Category Archives: Flick-fil-A

12.12.12
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25X: Christmass Media

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I don’t know about you, but movies and TV comprise a significant amount of my Christmas experience; I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without horrible Lifetime movies or A Charlie Brown Christmas.  An annual re-watch of some of the best is just as much of a tradition as belatedly sending out cards or baking cookies as much for yourself as somebody else.

Now, I break down my film-based Christmas traditions into four categories, as follows:

  • The Christmas movie: a film which was actually released in real life, popcorn-poppin’ theatres, like Home Alone, National Lampoon’s A Christmas Vacation, Elf, or A Christmas Story
  • The Christmas special: Usually a half-hour or hour long, these were usually produced for television and are self-contained. Examples include A Charlie Brown Christmas, Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version, not the creepy, mopey, depression-riddled Jim Carrey version), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Mickey’s Christmas Carol (*an exception here, since Mickey’s was originally created as a theatrical short, but is 26 minutes long [lengthy for a short film] and was arguably produced with a television afterlife in mind.)
  • The terrible Hallmark Channel movie: While obviously not isolated to the Hallmark Channel, Hallmark tends to have the doofiest in concept and execution TV movies out there.  Matchmaker Santa? It’s Christmas, Carol! starring Carrie Fisher and Carson Kressley?  The Christmas Heart, which is about…a boy needing a heart transplant…for Christmas.  My new favorites, though, are the Dean Cain holiday movies.  Knowing that he’ll never have much of a career and still needing to pay the bills, Mssr. Cain has started in all of the following Christmas TV movies: Christmas Rush, A Christmas Wedding, The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Three Gifts, A Nanny for Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation (!!!!), The Case for Christmas, The Dog Who Saved the Holidays (not just Christmas this time! He’s inclusive!), A Dog for Christmas (Dean Cain and these dogs! These are about as bad and numerous as the Air Buddies movies).
  • Very special episodes of…: Who doesn’t look forward to the Christmas episodes of their favorite TV shows? (Doctor Who fans, I’m looking at you.) While I don’t always get behind one-and-done specials like Prep & Landing (which, besides being a small, annual series of specials, walks the REALLY fine line between clever and “trying too hard”), I’m truly a sucker for Christmas episodes of regular TV shows.  30 Rock and Community have produced a fair number of great Christmas episodes, from “Ludachristmas” to “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” these really work because they take characters you’re already familiar with and put them into holiday situations, so you’re not spending all this time on exposition explaining who all these new characters are; the best shows can pull off a great holiday episode without it seeming too forced, like The West Wing‘s breathtaking “Noel.”

Obviously, there’s a lot to try and catch every year, all in the name of Christmas ritual.  However, you also have to be in the right mood to sit down and enjoy these.  While you can have A Dog Carried My Transplant Heart from the North Pole on in the background while you’re making Christmas cookies, you really have to give your full attention to, and have the right mindset for, the sweet melancholy of A Charlie Brown Christmas, or the beautiful Chuck Jones animation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Every year, I end up playing catch-up at the end, trying to cram in every Love Actually and The Muppets Christmas Carol, and I usually come up short.

My other challenge is that Lance can’t stand the Peanuts.  Or claymation/stop-motion animation.  The first time I proposed watching Rudolph with him, he said very matter-of-factly, “I will scoop my eyes out with a spoon.”  The next year, his response was a similar, “That movie literally makes me want to peel my skin off.” (His distaste of the Peanuts has still yet to be understood.)

Given that he has such an apparent negative physical reaction to these, I have to watch them in secret, usually on weekend mornings while he’s still asleep. It’s kind of pitiful, putting National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation into the DVD player before the sun’s even come up.

08.07.12
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[GIVEAWAY!] John Carter of…Meh?

If you were wondering why Disney, home to some of the most successful design and marketing efforts EVER, okay’ed this atrocious Blu-ray cover…you’re not alone.

Just putting it out there: I just plain ol’ didn’t like John Carter.  I wanted to like it, really!  It’s got a little bit o’ history (Reconstruction!), a pinch o’ space apes, and a tiny little loin cloth for Tim Riggins.  Toss in some Jimmy McNulty-as-bad-guy and some pseudo-physics science babble, and seriously, what could be better?

…Well, a lot, apparently.

Lance and I both fell asleep the first time we attempted to watch this film, and only tried again because I was tasked with writing a review of the Blu-ray release for The Disney Blog.  Once the credits started rolling, Lance, wide-eyed in disbelief, uttered, “That is the worst movie I have ever seen.”

I agreed that it was pretty terrible, though I tried to be fair in my review on The Disney Blog; I admit, I pulled my punches.  I also admit that it’s definitely not the greatest piece of critical thought ever written, as I banged it out as I was up against deadline and had only finished watching the movie a half-hour before.  Let’s just put it this way, I’m aware it’s not my best work, but I still think it captures what I thought about the film.

Now, who knew that John Carter had its die-hard fans? (Not the box office, evidently–ZING!) And apparently all of them came out of the Internet’s series of tubes in order to lambast me for not understanding the film, for being a terrible writer, etc. etc.  Not one to shy away from engaging with Internet troll-ery, I concede to my weak writing, but aside from that, my real concern is…are they right about the film?  Is it secretly great, does #33 turn in an understated, Brando-like performance, and I just didn’t “get” it the first time?

Was I just plain ol’ wrong?

What there no flow in the editing of the action scenes for a reason? Was the episodic structure of the film intentionally set up for me to not develop any empathy for the characters? Were the costume designs of the Good Guy Martians and the Bad Guy Martians so purposefully dull and nearly indistinguishable from one another to serve some deep, artistic message?

The last thing I want to do is to dismiss a film, especially one that has as much contextual baggage as John Carter.  I love a lot of underrated movies and that’s why I’m willing to give John Carter another chance, even if it it only turns out to be an opportunity to better clarify what I dislike about the film.

“A Warrior on Earth Becomes a Hero on Mars.” You would’ve saved a lot of money on stickers, Disney, if you just kept the original “John Carter of Mars” title. Sheesh! (photo courtesy of Tom Bricker, http://www.disneytouristblog.com)

SO…that brings me to the John Carter of…Meh? Giveaway Contest.  I have in my hot lil’ hands (you know what they say about a guy with hot hands!) a brand new, factory-sealed copy of the John Carter 2-Disc Blu-ray+DVD pack. (Long and boring story as to how I acquired it for free like two months after its release…but believe me, it was legit!) To celebrate my re-watch, and since Lance will not allow a copy of this film to linger in our house, I’m giving away this copy. Here’s how you’re gonna help me do that:

Between now and next Saturday, August 18th, 2012 at 11:59PM EST, you can enter to win this Blu-ray in one of three ways:

  1. leave a comment to this post, sharing what you do and don’t like about the 2012 film John Carter
  2. OR, like our page on Facebook and leave a comment on what you do and don’t like about the 2012 film John Carter
  3. OR, join me on Twitter (@jcbftw or @LEGJCB) during my Live Tweet Coverage of my John Carter re-watch on Saturday, August 18 at 8:00PM EST, using hashtag #JohnCarterOfMeh

[Why the long delay until my re-watch? I am not allowed to re-play this movie in my house under normal circumstances, but Lance is leaving for Las Vegas on the morning of the 18th for a long weekend of Things Which Shall Not Be Discussed, so I'll have the TV, my Redbox disc, and my Blu-ray player all to myself.]

I will then select a winner on Sunday, August 19th and alert the winner via e-mail or direct message on Twitter, so make sure you leave a way for me to contact you!

One more technicality: this contest is only open to residents of the United States.  I’m not made of money (for shipping costs), people!

Okay, let’s do this thing!

07.30.12
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Flick-fil-A: The Dark Knight Rises

Yeah, yeah, so movie reviews should probably be posted close to the film’s release date for maximum impact and, you know, relevance.  Well, when has that ever stopped us here at LEG+JCB?

Now, just off the bat (har har), I really enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises. It really does a good job at providing an emotionally-satisfying end to the trilogy (kinda like the finale to “Lost,” whatever that means to you). 

But, of course, since I’m a huge nerd, I have a bunch of nitpicking to do:

**Warnin’: spoilers!**

This is what a two-minute window to draw a doodle will get ya.

Continue reading →

07.25.12
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Honey, You Mean HUNK-ules

Hey y’all!  Just a quick, belated plug for my guest post for This Happy Place Blog’s “EndEARing & Underrated” Disney film series.  My contribution is about 1997′s criminally under-appreciated “Hercules”–I hope you’ll all give it a go.

I also want to give a shout out (a phrase I really dislike, by the way.  Can we come up with something else, like “I’d like to take a moment in order to acknowledge this person’s value”…rolls right of the tongue, no?) to the Disney bloggers I’ve had the good fortune of interacting with recently, who’ve been so supportive and gosh darn enthusiastic about everything.  You don’t get that in many corners of the internet, so it’s a nice change of pace.  If you love all things Disney and want a refreshing, non-troll-y take on things, make sure to check out This Happy Place Blog, Mouse on the Mind, and the Disney Hipster Blog.

 

07.09.12
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Flick-fil-A: The Amazing Spider-Man

My first conscious memory of Spider-Man was a commercial for the ’90s animated series on Fox Kids (remember that rad theme song? RAD. “SPIDER-MAN. SPIDER-MAN. SPIDER BLOOD SPIDER BLOOD RADIOACTIVE SPIDER-BLOOOD!“) I was around 7 or 8 and had mostly stayed away from superhero comics up until that point; I’m not really sure why–it might’ve had something to do with the fact that anybody who read superhero comics in the early ’90s was a HUGE NERD who should be avoided.

 

(THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEY!)

Continue reading →

06.27.12
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Re-Disney: Final Report

And so it ends, just hours before our flight to Orlando:

Disney Animated Classics:

  1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  2. Pinocchio
  3. Fantasia
  4. Dumbo
  5. Bambi
  6. Saludos Amigos
  7. The Three Caballeros
  8. Make Mine Music
  9. Fun and Fancy Free
  10. Melody Time
  11. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
  12. Cinderella
  13. Alice in Wonderland
  14. Peter Pan
  15. Lady and the Tramp
  16. Sleeping Beauty
  17. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
  18. The Sword in the Stone
  19. The Jungle Book
  20. The Aristocats
  21. Robin Hood
  22. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  23. The Rescuers
  24. The Fox and the Hound
  25. The Black Cauldron
  26. The Great Mouse Detective
  27. Oliver & Company
  28. The Little Mermaid
  29. The Rescuers Down Under
  30. Beauty and the Beast
  31. Aladdin
  32. The Lion King
  33. Pocahontas
  34. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  35. Hercules
  36. Mulan
  37. Tarzan
  38. Fantasia 2000
  39. Dinosaur
  40. The Emperor’s New Groove
  41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  42. Lilo & Stitch
  43. Treasure Planet
  44. Brother Bear
  45. Home on the Range
  46. Chicken Little
  47. Meet the Robinsons
  48. Bolt
  49. The Princess and the Frog
  50. Tangled
  51. Winnie the Pooh
Pixar:
  1. Toy Story
  2. A Bug’s Life
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Monsters, Inc.
  5. Finding Nemo
  6. The Incredibles
  7. Cars
  8. Ratatouille
  9. Wall-E
  10. Up
  11. Toy Story 3
  12. Cars 2
  13. Brave (for my review of Brave, check out this post)

Totals: 64 Completed, 0 Remaining

I saved my favorite four, the four that really have had a significant impact of life, for last. The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and, of course, The Little Mermaid.

There’s a whole bunch I can say about these films, like how The Little Mermaid is a great example of script economy–nothing here is wasted, save, perhaps, the “Les Poissons” number, which gets a pass since it’s such a crowd pleaser.  Or how Aladdin may be the most well-crafted of all Disney films.  Or how I find Moira Kelly just as annoying as the voice of adult Nala as I do her character from Season 1 of “The West Wing.”

BUT…I did want to take a second to give props to what makes these four films truly great, in a class all their own among the Disney animated canon:  they have the best villains! Think about it: Scar, Gaston, Jafar, and my personal favorite (who, like me, is modeled after Divine, world-famous drag queen), Ursula the Sea-Witch.

In all of these films, the viewer spends a not insignificant amount of time with the villains.  Their personalities are multifaceted.  You can kinda understand why Scar is a jealous weasel, and you get a kick out of Gaston being as much full of nauseating, humorous bravado as he is mean-spirited, “jerkface jock from gym class.”  You actually end up caring about them, in a twisted-beard sort of way.  How many other iconic Disney villains can you say that about?  Malificent is a wonder aesthetically, but her range is from “mean” to “really mean.” Cruella De Vil may be the only other Disney villain I can think of who is actually an interesting character.

I love these movies; they mean a lot to me, and I’m glad I took the time (4 whole days of my life–some 96 hours!) to revisit them.  I hope everybody at Blizzard Beach is ready for the fat behind I gained from my movie marathon immobility coming down Summet Plummet.

We’ll be Disney-bound in a few short hours!  For up-to-the-minute trip updates, follow us on Twitter!  We’ll have a trip report on the blog next week.

06.23.12
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Flick-fil-A: Brave

The first twenty minutes or so of Brave will make you think, “Oh, hey, this is a lot like Finding Nemo, but with a mom/daughter relationship.”  But Brave is, surprisingly, a lot more like Cars.

[Minor thematic spoilers below]

Both films have a Big Message (what usually sets apart Pixar films from, well, nearly every other animation house out there), and both miss graceful executions of said Big Message. Cars meanders too much–which I get is sort of the point, but c’mon, at least make it interesting–while Brave takes its main message and beats you over the head with it.  Brave is not subtle, even using voiceover narration (did the Brave screenwriters ever see Adaptation?!) to explain everything, including how being “brave” doesn’t always have to mean an outward display of courage.

Like the original Cars, Brave is a solid B/B-minus and is frustrating because there’s potential there for it to be really good.  The score and songs are really solid, and the animation is simply breathtaking, with a level of detail and depth never before seen in a CGI film; I kept on thinking to myself, “Wow, I wonder what Walt Disney would’ve thought about this?” (this has something to do with Pixar’s brand new animation system, PRESTO).  This film is sure to become a standard in many Blu-ray players.  The themes are adequately addressed, if cumbersomely, but the humor is broad without being particularly clever, which Pixar has excelled with in the past.  The screenplay is just a lot rougher than anything the studio has produced before; perhaps this has something to do with its original director and creative force behind the film being fired midway through production.

[Sidebar: As discussed in this Comics Beat piece on , it's an odd year when it seems like there's been a role-reversal between Disney Animation Studios and Pixar.  As the competition in the CGI animated field heats up and films from rivalstudios get better (see: How to Train Your Dragon) how does Pixar define itself?]

All that said, the most significant thing Brave has going for it: Merida is unlike any heretofore Disney princess.  There’s no Prince Charming or any love interest, but even so, this is not an typical modern “Girl Power” movie.  Merida’s journey is thankfully not only about relinquishing patriarchal tradition; it sidesteps that for the most part,  focusing more on a themes about admitting your mistakes and trying to fix them, and trying to understand others when their noblest intentions don’t gel with yours.  What sort of impact this unconventional approach to “a princess story” will have not only to Disney’s merchandising team, but also to girls–and boys–in the audience, remains to be seen.  Maybe Merida’s aversion to finding a man will rub off on some of Disney’s other princesses in interesting ways.

Oh, and La Luna, the short attached to Brave, is seven minutes of pure joy. If Cars 2 had you questioning the supply of creativity left at Pixar, La Luna will temper your doubts while putting a smile on your face. It’s really wonderful.

Final Scores:

Brave: B

…and La Luna: A

06.22.12
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Re-Disney: Week 4 Progress Report

Sorry. It was too easy.

It’s been an unexpectedly crazy week at work, which explains the lack of posts.  However, it has (somehow…?) not slowed down my Re-Disney progress. Let’s recap:

Disney Animated Classics:

  1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  2. Pinocchio
  3. Fantasia
  4. Dumbo
  5. Bambi
  6. Saludos Amigos
  7. The Three Caballeros
  8. Make Mine Music
  9. Fun and Fancy Free
  10. Melody Time
  11. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
  12. Cinderella
  13. Alice in Wonderland
  14. Peter Pan
  15. Lady and the Tramp
  16. Sleeping Beauty
  17. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
  18. The Sword in the Stone
  19. The Jungle Book
  20. The Aristocats
  21. Robin Hood
  22. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  23. The Rescuers
  24. The Fox and the Hound
  25. The Black Cauldron
  26. The Great Mouse Detective
  27. Oliver & Company
  28. The Little Mermaid
  29. The Rescuers Down Under
  30. Beauty and the Beast
  31. Aladdin
  32. The Lion King
  33. Pocahontas
  34. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  35. Hercules
  36. Mulan
  37. Tarzan
  38. Fantasia 2000
  39. Dinosaur
  40. The Emperor’s New Groove
  41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  42. Lilo & Stitch
  43. Treasure Planet
  44. Brother Bear
  45. Home on the Range
  46. Chicken Little
  47. Meet the Robinsons
  48. Bolt
  49. The Princess and the Frog
  50. Tangled
  51. Winnie the Pooh
Pixar:
  1. Toy Story
  2. A Bug’s Life
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Monsters, Inc.
  5. Finding Nemo
  6. The Incredibles
  7. Cars
  8. Ratatouille
  9. Wall-E
  10. Up
  11. Toy Story 3
  12. Cars 2
  13. Brave

Totals: 56 completed, 8 to go (+14 since last week)

Special thanks to Christie for loaning me Finding Nemo and Cinderella!

Thoughts on this week’s films:

  • Chicken Little isn’t that bad. This is the first time I’d ever seen the film, which I’d previously dismissed as “Disney’s weak attempt to fill the Pixar hole” which was almost created when the companies were at an impasse about a decade ago (and before Disney bought Pixar outright). The worst aspect of the film is that it feels very early-Dreamworks, and not Disney. What I mean by that is that there are a lot of cultural references (like Barbra Streisand…?) which feel shoehorned in here.  Ugh, I hate Shrek for a reason, folks. Still, Chicken Little is cute, if forgettable.
  • Also the first time I’d seen either Saludos Amigos or The Three Caballeros.  I honestly can’t believe Saludos Amigos is even considered a Disney Animated Classic film–it’s less than 45 minutes long, and I’d say at least a third of that isn’t animated.  My understanding is that these two films were thrown together as propaganda pieces for the US Government’s Good Neighbor Program during World War II (basically, Disney was going to win over the South Americans from joining the Axis or something).  Anyway, the video transfers on the combo DVD that came out a few years ago are really terrible, especially on The Three Caballeros.  I’d only recommend watching it for the last, extended sequence in TTC, which is about as trippy a scene as I’ve ever seen Disney produce. And you thought Dumbo‘s pink elephants were something…!  I hope you have some munchies ready.
  • Tangled is awesome and visual treat, and nearly a return to form, except the songs are so dreadfully dull that it sorta ruins the rest of the film.
  • Sometimes the timing of events in Disney movies really throws me.  Okay, so Ariel only has three days to get Prince Eric to kiss her.  Geez, that’s like an eternity compared to Cinderella, who has the prince fall in love with her during, what, one dance without any conversation? Or in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, where the bulk of the story seems to happen within a 24-hour period.  Are these characters just not as cynical about love as I am??
  • Cars 2 and The Black Cauldron really are that bad, both lifeless films obviously put together by committee to try to appeal to demographic X or Y.

Given that, I’m excited for the remainder of my slate (I’ve started watching Pocahontas, and I was really excited…up until Grandmother Willow shows up. UGH!).  Who’s going to see Brave this weekend?  I have my Merida costume all ready for a showing on Sunday!!!!!

06.15.12
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Re-Disney: Week 3 Progress Report

Disney Animated Classics:

  1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  2. Pinocchio
  3. Fantasia
  4. Dumbo
  5. Bambi
  6. Saludos Amigos
  7. The Three Caballeros
  8. Make Mine Music
  9. Fun and Fancy Free
  10. Melody Time
  11. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
  12. Cinderella
  13. Alice in Wonderland
  14. Peter Pan
  15. Lady and the Tramp
  16. Sleeping Beauty
  17. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
  18. The Sword in the Stone
  19. The Jungle Book
  20. The Aristocats
  21. Robin Hood
  22. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  23. The Rescuers
  24. The Fox and the Hound
  25. The Black Cauldron
  26. The Great Mouse Detective
  27. Oliver & Company
  28. The Little Mermaid
  29. The Rescuers Down Under
  30. Beauty and the Beast
  31. Aladdin
  32. The Lion King
  33. Pocahontas
  34. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  35. Hercules
  36. Mulan
  37. Tarzan
  38. Fantasia 2000
  39. Dinosaur
  40. The Emperor’s New Groove
  41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  42. Lilo & Stitch
  43. Treasure Planet
  44. Brother Bear
  45. Home on the Range
  46. Chicken Little
  47. Meet the Robinsons
  48. Bolt
  49. The Princess and the Frog
  50. Tangled
  51. Winnie the Pooh
Pixar:
  1. Toy Story
  2. A Bug’s Life
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Monsters, Inc.
  5. Finding Nemo
  6. The Incredibles
  7. Cars
  8. Ratatouille
  9. Wall-E
  10. Up
  11. Toy Story 3
  12. Cars 2
  13. Brave

Totals: 42 completed, 22 to go (+13 since last week)

Yippie! I crossed over the halfway mark earlier this week, somewhere between The Princess and the Frog and Ratatouille.

I think I’ll actually be able to pull this off in the next week and a half, though some films are proving to be more difficult to track down than others. Both Cinderella and Finding Nemo are being re-released on Blu-ray this fall, so I sold off my DVD copies months ago; unfortunately, you can’t rent these on Amazon Instant Video or iTunes. Similarly, I submitted inter-library loan requests for The Three Caballeros, Saludos Amigos, Cars 2 and Winnie the Pooh (2011) weeks ago, but still nothing has materialized. I might have to bite the bullet and just buy those–I can’t go all this way and come up four films short! (Obvious, a human travesty if such a thing were to happen.)

Good slate of films this week.  Re-cap observations time, focusing on some particularly awesome visuals:

  • Not the first time I’ve seen it, but I was reminded that Tarzan is WONDERFUL, right up there with some of the best, early-90s Disney Renaissance stuff, in my opinion. It’s only significant weakness is an underdeveloped villain. I can’t wait for this to come out on Blu-ray–the animation is simply gorgeous. One of the first scenes, as Tarzan “surfs” through the jungle, is really awesome stuff.
  • The animation in Mulan is also beautiful.  Like Pocahontas, though, I felt the film suffers from a serious case of “obligatory animal friend” syndrome.  Crickets, dragons, horses, puppies…yeesh!
  • If you’ve never seen Sleeping Beauty or Lady and the Tramp on Blu-ray, do it. You wouldn’t think that hand-drawn animation would justify a hi-def release, but you’d be wrong. Consider this: you can actually see the shadows between the animated cel and the painted background on these films–you really experience the animation in as true a form as its ever been presented, even in theatres.
  • I understand that Ratatouille is a “good film,” critically and everything, but I just don’t have any particularly strong feelings about it.  I don’t love it, and I think it has to do with the fact that Linguini’s character is pretty obnoxious.  Still, I could watch this film on loop for days on end because it’s just that stunning, and probably the first Pixar movie that I would say that about.  Sure, Toy Story and A Bug’s Life and the earlier films are great stories with groundbreaking animation, but Ratatouille goes out of its way to be beautiful.
  • Can anybody argue that Up is, by far, Pixar’s best overall film (though I think Monsters, Inc. is criminally under-appreciated and is actually Pixar’s most creative work)? That Grape Soda badge gets me every time. Oof.

Alright, folks, we’re nearing the home stretch.  If anybody has a copy of one of the following I could borrow to wrap up this project, let me know!

  • Saludos Amigos
  • The Three Caballeros
  • Cinderella
  • Finding Nemo
  • Cars 2
  • Winnie the Pooh (2011)
06.08.12
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Re-Disney: Week 2 Progress Report

Disney Animated Classics:
  1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  2. Pinocchio
  3. Fantasia
  4. Dumbo
  5. Bambi
  6. Saludos Amigos
  7. The Three Caballeros
  8. Make Mine Music
  9. Fun and Fancy Free
  10. Melody Time
  11. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
  12. Cinderella
  13. Alice in Wonderland
  14. Peter Pan
  15. Lady and the Tramp
  16. Sleeping Beauty
  17. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
  18. The Sword in the Stone
  19. The Jungle Book
  20. The Aristocats
  21. Robin Hood
  22. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  23. The Rescuers
  24. The Fox and the Hound
  25. The Black Cauldron
  26. The Great Mouse Detective
  27. Oliver & Company
  28. The Little Mermaid
  29. The Rescuers Down Under
  30. Beauty and the Beast
  31. Aladdin
  32. The Lion King
  33. Pocahontas
  34. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  35. Hercules
  36. Mulan
  37. Tarzan
  38. Fantasia 2000
  39. Dinosaur
  40. The Emperor’s New Groove
  41. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  42. Lilo & Stitch
  43. Treasure Planet
  44. Brother Bear
  45. Home on the Range
  46. Chicken Little
  47. Meet the Robinsons
  48. Bolt
  49. The Princess and the Frog
  50. Tangled
  51. Winnie the Pooh
Pixar:
  1. Toy Story
  2. A Bug’s Life
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Monsters, Inc.
  5. Finding Nemo
  6. The Incredibles
  7. Cars
  8. Ratatouille
  9. Wall-E
  10. Up
  11. Toy Story 3
  12. Cars 2
  13. Brave
Totals: 29 completed, 35 left

This week’s been spent re-visiting some of Disney’s less-celebrated films, like Bolt and Fun and Fancy Free, and it made me realize just how many of Disney’s films are effectively ignored…by Disney itself.  When you see Disney products at Target or the Disney Store, or you go to a Disney theme park, you’ll see hordes of Tinker Bell and Buzz Lightyear paraphernalia, but when’s the last time you saw an Oliver or Basil of Baker Street toy? (Admittedly, I do have a Basil plush from when the Disney Store was pushing their version of Beanie Babies back in the day.)

Obviously, there are market forces at work here; if people were clamoring for a Mrs. Calloway the cow t-shirt, they’re be one.  And yes, there are a handful of stinkers in the Disney animated classics canon that don’t get a lot of attention because it’s not deserved (I’m lookin’ at you, Make Mine Music).  But it does make me wonder how much of that, that lack of awareness or under-appreciation, is due to Disney’s marketing and promotion efforts.  Films that more or less died on arrival, like Home on the Range (which is cute and a little insubstantial, but no worse than 95% of what Dreamworks animation puts out)…are they lost to the Great Film Reel in the Sky because of that initial failure?

Disney pushes their back catalog all the time, bringing heavy hitters like Snow White or Beauty and the Beast, “out of the vault” every seven years or so to great fanfare, new soundtrack releases and TV commercials and waves of toys.  A lot of money is spent on consecrating a relatively small pool of films (there are only 11 or 12 films in Disney’s “Platinum”/”Diamond” DVD/Blu-ray release line, and they get the lion’s share of the attention), but why not divert some of that money to building up awareness of some of the lesser-knowns?  Hercules is a great example to revisit: it’s a funny, clever movie with some great characters (Meg and Hades in particular) and a fantastic score/song list.  With its self-deprecating style, it would shine given the current self-awareness prevalent in animated films, but it hasn’t been released on DVD since 2000! (And with a crappy transfer at that. Grrr!)

Wouldn’t Disney want to mine it’s back-catalog for new merchandising opportunities? Isn’t that sorta why they bought Marvel? To take advantage of characters/stories that already existed?

I’m sure Disney beancounters have crunched the numbers; I mean, when has Disney ever left untouched a money-making opportunity?  I suppose it’s just frustrating as a fan to see Stitch everywhere (not to say it isn’t deserved), while other characters languish, only to be used for the “hard” questions on Disney Scene It!

And, to borrow from The A.V. Club, some stray observations:

  • The package films (like Make Mine Music or Melody Time) are just…not for me.  The animation is simple and sloppy.  I understand the context in which these films were made (World War II, and a lot of the animators who worked on Snow White and Pinocchio were drafted), but these films, more or less thrown together just to have something to distribute, are very weak.
  • OMG how Lilo & Stitch made me tear up.  I haven’t watched this film in years, but so much of what was touched upon here (non-traditional families, feeling alone, finding your place in the world) really affected me more than in the past.  Of all of the post The Lion King Disney films, this is my favorite, which is funny, because I used to sort of resent it because of how much Disney was trying to make Stitch a BIG THING around the film’s initial release (I remember when I visited Disney World in 2004, the major characters featured on merchandise were Mickey, Donald, Goofy…and Stitch. What?)  At the time, I was like, “Disney, stop trying to make ‘Stitch’ happen,” all Mean Girls-like.
  • …Yep, upon second viewing, Dinosaur is a blatant knock-off of The Land Before Time.  And I’m not sure why it’s considered a Disney Animated Classic, since all of the backgrounds are actually real-life footage.
  • The Great Mouse Detective is one of my favorites. Rattigan is just an awesome character.  Glad this is coming out on Blu-ray on my birthday this year! (HINT HINT)
  • -I’ve also started the Pixar movies. Toy Story is still great, and watching it nearly 20(!) years after it came out, I wonder how many people really got just how revolutionary, how landscape-altering that film really was.  Would people have continued to pursue computer animated films in such droves if Toy Story wasn’t just a great movie (animated or not?)  What would Disney, and all animation, look like today without Pixar?