DVDizzy Forum

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - my favorite DAC, which I haven't seen in a pretty long while. It was nice to see it once again. It was as wonderful as I remembered it.

I made an effort to watch some of the package films from the 1940s since I had seen bits and pieces but not all of them in their entirety before - Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, and Melody Time.

My God, what a chore! Overall they're horribly forgettable, dated, and cheap (understandably so). A lot of the overrated crap from Walt's era at least has some genuine Disney charm to keep it engaging, but these bored me to tears. At least they're short.

Melody Time is particularly horrid. Not one segment in the whole bunch that I'd care to watch again.

Make Mine Music is one of the better ones considering Peter and the Wolf, Casey at the Bat, and The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met are pretty entertaining and have sort of achieved classic status, but the other segments are forgettable and the music choices questionable and dated.

Fun and Fancy Free has Mickey and the Beanstalk, which is memorable and fun, and Bongo is better than I remembered too, but the live action segments make me want to pull my hair out. Edgar Bergen and his ridiculous ventriloquist voices and that ANNOYING little girl drives me NUTS The old fake Disney view of children can be so damn irritating. Those segments were just pointless filler as well.

Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros aren't really that bad, but I could still take or leave them. It's nice to see Walt's genuine curiosity about South American culture, but the way its depicted really hasn't stood the test of time either. I'd like to see Disney produce something new based in that region that isn't The Emperor's New Groove (a fun film but genuine depiction of culture isn't its strong suit ) Aquarela do Brasil was possibly my favorite segment out of all five films, so there's that.

I've been grinding through the Disney animated canon for the past 4 or so months, mostly just watching single movies on days off. Yesterday though, I watched four movies in a row because I had absolutely nothing better to do. So, the late 90s:

Hunchback of Notre Dame: My absolute favorite Disney renaissance movie is a pretty mixed bag. The highs are way beyond the highest ever seen from Disney, while the lows...aren't as low as I think many say they are. The main complaint is the gargoyles, and while I do think they would have been more effective if they were shown as completely being figments of Quasi's imagination, their humor never bothered me all that much. The worst part about them are their scenes complete mood swings. As the lyrics to "A Guy Like You" go: Paris, the city of lovers, is glowing this evening. True, that's because it's on fire, but still, there's "l'amour". Those lines sum up the Gargoyles pretty well. That entire song takes place right after Frollo goes on a rampage, killing thousands in Paris to find Esmeralda. That was a really insensitive song placement. Besides the Gargoyles, everything else is pitch perfect. The songs are Alan Menken's best, the animation is flawless, the characters are great, the story is haunting and Frollo is the best Disney villain.

Hercules: Okay, can I just say that the humor and character designs in this movie are flawless? Hades is really awesome, and the gospel music was actually really clever and catchy. It's just a fun package. Sure, a reletively empty package with little complexity, but its the most fun to watch Disney movie. It's like junkfood. Addictive and full of empty calories.

Mulan: I think that Mulan is a pretty underrated Disney heroine. No, not because she's a strong female character who saved China (although that's great, that's what everybody seems to solely remember her for) but because she feels like a real girl who is thrust into a weird situation. She's funny, quirky and relatable. She's just well-written, as are all of the other characters. Overall, Mulan's writing is where it shines. I just love the structure of it. The beginning half of the movie is a rather straight-forward comedic Disney musical. But, when Shang's army comes across the village destroyed by the Huns (after "A Girl Worth Fighting For"), the mood becomes darker and more actionpacked. and there's no musical numbers from that point on. Unlike Hunchback, the comedy and dark moments coexist in harmony pretty well. Other than that, nothing really stands out. The music is pretty bland, and I rolled my eyes multiple times at the lyrics (gym class in ancient China? You could have thought of nothing better than that?) and the animation style is pretty nifty. The Huns are super bland villains, but they do their jobs well (basically just looking menacing). It's all good.

Tarzan: Okay, if any of y'all haven't seen Tarzan in a long time, do it, and spend the entire time staring at the character animation and the backgrounds. Tarzan basically is a moving piece of art. The painterly-CGI is perfect, and I really wish that Disney would rerelease this in 3D. It would be the perfect 2D movie for it. Just...holy cow is this movie's design this movie in general underrated. It makes you actually want to go to an African jungle. Everything else does not matter. This movie's animation is just so flawless and imersive that everything else can be overlooked. Well, maybe not Phil Collins' music, which I honestly don't think was too bad. Sure, his lyrics are a bit too literal at times, and I find his voice distracting, but I really like his use of percussion. The emotional moments in the film also took me by surprise. I was near tears by the end of "Two Worlds, One Family" because I completely forgot how bleak and dark the beginning of the story was. Also, Jane is an awesome damsel in distress, which is a pretty hard thing to write.

Lady Cluck wrote: Fun and Fancy Free has Mickey and the Beanstalk, which is memorable and fun, and Bongo is better than I remembered too, but the live action segments make me want to pull my hair out. Edgar Bergen and his ridiculous ventriloquist voices and that ANNOYING little girl drives me NUTS The old fake Disney view of children can be so damn irritating. Those segments were just pointless filler as well.

Aww, I loved Charlie McCarthy's bits. His dialogue made that part of the film a lot more bearable.

Although it helps that "Mickey and the Beanstalk" is a lot better than "Bongo". I just have no use for that short, myself.

DC Fan wrote:Yes, Fantasia is not for everybody´s taste.

To me is very hard to watch as well. Heck, I have the BR since it came out and haven´t been able to watch it since.

Still, once I get into it I end up liking it a lot.

Fantasia 2000 is different since it´s shorter.

To me is like you said. A movie perfect to watch on rainy days.

Fantasia is the first movie I saw at a theater. It was also the first Disney film I saw. It grew on me.

Maleficent (on Demand interactiveTV)
Do I see a new trend in Disney movies? Romantic love seems to take a backseat to other forms of affection and villains become heroes and vise versa. The old story of 'Sleeping Beauty' is turned entirely on it's head here. it was worth watching for the performance of Angelina Jolie alone. I can understand why M. is vindictive, but also why she grows fond of Aurora and regrets having cast a curse over her. A bit hard now to watch 'Sleeping Beauty' now and not think of this other version.

BelleGirl wrote:
Frozen on blu-ray. Some people seem to think this movie has no great villain and is therefore not entirely successful as story. I disagree: I think it's quite clever that on first viewing you don't suspect prince Hans of having bad intentions until this becomes clear about 3/4 into the movie. And any way, the greatest 'villain' here is not Hans but the gift Elsa cannot control, and therefore becomes a curse. I like it how conventions of typical Disney princess movies are put aside here: romance takes a second place to love between siblings, and the 'act of true love' is from one sister towards another.

Two points I´d like to make:

-Hans: First off Disney shamefully tricks the audience with him. How? When Anna leaves after meeting him for the first time. We see that he smiled and made an expression as if he was truly in love with her.There´s no argument to be made here. No one can´t say that that expression was of happiness because of what he was planning.

And then, he made the worst mistake ever with Anna when he leaves her to die. He does just that. Instead of staying to make sure or did something else. But just leaving her there? Had she fainted then I´d believe him leaving her there cause he´d think she already died or was about to. But you don´t leave a person you want to kill alone with the possibility of anyone finding her.

...and by the way, we know Anna let him in charge of the kingdom. But he couldn´t carry on a death sentence anyway. Much less to the queen!

-The love of the sisters: What love since after the time they spent as kids she basically meets her again for the first time in the coronation ceremony? Not even because they are sisters meant they could love each other just for that.

...a mother and her son get separated when he was 5. At 18 both met again. Yes, they´ll cry and feel happy at the moment. But that doesn´t mean they just instantly grew the most profound love for each other in that moment. That takes time and care.

Those to me (and the lack of truly developing and spending time with Elsa) are the biggest problems the movie has.

@Lady Cluck

I still fail to understand many people's hate of the package features. Can't you just be charmed and delighted by the simple stories, shifting art styles and incredibly pretty animation?

Would any of you have a problem with these films if all their segments had been released to cinemas as animated shorts? I don't think so. You just need to adjust your expectations to a film or films that are not bound by a single narrative.

Personally I get a kick just watching the animation move in films like The Three Caballeros, the All the Cats Join In sequence from Make Mine Music, or the Little Toot segment from Melody Time. I'm praying Disney will grant these a Blu-ray release. I think I'll even take a DVNRed mess over the current hideous-looking DVDs.

I'm not against package features at all, though I'm not exactly clamoring for them to make any more any time soon. I actually expected to enjoy them more than I did though. I love many Disney shorts spanning many different decades and it doesn't matter if they're standalone or part of a collection to me, but some of the lesser ones presented in these films just aren't that great. Not every single short in a package feature can be A+ material, but eh, some of them really were just filler and/or pointless and dated, and they drag the films down as a whole. You can really feel the lethargy and lack of charm and ambition in some of them.

They're not all bad though. I did mention some of the individual segments I enjoyed, and there may have been a few others I left out, but overall they're some of Disney's weakest efforts. Not the very worst (you don't want to hear my rants about the likes of Dinosaur, The Black Cauldron, and Chicken Little...or maybe you do ), but still teetering around the bottom tier.

Lady Cluck wrote:(you don't want to hear my rants about the likes of Dinosaur, The Black Cauldron, and Chicken Little...or maybe you do )

I'd like to hear.

DC Fan wrote:

BelleGirl wrote:
Frozen on blu-ray. Some people seem to think this movie has no great villain and is therefore not entirely successful as story. I disagree: I think it's quite clever that on first viewing you don't suspect prince Hans of having bad intentions until this becomes clear about 3/4 into the movie. And any way, the greatest 'villain' here is not Hans but the gift Elsa cannot control, and therefore becomes a curse. I like it how conventions of typical Disney princess movies are put aside here: romance takes a second place to love between siblings, and the 'act of true love' is from one sister towards another.

Two points I´d like to make:

-Hans: First off Disney shamefully tricks the audience with him. How? When Anna leaves after meeting him for the first time. We see that he smiled and made an expression as if he was truly in love with her.There´s no argument to be made here. No one can´t say that that expression was of happiness because of what he was planning.

And then, he made the worst mistake ever with Anna when he leaves her to die. He does just that. Instead of staying to make sure or did something else. But just leaving her there? Had she fainted then I´d believe him leaving her there cause he´d think she already died or was about to. But you don´t leave a person you want to kill alone with the possibility of anyone finding her.

...and by the way, we know Anna let him in charge of the kingdom. But he couldn´t carry on a death sentence anyway. Much less to the queen!

-The love of the sisters: What love since after the time they spent as kids she basically meets her again for the first time in the coronation ceremony? Not even because they are sisters meant they could love each other just for that.

...a mother and her son get separated when he was 5. At 18 both met again. Yes, they´ll cry and feel happy at the moment. But that doesn´t mean they just instantly grew the most profound love for each other in that moment. That takes time and care.

Those to me (and the lack of truly developing and spending time with Elsa) are the biggest problems the movie has.

Well, maybe I wasn't looking deep enough into this movie or maybe you are looking to deep. Do you really expect this movie to give you a deep psychological insight into the two sisters minds? Elsa and Anne were playmates as kids and cared about each other and that may be enough to fix a strong bond of love between them.
And Hans was just being stupid.
For me, the main 'problem' this movie seems to have is that it doesn't meet your high standard.

We had a family Disney night at home and watched some of our favorite Disney cartoons that featured Chip 'N' Dale, Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Goofy. The stand out cartoons included "Motor Mania", "Trailer Horn", and "Mickey's Vacation".

Then we watched The Absent-Minded Professor starring Fred MacMurray. We watched the non-colorized version on DVD. It was fun to watch the 7 year old relate to some of this. Our 10 year-old grandson just liked all the special effects parts with the basketball players jumping all over the place.

Then, by request, we watched Bolt and totally enjoyed watching this film with the grandkids. One of Disney's better animated films, the story is very good, the characters are really catchy, and the resolve at the end is very heartwarming.

Aladdin: The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

Damn, I forgot just how good these two are, KoT in particular. I'm not joking; compared to some of the crap passing as theatrical animation nowadays, TRoJ and KoT are masterpieces. If only they were animated better...

Into the Woods was a pure joy to watch with the whole family. It was very good in its story telling and the all-star cast was headed by Meryl Streep.