Transcript of 70mm’s Brother Bear (2003) Episode.
SLIM Hey, it’s your old pal slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers just like you. Every Monday I chat about recently watched movies with my close friend and artists, Danny Haas.
DANNY [Danny wheeze/laughs for 5 seconds]
SLIM And our spiritual advisor and movie insider, Protolexus.
PROTO It’s like, it was so bad watching this that it was like, am I crawling under my couch during these scenes? Just to get out of sight? Can I dampen the audio that’s coming through my speakers?
SLIM Our featured discussion later in this episode is the final movie for the animated summer and it’s Danny’s pick, Disney’s Brother Bear from 2003. Feel free to use the chapters in your podcast app to skip ahead to that discussion. Is this the most underrated Disney animated movie of all time, like Danny says? Or is it rightfully forgotten alongside the other later Disney 2d movies? Let’s find out… together.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM The interns tier, can we just briefly we’re not a big Patreon. Talk about our Patreon all the time show. Right? You know, sometimes we bring it up. We want to make it a big deal. But we’re pumping stuff out right now. Okay, true. We have a special interns tear where we release podcast episodes. I almost said the capital C word.
DANNY Excuse me, what word are you talking about?
SLIM The word that I don’t want to be associated with just making podcasts content. I don’t like that word. I almost said it. But we’re just we’re making pop podcasts. So we did a watch along for I believe the first time viewing of a John Claude Van Damme movie for Danny Washington hard target the three of us and we put out an episode, just the audio of us watching it. And maybe there’s a video attached to for interns on a VCR. Pro. Do you look back fondly on that night where the three of us watched Hard Target together?
PROTO That was a great night. Those are so much fun to do. I’m just waiting anxiously for our next one. Sit and watch a movie, which I don’t think we’ve even begun to talk about.
SLIM We haven’t even broached the topic.
DANNY Too much going on.
SLIM Some people were saying Revenge of the Sith should be the next watch one.
DANNY Name them.
SLIM I can’t name names.
PROTO Slim DMing himself.
SLIM So do it again. And then not only that, should Adel if you don’t want to hear any more intern BS patron you can use the chapters to skip ahead to Brother Bear 2003 our feature presentation to end the animated summer. The amount of thumb tapping happening right now.
SLIM We also, Proto, Movie Insider, produces his own solo audio project that goes out just to interns on our Patreon and the second edish has come out. Danny, do you see the buzz in the Discord about this thing droppin finally?
DANNY Yeah, it’s palpable. The people wanted it and they got it. And they love what they got. You know? Eating it up. They want the third one right now.
SLIM I was while you were doing the pre show. I was listening to the proto audio dispatch on my headphones and you also in the background. And I heard proto say hello. Hello. Hello, slim. And I was like man, he’s going real hard on this audio dispatch. Mouseover to Riverside of Pardo was like in the video chat. Waiting for me to hear him.
DANNY He’s like Beetlejuice.
SLIM But let’s just get the other elephant of the room now. Oh, gosh. I there’s another podcast watching along that went out to interns this week. The fabled long running my own desire to do the David Copperfield special. David Copperfield 14 special and CVS flying live the dream. I did a watch along with Dale producer at larger this show and he and I both watched the David Copperfield special and there’s a video attached to that I’m willing to tell people there is on our Patreon was an amazing time.
DANNY I’m honestly glad Dale agreed to do with do it with you. because you were getting to the point where you were going to just talk to yourself and record. Yeah, play two different versions of yourself. It was good is about to get ugly. A watch.
SLIM It was going to be a watch-alone, I almost did it by myself.
DANNY A watch-alone.
SLIM And that can be the saddest thing I’ve ever said out loud. [Danny laughs]
PROTO That’s passion though. That’s passion. You’re just taking good dreams and you just made them a reality.
SLIM I also do need to call out the two of our supporters started their own little mini podcast escapade. And they did a watch along with a David Copperfield special will have linked in the Episode Notes too. So a lot of things coming next next week. Actually, as of as of this episode dropping our meetup will be taking place on Saturday. Our first ever 70mm meetup in the greater Philadelphia area. Only supporters know the location. I’m not saying it out loud. Stay tuned to our IG for some photos, some shenanigans but pretty excited. It’s right around the corner.
PROTO We are just days away. Yeah, I’m very excited. I’m excited to meet see people in person to watch a movie, hang out. It’s going to be a great day. We’re going to look back on this day for the rest of our lives.
DANNY How have we not let slip the movie we’ve picked?
SLIM I don’t know.
DANNY I don’t know how we have kept it quiet.
SLIM But I just got the blu ray in the mail today. I’m gonna rush that over to the theater this weekend. Mamma Mia. It’s like I’m Paul Revere. Delivering the blu ray.
PROTO Paul Revere and it’s cheap. The blu rays coming
SLIM Jash in chat says Brother Bear 2.
DANNY Never come out on Blu ray, Jash sorry.
SLIM That was the fastest debunk in in history. Boy, what should we get into who watched a movie this week part? I’ll start with you. What did you watch this week? What do you wanna talk about?
PROTO I was able to knock off two that have been on my watch list for a long, long time. The first one was a movie from my boy. Rest in peace. Michael Creighton. We all know him as the fabulous author of Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain Congo timeline prey. You name it, he wrote it. A lot of his movies a lot of his books to be turned in the movies but he was also a director as well then this movie coma came out in 1978 and it’s a nice little conspiracy thriller that I had a great time watching you know, like I’ve said many times the past the movie in the 70s is a movie from me. This didn’t disappoint. Just had that great seven days feel very competent story. I don’t think I don’t think everyone would love it. I think people would say like, oh, that’s a little slow. There isn’t that much of a like a surprise I think in terms in terms of what’s going to happen but I had I had a great time watching this. I think it was a great coming to
SLIM Dallas. Yeah, I knew he directed some of his I didn’t know he directed that many. I just posted a photo of Michael Creighton from TMDb Are you seeing the drip and chat on Creighton right now?
DANNY Not saying anything in chat.
SLIM Where did I put it? Put in the wrong discord? Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Michael. Oh, yeah, like a drip. Drip Drop.
PROTO Like 268 I think he was like really tall. Yeah. He’s a big boy.
SLIM Westworld. I’d love to do a Westworld at the original. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I had that at four and a half stars before letterbox rating right now. That seems exceptionally high.
PROTO That seems too high. We’re gonna have to revisit it
SLIM Yeah. What about what about the other movie that you watch pedo I’m ready to I’m ready to talk to
PROTO Oh my oh my god. So I I had the privilege to have a weekend dinner with me and my wife were invited over to one of our our patrons houses I got friends in real life but also in the discord throw bridge was over there. We had a great little peach salad. My my my wife man and orzo salad. Go ahead. What’s your question?
SLIM What’s in a peach salad and don’t say peaches.
PROTO What else was in there? I’m trying to I’m trying to remember the flavors lips
SLIM is looking. I’m trying to Market clip and make that a gift later.
DANNY Just finished.
PROTO You know I can’t remember it but it was from a book. Mrs. Trowbridge made it. It was fantastic. I’ll get everyone the recipe it’ll be linked linked in the show notes don’t worry. But I was over there and he he said he had a disk for me to borrow and he gave me Brian De Palma’s blowout. Wow. So he was like, you know, have it for as long as you need it. But I was like, Brother, I’ve had this on my watch list for two years. I’m watching this to know. Or last night, so yeah, I watched it. And you know, of course I have a real I have a history with Brian De Palma. You know, we’re a little iffy, but we’ll read Movie. This Movie. This one really blew me away. This movie is something I think it’s something special. I gave it four stars. It didn’t reach the five star you know plateau, but is very, very good. The things he did in terms of the storytelling. He does a lot of cool things with audio in this movie. It’s about a sound engineer, played by John Travolta just such such a cool movie. I’m so glad I watched it and I think I’m I’m back on the Paloma train now I’m gonna Gosh, he deserves another chance.
DANNY What kicked you off the diploma train. Say Hey
PROTO guys,
SLIM I’m looking at the review right now. I already had it pulled up one star. Oh Snake Eyes. There’s his last word in the review. Garbanzo
PROTO Yeah, that’s locked in that stone called Lock garbanzo I’m not changing my writing on that.
SLIM Brian dipalma clearly going for the mood and lighting of a dentist’s office.
PROTO Isn’t I had a lot of good things to say about blowout. Okay, we don’t have to return a snake guys.
SLIM How about the Travolta’s Jeep in blowout?
PROTO Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s got a nice Jeep that he he does things to that don’t appreciate losing his license
SLIM to interpretation. Let’s say hello to some new patrons that joined this week. Matt, Michael, Jeanine, Albert, Diego, Steven and Max. All joined this week@patreon.com Slash 70 Mm. And you can just use the links on 70 mn pa.com. Stephen actually went right into becoming an intern right off the bat day one. I guess these are your support. Thanks to everyone for their support. I do want to single anyone out. Danny, what did you watch this week?
DANNY Listen, this Saturday, I had a movie marked on my calendar for a while the IMAX release of ET The Extra Terrestrial and it was absolutely incredible. This movie was I haven’t seen it. I probably hadn’t seen it since I was a kid. Not one that I ever really revisited. But the quality of this IMAX was pristine. But to hear John Williams score for this film in a theater gave me chills the entire time. There’s just there’s just nothing I honestly would argue that this is probably top three, maybe the best of John Williams’s scores. I love this score so much. And I forgot how good Henry Thomas is in this film. He’s such a great kid actor in this but um, I had a blast absolute blast watching this film. What was cool too was parents had brought kids in and you could just hear them laughing at this movie and just the jokes were landing for them the silly beds were landing for them. It was still you know, a still a great moment for these kids. probably seeing it for the first time with the parents.
SLIM Le right. So because now
PROTO Yes. The Amblin magic in theaters that has
DANNY been logo
SLIM backdrop of ve T is Drew give it a smooch
DANNY t just an eating area that
SLIM allows Jack Isn’t this what not know that CC tail I don’t remember the last time I saw et i forgot I don’t I don’t know if I’ve ever sat down to watch and as an adult maybe maybe since I was a kid.
DANNY I was going to push for the sheer maybe I’ll I’ll hold off into
PROTO it. Hold a campaign
SLIM alien month
PROTO that would Danny would pick it
SLIM up what would what would itI also fall into? What kind of like fo theme could we weasel et into
DANNY Amblin vibe month.
SLIM That’s pretty cool. whole idea. Looking up the genres on Letterboxd monsters sci fi.
DANNY Kid Drew Barrymore month all of her movies where she was a child
SLIM actress. Anyway, I’m excited to watch et whenever that takes place. The four K’s
PROTO out baby. Oh god, how does
SLIM how does like the special effects looking 4k Bad.
DANNY They look at special effects. It’s awesome. You see the stop motion bikes being written. And there’s a moment that I’ve only seen like YouTube clips of theirs when they’re on the big bike Chase. the very ends, you know, everything’s awesome about it. It’s a stunt bike driver. And there’s a moment where he goes around a construction house. And on YouTube, you can see him fall, but in the IMAX, you see him eat. It’s so good. And it’s awesome. And it’s still in the film. It made me laugh so hard, because I only like barely caught it recently, but now you can just see him just eat it on the dirt.
SLIM I saw. Oh god poor et. I saw a tweet in my stream about I think it was et. And maybe this happened in an ILM episode that I haven’t gotten to yet. But they said that in the miniature mat or whatever they showed, like the city backdrop behind the mountains. And if you look close enough, there was a drive in movie theater playing Star Wars. Is that
DANNY excuse me? I didn’t know about that. No, I also forgot how much Star Wars is in Haiti. There’s so much reference to start really? Oh, yeah. The action figures, the Yoda the Yoda costume kid, they’re doing the Yoda voice at one point. It’s pretty good. Yeah, that one. Something’s about to fall on your shirt.
SLIM God I’d love to do A New Hope just to be able to do some more Star Wars voices. Every week we give out a free year of letterbox pro gets rid of ads. Disclaimer, letterbox and boy. You can also get access to some stats see where your movies are streaming a lot of great features. And this week’s winner Patty pancakes finally got to watch the movie of the week to prepare for the episode probably never would have picked this five banger otherwise great discussion and great art as always and that was for Akira. Thank you
DANNY Pat when it up when a time
SLIM Sorry, I was just trying to weasel another Yoda impression, but I’m gonna sit on it until we do another Star Wars.
DANNY You’re gonna choke.
PROTO slim you get locked you locked one movie this week what’s going on over there?
SLIM We’ve actually gotten caught up so a lot of the the most of the movies that I watched during the week or prep for letterboxed show, whether that be we can watch Lister for phase and we’d kind of gotten ahead. You know, we’ve been able to prep in advance a lot of movies I watched I can kind of sit on because the guests isn’t coming for another two weeks. But I will be cramming this weekend because I did hear back about their four faves. So this this weekend on Washington movies. But I also went on like a little mini camping trip. So Mitchell and Mia did we can watch this together. So I didn’t have to do any kind of watching prep for that. So yeah, I’m looking at my diary right now. Ping pong. I watched for an episode that we recorded today. But other than that, Brother Bear. That’s all I’ve watched since we last recorded.
PROTO It’s like you don’t know how to watch movies for your own pleasure anymore. Yeah, this is sad.
SLIM To choose to be honest, I didn’t want to bring up Nathan fielder. Just because the high level is nuclear cut it out. But just this is a Mandy and I are really vibing in our free time watching Nathan Fielder Nathan For You on HBO Max. So in our free time, you know, I’m trying to give back to my marriage by watching things that my wife takes pleasure in. So we’ve been really just watching Nathan sometimes you gotta give back, you know, God, but speaking of giving back, Brother Bear the end of the animated summer. This is Danny’s pick, to wrap up the month. Just by the way, folks, probably wondering what is happening next week. There’s a fifth week in August. What could we possibly do? Stay tuned. The end of the show. Yeah. This is wrapping things up. Animated Movie Disney. Ever heard of it? Brother Bear, Joaquin Phoenix. A bunch of other white folks. Proto What is this movie about?
PROTO Up in the Alaskan wilderness three brothers It is belong to a tribe who believe that all creatures are created by great spirits that inhabit the Aurora in the sky. When coming of age, members of the tribe receive a totem, a physical token representing an animal, Sitka, the eagle of guidance to nahi, The Wolf of wisdom, and now, can I receives the bear of love. perturbed by his totem he chases after a bear who has stolen his stack of salmon. The brash act results in the death of his brother, and the eventual transformation of Kanye into a bear himself verified and looking for solutions to get back to his human body. Him and his little bear brother, coda, embark on a journey that they will never forget to get to the top of the mountain where the spirits touch the earth and find meaning of being a bear.
*SLIM I think Danny has been quoted in the past as saying, “this is the most underrated Disney film of all time.”
DANNY Of all time. Put it on the Blu-ray.
SLIM Put it on the box. But it could be a clue. We said we ran a Blu ray to the meetup. Imagine that could be a clue. It’s not. But do you have any memories of this movie coming out? 2003.
PROTO That would be a stretch for me to say I remember this movie coming out. No, I don’t have any specific memories of when this released in 2003. I apologize.
SLIM Finding Nemo came out the same year, Danny, does that sound accurate?
DANNY I think Finding Nemo Academy Awards? Wow. Yeah.
PROTO What were they nominated for?
DANNY Best Animated Films.
PROTO Oh, how about that?
SLIM Forest and shadows asking if this is the first Walt Disney Studios animation to be covered on the main show? I don’t think so. Yes. So confirmed. Consultant firmed. You heard it here first. 2003. Danny, where were you?
DANNY Getting married. But also, this was the last feature that was animated here in Orlando at MGM that Disney MGM Studios. So we were able to see it a few times being worked on through the walkthrough of the animation studio here. Yeah, that’s, that was a big deal. And so for me, I don’t know if I actually saw it when it came out, then. But I remember seeing a being worked on quite a bit, which was really cool.
SLIM Sorry, can you explain the MGM Studios animated thing? I don’t ever seen that on these YouTube channels. I watch
DANNY when, when you’re looking at the Chinese Theatre that’s there. To the right. It used to be the animation studios where they would literally animate some of the more current or the movies of the time then. So they did Lilo and Stitch some of beauty in the beast was there. But the last one to be done before they shuttered 2d animation was Brother Bear. And that’s when they moved on to 3d film.
SLIM What did that area look like? Was it just like a big old piece of glass? And you saw in a studio artists drawing?
DANNY Yes. I mean, there were the artists desks were there. You could walk right by it. Most of the time, what you could see were them hand painting the cells, individual cells for each frame. And then a lot of concept art was along the walls that they would post throughout it. Holy smokes. Yeah. Now it’s the Star Wars launch bay. Which sucks.
SLIM You do the math? All right, exactly. It says it looks like a fish tank low. I was like, I’d be curious if they would do that even stuff today. Like would they be precious about like IP being shown off or like somewhat visible to people walking by? Yeah. I wonder if they’d even do that again. Yeah, having to like your day to day being gawked up by tourists.
PROTO Yeah, be all over the subreddit, Disney uncovered
SLIM Oh my god. Yeah, that’s the thing. There isn’t one of the acts of Nikon lenses.
DANNY They weren’t recording these people working really? That’s probably why you haven’t seen much of it on YouTube. There would have been like camcorders recording them.
SLIM Let’s see. In this segment, we usually have each host notate three things will go roundtable around the room until we exhaust our top threes and then we’ll give our final letterbox reading for our particular viewing of the moon. Movie. So this is Danny’s pick. Let’s start with Danny, what’s your number one note for Brother Bear?
DANNY Number one note is there’s a moment in this film, where I would say is the only Disney animated film that has a moment that emotionally almost brings me to tears every time I watch it. And and that’s the moment when Kenai and Coda are on the Mountain’s Edge, and he’s telling him that he’s the one that killed his mother. The combination of animation storytelling, and Phil the music in that moment is incredible. And every time it happens it’s just I just well up. I mean, it is it is this big swelling of emotion. And I don’t get that way with I don’t think any other animated film that Disney has done. And it’s it’s it really is the combination of the storytelling, the beautiful animation in that segment, and Phil and his incredible music and score with the show differently, can turn back the time. There’s no show storm inside me.
SLIM trainer says he cried in his office today at work watching and that was actually one of my top three. So Danny’s getting his a cure revenge got up from stealing my top notes. I was pretty shocked at that scene. I was not expecting him. I mean, it’s a short movie. I think it’s only 90 minutes maybe. So I was like, how far along in this movies like it’s quick revealing it? Yeah, he tells it. It’s like he’s telling even if you just remove the bear aspect. It’s a guide telling a young child that I killed your mom. Yeah. And it’s it’s pretty. It’s pretty, like dark, and almost like realistic. So I also was wheeling up on I was watching them because I wasn’t expecting him to just go right to the explanation. Like he it didn’t feel like he kept that secret for that long in my opinions. And he like kind of told him and I was sort of surprised it happened.
PROTO It’s a pretty mature scene. Yeah, heavy stuff.
DANNY Yeah. When they do it a couple of times throughout the film. One of the things that always surprised me with this animation is the the matte painting backgrounds and how they would do the almost 360 Turn around the animated character with these incredible backgrounds and that’s one of the scenes that they do it and it just always blows my mind. Yeah, there’s
SLIM something about I don’t mean to steal someone’s ratio changes thing but there’s something about the colors that really pops in soon in this movie more so than maybe any modern Disney 2d at an animated movie that I can think of. I was like is this 4k? Is this HDR? It’s just something about the colors they they’re really going nuts. Part of what’s your number one
PROTO My number one actually was that the color palette in this movie. There is such like a like a saturation of the colors that it’s it’s so bright and full in so many parts of this that I can’t really remember a movie that looks this way in my mind. But is that something unique to this? Or do we know any reason why they chose to have it looked that way?
DANNY The only thing that I had ever watched was Aaron Blace the animator for the film he talked about how he was kind of showing he like it shows off a lot of North America. So shows off like the Tetons and the Yellowstone and it goes up through like Denali and Alaska and a lot of Canada, so what they wanted to really show off was landscapes. And and I think that they just went hard on the color and the sky and the sunlight and the sun rays and you know the grass I was like everything was cranked to full saturation in this whole film.
SLIM Crank it I need you to crank it harder. trainer in chat says bears have yellow and blue saturated vision so maybe that’s why I need some some experts to fact check trainer and chat. We’re gonna cut that again. Oh
DANNY man, this could be the final straw. I
SLIM might cut that along with the Drew Barrymore cocaine coma and then so speaking of the, the color saturation, the brightness of the colors, I think I saw some chat in the discord about the ratio aspect ratio of the movie. And so like every other dweeb, I was like, let’s go on on with the presentation on Disney plus right now you see on this, so I fired up that old Google Brother Bear format, and there’s 50 Reddit threads, what’s going on with the ratio here. And it just leads me to come back to the color topic, you know, is allegedly supposed to show his transition into seeing a different world dip through the different eyes of someone else walking in their shoes. So that when he when he is a bear when he’s like fully awake, and as a bear, everything shift has his vision, his perspective shift. So it goes to like pretty much widescreen format where the format before that is like this, like letterbox Pillar Box format, and it looks really small on your TV. So I would have been interested to see and experience that in a theater, you know, when that’s kind of everything’s like smaller, and then boom, you get like the most lush landscapes when he opens his eyes. For the second time as a bear.
PROTO It seems like such a bizarre choice for an animated movie, though, just to try to communicate something like that.
SLIM I mean, you probably could have made the first 20 minutes just look worse without doing the ratio changes. Maybe with like more muted colors. Yeah. Looking back, you know, now that everyone has a widescreen TV maybe maybe just feels a little bit different than it did at the time. My number one is a thought that I had when I was watching this and I’d love to hear more from Danny is the state of Disney at the time of these movies. I’m really fascinated about like the total downswing of their animation production. Like around this era where it seemed like the Disney resonant Renaissance was finished. It’s kaput, and they’re putting out movies that just aren’t really inspiring and that probably speaks to why this movie would be considered underrated because maybe most people haven’t seen it because they were already on the Pixar train that by this point, like Toy Story, Monsters Inc Finding Nemo you know you’re you’re pushing your Disney memories to the backburner Disney animated 2d memories to the backburner. And then I think as you said, like they shuttered the 2d division after this. I also saw that like the directors of this movie didn’t do any Disney anything again after this, they didn’t like shift to direction at Pixar. So what was the what was the vibe at this point? You know, for Disney animation cycle. This
DANNY was right on their heels. I mean, I think he pretty much answered your own question. But at the time, this was right on the heels of Lion King Eisner wanted another animal movie, talking animal movie. And they went with Aaron Blaze who Aaron. He animated kid Nala in The Lion King. He did the three soldiers and Mulan Raja in Aladdin. So he’s been he’s been with Disney for a while. So him animating and directing. This one was the next step for him. I even think Roy, Roy E. Disney was involved with the production of this one as well. One of the last films but you’re right I mean, this was I mean, we are at finding the email phase of Pixar and people are really drawn to that style now more than the 2d animation and it’s cheaper to make cheaper relatively and time wise than a 2d animated film so Eisner the way he is. Made the pivot. That’s really what it is. I mean, it’s still a $45 million budget movie that made 250 and box office so it’s not like a flop per se but people I think we’re ready to move on to a different style of animation.
PROTO I love the idea of Eisner being in a boardroom and being like, “Alright, I want a talking animal. You’re gonna make another 2d picture but I need a talking animal.” [Danny laughs]
SLIM Eisner, God every time I watch one of those YouTube channels about like the history of Disney, and they go through those CEOs, vicious stuff.
DANNY I bet they wish they had Eisner now I can tell you
SLIM I wish I’d never come back to retirement. Back from the dead. Anyway. unretire Eisner. Danny what’s your number two
DANNY number two is Phil Collins my man so this is why this another reason I consider this an underrated film because Phil and this you would know him from Tarzan. Target his work on Tarzan is legendary legend. But with this, I feel like it’s better. And he actually worked long. He worked with Markman sia on the score for this mark. I believe the last one we did was he worked with Len on Wanna but working working co like side by side with mark on the score but also getting Tina Turner to do a track the blind Boys of Alabama are on this the Bulgarian women’s choir or in waters I mean this score is to me it’s the best it’s better than Tarzan. It’s an incredible score Tarzan has great tracks and his great songs but there’s something about this film that every moment just kind of sticks with me. And it’s because of Phil and what this crew did with the music
new friends, new places to see with blue skies ahead just some nowhere else
SLIM this is kind of an aside, but I’d love to go back and watch Tarzan. I don’t have that logged on Letterboxd.
SLIM but what do you think about Phil in this movie?
PROTO Ah. Well, I guess I guess it was. I guess I’m a little conflicted because I think as I was watching, and I was saying I was thinking like, this soundtrack really sucks. But then I thought maybe it’s because of how it’s it just feels unconnected just no connection to what I’m seeing on the screen. Like just hearing a Phil Collins soundtrack to this, you know, story set in note with an Alaskan tribe. Spirit is the Spirit Animals, like it just didn’t seem to fit at all to me. So I don’t know if maybe that’s what it was. Maybe the music isn’t bad. And it was just how jarring that felt to me. I really didn’t really care for much of it at all.
SLIM You know, I heard Phil Collins, not to talk about the internist here again. But Phil Collins has a track and the David Copperfield flight special. Okay. I was thinking you mentioned Lin Manuel, and I shudder to bring his name up. But if this was made today, I feel like Lin would have probably the most cultural reflected version of the score as of 2022. Like he would have, you know how like Mallanna was so researched and fitting to the people the timeframe. And I love Phil Collins. So there are some good songs on this on this movie, but I might prefer Tarzan personally. Minnie Driver and Tarzan. Oh, yeah. Do you believe my belief that assign Pro Number two
PROTO I love the whole notion of these totems given to the different characters. So you know that the movie starts with Kenai getting his bearer of love. And all the brothers have different ones. And I just think that’s like such a neat idea. I kind of wish I was given a total
DANNY usually little like a totem ceremony for you.
PROTO I could get behind that, you know. I was trying to look back on my life and see like what totem would have been appropriate
SLIM weight from you. It weighed in you. It’s take over the totem, sir.
PROTO Can I have one too? How much money do I have to pay somebody to give me an authentic Totem?
SLIM God Yeah, I liked I liked how that led to some strife between the brothers. We haven’t even really talked about how the brothers you know, the the actual bear fight that leads to one dying and then him turning into a bear. And then the the remaining brother feeling like the guilt to track down the bear that he doesn’t realize is his brother, all those like over the course of that time. He’s been like tracking him the whole time. I really liked that plot of the movie, like and then he finally sees the reveal. So like, maybe my next point, my number two could be the the ending where they finally do meet and then it’s revealed to each other that like he is the bear that you’ve been hunting over the over the period of time. And he gets reverted back to his human form. And then he has to make a decision. You know, because his, his young cub brother, once he’s human, he they can’t understand each other again. He’s gonna make a decision to I leave him. I thought the Kota was the cutest bear ever in history
PROTO taught me as cute bear.
SLIM Fruit cute bears of all time. And then he makes the decision to stay a bear and not abandon him. I’ve loved it. Loved it. The ending I thought it was adorable. I felt so bad for I mean once he was human and he couldn’t understand the bear is that all chart I got heartbreaking. Yeah breaking.
DANNY He’s so quick you remember that? He was just a bear. It’s so I love that you hear him like make the bear noises and you’re like, oh shit.
SLIM Yeah, this is real adorable. This would probably be like a Disney plus animated series have this come out today? Huh? You know they probably like make a spin off. So you’re
DANNY rejecting the matte paintings on the dome? Oh
PROTO I was gonna say I don’t know if I really understood what the was there like a lesson learned for Kenai getting by the end of this movie? Like, the whole, you know? Love bear. I guess I didn’t really understand his arc.
DANNY While he’s he became the bear because he led with hate and anger. And his totem was love so love he, his journey is to, you know, find out that love is the real way to live your life.
SLIM I mean, there’s this quote is a real quote from the movie a boy who became a man by becoming a bear said at the end of the movie, that was unreal. I do think that I compared this to like the the enjoyment level I had watching this reminded me of The Good Dinosaur where the good dinosaur came and like didn’t wow, people it like kind of existed with Pixar. But I wondered if it was almost like too short, where it’s like this movie would have gone through different revisions. Had it had like another like, review. I don’t know, it just felt it felt almost like too short. And I love 90 minutes movies. But I almost wanted like another kind of like B plot to happen, where there isn’t a whole lot that like really happens outside of the brother hunting him. And he kind of like acclimates with the other bears, he meets them they like go in the water, they find fish. But other than that there’s not much like turmoil.
PROTO Between. Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s a good point. I kind of felt that way too, as if like, there was something lacking, or maybe because there wasn’t necessarily like a villain in this. There wasn’t like a normal, you know, conflict of here’s, here’s the protagonist, and here, you know, because it was the brother hunting him, it felt like, oh, well, he’s, he’s still a good guy. He just doesn’t know. There wasn’t like some kind of like, you know, evil hunter who was like kills all the bears of the forest, which you would kind of expect from a Disney movie. And then he has some kind of confrontation with that character. So it did feel different as if there really wasn’t any kind of normal stakes that you would have, I think in an animated movie that we’re used to.
SLIM Yeah, I mean, who would who would have could have been the villain of this era in like Alaska, right outside of white people? Yeah, maybe white people coming in, I guess that was probably too hot. Well, they cast all the weight of the voices in the movie there, they couldn’t have gotten a white person as the villain. They do as a call out of the era. I really seriously doubt that this would happen today. But there are no indigenous people in the main voice cast, unfortunately, like looking back, like Joaquin, obviously is the star. And we’re, I mean, it’s not that long ago, it’s 2003. So that was just one thing that jumped out at me, while while viewing was just the kind of like lack of cultural connectivity. Which kind of sucks because it looks like they really did make the effort for the storyline, the characters, you know, what would have gone through the family at that era? So kind of like a mixed bag there. Danny number three.
DANNY Number three for me would be it is the finale but it’s also the animated sections of the first confrontation at the mountaintop with the when he turns into the bear and then when he turns back from the bear those animated scenes won’t the lights and the Aurora Borealis type effects. It kind of it’s still kind of blows me away every time I watch it. I love the interaction with the animated and those cells. I mean it’s it’s it’s something that’s just absolutely incredible to watch. And I never really feel that way when it comes to like 3d animated films when Pixar and all that kind of stuff. Nothing really. I mean, it always kind of looks like great, realistic, etc. But I don’t there’s something about 2d film when like we’ve talked about Mononoke a and Akira and these backgrounds and they always make me feel way more impressed than watching any sort of 3d animated film and these scenes kind of are like penna Call for me. When I think about stuff live, it’s the animation.
SLIM Yeah, the Aurora stuff is insane. Like the way that my my TV my TV felt like it was working overtime in like all those scenes. It was like a It was insane. Do you have you ever seen any of these matte paintings like framed anywhere? Do you know if they show these at like exhibits?
DANNY No, I think if I think the only place that I could remember that you might not have seen as the archives, you can go to the Walt Disney archives and get a tour there and they may have something displayed. I’ve never made it out there because it’s not like an up. I don’t think it’s not like an LA or Burbank or I think it’s in a different part of California. I don’t remember though. But I think that’s the only place that you’d be able to see any sort of animated seller backdrops from brotherly
SLIM alley. You know what’s interesting, too, I mean, this probably movie movies like this, there’s probably I think there were probably still making VHS tapes around this time, but like, can you imagine like just watching this on VHS? And like shit then showing someone like a flat screen TV presentation with these colors? Yeah, that’s what you’re seeing the friggin future.
PROTO Yeah, yeah. I wonder how that felt being an, you know, an animator or just like, like painting these backgrounds, and then watching it on VHS at home and just be like,
SLIM I guess that’s probably all they really I mean, outside the theater. And then like a year later, it’s on VHS like yeah, this looks pretty good. I guess. Memory is the same that’s in a theater at this point.
DANNY Oh, Tim does say it’s on Burbank. And I’m thinking of like the Walt Disney Family Museum or something.
SLIM Part of number three, your final point.
PROTO My final point I wrote about this in my letterbox review, that’s where I needed to launch an investigation. So there’s two characters in this movie, right and took us to moose. And I did some research uncovered some evidence that might explain the impetus for such characters. So in 1980, there was a Canadian television show called Bob and Doug McKenzie, starring Rick Maraniss and Dave Thomas who play the two most. So there are direct inspiration and some might call it a no Maj. But with that information, I would like to pose to both of you a question. Where, where do these moves this pair this pair of comic relief characters? Where do they rank? In animated movies? Why would you why would you put them
DANNY compared to other comedic relief? Yeah, sidekicks.
SLIM They’re not, they’re not high on my list. Yeah, I don’t
DANNY think they’re high on my list either. But there’s only like one scene that I like, out of them. And when they say I love you to each other. Mm hmm. But that’s not comedic. Really?
SLIM Canadian Canadian humor. You know, it’s not for everybody.
PROTO That’s for sure. Yeah. A. Those are probably the probably the two most ill conceived characters in animated history, I think. It’s like, it was so bad watching this, that it was like, am I crawling under my couch? Just to get out of sight? Can I dampen the audio that’s coming through my speakers?
SLIM If you cut them out? This movie is an hour long, like they are an integral part of the movie for being such a short movie. There’s not a lot to remove.
DANNY There’s a bit I do like when they’re on the backs of the woolly mammoths. And he’s like laying there and he’s like, I looked like they’d killed me or something. It’s, it’s always cracks me up.
SLIM There was Yeah, speaking of the woolly mammoths there was I think there was one part where they were napping on like its tusk and it looked like four different pieces of animation like the bears were moving on the tusk and the end the whole body was very interesting how they animated that it looks extremely difficult. Number three, my final point and getting into my honorable mentions here since a lot of stuff I haven’t I didn’t make a comment about Tina Turner, but I was not expecting to hear Tina Turner any movie that was shocking. Um,
DANNY she’s not white either. Just
SLIM fair. Yes. True. All right, we’re that’s one put that on the board. The old lady bear I thought that was very the way that she was drawn or designed was cracking me up I What was the section where they’re going through that like volcanic location where they were running through and like there was steam coming up from the ground? Yeah. I don’t know what was the
DANNY elephant graveyard from The Lion King.
SLIM That’s what I thought of when I saw that. It looked awesome. I wish like these are the matte paintings, any design backgrounds of that entire area. That was probably one of my favorite visual locations of the of the movie like any anytime, Disney drawl is, like, dark or scary or death related. I’m always like wow this is pretty crazy. I want to see more of it so that was probably my number three Danny honorable mentions final reading for Brother Bear. Um,
DANNY I don’t know that I have many honorable mentions. I do love the scenes of community with the tribe up on that rock and I just want to live in a rock area like that. But yeah, I love this film. I really do. I love the music I love the animation I love the story. Now I’m sitting I’m still at five stars on letterbox I’ll always five star this film I got to keep it on people’s radar because it’s it’s one of the most overlooked and one of the greats for Disney Animation
SLIM five banged these bears Pardo honorable mentions finally
PROTO Yeah, I was my honorable mentions mostly are about the other bears when they get to the river.
PROTO How about the bear with the toupee? [Slim & Danny laugh]
SLIM What a sentence.
PROTO I have old ass bear at the salmon ravine
SLIM salmon are being also looks pretty. Pretty cool on my TV. Just the I mean just the color everything look great.
PROTO Yeah, those back Yeah, they were really great. Then there’s another bear that’s randomly yelling Russian.
DANNY The Russian bears.
PROTO Yeah, I’m not sure how that worked. Yeah, I struggled with this movie. I’ll be honest. You know, I love that Danny loves this movie. But save space via this. This was a this was a tough watch for me. And I was confused was why? Because it seems like there’s a lot of love for it. And at one point, I Googled at the end, I said, I Googled, why does Brother Bear sock? And I got all these I got all these Reddit threads saying like, why do people think Brother Bear sucks? And I was like, No, that’s not what I’m looking for the answer? Yeah. There’s people talking about their love for Brother Bear. So that really threw me off. But it’s I mean, I think it’s great that people love it. It just doesn’t really work for me. I mean, we’re not talking Hercules bad. This is still a two star movie for me. But I just can’t imagine ever revisiting this. I’m sorry, Danny. But
DANNY that’s just me. I mean, it’s sitting at a three and a half on letterbox. That’s not bad.
SLIM Three and a half stars. Holy cow. Yeah, that’s nothing to shake a stick at. Pearl. I mean, we have our T shirt says three stars is good. You know? 3.5 stars.
DANNY Yeah, well.
SLIM Yeah, the Justice shirt is everything.
PROTO No, I got the just these ratings.
SLIM Now announcing a new investigation into the letterbox average weighted ratings. My honorable mentions is that Tina question mark, which I referenced earlier can live it. I actually didn’t get that it was the mom that he killed. I don’t know if that was obvious to everyone for the majority this story until like, later on.
DANNY I think when you were living the life of CODA you didn’t know. That was the reveal.
SLIM Appreciate that. I met three and a half stars for Brother Bear. I think visually there are some visual, lush aspects of this movie that I honestly don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere. I think like Lilo and Stitch also visually has that lushness. But this might look even better than Lilo and Stitch. With that said, there are some obvious cultural issues that don’t shake out very well these days. But looks great. had a fun time with the sounds Brother Bear. Got a watch to the end of that. We did too. And um, August,
DANNY I went with my gut.
SLIM You always have to go with your gut.
DANNY I know that now.
SLIM You always have to go with your gut.
PROTO I’m launching an investigation into your gut. [Danny & Slim laugh]
DANNY Please stay out of my guts
SLIM I’m gonna isolate that audio and make that soon as I can. We did get an email and there’s a video attached. I’m not sure I did not look through the video. I should have done that before. So I was not prepping successfully. So we’ll use our imagination. This comes from Jarrett. You can shoot us a letter or VM at 70 Mm pod.com. Hey, this is Jared first time writing the show I’ve heard while he mentioned a few times in the last few weeks. I love the movie. I tried several times to get my daughter Mara to watch it. This clip here is one of those times this was 2013 As far as I know she’s still not ever seen it. Thanks for what you do. This is Jared from Little Rock, Arkansas, our Kansas depending on how you want to say the show, let me see if I can quickly make this a clip that we can listen too sorry,
PROTO Kansas
DANNY was Wally
SLIM My God, how can anyone hate Wiley bet much he just wants to be loved. You know? He just wants to be loved. Also the artwork. did the same thing earlier. Oh my god, yeah, gorgeous artwork on my bed. You he’s,
DANNY Kevin’s in our DMS, we need to launch an investigation.
SLIM I think we need a new investigation. Let’s see. So next week we got to talk about next week. We got to talk about next week. Okay, it’s the fifth week of August. We have a brand new theme coming in September. We have discussed that internally. We were not ready to announce it yet. There’s so many moving pieces. We’ll be announcing that next week. But we had a free week essentially. So we thought it might be fun to go through the archives see what we’ve wanted to do for a little bit but for whatever reason haven’t been able to do. And one movie jumped out at us comes from a recent director that we’ve covered and which is obviously a big plus. But we’re also going to be bringing on a special guest that we wanted to bring on for quite some time for this movie specifically to this is a movie he’s wanted to do for the length the history of the show years or two years who years is streaming on amazon prime you can get a criterion blu ray we will be covering next week. 1981 Michael Mann thief, starring James Caan. That will be our episode. Next week.
PROTO I need to go back to man.
SLIM To kill that I have to go back and our special guest will be our dear friend Chuck for has been Charles for has been cartoonist. You might know him as co host of the baton spider pod. He has graciously made time in his calendar to become a guest next week on this show. Chuck is probably not going to listen to this so I’m allowed to promote Chuck so if you don’t know our friend Charles Forsman, Chuck fors and we call him he’s a cartoonist, he is the creator of I’m not okay with this, which became a Netflix television show. He’s the creator of the end of the effing world, which became a Netflix television show. He is doing a graphic novel for vinegar syndrome is a sequel to New York ninja, which was the boutique release that vinegar syndrome put out that the movie had no audio they re recorded created audio for the movie. So Chuck is very talented. I’m only saying this because he he’s not gonna listen to this and he hates when we talk about the stuff that he does we can do when he’s here. And we’re very lucky to consider him a friend of ours. So I’m excited for him to come on the podcast. We think pro thief
PROTO We’ve all been holding off watching this for years. I’ve won custody, Chuck. Yeah. So this is this is very exciting. This is a long time coming. We had Chuck was our first guest back in first few months of doing the show, so I can’t wait to get him back on here. Remember there Chuck.
SLIM You did not like the movie that he did. All his first movie sucked.
PROTO So this is redemption.
DANNY redemption for Chuck.
SLIM Redemption, James Caan then next week we’ll announce the theme for September brand new theme we have never done before proto any closing thoughts for this week?
PROTO Brother Bear Yeah, go out and have like a bear man.
SLIM Right. Love like a bear. We’ll see you next week for Thief with our close personal friend Chuck.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
