girl i'm barely on social media and i'm still exhausted

who knew when you were making pompoms in the hotel room ten years ago that you would someday become caretaker of the pomiest of pompoms

also: the animals in this film are real, and I would die for the bear.

anyway RIP Sam Neill, hope there are as many or as few dinosaurs and/or elephants on the other side as you want

Neill plays exactly the kind of movie dad you'd expect, trying and failing to reign in a kinda Liz-Swann-esque daughter & being exasperated by elephants. The character is no Alan Grant, but I would have mourned Neill for this piece of my childhood regardless.

sidenote: these villain deaths are (mostly) bloodless, & WAY more terrifying than plenty of blood-soaked R-rated horror. Make Kids Movies Hardcore Again!! Especially when killing colonizers. Mowgli himself doesn't kill; each is killed by his own greed, hubris, & disrespect of nature.

I remember the first time I watched The Mummy (1999), I thought that it seemed like whoever made that movie looked at this film for inspiration on how to brutally kill its baddies one by one, but wasn't willing to go QUITE as hard as this film did.

Turns out: SAME FUCKING DIRECTOR.

It IS still a 90s Disney movie, tho, so they cast a Hawaiian-Chinese man for the Indian lead but went all-out with The Whites. Sam Neill's movie daughter is played by Lena Headey. John Cleese is there. The lead villain is Cary Elwes, which was alarming for someone raised also on Princess Bride.

Traditionally, Shere Khan the tiger is the Big Bad. In this film, it's a group of British occupying forces who want to exploit the people/land for treasure that isn't theirs & disrespect nature. Mowgli is the hero of the story, who protects the jungle & scorns the cruelty of the Brits.

This country has never held its racists accountable. It's been too busy trying to make sure that everybody gets along. But peace without justice isn't sustainable. We can't make that mistake again.

For extra yikes: they didn't say "not white." They had a list. Black was also on the list, because of course it was. Black was not the term used.

It is, in part, pretending that this racist shit was deep in the past that has allowed it to become so prominent in the present.