Disney Favorites (gasp)

Hammock Rider · February 25, 2009, 04:39:11 PM

I like some of the goofy 60's-70's live-action movies like Gus, The World's Greatest Athlete, Herbie, The Shaggy Dog and all those Kurt Russell movies. The Disney Classics like Snow White and Dumbo and such are great too. I also own the Walt Disney Treasures:On the Front Lines, which is a collection of their WW2 cartoons. Some of those are very interesting.

RCMerchant · February 25, 2009, 07:01:25 PM

Boy...this thread goes back a few years,eh?
Yeah...I remember ol' Walt introducing the program as well!

This should bring back some memories,Shmendrik...!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_SwXw7do4c

InformationGeek · February 27, 2009, 10:13:56 PM

My favorites included Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, The Jungle Book, House of Villians (Strange huh? I saw this when I was teen, but I figured it would still be interesting to see.) Hercules, and Wall-E (I don't own it, but it is so on my wish list for my birthday).

meQal · March 01, 2009, 03:00:41 AM

My favorites are:
Tron
The Black Hole
Cars
Dumbo
Sword And The Stone
Alice in Wonderland
The Apple Dumpling Gang

Wag · March 01, 2009, 07:47:19 AM

I have The Lion King on DVD and VHS The Lion King 2 on DVD and The Little Mermaid on VHS.

Live action-wise, I probably have a few more than I am aware of, but I recently bought Enchanted (it's a guilty pleasure) on DVD.

Psycho Circus · March 01, 2009, 07:49:20 AM

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

HarlotBug3 · March 02, 2009, 04:53:46 PM

The Dark Cauldron is both facinating and painful to watch because the childrens' fantasy and kids' adventure elements keep cancelling each other out.

A lot of people thought The Emperor's New Groove was overwrought.
I think it is one of the funniest cartoons ever made.

InformationGeek · March 02, 2009, 09:06:08 PM

Quote from: HarlotBug3 on March 02, 2009, 04:53:46 PM
A lot of people thought The Emperor's New Groove was overwrought.
I think it is one of the funniest cartoons ever made.

It's one of my personal favorites as well. David Spade and John Goodman delivered some good voice acting for this movie.

Doggett · March 03, 2009, 09:31:14 AM

Escape to Witch Mountain
The Million Dollar Duck

pinkandbluefilms · March 10, 2009, 11:35:46 AM

on the whole, it's not surprising that it's almost embarrassing to admit any kind of admiration for Disney, considering what it has degenerated into since Walt's death and we will never see that level of craftsmanship and artistry again, alas.

1. Pinocchio. It has a texture and mood unlike anything else. It cannot be overrated.
2. Dumbo. What more can one say after Pink Elephants on parade? (well, come to think of it, Sun Ra did have more to say on it)
3. Fantasia. It's mixed, but the abstract Toccata and fugue, Mussorgsky's demonic 'Night on bare mountain' , Dukas' Sorcerer, and Stravinsky's Rite stand with some of the most startling and innovative animation ever committed to celluloid. Plus, it has the wizard of a magician, Stoki making delightful mince meat of much of the music (Stoki is now considered uncouth in today's high brow, bland, orthodox music scene).
4. Snow White. Another one that cannot be over rated. When Walt was at the helm, Disney actually too risks. It's not for vain reason that James Agee ranked Disney with Chaplin.
5.101 Dalmations. Disney being almost a ship as Busby Berkeley.

schmendrik · March 10, 2009, 12:56:39 PM

Quote from: pinkandbluefilms on March 10, 2009, 11:35:46 AM
on the whole, it's not surprising that it's almost embarrassing to admit any kind of admiration for Disney, considering what it has degenerated into since Walt's death and we will never see that level of craftsmanship and artistry again, alas.

Partly but don't 100% agree. And in an interview with Walt I once heard him scoff at the idea of "artistry". He characterized himself as an entertainer, and the goal was to make money. But you're right, he was a visionary artist and he completely changed the animation field, raising the standards far above what anything anybody had ever considered before.

In one of his earliest shorts, I don't recall which, Mickey Mouse is playing the piano and his fingers are actually PLAYING THE CORRECT NOTES. That's just astonishing for so many reasons. Pixar probably has the dominant role in animation now that Walt once had.

However I said I don't 100% agree. When Jeffery Katzenberg was running the Disney movies there were some amazingly good films. We took our little girl to see "Beauty and the Beast" and I was blown away by the music right from the opening number. It struck me that I was listening to a Broadway-class overture that would work on any live stage.

I recall around that time critics were proclaiming that the musical was dead, that audiences didn't want to hear actors sing anymore. Then Disney had several hits with really top-notch music and critics declared that audiences only wanted to hear actors sing if they were animated (this was about the time that Steven Bochco bombed with a musical cop show on TV called "Cop Rock"). Then we had smash live hits like "Phantom" and "Les Mis". Have the critics gotten the idea yet that people want to hear musicals if it's GOOD MUSIC? Probably not. But for a few years there Disney was doing really great musicals. It's no surprise that those films have had a second life as live-action stage shows.

peter johnson · March 10, 2009, 01:11:06 PM

I had occasion to watch "Dr Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" this past weekend. It holds up amazingly well, with some genuine scares and tension.

My wife goes with "Emil and The Detectives".

peter johnson/denny crane

pinkandbluefilms · March 10, 2009, 04:39:48 PM

Yes, Disney, Like John Ford, made overtures to disclaim artistry, which makes me respect them even more, but "The Searchers" and "Fantasia" are but two examples that give lie to their claims (a bit like the dadaists making anti-art art or supposed atheists Stravinsky & Bunuel creating religious art).

And I would partially agree with you on the Katzenberg Disney era. "Beauty and the Beast", "Little Mermaid" and "Alladin' all were well crafted films, the best since Walt's death. However, Beast lacked any real sense of danger, such as we find in Cocteau's version, "Mermaid" had the happy ending and Robin Williams' performance really seems distracting to the good of the story. "Lion King" , like Elton John, was pure saccharine, IMHO. But, that said, the first three are near classics and 'Tarzan", surprisingly, was decent and, even more surprisingly, had a halfway decent Phil Collins score. Who would have ever thought?

Peace

Quote from: schmendrik on March 10, 2009, 12:56:39 PM
Quote from: pinkandbluefilms on March 10, 2009, 11:35:46 AM
on the whole, it's not surprising that it's almost embarrassing to admit any kind of admiration for Disney, considering what it has degenerated into since Walt's death and we will never see that level of craftsmanship and artistry again, alas.

Partly but don't 100% agree. And in an interview with Walt I once heard him scoff at the idea of "artistry". He characterized himself as an entertainer, and the goal was to make money. But you're right, he was a visionary artist and he completely changed the animation field, raising the standards far above what anything anybody had ever considered before.

In one of his earliest shorts, I don't recall which, Mickey Mouse is playing the piano and his fingers are actually PLAYING THE CORRECT NOTES. That's just astonishing for so many reasons. Pixar probably has the dominant role in animation now that Walt once had.

However I said I don't 100% agree. When Jeffery Katzenberg was running the Disney movies there were some amazingly good films. We took our little girl to see "Beauty and the Beast" and I was blown away by the music right from the opening number. It struck me that I was listening to a Broadway-class overture that would work on any live stage.

I recall around that time critics were proclaiming that the musical was dead, that audiences didn't want to hear actors sing anymore. Then Disney had several hits with really top-notch music and critics declared that audiences only wanted to hear actors sing if they were animated (this was about the time that Steven Bochco bombed with a musical cop show on TV called "Cop Rock"). Then we had smash live hits like "Phantom" and "Les Mis". Have the critics gotten the idea yet that people want to hear musicals if it's GOOD MUSIC? Probably not. But for a few years there Disney was doing really great musicals. It's no surprise that those films have had a second life as live-action stage shows.

vanlutz · March 10, 2009, 05:58:57 PM

My wife and I love Disney and especially Pixar. So you could just make a list from the past years of animated movies and they would be on there. Pixar especially, each movie keeps getting better and better.

AndyC · March 13, 2009, 10:51:36 AM

We've got a few of the older animated features around - Bambi, Dumbo, The Rescuers, The Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians (Ro's current favourite). The only Pixar title we own is Finding Nemo, and ironically, we can't find it. After renting WALL-E, I'm tempted to buy that as well.

Of the live-action features, I used to own a copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I don't know what happened to it. We've got Tron and The Black Hole, and possibly a couple of others.

And speaking of 20,000 Leagues, I love this bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlM5yokGZ_s