02-04-04 @ 10:55 am EST

Hm. :/ I don't know what it is. I was all jazzed earlier on today about possibly coming on and typing up something long--an e-mail, an entry, whatever--but then when I come on I feel all afraid again. And something about the length of my entries and e-mails actually makes me reluctant to write them because I know they'll take up all the morning. I used to LIKE writing long things. When did I start disliking it?

Well, I'll try not to let this go on forever. (Lots of luck on that one.) I found a Phil Collins CD the other day which I've never heard of. I thought I might not like it because two of the songs are called "Testify" and "Swing Low," and my first thought was, "Oh Phil, have you gone all CHRISTIAN on me??" Turns out my fears were unwarranted. "Testify" is in fact a very nice love song that would be good at weddings and "Swing Low" is just weird. The album, itself called Testify, isn't as good as the other album of his that I have (...But Seriously--yes, I am behind the times, get over it!), but better than some stuff out there, so I'm not seriously disappointed. I like the first three songs very much. A few of the others I find myself singing to when I listen to them, and the others, they aren't horrid, but like I said, they are weird. Strange instrumentation on them. Oh well.

What got me was how similar some of the music sounds to those songs of his on Disney's Brother Bear soundtrack! Brother Bear was from 2003, and Testify is from 2002, so maybe there was an overlap between the recording sessions? It's quite interesting how similar they get--it's like you can hear the styles merging. Even some instrumentation is the same. The very first song on Testify, for example--"Wake Up Call"--is so similar to Brother Bear's "Welcome" (Phil's version--there is another version on there by the Blind Boys Of Alabama) that it's uncanny. They're not ripoffs, no, but quite interestingly similar.

I can't remember which particular song it is, but one of the songs on Testify features this instrument in the background--I'm not sure what it is--but it sounds EXACTLY like one that appears in the background of "Welcome" on Brother Bear. Sorry that I don't know what that instrument is nor how to describe it; it's like this droning sound. If you have the Brother Bear soundtrack, then fast-forward to "Welcome" and listen for the bridge where Phil sings "This has to be/The most beautiful/The most peaceful place/I've ever been to/It's nothing like/I've ever seen before"--and the droning noise comes right at that point. That's what I'm talking about; that same sound is somewhere on Testify, I just can't recall where at the moment.

Anyway, that's not the extent of it. "Don't Get Me Started," from Testify, sounds a lot like Brother Bear's "On My Way" (heck, he even SAYS "I'm on my way!" in both songs!), and not only that, but Brother Bear features the song "Look Through My Eyes"--whereas Testify features a song called "Thru My Eyes"! Neat, eh? Let's compare lyrics! (These are the liner notes and thus may be slightly inaccurate. Pay special attention to the choruses!)

Testify's "Thru My Eyes" (2002)

It's never where you think you'll find it
The thing you think you're looking for
It could take you all your lifetime
And still you'd never quite be sure

You could look everywhere
Because you know it's there
Somewhere beneath the sky
But too close and you'll get burned
There's no lesson learned
Yet some people pass it by

Chorus
You'll see things different when you look through my eyes
Things are different if you see what I see
Just look closely and you'll see through my eyes
It could be different, you'll see how it could be
If you can see

You may need help to find your way home
Those who brought you here have flown
The road you take is full of hope or sadness
The choice you make will be your own

But you're not alone in there
Just say hello in there
'Cause there are many just like you
They'll help you find some way
To make it all the way
They'll tell you all you have to do

Chorus

No one warns you of the heartache
No one can hide you from the storm
But from the shadows there will come the sunshine
A place to dry and keep you warm

Though no one tells you how
Your heart's beating faster now
Getting stronger day by day

Suddenly it's clear, what you seek is near
It's what you learn along the way

It's never where you think you'll find it
The thing you think you're looking for
Well it could take you all your lifetime
Still you'll never quite be sure
You'll find it, just look closer


Brother Bear's "Look Through My Eyes" (2003)

There are things in life you'll learn and
In time you'll see
'Cause out there somewhere
It's all waiting
If you keep believing

So don't run, don't hide
It will be all right
You'll see, trust me
I'll be there watching over you

Chorus
Just take a look through my eyes
There's a better place somewhere out there
Just take a look through my eyes
Everything changes
You'll be amazed what you'll find
If you look through my eyes

There will be times on this journey
All you'll see is darkness
Out there somewhere daylight finds you
If you keep believing

So don't run, don't hide
It will be all right
You'll see, trust me
I'll be there watching over you

Chorus

All the things that you can change
There's a meaning in everything
And you will find all you need
There's so much to understand

Chorus

Take a look through my eyes

Eh? Ehhhhh? Isn't it funny? If I were more wordly I would do this more often, music comparison is fun. ^_^

No, I don't accuse Phil Collins of ripping himself off; I just tend to think the soundtrack and the album were probably recorded around the same time, so of course there would be overlap and definitely similar styles. I'm willing to bet just about every musician has written songs that are almost exactly like something else of theirs at some point. Once on Canadian TV I saw a routine with two women singing Britney Spears's "Oops!...I Did It Again" and "Baby One More Time," both at the same time--and they were EXACTLY in tune. Plus, have you ever listened to Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" and "Here Comes The Rain Again," one right after the other? I mean, c'mon.

I never did discuss Brother Bear here in Skew. Well, without going into full movie-review mode, it was no Lion King, but it was no crappy Pocahontas, either. I was somewhat bothered by the "totem animal" thing--a totem is a FAMILY SYMBOL, not a personal symbol!--and the usage of the female medicine person (um...medicine woman, I guess) niggled at me--it was as if they were saying, "Look, here we have a POWERFUL FEMALE CHARACTER!--are ya happy??" (One of the complaints I heard about The Lion King--TOTALLY unwarranted, if you ask me--was that it didn't have enough empowered female characters. All I can say to that is--HELLO! Were you SLEEPING when they introduced Sarabi--and NALA?? Sarabi was only a bit player, but she stood up to Scar himself--and Nala actually beats SIMBA at tussling! THREE TIMES! I am still beyond pissed off that in the Broadway version they changed my FAVORITE character, Rafiki, into a WOMAN just to appease the whiners who weren't happy enough with Sarabi and Nala. BABIES! Can't we love characters just for their characters, not based on what gender they are?? Sheesh.)

*cough* Anyway...aside from that...and the fact that the moose brothers didn't really seem to enhance the plot any beyond mild humor (yah, they did lead to Koda realizing that he felt Kenai was his brother, but that was almost shoehorned in there, it was so obvious)...it was an okay movie. Personally I think it should have been somewhat longer to better work on the character development--all the bears aside from Koda came across as one dimensional. What was the point of introducing that huge bear, Tug I think his name was, if he never had a personality? I mean, this ENTIRE MOVIE is about bears and the only ones who really get a chance to speak are Koda and Kenai, if you're willing to count Kenai as a bear, which he is not, not really. And oh yeah, the typical Disney ending was just way too happy cheery la la la for my tastes...I think it would have been better had not Sitka made a final appearance. Even Mufasa's return in TLK had a dreamlike quality to it, as if to say, "Did that REALLY happen, or...?" Sitka's appearance was like, "Oh, here I am. Sure I'm dead, but hi anyway!" And Kenai so easily giving up his humanity...rings a bit false. It was like the totally dorky ending to Lilo & Stitch where even the bad guys and the aliens and Cobra Bubbles decide to hang out for Thanksgiving dinner. Don't they have lives elsewhere? Blah. Oddly enough it was the middle brother, Denahi, who came across as most believable. He's the one who went through the greatest character change, even including Kenai, and I could imagine his grief and rage as he chased Kenai all throughout the movie, thinking he was his brother's killer. (Hm, should I have put "Spoiler" somewhere up there? Sorry. ^_^; )

(By the way, WHAT THE HELL WAS DENAHI'S SPIRIT ANIMAL?? They NEVER tell it! Sitka's is the eagle, Kenai's is the bear, but what is Denahi's? AAAGGGHHH!!)

*cough*...well, that went a little more indepth than I had planned! And I actually went to the official site to make sure I spelled the names right...unbelievably, Disney's site only features info on Kenai, Koda, and the moose--not even on the other brothers! Shame! I had to use another site...but the Disney one does have the moose offering interesting commentary while things load. ("So this is a website? Where are the spiders?" "No, this is the World Wide Web." "Yeah, sounds like a huge spider...this is kinda scary..."..."What's that?!" "That's just the cursor. They wanna click on ya." "I don't want a curse put on me! Click him! CLICK HIM!"..."Ew, this place looks awful! When's the last time ya cleaned your computer?" "That keyboard's a mess!") Go there only if you want to listen to the moose chattering while you wait for things to load. Sad that Disney doesn't like providing full cast information for their own movies. o_o

So anyway...it's only average as far as Disney movies go, but still WAY better than any drek Dreamworks has put out thus far! Disney has character development down pat, except for when they're rushing it, like they did here...but Dreamworks knows of no such thing as dynamics...static characters...bleh.

I HATE how all the reviews diss Phil's soundtrack! SHUT UP!! Sure, they're not the best songs in the world, but they are not "negligible" as the review at Amazon says, and the review in EW was simply atrocious--it was like the reader hated anything having to do with Phil Collins, and based their entire review on his soundtrack alone. JERKS! In fact the ONLY four things I have against the soundtrack are:

1. Not enough ethnic music. In a movie set in prehistoric native times, there should be more! The Bulgarian Women's Choir does a fantastic job on "Transformation," and the score pieces are good, but there really should be more, a stronger influence in Phil's songs perhaps. I do not blame Phil for this.

2. The inclusion of Tina Turner. I can stand the Blind Boys Of Alabama, but...TINA TURNER? Singing a song by Phil Collins? On a soundtrack about INDIANS?? The song "Great Spirits" would be WAY WAY BEYOND better if the songwriter himself--PHIL!--sang it. What was Disney thinking? Gar!!

3. Not all of the songs were even in the movie. For the big sweeping opening theme, they used "Great Spirits"...with Tina Turner! (See the above! >_< ) The most sweeping song on the soundtrack, Collins's "Look Through My Eyes," should have DEFINITELY been used in that spot. Instead, it--and his pop version of "No Way Out" (which, inexplicably, was for some reason chosen over "Eyes" as the movie's themesong)--are hacked up and mashed together over the closing credits. (Oh, I hope that if you saw the movie you didn't walk out during the credits, BTW!--the funniest part of the movie came during those!) And his wonderful version of "Transformation" was not included in the movie at all. For shame! Someday I shall write Phil Collins and nicely ask him if I can use "Transformation" in the soundtrack to Return To Manitou Island. Beeyatch!

and lastly,

4. I am CERTAIN some songs were CUT from this soundtrack! When reading previews on the Yahoo! message boards posted months before the movie came out, there was mention of several song titles that do not appear on the album, such as "Brothers Just The Same" or something like that, and another one I can't remember. And in one advertisement I saw for the movie, they were playing that very song, with Phil Collins singing it--and it DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE SOUNDTRACK! Where the HELL are these missing songs? Somebody had better pull a Rhythm Of The Pride Lands and release them on a special companion disk sometime in the future or I will be PISSED! Do not make me write to Phil Collins!

Oh yeah, one more complaint about the movie itself. The transformation sequence was so...underdone. It should have gone ALL OUT and lasted, like, FIVE MINUTES or more, rather than the sparse two or so minutes of the Bulgarian Women's Choir song. It was almost like, "Bam, you're a bear, switch to next scene." As one of the most important scenes in the movie, it should not have been so rushed. Like I said, this movie would have been much better if they had let it play out at its natural speed, rather than rushed it along for the more attention-deficit. But it was better than Dreamworks. After Sitka dies, when the medicine woman and the tribe are mourning and Kenai is preparing his spear to go kill the bear responsible...and in the later scene when Kenai is telling Koda about who he really is, and what happened to Koda's mother...those two scenes are fantastic. Very emotional. I didn't really sob during this movie, but those scenes brought me close.

Well, so I offered a review after all. I CAN'T HELP IT! I only saw the thing like MONTHS ago and never even commented...blah. Did you truly expect me to see a cartoon based on Native American culture and NOT COMMENT? And it has now been...two hours, all my online time. *sigh*

I did have a rather freaky dream recently about my dad sexually abusing me, in case you weren't interested in any of the Phil Collins stuff...

http://tdreamjournal.tripod.com/2004/020204.html

(Beware the popup! Hiss!)

...but that's neither here nor there. Just felt like sharing it. Bleh.

I think I had more to say about the movie but gaw, I already said more than enough. Sorry if you have not seen it and I just ruined the whole thing. *hides under rock* o_o; Tar for now...