1) Escape From Tomorrow
You’d be hard-pressed to find a movie that takes Disney on more directly than this year’s celebrated guerilla filmmaking triumph, Escape From Tomorrow. Forget for a moment what the story is about, because frankly, that is and should be considered secondary to how insane it is that this movie even got made and released. This is a movie that takes place at Disney World, and was mostly shot at the park without permission from Disney to do so. The result is, in itself, a bit surreal since we’re not used to seeing Disney World depicted on film in this way, or really in any way. Disney is famously protective of its image and property, and so the thought of this tiny film crew functioning completely in secret, running and hiding from security at times and communicating directions from opposite ends of the park so as not to attract any unwanted attention, is pretty crazy.
Shooting the film was one thing, one extremely complicated thing. Getting a release for it was another thing altogether, given the intellectual property nightmare it surely would be to either try to get Disney’s permission to allow these copyrighted images to appear in a commercial film, or to just release it without permission and wait for the lawsuits to roll in (the movie’s website has a “Hours since release that we haven’t been sued” clock at the top of the page).
What’s more, the story doesn’t paint Disney and its various lands in the most positive of lights. Borrowing heavily from folks like David Lynch, director Randy Moore tries to capitalize on the surreal nature of seeing Disney World on film by making his plot a surrealistic one. It’s also an attempt to capture the deeply weird feeling the resort can elicit. It’s not a flattering portrayal. It’s also not the most engaging or enjoyable narrative, but when you consider the meta component of its production, this movie has to be like catnip for Disney detractors.
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