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Jeffery Carlson, who was best known for his role on the ABC soap All My Children, just died at age 48, but no cause of death was revealed just yet.

www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/all-my-children-s-jeffrey-carlson-dies-at-48/ar-AA1dDW6r?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=bc5f2fb04c614c87abcd8998f74c3e9d&ei=17

I didn't see it running it my local cineplex. Chances are I think it's already out.

That was fast.

And here's the fight, place your bets!

Just in time for the Fourth of July, I now give you:

An American Tail (1986)

Distributor: Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment/Sullivan Bluth Studios
Director: Don Bluth
Cast: Phillip Glasser (Fievel Mousekewitz), John Finnegan (Warren T. Rat), Amy Green (Tanya Mousekewitz), Nehemiah Persoff (Papa Mouskewitz), Erica Yohn (Mama Mousekewitz), Pat Musick (Tony Toponi), Dom DeLuise (Tiger), Christopher Plummer (Henri le Pigeon), Cathianne Blore (Bridget), Neil Ross (Honest John), Madeline Kahn (Gussie Mausheimer), Will Ryan (Digit), Hal Smith (Moe)
Runtime: 81 min.
MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)

This movie is about a spirited yet naïve mouse named Fievel, son of the Mousekewitz family. In the year 1885, he and his family are disillusioned with the anti-Semitism against Jewish faith in their hometown of Shostka, Russia. Believing there are no cats in America, the Mousekewitz family boards a boat to make the long trip to the New World but Fievel falls off the boat and is separated from his family. Making it to the New England colonies, the Mousekewitz family now must cope with the loss of their son while Fievel drifts to New York and now must make the harrowing task of surviving without the care of his loving family. Is there any hope that Fievel may see his family again?

After having the success that he achieved with The Secret of NIMH, Don Bluth was the man for animation in the 1980s. So much so that when Steven Spielberg started working with him this would actually lead him into animation; later movies like The Land Before Time and Who Framed Roger Rabbit would actually prompt Spielberg to start his own animation studio Amblimation.

This movie originally started life as a short film, but Spielberg felt it had the potential to work as a big-screen feature film. It was going to be a movie featuring an all-animal cast, but Don Bluth suggested that it feature a mouse society that was hidden from the human world, similar to his earlier movie The Secret of NIMH and Disney’s The Rescuers. When it was released in theaters in the holiday season of 1986, it was very successful, outgrossing even Disney’s own The Great Mouse Detective, another cel-animated movie about mice.

From a personal standpoint? This was one of the first movies I actually did get to see in its original theatrical release! True story! So now, to cap off the animated films that Don Bluth had done while he was the don of animation in the 80s, I will now give you my input on An American Tail just in time for the Fourth of July.

For the sake of avoiding trouble, I will not make any disparaging remarks on Fievel’s home country. It’s for the best that you don’t kick a country while it’s down.

The movie’s story is about a Russian-Jewish mouse family in 1885 who want to leave their home due to the dangers of cat invasion so their plan is to immigrate to the United States, which is full of freedom and opportunity. This is a reason why despite the recycled theme, I do think it would have been for the best that the movie was about a secret mouse society rather than an all-animal cast. Being an immigrant would of course carry a lot of baggage (figuratively and literally) and there are cultural revolutions you would have to adapt to, meaning you would of course now be living in a free country, but that doesn’t mean problems would not exist. After Fievel falls off the boat and washes on Liberty Island, he and his family would have to endure plenty of hardships in their quest to not only survive but be reunited.

One thing this movie did seem to do is I do think it may have opened my eyes to the idea of culture. The main family is of course Russian, alongside nods to other cultures such as British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Irish… I may have been a kindergartener at the time, but this may have helped start my fascination with foreign cultures and customs. Very nice to have and will help encourage children to acknowledge there is a world beyond the one they know.

The story is written well, but it may not be the movie you’d want to take in at any time. Being that the theme is about immigration, and it’s supposed to be set during the 1880s when the United States had only recently seen it’s centennial, the technology was clearly much different then so it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Very much so, as one issue I do take with the movie is the fact its tone is so dreary. There are very long stretches where we get the tone is establishing life in a new world is going to be much different than you knew along with some distressing ideas of possibly never seeing your family again. This movie does have lighthearted moments and fun moments to help brighten the mood, but there aren’t enough to provide balance to the rest of the movie which tends to be very bleak. This was a major reason why Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert did not respond well. I understand the tone they were going for, but I just felt that The Secret of NIMH and later The Land Before Time would maintain a better balance. Regardless, it never loses sight of heart and hope always lives.

The movie’s animation? Being that this movie was animated by Don Bluth and Sullivan Bluth Studios, it has Don Bluth’s master draftsmanship which you see everywhere. Being that this is a movie about a secret mouse society, you tend to see a lot of unclean parts of the new world which does help immerse you in feeling of what you’re meant to be seeing. Some of what I did like as well was some of its use of light like how in one sequence Tanya is brightly colored to suggest she thinks her brother is still alive while her parents are more washed out in color to suggest they feel he may be gone for good.

The downside to some of its environments are because even the environments are supposed to be dirty in appearance, this does tend to add to the dispiriting tone. It just seems like to go along with the feeling of being down in the dumps, you have a mouse character that… seems to be walking through many dumps as well as not pleasant weather conditions such as rain or fog. I do get that the movie knew its theme but again, it just might not be the movie you’d want to take in at any time. Warts and all, the animation is very much Don Bluth and it’s on fully here.

Now for the movie’s characters. You do have a good number of characters here. The movie’s hero, Fievel Mousekewitz, is the gateway into the movie’s world and they did a good job maintaining a lot of his childlike innocence and naivety along being too immature to understand romantic love. The journey he takes is one people would never want to make, but he does learn some important life factors like self-confidence and the necessity of making friends. His parents are polar opposites to each other, with Mama being the level-headed disciplinarian and Papa being the passionate starry-eyed dreamer. After they lose hope of seeing Fievel again, his older sister Tanya is the one to maintain the hope that Fievel is still alive. For Fievel’s friends that he makes during the story, Tony is an Italian-American mouse who maintains some loyalty to Fievel after he helps him escape a sweatshop, and Bridget is Tony’s love interest who had lost her parents to the cats and wants to aid Fievel due to her kind nature. There is also Henri le Pigeon, a French-descent pigeon who encourages Fievel to never lose hope and Tiger, the big orange tabby who is supposed to be an enforcer of the Mott Street Maulers, but is too much of a kitten to want to harm Fievel in addition to being a lovable comic relief. Gussie and Honest John are respectively a wealthy lady and a politician who have some authority over the new environment and are necessary for the story as they lead the mice to eradicate the cat gang from New York. The movie’s villain is Warren T. Rat, who is actually a con artist leader of the Mott Street Maulers whose only interests are terrorizing the mice and lining his pockets with cash. His accountant, Digit the cockroach, is a prone-to-nervous tic character who inexplicably can generate electricity through his antennae. We again have another very memorable cast of characters that Don Bluth and his team knew how to create.

For the songs? This movie does contain the musical numbers you would expect from a Don Bluth movie and together with composer James Horner they are a real spectacle. “No Cats in America” is a Broadway-esque number about the past hardships and the potential new land of freedom and opportunity that awaits, I very much appreciated different cultures and moods described through this number. “Never Say Never” is the song meant to provide hope and does contain a solid message. “A Duo” is the buddy song to solidify the bond Fievel now has with Tiger which is meant to provide fun. Finally, the one that received the most accolades, “Somewhere Out There”, is the song that on a deeper level means that despite being so far away from the ones you care about are not as far away as you may think.

I do have to admit that some of the execution on that song could have been better. Mainly because while I didn’t have so much of a problem with Tanya’s verses, Fievel’s have a tendency to be rather Narm-y as he goes through different tones that seem to undermine how seriously he’s taking it. I understand he’s only a small child and kids don’t have great acting chops, but that was an issue I had. Thankfully, the end title version sung by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram is much better.

Critics may have preferred The Great Mouse Detective initially, but An American Tail won plenty more people over for good reason; it’s one of the best animated films of the 1980s. With a more satisfying mixture of elements with only the tone being a recurring issue, it’s still a solid movie and one that merits your attention. I do prefer The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time personally, but don’t take that as a knock against it, An American Tail is still a great movie and one that Don Bluth should be very proud to have done.



An American Tail (1986)
TreyVore rates it: A-

Wow. That looks like it will be epic.

On another note, guess who is going to be featured on an upcoming Death Battle!

Yeah, that Ezra Miller thing is really dragging The Flash down.

Regarding Elemental though, I guess it may have been a bomb in just the US but hopefully foreign business will save it.