Do you know how sometimes you rewatch a film and discover in it new aspects and layers that you never noticed before that make viewing it an altogether richer experience? Okay, have you ever had the opposite happen?
That was the case with my pick of 1986, An American Tail. Remember Fievel? Do you remember it being awesome and you felt bad for that poor immigrant mouse who was lost from his family and sang "Somewhere Out There?"
Okay, Fievel Mousekewitz is a Jewish mouse from Russia whose family decides to go to America after a bunch of Cossack cats ruin Hanukkah. I'm not even kidding. So, I started getting confused here. Is it like Art Spiegelman's Maus? Were all mice Jewish? Then they get on the boat with a bunch of other mice, one who seemed Catholic. Okay, then Fievel goes to the Statue of Liberty where he's rescued by a pigeon who sounds like Maurice Chevalier. Then he meets an Italian mouse who falls in love with a mouse with the worst Irish accent ever. Then they meet Gussie Mausheimer who is some sort of German mouse that I start worrying is going to turn on Fievel when some sort of Mouse Fascist movement starts. Then this movie really starts to fall apart when I no longer buy that a cat could disguise himself as a rat. And it's over. A little part of my inner child has died. Let's sing for it.
So, my new favorite movie of 1986 is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which is awesome, but I made you read all of that, so let me get this in quick for you. Star Trek IV is great -if for no other reason- for this moment.
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