I can’t call it a comprehensive list either; I’m
missing four of their features: two are so old and part of the WWII package
films that I only have a passing interest to watching them. The other two are Bolt and Winnie the Pooh: The
Movie, the first of which I’m not excited about and the second one I
am. Someday in the future when I see
them, I might even mention where I think it goes on my list. Or not, since few will actually care by that
point.
Welcome to the Over-Long Blog Post:
1) Beauty and the Beast. I want to marry a woman like Belle; she has
everything I admire in a woman. My
favorite scene is after the wolves attack.
Belle is trying to clean his wound and Beast has another tantrum. The argument cracks me up and so much happens
in that scene where you get to see how Belle steps up from her frightened
prisoner status to welcomed houseguest, the animated furniture use her as a
shield from Beast’s temper, she shows courage and gratitude at once, and this
is his first moment in humility. It’s a
great scene. And as a bonus, there is
not one song that I cannot listen to a million times over. Each of them are wonderful and full of
meaning and I have each of them memorized with no regret.
2) The Jungle Book. Visually, it has the most gorgeous
backgrounds and I wish I could see it on the big screen to get the full
effect. Not only does it take me into
the jungle world, but each setting sets the mood, whether it’s a party,
suspenseful, or melancholy. That, and
the “I Want To Be Like You” chapter is one of Disney’s most enjoyable scenes by
itself.
3) Fantasia 2000.
I like classical music and I like
cartoons and putting them together is ingenious. And unlike its predecessor not one piece that
bores me but only seems to get better with each new sequence.
4) The Lion King. I think it’s great that so many kids were
scarred from seeing Bambi’s mom getting shot off-screen and yet nobody has once
complained about Scar murdering Mufasa.
We actually watch the villain pull this off whereas the hunters remain
an unseen force. Audiences are
weird. I’m not complaining, though. This movie would not work without that
death. Timon and Pumbaa stole the show
but they were never the heart of this story.
Simba’s guilt and Mufasa’s sacrifice is what brings this from being mere
entertainment and into something important.
5) Tangled. Is there a moment of this film that is not
delightful?
6) Aladdin. Robin Williams owns this movie as the
Genie. And I have to give props to the
animators for making me care about a carpet.
That is talent there.
7) Cinderella. I am not a fan of her ball gown or the
“Bippity-Boppity-Boo” song but everything else is awesome. Cinderella starts in the worst circumstances
of any of the Disney princesses and she’s tough as nails. Her subservience is only on the surface; even
when talking to her stepmother and stepsisters, you can feel like there are ten
more snarky things she has to say on the tip of her tongue. The stepmother also has one of the most
intimidating presences of any Disney villain; locking the door is the only
thing she physically does in the whole movie; the rest of the time all she does
is stand there and you feel that this is Satan incarnate.
8) The Rescuers Down Under. This movie is better than any of the books,
both in plot and the fact that Bernard actually gets Bianca.
9) Robin Hood. It gets more ridiculous every time I watch it
but this is the quintessential Robin Hood adaptation. It’s the only film I know that has the
archery contest, which by itself lends this movie greatness.
10) Tarzan. Some of Phil Collins’ best songs were made
for this movie, and “Trashin’ the Camp” is as much fun as Jungle Book’s “I Want
to Be Like You.” Using skateboarding as
the inspiration for Tarzan’s traveling methods was brilliant.
11) Pinocchio. The movie is a mess and when I read Neal
Gabler’s biography on Walt Disney, I learned exactly how disorganized they were
from start to finish making this film. I
still love it. All of its flaws are
swept away by the Pleasure Island chapter, which has the scariest and eeriest
moments in Disney’s moments. Making
Jiminy Cricket the real hero of the story is a real point in its favor as well
(no, the title character is not the hero.
He’s a brat that became a real boy because of Jiminy’s hard work and
devotion to his calling as conscience.)
12) The Many Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh. The opposite of Pinocchio in so many ways.
It’s actually happy all the way through.
This is a nostalgic pick but it’s a good nostalgic pick. Who doesn’t love these stuffed animals?
13) The Great Mouse Detective. This one is pretty bad but that’s part of its
charm. The bar sequence is awesome and
Basil’s escape from the mousetrap is ridiculous and cool all at once.
14) The Emperor’s New Groove. This was planned to be a dramatic story like Lion King. Then in the Eleventh Hour, they switched
gears and turned it into one of the best comedies ever.
15) Mulan. Eddie Murphy is so much funnier when you
can’t see him and he almost steals the show the way Robin Williams did Aladdin.
However, Mulan is a much stronger character than Aladdin tried for. I love her experiences hiding among the men, and
the “We Are Men” number is strangely the most triumphant moment. There’s something about her reaching the
arrow during training that makes you want to root for her.
16) Fantasia. It’s because of this movie that I love
classical music. Unlike its successor,
it does run-on longer than it needs to but I can live with it. In fact, maybe watching this since I was five
is the reason I’m so patient with long movies.
Besides, no ballet can match the dancing mushrooms, and Chernabog in
“Night on Bald Mountain” is the quintessential horror film. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is just delightful
with its Greek mythology and of course, we can’t forget Mickey Mouse and his
mess-up with the brooms. Brilliant.
17) Lady and the Tramp. Let me get this out of the way now: I hate
the spaghetti sequence. It’s way too sappy and long, and yes, I know
that this is the one everybody else in the world remembers about this
film. I don’t care. The reason it’s so high up on my list is
everything else: the Siamese cats, Lady being sent to the pound, Tramp taking down
the rat, and the old dog saving the day.
18) The Little Mermaid. Four years ago, this would have been higher
on my list. Now that I’m older and
grumpy, I’ve found one thing that continues to piss me off: to save his beloved
daughter, Triton sacrifices himself by taking her place on Ursula’s
contract. If this was just a family
drama, well and good. But that’s not
what’s at stake. Triton is a king. He rules the ocean and his responsibility in
wearing the crown is to keep all the millions of other merfolk, whales, fishes,
and all other anthropomorphized sea creatures safe and protected. He abandons all those millions who count on
him to his archenemy, all for his stupidest daughter who got herself into the
mess. And in the end, it didn’t keep her
out of danger. He doesn’t deserve his
crown once Ursula dies; clearly, they can’t trust him to do the difficult but
right thing… but otherwise, good movie.
This film marked the moment when Disney dragged itself out of the
horrible Eighties slump and made some of the best work it’s ever done.
19) Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Too much happens in the last battle and it
feels like a deus ex machina once the
lava strikes the city. But what a
journey until that point! It feels like
an Indiana Jones flick but with a heist mentality. Michael J. Fox is at his panicky best and
each of the team is lovable in a gritty sort of way.
20) Treasure Planet. The book is better. Oh, well.
The story drags in the middle but there was more creativity put into the
artwork here than in any other movie Disney has done. The moon station, the sky-surfing, Long John
Silver the cyborg, the treasure map, the Hispaniola,
and all the creepy pirates. Just
gorgeous.
21) Sleeping Beauty.
Maleficent is a great villain. It’s no
wonder to me that she became a prominent figure in Kingdom Hearts I & II. Too bad she surrounds herself with
idiots. It’s also a shame that the good
fairies couldn’t get along; they caused as many problems as they solved.
22) The Black Cauldron. Another train wreck that I still quite
enjoy. The story is quite awful, but
then, the Eighties were an awful time for Disney. I think I just love the sword fights and the
design of the Horned King and his army.
Princess Eilonwei also had the makings of being one of the strongest of
the Disney princesses. If the movie
wasn’t designed to fail, she would have.
23) One Hundred and One Dalmatians. I don’t like Cruella; she just happens to
have the best song devoted to her. One
of the few times I prefer the bumbling minions to the evil overlord. Honestly, though, the first ten minutes are
the best part of the film. The artwork
is gorgeous and the love story is really cute.
24) Hercules. This one is the older sibling to Emperor’s New Groove and unlike Groove, I don’t think they had any other
idea than to have fun. I think the gods
on Olympus are a little tedious (not an easy feat when Rip Torn is playing
Zeus) but everyone else is brilliant: Hades, Megara, Phil, the Hydra, The
Fates, and the citizens of Thebes.
Especially Megara: “I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle
this. Have a nice day.”
25) The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.
Toad. One of the package movies from the World War
II era and the best of them. The “Sleepy
Hollow” portion is so much better than the short story ever was. “The Wind in the Willows” is lacking in the
adaptation department; there’s a beauty in Kenneth Grahame’s prose that doesn’t
translate well on the screen. On the
other hand, it’s fascinating to see the influence it had on the making of The Jungle Book. Watch these two together and you’ll see what
I mean.
26) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White’s voice irritates me and the whole
film is honestly no more than an expanded version of the Merrie Melodies features.
However, I love what they did with the dwarfs and the queen, before and
after her transformation, is brilliant.
27) The Princess and the Frog. My sister will be so irritated that this
movie is not higher on my list. I
thought the side characters were amazing, from the southern belle to the
trumpet-playing ‘gator to the star-struck firefly. Unfortunately, I never did warm up to Tiana. She took way too long learning her lesson.
28) Fun and Fancy Free. Both narrators are kind of annoying but I
have to give them credit: Mickey, Donald, and Goofy starring in “Jack and the
Beanstalk” is one of the best things they ever did.
29) Wreck-It Ralph. I won’t mind seeing this one again, but as I
said in a previous post, I have way too hard a time swallowing my disbelief,
despite how fun it is to see the group therapy session held in Pacman’s maze.
30) Pocahontas. It’s not terrible. The story is actually quite good, all the way
to where Thomas kills Koko’um. That’s
another one of those most memorable scenes that accomplishes so much, like
Belle chewing out Beast. Sadly, it has
such a lackluster finish. That, and I
really dislike the animals and the talking tree. They undermined a lot of what the film was
trying to do, the first by their silliness and the latter with its
over-seriousness.
31) The Sword in the Stone. After reading The Once and Future King, this movie has bugged me. Too much of the film is spent clowning
around, especially in Arthur’s “lessons.”
Still, it was the clowning around I loved when I was younger, and the
duel between Merlin and Mim is cute.
32) Brother Bear. From here on, I generally don’t like these
movies. The moose were funny and I
thought the fantasy element was quite interesting. But it was boring. Even Phil Collins’s songs were dull and that
is such a tragedy, especially after Tarzan.
33) Dinosaur. I can re-watch this. They did some incredible things with CGI at
the time. But the story is forgettable
and I’m not in a hurry to refresh my memory.
34) Peter Pan. It was fun when I was a kid but except for
the Tinkerbell and the Croc, there isn’t anybody that I like. Not Peter, not Smee, not Wendy, or any of the
lost brats and Indians.
35) Bambi. Too long and too boring. Admittedly, I haven’t seen this movie since I
was eleven but nor do I want to.
36) Home on the Range. Have you wanted to watch it?
37) The Rescuers. Worse than the books. The real trouble is that the villains are
pathetic, whiny people and except for Medusa having a shotgun that never needs
to be loaded, there is nothing scary about them.
38) Alice in Wonderland. Disney tried to produce this movie from the
time he opened Disney studios and it took over a decade to come out because
everybody was sick of working on it. It
shows. It does have a good sense of
creepy, from the Cheshire Cat to the Mad Hatter, but the book has a better
sense of the weird.
39) Dumbo. I actually do like this movie a lot. “Pink Elephants on Parade” is creepier than
the whole of Alice in Wonderland and
it’s fun to watch Dumbo learn to fly.
Why is it so low on my list? I
don’t like the mouse who takes the Jiminy Cricket role, and funny enough, I
don’t care about Dumbo. I hate that
everybody is mean to him and am happy to see them get their comeuppance, but
Dumbo himself has such a bland personality.
40) The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Horrible, horrible, horrible. The only reason this movie is not at the
bottom is because I love the music. I
love the instrumentals, the lyrics are powerfully filled with grief, rage,
cruelty, compassion, and majesty and makes you feel them. I will own the soundtrack and pretend the
movie doesn’t exist.
41) The Fox and the Hound. It’s a sweet story but not something I’ll
watch more than once every five years.
42) Lilo & Stitch. The aliens are too dorky.
43) Meet the Robinsons. Everybody else I talk to think it’s
cute. I think it’s annoying. The jokes are too in-your-face, the
time-travel plot had all the intelligence of Back to the Future without the charm.
44) Oliver & Company. They squandered the good cast they were
given. Billy Joel singing “Why Should I
Worry?” is the only good thing about the movie and even that doesn’t come close
to the high bar that Disney has for itself.
Completely trivialized one of Dicken’s more popular novels.
45) Saludos Amigos. The first of Disney’s package films for
WWII. I don’t hate it, but I find it
more interesting to watch as a product of its time rather than entertainment. While I like Donald Duck, there is no
substance really in the whole film.
46) The Three Caballeros. Second of the package films, and ditto the
above.
47) The Aristocats. It used to be the worst of Disney’s
films. I like cats. I don’t like them that much, certainly not
enough to leave my earthly fortune to a pack of them. I would say the butler was on the right track
to trying to steal the fortune but he’s such a bumbler that he doesn’t deserve
the fruits of his paltry criminality. And
I want to choke all the felines soon as they start playing “Everybody Wants to
Be a Cat.”
48) Chicken Little. Disney never does well with aliens and this
was the worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment