Awe, Gawrsh

I gotta be honest: I think Disney is overrated....
Not the ENTIRE Disney line of products, mind you; just the classic Mickey Mouse-Theme Park sort of Disney. Never saw the appeal.


I remember the ENTIRE WORLD constantly trying to sell me on Mickey Mouse and his crummy friends when I was a lad. "Hey, hey, kids. It's MICKEY MOUSE," some TV announcer would tease, and I'd roll my eyes. I mean, what has Mickey Mouse ever done for ME? And now that I mention it, what has Mickey Mouse done, like, EVER???

Seriously -- do you remember actually watching a Mickey Mouse cartoon that was made after the 1960s? No, you don't. Wanna know why??? -- Because Mickey HASN'T made a cartoon since the 1960s. He does jack squat. Similar to, say, Michael Jackson or Paul McCartney, Mickey Mouse is just a sad relic who coasts through life on the glory of his earlier work. He's contributed nothing to society in decades, and yet we revere him.

Every piece of Mickey Mouse propaganda that I have seen has included bits of black and white footage from the 1940s, and as far as I can tell, that's the last time Mickey really worked. I mean, sure -- he started that televised club with Annette Funicello back in the 60s, and maybe he's done a few cameos since then; but for the most part, given his level of fame, Mickey Mouse is shamefully lazy. Why is it that, like, the bear from Jungle Book had an afternoon TV series about his shipping business in the 90s, but not Mickey Mouse? How come Chip and Dale got a Rescue Ranger show while the supposedly-superior Mickey Mouse sat on his useless rump?? How is it that a program about a relative of Donald Duck's was the after-school diversion of choice for kids in my generation, instead of a program about friggin' MICKEY???


The point is that if Mickey Mouse is so great, Disney should be giving him more to do, instead of just forcing spinoffs about his friends down our throats.

And that brings me to another matter: Mickey's friends are sort of lame, as well.

I mean, there's just not a whole lot of CREATIVITY going on in these characters. Plus, they're illogical. Take a look at Goofy, for starters. What, exactly, is he supposed to be, anyway? Some kind of dog??? Well, if that's the case, and we're to believe that dogs are self-aware humanoid creatures in the Disney universe, how come Pluto (Mickey's dog) is totally different? Mickey orders around and takes care of this slobbering oaf of a canine while there are apparently other, much more advanced, dogs running their own lives. Who decides which is which?

C'mon. Why is it that MICE can have their own homes, girlfriends, and series of jobs while DOGS in the Disney universe remain inferior creatures with animal-like tendencies? I guess there are just some animals that get to emulate people, and others who just stay animals. Mice are just SO MUCH BETTER than dogs, apparently.


See, I've been playing this video game called Epic Mickey recently. It's supposed to be a Disney fan's ultimate dream -- a game that panders to those who delight in obscure trivia about Mickey and Friends by including snippets of classic cartoons, sketches of forgotten characters, and levels that replicate attractions at the famous Disney theme parks. Even though I've never really been much of a Disney fan, I thought I'd give the game a shot because...well, I wanted to see if I could understand what all of the fuss was about. Frankly, I've been less impressed than ever.

The characters -- lifted straight from classic Disney canon -- all look the same. It's like the Disney creative team drew up just a handful of vaguely animal-looking creatures, and decided to recycle them over and over again. Here, I'll show you:


See that...thing with the arrow pointed at his head? Yeah -- almost ALL of the characters in the Disney world are some variation on whatever he is. Unacceptable.

Why didn't the Disney people come up with more stuff??? They're friggin' LAZY, man!

Think about it. All they've given us are a couple of mice, a couple of ducks, a dog, and a WHOLE LOT of those things you see above. Making the situation even worse is the fact that they're all damned with unimaginative names (Marcus, Annabell, Pete). Not to mention, these freaks are almost totally lacking in personality.

Again, consider Mickey Mouse. Even if he WERE to still appear regularly in cartoons, why would we want him to? He doesn't really seem to have a purpose, other than to chuckle annoyingly and work in his garden (and maybe do battle with his sentient telephone from time to time). Hey, perhaps THAT'S the reason why Mickey isn't allowed out in public anymore: Disney knows that he's just too weak of a hero to meet the standards of today.

Pit Mickey Mouse and Friends up against Bugs Bunny and the Loony Toons crowd any day. The Loony Toons will win every time.


The Loony Tunes boast a stronger roster of characters on every level. From the hilarious shenanigans of Daffy Duck to the homicidal machinations of Wile E. Coyote, they've provided us with hours of quality entertainment for several rewarding decades. I wish there'd be a video game called Epic Bugs. I would totally play it.

And that's because, unlike Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny is a problem solver; he's a good role model. While Mickey is busy taking his girlfriend on a picnic, Bugs is dropping a friggin' anvil on some hapless hunter's head; while Mickey is walking down the street whistling his favorite tune, Bugs is outsmarting Martian invaders; while Mickey is taking a nap, Bugs is performing classic operas with brilliance and style. It is HE who should be the hero of American children. Drop an anvil on someone's head -- THAT'S a good message for kids, if you ask me!


And that's all I have to say about that.

Now here's a gruesome horror-comedy flick. Hopefully, its standards will be higher than Disney's.

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0858411/


Netflix description:
In this gory sequel to director Tim Sullivan's 2001 Maniacs, the hungry citizens of Pleasant Valley head well north of the Mason-Dixon for a second helping of flesh, setting their sights on a traveling reality show that's making a pit stop in Iowa. But the show's petulant stars -- a pair of sisters named Rome (Katy Marie Johnson) and Tina (Asa Hope) -- could alternately make a tasty meal or leave a bad taste in the Southerners' mouths.

Darn. We should be so lucky....

Nope -- 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is pretty crappy, folks. Let's just get that out of the way right now.

It's the sequel to a 2005 film called (you guess it!) 2001 Maniacs. That movie starred Robert Englund as a psychotic small town mayor in the southern United States. Some hapless travelers wind up in his community, -- called Pleasant Valley -- and find themselves cannibalized in short order. Very simple and not too original, but it was still a fairly decent film nonetheless. So what happens in the sequel?

Well, 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is pretty much the same thing, but not really. See, this time around, the cast of a sleazy reality show happens to stumble across the residents of Pleasant Valley out in the backwoods of some middle of nowhere state. Seems that the Pleasant Valley folk have taken their charming little culture of cannibalism on the road, traveling the countryside as a sort of freak show. They've set up shop out in this fielded-wooded kind of area, and begun preparations for their annual Guts 'N glory Jubilee. It's a wild party meant to commemorate the Civil War, and it usually involves killing Northerners.

Needless to say, our heroes in the semi-X-rated reality show cast are exactly that sort of people. Let the fun begin!


This one should have been great. I mean, I love a good Country-Bumpkin-Red-State-Psychos flick. These residents of Pleasant Valley are on a mission to kill and eat 2001 people from the North to avenge the wrongs of the Civil War, for God's sake. That's a GREAT idea for a movie!

But the execution here is all wrong. 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is woefully low-rent. Performances across the board are terrible (with the exception of Bill Moseley), and the sound mixing is noticeably bad. From first glance, we can tell that this picture was shot on a shoestring budget, and the filmmakers simply didn't have enough skill to overcome that handicap. Everything just looks so darn cheap.

Something else it's important to note about 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams is that it's really more of a comedy than a horror flick. I mean, sure -- there is an absurd amount of gore here, and some of the deaths go beyond the realm of sadistic, but the whole thing is presented with such joy and silliness that it just can't help but to be more comedic than scary. The problem, of course, is that the jokes are weak. This ain't witty or clever; it's just kind of sick. A movie like this can't be pulled off unless the people behind it are intelligent and talented.

It's as though writer-director Tim Sullivan was shouting to the world, "Look at me! See how much I can throw decency to the wind? Ain't I cool???" He's trying to flaunt nastiness, but it doesn't work because there's a fundamental quality issue with this film.


Granted, I'll give 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams some credit for having a remarkably good-looking cast that spends a great deal of time wearing less than clothes; but that's not enough to make the experience worth watching. I'd prefer to see these people in a GOOD movie with better writing and sets that don't look like the average suburban backyard.

If you want to see some hard core gore and murderization, then you may not be totally wasting your time by giving 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams a rental. However, the vast majority of film viewers (horror trolls and normal people alike) are advised to stay away. If anything, just watch the original.

2 out of 5.

b.