Movie Reviews
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
A pretty experimental film for Disney. And, though the movie has its charms, I’d have to say it’s a failed experiment. It’s an action-adventure on the model of the Indiana Jones movies, though there’s no Indy character. It’s also said to be inspired by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in that it starts off with a 1914 super-submarine searching for lost Atlantis. ... Read more »
The Emperor’s New Groove
This movie has less of the Disney look and feel of any of the 47 features we’ve watched so far. Somebody said it seemed more like a Warner Brother Looney Tune than a Disney movie. That’s not all bad, of course, and there is a lot of sly humor here, but mostly it’s all knockabout action and slapstick gags. I understand it was what is known as a “troubled” production, and several times came ... Read more »
Casablanca
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Produced by Hal B Wallis & Jack L Warner
Screenplay by Julius J & Philip G Epstein & Howard Koch
From the play Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Bennett & Joan Alison
Original music by Max Steiner
Cinematography by Arthur Edeson
Art direction by Carl Jules Weyl
Realizing the importance of the case, ... Read more »
Dinosaur
How quickly CGI has evolved. Remember Tron, way, way, way, way back in 1982? It’s incredibly primitive, cost $17,000,000 to make (big money in 1982), and was very, very hard to do, harder and more labor-intensive than hand-drawn animation. The computer wasn’t capable of showing motion, so the coordinates for each frame had to be entered by hand. And there’s less ... Read more »
Citizen Kane
PRODUCED / DIRECTED by Orson Welles
SCREENPLAY by Herman Mankiewicz & Orson Welles
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Bernard Herrmann
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Gregg Toland
ART DIRECTION by Van Nest Polglase
I came a little late to this movie, considering that I’d become a student of film during my brief time at college. At the film society I learned that Charlie Chaplin was ... Read more »
Fantasia 2000
Walt intended Fantasia to be an ongoing project. Take a segment out and replace it with something else, do that with three or four segments and put it back into theaters. Since Fantasia was not a smashing success, it never happened, and I think that’s probably a good thing. I don’t think many people would pay to go to a movie they’d ... Read more »
His Girl Friday
PRODUCED / DIRECTED by Howard Hawks
WRITTEN by Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur & Charles Lederer
FROM THE PLAY The Front Page by Hecht & MacArthur
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Sidney Cutner & Felix Mills
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Joseph Walker
ART DIRECTION by Lionel Banks
Ben Hecht was a very prolific screenwriter from the ’30s to the ’60s, with ... Read more »
Tarzan
The 900-pound gorilla (so to speak) of Computer Generated Imagery really begins to make it self felt in this feature. CGI had been used by Disney as far back as The Great Mouse Detective in 1986, and in scenes here and there in all the movies after that. But this one relies on a program called Deep Canvas for most of its backgrounds, which are three dimensional ... Read more »
Mulan
This is a rather somber film, that takes its time—unlike so many animations today—to tell a strong story in a beautiful way. It’s the old, old gag of a girl passing herself off as a boy. This being China, it is to preserve the family honor by serving in the Army, defending against the Huns, who cross the Great Wall in the opening scenes. Mulan is not quite a tomboy, but isn’t very good at ... Read more »
Hercules
This is the 43rd movie in our Disney Animated Feature Marathon, and the first one I hadn’t seen yet. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I had been under the impression that it was an attempt by the folks at Disney to be hip, and in my experience Disney doesn’t do hip very well. Turns out I was wrong. Four years before Shrek worked hundreds of contemporary ... Read more »