The Gnome Mobile (1967)

This movie was actually something of a disappointment for me. It moved rather slowly, and to be honest I was kind of glad when it ended. The story is about this rich lumber owner named Mr. Mulrooney, and he's having his grand kids from England come over to visit him. The grandchildren are the kids from Marry Poppins, that's actually how they're introduced too. So Mulrooney takes the kids to a forest he owns for a picnic and while he and the grandson set up camp, the granddaughter goes off for a walk and comes upon this gnome who asks for her help. She rushes back to get her grandfather and brings him back to the gnome. As it turns out the gnome's grandfather is dying. Gnomes only die if they've given up the will to live and the grandfather has given up the will to live because he and his grandson are the last gnomes in the forest and he will never see his grandson married. The grandfather offers to take the two to another forest where there might be more gnomes and they agree to go with them to this forest in the grandfather's car, now effectively, the gnome mobile. The party has to stop off at a hotel for the night and grandfather gnome gets angry at Mr. Mulrooney who gets angry enough to call off the trip and storms out of the room. A travelling freak show owner happens to pass by as this happens and see the gnomes. He then proceeds to kidnap them as they will make for an interesting new attraction. When Mr. Mulrooney finds out the gnomes are missing he calls his security team to help find them, but when his employee hears what he has to say he thinks he's gone mad and has him put in an insane asylum. His grandkids break him out and they go retrieve the gnomes and get to the forest, where the young gnome finds some girl gnomes to fight over him and they all live happily ever after.

The acting in this movie was horrible. It was so forced and stereotyped and fake, it was almost painful to watch. This film is by Disney, and because of that I was quite disappointed with the overall quality. Darby O'Gill and the Little People was also a Disney film about faeries and it was quite well done so we know they are capable,  but this is definitely b film material. The songs were cheesy, but I'm less distraught about that as many b film songs are usually quite poorly done. Many parts of the plot weren't given enough explanation. Some scenes seemed to flow along as they did because it would best suit what happened next and not so much because it was a logical scene that fit into an overall plot. Some of the actions taken by people in response to the gnomes, for example, were too extreme or convenient to be taken seriously by the audience. The special effects are pretty good and the guy who does the voice for the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland makes an appearance as one of the gnomes, I think that's all that can be said for this movie. All in all, ok for an initial viewing, but definitely not a keeper.



On a completely unrelated side note for this last picture, I spent at least 10 minutes going through the last scene looking for a decent picture of all the characters, but that Mr. Mulrooney, what a face. He's really animated when he's singing, but when you pause the movie almost every face he makes is unflattering. In a funny way, like when you pause a movie and the person is in mid-word and has a funny face... but all of his faces were like that. It was funny.

Here is a fan vid that shows clips from all the significant parts of the movie

Daniela Uhlig

I really like this artist's style. She doesn't only do fairy art... in fact the other subject matter far out numbers the fairy art. You can check it out here http://www.du-artwork.de/index.html



And on a completely unrelated note she also has a fan pic of the cat bus and totoro from the movie my neighbour totoro!!!

To Spring (1936)

This is a little cartoon by Happy Harmonies, a series of cartoons released by MGM. I used to like watching it as a kid. There are little gnomes living under the earth, and as winter is fading away it is their job to mine minerals that make colours and bring the colour back to nature. But a winter wind makes their job rather difficult.

At times in my life I either liked or didn't like this cartoon. I love old cartoons so always liked it in that respect, but I didn't always like how they presented the coming of spring as a test tube kind of process. I always thought it would be more magical than that, more will power than science power. On the other hand, this is an interesting perspective on faeries. Usually fairies are so magical and ethereal, but in this cartoon they're miners and run on clockwork, they're literally awoken by a clock.

Tinkerbell (2008)

This movie came out a couple of years ago, Disney's take on one of the most well-known fairies in pop culture, Tinkerbell. When I first found out about this movie I was excited. Tinkerbell was never my favourite fairy, but I didn't mind her and I loved Peter Pan and mythological figures in general. And Disney is far from some low-budget no name company without a reputation to uphold, so needless to say I was looking forward to the film. When I actually did take the time to see it I was so disappointed I was almost angry. I touched on this a little bit in my post on Peter Pan. Basically, Tinkerbell is not a sweet, kind, loving character. She's jealous, vain, malicious, and manipulative. She's loyal only to Peter and tries to kill Wendy. In the book Barrie explains that fairies are so small that they can only feel one emotion at a time, so when they are good they are wholly good, and when they are not, they are wholly not. Meaning that fairies can be mean, evil even.

The Tinkerbell Disney created however, is nothing like this. The new Disney Tinkerbell was created more in the image of something you could probably find on the Treehouse channel, the kids channel you can find shows like Franklin, Max and Ruby, etc. So basically they've castrated one of the most well known, classic fairies in literature.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the story itself was a vacuous waste of film. She went on a little adventure to 'find herself' and figure out that 'it's ok to be different' and to be friendly to the mean guys after she beats them. Basically the plot to your average b film.

I would probably not have minded so much if it was a nameless or new character Disney decided to feature in this fairy series (as there are multiple movies and books out), but chances are that series wouldn't have done half so well because it wouldn't be riding on the coattails of the fame and success of Peter Pan.

But. Now that I've had a couple of years to deal with this, I think that I can now separate the fake Tink from the real one enough to try to watch the new movie coming out, The Great Fairy Rescue. I didn't watch the second as there was still the poison in my heart, but I'm willing to give it another go I think. This might be a mistake and watching the new one might once again spark that 'someone slapping my love of fairies in the face' feeling, but  it's a chance one has to take when trying to weed the decent or even the great from the horrible.



Here's the sneak peek for the new movie. I can already tell I'll be frustrated by it, but not so much by Tink (though they're walking on thin ice in that department) and more by the bad story line and the proposition of ideas I don't agree with.





Here's Disney's website http://disney.go.com/fairies/

emily balivet

Emily Balivet is an American artist who paints many mythological subjects, like witches, goddesses, and other things with a folkloric focus. Here's her website http://www.emilybalivet.com/emilybalivet.html.

Image from http://blackberrycrafts.typepad.com/blackberry_crafts/2009/03/index.html

Image from http://indieprettyperfect.blogspot.com/2007/04/mythological-goddess-art.html

Image from http://indieprettyperfect.blogspot.com/2007/04/mythological-goddess-art.html

Time

Time is an important aspect of human/ faerie relations. The length of time one spends in faerie land may be different from the amount of time that passes in the human world.

For example, one could go into the fairy realm for just a few minutes, but when they come out again a hundred years have passed in the human world. An example of this is the story of Rip Van Winkle, the man who 'fell asleep' played 9 pins with some weird guys, and woke up an old man. You can read it here.

http://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Irving/Winkle/Irving_Winkle.pdf

On the other side of the spectrum, one could venture into the fairy realm and spend years and years there, but when they return to the human world no more than a few minutes have passed. An example of this can be found in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

There's really no saying which of the two is more common, and indeed there are many instances where there is no time issue at all. One of the weirder aspects of faerie. Maybe Santa Claus can tied into this somehow.....

Image from http://thepequodblog.blogspot.com/

The Smurfs

The Smurfs are a group of small blue beings who live in the forest. They originally appeared in 1958 as side characters in the story Johan and Peewit. I'm sure, however, that most people know the Smurfs from the classic cartoon from the 80's by Hannah Barbara. Your can read a history on this website http://www.smurf.com/smurf.php/www/facts/en.

Image from http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-smurfs/articles/44333/title/similarity-wars-smurfs-vs-care-bears

Now I'm sure that many people would argue with me if I were to say that Smurfs were fairies, but if you think about it.. what else could they be? Little blue people living in mushrooms in the forest. They even wear little elf caps, and as we all know elves are fairies.



There will be a live action film coming out in the summer of 2011



http://www.smurfhappens.com/

The Whisper of Fairies?

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the international best seller Eat, Pray, Love, gave a talk on TED on nurturing creativity. She talks about how we currently think that creativity is something an individual has within themselves and though it may be influenced by outside forces, originates within the individual. This is a pretty good summation of the times in regards to creativity, we only believe in what we see and if we can't see it, it has to be something we know exists be being physically attached to it. Everything is 'scientific'. She then goes on to say that this is not always how creativity was perceived. In ancient Greece and Rome, among other places, the popular belief was that creativity or artistic excellence or amazingly insightful thoughts were given to people by a supernatural force like gods or fairies. It's a very interesting talk and will help you to see creativity in a whole new light.

[ted id=453]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html