.

AP: What is the process you went through to gather these stories? Is everything you’re reprinting public domain?

MM: No. I generally tried to focus on PD material when I started, but in recent years, I’d say it’s about 50% PD, 50% licenced.

The process on each title is different. Sometimes a final product is quite clear to me, such as my recent Diamondstone: Magician – Sleuth book. In that case, it was very straightforward: there were only six stories and together, they filled out a nice 250-page book. There weren’t any other related stories from the author, G.T. Felming-Roberts, that made sense to include. So that book only took a matter of weeks to finish.

Other books take much longer to complete. My recent Norvell Page detective anthology, When the Death-Bat Flies: The Detective Stories of Norvell Page, has taken over a year to finish. It collects over 30 stories, and I only owned two of them. So it took quite a while to track all those down at finish that 800-page book. And there are other books that I’ve started but am looking for additional pieces to add to flesh them out. Some of these have been in this state for several years.

AP: What about new stories based on existing characters? Is this an area Altus Press works in? What titles?

MM: We do some new material here and there, but since other publishers like Airship 27 do a lot of that, I’ve focused on mainly reprint material. But I will recommend everything that Tom Johnson has written for Altus Press… he’s a pro and everything is a solid read. He’d done full collections such as the book Pulp Detectives, and he’s filled the lion’s share of our semi-regular anthology, Triple Detective. He’s also done new stories to augment reprint material such as in The Hand of Red Finger and The Man in Purple. And he’s got more on the way!

I hope that we’ll also do new material by other authors in the future.

AP: In dealing with new stories based on old characters, what is your opinion on modernizing/changing them to possibly appeal to a broader readership?

MM: Well, since I don’t do a lot of new material, I don’t have much to say on it. But a lot of these long-running characters, such as Doc Savage, The Black Bat, The Phantom Detective, etc., all changed and grew within their original pulp runs. If they were published non-stop from the 1930s to now, something tells me editorial & buying tastes would have changed these characters anyway. So as long as the changes don’t make the characters unrecognizable, I have no beef with updating things.

AP: How about all new original characters in the pulp vein? What original characters has Altus Press published?

MM: I’ll just say this: look for news on this in the future.

AP: Yet another line that Altus Press has is its pulp companions/histories. What is the importance of providing these published histories to the modern reader and overall, why is pulp history relevant?

MM: There’s a lot of pulp scholarship that was written in the 1970s-80s in fanzines such as Echoes, Pulp Vault, etc., which deserves to be made more available to the public. These are great fun to assemble, as they’re like a puzzle to put together… what articles & content could/should be collected under one cover on a certain topic? These are the books I’ll frequently pull out to browse through for enjoyment.

Pulp-reading is, by its nature, an insulated group. By that, I mean it’s tough for a person to learn about a character/topic/theme without having to refer to multiple sources to get a thorough history. We shouldn’t force people to do homework. So I think making my Companion books available is a solution for those fans who wish to learn more about a topic… after all, there’s not a top of information on most of these characters online.

Additionally, many of these books revolve around series which were written by multiple authors under a house name. A lot of time has been spent on attempting to identify writers, and I felt it was important to make that research available. The next generation that wants to dig deeper on IDing authors will appreciate having this information in easy-to-reference editions, I’d reckon.

AP: You’re a publisher and a lot of pulp publishers are also writers? What about you? Are you a writer and if so, what is your general interest as an author?

MM: No, I wish. I’m not a good writer, so I’ll leave that to the people who are.

AP: Altus Press obviously deals with multiple pulp characters. Are there any you haven’t worked with/researched enough/been involved with in some way that are on your to-do list?

MM: Not really. I’ve published Lester Dent which was a dream come true. If anything, it would be great to have a hand at publishing an authentic Doc Savage or Shadow original story and have it considered part of cannon.

AP: It obviously doesn’t seem like you or Altus Press have anytime soon to slow down. Any further projects you can discuss?

MM: There’s plenty in various stages of completion now. The Page Death-Bat book I mentioned earlier is almost done. That’ll make 1200 pages of Norvell Page that I’ve done in just a couple of months.

I’m just about finished with another companion book, this being The Dime Detective Companion, which reprints a pretty cool story: the fifth anniversary story (from 1936) “The Tongueless Men”. What makes it cool is that it’s written in round robin style, with five of Dime Detective’s most popular writers at the time–William E. Barrett, Carroll John Daly, Frederick C.Davis, T. T. Flynn and John Lawrence–writing a chapter apiece. And it’s up to the reader to figure out who wrote which chapter! It’s pretty fun and it’s never been reprinted before.

I’ve also got my reprinting of the complete series of The Green Lama coming out soon. While I’ve spaced out my previous multi-book series reprints, I’m going to be putting these out in succession, across three volumes. So Green Lama fans won’t have to wait too long for the next books.

I also have a pair of books collecting the adventures of The Suicide Squad coming… two books containing six stories each.

Several more Companion books from Tom Johnson, such as The Black Bat Companion and The Dan Fowler Companion, as well as another collection of Tom’s new stories.

Another multi-book reprint series starring Richard Knight by Donald Keyhoe.

A special Phantom Detective anthology… Doc Savage fans will really enjoy this one!

And last (but certainly not least) is a collection of Paul S. Powers western material, about half of which is comprised of unpublished manuscripts. It’s going to be a great book.

And that’s just the next few months! There’s plenty more down the road. And I’d like to add that these would be impossible to do without the help of so many kind people in the pulp community, among them Tom Johnson, Will Murray and Ray Riethmeier… without their help, our books would be much weaker products.

AP: We can’t thank you enough for being with ALL PULP today, Matt!

MM: Thanks for having me. I’m pleased to see so many regular updates on All Pulp; it makes for frequent visits!

NEW MOVIE REVIEW AT THE LONG MATINEE!!!-National Treasure!

News
September 26, 2010

THE LONG MATINEE – Movie Reviews by Derrick Ferguson

NATIONAL TREASURE

2004

Walt Disney Pictures

Directed by Jon Turtletaub

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer

Written by Jim Kouf, Oren Aviv & Charles Segar (story)

Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley (screenplay)

I had heard a lot about NATIONAL TREASURE before I saw it. Friends of mine told me to see it because it reminded them of something that I would write. Roger Ebert just about called it an out-and-out rip off of “The DaVinci Code”. Other people said it was boring, stupid, trite, a rip-off of this or that movie or character, mostly Indiana Jones or Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt

I saw it for myself and you know what was the most surprising thing to me about the movie was? That this was a Jerry Bruckheimer/Nicolas Cage collaboration that didn’t have any of the qualities that were evident in their other films together such as “Con Air” or “The Rock”. This is an action movie, yes. But when you compare it to what we call action movies today, it’s practically a throwback. There is only one explosion, one car chase, one shootout, one death and even that is due to the poor dumb bastard who gets killed making a wrong step. NATIONAL TREASURE is a movie that plays as if Cage and Bruckheimer had deliberately sat down and said: “let’s do an action movie that’s totally different from what we’ve done before.” and in doing so, they’ve given today’s audience what amounts to an updated version of my beloved pulp adventure serials from the 1930’s/1940’s.

Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) has spent his entire life looking for a treasure that has passed from Emperors to Kings to Pharaohs and finally to The Founding Fathers of The American Government. The treasure has grown to such enormous wealth that supposedly it’s “too large for any one man or nation to own” and The Knights Templars protected it in Europe for hundreds of years until it was moved to

America

along with The Knights Templar who became The Freemasons. The Freemasons counted among their members such notable Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin who left clues scattered among the various works they left behind as to where this fabulously immense treasure could be found.

Gates has discovered that the map to where the National Treasure is located is on the back of The Declaration of Independence. What is unfortunate is that he can get nobody to believe him, especially The FBI or Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who is a curator at The National Archives. When Gates tells her about the invisible map that is on the back of The Declaration of Independence and has been there for hundreds of years undetected she asks him quite seriously: “Who wrote it there? Bigfoot?”

Gates doesn’t have much time to try and change the minds of the FBI or Dr. Chase since his former partner Ian Howe has double-crossed him and intends to steal The Declaration and find the treasure. Gates decides that the only thing to do is steal The Declaration of Independence himself, along with his brilliant tech-savvy sidekick Riley Poole and find the treasure before Ian does.

NATIONAL TREASURE has a lot going for it in the way it handles the characters and the motivations behind what they’re doing. Gates is not a treasure seeker in the conventional sense and indeed, he keeps telling people that he’s a ‘treasure protector’. He’s looking for the National Treasure to vindicate his family name since The Gates Family are looked upon as crackpots by the historical/archeological community for believing that the treasure is real. And he’s got a diverse and interesting background as shown by a scene where the FBI Agent assigned to catch Gates (played by Harvey Keitel) reads Gates’ file. Gates has degrees in a whole bunch of diverse fields, which leads Keitel to muse; “I wonder just what this guy wanted to be when he grew up”.

And the relationship between Gates and his rival Ian is interesting and well handled as well. For once, the bad guy in a movie isn’t a bloodthirsty maniac out to kill everybody in his way. In fact, Ian tries to go out of his way not to kill anybody because as he sensibly explains to one of his gun happy henchmen: “The authorities tend to want to find out why dead bodies have bullets in them and who put them there” As a matter of fact, NATIONAL TREASURE is one of the few action/adventure movies I’ve seen recently where the bad guy actually has good reasons for why he doesn’t kill the hero when he has a chance to, especially in a scene near the end where Ian leaves Gates and his sidekicks alive in a secret tomb underneath New York’s Wall Street when he certainly would have reason not to. It surprised me and that’s not easy for movies nowadays to do.

I liked a lot of the performances here. Nicholas Cage looks more at home playing Benjamin Franklin Gates than any of the other characters in his other action movies he’s done with Bruckheimer and maybe that’s because Gates isn’t an Indiana Jones, despite what you may have read or heard. Gates isn’t a super martial artist or expert gunman or daredevil adventurer. He’s an historian searching for vindication of his family’s dream and he plays it that way. When he’s confronted with bad guys brandishing automatic weapons he runs like his ass is on fire and he only stops to fight when he has no other way out. What makes him dangerous is his brainpower: he sees connections and can make them faster than anybody else and he’s smart enough to know that about himself and use it to his advantage.

Sean Bean is absolutely great as Cage’s rival in the race for the treasure and you get the sense that a lot of the reasons why he doesn’t kill Gates is that he really admires and respects Gates’ knowledge and resourcefulness. Jon Voigt has a lot more to do here as Patrick Henry Gates, the father of Cage’s character than he had to do as Lara Croft’s father in “Tomb Raider”. Justin Bartha as Riley Poole is one of the best sidekicks I’ve seen in recent moves and he has a wonderful scene where he proves just how much that a sidekick can enhance the hero’s character.

The main selling point for me with NATIONAL TREASURE, that it isn’t an Indiana Jones type of cliffhanging-thrill a minute-claw your date’s arm-type of movie. It’s more in the nature of a scavenger hunt and the fun comes from seeing Cage’s character and his sidekicks put together the clues and piece them together. Not that to say that there aren’t thrills aplenty: this is an exciting movie with fights, captures, chases and plot twists. It’s just that it isn’t packed with explosions, car chases and deaths every five minutes

Having said all that let me say that I recommend NATIONAL TREASURE wholeheartedly. I had an excellent time with the story and characters and I don’t even think you’ll miss the usual mayhem that we expect from a Bruckheimer/Cage action movie. Are there holes in the plot holes and flaws? Sure there are. Cage and his crew find a ship that has supposedly been buried in the Arctic ice for hundreds of years far too easily. And would gunpowder burn after being buried under the ice for that long a time? And there’s another scene later on where Cage and his crew just happen be standing at the tower where The Liberty Bell is kept so that the shadow of the sun will be cast at just the right moment at just that right moment so they can find another clue to the treasure. But by that time I had been so captivated by the performances and the sheer audacity of the story’s premise I was just watching and saying to the movie; “what the hell, let’s go.” And I suppose that’s the best way I can tell you to take your viewing of NATIONAL TREASURE: sit back in your seat with your soda, popcorn, candy and say: “what the hell, let’s go.” Movie studios don’t make Saturday Morning Serials anymore but every so often they do make movies like NATIONAL TREASURE to remind us that once upon a time they did.

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INTERVIEW-MATT MORING, PUBLISHER, ALTUS PRESS!!!

NEW MOVIE REVIEW AT THE LONG MATINEE!!!-National Treasure!

Rated: PG

131 Minutes

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