Disneying the Classics #12: Cinderella

Woah baby! It's the first actual Disney animated movie since I dunno like ever! You know, as in not a shorts compilation, it's a movie that's actually considered a classic. It has a Platinum Edition DVD and everything. This is one of those movies with a serious presence in Disneyland, and let's be honest, I'm only doing this so I can fully get the Disneyland experience. Now, on to Cinderella.

Previous relationship with movie: I'm pretty sure I've seen this, because I have the VHS tape. But I don't really remember anything about it besides having seen Bippity Boppity Boo many, many times on a Disney Sing-a-long tape.

So I watched it: Gotta say, I didn't love it. It's definitely a beautiful movie but man is this thing slight. Like how in Pinocchio how the first half hour of the movie is pretty much real time Gepetto creating Pinocchio, this movie starts out with at least a half hour of a real-time day in the life of Cinderella, except a lot less happens. Really, I'd say it's fair to call this movie "inessential," if you watch a clip reel of the best parts of this movie then you pretty much get what the movie's about. You probably don't NEED to see the whole thing. Oh, who am I to bash this movie, just see it anyway, it's gorgeous. Yeah I'm backpedaling but olde-tyme Disney has one of those "lifetime passes" you hear so much about. I'll try to make the next write up better (how many times have I said that now? every time?!).

Best part of the movie: When Selena Gomez sings Tell Me Something I Don't Know In the Bippity Boppity Boo segment when the Fairy Godmother turns Cinderella's rags into a gown. If it was Walt Disney's favorite piece of animation, who am I to argue? The face the stepmother makes in this article's screenshot is a close second.

Up next: Alice in Wonderland. Hey, I know that one!

Disneying the Classics #11: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

I've done eleven of these? And it only took me ten months? Wow!

I'll level with you: this is the last of the Disney "package films," and as such I watched it with more of a "let's get this over with" mindset than like I wanted to watch an actual movie. That's the same mindset I'm bringing to this write-up. You've been warned.

Previous relationship with the movie: I've been on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

So I watched it: It was decent I guess. I mean none of the Disney movies yet have been horrible or anything it's just that I'm sick of the package films and I want to get onto the actual classics. This movie is made up of two long-ish segments, the one about Ichabod and the one about Mr. Toad. The Mr. Toad one is first, so I'll talk about it first.

Mr. Toad was a pretty good segment. Mr. Toad is a rude toad who just wants to slack off and have fun, and the rest of the town gets on his case about it and tells him to grow up. I can relate to that. Mr. Toad sees a motorcar and he just goes NUTS, he has to have it. Cut to later, he's been blamed for stealing a car! You don't even get to see the incident, it's like the Hangover of that generation. What happens next, I'll never tell!

Then the Ichabod Crane segment. It was pretty good too mostly. Ichabod Crane is an ugly nerd who somehow gets chicks. Boo, I hate ugly nerds (I am self-loathing). Ichabod and the town bully try to win over the town hottie, Katrina Van Tassel. The town bully tries to pull a trick on Ichabod by telling him the story of the Headless Horseman. Then the Headless Horseman actually comes after Ichabod! Weird. What happens next, I'll never tell.

Overall, this was a good movie. As good as these package films got. I'm glad to be done with them, though.

Best part of the movie: When the Headless Horseman throws his head at Ichabod and disintegrates him (whoops, spoilers).

Up next: Actual classic, Cinderella.

Kitty Cat Talk Show

Check this out, unclephilsmovie.

Disneying the Classics #10: Melody Time

Watchin' Disney was a lame name so this feature is now called Disneying the Classics, sorry for the confusion it will cause on this feature's Wikipedia page.

Today's movie is Melody Time. It's not great, so let's make this one short.

Previous relationship with the movie: I think a preview for it was on one of the Disney Singalong tapes I watched a lot growing up. I also think I might have seen some of the segments from this movie as stand-alone shorts.

So I watched it: Oh, was this a letdown. I had such high hopes that this would blow the rest of the Disney package movies out of the water. The DVD does a lot to raise expectations; the front cover and the description on the back suggest that Donald Duck hosts the whole movie, but this is not the case. There is no framing device in the movie, it's just a bunch of shorts that may or may not involve music. The parts that I thought would be awesome were just pretty boring, like the Blame It On The Samba sequence featuring my new favorite Disney character Joe Carioca. It's worse than anything in Saludos Amigos or The Three Caballeros though. Also the Johnny Appleseed segment, which is kind of famous by Disney shorts standards considering that I'm pretty sure I've seen it before. Problem is, the Johnny Appleseed story doesn't have much conflict. Johnny goes around planting apple trees, stays in the lord's good graces, then dies and goes to heaven.

Pretty much the best part of the movie is Pecos Bill, about a cowboy who is famous in Texas. I'm not sure if it's a real Texas legend or just for the movie, but it has a live-action framing sequence with Roy Rogers telling the story to a bunch of little cowboys and cowgirls. If you're going to watch a sequence from this movie, Pecos Bill is the one to watch.

Best part of the movie: Honestly, the best part of the movie is when they give Texas a dick.

Up next: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, then I'm done with the package films and can get onto the real Disney movies which were the reason I started this project in the first place!

Watchin' Disney #09: Fun and Fancy Free

Today's Watchin' Disney, Fun and Fancy Free, is one of those not-really-a-movie movies. Unlike the previous not-really-movies movies, this one isn't a bunch of musical and/or Mexican shorts strung together, it is just two fairly long shorts strung together. And hey, Mickey Mouse is on the DVD cover, they don't just put Mickey on ANY piece of crap! *walks past a merchant selling an obscene amount of shoddy, inferior Mickey Mouse product* Haha, thought I'd spice up this intro with a joke from my Duckman spec script. Let's get into the movie!

Previous relationship with movie: You ever seen Mickey and the Beanstalk? I have! It was made as part of this movie, I didn't even know!

So I watched it: This is movie is two things, a pretty-long short Bongo, and a slightly shorter short Mickey and the Beanstalk. Jiminy Cricket kind of "hosts" the whole movie from a live-action house.

First, Bongo. It's about a bear who works for the circus where they are VERY cruel to him. One day he ends up in the forest. The forest is a tough time for a circus bear, but then he falls in love with a girl bear. According to my research this was originally going to be a feature-length prequel to Dumbo. I liked Dumbo so I liked this too!

Then, Mickey and the Beanstalk. It's Jack and the Beanstalk but with Mickey, Donald Duck and Goofy. This has its own live-action intro where Jiminy Cricket sneaks into a house where Edgar Bergen and his puppets are at some kid's birthday party. So Edgar Bergen and puppets tell the story as it happens. I think this might be on one of the Walt Disney Treasures so I won't talk about it much. It's good, sure, but I liked Bongo better!

Best part of the movie: The fantasy sequence in Bongo where EVERYTHING is shaped like a heart; the clouds, the water, I really wish I thought of it.

Most inexplicable part of the movie: In the opening credits, Donald Duck is credited over Mickey Mouse. Both are under both of Edgar Bergen's puppets.

Up next: Melody Time. Man I'm really looking forward to getting past these "collection" movies and onto the real ones. CINDERELLA IS SITTING ON MY DVD SHELF AND I AM QUITE LITERALLY DYING TO GET TO IT.

Movies 2008

Better late than ever.

Here's the movies I saw in 2008:

Cloverfield
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Be Kind Rewind
Semi-Pro
The Bank Job
Charlie Bartlett
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Smart People
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Baby Mama
Iron Man
Speed Racer
Young @ Heart
In Bruges
Drillbit Taylor
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Son of Rambow
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Leatherheads
The Foot Fist Way
Girls Rock!
The Promotion
WALL-E
Hancock
Kung Fu Panda
The Dark Knight
Step Brothers
Space Chimps
Pineapple Express
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
Tropic Thunder
The Wackness
Horton Hears a Who!
The Rocker
Hamlet 2
The House Bunny
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Role Models
Rachel Getting Married
Synecdoche, New York
Religulous
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon
Yes Man
Milk
Doubt
The Wrestler
Waltz with Bashir
Gran Torino
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Not as many as last year, but what can you do?

Top 10:

10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - I might be overrating this, or I might be underrating it in fear that I'm overrating it. But having seen this about a week ago, desperate to get out of the house on a Tuesday and going to the world famous Pollack Cinemas and seeing it with a fairly-packed theater that was pretty much all captivated by the movie for the entire 2 hours 45 minutes (myself included)... it was MAGIC. I sn't it? That is what the movies are about folks. I don't know if I'll still care about this movie by the time it's a part of the Criterion Collection. But right now, I love it.

I don't have comments for the rest of the list :(

9. Frost/Nixon
8. Tropic Thunder
7. The Foot Fist Way
6. Waltz With Bashir
5. Drillbit Taylor
4. WALL-E
3. Synecdoche, New York
2. The Dark Knight
1. Cloverfield

Some honorable mentions (not in any order):

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Iron Man
Religulous (liked this when I saw it, might not if I saw it again)
Role Models
Slumdog Millionaire

Overrated/Underrated:

Underrated: The Rocker - Man, was this movie that bad? You know what, maybe it was. I mean, obviously I'm going to like a movie about a drummer who helps a bunch of kids realize their rock and roll dreams. But what's so wrong with that?!

Overrated: Bolt - This movie isn't TERRIBLE, sure, but it's not that good. Kind of surprised how the reviews have been almost unanimously positive, cause it's pretty damn mediocre. It felt like Disney trying to not make a "generic Disney movie" and instead just making a generic movie. Personally, I'd rather take a generic Disney movie over Bolt. Even Dinosaur, huge piece of crap, just feels more like a Disney movie to me than this.

Favorite thing overheard in a theater: "Mickey Rourke, he used to be pretty handsome" - older lady to other older lady before The Wrestler started.

BONUS: Favorite thing overheard in a theater, 2007: "She's so flat-chested." - older lady to other older lady during Juno, in the scene where Juno is acting a fool in Jennifer Garner's bathroom.

Top 5 worst movies I saw this year:

5. Be Kind Rewind - Yeah, really didn't like this. I dunno, what did you think?
4. Non-post-makeover-Kat Dennings parts of The House Bunny.
3. Space Chimps - Not even Funniest Living Human Andy Samberg could help this crap. (YEAH I KNOW IT'S JUST A KIDS MOVIE, indulge me)
2. Baby Mama - aka Hey Judd Apatow and Jason Reitman, If You Wanted Me To Hate Knocked Up or Juno, Respectively, You Should Have Made It Like This
1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Oh man, South Park already made fun of this, I'm such a cliche.

See you next year. (?)

TESTS

Hey unclephilsmovie-philes, I made a thing!

Watchin' Disney #08: Make Mine Music

You might be wondering why it has been so long since the last Watchin' Disney. I'm willing to bet you aren't, but it has indeed been far too long since the last one. That's partially because I watched not one but TWO movies that featured Donald Duck and both times neglected to call this blog "unca donald's movie." It's also partially because these movies aren't a whole lot to get excited about. During this era in Disney history, Disney ran out of money due to the war, but still had to keep cranking out feature films. So this movie, like the Walt Disney Appreciates Latin American Culture Two-Parter before it and the next few movies after it, is a bunch of short films put together to make up a feature film. Make Mine Music, the film of today, has been described as a "poor man's Fantasia," and I don't even like REGULAR Fantasia, so I've been putting this off. Oh, also: the main reason it's been so long since the last Watchin' Disney is because I owe the library some late fees and was trying to figure out a way to rent this DVD for free without paying it. The solution: just not pay the late fees! They didn't ask about it, and what am I going to do, offer?

Previous relationship with movie: I think a preview for it was on one of the old Disney Singalong VHS tapes I used to have.

So I watched it: First of all, the censorship NAZIS at Di$ney have done it again, and the first segment of this movie is removed from the version of the DVD that I saw. It was called The Martians and the Coys and was removed due to gun violence and I guess Leonard Maltin was too busy to come record a disclaimer so they had no choice but to delete it. It's unfortunate because it causes this movie to start out with a deathly boring sequence called Blue Bayou, which is about storks flying around. A stork flies around, meets another stork, and they fly around together as actual lullaby music plays. It's the most boring possible thing. I was afraid the whole movie was going to be like this, and I was sure I would die watching it. I honestly stopped the movie after this for 40 minutes and then came back, I couldn't possibly take it.

But then, let me tell you, THEN this movie hits a home run with a sequence called All the Cats Join In. I knew I was in for a treat when the subtitle says "a caricature" WITH CAT HIGHLIGHTED. Almost unimaginably, the whole sequence goes by without one cat, AND IT STILL RULES. It's a fun, breezy animated sequence set to jazz music about teenagers in the '40s doing things like riding convertibles, going to a malt shoppe, and having a sock hop. Holy cow, I love this sequence. It's fun, funny, stylish, cartoony and legitimately hip even by today's standards. All throughout the sequence there are pencils drawing the action as it happens, such as a part where A PENCIL DRAWS A GIRL WITH A BIG ASS AND A BOY WON'T DANCE WITH HER. THE GIRL GETS MAD, AND THE PENCIL ERASES THE ASS. I was laughing too hard to call the boy a fool. An A+ sequence, 10/10, look it up on youtube (yeah right!). Even if that sequence was the only thing I liked about this movie Make Mine Music would still be worth watching.

Which is fortunate, because it pretty much is. Well that's not fair, nothing in this movie is particularly bad, it's just that most of it was very obviously made as a stand-alone short and not as a segment of an anthology movie. Such as the sequence Casey at the Bat, which is probably the most famous segment of this movie (I mean at least, I've heard of it) is more dialogue-driven than music-driven. Also, Casey at the Bat has shockingly bad pitching and bat-swinging animation. Not terrible or anything but much worse than you'd expect from Disney. Even Mike Judge was able to make more lifelike baseball animation back when he had three dollars and a frog to his name. Also there's the Peter and the Wolf segment, which is not terribly interesting, but is the screenshot for this article. How do you like it?

Oh yeah, another thing I kind of want to bring up, this movie has no framing device between segments at all. The title cards are in the same font and that's it. Totally amateur, Disney.

Best part of the movie: In the teenager sequence I loved so much, when the older sister is getting ready for the night of teenage debauchery and she takes a shower. That's my favorite part that can possibly be in a movie, btw.

Up next: Fun and Fancy Free. Mickey Mouse is on the DVD cover so let's hope for the best.

Cos + Effect and Chevy Chase: TV Star: The Criterion Collections

DVD covers for the two videos I made:





This blog needs more art on it huh.

Chevy Chase: TV Star

Another video I made:

Watchin' Disney #07: The Three Caballeros

Lord that post about Saludos Amigos stinks. The thing is is that Saludos Amigos is just a collection of shorts about Latin America, and there isn't a whole lot to write about something like that. The movie of today, The Three Caballeros, is also a collection of shorts about Latin America, so just go ahead and skip this post; it will suck.

Previous relationship with movie: Owned it on VHS as a kid, have had "THE THREE CABALLEROS, THEY SAY WE ARE BIRDS OF A FEATHAAAHHHH" running through my head for about 16 years.

So I watched it: This movie is pretty great. Our old pal Donald Duck is the star, the movie starts out with Donald Duck receiving a package from his Latin American friends. The package is some films that are, much like the content of Saludos Amigos, a bunch of short cartoons that have to do with Latin America. Soon enough, Donald's pal and my new favorite Disney Character Joe Carioca comes and sings songs and does dances with Donald and eventually their other friend Panchito comes and, again, more singing and dancing. The whole like last half of the movie is basically just many different scenes of Donald dancing with live action Latinas.

Oh, also there's a really cool rude bird called the Aracuan, he might be my favorite character instead of Joe Carioca actually (trust me he's great).

Anyway, despite my snark, this movie rules.

Best part of the movie: New feature of Watchin' Disney! The best part of this movie is when Donald Duck throws his sombrero in the air and it turns into a sailor hat and falls on his head.

Up next: Make Mine Music, how bout that.

Watchin' Disney #06: Saludos Amigos

It's been too long since the last time I've watched Disney, but I haven't forgotten about this blog feature (making me the only one alive who hasn't forgotten about my own blog's blog feature). The reason for the delay: I'm up to Saludos Amigos, which proved kind of hard to find a library that had it on DVD to rent. I ended up getting it on loan from a library from Martin Luther King Dallas Library (who knew Texas had a Martin Luther King Library? I kinda expected a Chuck Norris Library or Alamo Library or something). Anyways, I got the DVD, I watched it, and now I'ma blog about it.

Previous relationship with movie: Never even heard of it! I didn't even know it was a movie (it kind of isn't, it's 42 minutes long).

So I watched it: I like it! It's pretty much one of those movies where Walt tries to teach you stuff; in this instance, he tries to teach you about Latin America. It's basically four shorts put together with some footage of the Disney animators going to Mexico and learning about the culture and drawing cartoons of it, and then you watch the cartoons they draw! Cool!

The shorts are all pretty good. The first three are a Donald Duck cartoon, a cartoon about an anthropomorphic plane with a mom plane and a dad plane, and a Goofy cartoon. They're all pretty basic Disney cartoons, except they happen to take place in Mexico. The last cartoon is Donald Duck meeting rude parrot Jose Carioca, in a watercolor painting of Brazil. I don't have much to say about them really. They're just cool cartoons, I recommend this movie.

Man this is a terrible blog post. The thing is I'm rushing it because this DVD is due soon and I'm gonna rack up mad fines if it's late seeing as how it needs to be shipped back to Dallas.

Up next: The Three Caballeros; more Jose Carioca, I can't wait.

COS + EFFECT

I made this:

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.

Watchin' Disney #03: Fantasia

It has been too long since I've last Watched Disney, and for that I am sorry. I've actually had Fantasia rented for weeks but, as I said in the last post, I kind of thought it blew, so I was putting off watching it as much as I could. But Watchin' Disney isn't about whether or not I feel like Watchin' Disney, it's about Watchin' Disney. So Disney I watched.

Previous relationship with movie: Well, I kind of thought it blew.

So I watched it: I do not think it blows anymore. First of all I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid and no duh a kid is going to think a movie about shapes dancing along to classical music blows. Second of all my most recent memory of Fantasia is seeing Fantasia 2000, which best I can remember really did kind of blow. But that is dozens of Watchin' Disneys away. So as I've said, I don't think Fantasia blows anymore, in fact I like it now.

I mean this movie just starts out so bizarrely. The title doesn't even come up at the beginning. Just some guy walks up to the screen, and explains that they're going to play some classical music with animated visuals set to it. Like, he just says it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Now I can't claim to know what was going on in 1940, but the DVD is restored so well that it looks like it was shot today, and it's not like the fashions of the classical music scene have changed a lot since 1200 or whatever A.D., so I couldn't help watch this guy explain the concept of Fantasia as though it was made today, and it was almost like a Tim and Eric sketch come to life. So insane. Maybe that's why Fantasia 2000 kind of blew, because they had Penn and Teller do tricks and other comedians come out and crack jokes rather than just say it like it is that they're going to play some classical music with animations and you are going to watch.

And even then they just show the orchestra playing for like six minutes before there's actually any animation, and even then it's just a bunch of lines bouncing around. Frankly the actual animated parts of Fantasia aren't THAT good. They're extremely well-animated no doubt but they're not really all that entertaining to watch. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (the part with the wizard Mickey) is very obviously the best part, there's a reason that's the only part of Fantasia most people care about. However there is by a 20-minute segment where they just spit in Sarah Palin's bespectacled face by animating billions of years of evolution, complete with fish walking on land and dinosaurs non-coexisting with humans, set to classical music and marketed to children. Maybe 1940 was a lot cooler than I give it credit for.

Up next: Dumbo. That one should be soon, no more long waits, I swear.

A p. great page out of my notebook

We had to come up with 3 ideas for art projects we could do. I did that... AND some drawings. (a glimpse into my mind ^_~ )



Some of the more illegible texts:

fat bald guy: "pukin' up @'s"
one sad turtle: "stop putting graffiti and hats on me"
ghost w/ hat: "I'm terrible"

Watchin' Disney #02: Pinocchio

Hey, already up to Pinocchio! With any luck I'll have all these movies done in time to see Bolt in theaters! (I won't have any luck)

Previous relationship with movie: Owned it on VHS and watched it a bunch. Bought the DVD for Spanish class because the teacher gave extra credit for bringing in movies to watch and he liked Disney movies. We never watched it in class, but it doesn't even have a Spanish language track, so if we did I wouldn't have gotten the extra credit! Whoops! I failed the class anyway. This might be the first time I've ever watched the DVD.

So I watched it: It starts out pretty awesome. The first scene is almost a third of the whole movie. Rad, and admirable. But then after that, after the fox takes Pinocchio to the circus, it gets kinda insane. Then you have Donkey Island and then somehow Gepetto has been eaten by a whale? There are cool parts in each sequence though. The movie is a treat to look at, with so much great animation, but so far I have to say not as good as Snow White. Not bad though! I enjoyed it, I did!

Up next: Fantasia. Don't expect the wait for that one to be as short as this though; I don't own a copy of Fantasia on DVD or VHS, and I kind of think Fantasia blows, so I'm not in a huge rush to go rent a copy. Eventually, though. Maybe re-watching it will change my mind, that's what this whole thing is about isn't it! (?)

Watchin' Disney #01: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

TO ALL WHO COME TO THIS HAPPY BLOG, WELCOME.

Welcome to Unclephilsmovie's latest and greatest feature, Watchin' Disney! I'm going to be watching all of the Walt Disney Animated Classics in order and blogging about it. I'm not really sure what this "feature" is going to be. I don't want to review the movies because I'd probably give all of them A's regardless of how much I liked them because of their "historical value" and whatnot, well at least until I get up to the ones that stink and have no historical value, like Dinosaur. I really just want to watch all of the Disney animated classics, to reacquaint myself with the ones I haven't seen since I was little and finally see the ones I haven't seen, and I think if I don't blog about it I won't do it.

So, let's get right into The Blog Post That Started It All: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

Previous relationship with movie: Owned it on VHS growing up. Bought a used copy of the Platinum Edition DVD after it had gone out of print when I decided I should start collecting the Disney Platinum Edition DVDs (a trend I start every once in a while and give up on, hopefully this feature will get me to catch 'em all).

So I watched it: It's a nice movie, you know? Sure a lot of stuff is cheesy but it also has a lot of beautiful animation, some inventive stuff, and it holds up well. There, there's a "review" of every Disney animated movie through 1970. No for real, I enjoyed this movie. What, am I supposed to sit here and be snarky about a movie everyone loves? The internet is in no short supply of snark, THIS MOVIE IS A CLASSIC FOR A REASON, FOLKS. I genuinely laughed a couple times, and the scene when Snow White runs through the woods and the tree bark turns into alligators is cool! Ok hopefully after a few more movies I'll get the hang of what I'm gonna do with Watchin' Disney.

Up Next: Pinocchio! Should be fun!