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 […]
Jabberwocky was Terry Gilliams’s first solo outing as a director, following his collaboration with Terry Jones on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Filming from a script he co-wrote with Charles Alverson, Gilliam spins a rather personal tale around the “nonsense poem” by Lewis Carroll.
The story revolves around Dennis Cooper (Michael Palin), and apprentice…cooper […]
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.
Sometimes I want to curse the Wayans Brothers. Not that I have anything against their two “Scary Movie” films. The first is really good and the second is at least decent. Even the subsequent installments by Airplane! veteran David Zucker have their charm. But with their scattershot style of comedy, they […]
Okay, here’s where I may be bending the rules a bit. While I intended to only include theatrical films, I am willing to stretch the point for films that were intended for theatrical release only, for one reason or another, didn’t get one. One such case is the infamous 1994 film The Fantastic […]
Night at the Museum was a surprise hit late in 2006. Many had marked the box office race as completely settled, when out of the blue, Museum had not only a strong opening, but incredible legs. It’s always a question whether phenomenon like this deserve such success, but in this case, it certainly […]
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, […]
Brenda Starr carries a 1989 release date, but it was really produced a couple of years earlier. Legal troubles kept it from release, otherwise it might have been seen as a precursor to the “comic book” revival begun in ‘89 by Batman, instead of as just another attempt to cash in on a fad. […]
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 […]
I am probably unduly fond of Graffiti Bridge, Prince’s 1990 sequel to his groundbreaking Purple Rain. On almost every level (except the music - mor on that later), Bridge is inferior to Rain. The story is more convoluted, the dialogue more stilted, the sets look more fake. But there’s something deep inside […]
The Bride and the Beast is another film for which Ed Wood only wrote the screenplay. That he didn’t direct this particular opus doesn’t take away from its Woodian flavor in the slightest.
This film tells the tale of newlyweds Dan and Laura Fuller (Lance Fuller and Charlotte Austin). Dan is a hunter, basically […]
The Beastmaster was one of the rare early-eighties attempts at bringing the sword & sorcery genre to the big screen. Unfortunately for its box office, it released the same year as the much higher-profile Conan the Barbarian. Beastmaster quickly faded from theaters. But it was one of the first films to really […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Superman and the Mole Men is the first Superman feature film (though it runs under an hour). It features the debut of George Reeves as the Man of Steel and Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane, both of whom would reprise their roles in the Adventures of Superman TV series. In fact, Mole Men […]
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 […]
The Raven was one of producer/director Roger Corman’s highest budget films and is certainly among his most star-studded. After years of making cheap, but highly profitable, films, Corman was beginning to feel that he could step things up and get some real stars. One of the best fruits of his labors is this […]
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 […]
I’ve previously covered 2005’s King Kong and wrote a full review here, but I thought this time around I’d do a kind of contrast and compare, tale of the tape kind of thing alongside the 1998 version of Godzilla. So let’s see how they stand up to each other.
Approach
Godzilla took the more common road […]
Okay, I’ll get this out of the way right now. Cabin Boy is one of the worst “comedies” I have ever endured.
You know, I am terribly forgiving when it comes to material from people I like. And I like Chris Elliot. In the glory days of the old Late Night with David […]
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 […]
Night of the Ghouls is classic Ed Wood. In fact, it suffers from more classic Ed problems than just about any other film. It’s got the usual wacky dialogue, questionable acting by Ed’s usual bunch and Ed’s poor camera skills. It even has that old Ed standby; recycled footage. (In this […]
Atom Man vs. Superman is the second Superman movie serial, the last appearance of Kirk Alyn in the role and a vast improvement over the original Superman.
The main reason this one is an improvement is the appearance of a much better villain (and Superman’s main nemesis at that): Lex Luthor. Played here by the […]
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 […]
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster us best known for serving as the turning point of the original series as far as Godzilla is concerned. He makes the turn from villain to hero in this film, teaming up with established characters Mothra (already a hero) and Rodan (villain of his own film) to defeat a new […]
Mmmmmmmm. Orgy of the Dead. The slightly pungent smell of soft-core pornography is all over this one. This is Ed Wood’s first real foray into porn (though he dabbled a bit with The Sinister Urge). It also marks the beginning of his long collaboration with director Stephen Apostolof, a man who had […]
No film has ever f-ed with my head the way Time Bandits did. Now, if you haven’t seen this film, I won’t go into exactly what about it f’ed with my head, but suffice it to say that I think the marketing guys who sold this as a children’s film shouldbe in line for […]
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 […]
Okay, I’ve tried writing seriously, I’ve tried being clever, I even tried being ultra-cute. But no matter what I do I can’t seem to wrap my head around writing a review of Manos: The Hands of Fate.
It’s just so painful to sit through. Honestly, I couldn’t remember any of the major points I wanted […]
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 […]
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny is a perfect example of how a very funny premise from very funny people can utterly fail to expand to meet the demands of a feature film. While Tenacious D worked very well as a TV series or as an album, the film version is simply […]
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 […]
They really don’t come worse than The Beast of Yucca Flats. You know all those things people always cite when they talk about how bad Ed Wood was as a filmmakers? The cheap sets? The bad acting? The nonsensical dialogue? Night/Day transitions? Well The Beast of Yucca Flats has […]
King Kong vs. Godzilla is my favorite Godzilla film. Yes, I know that other films have more depth to the storyline, or better effects or a higher monster count. But this one has Kong and that’s all that really matters. *
Not that I’m completely smitten by this film just because of the big […]
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 […]
Willow was George Lucas’ first “epic” creation since the Star Wars saga and, I feel, suffered undeserved negativity because of the comparison. That, and th accusation that it is just warmed-over Tolkien meant that it was not highly thought of for many years after its creation (a situation that has somewhat reversed itself in […]
For me, Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men will forever be linked due to their connected appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000.* They both feature groups of children who befriend a mysterious outer space super-hero type, who helps save the world from invaders from space.
First up, Prince of Space tells of […]
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 […]
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is my favorite film by director Terry Gilliam. In it, I feel that his growth as a filmmaker since his work on Monty Python and the Holy Grail finally came to fruition. After essentially making three films with the same focus and worldview (Jabberwocky, Time Bandits and Brazil), […]
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, […]
When Toho made the 1995 film Godzilla vs. Destroyah, they intended it to be the final Godzilla film for awhile. They had recently licensed the character for a big-time Hollywood film, so didn’t want to get in the way of that proposed new franchise. Well, the Hollywood version of Godzilla, though performing well […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Fourteen years after Ishirô Honda opted to use a man in a suit instead of stop-motion to animate Kong in 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, producer Dino De Laurentiis made the same decision for his big budget remake, King Kong. But, frankly, that’s not where this epic film falls flat. No, the suit […]
I’m not going to lie to you. The main thing that drew me to Barbarella as a youth was the copious amounts of nudity. I mean, I had never seen a film that had so much casual nudity in it. There are women who are just naked for no particular reason from […]
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 […]
The serial Superman marked the debut of the Man of Steel in live action and would help define the character for many years. Even the portrayals by George Reeves and Christopher Reeve, both of whom far outshone Alyn, owe something to his version.
The first thing that impressed me about Superman when I originally watched […]
The Princess Bride is one of those rare cases where I had read a not-terribly-popular book before seeing the movie. Of course, I was suckered into reading it by the exciting copy on the back. (At that time, I was reading *a lot* and it took something extra for a book by an […]
There is little left to be said about King Kong, one of the most influential films in motion picture history. It is directly responsible for inspiring a generation of effects makers, including the biggest name in stop-motion, Ray Harryhausen. It inspired Godzilla and countless less successful films and series.
And regardless of its place […]
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 […]