Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was, in 1988, an imposingly high-concept confection by Hollywood standards: the driving gimmick of its limber script, that humans and ghettoised cartoon characters could live and interact in the same dimension, was fluidly realised with techniques light years ahead of Mary Poppins’ live-action/animation blending 24 years previously. A character of wittily adult conception and appeal, the 2D glamazon nonetheless slotted slinkily into the more antic, kid-friendly hijinks of Robert Zemeckis’s form-bending multimedia comedy, which pitted Bob Hoskins’ dishevelled 1940s Hollywood gumshoe against a manic ensemble of invented cartoon characters and Looney Tunes veterans to solve a snaky showbiz murder mystery. Smokily voiced by Kathleen Turner (with Amy Irving taking over for the sultry torch songs) and drawn like an anatomically impossible hybrid of Veronica Lake and Rita Hayworth, Jessica Rabbit swiftly overtook Betty Boop as the ne plus ultra of animated sex symbols, and she wasn’t even the main attraction. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar Animated form notwithstanding, she kind of is, and Lane is far from the first person to note that: brace yourself before typing the words “Elastigirl porn” into Google, is what I’m saying.īob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant and Kathleen Turner voicing Jessica Rabbit. What inspired less debate, however, was the question of whether Elastigirl – sleek in spike-heeled thigh boots and a rubber bodysuit, and seemingly made curvier than in the 2004 original – was hot. Some found Lane’s exaggerated leering over a family comedy lewdly funny, others simply gross. Or not so innocent, depending on who you believe: Lane poked fun at what he claimed was Pixar’s overt sexualisation of cartoon superhero mom Elastigirl, likening her to Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades franchise before joking that she’d prompt many an accompanying dad to “ his cooling soda firmly in his lap” at the cinema. These are the movies any cineaste worth their salted popcorn must see – ideally on a VHS tape with tracking issues, but streaming is fine, too.At a time when the predominant male gaze in the world of film criticism is being questioned by Oscar-winning female actors and lowly denizens of Twitter alike, the erudite New Yorker critic Anthony Lane took more flak than he might have expected for an irreverent review of Pixar’s innocent animated romp The Incredibles 2. In retrospect, if it wasn’t the absolutely greatest movie decade, the ‘80s may have been the most unique, and these 50 films represent the best of the era. It was also the era that loosened the jar, so to speak, on the indie explosion of the ’90s and when international cinema began to reach more eyes than ever before. Yes, it represented the birth of the mega blockbuster, but it was also a time when the most popular movies were also among the best and most groundbreaking. Looking back now, it’s easier to see how influential and important the period was to filmmaking. Coming out of the ’70s, which introduced a new level of realism and gritty authenticity to mainstream Hollywood, filmmaking in the ‘80s got bigger, louder and, some might say, superficial.īut time has been kind to the era. One of the words most commonly associated with the popular culture of the 1980s is ‘plastic’ – and for a long time, that phrase extended to the movies.
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