Disney News

Because I’m Not Quite Ready Yet To Descend Into Politics…

8:20 am EST December 13th, 2010 | Site Stuff | 6 Comments

Here is a picture of me with Donald Duck on my birthday at Disney World.

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Soul Toons

11:02 pm EST August 20th, 2010 | Humor | 1 Comment

Sweet. (via)

More episodes on this guy’s Youtube account.

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Ariel The Mermaid Gives Life Advice

2:08 pm EST July 17th, 2010 | Humor | 1 Comment

Disney‘s subjugating women!

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Real Life Buzz Lightyear

12:25 pm EST February 25th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Creepy, yet cool. (via)

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Roy Disney Dead At 79

3:24 pm EST December 16th, 2009 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

This is sad. Roy led the fight to save Disney from the likes of Michael Eisner.

Roy Edward Disney – nephew of the legendary Walt Disney -died Wednesday at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, California. He was 79.

A source says he had been suffering from cancer and that his wife pulled him off life support Tuesday night.

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Review: The Princess & The Frog

8:53 am EST December 14th, 2009 | Movies | 9 Comments

This movie is not without flaws, but I think it’s great and I highly recommend it.

Negative

The biggest negative with The Princess & The Frog is almost a compliment to the filmmakers: It’s too short. This movie is jam packed with characters, and the running time is just not enough to give their motivations and back stories the space they deserve. One of the main villains makes a pretty sinister turn, but I don’t feel as if the movie gives you enough context for his evilness to have the weight it should.

There are also a smidge too many songs. While the songs are good and (as I’ve noted before) move the story along without saying STOP, WE ARE SINGING A SONG NOW, there may be one song too many here. Dialogue may have worked better in this instance.

Positive

This is one of the best looking movies Disney has ever done. The colors popped, the characters moved with the full dimensions of life – a squash and stretch tour de force. Particularly aesthetically pleasing was the sequence where fireflies illuminate the path through the bayou. Ditto for a sequence that paid homage to the black art of that period. God it looked good.

Easily my favorite element to The Princess & The Frog was the way they played within the boundaries of the Disney fairytale while also breaking the format. For instance, while Tiana is the central female role yearning for a change to her life (like Ariel, Mulan, Snow White, etc.) she isn’t doing so by waiting for her Prince Charming.

Nor is she an orphan or a runaway. In the world of Disney, this is a bigger accomplishment rather than a black princess, I believe. Tiana has a good relationship with her mother (voiced by Oprah) who neither banishes her nor is shot in the forest.

Even the Prince breaks format, neither being the dull knight in charming armor or the buffoon or mysterious stranger. Naveen doesn’t just appear in the third act to tighten up loose ends and give the movie its happy ending, and that’s a good thing.

dr. facilierIf you’ve watched Ken Burns’ The War, or played Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect, Halo and other video games you know Keith David‘s voice. I loved him as the very evil Dr. Facilier. Again, he wasn’t given ample time to make the case for his anger – then he would rightfully be up there with the Scars, Maleficent, etc.

The music that I did like (most of it) helped to set the table for this movie as easily the most quintessentially American of any Disney animated movie ever. From the lead’s entrepreneurship and stance against traditional gender roles, to the backdrop of New Orleans and jazz, to the various southern accents of the characters – this is an American production.

Finally

The Princess & The Frog is not the best Disney movie ever, but it is deserving of “classic” status for its overall fun and entertainment value. Personally I love it because it easily disproves the myth that hand-drawn animation can’t cut it in the modern era. As a fan of both forms of animation, Princess holds its own and surpasses some of the very mediocre CGI stuff we’ve seen (whoever created Space Monkeys needs to be drawn & quartered).

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Princess & The Frog: Return Of The Animated Musical

7:26 pm EST November 25th, 2009 | News | 9 Comments

One of the things I think people don’t get about a good musical is that the music should move the story forward. One of the biggest reason non-Disney animated films often clunk it up is that the entire action stops for the music. In a movie like (my favorite) The Lion King, the music is key in setting up the circle of life (“The Circle Of Life”, “I Can’t Wait To Be King”), explaining Scar’s ambitions (“Be Prepared” one of the best explorations of fascism ever in film), Simba’s time in the jungle (“Hakuna Matata”), and Simba and Nala’s romance (“Can You Feel The Love Tonight”). The music is key to the plot.

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

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Princess & The Frog B-Roll

7:44 pm EST November 18th, 2009 | News | 1 Comment

Looks like fun, as a traditional animation fan I’m looking forward to this movie, and if it’s good I hope it does well. Also, I didn’t know Oprah was in it. What isn’t she connected to nowadays?

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Tlt Shift Disney Day

7:40 pm EST October 18th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

This video is very cool.

What is tilt shift?

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Lion King Be Prepared Moment Of Zen

9:19 pm EST July 7th, 2009 | Movies | 1 Comment

Okay, so this is the most menacing of all the Disney villain theme songs – and there are a lot of menacing ones. But this is the only one that’s got jackbooted jackals straight out of the SS.

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