Watchin' Disney #05: Bambi

Hey it's Bambi, you guys know that movie. Let's go watch some Disney.

Previous relationship with movie: I don't really have any strong memories of watching Bambi. I'm sure I've seen it before, because I own a VHS copy of it and for the first six or so years of my life I did nothing but watch Disney movies on VHS. A couple of months ago I bought a slipcover-less used copy of the Bambi Platinum Edition DVD because it's out of print and I had either started or was planning to start Watchin' Disney: The Blog Feature.

So I watched it: I don't think I have too much to say about Bambi. I can see why I don't have strong memories of it, despite having probably seen it, because not a whole lot happens in it. That's not a bad thing though. It is a good thing. The movie is just basically a bunch of scenes where Bambi grows up and lives his life in a forest. It's a cool thing to try, a "realistic" movie about forest critters. It's a thing that was worth doing, and thank god Walt and co. did it when they did cause you can't just make an animated movie about scenes in a forest now. Yeah, Bambi's mom dies, but that's not the point of this movie. It's just a thing that happens in Bambi's life.

Speaking of Bambi's mom dying, this movie is pretty dark, enough to make me think the Disney stereotype of "cutesy forest critters" is undeserved, and that said stereotypes' parodies involving Disney-esque cutesy forest critters doing rude things like KILLING each other and having BLOOD and GUTS are in fact entirely superfluous.

What else can I talk about, uhhh, I had no idea that Bambi grows up in this movie, but he does, he grows up and gets a grown up voice like Simba. I can't really take grown up Bambi seriously though, I mean his name is BAMBI. The DVD box cover as well as this blog post features Bambi making cute eyes at a butterfly, who expects to see that character all grown up with antlers and everything? But at the end of the movie grown Bambi beats up a bunch of hunting dogs and that's pretty cool. (Don't worry about spoilers, like I said this movie pretty much has no story.) I liked Bambi, for real, I just still haven't really gotten into the rhythms of the old Disney animated movies. It's taking me a while!

Up next: Saludos Amigos. What the hell is Saludos Amigos? I'm afraid it's going to be a while before I can work up the enthusiasm to go rent and watch that, hopefully not too long though.

Teaser image, oo la la

A preview image of a video project I'm doing, I hope turns out cool.

Watchin' Disney #04: Dumbo

Here's a little movie about an elephant with big ears.

Previous relationship with movie: I'm not sure if I have ever seen Dumbo. I thought I'd seen it; I remembered it starting out with baby Dumbo hatching from an egg. Then he is made to work in the circus where he gets teased by the other elephant children for his big ears, and he doesn't like it so he flies to the city. City life is too hard for Dumbo, so he flies back to the circus and becomes a star for his big ears and everyone loves him. As I found out from watching the movie, pretty much all of this was wrong. So, I don't know if I've ever actually watched it. I've also never seen Dumbo's Circus.

So I watched it: Dumbo is actually pretty ridiculous. There's a scene where the circus ringmaster makes all of the elephants stack up in a pyramid. I dunno man, if I saw a bunch of elephants stacked on top of each other in real life, all standing on their feet and practically reaching the roof, I'd be terrified. I wouldn't think it was a cool circus trick at all. The whole movie kind of exists in a sort of believable/cartoony mix. So it's weird, you're watching a movie about a flying elephant and you have to remind yourself that it's a cartoon. But hey, these guys were pretty much inventing animated movies, so you gotta cut them some slack.

Dumbo reminds me a lot of Pinocchio, and not just because it has a mentor mouse in the Jiminy Cricket role. Like Pinocchio, it has a pretty insane story that is paced so bizarrely. For example, this movie is 64 minutes long, and you don't actually see Dumbo fly until about 60 minutes in. It works well within the movie, but it's still weird to watch a movie about a flying elephant and see a total four minutes of flying. Only Operation Dumbo Drop has a lower flying elephant time to total running time ratio in the history of movies called Dumbo. Oh, also there's a scene in Dumbo where Dumbo and his mouse friend get drunk and have visions of dancing elephants, and that takes up like five minutes (out of 64 minutes). And then there are the vaguely-racist crows. Anyway I liked Dumbo. I don't know how I'd rank it against the rest of the Disney movies so far, but I liked it. This also has the best songs in a Disney movie so far, "Casey Junior" is going to be playing in my head for weeks.

Up next: Bambi, let's see how that goes.