4 Things We Can All Agree On!

Loyal readers, you may have recently heard somewhat concerning the U.S. Government's inability to agree on [who knows what] and now NASA employees are bored at home and you can no longer tour the Statue of Liberty. Lots of clever photoshopped images are flying around your Facebook news feed, the majority having to do with the fact that when the rest of us don't do our jobs it's us that gets fired, not everybody else. Some people are calling doomsday, but most are just calling for the states to all get together and pass a "If congress can't do their job, elect a new freaking congress" law. Neither of those are likely to happen. In short, nobody seems to be able to agree on anything anymore. We dedicated this morning to searching for anything and everything that absolutely 100% of everyone everywhere should be able to agree on. We came up with this short list:

#1 Jalepenos Are Not, Nor Will They Ever Be, The "New Bacon"

Could this happen with Jalepenos? Freaking no it couldn't.

This blasphemous article from the inexplicably popular time-wasting site Buzzfeed has been bouncing around Facebook recently, titled "13 Reasons Why Jalapeno Is The New Bacon". If you actually check that link out, you'll notice the list includes exactly zero legitimate reasons explaining why that is the case--probably because there aren't any reasons why that's the case. The article suggests that "Bacon's time is over", when in reality the only thing that's "over" is that punk's internet writing career.

Leave the list-based writing to the professionals.

Bacon's time is not over, because bacon is awesome. We're pretty confident we don't even like bacon nearly as much as most people, and we still think it's delicious. In fact, let's just all agree right now that food in general is awesome.

Taco Pizza exists.

#2 Tom Hardy Is Awesome And Should Be In More Movies

This one really doesn't take much more explanation, at least for anyone who's ever seen any of his major films. The guy kicks butt in everything he's in, and still manages to avoid the overhype that so often accompanies big names in movies.

Oh, hey, speaking of Leo Dicaprio, here's a shot of him starring in "The Wolf of Wallstreet"....or...wait, maybe this picture is from "Gatsby". Or maybe he's just being himself at some awards show. Does it count as acting if every role you play is "rich white man who throws parties", and in your spare time you're that same exact guy? We totally do not need two movies about a guy who throws lavish parties until they reach their tragic end, and typecasting Dicaprio as the universal go-to irresponsible rich man is about as creative as casting Bruce Greenwood as a really really important person.

Bruce Greenwood: National Security Advisor, Head of USR, Two U.S. Presidents, 

and Captain of the Starship Enterprise.

Anyway, back to where we started this whole thing- Tom Hardy is generally only in movies you'd consider to be of the "Top 20 movies I'd keep if I could only keep 20 movies the rest of my life" caliber. Most of you saw 'Inception':

Hardy seen here on the left alongside Joseph Gordon Leavitt, who looks uncomfortable with being

only the second best looking gentleman on camera.

And basically everyone saw 'The Dark Knight Rises', where Hardy was tasked with giving us all a villain good enough that we could almost forget the Joker isn't in the movie.

"Acting is hard when you can't show your face, right?"

"Yeah, plus we have to speak in these ridiculous voices. How are people even taking us seriously?"

And then there was the movie 'Warrior', which somehow everybody missed, where [No major spoilers] Hardy plays a troubled fighter who enters a UFC tournament for deeply emotional reasons we can't express here without spoilers. That's a totally pathetic excuse of a summary for one of the most emotional movies you'll ever watch....and it's a fighting movie. Seriously, Top 20.

Are you the type that never really gets choked up at movies? 

This scene will make you cry manly tears.

Seriously this is on Netflix, go watch it right now. Avoid reading the plot synopsis if you can, it's better to not know.

#3 Mister Rogers Was An Incredible Human Being

Mister Rogers was a rare type of individual. A full summary is on a wikipedia page here, but instead of paraphrasing his life story, here are a few videos that will give you an idea of what this guy was really like. First of all, here's Rogers going to bat for all of us back at the start of his career:

Things get real at 3:44 if you aren't patient enough to watch the whole thing

You earn a Platinum Man Card when you can sit in a senate hearing and, in six minutes of testimony, completely win over everyone in the room through sheer sincerity. Here he is earning perhaps the most deserved lifetime achievement award ever:



Holy crap, Mister Rogers just made an auditorium full of A-list celebrities cry. If the tears aren't rolling yet, don't worry- we've got one more for you. Here he is, saying what he would say to you if he were ever to meet you in person:



#4 Ohio State Football Has Class

We're nearing the end of this post, but we saved this one for last because it's extra incredible. The man in the following video is Dom Tiberi, who's been a part of the local sports family in Athens, Ohio for two solid decades. His daughter Maria was a student at Ohio State, but was killed in a car wreck about a week before this video was taken. This is after the team's win over Wisconsin:

Say what you want about college athletes, if they know one thing it's how to treat family. 

That's it for our list today, but we'll continue to brainstorm and bring you all more things we can all agree on in order to promote hope in the idea that at some point the country will get its act together.


-L

Author Beat-down: J.K. Rowling

So it's been like three straight articles we've posted without really any hating involved, which we're sure is disappointing to most of you because let's be honest- that's what we do best. But the mounting heat of rant-provoking inner rage can only sit idle for so long before erupting in the form of an extremely opinionated article by an amateur writer criticizing the merits of immeasurably more successful authors. But if us inexperienced people weren't allowed to criticize those far more qualified than us, how would we deal with our deep-seated jealousy of the rich and famous? If we can't take shots at those uber-successful individuals we watch on TV and find joy in yelling at them for totally sucking (despite their professional status), would anyone even know who Tony Romo is?

Makes 11.5 Million this year; considered "really not very good" 

by 83% of the country [citation needed].

Here is the first of what will almost definitely become a regular feature here on Mind Grenades, "Author Beat-downs", which means pretty much exactly what you're thinking it means.

J.K. Rowling Sucks.

This is what your face looks like right now.

Yeah, we went there. There's one popular criticism of Rowling's Harry Potter series that we aren't going to make- "It's too childish". You know what? It is childish, because it was written for children. 

The first book in the series was published in 1997, when the generation that would one day push the series to record-breaking popularity wasn't allowed to hear mom read them a chapter until they brushed their teeth and got into jammies.

Picture of "Kid in Jammies" unavailable due to our photo department's unwillingness

to be tagged by every NSA watch list in existence.

First of all, kids don't really need character development. They open up a book and read about Emily Elizabeth and her really big dog and don't really question what Emily Elizabeth's hopes and dreams are, her aspirations, her faults, none of that. For a more mature crowd, character development is like, really important. That's the basic principle that forces movie studios to make every first superhero movie in a trilogy an origin story. It's why Iron Man came before Iron Man 2; nobody would've liked Iron Man 2 without the origin story that got our attention in the first Iron Man. Actually, bad example, because Iron Man 2 really wasn't that great. Let's start over: Batman Begins came first to show everyone what a real superhero looks like, then came Dark Knight to capitalize on all the goodwill Batman Begins earned the franchise. You have to be invested in a character to care about the story.

Character development is what George RR Martin uses to lure you into his trap 

before he makes you cry bitter tears. 

Let's examine the Harry Potter franchise for a moment. There isn't any interesting character development in these books; Harry's success as a protagonist is baffling, because in addition to being dull, passive, and a bit troubled, he's also completely unlikable. Maybe he's so universally popular with our generation because he gets to go to a magical school in Europe where he has a vault of infinite money and everything is handed to him for free because he's so special, since that's basically every high school girl's dream anyway.

It's especially painful to observe Rowling's female characters, of which there are like five. Quick, describe Cho Chang in five words. Um...pretty? Probably? And Asian! Definitely Asian. Despite literally every other person in the whole Potter universe being from the UK. I guess we're looking past that. How about Luna? Odd? Docile? Quiet? Unimportant for 97% of the series?

The entire Harry Potter franchise has less female eye-candy in it than Nolan's Batman trilogy.

We didn't even think that was possible.

And Harry Potter, the future savior of all wizard kind, what's he have going for him exactly? His personality is not one of humility and grit and hard work as his harsh upbringing mistakenly denotes, instead he's pretentious and completely lacks the inner fighting spirit it would take to conquer a truly formidable foe.

Seriously, summon that little spirit-deer of yours again, Harry. That was friggin' adorable.

Even as Harry ages he just becomes more hot-headed, irrational, self-centered, and kind of a douche in books 5-7. Sure character flaws are important, but they have to be balanced out by something good; his only positive character trait is that he's destined to save the world. So what? That doesn't automatically make him awesome, he's still a little snotty teenager. Even if your central character is going to save the world, you have to give people a reason to actually cheer for them.

You either know why this image is here, or you don't. If you don't, you have homework to do.

His sidekick Ron is even more dull and is basically Harry's adopted family, so we're treated to like 10,000 pages of boring unimportant stuff that happens at Ron's house throughout the series. Hermione is a stand-in for J.K. Rowling herself. She just is. Fred and George are your standard Merry and Pippin knockoffs. Ginny is mentioned like twice per book and is void of any personality whatsoever until Harry notices she has girl-parts around book 6, at which point Ginny...still has no personality but is now accidentally a main character. We can't list all the dry generic characters in Potter's universe here because it'd just take too long and we'd lose your attention, so just know that you're not missing anything. Let's move on...

Neville, the most celebrated accidental main character in the series. 

The books really should've been about him.

But hey, they're not serious adult fantasy books, they shouldn't be taken too seriously. There's not a lot of character development for Sam I am other than the fact that he's a picky eater, and everyone's okay with that. But, since the whole world has decided to put the Harry Potter series up on the fantasy genre-defining pedestal and effectively making the Harry Potter brand worth over 15 Billion dollars, we probably need to look at these books with something of a critical eye, which will cause any major Harry Potter fans to throw a fit because the very implication that they read thousands of pages of cliche, entry-level fantasy writing insults their intelligence. Which is funny, because everything about the following list insults the intelligence of anyone who's read any fictional novel above a 7th grade reading level:

Harry's constant need to be rescued by others, Ginny, Quiddich, Rowling's gender stereotypes that set feminism and whatever the dude version of feminism back 200 years, the absolutely awful attempts at romance including Harry's "relationships" with Cho and Ginny as well as Lupin/Tonks, Hagrid/giant woman, Alan Rickman/Harry's Mom, and the entire Dumbledore needlessly being gay thing. The blatant ripoffs of every major Lord of the Rings character, Rowling's unoriginal use of latin for magical spells and stupid made-up nonsense names for all proper nouns ("Diagon alley"......seriously?), the fact that Rowling dragged the series on for seven books instead of like four, Rowling's refusal to explore her most interesting ideas in favor of examining the lives of her bland main characters and their seven years of magical high school angst, 

Also, Ginny.

...Hermione's stupid time-machine plot device that everyone forgets about, a main villain Darth Vader would have backhanded for being really not all that threatening ever, pointless made-up creatures that padded an extra 4,000 pages onto the finished series, the fact that Hermione is obviously a placeholder for Rowling, the very nature of magic being completely understood and controlled by stupid teenage kids which renders it wholly uninteresting, the laziest suckiest most boring wizard duels ever, Harry being completely unlikable, irrational, possessive, and only a fraction as cool as Percy Jackson, Ron's stupid face, the deaths of characters far more interesting than the entire rest of the series by unexplained means at random places in the plot which renders the potential emotional power of such a character death completely pointless,

Well I suppose I'm dead now. 

Yeah me too, and I won't be coming back as Dumbledore The White because Rowling

likes to keep her borrowed material subtle.

Why is everything in the wizarding world a bluish green tint?

...the almost-deaths of super boring characters nobody cares about at times when the plot really does call for some action, the lack of Chris Columbus' influence in movies 3-8, the fact that there was 8 movies, the fact that Harry just all of a sudden has that stupid stone in his pocket at the end of book 1 because "magic", the fact that 100,000 wizards attend a stupid Quiddich tournament and can't overpower a dozen or so amateur wizard-terrorists and their leader who's only at about 10% health for like six straight books, the very idea of a Quiddich tournament, people who refer to non-fans of the books as "muggles" despite their own complete lack of magical capabilities, and the fact that the first book in this series wasn't called "Sirius Black and The Escape From Azkaban".

The recent news of Rowling's interest in further exploring the Harry Potter universe should surprise absolutely nobody, since last year she branched out and tried to write another book, "The Casual Vacancy", and nobody freaking cared. Reviews ranged from kind of almost positive because columnists who criticize J.K. Rowling know they'll lose readers, to truthful:

"More than 500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature"-Jan Moir, Daily Mail

And then there were those critics who included in their review some crack about how the book lacked the "magic" of her previous writings. Har-har, idiotic book critics, we hope somebody goes all Joker on you with your own freaking pen.

J.K. Rowling is not a bad person. In fact, her rags-to-riches story is inspiring and she's the only person we've ever heard of to go from a Billionaire to "just" a still-several-millionaire because of charitable giving. All we're saying is if you can only write one thing, and even that one thing is actually not that great, there's a chance you might not be the best author around. Highest-earning? Sure. Record-shattering. Phenomenon-sparking. Good for her. But squeezing your only success for all it's worth years past its expiration date isn't cool, not when it's Harry Potter, not when it's Pixar, not ever.

For shame, Pixar. For shame.

If there's one thing that signifies a brilliant writer, it's the rare ability to take your readers in and out of different worlds and make them believe they were there with nothing more than just the ink on the page. You've proven you can tell us about your kiddish magical fantasy land, J.K. Rowling, now be an author and take us somewhere we haven't been seven times already, before Louis CK makes fun of you.




-L

In Defense Of Miley

"I am going to make mistakes and I am not perfect. I never intended for any of this to happen and I am truly sorry if I have disappointed anyone" -Miley Cyrus, April 2008

In case you haven't heard....okay let's be honest, you've heard. You've probably seen. We bet you've been trying to UN-see. Miley Cyrus finally allowed the wheels that turn the Pop Music machine to crush her, her once fun teen-idol image finally thrashed beyond repair at this year's Video Music Awards. Hers is a tragic tale, her downward spiral towards obscurity a product of the multi-million dollar music money-making machine, and like so many before her and so many yet to come, she is completely in over her head.

Remember Her First Single?

In short, Miley's Disney show got huge at an extremely accelerated rate, and Disney looked to capitalize: Miley Cyrus released her first single "Party In The USA" to make money off all the parents who knew buying Hannah Montana crap would silence their yapping preteen daughters for a day or two. And you know what? Call us crazy, but it's actually not a terrible song.

Still with us? Wow...thanks everyone, you're more loyal than we anticipated.

True, "Party In The USA" is a bubblegum-pop-candy-fluff song when you listen to it on the radio, but have you ever taken a look through the lyrics with a raspy angst-filled Adele voice in mind? After all, the apparent meaning of a song can be changed radically depending on what style you play it in. Imagine if a soulful up-and-coming country artist from Nashville penned the following lyrics about her very sudden rise to fame and her difficulty coping with the new expectations of her career in the form of a ballad:

Get to the club in my taxi cab

Everybody's lookin' at me now

Like "Who's that chick that's rockin' kicks

She's gotta be from out of town"

So hard with my girls not around me

It's definitely not a Nashville party

'Cause all I see are stilettos

...I guess I never got the memo

Feel like hoppin' on a flight,

Back to my hometown tonight,

Something stops me every time,

The DJ plays my song, and I feel alright

This is a song about pressure, being an outcast, and being split between wanting to fit into a new world whilst longing to return to the one you know. The only way to cope with the drastic change in lifestyle is to get lost in music. What's wrong about that?

The song would hold a lot more weight with older audiences if it wasn't so dressed up in sparkles and teenage dreams. If you still hate the song because you can't get the pop-y melody out of your head, behold the (slightly more enjoyable than you want to admit) punk version of "Party In The USA":

The band is "Life On Repeat", show them some love on Facebook

So we've established the tone and meaning of a song can be altered with some clever musicianship, why are we talking about this? Because Miley's first single foreshadowed everything in her direct future- the pressure to fit in to mainstream pop music is what turned the Nashville teen icon into a total lunatic in a matter of a few years.

Because Like Any Business, Record Companies Want To Maximize Profit

Of course if Miley Cyrus burst onto the scene with her weird plastic VMA two-piece directly after establishing a young teen fanbase with the success of Hannah Montana, her career would've flopped right out of the gate. Her first album went triple-platinum and was essentially just the soundtrack to her show. Since then, each album has pushed her persona more in direction of the other top-grossing pop artists in the industry. She tries her hand at songwriting from time to time, but all the edgy party-girl crap is written for her by the powers that be. Unfortunately for her, instead of painting Miley as a fun teen princess with the same straight-laced image of other Nashville country stars,

Miley Cyrus was being molded with each progressing album to resemble a much different type of "musician"...

Oy.

If you're a big record label person, you know Lady Gaga up there is selling out arenas and making you ridiculous amounts of money. You want more money. You created Nicki Minaj, the black Lady Gaga. Your Miley Cyrus fans were growing older and edgier, and Miley needed to keep up. As those fans grew up, you caused Miley Cyrus to evolve from her teen icon image to someone the VMAs could rely on to carry on their proud tradition of shocking (and therefore highly publicized) performances.

A record label uses you until your popularity has peaked, and then finds someone else better, younger, and more trendy to pick up where you left off. Some musicians survive it and spend a few more years enjoying mildly successful careers, most don't. Labels aren't in the business of taking care of their artists; they make it their business to make sure their musicians are as profitable as possible until their fifteen minutes are up. And in about the fourteenth minute, they get the most use out of you by drumming up controversy around you and ultimately extinguishing your career with one more flurry of attention.

The bottom one is Ashlee Simpson; how quickly we all forget.

This Isn't Some Conspiracy Theory About Record Labels- It's A Fact

In fact, there's an entire song about it. Billy Squier's "The Stroke" isn't about sex; it's about the point in every musician's career when after years of hard work and dedication and profitability, the producers and label executives and all the other rich people who've invested in you and claimed to be your friend have finally used you to the furthest extent they could, and now they're dropping you face first into the ocean to fend for yourself. 

Put your right hand out, give a firm handshake

talk to me about that one big break

Spread your ear pollution, both far and wide

keep your contributions by your side...

Put your left foot out, keep it all in place

work your way right into my face

First you tried to bet me, you make my backbone slide

When you find you've bled me, slip on by...

Miley Cyrus' popularity peaked too fast too early, record labels are trying to milk her popularity for all it's worth before she's finally washed up. At this point we'd like to remind everyone that Cyrus was just 14 when fame was dropped into her lap, and she dealt with it about as well as any teenager could. She lasted a whole seven years before she was sadly transformed into the puppet we all saw on the VMA video on Youtube. 

The girl is 20 years old and has already gone through a rise to fame and fall from grace, and is about to release her "edgiest" album yet- thus the attention-grabbing VMA show. Her own star power isn't enough to promote an album anymore, she needs publicity stunts, no matter how horrific. "So what?" you say, "She seemed pretty okay with acting like an idiot in front of everyone, why should we feel bad for her? That was her choice."

It Was Almost Definitely Not Her Choice

Does this look like a natural change to you?

Hey, I think that girl went to my high school.

Holy crap, Pink has a sister?

Hollywood dressing up its stars in ridiculous apparel and makeup and ignoring the actual personality of an individual in favor of a fake one in order to get maximum attention, that sounds kind of like

This.

**Editor's Note: This article was almost called "4 ways the music industry is basically The Hunger Games".

There are entire decades' worth of music dedicated to the fact that record labels and music industry titans are in it for the money, not the music. Several genres are even based on this basic truth and the overall theme of rebellion, but it sneaks into every musician's songwriting. Here's Sara Bareilles being less-than-subtle:

I learned the hard way that they all say

Things you wanna hear

My heavy heart sinks deep down under

You and your twisted words

Your help just hurts

You are not what I thought you were

Hello to high and dry

That's from her hit "Love Song", which isn't directed at some guy, but in fact actually written about the studio guys who told her she needed to pen a hit love song for their record that they could play on the radio. She wrote "Love Song" out of spite and the label guys were basically like "Yeah this will work great, thanks". Sara Bareilles' most popular song contains in its lyrics a description similar to Billy Squier's regarding the lip-service you get when you first arrive on the music scene, and the feeling of desertion when the scene moves on without you. Here's Pink being blatant:

L.A. told me, "You'll be a pop star

all you have to change is everything you are"

Tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears

She's so pretty, that just ain't me

By the way, L.A. refers to the person, not the place.

In conclusion, Miley Cyrus is just another puppet being used to fuel the ever-burning fire of crappy pop-music money-making. She made a fool of herself, they all eventually do. Her fame is diminishing and sooner rather than later her circle of industry people keeping her afloat will abandon her to deal with her shattered image by herself, even though it was that same circle who did the shattering. Miley doesn't write most of her songs, she doesn't choreograph the VMAs, and she has little control over the direction of her career. 

The music business is one of contracts and obligations and extortion, and despite her rapid deterioration into another teen idol-gone-bad, she has our sympathy for being put in an impossible position at an age when most girls are finally getting their braces off. Miley may appear crazy on the surface, but deep down there is a sad girl scarred by the music business who doesn't know of any way out other than to do what she's told, even when she's told to do Robin Thicke.

Who by the way has a wife and kids.

-L

3 Reasons Ben Affleck Will Be A Decent Batman

Holy crap, calm down internet, everything's going to be just fine. The Batman/Superman crossover slated to come out in a few years has already generated levels of public outcry only previously encountered during last year's Twinkie rage. In case you haven't heard, Ben Affleck has been cast as the next Batman, and will appear in Man of Steel 2. Apparently some people aren't too happy about it. Before you do anything stupid like say you won't go see this movie, here are some things to keep in mind.

Stop pretending you aren't going to see this movie, 

guy-who-swore-he'd-move-to-Canada-after-last-year's-election.

#1 It Was Never, Ever Going to Be Christian Bale.

As much as we all enjoy Christopher Nolan's dark Batman universe, there will be no more Batbale. Nolan always intended for it to be a trilogy, and his Batman is independent of any crossover universes DC intends to produce. Lots of fans were disappointed that Bale wasn't offered a truck of money to reprise the role, but those same fans must have missed every important element of Bale's aging character in "Dark Knight Rises"- the whole point of that movie was to express that Bale's batman had reached an end, questioning whether the city needed Batman and whether Bale himself needed Batman anymore. The end of the movie is cathartic, with Bale living a normal life abroad and someone else carrying on his work.

That's why this scene happened.

Affleck's Batman will be an entirely separate entity, and it's for the best. Trying to tie it in with Nolan's universe won't work, and it would only allow comparisons to be drawn- the people who want to make money know this. That's why Man of Steel's Batman won't necessarily be better or worse than Bale's, just "different". And, worse case scenario...

#2 At Worst, He Will Still Be The Second Best Batman.

Before you freak out about the merits of "Batman Forever", consider what this movie will be. "Man of Steel" finally got Superman right, and the sequel should be equally terrific. Henry Cavill is a quality leading man, and adding Ben Affleck to the mix in a slightly more mature and possibly borderline mentor-ish role would be totally awesome. They didn't cast a young unknown actor because they don't want Batman to be young or inexperienced. They don't need to rehash Batman's origins, Warner Bros knows everyone already saw Batman Begins. Not only can Affleck pull off being the intelligent, calculating, butt-kicking Batman, he can also be a believable Bruce Wayne, which is tough to do. Don't believe it? Then apparently you skipped out on seeing "Argo".

#3 The Dude Is An Oscar-Winning Actor.

"The Town" was a good movie; "Argo" was something else. Seriously, go see it. The guy knows what he's doing, you can't hold "Daredevil" against him anymore. Daredevil came out ten years ago, back when Halle Berry won an Academy Award for Best Actress- things have changed in ten years. That was before Hollywood even figured out superhero movies, spewing out a really awful Hulk movie, two really awful Fantastic 4 movies, and a semi-sequel to Daredevil that nobody saw.

Also, ten years ago Jennifer Garner was still in movies. It was a different time.

The "Daredevil sucks" argument against Affleck is pretty baseless, because honestly it wasn't the acting that was bad, it was a combination of a bad screenplay and the plot in general. Affleck is a pretty self-aware guy, he knows he's taking on a role people love, he's aware of how brutal comic-book nerds can be, and best of all, he's not afraid to laugh at himself.



Give the guy some credit, he's going to do fine as Batman and the crossover movie will be awesome. We're still not sold on how successful DC's "Justice League" plans will be, but this is a big step in the right direction. And even if you disagree and think Affleck is a stupid casting choice, you're still going to see the movie anyway so pipe down and stop being negative- Batman and Superman are going to be in the same movie; this is cause to be excited.


**UPDATE: For even more credible reasons Ben Affleck can pull off Batman, head over to ScreenRant and read this article.

**ANOTHER UPDATE: Here are the negative reactions to Christopher Nolan casting Heath Ledger as the Joker a few years ago.


-L

4 Forgotten Disney Movies (That Are Totally Awesome)

Everyone's got a basic idea of what constitutes a Disney classic. Aladdin, The Lion King, The Beauty and The Beast, and that stupid one with the mermaid all sit comfortably on the figurative shelf of childhood nostalgia. But then there are the Disney movies that time forgot, and we don't mean the ones that came out in the 1940's that only pretentious snobs and animation students have the patience to watch and discuss.

If "Make Mine Music" is your favorite Disney movie, you are a hipster, and there's little hope for you.

There are Disney films released in the past two decades that you probably forgot about even though you totally saw them. Somehow the marketing people at Disney have grown powerful in their ability to absolutely bury films they don't really want attached to their brand, favoring the way overdone "pretty princess" paint-by-numbers storytelling style and, in turn, abandoning some of their most original movies to be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Seriously though, how great was this movie?

These are the forgotten films of Disney, each worthy of the praise so often heaped upon the other less imaginative and less deserving films in the Disney Canon.

#4 The Great Mouse Detective

The Great Mouse Detective has more action packed into its plot than perhaps any other movie in the Disney library. There really isn't a dull moment throughout the entire movie, and considering "The Rescuers" was somehow deemed a success despite being painfully slow-paced, you'd think Disney would be all about promoting another movie starring heroic anthropomorphized mice. Most Disney movies can't hope to match scenes as awesome as the toy store escape scene, and in The Great Mouse Detective, that's like only the third-best scene (behind the mousetrap escape scene and the final confrontation inside the Big Ben).

This was also the first movie in what would become a longstanding Disney tradition to feature the villain so heavily, which might not sound like a big deal, but imagine the impact of having anyone but James Woods voice Hades years later; Hercules very well could have bombed, and that would've been tragic. Also, some guy named Jeremy Irons voiced Scar in Lion King, and without any precedent for major actors landing villainous roles in Disney films, that may not have come to pass.

By the way, you know how earlier we mentioned a few of the 90's classics you know and love? Well, without this movie Disney Animation Studios was looking at no longer being a profitable branch of the Disney moneymaking machine. Fortunately, it did well enough that "The Little Mermaid" got the go-ahead and made big bags of money, and the animation studio survived to create some of the most memorable animated movies in existence, and arguably one of the greatest films of all time.

#3 Aladdin and the King of Thieves

Technically, Disney chooses to just ignore all their awful direct-to-video sequels and pretend like they aren't part of their company's catalogue, so even though they have produced at least one terrible low-budget sequel for every one of your favorite Disney classics in order to make some extra cash at the expense of appearing a tad greedy and having no standards whatsoever, as a brand they continue to pretend like they only make original high-quality family-friendly memories.

Disney gets away with their misguided money-grubbing projects 
by bashfully stating "Uh yeah, that totally wasn't us..."

What Aladdin and The King of Thieves accomplished was nothing short of miraculous; not only was it a direct-to-video sequel, but it's not even the first sequel tacked onto the original's success in cruddy sequel form. Aladdin Two: the one nobody saw was your standard crap Disney ripoff of the original, lacking every single element that made the first so good (including Robin Williams). However, in this surprisingly impressive third installment they got Robin Williams to reprise the Genie, wrote original music for it, and whipped up a plot that's actually pretty awesome-

A prominent royal couple is about to be married, but before the wedding can be completed the legendary forty thieves unleash a stampede on the festivities and use the distraction to loot the palace's treasury room in search of a powerful staff which unlocks an omnipotent oracle- So far, so good.

The oracle reveals that trapped within the ranks of the forty thieves is the hero's father. Shocked to hear his father is alive at all, our protagonist tracks the thieves to their secret mountain hideout only to discover his father is the leader of the marauders, and the only way he can escape the hideout alive is to join the ranks of the forty thieves by defeating this guy in single combat:

It's revealed that the thieves are searching for an ultimate treasure hidden on a legendary vanishing isle, a city that sinks into the sea and never surfaces in the same place twice. We won't go into any more detail because seriously if you haven't seen this movie you need to go take care of that. But turn that plot into a live-action film and you've got a pretty successful summer blockbuster on your hands. The music throughout is solid, the animation on par with the original Aladdin film, and one could argue it's actually better than the original since there are less scenes about Jasmine and more fights to the death and Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunting.

#2 The Black Cauldron

You knew this was coming.

The Black Cauldron was supposed to be an epic animated adventure based on "The Chronicles of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander, and maintained a darker tone than past Disney movies. It was made in the 80's when Disney was still trying to be creative instead of just pushing princess crap on all us 90's kids. When a brand new snot-nosed studio chairman named Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that it be edited beyond recognition because he didn't like it, literally everyone was like "Um no, it's almost all done, buddy" and Katzenberg personally started chopping it to bits before Disney's CEO finally made him stop. The damage was done, and the ticked-off animators later said the finished product lacked "the humor, pathos, and the fantasy which had been so strong in Lloyd Alexander's work. The story had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it was heartbreaking to see such wonderful material wasted."

However, due to Disney's unwillingness to acknowledge the film's existence and the fact that the movie is still extremely cool, it has become the underground cult classic Disney film for all the kids who wanted to be different and needed an opinion that stood out from the crowd. 

Lloyd Alexander himself had this to say regarding the adaptation of his work:

First, I have to say, there is no resemblance between the movie and the book. Having said that, the movie in itself, purely as a movie, I found to be very enjoyable. I had fun watching it. What I would hope is that anyone who sees the movie would certainly enjoy it, but I'd also hope that they'd actually read the book. The book is quite different. It's a very powerful, very moving story, and I think people would find a lot more depth in the book.

So despite its failure to capture the depth of the story it's based on, the movie is still worth watching. Much like The Great Mouse Detective's overlooked contributions to what would eventually become Disney's formula for success, The Black Cauldron was the film that established the importance of a terrific film score, the significance of choosing a project with fascinating source material, and--most importantly--was the first Disney film to use that totally awesome slow-approaching undead army clip.

Relevant

#1 Atlantis: The Lost Empire

By all accounts, this movie was a success. Released in 2001 with excellent usage of CG animation at a time when that was starting to be all the rage (Emperor's new groove was released six months prior, Lilo and Stitch would be released the following year), Atlantis was supposed to have its own spin-off TV show and an underwater attraction at Disneyland until that all got cancelled because critics were accusing it of having an "unclear audience" and its "absence of songs". So, this action-adventure movie which uniquely separated itself from the entire decade of films that preceded it and featured a fantastically brilliant comic-bookish visual style and intense storytelling was buried because it didn't match the rest of Disney's childish sing-along crap.

"EVERY MOVIE MUST BE THIS." -Di$ney

Atlantis is an awesome science-fiction movie with everything you'd want in a adventure film, and what's more- you can still enjoy it today because it's watchable for audiences over the age of 9, unlike some other movies we could think of.

We really can't sum up just how great this movie is, and how unfairly it's been treated ever since Disney decided to stick with awful childish movies like Lilo and Stitch. To really get a feel for what this movie's about, here's the totally rad trailer:

More awesome in the first 15 seconds of this trailer than all 74 minutes of "Oliver and Company"

This movie has an award-winning soundtrack, the voice talents of Michael J. Fox, James Garner, and Leonard Nimoy, and several epic action sequences that simply leave no time for a special musical number. It's unfortunate that Disney disregards this movie as a winner simply because critics didn't like that it wasn't geared towards little girls, since that's actually the best part about it. It even has all the staples of a Disney product; establish the main character as a sympathetic figure with something to prove in the first five minutes? check. Milo chases down some fatcats with his theory regarding the submerged civilization and is utterly shut down. Side characters that steal the show? Also check.

There really isn't anything wrong with this movie. It's fun. It's got good characters, good action scenes, an ancient mechanical leviathan, and this girl is the movie's princess:

Seriously just go watch it, and support the great Disney movies that get swept under the rug. 

-L