tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-148123332009-11-24T09:58:45.045-06:00In torn seats are film leadersTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comBlogger1590125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-13781348880919416412009-11-24T09:00:00.001-06:002009-11-24T09:00:01.118-06:00

The war for dominance in American animation between Don Bluth and the Walt Disney Company had gotten a bit more intense with their dueling mouse movies in 1986, but that had nothing on the pissing match the two studios engaged in late in 1988. Both companies released a new feature on November 18 of that year, in a battle for the hearts and minds of children waged in the trenches of two very

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-25741168331524673442009-11-24T00:13:00.001-06:002009-11-24T02:14:41.099-06:00

The sequel to 2008's Twilight is one of those movies where you're not exactly sure even what the title is. The ad campaign clearly describes it as The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which is probably the "right" title, despite being clumsy and stupid; the opening of the film merely states New Moon, following the title of the novel by Stephenie Meyer; and during the end credits, its referred to as

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-46413108822989228952009-11-23T11:00:00.000-06:002009-11-23T11:00:02.169-06:00

One would be hard-pressed to come up with two films better suited to direct comparison than Disney's The Great Mouse Detective and Don Bluth's An American Tail. Both are animated features created by Disney-trained animators. Both are about mice. Both are period pieces set in the late years of the 19th Century. Both were released in 1986. So it makes quite a lot of sense to identify the

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-85571883469002357752009-11-23T09:00:00.000-06:002009-11-23T09:00:01.960-06:00

When Jeffrery Katzenberg was plopped in charge of the Disney Animation Studios in 1984, he didn't only inherit the massively blighted production that was The Black Cauldron - there was another story that had been pushed reasonably far into pre-production before its sister project's cost had forced a temporary shutdown.In the impersonal warehouse where the new executives had relocated the

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-47105417460033460722009-11-23T00:55:00.000-06:002009-11-23T02:55:30.798-06:00

"This picture takes place in Paris in those wonderful days when a siren was a brunette and not an alarm --- and if a Frenchman turned out the light it was not on account of an air raid!"-Opening title card, NinotchkaIf I have found one clear through-line connecting most of the films I've studied from the great year 1939, it's that in some way or another, they all treat on the immediate coming of

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-42473690181909195942009-11-22T20:30:00.000-06:002009-11-22T20:31:12.093-06:00

On July 24, 1985, Walt Disney Productions released its 25th animated feature film, The Black Cauldron. The film grossed somewhat more than $21 million in its domestic theatrical release, on a production budget that has still never been officially announced, though it assuredly was much more than $21 million: as much as $45-$50 million according to some sources. The film had been in animation

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-15913427010916665042009-11-22T04:31:00.003-06:002009-11-23T09:52:26.863-06:00

As I have discussed elsewhere, 1979 saw Don Bluth, one of Disney's best and brightest animators, leave the company fold, declaring (and rightfully, if you asked me), that The House That Walt Built was no longer true it its architect, and that if there was to be a proper heir to the Disney spirit of magic and childlike entertainment, that heir would not be found taking marching orders from Walt's

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-17244984256612721772009-11-22T00:55:00.002-06:002009-11-22T00:57:44.942-06:00

I am currently trying to fix a busted PC.  And of all damn days for it to happen, I had quite a busy day scheduled - but no matter. Eventually I will have subdued it to my will, and I will then toil deep into the morning hours, providing you all with the wonderful, wordy Disney reviews (and then some!) that it is my duty to provide.

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-28078367482212478042009-11-21T03:04:00.003-06:002009-11-21T05:12:31.175-06:00

With The Rescuers, it seemed that the new blood at the Disney Animation Studios had figured out what was what, and were all pumped up to do something even bigger and better, for with the great majority of the old guard retired or planning on doing so any moment, it was clearly a rich time for the kids to make a real mark, producing something true to the Disney brand name but created with new

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-51900372900069586202009-11-20T01:40:00.000-06:002009-11-20T04:43:01.178-06:00

The last animated film released by Walt Disney Productions in the 1970s is a transitional work, the handing of the torch from one generation to another. Even though several of the older generation who was still around at this point managed to stick around for one last film, 1977's The Rescuers still has a valedictory feel; it's also the first work produced by several young animators trained by

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-7794152231280985752009-11-19T00:29:00.003-06:002009-11-19T01:41:34.182-06:00

It's nice to see that even in the depths of Walt Disney Production's horrible stretch from 1970-1989, there's one spot of true brilliance, although to call The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh a '70s film is more than a bit disingenuous. Its roots lie in the comparatively strong period of the 1960s, in fact, for it is nothing but an anthology film put together from three shorts released in

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-63718304397600722132009-11-18T20:53:00.000-06:002009-11-18T20:54:56.274-06:00

You just go on ahead and ignore that Right-Aligned Poster of Dismissal, which I put in only out of a sense of intellectual duty. Because Roland Emmerich's newest disaster epic 2012 is absolutely a bad film, and it would be a disservice for me to argue otherwise. At the same time, it's so deliciously trashy in its badness that it's actually a bit of fun if you go in ready to laugh; whether with

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-49503875043493990532009-11-18T03:30:00.000-06:002009-11-18T04:32:16.221-06:00

Walt Disney Production's 1973 Robin Hood, I must confess, holds a very important place in my heart. It was while re-watching the film as a young person (for I had a marked tendency to watch Disney films very often in youth) that I first realised that there was such a thing as a Disney picture that I really didn't like very much. And so do I continue to not like it very much; in fact I should be

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-44514925817301163772009-11-17T19:05:00.001-06:002009-11-17T19:10:25.964-06:00

And so it was, that Walter Elias Disney was dead, but the company to bear his name continued on. The Florida project that had been the chief focus of the last years of his life was being built with a new intensity of purpose: now it was no longer an East Coast mirror of California's Disneyland, it was to be a massive physical monument to Disney's belief in the joy of imagination and fantasy.

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-58995651171673967062009-11-17T02:12:00.003-06:002009-11-17T06:17:01.284-06:00

And now we at last come to the long-awaited "let's just get this Pakula retrospective the fuck over" part of our program.In 1973, Alan Pakula married for the second time, following his divorce from Hope Lange in 1971. This second marriage was apparently a much happier one, for he and Hannah Cohn Boorstin remained together until his death, 25 years later.There came a point when Pakula decided

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-2975660374717941222009-11-16T21:40:00.002-06:002009-11-16T22:58:35.328-06:00

There is a famous story told about how Walt Disney, having picked the story for his studio's 19th animated feature in his customary jolly autocratic style, handed copies of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and its sequel to four of his story men - Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, and Vance Gerry - and gave them only one piece of instruction: "The first thing I want you to is not to

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-80564163657681552782009-11-16T00:44:00.001-06:002009-11-16T02:46:40.761-06:00

Frank Capra is a hard director for me to get a bead on. Once upon a time, he was one of the most successful working filmmakers in Hollywood, only to have his reputation start to tarnish in later years as he was increasingly regarded as an auteur of banal, feel-good corniness. Then, sometime around 15 or 20 years ago, somebody watched It's a Wonderful Life, realised that it's incredibly

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-12545687886379405842009-11-15T20:28:00.003-06:002009-11-15T22:22:53.531-06:00

Following the success of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Walt Disney Production's most contemporary and "hippest" film yet (though "hip" and "Disney" are correctly thought of as mortal enemies to one another), the studio immediately ran as far as possible to the other direction, making a film rooted in an antiquity that hadn't even been approached by the medieval fairy tale adaptations - in fact,

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-20009893469885017512009-11-14T03:18:00.000-06:002009-11-14T03:19:01.717-06:00

It is both convenient and at times very useful to divide Disney's history into certain periods. The simplest (and thus, the least useful) of these divisions is into the classic period - from the beginning to Walt's death - and the modern period. That this is plainly undesirable is because it suggests, among other things, that e.g. The Aristocats and Mulan are somehow related to one another.Thus,

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-66020148127478059992009-11-13T22:51:00.000-06:002009-11-13T22:52:51.020-06:00

The blithering waste of celluloid that was Dream Lover at least had the effect of putting a little juice back into Alan Pakula's career: at the very least, he'd never make such an ossified mediocrity as Sophie's Choice ever again, though mediocrity was certainly part of his career until the end.That said, his 1987 follow-up to Dream Lover was actually a decent, low-key character drama-comedy, the

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-33876882695278072912009-11-13T01:15:00.005-06:002009-11-13T03:17:24.744-06:00

Other Disney films may have had more tortured productions (Alice in Wonderland), had a more dangerously inflated budget (Fantasia), or seen the animators angrier at their lot (Dumbo and Bambi, the two films made during the morale-devouring strike of 1941), but not a single one of them took longer to make than Sleeping Beauty, which hit theaters in the early months of 1959, following almost eight

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-47283427497206711232009-11-12T21:40:00.002-06:002009-11-12T21:49:20.996-06:00

There is but one thing more annoying than wanting very much to love a movie, only to find out that it kind of sucks: wanting very much to hate a movie, only to find out that it's pretty good. Other than its atrociously over-compensatory subtitle, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is at all turns interesting at the very least, and often quite effective. It also comes absolutely

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-13008711978273906772009-11-12T08:00:00.000-06:002009-11-12T08:00:08.730-06:00

1955 was a hell of a year for Walt Disney Productions to even think about releasing an animated feature. This was right after their distribution deal with RKO had been replaced by the in-house Buena Vista Distribution, though that's probably the smallest issue facing the studio. In 1952, the company had officially announced plans for Disneyland, a theme park of a scale never before attempted

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-46837690531816964052009-11-11T23:54:00.000-06:002009-11-12T00:09:25.940-06:00

After Sophie's Choice won piles of undeserved acclaim from critics who, one assumes, were too chickenshit to criticise a movie about the Holocaust, Alan J. Pakula lay silent for a long time. Three years and some months passed until his next movie came out, the longest gap in his career as either director or producer at that point; perhaps he needed to rest up from having pushed out something as

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-56138880799833392922009-11-11T09:00:00.001-06:002009-11-11T09:00:01.595-06:00

When the Disney Studios released its 14th animated feature, Peter Pan, in 1953, it was two years since their most recent full-length project, Alice in Wonderland. This was the first time that a full calendar year went by without a new Disney feature since 1945. Hold on to this fact, because it's going to be important later.Walt Disney first attempted to get his hands on the film rights to J.M

Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.com3