The Sword in the Stone is the last Disney Animated Feature to be released during Walt’s lifetime. Although The Jungle Book would still have a strong influence from Disney, he did not see it to completion (no doubt adding to the causes of the four year interim between the films, the longest since […]
Song of the South is a 1964 Walt Disney production that has never seen the light of day on home video in the United States due to issues of political correctness. Is the film broad and offensive in its treatment of black Americans? Not particularly. The problem seems to come down to […]
For Ratatouille, I present my first (and possibly last) one of those “podcasts” the kids are always talking about these days. Apologies for the sometime wonky audio and the fact that I had a sore throat the day we recorded.
Chicken Run marked the feature film debut for Aardman Studios, the animation house best known for the Wallace and Gromit shorts. It tells of a group of chickens desperate to escape the farm on which they live. Their attempts always fail, but the erstwhile leader, Ginger (Julie Sawalha) perseveres. When a hotshot […]
As I stated in my original review, Mulan is a strong entry from Disney animation at a time when they were really blowing hot and cold. The story still has a lot of the formulaic problems that marked Disney films of the day, but it is at least executed very well, with good songs, […]
Pink Floyd The Wall is director Alan Parker’s fever-dream adaptation of the well-known rock opera/album. Now, Parker was (and is) no stranger to films with significant musical content, having directed Fame, Birdy, Evita and The Commitments, to name a few. With The Wall, however, he actually hit a wall named Roger Waters and […]
Robin Hood is considered by many to be a weak point in the Disney Animated Feature canon, but I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for it. Watching it again after all these years I can agree that it doesn’t measure up, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons others feel that […]
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is the theatrical debut of the popular character better known for his Nickelodeon television series. It established the basic premise and characters, essentially making it like a longer episode of the show. (It was, in fact, produced as a way of forming a fanbase for the later show.)
We meet […]
What’s to be said about Johnny Dangerously? Made in the wake of Michael Keaton’s success in Night Shift and Mr. Mom, it is a big, showy comedy about 1940s gangsters. It tries, soemwhat, to emulate the Airplane!-style of over-the-top comedy, but only partially succeeds. It is resuced by spirited performances from its […]
Pete’s Dragon is an odd film that marked the last time Disney had animation and live action interact onscreen. (There was, of course, Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, but that was released as a Touchstone film.) It has a lot in common with the animated films of the day and less with […]
Bambi is considered one of the greatest of all the Disney Animated Features and it does much to deserve that reputation.
First, is the film’s willingness to embrace the realities of nature. It doesn’t force too much humanity onto the characters, instead allowing their natural characteristics to emerge. While there are certainly anthropomorphic aspects […]
A lot of people would cry “foul” at my including a film like Shenmue: The Movie on this blog. For one thing, it was not released to theaters in the United States. For another, it is made up almost entirely of in-game footage from the Sega Dreamcast title Shenmue, rather than being a […]
Cool World is a crazy quilt of animation and sex jokes, put together by the bad-boy of feature animation, Ralph Bakshi. It stars Kim Basinger as Holli Would, a “doodle” (as cartoon characters are known) who wants to make it with a human in order to become real. Her human of choice is […]
It’s hard to really get across how disappointed I was with Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There are among my favorite books of all time. (No, really.) Any production has a high bar to clear as far as I’m […]
Melody Time is the next-to-the-last of Disney’s “package” films (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad would end the era). It has a larger number of individual stories than most and, being music-based, it has more in common with Fantasia than the other package films.
First up is “Once Upon a Wintertime”, a short, unmemorable […]
Okay, so I watched The Wild again, hoping that I could find more to enjoy in the film than I did when I first saw it last year. Unfortunately, time and a different envirnment (my living room) have not changed my opinion much. If anything, I liked it even less the second time […]
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is the last of Disney’s classic “package” films. It, obviously, features two stories: Ichabod Crane’s from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Mr. Toad’s from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. The connection between the two is the stated desire to show one […]
Robots, like many other borderline films, does improve with multiple viewings. The problems with the film that I previously mentioned are still in full effect, but a lack of anticipation means that there is no chance of being let down like the first time.
I still can’t help but think that there was more potential […]
The Great Mouse Detective is a highlight of the “dark days” of Disney Animation - those years between the death of Walt Disney and the renaissance brought about by the production of The Little Mermaid.
It is an adaptation of the Paul Galdone novel Basil of Baker Street and tells the story of Basil, a mouse […]
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is the last of Disney’s “package” films (if you don’t count Fantasia 2000, which I don’t). But, unlike the package films of the 1940s, which consisted of individual stories that were often later split up as shorts, the segments in Winnie the Pooh were pre-existing shorts, created […]
The suits over at Disney must have been feeling pretty good about themselves when they released Aladdin. They had just come off the enormously successful Beauty and the Beast (the only animated film ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture) and seemed to be on a roll. With much of the […]
Meet the Robinsons is the second film in what was meant to be Walt Disney Feature Animation’s new direction: CGI. After the monumental failure of Treasure Planet and the less than thrilling performance of Home on the Range, Disney was no longer going to produce traditionally animated films, instead they would produce “CGI” films, […]
The Lion King is the perfect culmination of all that had been ocurring at Disney Animation since the renaissance begun with The Little Mermaid. With each project, the visuals had become more lush and the stories had become more universal and more widely appealing. But it took the masterstroke (conceived by lyricist Tim […]
The Little Mermaid is another film that I could go on about for days if given the opportunity. The main thing that sets it apart from the Disney animated films that preceded it was the focus on music. This is not surprising, as lyricist Howard Ashman also served as a producer on the […]
If Snow White is the film that made Disney studios, Dumbo is the one that saved them. You see, after the success of Snow White, Walt Disney set his sights a bit higher than just making entertainment. He made Fantasia. It was an enormously expensive undertaking that proved financially disastrous. Now, […]
“The one that started it all and still the fairest of them all!” read the ad copy for the DVD release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And, frankly, it’s hard to argue with that statement. Sure, there have been a lot of technical and artistic advances since 1937, but Walt Disney […]
I know I’ve mentioned Valiant a few times since my original review. It’s the perfect example of a film that doesn’t impress too much on first viewing , but slowly, inexorably creeps into one’s consciousness.
At this point, I really like Valiant. Sure, it’s formulaic and lacks the polish and storytelling skill of a […]
It’a hard to properly cover the influence of a film like Tron. While it was not a huge box office success, it provided inspiration for a generation of filmmakers who were taken by its innovative use of computer genertaed graphics.
But let’s ignore the film’s legacy for a moment and look at it as a […]
In the history of Walt Disney Feature Animation, there has only ever been one film to get a true sequel (that is, a narrative film followed by another narrative film). The Rescuers was a surprisingly successful, quirky, little adventure film. Years later, straight-to-video sequels would be the order of the day, but the […]
Showing how important he had already become, Jiminy Cricket returns to act as presenter (and sings a great new song, “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow”) for the two stories in Disney’s 1947 “package” release Fun and Fancy Free. Jiminy is wandering about again (as he was at the beginning of Pinocchio) and comes upon a […]
When I previously reviewed Chicken Little last year, I covered many of the shortcomings in this 2005 Disney CGI animated film. It lacks cohesion, gets way too caught up in pop culture jokes and has far too much music for its own good.
But, as often happens, it has grown on me since then and […]
Treasure Planet should have been a big, fat success story for Walt Disney. It’s based on one of the best adventure stories of all time, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, it has incredible visuals and it features a strong voice cast. But, in the end, it was all for naught as the film […]
Given how much I love The Nightmare Before Christmas and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I really expected to enjoy James and the Giant Peach a lot more than I did. The problem with Roald Dahl (author of the original book) is that he had a very dark view of life and it’s […]
I’ve never been a big fan of Disney’s Peter Pan. I don’t know what it is about the film, but I always viewed it with detachment. My recent viewing has done little to change this impression. Maybe it’s the story itself that leaves me a bit cold, I don’t know. Still, […]
Okay, if you were reading this blog last year, you know that my favorite film for 2006 was Cars. I gave it a glowing review, saw it six times in the theater, awarded it just about every award I could possibly think of, bought it on DVD twice on Day 1 and have more […]
In the 1940s, as World War II forced Walt Disney to shift his focus to the war effort, he began to produce “package films”, features that consisted of two or more linked stories. Fantasia falls under this category, although that was from intent, rather than necessity. Others include Make Mine Music […]
Despite the love I felt at the time for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc., I was not at all enthused by the early previews that I saw for The Incredibles. Much of that early ad campaign (including the first teaser trailer) did not look promising, focusing on the comedy of a fat super-hero. […]
Hercules is an interesting entry in the Walt Disney Feature Animation canon. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker (previously of The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin) and with music by Alan Menken, it reunited much of the creative team behind two of the greatest films in Disney’s “Renaissance”. After […]
Flushed Away shows that just because it says Dreamworks, that doesn’t mean it’s crap. Of course, Dreamworks and producer Aardman Studios (also of Chicken Run and Wallace and Grommit) parted ways with Dreamworks shortly after this film was released, so maybe Aardman realized that Dreamworks was not the place for them. I, myself, […]
Finding Nemo is the high water mark for Pixar as far as box office is concerned. Among recent animated films (post-The Lion King), only Shrek 2 has sold more tickets. And it certainly deserved all the acclaim it received, it’s an almost perfect film.
Really, a film about fish starring Albert Brooks. Just […]
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are two of Disney’s more interesting releases. Originally envisioned by Walt Disney as an “event” (one that you would dress up for, as if going to a real concert), Fantasia was a financial disaster for the company, almost bringing them to ruin.
And it wasn’t all that warmly received critically, either. […]
Until Cars, Monsters, Inc. was my favorite Pixar film. Oh, I made a lot of noise about Toy Story 2, but deep down, I always knew that it was Mike and Sully that I’d rather watch.
The thing is that Monsters, Inc. gets almost everything right. The cast is perfect, the story is engaging, […]
I hadn’t seen Cinderella, Disney’s 12th Animated Feature, in several years, but was inspired to watch it because of the impending release of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, which was getting strong reviews. I’ve still yet to see Cinderella III (I’ll apend my thoughts here when I do), but after watching the original […]
Okay, so I should have seen A Bug’s Life after Toy Story, since my intention had always been to watch the Pixar films in order. But, much like the Disney Animated Feature canon, that plan didn’t last long. Since I sort the film by series, I watched Toy Story 2 without even thinking […]
While it’s true that I am going to watch all 45 (soon to be 46) Disney Animated Features, the reason I chose to watch The AristoCats next was a simple one: I was selling it. I don’t mind telling you that The AristoCats DVD was going for a pretty penny when I got word […]
Toy Story 2 is one of those rare occasions when the sequel outdoes the original. While Toy Story is a wonderful film, but its biggest draw is the (then) unique style of animation used. By Toy Story 2, it would take more than CGI visuals to grab an audience. It does this […]
Ah, Toy Story. Although they had done several shorts and dozens of memorable TV commercials (Listerine bottles swinging on vines and dancing gummi Life Savers ring a bell?), it was with this, the first computer animated feature film, that Pixar Animation Studios made its name and reputation. Prior to Toy Story, precious few […]
Next up, was The Emperor’s New Groove, which I reviewed fully last year. It had been my intent to watch the Disney Feature Animation canon in chronological order, but this one came on TV and I couldn’t help but watch it. Since getting into the whole “Emperor’s” universe, I’ve learned a lot about […]
Viewed December 30, 2006
Well, one last time, I sat down to watch some shorts, since I had waited so long to watch my movie of the day. This time, I watched the shorts available as extras on my DVD of Dumbo, both titles that would seem to have influenced the film about the elephant […]
Viewed December 24, 2006
The sleeper hit of late 2004, The Polar Express was the latest example of director Robert Zemeckis’ fascination with computer imagry (following the toon/human work in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the history-melding in Forrest Gump). Here, he usues motion capture technology to record the movements of his actors (mostly Tom […]
Viewed December 21, 2006
GE recently debuted their “Imagination Theater“, a web site devoted to short films (and clips about GE products). The films are a mix of live action office-based films and animated shorts that are more abstract.
The Crossing shows the value of “thinking outside the box”, as they say. Its shows four […]
Viewed December 19, 2006
Pokémon Heroes is the 2003 entry in the annual Pokémon film series (and the last to be released theatrically in the US). Like the TV series, it follows the adventures of Pokémon trainers Ash Ketchum, Misty and Brock as they learn about the world of Pokémon. This time, they come […]
Viewed December 17, 2006
No Time for Nuts is a 3D animated short included on the DVD release of Ice Age: The Meltdown which, like Gone Nutty before it, stars the “sabre-tooth squirrel” Scrat. This one involves Scrat coming across a time machine and travelling all through time in chase of his constantly-on-the-move one remaining […]
Viewed December 12, 2006
The Road to El Dorado is another one of those films I have no excuse for not having seen. After all, I’ve owned the soundtrack since it came out, since the songs are performed by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice (of whom I’m a big fan). In fact, […]
Viewed December 9, 2006
Having established the characters in the first film, Shrek 2 gives a sense of how extendable they are, that is, how much the characters can stand up to continued adventures. Now, I had been told that Shrek 2 was better than Shrek, despite its review being more negative. I certainly […]
Viewed December 6, 2006
With time winding down and only five shorts left in The Chronological Donald, Volume One, I decided to go ahead and watch the rest and close out my look at the early phases of Donald’s career.
Early to Bed is a simple, formulaic short featuring Donald trying to get to bed early so […]
Viewed December 3, 2006
Now You’re Talking is an instructional short by Max and Dave Fleischer, best known for their later “Betty Boop”, “Popeye” and “Superman” cartoons. Through a combination of live action and animation, it shows the viewer how their telephone works by focusing on a man who dozes off after having a poor […]
Viewed December 1, 2006
Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas is an anthology film that tells three Christmas-themed stories in Disney style.
The first is a story featuring Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. It has some similarities to the classic film Groundhog Day as the nephews wish that every day was Christmas and […]
Viewed November 24, 2006
Oliver & Company is the 27th “Disney Animated Classic” and found Disney at a crossroads. Since the death of Walt, they had released fewer animated features and of arguably decreasing quality. When Michael Eisner took over Disney in 1984, one of the goals set out for his new management team […]
Viewed November 22, 2006
Timber finds Donald attempting to steal food from Pierre (a re-named Pete). He gets caught and Pierre puts him to work lumberjacking. From there the wackiness ensues as Donald causes more trouble than gets work done. There’s a lot of to and fro between Donald and Pierre until Donald […]
Viewed November 17, 2006
Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time is the first of two made-for-TV movies that spin off from the Disney Channel Original Series Kim Possible. For those of you not in the know, Kim Possible is about a teenager, Kim (voiced by Christy Carlson Romano), who acts as a sort-of secret agent […]
Viewed November 12, 2006
Boy, I didn’t care for The Iron Giant. I thought I would, given that it was directed by Brad Bird, who would later direct The Incredibles. But whereas The Incredibles is an intelligent look at what defines individuality in the world, The Iron Giant (which shares some of the same […]