Family Film: With a Vengeance

As an obligatory fan of Minutemen--a Disney Channel offering targeted at nine-year-olds--about which I should not still be posting five months after its premiere, I'd be lying if I said I weren't somewhat impressed by an amateur trailer that makes the movie look like Die Hard 5.

SLC Punk'd

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

"'Minutemen' is a nicely paced, simple comedy that, unlike other time-splitting stories, keeps the paradoxes of science at bay. Think of it as an undemanding version of 'Back to the Future'."

Can you imagine if you were the person who wrote Minutemen, and you'd spent like a year and a half extensively researching time travel theory--barbecuing your wee brain with books like The Nature of Space and Time, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat and The Fabric of Reality--in an attempt to imbue the story with as much scientific viability as possible, only to be told time and again to give up the ghost, the studio's position essentially being that "nobody cares about the science part"? Even further, can you imagine if you had been largely motivated to fight that ultimately futile battle by a reverence to Back to the Future, a movie that you loved above all others? Then Minutemen finally premieres...and you read that review (in the paper of the very city where the movie was filmed, no less)?

Personally, I would be upset.

Like, Misleading

Maybe you think it's weird that this is the second time that I, a grown man, have posted a music video from the same Disney Channel movie (and the third time that I've posted about the film--premiering Friday, January 25 at 8/7c--in some capacity)...but maybe I think it's weird that you read this meaningless blog so frequently as to be aware of that fact. So let's just stop judging each other and move on.

I don't know who Aly & AJ are but, relying on my previous two posts' worth of extensive knowledge of the DCOM (that stands for "Disney Channel Original Movie"--see? I'm well-versed) Minutemen, it is apparent to me that their video for "Like Whoa" has taken substantial liberties in how it depicts the storyline. I'm fairly certain that the plot of the comedy/sci-fi adventure does not center on saving that cheerleader from breaking her leg...but Aly & AJ clearly want you to think otherwise. Outside of the fact that we'd all like to live in a world where time stands still whenever it rains bronze M&Ms...what's their angle?

Corbin Bleu In: 'Door Trouble'

The rabid, prepubescent female fans of High School Musical star Corbin Bleu may be lacking in gaydar, but--if his latest music video is any indication--they certainly possess a highly refined sense of comedy.

"Run It Back Again" is the theme song to the upcoming Disney Channel movie Minutemen, which (according to IMDb) is about "three high school kids who invent a time machine to spare others just like them from the humiliation they've endured." The makers of the video have cleverly seen fit to depict Corbin Bleu enduring--and then undoing--his own humiliations, having taken what must have been at least 14 seconds to devise (and perhaps all of another 2 minutes to shoot) such diverse embarrassments as: Falling Out Of a Car Door, Encountering a Locked Door, and Hitting Yourself In the Face With a Door. (I wonder how often the video's director defensively explained to crew members: "You don't understand comedy! Door bits kill!")

Thankfully, the Corbin Bleu "story" only lasts for the first third of the video before giving way to segments of the film being promoted, which--given that there does appear to be a single door-related gag therein--I find myself somewhat anxious to see.

Well played, Disney Channel.

Disney Wants to Have No Clothes and Fire Them Too

Donald Duck, as seen in the picture at left, has been running around with no pants on since 1934 and his employer, the Walt Disney Company, has never once taken issue with his behavior. Last month, nude images of another Disney employee, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, surfaced on the internet [sorry, pervs, that link isn't to the actual pictures--for all anybody knows, she could be 14 years old in those things] for the first time ever...and she's already been shitcanned from her own franchise as a result, as OK! Magazine (a news source you know you can trust because they have an exclamation point in their name) is exclusively reporting that Disney has decided not to invite Hudgens back for HSM 3.

One can only speculate whether this egregious double standard of the Walt Disney Company is a result of sexism, humanism, non-cartoonism, visible-genitaliaism or perhaps all four; regardless, until Disney establishes a consistent policy regarding the acceptable level of nudity for all of its talent, I call upon fans of Vanessa Hudgens, nakedness, and/or well-tanned and spontaneously-synchronized teenagers to boycott all Disney Channel movies that don't involve time travel...because time is of the essence when it comes to the Walt Disney Company making up its mind:

They've got to either pull their pants up or take them off altogether.

UPDATE: The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that a Disney Channel spokeswoman has dismissed OK!'s story as "a false and old rumor". Looks like my work here is done...unless the Orlando Sentinel doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. Which is a possibility, given that they tagged the linked article "Discovery Channel".

UPDATE 2: The denial has been confirmed by a comparatively "reputable" news outlet, that being Access Hollywood. Even though their name doesn't contain any exciting punctuation, I'm inclined to hold "Access" in at least the same regard as OK!.