Make Mine Music

      A collection of ten shorts, which are hit or miss for me, there's some classics and some that you'll forget just after watching. The classics being Casey at bat, Peter and the Wolf, The Whale that wanted to sing at the MET and Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet. The others are just to me kinda glorified Silly Symphonies added in to give the movie in between the bigger stories a little meat. Again we're at the odd point in the studios history the films were actually called "Packaged Films" because of their containing all short stories. The four "Package Films" being Make Mine Music, Fun And Fancy Free, Melody Time, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Again this was because of the war which left the studios with a number of unfinished works and ideas that were too long to be considered shorts and too short to be considered features. Digging into the history, the first short Blue Bayou was actually originally intended for a Claire De Lune sequence of Fantasia but was cut out of the feature and re purposed and originally there was an eleventh cartoon "The Martins and the McCoys" , a version of the Hatfields and McCoys, which was deemed to violent for modern audiences when it was released on home video due to guns and people being shot so it was edited out of the film.
     Believe it or not there are parts of this that have made it into the parks. Casey at bat has ties into Casey's Corner at the Magic Kingdom and also if you wander the Philharmagic queue you'll find a poster advertising Willie the whale, also didn't mention it last post you'll find The Three Caballeros poster in the queue as well. So it goes to show that even the smallest of cartoons can be found around the resort.

Saludos Amigos / The Three Caballeros

  

   This post will be a little awkward as I am going to blog about both movies at one time because they are so similar and created with the same intent. Many don't realize how these movies came about and it was because of the war, the government was taking over the studios for basically propaganda films. These films were created to improve ties with South America and educate Americans of our neighbors to the south. I don't really put these in personally with the list of the actual feature animation, because they are basically travelogues especially 'Saludos Amigos', they are part live action and each is just basically several shorts strung together. To me with the live action, I don't understand how these sit on the feature animation list, where movies like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?', 'Mary Poppins', and 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks', all similar but are considered live action films. Out of the two 'Saludos Amigos' is probably the least favorite of the two, it's only 42 minutes long and is more of a documentary on South America than entertaining as 'Three Caballeros' was. Plus 'The Three Caballeros' contained a bunch of really toe tapping songs, which gave it more of a Disney Animation feel to it. 'Saludos Amigos' also stands out because its the only animated film to open in South America before North America and 'The Three Caballeros' had its world premiere in Mexico City. This time in the Studios history is really odd, stupid war, I mean you go from Bambi to these shorts movies to Cinderella. You have these two great movies bordering on these five films that kinda are like the odd men out. You may not see Panchito and Jose that frequently or used that much, but I really think this was a huge boost for Donald Duck. Like 'Pinocchio' this movie would not get passed the censors with Jose always smoking a cigar in a kids cartoon and its nice to see that at one point in time people weren't so dumb, as to see a smoking bird and say "Gee I want to be like him and smoke." So be that as it may, I don't see why they make the main list, but I do still like them, and I think they did play an important role in Disney's history and even when you look at it American history for its bringing together two countries. I don't think now a days, had they had the need for films like this (basically educating people on current affairs), they couldn't do it. I think Walt had that know-how, that story-telling ability and people skills needed to pull of films such as these.
     For you park goers 'The Three Caballeros' has been getting more and more presence in the parks over the years. They are centrally located in the pool at All-Star Music, Panchito has his own gift shop at Coronado Springs, and they are also the stars of the re-imagined Mexico Pavilion boat ride now named "Grand Fiesta Tour". You'll often find them many times in topiary form by Mexico or during Flower and Garden Festival and Donald now has a well themed meet and greet next to the Mexico Pavilion. I must say they were well incorporated into the boat ride, its hard to think back to the old ride and not hearing the theme song and music playing in the background. You know one thing I've noticed since I started on this little pet project with Disney Animation is that the films really are important to WDW, so far every film in some way has a tie into Walt Disney World, and again its the animation, not the live action movies that play the part. Also since I've started watching, I have noticed that I catch my self paying more attention to detail in the parks and really piecing together how epic Disney is as a whole and how much of its history as a company plays a role still today.

Bambi

    

      Walt Disney Feature Animations fifth movie and I have to say it probably is one of my least favorites of the Disney movies and that is Bambi. Bambi is the story of a young deer and basically follows him through his life cycle until he grows up and becomes a parent himself. He's aided in his story by a couple friends, those being Thumper the rabbit, Flower the skunk, and Owl, well the owl. There are some hiccups along the way in the story and those would be revolving around man's use of hunting and destroying the forest. It's pretty much giving us a glimpse into Bambi's experiences growing up from learning to stand and walk, learning to talk, learning about the change of seasons, and about being "Twitterpated" especially with his girlfriend Faline. For me there just wasn't enough in the way of actual story, so much as being more of a nature cartoon and like I said it just doesn't connect with me the way alot of the other Disney films do. But, story aside you do have some of the more beloved Disney characters and I think that's in large part to them being animals and most of the film being very young animals at that. I do have to say though probably my favorite part of Bambi is not in the story and the characters, but in the background art, I think Disney did a wonderful job of giving that real forest look but with a slightly lighter airy feel. For many people though, Bambi, isn't always the most loved movie, but the saddest movie. Those of you have seen it or know about it will realize I'm referencing to the scene with Bambi's mother (Not to give to much away for those having not seen it). To me looking back I think that's the first time an audience was and is able to connect on an emotional level with the characters their watching on the screen. That's what I think Walt did well when he was alive and involved in his films, he knew audiences, he knew the story he wanted to tell and he knew what it would take to pull you  into these fantasy worlds he was creating. Walt Disney didn't want you to be just watching an animated tale, he wanted you to feel like you were a fly on the wall watching everything happen before you and include you in what is happening. Bambi also includes two classic Disney songs "Love is a song" and "Little April Showers", both of which blend so easily into the movie and just add to the tone and feel of being in this forest and watching the animals and plant life going through phases. Walt wanted this movie to display such realism, that it went through production from 1936 to 1941, it was suppose to be his second animated film, but creating this realism took longer and allowed three other movies to come between it and Snow White. This would also be the last full-length animated film until Cinderella. The movies in-between from Saludos Amigos to The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, are all movies composed of smaller short stories strung together. Those however are stories for another blog.
    Your gonna be hard pressed to find many references to this film at all in Walt Disney World. Outside of some topiaries here and there and a presence at Epcot's International Flower and Garden Festival, there's not alot of love for Bambi in the parks. I did hear rumors that this years Flower and Garden Festival will feature "Bambi's Butterfly House", replacing the usual one over towards Test Track, this one would be larger and located on the pathways to Imagination pavilion. You do have to wonder why the Bambi characters aren't worked into the parks a little more. I feel there's some missed opportunities, especially at like Rafiki's Planet Watch, Fort Wilderness, and even Wilderness Lodge. When you think about it though, outside of doing some topiaries and murals, its a little harder to work in a film like this, especially when you can't really bring the characters to life for like Meet/Greets, I do think Disney has the technology now with projection systems and other technologies that could be used to bring them to life by other means than as a topiary. If you look smaller though you'll Bambi and Thumper like to grace alot of pins, especially any related to spring or seasons change. Also what better characters to base plush toys on then animals, you'll see many a child in the parks toting a Bambi or Thumper around, for some reason I guess carrying a skunk around doesn't seem to go over to big (sorry, Flower).

Dumbo

     

     Probably the shortest of all the actual Feature Animations, Dumbo is just 64 minutes long, really though did it have to be any longer, the answer is no everything is contained in that hour of the story, theres no excess production values or unnecessary storyline. When RKO was set to release it and saw its length they tried to get Walt to either shorten it to a short or lengthen it, Walt of course defended his movie and kept it at its one hour mark. I always happen to forget all there is in Dumbo, for some reason as years go by I don't watch it, I only think about the elephant with the big ears and flying. Then I re-watch it and see the stork sequence, Casey Jr., the circus acts and the pink elephants on parade segment and remember how much there was actually crammed into that one hour time. Dumbo for those that don't remember stars off with the storks bringing all the baby animals to their mothers, Mrs. Jumbo unfortunately has Mr. Stork who's a little behind in getting her baby to her, once he arrives and sets her tiny baby elephant down, its love at first sight with her baby. Though her baby has a unique characteristic he has giant ears, which are the butt of many jokes and fighting for her baby will lead to her being separated from him at one point. Dumbo has no friends, until little Timothy Mouse comes along and sees Dumbo for who he is and not his ears and is ready to help Dumbo get into the spotlight. After his big starring role chance ends in disaster and being demoted to a clown, one day Dumbo finally decides to wander away from the circus. While he's out and about, he comes across a flock of crows that give him a magic feather that when held in his trunk gives him the ability to fly, with this new trick Dumbo comes back to steal the show. When you  dive into Dumbo's history you learn it was really rushed and project and on top of it being the shortest it was also the cheapest animated film to make $813,000. The reason is Walt needed it to be cheap to make so it would bring in lots of revenue to make up for losses with 'Pinocchio' and 'Fantasia'. This and Snow White are also the only classics to use watercolors because they were cheaper than the oil based paints and wouldn't be used again until Fantasia 2000 and then again for Lilo and Stitch. The sad thing about Dumbo is how many people are bringing up racial issues with it (the roustabouts are all black and the crows have a black southern slang) and then the parents having issues with Dumbo drinking and seeing hallucinations. All I have to say is common people its a cartoon, its not real life, suspend real life and just have fun with the movie, why this wasn't a problem back then was for that same reason, nobody cared back then about stereotyping and censorship, it was about having fun and realizing its a movie not a real life depiction. Plus anyways like Pinocchio turned green and and into a donkey for smoking a cigar, Dumbo got drunk and saw creepy little pink elephants and after seeing that why would a kid want to drink or smoke, when it comes down to it, I blame parents for not taking the responsibility and time to talk to their kids about what they saw. I do love Dumbo though and it has a wonderful soundtrack that goes along with it as many of the original classics did, and I like that its short and to the point. Really I think Dumbos a great movie for kids to see because its moral is actually about not caring what you look like or that your clumsy or can't do things right the first time and also being able to use those unique traits for a good cause. Then you also have the importance of friends like Timothy to help get you back on your feet when things seem to be going no where fast.
     Anyways as the ringmaster might say "on with the show", even though it has a lot of bad rap going around, it remains one of the Disney classics and features probably the most beloved of the classic characters and that's Dumbo himself. So many people love Dumbo and if you don't believe that look at his ride at the Magic Kingdom, guaranteed your not getting to fly and elephant in under 30 minutes. It's either lots of kids watch this movie and love the character and film or they just want the chance to control the ride. I'm going with the first one, because now with Aladdin's Magic Carpets and Triceratops spin they have more control over the vehicles, yet they still line up for Dumbo. It's also one of those rights of passage rides that is passed down from parents to kids, the parents rode it when they were little and remember that feeling of flying Dumbo and pass it onto their young ones. With all this dedication to riding Dumbo it only makes sense Disney would want to jump at the chance to expand on the franchise and with the Fantasyland

     

Fantasia

     

     For some reason I always think 'Fantasia' came later in the Disney order of things not as the third animated feature. To me you either really like the concept of 'Fantasia' or really dislike it. I said 'Pinocchio' has one of the biggest influences on Disney as one of its Animated films, but when you look at the big picture 'Fantasia' really takes the cake for influence and for me I don't really consider it one of the classic Disney animated films, because its not really telling a story and its more than just about the animation, to me its in its own little category. I mean let's look at some of what 'Fantasia' has inspired or touched at WDW: Philharmagic, Fantasmic, Spectromagic, Sorcerer's Hat icon,  The infamous Epcot wand, Great Movie Ride, Fantasia Gardens mini-golf, All-Star Movies resort, Magic of Disney Animation entrance, the old Sorcery in the Sky fireworks at the studios, and you can even go to say the Universe of Energy drew inspiration by the Stegosaurus/T-Rex fight sequence.

     You can tell there's been a change in audiences that watch Disney animated films, because this was clearly aimed at adults as many kids would of probably been bored sitting through two hours of classical music. When you think it's only one of two Feature Animation to have a sequel that was a theatrical release and not straight to DVD, 'Fantasia 2000', the only other being 'The Rescuers' and 'The Rescuers: Down Under' says alot about the strength the film had. Look at any Imagineer's name tag and see what the icon for an Imagineer is and lets not forget also how many Disney buildings sport the Sorcerer's Hat into their design world wide, from the animation building in California to a show building in Disneyland Paris.

     Need we also forget that it just also was the inspiration for the film 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice', complete with recreation of the title sequence from the animated film.

     Then you can even get into all the actual merchandise that they sell in the parks from recreations of the Sorcerer's hat to even t-shirts resembling Sorcerer Apprentice Mickey's robe.

     Those are all reasons why I put this film above it's status as just one of the 50 animated Walt Disney Feature Animation films. A movie with so much pull I feel deserves its own plateau to stand on, because this is truly the icon and image of all that is Walt Disney and Disney in general and never has one single Disney character had so much of a presence than Sorcerer Apprentice Mickey.

Pinocchio

   

      Well number 2 of 50 feature animations are completed. Again like Snow White, I don't think there's much sense in re-telling the storyline of the wooden puppet that becomes real. For being the second movie I think they did a huge jump in their animation ability from 'Snow White' to 'Pinocchio', you have a lot more characters and much more elaborate backgrounds. Try making a movie with kids smoking cigars now-a-days, lol, boy the censors would of had a field day back then with this one. What's sad is on the re-release they had to add a clip at the beginning warning of the dangers of smoking, I don't think this is gonna make kids wanna go out and smoke. I mean come on Pinocchio turns green and ill and turns into a donkey for smoking, if that ain't enough reason not to smoke way is. What's interesting is how big of roles characters from this film actually play apart in the whole Walt Disney Company and music. I think more is used from this film than any of the others, you have "When you wish upon a star" which is used in every park and has become thee song for Disney, Jiminy Cricket is the symbol for Disney's environmentality and recycling efforts, Monstro and the underwater scene play a large part in Fantasmic and the Blue Fairy has been present in nighttime shows at the parks world wide. I'm sad that here in WDW we actually don't have 'Pinocchio's Daring Journey', the dark ride from Disneyland, I've heard wonderful things about that ride. We do however have 'Pinocchio's Village Haus', which is interesting because instead of comparing the film to a ride or attraction, you have to compare it to a eatery. Last night while we were at the Magic Kingdom, we actually ate in the Village Haus and I made sure to make a mental note of things, knowing I would be watching the film this morning. For capturing the essence of an animated film into a restaurant, it really does play off well. From the German architecture to the lay out of the rooms. When you delve into the design of the restaurant it is really interesting, because if your just eating there your not going to catch on right away that each room is dedicated to a specific character and the main ordering area is actually designed to represent Stromboli's stage, complete with a second floor eating area where Stromboli would of controlled the Marionette's. I think with Pinocchio it's this film that kinda set the stage for Disney Animations to tell a story, but, at the same time have a deeper meaning and have a moral to the story. Also watching these films have gotten me into learning more about the animation process as a whole, for Stromboli's wagon and blue fairy they used the process of Rotoscope alot and I did not know what that meant, but have seen the term used many times. Here's a link to Wikipedia about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping. When you see how they used gadgets like that and the processes it took to make these movies, it wasn't easy and there is a lot of work put into making Animation happen, you really start to take on a new appreciation for the art form. It's hard to find fault at all with Disney, no matter what they do you really have to dig deep to find a problem, throughout their history Disney has always made a great production from beginning to end. I think the key to Disney's Animation success is not in the stories, but in the characters, I feel that is what Disney has always excelled at more than any other studio and that's creating a character you can connect with and care what happens to them. Next up will be 'Fantasia' which also has a lot of use in the parks and will be fun to blog about. I've come to some deciding factors with the now Disney project, not only will I be doing the main 50 animated features, I'm adding into the chronology of them, the Pixar movies (which have become so tightly linked to Disney its hard not to count them) and the Disney ToonStudio movies (which for those that tried to forget are all those sequels that Disney tried to cash in on and movies inspired by there cartoon franchises). I didn't want to include the sequels and all but when you talk about watching all the full length animated Disney movies, you kinda half too because they are after all full length and it was Disney artists and story tellers that made them. Outside of Pixar and ToonStudios you also have their straight to home video movies like Ducktales: The Movie and A Goofy Movie that also deserve to be worked in. See you for the Fantasia blog.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

     

     Early this morning I finished the first of the Disney Animated films, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I think everyone probably knows this story of the girl who had to run away from home and finds herself living with the seven little men until she's tricked and poisoned by the one who she initially ran away from. So, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the story. You can't say it for alot of the shorts or other animation of the time, but, you can see how much work went into Snow White and with that making it hold up against time a little more. I know its been re-colored and re-mastered for the Blu-Ray I watched it on but the drawings and animation are the original and that's what is more involved than the shiny gleam they gave it for High Definition. The one thing that stands out watching this after the recent release of 'Tangled' is how much progress they've made animating human figures. But, whats amazing is here you have this movie from 1937, that still today, kids are brought up watching and fully aware of the characters and the story. You can go back to other studios and films like Fievel, All Dogs Go To Heaven, Land Before Time and Anastasia and I'm sure half the children now a days have not seen those. Walt did Snow White right, you had a story, great character design and some catchy songs. After watching this movie and really watching it, not doing anything else, just sitting and watching. There is one thing I kinda don't like about the movie and that's how quick everything progresses once Snow White eats the apple. It's she eats it and right away dwarfs are coming to the rescue and the next thing you know Prince is waking her up. I think for the time period it was released in and the full length animated film, I can see why Walt would of wanted to keep this movie just over an hour. Now a days I think people are so accustomed to longer movies, you wouldn't of minded the extra twenty minutes to build up a bigger ending. I think Julie would agree with me on this (She being a huge Snow White fan) and that is I'm kinda surprised they really don't do alot of merchandise with her or give her enough mention in the parks, for the girl that paid for everything else to come, I think she deserves some special ranking in the princess category. The other thing is since I watched this not too long ago when I bought it on Blu-Ray, I figured I'd just watch it with the commentary. I've found Disney cartoons are one of the few things I don't like commentary on, its almost like if you can't fully hear the dialogue and music, your missing out on half the movie. So, not a big fan of Animation commentary, but boy-o-boy does Disney still hold the key for extras on dvd and blu-ray. I know people gripe how Disney keeps re releasing different editions of the movies, but you almost want to go buy each one to watch the extras Disney has made for that edition. I do like now how if you've bought the previous edition and registered it online with Disney how you can get a coupon for money off the newer version. I'm actually writing this blog early, though I'm not going to post it right away, as we plan to visit the Magic Kingdom today after I get off work and want to be able to put in some comparison to the ride. One of the main things of the ride is it stays true pretty much to the story except where they inserted the queen turning into the Hag at the beginning and chasing you at the beginning, she actually didn't turn into the hag till after Snow White has found the cottage and been with the dwarfs for awhile. Other than that, the ride does cling to the story pretty well and giving you that feel or running away from the queen. What's interesting is when Disney built Snow White and gave it the scary, dark, ominous tone, that sets it aside from the other Fantasyland dark rides, cause its really not a scary movie. Moving the Hag scenes around to make a scarier trip through the story, they were incorporated well into the rest of the story told through the ride. You know here you start off running away from the castle and into the woods, but half way through you get a nice little song and dance at the cottage, to break up the scares before you head out again after the queen and chasing her through the mine. I know there's been rumors going around about Walt Disney Imagineering removing this attraction for a new meet and greet location for the Fantasyland expansion and building the Mine coaster. I have to same I'd love to see what they could do with a Mine coaster, but, I have to side with the dark ride and say keep the dark ride over the coaster. It's unique, was an opening day dark ride, and all different ages can ride it opposed to the coaster. Plus you have a ride now taking you through the story of Snow White where the coaster is focusing just on that little bit of the Mine sequence in the film and the end of the current attraction. So, here's hoping Snow White can stay, and also I hope because it's the only dark ride in Fantasyland you don't have to wait an hour for, I'm talking to you Pan and Pooh.

The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh

    

     I know it may be out of the chronological order of things to be watching it before everything else. However me and my wife decided to watch this before I decided to start on my Disney mission, we got it as a "research" tool for the baby's room which is gonna be Pooh inspired. I can't even recall the last time I saw this movie, but like most Disney films after about five minutes the whole movie comes back to you and you end up saying "I remember all this". I think what was so cool about this animated movie was how the book it was told out of became like a character, how it set up the different stories and how the other characters kinda interacted with it. This summer the new 'Winnie the Pooh' movies comes out and its the return to classic pooh, getting away from the CGI of Pooh characters of recent years. It will be interesting to see how it looks compared to this original. What baffles me though is I don't know if it just isn't or if they haven't promoted it, but, I haven't seen anything saying this new one will be in 3-D. I actually have to say if its not I'll be disappointed, I think with the book and the pages, it could really look sharp and add depth in 3-D. The worse thing about this new movie, is Disney has it opening the same weekend as the final Harry Potter movie and I can tell you know it's gonna clobber Pooh and Disney is gonna talk about how it made no money and talk about hand drawn animation being old again. Back to the movie though, I'm not a huge Pooh fan, starting to be though since it's gonna play a big role in the baby's life. It was well done and I think it still hold up all these years, and its like going back to childhood for me watching this as I remember it when I was little. You had a catchy soundtrack by the famous Sherman Brother and even though its really like six separate stories they are woven together very well so it keeps the flow of one continuous story.
     Now for the Walt Disney World aspect of Pooh. After seeing the movie, I have to say the ride at the Magic Kingdom really does do a great job of placing you in those specific scenes from the movie. Because, half way through the movie, I leaned over to the wife and asked if she wanted to go to the park so I can go on the ride. I haven't been there to really see the new queue since it opened, except at night where it's hard to see everything, but, really anxious to see how everything looks and how well it fits to the movie as well. I think for as small a ride as it is, getting each of those scenes into it and really capturing the feel and the music of those scenes and the selection of what they used to represent the scenes was really done well, you can tell they did their research. I liked the ride before but after seeing the movie now, I have a new appreciation for the ride and I think when I go on it again will be a little more meaningful than just a Fantasyland dark ride. I used to think the big story book pages at the ride where kinda dump like a cheap way out of theming, well until now when they redid most of it, but after seeing this again and how much those pages played a role in the movie, I can see why they chose to have you intertwined with these giant pages out of the book of Pooh.
     Like I said I can't wait to see the new movie now, I hope they change the release date or at least be ready to be clobbered. I'm not sure how the new one will do, most of the kids are used to the CGI Pooh on Disney Channel, I'm interested to see how they will take a liking to the classic hand drawn Pooh and if we will see CGI Pooh again or are we gonna really try and being back classic Pooh. I haven't seen any of the CGI movies so to say I don't like them or how they look in CGI wouldn't be fair,  I think that's a movie and a blog for another day. Also I don't know when the DVD came out, but, the one I got from Netflix was the Friendship edition and it had a really good extra about the story of Pooh and how the author created the story and the characters, how Walt even years and years before talked about doing Pooh and an interview with how the Sherman brothers came up with the music. When I get to it in the list of watching order, I'll have to buy it in whatever edition it is in now, but a nice way to start of the Disney movie-a-thon.

There is only one Disney

     Recently I've been torn as to whether to keep this blog going or to shift my focus to Walt Disney World and my photography hobby there. I've come to a good marriage between Disney and Movies. I'm now setting out to rediscover Disney through it's film history and to start with what started it all the famous animated films. I am planning to re-watch all the Disney animated features chronologically from Snow White to Tangles. On the way I'll also be adding to my Disney library, because if I don't have it and its not locked up in the vault...pause for gripe....DANG GONE STUPID VAULT........I will purchase it and add it in. At the same time it will give me a unique ability on the blog here and that's give my opinion here at my present age, on these movies, many of which I have not seen in quite some time. Then with the little guy coming along I'll be able to re-watch them once again and blog about his first experiences watching these classic stories. Of course I'll throw in some newer movies to break it up so I don't get too burnt out on cartoons. Then after the cartoons I may venture into the realm of the live action movies. The cartoons will also be able to enhance my experiences of the parks, cause the characters and stories will be refreshed to me and I can look for my ties between the movies and the parks. Why you might ask did I come up with this crazy idea, well I think there's no better way to appreciate WDW than to see where the inspiration for so many of the rides and movies came from and that's its animated stories and characters. With out these movies there would be no Cindererlla's Castle, no Fantasyland, no Festival of the Lion King and no Characters in the parks. It will also be interesting after seeing the newest film Tangled in 3D and comparing it to the classic films and seeing how Disney Animation has changed and progressed over the years. The other thing I had to debate was when the time comes to I include Pixar films into the chronology of things and I have to say yes a few years ago maybe not, but, now I think Disney-Pixar have become so intertwined it's hard not to have one with out the other.

Season Of The Witch

     
     Last night I decided on seeing a movie in theaters, needed a break from work and painting the soon to be baby's room. Season of the Witch I really didn't know too much going into seeing it other than a trailer once or twice. The movie starts off with a back story of a hanging of three witches, one of whom escapes and even though its not out right told seems to be the main character in the rest of the movie.
     The main characters of the film are Behmen (Nicholas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) who have been fighting through battles in the Crusades side by side for years. Speaking of Crusades that sets our time from around 1338 and after being tired of killing innocent women and children in the name of the church, Behmen and Felson desert the Crusades and are discovered in a town nearby suffering from the Black Plague. To keep from being killed by the towns high priest who's dying of the plague he offers them the chance to escort a captive woman being held for being a witch and creating the black plague.
     Story follows the two plus Debelzaq (a priest), Eckhart (knight), Hagamar (guide), and Kay (an altar boy who's out to be a knight). It's basically a shortened epic, main idea get from point 'A' to point 'B' alive, with some obstacles being thrown in the way. The obstacles in this instance referring to the witch trying to kill off her captors and escape. When they finally get to their destination they find their witch has purposely lead them there to destroy the very book they seek to use to kill her. Long story short, they learn she's not a witch at all that they have to contend with but a girl possessed by a demon. Can't really talk to much of the I guess you can call them "battles" or encounters with the witch because they try to pull off a little Hitchcock/6th Sense twist, that kinda gets pulled off but was a little to obvious it was coming.
     Really simple plot, good movie though and some really nicely done CGI work, the thing that will ruin it all though is the ending is just bad and poorly done. What's the worst part is this is one of those your like, come on they make every movie 20 minutes too long except this one that could use that time. As far as actors go, I'm sorry to Nic and Ron but I think anyone could of pulled these characters off. This movie was good, but had sooo much more potential to be great, it's some where between Syfy channel and blockbuster.  Leads me to my last opinion and that it got a little preachy in some areas about the debate over church and god and beliefs. But, I enjoyed it because A) It took place during a time period I love and B) It dealt with witchcraft.

Winter's Bone

     This was a movie I had never heard of or even would of seen had I watched the trailer. I chose to watch this because Entertainment Weekly named it one of the top movies to watch before Oscar night. After watching it I have to say I can see why it would be on that list.
     The movie is set up in the Ozarks and is centered around a teen girl named Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), who has a younger brother, younger sister and a sick mother. Her father is a deadbeat drug-dealer that has a court date pending and has set up their house and land for bail. Unfortunately that court date is about to happen and noone know the whereabouts of Ree's father or do they but just won't tell. It's all about Ree following a trail through these deadbeat friends and relatives, in the middle of nowhere to find her father and save their property. While she's off on this social quest, she also has to take care of her kid brother and sisters and check in on her mother.
     I do have this to say about the movie over the storyline, the cinematography was really well done, it really brings out the colors and look of this poor middle-of-nowhere, backwoods area in the middle of winter. There are times though in the story I did get a little lost as to who's who and what's their relationship in all this. Not a long movie as one would think for being an Oscar contender, clocking in at just around one hour and forty minutes. It's hard though to not talk to much about the overall story in this film without giving too much of the plot. The movie does get a little dark at certain times, but never anything too dark to distract from the drama of it all and theres times you'll feel a little banjo playing from 'Deliverance' would fit in. Definitely worth a rental one night when you want to sit down and see a movie, not for laughs or action but to watch a story being told.
     Entertainment Weekly has it as one of their ideas for Oscar nominations in the following categories, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress. I would agree with them for every nomination, the only one that I think may win is the Best Actress, Jennifer Lawrence did a phenomenal job in the film. Although I do have the novel it was based, on hold at the library so I'll see how it compares to the movie. If the other Oscar contenders are anything as good it may be a good race to the finish this year, now just to watch the others :).

Sex And The City 2

     The four women are back Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristen Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon). This sequel takes place after the events of the first movie 'Sex and the City' from 2008. Movie starts off bringing everyone up to speed on where these women have been for the past two years and their relationships. The big bring the gals together plot is their gay friends wedding and I'm sorry if you watch this, please tell me why Liza Minnelli sings "Single Ladies" and two why she sings it at a gay wedding where most of the guests are men.
     Samantha gets invited by a Sheik to the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi, all expenses paid on his behalf in the hopes she will run a PR campaign for him. Most of the movie takes place here and most of it revolves around how these four women aren't into the women being second to a man rules of the country. This movie should really be called Sex and the City: Samantha's Adventure. Samantha is the main character in this movie once they leave New York, in New York it's all Carrie, in the Middle East its Samantha's show. She's constantly oogling the boys, walking the fine line of showing too much skin, and pushing the buttons of by-standers with her public displays of affection with the men she meets.
     The first movie was pretty decent, not a fan of the HBO series or the books (a little to chicky for my tastes), alas the first one was alright. It had a decent story, from what I know carried the series into a movie format pretty well. The problem I have is, it's called Sex and the City, yet both movies you spend more time in other countries that in New York. Okay, Okay I guess the first one Mexico kind of worked because it was suppose to be the Honeymoon that never happened, turned into a vacation. But, why the Middle East and what a lousy excuse to go there and a bad Hollywood showing of what life is actually like over there. It seems they struggled a lot to come up with a plan to make a second movie work. To me it should of ended with the first movie, it did well in theaters and gave the fans of the series a movie. This one tanked in the box office and did not get rave reviews, at some point Hollywood needs to realize just cause there's a fan base doesn't always mean that they will pay to see what ever gets made with the material they flock over.
     Plus the movie clocks in at a whopping almost two hours and forty minutes, way longer than it should be. It could of easy ended at the two hour mark. Lots of scenes from the final act of the movie were pointless and to me just there to stretch the movie out. But, depicting UAE was bad, I mean come on having four ladies sing karaoke to "I am a woman", really, to me all this movie did was push the political correctness of needed women's rights in UAE.

the://craigslist.killer

     Tonight on Lifetime was a made for tv movie based on the real story of The Craigslist Killer. It was actually a pretty good movie for being a lifetime film. The sad thing is I really don't ever remember hearing about this story or this guy. Then again I don't really watch the news, so I'm sure someone probably remembers seeing the real news stories.
     Philip Markoff (Jake McDorman) is a top of his class medical school student engaged to Megan McAllister (Agnes Bruckner). The movie depicts their life and building their relationship bond, but, also at the same time showing there maybe some more deep down in Philips past. Philip has some deep dark secrets he's been able to hide from his wife, he likes to meet women from Craigslist that advertise for erotic services and tie them up, humiliate them and rob them in hotel rooms. On top of that he also has gambling problems and anger issues. He's been able to hide all this and get away with it until one of his hotel meetings goes wrong and ends up killing the girl he is only suppose to be robbing.
     William Baldwin plays Detective Bennett who is tasked with finding this so called Craigslist killer, the only lead he has to go on are fuzzy pictures of average Joe in Boston. The break he needs to link Philip to the crimes comes when Digital Forensics is able to pull a real name and IP address from the Craigslist name used to meet these girls. After being under surviellance and attempting to leave the Boston area, he is arrested and booked into jail. His fiance Megan can't believe what is happening, how can this happen to a straight-A popular med school student. She fights for him and helps him plea his not guility that they obviously have the wrong man.
      When the detectives search their aparment and find a hidden 9mm, handcuffs, ducktape and sixteen pairs of panties hidden under the bed, they find their evidence and she finally finds that she has to admit that he is who they say he is, a mentally disturbed killer. Having finally come to terms she visits him at jail and confronts him and finally calls off the engagement and leaves him. One year after their wedding should of took place, Philip successfully commits suicide in his jail cell. That's the story pretty quick and dirty, don't want to spoil everything in case this movie hits dvd or you want to look it up on Lifetime and catch a re-running of it.
     After doing some digging i'm really surprised at how closely this movie actually followed the real events that took place from 2009 - 2010. You can read about the real Philip Markoff on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Markoff and Boston Fox's website http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/report%3A-'craigslist-killer'-philip-markoff-commits-suicide-in-jail.  There's a couple more based on real event movies coming to Lifetime in the next few weeks that were previews during this one that look pretty good and after seeing how well this one was actually done I may just have to put them onto the DVR to watch.

Avalon High

    

     One of the more recent DCOM's (Disney Channel Original Movie) was kind of a bust. It's based on a young adult novel of the same name by Meg Cabot, known for 'The Princess Diaries'. If you watched the Disney Channel promos for this it looks like people from this school are going to magically swap places and time jump to medieval Camelot times, well they do, for the last maybe 5 minutes of the movie. The rest of it is a sappy love triangle story between three kids at Avalon High.
     The idea of the movie being all about Medieval Europe is implanted from the beginning, the movie is centered around Allie Pennington (Brittany Robertson) who's parents are both Medieval literature professors and have just moved and taken a contract at a local University. Allie goes to Avalon High and is immediately wooed by the football jock of the school Will Wagner (Gregg Sulkin) and at the same time finds a fancy in a brainiac named Miles (Joey Pollari). All three have the same European History class taught by Mr. Moore (Steve Valentine) and Allie just happens to arrive at Avalon High when he is teaching the Arthur legend and just happens to be using a text book about Arthur written by her parents. Also in this class is Will's girlfriend, Jen (Molly C. Quinn), his best friend Lance (Christopher Tavarez) and school bully Marco (Devon Graye).
     So, to cut the story down short and to the point and not having to go over the whole drama end of the movie I'll keep it to the main Medieval premise. Allie and Miles have been given a research paper on The Order Of The Bear, they'll come to find out it was a secret order that believed Arthur will one day return reincarnated. Everything they uncover leads them to believe that Arthur will return the night of the big football game. They suspect that Will is actually the reincarnated Arthur and he'll lead the football team to victory, and when they find Jen cheating with Lance, well there's your Guinevere and Lancelot characters. Also Miles now seems to be getting headaches which leads to visions of things to come making him into a bit or a psychic or could is he really Merlin, then you have Marco who wants nothing more than to see Will blow the whole game, making him Mordred out to kill King Arthur. All through the movie you have Allie and Miles trying to convince everyone including their teacher that Arthur is actually coming back to Earth on the night of the big football game at Avalon High.
     Finally at the end we get our big show down in the school theater where they just happen to have a set made for Julius Caesar that gives the period look and the handy placement of a sword (Excalibur) for Arthur to use. Except, Will is not Arthur....Since no one will probably watch this, if you want to stop reading because I'm going to spoil the ending.......Allie turns out to be King Arthur and her teacher Mr. Moore is actually Mordred. I know, how and why did Arthur come back as a girl is beyond me as well. This whole group of kids and their teacher are magically transported to a European landscape and battle it out and at the end, bam, back to present day just as security walks in to take Moore away. Like I said there's some stretches in the movie to be sure and most of it just felt like a teen high school chick flick making use of the Arthurian legend as a metaphor for what happens at the school, and using the medieval  theme as a way to attract some boys to the movie. In case that didn't get the teenage boys attention Director Stuart Gillard decided to throw in some jogging shots of Allies butt and chest that were very obvious why they were there (totally not needed scenes).  A final technical note this movie has some bad sound editing and whenever there seems to be any kind of background noise or music the actors volume drops and then when the background noise ends their voices go back up. Final summary, not Disney Channel's best movie by a long shot, but, it's still watchable and you won't feel the urge like some other bad TV movies to turn it off.

Shrek Forever After

    

     (Updated 01/02/11) Well today starts off the year long movie celebration, too bad it started with a movie under par. 'Shrek Forever' After aka 'Shrek: The Final Chapter', after watching it I'm glad it is the final Shrek movie. Actually they should of ended on the third movie and it would of been a good ending for Shrek. This installment just felt really stretched thin for story and new ways to tell old jokes.

     The movie starts off with a flash back to the original story and a side story to it, where the king and queen are going to pay off Rumpelstiltskin to break Fiona's curse, until they get wind of Fiona being rescued from the tower. After that it's back to the present, where the third movie left off, Shrek, Fiona, and the three babies are getting into an everyday routine. Everyday routine is not what Shrek wants though as he secretly yearns to go back to the old ways when he was a mean ogre and could do what ever he pleased. Keeping this longing inside and with the repetition of normal life, finally leads him basically into a mid-life crisis moment.
      Still wanting to rule the whole kingdom, Rumpelstiltskin has been looking for his big break, when he over hears Shrek and Fiona arguing. Hatching his plan he plays on Shreks needs, and offers him one day as a real ogre for one day of his childhood (Yes, its referred to as 'Give a day, Get a Day can't help feeling they based that on Disney). What Shrek doesn't know is that Rumple decides to take the day Shrek is born, hence Shrek never being born he never met his friends or Fiona and at the end of the day will cease to exist. Giving room for the main plot of the movie (Set in a alternate reality), to undo the deal with Rumple (Find True Love's Kiss) that being getting his old friends to trust him and winning Fiona's love all over again and that being made harder now that in this alternate dimension Fiona was never rescued from the tower and is the leader of an Ogre rebellion to overthrow Rumplestiltskin. Along the way to getting all these tasks done Shrek learns that he really did have it made and had a good life and what was he thinking wanting to give it all up.
     Now the big question is...will this actually be the final Shrek movie or will Dreamworks give into box office takes and green light a fifth movie. I sure hope not, I like Shrek and all, but, this one really showed how there's not much left to go story wise. Of course though, you know the kids will love it, with Shreks burp and fart sense of humor, and being an animated movie. I just think with so much animation being produced now, not like when Shrek first started being new to CGI, that now story lines are going to have to surpass not just the animation. Also on a side note in case any Universal execs ever read this...update Shrek 4-D in the parks, it bridges the gap between movies 1 and 2, the fourth movie came and went, so I think the show is a little outdated now. There was a neat little extra on the Blu-Ray I enjoyed. that showed how technology has advanced over the last decade since the original Shrek movie and comparing similar scenes from them to now. Still the extras on the disc weren't as good as the ones Disney usually includes with their animated films on dvd.