Oh, if only our childhood vacations had been filled with movies like “Eight Legged Freaks” and “Stuart Little 2,” instead of the films we actually had. Our childhoods would have been different. We would have grown into different people, less likely to be manipulated and more capable of protecting ourselves. So, you lucky kids of today, make the most of your vacations and all the films you have available to you. Take note of how to protect us poor souls when we grow old and you become adults.
Eight Legged Freaks
“Eight Legged Freaks” by Ellory Elkayem is geared towards older schoolchildren, those already considered “young men and women.” Many describe it as a parody of the “B” horror movies of the 1950s. I’m not entirely convinced. Of course, the plot revolves around an accidental mutation on a provincial spider farm, unleashing hordes of various-sized arachnids, some as large as a three-story building, upon a modest mining town. And the nerdy, young naturalist is constantly watching those very “B” horror movies on TV. However, the parody here is more broadly aimed at the entire tradition of “one-story America,” idealized in the 50s, and the pathos of the quiet “little American.” There’s a corrupt mayor, a Jewish barber, the ever-present Aunt Gladys with her dog, a local sheriff in the form of an attractive single mother, delinquent teenagers, and striking miners – all of them are just as much a part of the story as the spiders. A dark past, a couple of love stories, and the constant everyday squabbles. The mortal danger unites the town, they defeat the threat with their own strength, the mayor meets his end in hairy spider legs, the lovers find each other, and so on. It doesn’t matter if aliens attack or their own government does.
It’s not scary in the slightest. “Eight Legged Freaks” is the first time I’ve seen a cat get eaten in a movie and not immediately run out of the theater. It’s clear that no one actually gets eaten. The spiders are completely toy-like, and the parody lies in how consciously their appearance and movements are exaggerated using modern filming techniques. They jump around, boom-boom-boom. A limb pops out from under the ground – and there’s no more ostrich on the lawn. The development of events (a motorcycle chase, a battle in a shopping mall, wandering through catacombs) and the live actors approach this demonstrative playfulness in their execution. Don’t take your protein bodies too seriously.
One drawback is the drawn-out exposition and a generally slightly slow pace, not justified by any provinciality. It’s simply a matter of budget. The strengths lie in individual visual and, even more so, verbal jokes. “I see a dead man, I see a dead man,” the parrot squawks until another segmented limb covers its eyes. Witty with love – an electric shocker between the legs and wildflowers (“Oh, I picked them myself”…). The chain-smoking Aunt Gladys, who can’t be suffocated even in a spider cocoon, is the best character in the film.
Stuart Little 2
“Stuart Little 2” is for boys and girls in the age category from infants to senile old people. This delight was created by animator Rob Minkoff, who directed “The Lion King.” Accordingly, the entire world here is a cartoon in its infancy, without any parody. Live adults Geena Davis and Jonathan Lipnicki happily caricature their adult images, and there’s no need to even mention the birds, mice, and especially cats. Those who saw the first part don’t need to be told that live people and live animals are absolutely on equal footing here thanks to the abundance of special effects. In the first part, the Little family (mom, dad, son, daughter, and cat) adopted a mouse named Stuart; in the second, he begins to settle in.
It’s a fairy tale about childhood friendship, because even a mouse among people can be lonely, even if he’s learned to play soccer with them. He urgently needs someone of about the same size. She, of course, is found, but it’s not a mouse, but a street bird with a broken wing, looking like a canary, who makes the mouse fall in love with her, but then lives up to her street upbringing and turns out to be a decoy, sent by a predatory falcon to steal Geena Davis’s wedding ring. The bird bolts without saying goodbye. Stuart, heartbroken, sets out to find her. The whole family rushes after him.
The plot, of course, is something else, completely nonsensical step by step, but Minkoff didn’t particularly bother with it. The main thing is that even for the elderly, it’s a joy to see how it’s done. How the mouse rides to school in his own Cadillac, how he flies in his own plane, how he climbs into the hole in the kitchen sink for the wedding ring. First of all, everything, from the surprised-idiotic physiognomy of Papa Little to the idyllically pink sweaters of Mama Little, corresponds to the consideration of a fairy tale in kind, as if it should be so. There’s no time to think about where the real is and where the computer graphics are, you just have to keep track of all the details of fairy-tale life. Secondly, it doesn’t matter how insignificant everything is, if periodically the cat Snowbell enters the frame, a classic white Persian theatrical raisonneur, accustomed to being on his own, dissatisfied with everything and everyone, and thereby certifying any stupid fairy tale.
The Little’s baby girl ate oatmeal and dropped the plate on the floor. Mama Little calls Snowbell to breakfast. Going down to the kitchen, he assumes that they will give him catfish, halibut, sturgeon, or at least pristipomas. He sees a pile of oatmeal smeared on the floor: “Lord, I’m their walking Comet.” When Snowbell quotes the Old Testament, when he comments on human psychology, when he travels with the mouse: “Slow down the Cadillac, or I’ll die of thrombosis,” it’s not even wit anymore, but some kind of prophecy. Convincing forever that the cat is the master of the house, and this is the biblical truth of life. A very correct translation (“Two solitudes have met” clearly could not have been in the American text), and it’s no accident that the dubbing actors are written in large print. We are generally approaching a refreshed, but cozy state of consciousness during the holidays. “Eight Legged Freaks” is a live-action film, but like a puppet cartoon, “Stuart Little 2” is a live-action film, but like a drawn cartoon. One evokes a silly “hee-hee” after every horror, the other a blissfully drooling smile from every magic. It turns out that if the beauty of protein bodies does not save the world, their self-irony about this beauty will.