Splash (1984)
[6] Splash is a sweet-enough fantasy rom-com from Ron Howard (his second feature). Tom Hanks stars as a man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who just happens to be a mermaid. Darryl Hannah plays the fish; John…
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
[7] A mysterious carnival rolls into town, granting wishes at a sinister cost in Disney's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story. I wish the film were more strongly from the perspective of the two leading boys and that their parts…
Song of the South (1946)
[4] For its racist stereotypes and sugar-coated depiction of plantation life in the post-Civil War South, Disney has locked away Song of the South from the public since its last re-release in 1986. I don't think the film is any…
Fun & Fancy Free (1947)
[3] When the army took over Disney Animation during WWII to make training and propaganda films, old Walt was forced to make a series of 'package films' to keep the studio afloat until he could afford to make another stand-alone…
Maleficent (2014)
[7] Angelina Jolie headlines in this pleasantly surprising revisionist version of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Jolie plays Maleficent, the dark fairy villain of the original fairytale. But in this new version of the story scripted by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the…
Tangled (2010)
[8]
Disney’s 50th feature-length animated movie is their best in many years. Tangled recaptures the charm, humor, and spirit of the studio’s second renaissance, the late 80s/early 90s period that saw such hits as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Quite simply, I laughed and I cried, thoroughly engaged with the characters and the storytelling. And when I thought I had Tangled figured out, it gave me a couple of twists and some welcome sophistication. Touche, John Lasseter, touche.
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
[2]
There’s precious little to keep you interested in this hideous-looking and busily boring shit-fest of a film that is both a nadir for director Tim Burton’s creative trajectory and emblematic of everything wrong with Hollywood in the early 21st century. Much muchness? Indeed. Alice in Wonderland is the cinematic equivalent of a priapism.
Frozen (2013)
[8]
Disney’s Frozen borrows ideas from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen and follows closely in the footsteps of Tangled before it, but it’s also a bit more. For one thing, there’s an interesting sister dynamic at play here. One royal daughter, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell), is the care-free sort, while the older daughter Elsa (Wicked‘s Idina Menzel) is born with a curse – the power to turn things into ice. After a childhood display of her magical powers nearly kills Anna, Elsa hides herself away for fear of hurting anyone. That’s all prelude. The story proper takes off when Anna inadvertently upsets Elsa on her coronation day. When the citizens of Arendelle discover their queen is a sorceress, they freak, she freaks, and a hard snow comes to fall. Elsa flees the kingdom and builds an ice castle for herself on the side of a mountain, leaving it up to little sister to later beg her for a return to warmer times.
The Black Hole (1979)
[8] It may have been Disney's pallid attempt to cash in on the success of Star Wars, but The Black Hole is another kind of animal, a kitschy matinee sci-fi/horror movie that's worth a look in its own right. It's…