Some Jerk with a Camera -- 10 Years of Disney's California Adventure

[Titles]

[Fade to Oan walking down the corridor at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center with his face covered by a Beauty and the Beast book. He reveals his face and starts to sing.]

Oan:

Brows Held High, my respected web show

I opine for a couple bucks

Brows Held High, everybody loves it.

Though my colleagues say...

Pushing up Roses: [holding Daria's Inferno]

It sucks!!

Bennett: [Holding a DVD of Love Hina: Spring Movie]

It sucks!!

Todd: [holding a Guitar Hero remote]

It sucks!!

LAG: [holding Spawn/Batman comic]

It sucks!

NC: [holding a DVD of The Cell]

It sucks!!

Oan:...... figures.

In 1946, The Reich had fallen,

And France no longer said, “Zieg Heil!”

And from this new status quo,

Came a man named Jean Cocteau,

And he made a fairy tale... Linkara: Good morning, Kyle

Oan: Good morning, monsieur.

Linkara: Where are you off to?

Oan: Reviewing a movie, I found the most wonderful story. About the nature of love in the creative process, and a testament to Orpheus---

Linkara: That's nice. Vega! More cyber-masks, hurry up! [Linkara walks away. Oan shrugs off and walks the opposite direction continuing reading. He walks by Rap Critic, Film Brain, Nash, Obscurus Lupa, and Phelous.]

Nash, FB and RC:

Look, there he goes

Who thinks he's smart or something,

The most pretentious cinephile.

OL:

With a condescending gaze.

Phelous:

And an allergy to praise.

All:

No Brows Held High a gluten prick, that Kyle. [Cut to shots of reviewers from Geekvision, they are...]

Chris Caron: [holding a DVD for House at the End of the Street: Unrated Version]

It sucks!

Matt Ianonne: [Holding a DVD of Slap Shot 3: The Junior League]

It blows!

Casey Kane: [Opening a Nightmare Before Christmas graphic novel]

It raped my childhood! Mikey Ederer: [Holding a DVD of Mars Needs Moms]

It's bad!

Joseph Gerbensky: [Holding a DVD of Foodfight]

It's worse!

Linkara: [Holding a DVD of Alone in the Dark: Director's Cut]

It's Uwe Boll. Jared Rosenfeld: [Holding a DVD of The Karate Dog]

It's dumb....

Shea Koshan: [Holding Zero Girl issue 1]

It's weird!

Zach Hurst: [Holding a DVD of Pearl Harbor]

It's got Ben Affleck!

Oan:

It delves into a tortured artist's soul!

All: What?!! How is this art? It has souls? A tortured Sam Kieth? [Nearby an elevator, Oan runs in to an excited Ven.]

Ven: Hi, Kyle.

Oan: Hi, Ven. You've caught me in the middle of my next musical episode.

Ven: Ooh, can I sing?

Oan: Well, I have... to write a whole... bit and... or... session.

Ven: Kyle! I've been working with you for years. I'm just as good a singer as you, if not better! I need to sing!!

Oan: Yes.

Ven: Really?

Oan: Ven, I can't not let you sing. I refuse to do a musical episode including a subplot where someone tries to sing but they can't. It is literally the only character trait that Doug has ever left for me. I refuse to do it!!

Ven: When do we start?

Oan: Later, I'm doing a bit.

Ven: Okay! Diamanda:

He only touches films we've never heard of

And you believe he has such guile.

Black:

Why should we click on the link,

When we don't know what to think?

Diamanda and Black:

No, I just don't understand the ways of Kyle.

[Transition: A page of the book. Kyle sits by the fountain reading.]

Oan:

Ohhhhhh....it needs no announcing,

Just how many hearts this tale....has moved,

Ev'n if they fail pronouncing

The name Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve!

Jessica Kitrick: [offscreen] It's Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, dipshit!!

Oan: That was the abridged version!

Kitrick: [offscreen] Still wrong!

Oan: I will fight you on this! [Oan ends up fighting the same reviewer and ultimately get beaten up. Paw emerges from the bottom]

Paw:

Hello, I'm Paw, and now it's time for best/worst

The best is obviously me.

And the worst is yonder snob

Who disliked Les Miserables.

Do I really have to spell it out?

Reviewers:

I think you have to spell it out.

It's worth to spell it out, K-Y-L-E!!

[Cut to Some Jerk with a Camera standing in front of a brick wall reviewing a movie with Mask Slasher holding the camera.]

Some Jerk with a Camera: And that's why I think Walt Disney should have been played by Samuel L. Jackson. Until next time, I'm Some Jerk with the Camera.

Mask Slasher: Gah, that was an awesome shot, Jerk! Why, you gotta be the greatest white, male, Jewish, overweight, long-haired, respectable, theme park reviewer over thirty the world has ever known!

Jerk: I know.

MS: No ride alive could withstand your review, and no reviewer for that matter.

Jerk: It's true, Mask Slasher, and I'm pointing my camera on that one.

MS: The Brows Held High guy!?

Jerk: He's the one, the lucky reviewer I'll introduce to the magic of mass entertainment...

MS: No, But he's--

Jerk: The most pretentious reviewer online.

MS: I know but--

Jerk: That makes him the worst! And don't I not fail to never not deserve the worst?

MS: Yyyyyes.

Jerk:

In 1991, The Mouse was thriving,

With Eisner, Katzenberg, and Wells.

When the studio unveiled,

A new fangled fairy tale,

With a storyline that rang a couple bells.

Ellen, Maribeth, and Jack:

'Hey look, some jerk! He's got a camera!'

'Who's he? Don't know! I thought you knew!'

I think, he does, review some Disney!

I've never seen his show so I don't know. [Cut to Jerk entering to a MAGfest Nerf Battle with a group of Nerds and Reviewers]

Reviewer 1: It sucks!

Reviewer 2: It sucks!

Reviewer 3: It's crap!

Reviewer 4: It's shit!

NC [v/o]: It's worse than cancer!

Reviewer 5: It's overrated!

Nerd 1: It's bad.

Reviewer 3: It's dreadful!

Reviewer 4: It's bland.

Reviewer 1: It's whack!

Reviewer 6: I feel unclean!

Oan [v/o]: So let's review!!

Reviewer 1: It stinks.

Reviewer 7: 'It hurts! It's balls!'

Reviewer 4: I hate!

NC [v/o]: It has no answers!

Reviewer 6: It's not that good!

Oan: A timeless masterpiece of silver screen!

Jerk: I'll make that guy review a film we've seen!

Nerds:

Look over there at the annoying douchebag,

Who puts the artsy crap on trial!

What a wretched human being!

Ian:

I like him!

Jerk:

Shut up, Ian.

Oan:

For my show's a cinematic feast

I'm doing Beauty and the Beast.

Jerk:

Well, you better do right at least....He's Kyle!! [Jerk and Oan teleport from the convention center to Disneyland. Ona's tie changes color.] (random "It sucks"s)

Oan: I've been whisked away to a Disney theme park. I am as the boy who met the world.

Jerk: Magic of the jump cut, my friend. Welcome to the happiest place on Harbor Boulevard.

Oan: I feel like a targeted demographic.

Jerk: That'll go away.

Oan: Why is my tie covered in Mickeys?

Jerk: Oh, that's a side effect of the teleportation. It'll probably go back and forth randomly throughout this video. Come on, cheer up. We're at Disneyland!

Oan: But, why?!

Jerk: Well I figured, if you're going to do Disney, why not go to the source?

Oan: Disney?

Jerk: You're reviewing Beauty and the Beast, yes?

Oan: La Belle et la Bête, oui.

Jerk: Okay, my German is a little rusty, but I'm flattered and I don't swing that way.

Oan: Weren't you not listening during the song? Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête!

Oan [v/o]: Released in 1946, right after France's liberation from German occupation and often seen as a kickstarter for Post-War French cinema, this adaptation of Villeneuve's fairy tale was the child of the celebrated French poet, playwright, graphic artist, and jack of all artistic trades, Jean Cocteau. A surrealist romp through metaphor and allegory with lush imagery by cinematographer Henri Alekan, this film...

[Cut to Jerk falling asleep and snoring on a bench next to the Disney California Adventure ticket gate. Oan turns around and nudges him.]

Oan: Wake up!

Jerk [v/o]: Ariel small Tinkerbell! Oh crap, I didn't study for this test! I hate these dreams!

Oan [v/o]: No, no. This is the movie, though you're not wrong. This is a surrealist film, and surrealism is the art form that studies dreams.

Jerk [v/o]: Ugh! I have to watch an art film AND read? It's not right for reviewers to read. Soon we start getting ideas and thinking...

Oan [v/o]: It's just a quick preamble. No big deal.

Jerk [v/o]: Okay, okay, let's turn on subtitles. [mumbling and skimming] “Children believe what we tell them. They have complete faith in us”.... “They believe that a rose plucked from a garden.” French, French, French. “Can plunge a family into conflict.” Whatever. Cursive, cursive, cursive. “They believe that the hands of a human beast”... cursive cursive, French French, “will smoke when he slays a victim.” Never heard that, even as a kid. “And that this will cause the beast shame”... “young maiden takes up residence in his home.” I don't know why that would be shameful. “They believe a thousand other simple things”..... “I ask of you a little of this childlike simplicity”... [aloud] Hang on a second!

[Cut to Jerk and Oan eating cotton candy at Toontown Dining Court]

Jerk: So, this film wants us not to think about it? Are you sure this is an art movie?

Oan: Well, not not think about it, but think like a child.

Jerk: How am I supposed to think like a child? [scoff] Idiot.

Oan [v/o]: The film opens with this lovely bucolic scene of...um... animal cruelty...

Jerk [v/o]: Well, it's an art movie. Shocked that it took him this long.

Oan [v/o]: ...as we're introduced to the family of La Belle.

Jerk [v/o]: Wait, you mean the sombrero Queen Elizabeths here?

Oan [v/o]: Well, one, they're wearing 17th Century dress to evoke an early modern setting, specifically the paintings of Johann Vermeer. And two, those are Belle's evil stepsisters.

Jerk [v/o]: Wow, evil stepsisters! Can't get that in a Disney film!

Oan [v/o]: They were in the original story, and probably cut from the Disney version for... well, reminding people too much of Cinderella.

Adelaide: 

Oan [v/o]: They serve the same story purpose here, as examples of bad behavior to make the protagonist look better by comparison.

Jerk [v/o]: Yeah, It's hard to look likable when you travel by manservant.

Adelaide: 

Felicie: 

Jerk [v/o]: Yeah, if these women were alive today, they'd be hiring disabled people to help them cut in line for Star Tours. “Sure, we could get a Fast Pass, but those are for poor people.”

Oan [v/o]: What's a Fast Pass?

Jerk [v/o]: Ugh, you have got a lot to learn around these parts.

Oan [v/o]: ANYWAY, the film follows the original story quite closely. It's about a middle-class family consisting of Belle, her father, her brother, and two sisters. Belle's father, a down-on-his-luck merchant, leaves home to collect the shipment. Before leaving home, he asks his daughters what they want when he returns.

Felicie: 

[At the Jungle Cruise]

Jerk: (excited) Did she just say that she wants a monkey?

Felicie: 

Jerk: She just said that she wants a monkey. This movie is a masterpiece!!

Belle's Father: 

Belle: 

[Felicie and Adelaide laugh]

Jerk [v/o]: [imitating their laughing] Sorry, we just watched a Jeff Dunham special. That guy's hilarious. [continues laughing]

Oan [v/o]: Stop riffing. That's the crux of the entire story. The selfish sisters only want riches while the humble sister only seeks beauty. It's a morality play as well as a love story.

Jerk [v/o]: So, while the 90's blamed everything on selfish male machismo, the 40's blamed everything on selfish female cattiness?

Oan [v/o]: That's a bit reductive.

Jerk [v/o]: The Criterion Collection proudly and yet humbly presents: Women Be Shoppin'.

Oan [v/o]: Now, hold on...

Jerk [v/o]: [interrupting] And while we're at it, how am I supposed to buy that asking for a rose is less reasonable than asking for a monkey?

Jerk: Child logic?

Oan: Child logic.

Oan [v/o]: Okay, let's skip ahead a little bit because I want to get to the cool stuff. The scenes at Belle's house are all Vermeer realism, but once Belle's father gets to the Beast's castle, it goes all Gustave Doré on us.

Jerk [v/o]: I swear you're just making up names.

Oan [v/o]: Doré was the guy who illustrated the book. God, look at that design.

Jerk [v/o]: Yeah, it looks absolutely NOTHING like the Disney version of the castle at all.

Oan [v/o]: That's because I haven't shown you the interiors yet. Heh? Isn't that beautiful?

Jerk [v/o]: It might be if I hadn't already ridden The Haunted Mansion 90 billion times.

Oan [v/o]: The what-what?

Jerk [v/o]: The Haunted Mansion! Those arm candelabras are from The Haunted Mansion. The living statue busts are from The Haunted Mansion. This couldn't be anymore like The Haunted Mansion if Paul Frees himself challenged us to “find the way out.” Lord knows I'm trying.

Oan [v/o]: Um, wouldn't it make more sense that The Haunted Mansion was trying to be like Cocteau's film? I mean, this isn't an unpopular movie or an uninfluential one. Lots of mid-20th Century Gothic fiction borrowed from it. [Like, The Addams Family, which theme plays when one of the invisible servant pours a pitcher of wine into a chalice.] In fact, let's skip ahead here and look at Belle's entrance into the castle. And upon entering, it becomes this gorgeously surreal piece of psycho-magical etherealism, building on a personal mythology guided by classic iconography, mirrors to other worlds, magical gloves, living Pygmalion-like statues, Cocteau's near-Freudian sequence of tunnels and hallways makes it clear that Belle's exploring her own subconscious desires, as much as she's exploring the home of her new suitor.

Jerk [v/o]: Does any of what you just said mean that she's having a total eclipse of the heart, because that's what it looks like. It looks like there's nothing she can do with a total eclipse of the heart.

Oan [v/o]: Again, maybe Total Eclipse of the Heart was trying to be like this movie.

Jerk [v/o]: Alright, enough scenery! I wanna see the big guns! Show me the beast!

Oan [v/o]: Alright, then. Belle's father enters the castle and, remembering his promise to Belle, spies a rose. And when he plucks it...

Beast: 

[At Hollywood Land, in front of Monster Inc's Mike and Sulley to the Rescue. Get it?]

Jerk: KITTY! Who's a puddy kitty? Who's a puddy kitty?

Oan: Stop baby-talking the Beast!

Oan [v/o]: Look at that face. Look at those eyes. He looks melancholy yet defiant. He looks regal but fierce. He looks-

Jerk [v/o]: He looks like Hermione drank the wrong Polyjuice Potion.

Oan [v/o]: Fine! Okay! He looks like a big cat. We get it. We get the joke. Can we drop this?

Jerk [v/o]: *sigh* under protest.

Beast: 

Jerk [v/o]: [As Beast] Everyzing in zis castle is yours. You want cheezburger, you can has cheezburger.

Oan: Will you please stay on topic?

Jerk: This is on topic. The Disney Beast was way more effectively terrifying.

Jerk [v/o]: He wasn't just in human, he was in every animal... That came out wrong. He was a unique hybrid: Part-lion, part-wolf, part-bear, part-boar, part-buffalo, and part-gorilla, with the horns of a bison, the eyes of a human...

[Cut to clip from Pete's Dragon]

Pete: And the ears of a cow.

Jerk [v/o]: This guy is just a big ugly zombie cat. I wonder what his musical would've looked like.

[Cut to Keyboard Cat]

Oan [v/o]: But the Beast shouldn't simply be terrifying. He's frightening at first, yes, but the Beast's main quality should be his ugliness and his kindness. I actually love the simplicity of the Beast's design here. Jean Marais as the Beast is quite a layered character. Cocteau once said of Marais that he deserted the human race for the animal race. But, still, it's the Beast's humanity that comes through the most. Yes, the makeup is ugly, but soulful as well. It emphasizes his grand liquid eyes full of so much pain. Disney's Beast always seemed too comfortable with his beastliness. Cocteau's Beast is regal, dressed to the nines and constantly trying to suppress the animal nature in favor of his better angels. His moral beauty isn't a self-awareness that other beasts took so long to show.

Beast: 

Belle: 

Oan [v/o]: There's a rather famous story, actually. Greta Garbo saw this film in it's 1946 premiere and at the end, when the Beast transforms into a handsome prince, she famously cried out, “Oh, give me back my beautiful Beast!” That alone is a testament to how well this Beast was designed. And I'm sorry makeup techniques in 1946 weren't cartoony enough for your [Jerk's] liking, but frankly....

[A red dot appears on the screen as the Beast follows it.]

[Cut to Jerk, nearby Alice in Wonderland ride, giggling and playing around with a laser pointer. Oan snatches it away.]

Oan: Give me that! I'm trying to teach you about a great piece of artwork and you're just nitpicking and making cat jokes.

Jerk: You do know which internet we're on, right?

Oan: How dare you belittle this masterpiece of...

Jerk: [interrupting] The most pretentious pile of crap I've ever seen in my life. Who does that snail-eater think he is anyway?

Oan: You badger man, you don't even know who he is, do you? You're tanning with the wrong man!

Jerk: Sorry?

Oan: No one even knows Cocteau! The poet! The artist! The lie who tells the truth! Why, it's something I can't bear.

Jerk: Can of beer?

Oan: Nah, Disneyland's tried and I don't trust the talking cars in California Adventure. Besides, I can't let this rest! You are in bad need of an education.

No one remembers the name: Jean Cocteau,

Buried by cells and by ink.

Jerk: [interrupting] They weren't using-

Oan:

I'm here to praise and reclaim Jean Cocteau

And his fable for those who can think.

Jerk: [offscreen] … Hey!

Oan:

A poet, a painter, a playwright and more,

It breaks my artistic morale

At line-dancing cutlery they shall encore

But they overlook l'originale

No one plots like Cocteau,

Frames his shots like Cocteau

Makes his passions your every-day thoughts like Cocteau

For he makes lucid elegant tableaus

Mythic and wondrous to see

Why, just ask Edith, Igor or Pablo

And they'll point out the man whose the toast to Paris

No one plays like Cocteau

Spins a phrase like Cocteau

Holds your gaze with amazing ballets like Cocteau

Jerk:

And for that he gets critics ejaculating.

Oan:

Don't judge my kings, or Cocteau! [For those of you who don't know, the chorus contains Spazzmaster [top right], TricksterBell [top left], Il Neige [bottom left], Jerk [bottom center] and The Wire [bottom right] ]

Jerk and chorus:

He's dull and weird!

He's so overwrought!

Oan:

But look at this petrified

Fountain of thought!!

Chorus: Huh?!

Spazz: Kyle, it's water. How high are your brows?

Oan:

No one styles like Cocteau

Non beguile like Cocteau

Makes you view through the eyes of a child like Cocteau

His response to the bourgeoisie's high-hat

Was to spell out his fairy tale tone.

Jerk:

Can't believe Michael Bay hasn't tried that!

[Cut to Michael Bay and Spazzmaster as a kid licking a lollipop at Universal Studios Hollywood in front of Transformers the Ride]

Michael Bay: You know, kids think this movie makes sense!

Kid: No, we don't!

Jerk:

No one bores like Cocteau

Causes snores like Cocteau

Depicts women as gold-digging whores like Cocteau

His effects are so old they need carbon-dating

'Ptooey! To that snob Jean Cocteau!'

Oan:

When he was a youth with the Russian ballet

He could barely inscribe a few lines

And in his old age the Academie Francaise

Consecrated his Orphic design-

Jerk: Hey! You can't say Orphic here!

Oan: Wha- No-

Jerk: You watch your fuckin' mouth! You're in fuckin' Disneyland, motherfucker!!

Oan: No no, I mean Orphic as in Orpheus.

Oan [v/o]: It's one of the myths that he returned to over and over throughout his career. The artist who goes to the Underworld and becomes changed and returns. It's the guiding narrative of Cocteau's body of work. Surrealism, as a movement, is about realizing the subconscious. And, for Cocteau, Orpheus symbolized realization. The artist delves into the soul and brings his findings back to the world. Cocteau was always an avid of classic mythology, but Orpheus stuck with him the most. Look at his first film. Blood of a Poet opens with an artist going through a mirror to the underworld and coming back inspired. Later, after Beauty and the Beast, he would make a film about Orpheus, also starring Jean Marais. And his final film, the one that's clearly a disguised autobiography, was called The Testament of Orpheus. And you can see it here, as well. The Beast's castle is an underworld, a dreamland ruled by dream laws, and Belle is Orpheus, delving into the underworld to find her beloved.

Oan: In fact, that's kind of how you see movies, no? When watching a film, aren't we all Orpheus? We sit down, the light's dim, and we're transported into another world, by the lights, flickering on the wall of the cave. Film is its own underworld, a complete immersion in... [turns to Jerk sitting next to Oan at a movie theater who's playing Candy Crush Saga] turn your damn phone off.

Jerk: No, the candy needs crushing!

Oan:

No one beams like Cocteau

Writes his themes like Cocteau

As his schemes seem to gleam in your dreams like Cocteau

For there ne'er was a man whose as-

Jerk:

Overrated!!

Oan:

I'll say it again

He's as good with a pen,

As he is with a play

Or a film he'll convey,

With his mirrors and gloves,

All the things that he loves,

Sing his phrase from Calais to Bordeaux.

There's just one great auteur whose whole work is secured,

And his name's C-O-C-

Jerk: [snickers]

Oan:

C-O-C-

Jerk:

K!

Oan:

C-O-C-T-

Jerk: [offscreen]

K!

Oan:

C-O-C-K- Fuck it!

Cocteau!!!

[Continued in Part 2] Jerk [v/o]: Introducing the all-new 1946 Acura Manservant. “Quality you can shriek at.”