FILM

9 Strange—but Great—Disney Channel Original Movies You Forgot About

Including mermaids, holograms, and aliens aplenty.

Movies

Photo by Geoffrey Moffett on Unsplash

Disney+ is trickling its way into our daily dependence on streaming services.

This means we've unlocked a whole new world (Aladdin pun intended) of movies to watch half-attentively while we also scroll on our phones. You probably already know of all the classic Disney Originals that are at your disposal, but what about the Disney Channel Originals?

It's probably a given that big hits like High School Musical, Zenon, and Camp Rock are now available for your adult self to stream and reminisce, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Name a DCOM, and it's likely available on Disney+, including all the strange, ridiculous low-fliers you might've forgotten about. Here are just nine to kickstart your nostalgia trip.

1. Alley Cats Strike!

Anything goes in the Disney Channel universe, including a bowling match to settle a basketball championship tie between rival towns. Why are both towns so invested in high school bowling? Why do the teenage winners get to pick the name of a new school in the area? We don't know, but we're still chasing the high of that final scene.

2. Stepsister from Planet Weird

In this sci-fi comedy from 2000, a literal alien refugee is immediately welcomed into the popular crowd at her new high school on Earth, despite thinking her human form is "grotesque." Not to mention that the emperor of her home planet is defeated by hair dryers and wind blowers.

3. Can of Worms

On the other end of the spectrum of Disney Channel's alien fixation, Can of Worms centers around Mike, who lives an entirely normal life besides believing he doesn't belong on Earth at all. After he accidentally sends a message to space, he's visited by an alien lawyer who deems Earth's living standards subpar. Strangely eerie 20 years later, isn't it?

4. The Thirteenth Year

Cody's birth mother is a mermaid who left him on a random boat when he was a baby. Now, as Cody approaches his teens, his merman features are beginning to present themselves, and he nearly gets accused for cheating during his swim meet. It's just fins, not steroids!

5. Luck of the Irish

There's little to take away from this film other than a white teenage boy finally embraces that he is both Irish and from Ohio, but leprechauns and river dancing will never not be amusing.

6. Motocrossed

Five years before Amanda Bynes posed as her own twin brother in She's the Man, Disney Channel offered their own adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. After Andi's brother gets injured, she decides to fill in for him in an all-male motocross tournament, chopping her hair off and all. The sexism is abundant, but—spoiler alert—Andi can totally take on the guys.

7. The Other Me

Poor Will. His grades are slipping, his dad is threatening to send him to military camp, and he just accidentally made a clone of himself who turns out to be way cooler and smarter than him, so they switch places. Kinda like the Parent Trap, but sciencey.

8. You Wish!

The lesson this film attempts to impart is: don't wish away your little brother, because he might instead become a child TV star and make your life even more of a living hell than it was when you lived under the same roof.

9. Pixel Perfect

The perfect pop star doesn't exist, until, of course, you make a hologram of her. Loretta Modern might have been programmed to become an overnight sensation, but she just wants to be a regular human, damn it! She ends up being helpful in more ways than one, but like all modern technology, she can't last forever.

Maybe they didn't all make total sense, but there's a reason DCOMs became such an integral part of growing up in the 2000s. DCOM creators conceived some of the strangest, most fringe ideas, and served them to a market that didn't mind how nonsensical they were; pair that with Disney Channel's omnipresence in the typical middle-class American household, and these oddly lovable films serve as a timestamp for an era.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

For the few who haven't noticed by scrolling Twitter to the point of agony, the political climate sucks right now.

Partisan politics are pretty much always messy, soul-crushing chaos, but especially these days as the fate of the 2020 presidential election gets closer (but not too close...it's still March, people). Still, during these trying times, what better way to break up the centrist white man narrative than with some female-hosted political podcasts?

Whether you're a full-speed-ahead progressive or a more subtle centrist, there's a podcast to help you feel less alone.

The Electorette

Among the slew of podcasts that spawned from the fateful 2016 election is the Electorette, which features interviews with brilliant female minds—politicians, authors, activists, you name it. What each guest of the semi-anonymous host, Jenn, share is a passion for progressive policy and leading the resistance.

The Electorette Podcast

The Electorette Podcastopen.spotify.com

Reply Guys

Julia Claire and Kate Willett are comedians, political activists, and hosts of Reply Guys, a podcast in which they discuss progressive politics with like-minded guests with a healthy dose of filterless humor. If hating billionaires is a hobby of yours, this one's for you.

Reply Guys

Reply Guysopen.spotify.com


Pantsuit Politics

Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers host Pantsuit Politics, a bipartisan podcast that values connection and conversations to help us all understand politics a little better. This country isn't going to get any better if we don't learn how to cohesively and calmly discuss it, right?

Pantsuit Politics

Pantsuit Politicsopen.spotify.com


The Rachel Maddow Show

You know Rachel Maddow for her namesake commentary show on MSNBC, but her liberal hot-takes are available on-the-go in podcast form, too.

The Rachel Maddow Show

The Rachel Maddow Showopen.spotify.com

On One With Angela Rye

Angela Rye is a CNN political commentator. Her podcast, On One, searches for honest, nuanced answers to the most important issues in politics, particularly how they pertain to race and pop culture.

On One with Angela Rye

On One with Angela Ryeopen.spotify.com


Stephanie Miller's Happy Hour Podcast

Hating Donald Trump has never been so uncensored. On Stephanie Miller's Happy Hour Podcast, the original "sexy liberal" talks politics and pop culture with her comical friends over stiff drinks.

Stephanie Miller's Happy Hour Podcast

Stephanie Miller's Happy Hour Podcastopen.spotify.com


Hear the Bern

National Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray hosts this podcast about everyone's favorite democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, featuring discussions with campaign staffers, organizers, activists, regular people, and sometimes even the man himself.

Hear the Bern

Hear the Bernopen.spotify.com

FILM

Even Keanu Reeves Can't Save "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run" from Weird CGI

Keanu Reeves in a tumbleweed will still earn my ticket money, though.

Paramount Pictures

The trailer just dropped for the newest SpongeBob Movie, Sponge on the Run, and oh boy, it's a hella mixed bag.

Now I'll be totally upfront here, I almost always prefer 2D animation to 3D CGI. This holds doubly true for series like SpongeBob that started out as 2D, which makes changing everything to 3D for a big budget movie feel especially odd. 3D SpongeBob looked awful in the last SpongeBob movie, Sponge Out of Water, and while Sponge on the Run does a much better job fusing CGI with the cartoonish 2D vibe of the original series, I don't think I'm ever going to like CGI SpongeBob. But you can decide for yourself:

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020) - Official Trailer - Paramount Pictureswww.youtube.com

Weird CGI aside, there's a lot to be excited for here. For one, a sage tumbleweed with Keanu Reeve's face in the middle of it is now official SpongeBob canon. That's nothing short of amazing, and no, I will never, ever, ever get tired of seeing Keanu Reeves in everything.

Another huge plus: Sponge on the Run, which centers around SpongeBob's quest to rescue his beloved pet, Gary, after an alleged snailnapping, features the entire original voice cast. Normally this would go without saying, but considering all the disappointment surrounding Shaggy's voice in the new Scooby-Doo movie, keeping the original voice actors for the blockbuster version apparently needs to be lauded now.

And I guess if I'm being totally honest here, weird CGI SpongeBob isn't the worst official interpretation I've ever seen of the nasally sponge. That pedestal will always be reserved for Broadway SpongeBob, who was just an annoying man in suspenders.

SpongeBob BroadwayNickelodeon

And oh God, look what they did to Mr. Krabs.

Mr Krabs BroadwayNickelodeon

So I guess if I want more SpongeBob (of course I do) and I need to choose between loosely dressed up humans or kind of off-putting CGI but also Keanu Reeves, I'll go with the latter.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run comes to theaters May 22, 2020.

FILM

Disney Doesn't Care About Your Childhood: “The Lion King” Is Just a CGI Flex

Photo-realistic lions singing to each other is an uncanny valley experience you'll never got used to.

Are we sure this isn't a nature documentary?

Disney

The Lion King "live-action" remake, visually speaking, is an artistic and technological marvel.

Every single character in this film is depicted as a photo-realistic animal, right down to the wrinkles on Timone's nose and the tufts of dirt in Rafiki's hair. Even the characters' movements are completely rooted in reality, with each digital character having weight and presence on screen so convincingly real that you honestly forget you're looking at CG characters at all. The attention to detail in this film is truly awe-inspiring.

Look. At. Those. Hairs.Disney

But while the incredibly talented VFX team at Disney rooted every animal in reality, the basic demands of The Lion King story seemed to have been a secondary concern—namely, the singing and speaking. The Lion King is a musical, after all, and what we got in the 1994 original were characters who had moving lips and big, expressive eyes to illustrate their emotions and motivations—you know, the kind of thing you can do with hand-drawn animation. Since Disney decided to have a completely realistic take on these characters, a lot of that personality and expression just doesn't come across. When Mufasa and Simba are having a conversation, for example, it just looks like two lions staring at each other with human voices coming vaguely from their direction. Their mouths move up and down, but their dead, beady little eyes show nothing but emptiness. It's weird.

Which begs the question: Was this the best story to tell with photo-realistic animals? The Lion King is essentially Hamlet the musical, and most would assume that a literal lion might not be able to pull off the emotion and charisma required of a Shakespeare story. With that being said, The Lion King 2019 tries to stay beat-for-beat with the original animated classic. If you look at the original movie's runtime compared to the 2019 remake, you'll notice there's an additional 30 minutes in the remake. Most of that time goes to the first act, which was my favorite part of the movie, with baby Simba and baby Nala simply playing and romping about. Granted, this definitely dragged on way too long before we got the story really going—but c'mon. Did you see the stills from this movie? Baby Simba is cute as f**k.

I mean...Disney

Can the whole movie be about baby Simba?Disney

There were also some character changes in this film that really elevate the experience—namely Timon and Pumbaa. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen bring these intensely realistic characters to life in a way that's sorely missing in the remake's other performances. The two have such delightful chemistry that it made me want to just stick with them for the rest of the movie. The decision to add their off-the-cuff jokes to the script was a commendable choice from director Jon Favreau, who clearly saw the talents of these two performers and let them take the lead.

For instance, my favorite line comes at the end of the "Simba growing up" montage, right when it looks like it's going to be a shot-for-shot remake of the original. When Simba continues to sing after the music stops, Pumbaa quips, "You've gained 400 pounds since you started!" I didn't think a Disney movie could be so tastefully meta, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I just want to watch these three for two hours <3Disney

The heroes of the movie.IMDB

As for the rest of the performances, everyone is pretty good. John Oliver plays a great Zazu; but again, his performance is neutered by the fact that his character doesn't have lips: It just looks like a very normal bird flapping hysterically at lions for two hours. Mufasa is actually great, because James Earl Jones has the presence of God in his voice, so at least that loans itself well to watching a photo-realistic king of the jungle roam around the screen. Scar is also good; there have been complaints online about Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance compared to that of Jeremy Irons, but at least Ejiofor's quiet confidence is fitting for his commanding photo-realistic character. Frankly, the animated Scar had so much dimension and expression that complemented Irons' vocal articulation, you're just not going to be able to replicate that expression in CG—let's not forget when Will Smith unfortunately tried it.

#HyenaGangEntertainment Weekly

Since this film is technically a musical, let's briefly touch on the musical performances: They're fine. It really seems like they were an afterthought, and I can't really blame Favreau for this. This biggest challenge to overcome was making literal singing lions seem convincing on screen, and I think he did the best he could. Still, the musical numbers from the original are so poorly replicated here that if they were something you loved from the original, you're going to be seriously disappointed. "I Just Can't Wait to Be King," the song that really kicks off the musical energy in the film, is very lackluster in its presentation. Remember that the hand-drawn original had colorful spectacles and dramatic actions, like Simba and Nala riding on the backs of f**cking ostriches and a cohort of zebras saluting them, culminating with a massive animal tower made of parading elephants, giraffes, gazelles, anteaters, and flamingos, with Simba and Nala standing on top! In comparison, this remake has Simba and Nala running around a pond, with those same animals there but not seeming to notice them: not really the same impact. They also dare to cut down one of the best songs from the original, "Be Prepared," to a 30-second chant, which I take personal grievance with. With the last song of the film, the quintessential "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," Faverou decided to have the whole song sung in Simba and Nala's heads, probably to avoid the awkward lip-syncing issues. It ends up feeling like a Nat Geo documentary with Beyoncé's vocals in the background.

Oh look... some regular a** lions. How romantic.Disney

Surprisingly, the most disappointing performances come from Donald Glover and Beyoncé as Simba and Nala. I would guess they were both picked for their star-power and not necessarily for their voice acting abilities. Glover plays a pretty forgettable Simba, who lacks the headstrong and playful personality that Mathew Broderick brought to the original. That's not a huge gripe compared to Beyonce's performance, though. I'm honestly not sure what happened there. All of her lines are spoken as overly-enunciated statements rather than normal conversation, and it's so, so distracting. At first I couldn't understand why the first interaction between Simba and Nala is so awkward. There are long beats of painful silence between their lines, which gives you too much time to remember that you're looking at CG lions with inexplicably human voices… And then you keep thinking: "Oh, sh*t…Beyoncé's in this movie!"

Mufasa is a badass, even in photorealism.Disney

Honestly, this movie is a lot of fun if you just enjoy it for what it is and don't expect it to capture the same wonder of the original. This movie is a big creative leap for Disney, but it's not exactly what any of us were expecting. The CG effects and character design in The Lion King 2019 are the absolute best I've ever seen, which is enough for me to want to see it again. But if you care more about seeing your beloved musical numbers and characters brought to new life on screen, you might not want to put down $15 to see this in theaters. If you've got kids, take them, and you won't be bored. But if you're emotionally invested, maybe wait for this to drop on Disney Plus in a few months. After all, this is just the latest flavor of 90s nostalgia for Disney to exploit, and amidst the company's ever-growing arsenal of remade animated classics, this one is sure to make a heap of money.

Rating: ⚡⚡⚡/5

FILM

"Spider-Man: Far From Home" Screenwriters Talk About Mysterio as a Trumpian Villain

Warning: we talk about spoilers with the writers of the latest Spider-Man movie, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Spider-Man went "far from home" this Fourth of July weekend.

Fans got to see what he was up to after Avengers: Endgame and returning from The Snap. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) takes a high school trip around Europe but ends up enlisted by S.H.I.E.L.D. to help Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) fight Elementals.

Screenwriters Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna spoke with Popdust about the many twists and turns in Spider-Man: Far From Home. So a spoiler warning to anyone who hasn't seen Far From Home yet. We do talk specifics with the writers.

This is the second Spider-Man movie for the writing team, and their fourth superhero movie after The Lego Batman Movie and Ant-Man and The Wasp. They've also written Community, The Mindy Project and American Dad! Spider-Man: Far From Home is in theaters now, as we discuss everything from The Blip to the very last credits scene.

Tom HollandHow Peter Parker (Tom Holland) spent his summer vacationCourtesy of Sony Pictures

When you got started on Far From Home, did you get to be privy to Avengers: Endgame early?

Erik Sommers: Yes, Marvel was well aware that we had some bills to pay in terms of the fallout from Endgame. So they were very good about keeping us in the loop as to what we would need to deal with and what we wouldn't so that we could move forward with our story.

Was there anything you were still surprised by in Endgame?

Chris McKenna: We didn't know about the Pegasus. If we'd known about Valkyrie and the Pegasus we would've used that. We knew the plot points but we did not know the detail, so then we actually didn't see the movie. We were supposed to see it like two weeks before the premiere and then we were still doing reshoots. It kind of worked out where we didn't even see it until the actual premiere. She comes out in the Pegasus, Erik and I were like, "Oh, we could've referenced that. That would've been a fun thing to reference." They wanted us to know what we needed to know and for good reason they keep things pretty close to the vest so that loudmouth fans like us don't ruin things. We had what we needed for the movie, obviously. We had The Snap, because we started working on the movie even before Infinity War came out. So we knew what happened at the end of Infinity War and we knew what happened in Endgame, the time transition and obviously the very end. Those were what we had to work with as we moved forward, but their main mandate was: Yes, we have to pay these bills but also to make a really fun Spider-Man movie because we're coming off a very dark, emotionally draining two movies.

How many different names did you brainstorm for The Snap?

CM: It's funny, I seem to recall someone I thought from Marvel calling it The Blip and we just sort of adopted that. I don't know if The Snap was something that happened, [if] that would be what it was referred to, while they were making Endgame. I do think it's kind of nice that we didn't have to follow, that the world almost came up with its own name for it, their own ground level name for this crazy thing that happened so it doesn't have to necessarily line up. It feels more organically real that the world would have this crazy thing that they call The Blip that happened.

Spidey Sense has been well established in the comics, so how many alternatives did you think of before you landed on Peter Tingle?

ES: We knew that Spidey Sense was going to be a factor and something that we would be using, but it was definitely a question of what are we going to call it? Should we call it anything at all? We did many, many iterations of giving it different names, giving it no name, the different ways people talk about it. And then it was relatively late in the game that I think [director] Jon Watts pitched Peter Tingle and it immediately made everyone laugh, so that's what we went through.

CM: We just wanted to make it awkward. We wanted to make it funny and we also wanted to make it this thing that is kind of nebulous but it takes like your aunt or your mom to come up with a name and sometimes it's the most embarrassing name ever.

Spider-Man: Far From HomeSpidey hanging around London in his new suit. Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Tony Stark was such a big part of part of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Even with Tony gone, was it important to still find a post-Tony way to deal with Iron Man, with his legacy lingering over Peter?

CM: It's so hard to not. He's so infused in Peter's life in terms of discovering him in Civil War and obviously being such a part of Homecoming in terms of becoming a surrogate father, [so] we knew Peter would be dealing with that. It would hang over the movie and it gave us the opportunity to do the inverse of Homecoming. Homecoming is about him trying to prove to his surrogate father that he's worthy and is able to step up. The trauma of Endgame sends Peter into a spiral and makes him question his own abilities and what his place in the world is. And he therefore is running away from it. That's why it's Far From Home. He is running away from the safe home that he thought he had after the first movie.

Was it fun finding some callbacks to early Iron Man movies, like the guy who worked for Obadiah Stane?

ES: Yes, it's always fun to be able to draw upon previous movies in the MCU and it helps weave them together. It makes them more rich. The audiences love it and we, the people making the movies as fans, love it too. An opportunity like that comes up and someone on the creative team says, "Oh, you should use that flashback of Obadiah shouting at William." Everyone in the room gets really excited immediately because we know it's going to be fun and we hope the audience will think that's really fun too.

When Mysterio reveals his plan, is he sort of a Super Trump, because he's talking about how people care more about showmanship than qualifications?

CM: He's definitely a narcissist and a con artist. He has a very high self-regard, but I think he's also the kind of guy who believes that whatever he says can go and he can spin the truth. So make those parallels if you will. We're definitely taking advantage of a chaotic world, a world where half of the universe can get swept away and then heroes can disappear. He seeks to take advantage of that. I think he thinks that the world deserves him, but he also knows that in order to get what he wants, in order to get the power and the authority, he's going to have to convince the world in his own way.

Jake Gyllenhaal Jake Gyllenhaal finally got to be in a Spider-Man movieJay Maidment

ES: Mysterio's really preying on insecurity and confusion and doubt and fear. The world is feeling those things in the aftermath of Endgame and Peter is feeling those things in the aftermath of losing his mentor. So Mysterio is preying on that to get what he wants.

When he reveals his holographic powers, was it fun to create effects that play on Peter's insecurities?

CM: Absolutely, I think the whole fun with Mysterio is when we can look down a lot of different paths with Mysterio. Ultimately, there's so much in the early comic books of Mysterio that really are fun, that we can draw upon. This person really does think of himself as someone who should be a hero and who does like, I think, manipulating people. As much as on one hand he has a certain fondness for Peter, he can understand on a certain level that someone like Peter is unworthy and undeserving of the affection and the technological prowess that Tony has bestowed upon him. In his eyes he's unworthy and the only worthy one is himself.

ES: When the truth about Mysterio is revealed and we know what he really wants and we get to that illusion sequence where he really attacks Peter with the illusions, doing that sequence was just such a pleasure. Jon and the visual effects team had come up with so many amazing, cool illusions that he was using against Peter. It was really just a challenge for all of us on the creative team to try to refine them and think of which [ones] are the best that, as you said, would speak right to Peter's insecurities and what Mysterio is feeling about everything so as visually amazing as it is, it could really serve the story and Peter's arc.

Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) isn't himself in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is though.Jay Maidment

Did you get to write the codas as part of your script?

CM: Yeah, the first coda - the mid-credit ending - was the original ending. It wasn't a coda yet. It always switched around, like oh, is this going to actually be a tag? We were just going to play it as the very, very end of the movie, pre-credits. Then that turned into the mid-credit tag. Then the post-credit tag came up very late in the game. I actually think that was a Watts idea. There were certain ideas like being a con artist [or] there's going to be one last twist and oh, will this also help with shedding some light on why Nick Fury was acting the way Nick Fury was in the movie? If anyone had any issues with Nick after all these movies, would he fall for a con artist like Mysterio? We thought it was a really fun way to call back Captain Marvel, call back that great Ben Mendelsohn character and also explain why Nick would actually fall for a guy like Mysterio.

Was it always your idea to reinvent the Daily Bugle as a sort of Alex Jones/Infowars?

ES: I honestly don't remember whose pitch that was but it was early on that the creative team decided that if we were gonna go back to the Daily Bugle [and] using J. Jonah, it should be in a different form. That seems like a perfect way to do it so as soon as someone floated that idea, we all latched onto it and that's what we did.

Did you know who was going to play him?

CM: No, I think Watts was even talking a bit in the last movie about some clues to J. Jonah in Homecoming. This time around, again I don't know who pitched it but it was one of those ideas that oh my God, it would be incredible to bring back J.K. but with this whole new post-Whiplash spin on the character.

Spder-Man: Far From HomeThis spider flies now.Courtesy of Sony Pictures

You've done a few funny comic book movies. Is there a different sense of humor you use in the Spider-Mans than on Ant-Man or Lego Batman?

ES: I don't think so. I think any project where we're writing jokes, you have to try to adjust to the tone a little bit so that's going to depend on the characters and the actors and the director and just what everyone feels like the vibe of that movie is going to be. So it always changes a little but I don't think there are any huge conscious shifts that we decide on ahead of time or anything like that.

CM: We've been writing comedy now for a long time on different shows. We always are able to adjust for each character's voice and situation. I think you have a character like Lego Batman who is full of himself and yet also has crippling insecurities but surrounds it with bluster which is a totally different character from Peter Parker or Scott Lang. Even though Scott and Peter have similarities, they're different enough and also the actors are different. We try to channel their voices and their personas and have fun with them. It's always different.

FILM

Disney Stays True to Intensely Adorable Animals in "The Lion King" Trailer

Have you ever noticed that Disney's lions were weirdly pretty in the original? Why? They're lions.

The Lion King Display Bangkok

Photo by chingyunsong (shutterstock)

With Beyonce and Donald Glover as the voices of Simba and Nala, Disney's remake of The Lion King uses movie-making magic to create photo-realistic animals that are nearly as pretty as its leads.

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