Last night I was watching Robin Williams's trip to the Inside the Actors Studio (from now on we'll call it IAS!), where one of the things they talk about is the genie in Aladdin.
I knew that there was a debate back when it was released that if he should be nominated for an Oscar for this role! But since he was playing or "dubbing" a cartoon character he didn't get one eventually. However, this is the part that I did not know, he'd won a Golden Globe that same year for his role in this cartoon! I praise the Hollywood Foreign Press for boldly doing so.
As James Lipton explained, someone had counted the number of characters Robin Williams had created while playing the genie. You're not gonna believe this! The number was 52!!! And frankly, after seeing him on IAS, it wasn't that surprising. If you are a follower of the series, you must already know that each episode spans for about 40 minutes. In rare cases you would see an hour and a half like in George Clooney's case and because he had only recently been there after a long career, so he had a lot to talk about!
But Robin Williams was there in 2000 and the reason why it took so long was because he wasn't answering almost any of the questions straight up! After each question, he would get up, improvise a character, and act the answer to the question and it was amazing! To improvise something that fast and keep going on and on and on...it was mind blowing!
Anyway, the point of this post was to remind you of this cartoon, which is one of Disney's best ever made, and invite you to watch it again, as I will too! Interestingly I have found out over the years that many people can't watch a movie if they have already seen it before! I couldn't believe it, because in my case, if I am at home and want to select a movie from my archive to watch, I will most likely choose from the ones that I have already seen and loved! I usually watch movies at least twice! It's the only way to really pin the points you've missed the first time. I think I have watched my favorite movies like Forrest Gump and Amelie more than 10 times! And if it's just a comedy with a simple storyline which doesn't need any interpretation (!), I would watch it again just for the joy of it! (Probably the reason why I am a "neurotic filmaholic" and they're not! :D )
Back to the cartoon! As I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, I used to read this magazine back in Iran called Donya'ye Tassvir and read the review of the new movies there, written by Bijan Ashtari (an Iranian film-critic) religiously! I remember when he was writing about Rango (and in many of the other reviews he had written about cartoons), he mentioned that how he missed 2D cartoons and the ones that were not digitally made and were made the old-fashioned way without the use of computers, and how invaluable cartoons like Rango are these days. And I couldn't agree more!
Watch Aladdin and you'll see what I mean! It is a timeless classic!
Here's the link to one of his improvisations on IAS (fast forward to 40'):
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