Leaderboard

Did anyone else feel like Pinocchio’s lies at the end of the movie we’re pretty fucked up and cruel? Like, I get that he’s trying to hit the monster’s gag reflex with his massive wooden nose, but there’s no rule in the movie that the growth in his nose has any correlation to the magnitude of the lie he’s telling. Instead of looking his caregiver and guardian in the eye and calling him a piece of trash, couldn’t Pinocchio have just said, “Snow is hot” or something else equally prosaic? Gepetto might be a big old sack of who-gives-a-fuck as a character, but he did risk his life to save your ass, you ungrateful little abomination. He was swallowed by a rival puppeteer. His day has been bad enough.

Did anyone else find it odd that in a story in which one of the major themes is “don’t tell lies,” that at the end of the movie—when Pinocchio tricks Felinet and Volpe into drinking the tainted amusement park water— the lesson Pinocchio appears to have learned isn’t so much ”lying is bad” but rather “when there are zero consequences, you can 100% weaponize lies to exact revenge on those who have wronged you?”

While it all looked like fun and games, even if those boys on Pleasure Island weren't polymorphed into a bunch of donkeys, Recreational Water Illnesses (RWIs) are a real thing and if after drinking a pint of unfiltered amusement park water the worst thing they experience is diarrhea, they can count themselves lucky. Even when properly chlorinated--which I'm guessing 19th-Century tween boy Bacchanalian nightmares probably are not--public water parks are notoriously unsanitary. You can catch anything from Legionnaire's Disease to the norovirus all due to the fact (as the CDC points out) that even with proper wiping, the average person is walking around with about 0.14 grams of fecal matter tightly lodged within their sphincter. So when you enter the water, get splashed, or are otherwise soaked to the bone on one of those wonderful flume rides we all love so much, all that fecal matter diffuses into the water. And while chlorine certainly does help, it can't always take care of *all* of it. So, no, I don't recommend drinking any of the strange water spouting from amusement park fountains.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology recently conducted a large new study of Italian adults and found that eating chili peppers four times a week significantly reduces the risk of fatal diseases. In fact, the pungent pepper reduced the overall risk of fatal illness by up to 23%, and cut the risk of stroke by nearly 50%. I have to believe that Lorenzini was eating them regularly for the health benefits and that the fire breathing was just a (fortunate?) side effect. Sadly, it does not appear that eating chili peppers helps in preventing you from becoming a hideous sea monster when ingesting poisoned water.

Who exactly was this movie for? Like what age group were they hoping to get? Because it's pretty horrifying so I don't think young kids would be able to handle it. Much like the evil owner of Pleasure Island they lured them in with the promise of a fun time with harmless J.T. T but then did a switcheroo and boom it's the story of a terrifying puppet and actors only your parents know. You cannot tell me other children were raised on Absolutely Fabulous vhs tapes (God bless you grandma and your insistence we watch what you wanted. Though maybe it isn't good that 7 year old me wanted to be Patsy ..) And knew Dawn French on sight. I'm willing to buy they maybe clocked Rob Schneider because he was on SNL but I would assume the target audience is too young for that? So who is this for? Nostalgic parents who yearn for the terror of the cartoon? ( You cannot tell me that shit wasn't scary) Kids old enough to handle it but not so old they find it boring? What is that age?!

As an adult I shudder to think about the amount of water park water I have ingested in my lifetime.I assume that is how you get modern day cholera. Forget poisoned wells that are also sewers, wave pools are the new breeding ground for monstrous disease.

As an adult I shudder to think about the amount of water park water I have ingested in my lifetime.I assume that is how you get modern day cholera. Forget poisoned wells that are also sewers, wave pools are the new breeding ground for monstrous disease.

I get that Felinet and Volpe we’re trying to take advantage of Pinocchio’s naïveté by promising him that if he planted his gold in a cemetery it would multiply; what I don’t understand is why they had him bury it so deep—especially if part of their scheme was to have him stare at a clock for an hour. It’s their con! They could have just as easily suggested six inches instead of six feet. It just seems to be a monumental waste of time and energy when they know they’re going to have to go back and dig it up. I know they’re a couple of unscrupulous con artists, but that’s not really an excuse for shoddy work. No matter your profession, it always pays to work smarter rather than harder.

I forbid it

It's a wonderful movie! I'm only, like, 60% cynical. Cats has a ton of bad choices, but also some really good ones (Victoria as the audience's window, Mr. Mistoffelees' character) that result in an extremely fun experience. The crowd makes a huge difference too. Here in Toronto it already has cult following with sing-along screenings!

Just to start off, I unabashedly love this movie. I love it’s use of modern music and CGI to create a larger than life spectacle. Everything looks and sounds so vibrant as a way of capturing the same sense of awe in a modern audience that witnessing the circus must have imbued in a 19th Century audience. For me, it’s extremely effective.