walt disney

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #18: The Sword in the Stone

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

***

The Sword in the Stone represents a couple of milestones in the Disney canon. Firstly, this is the last movie to be released during Walt’s lifetime. It’s also the first Disney movie to feature songs by the Sherman Brothers…

“The Brothers Sheeeeeerman!”

Sorry. Whenever I mention them a choir of angels is apt to descend from heaven singing glorious Hosannas and Hallelujahs. Nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. The Sherman Brothers…

“The Brothers Sheeeeeerman!”

Guys please!

One of the greatest songwriting duos of all time. Possibly the greatest. Certainly the most successful in terms of musicals. I mean just take a look at some of the movies they wrote songs for; Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Snoopy Come Home…fantastic, fantastic songs. Their contributions to Sword in the Stone are not their strongest work but the Shermans on a bad day…

“The Brothers Sheeeeeerman!”

SHUT UP!

GOD!

Really good songs. Is what I’m saying. Ahem.

(more…)

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #17: 101 Dalmatians

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

***

What kind of Disney movie reads Playboy?

Only two years separated the releases of Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians but they are, in every sense, eras apart. 101 Dalmatians feels so different, looks so different and sounds so different from its immediate predecessor that it almost feels like the work of a different studio. This is the first of what I call the Scratchy Movies, because of the harder, scratchier outlines of the characters compared to previous Disney eras. Take a look:

Tar and Sugar Era.

Never-Heard-of-Em Era.

Restoration Era.

Scratchy Era.

You see how the lines are so much starker and rougher in the last one? Why is that?

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #16: Sleeping Beauty

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

***

Let’s talk a little about “house styles” shall we? A house style is basically where you have a large number of creators working on a single work, and so they modify their individual artistic voices to conform to a uniform style. The goal is essentially to make something that is the product of all these individual people seem like it’s the work of one person, a single artistic voice.

Say you’re a journalist. Depending on which publication you get work for, you will have to write in a completely different style than you might normally use. It’s almost like becoming a different person.

This is you as the New York Times…

…The Sun…

…The Guardian…

…aaand the Daily Mail. Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week!

It’s something that most writers have to deal with, and learning to adapt to a house style is a vital skill for anyone hoping to make their living as a scribe. And I absolutely SUCK at it. I learned this when I tried to get a job writing for Ireland’s most popular soap opera.

My idea was for a two year long crossover with Eastenders set during a zombie apocalypse, but here’s the thing…the zombies are actually GHOSTS.

Pff. No RTÉ. I think you’ll find that it is you who are “wildly impractical“.

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #15: Lady and the Tramp

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

***

Hello everyone. A little bit of housekeeping before we get into this week’s movie. Back in my Alice in Wonderland review I used three racist anti-Irish cartoons to demonstrate why nineteenth century artist John Tenniel was invited to suck my…ahem…unshaved mouse. Now, I’ve since discovered that one of these cartoons:

THIS little treasure.

…was actually not by Tenniel but by his contemporary Thomas Nast. Which honestly I should have twigged as their styles are quite noticeably different. I’ve since changed the Alice review but I felt I should come clean anyway. So yeah, I was sloppy. Sorry. John Tenniel?

Ahoyhoy?

I apologise for confusing you with that OTHER racist dick weasel.

Oh, quite alright my dear fell…I SAY!

So, now that I’ve hopefully eaten enough crow..

Figure of speech, figure of speech! God! Don’t look at me like that.

…we can get on with the review.

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #14: Peter Pan

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. Would you like me to review a particular animated film? I’m currently fundraising for my play Joanna and I need your help! In exchange for every donation of €10 or more I will review ANY cartoon you like. Details HERE.

“The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremor ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

JM Barrie, Peter Pan

I don’t know what it says about me that, on the cusp of my thirties, most of my favorite books are still children’s books. Watership Down, The Mouse and His Child and the inspiration for this week’s movie Peter Pan, by JM Barrie. Peter Pan is at once a rip-roaring children’s adventure, a great work of literature and a haunting meditation on the nature of childhood and innocence. It is a work of breathtaking, melancholy beauty. And yet, unlike many great works of literature, it seems perfectly suited for adaptation to screen (probably something to do with the fact that the story began life as a play). This is a story replete with sumptuous visuals and thrilling action, in the right hands you could make an absolutely fantastic Peter Pan movie. And they did.

In 2003.

Seriously. See this movie.

But that’s not the movie we’re looking at today. This is Disney’s 1953 adaptation. Well, I love Disney. And I love Peter Pan. This can’t go wrong, surely?

Why!? I love Jeff Goldblum AND Flies! HOW COULD THIS GO WRONG??!!

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #13: Alice in Wonderland

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. There is an audio version of this review here.

***

Here’s a controversial statement: Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Star Wars movie.

Here’s another controversial statement: I do not care for Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice in Wonderland. Never have. I can certainly see how it has some good individual elements, but for me the whole is just a series of bizarre, barely connected episodes featuring an unlikeable protagonist sprinkled with contemporary (at the time) political and cultural references in place of any real plot or characterisation. So basically it’s a nineteenth century Family Guy.

Yeah. I just compared Alice in Wonderland to Family Guy. Come at me, bro.

“But-but-but-but Mouse!” I hear you stammer “What about the iconic characters, the ingenious wordplay, the wonderful illustrations by John Tenniel?”

WHO SAID JOHN TENNIEL!!??

Okay, this is a comedy blog and I realise it can sometimes be a little hard to tell when I’m serious or not so let me make my feelings absolutely crystal clear…

John Tenniel…

…can suck…

…a DICK.

So that must mean I hate the Disney version, right? Well…funny story.

(more…)

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Horse #12: Cinderella

***

Around two years ago I read an interview with the head of Dreamworks, Jeffrey Katzenburg, where he outlined the studio’s plans for the next ten years or so. It was essentially this:

Two more Madagascar films. (the first of these has since come out)

Two more (at least) How to Train Your Dragons.

Five more Kung Fu Panda Movies.

The movie industry is, to put it mildly, in a state of panic. Its market share is shrinking in the face of competition from digital entertainment and television and it’s increasingly looking like it doesn’t really know what people want anymore. Adding to their problems, the only genres of movie that consistently generate buffo box office, (animated movies, superhero films, sci-fi/fantasy) are also damn expensive to make. Which is why, when one of those movies does well at the box office, it gets a sequel almost without exception.

Movie people are not bad people. They just want what we want: certainty. They just want to be sure that if they invest millions of dollars into a movie that they’re not going to be living out of a cardboard box by the time the box office receipts are tallied up. In the movie business, a willingness to take risks and be original, to gamble several fortunes of investors’ money on something that you have no way of knowing will be a success, to risk your reputation and your finances for a dream requires nothing less than balls of steel.

You rang?

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #11: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

There is an audio version of this review HERE

***

And so it is that the Unshaved Mouse comes to the last of the package films.

Really internet? You couldn’t find me a picture of a happier mouse? This is not doing my joy justice.

Okay, that’s not exactly fair. Believe it or not, I don’t hate the Never Heard of ‘Ems. In fact, I really enjoyed most of them. It was just a nightmare to review these things.

Yes. Nightmare is the correct word.

Anyway, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad. This is pretty much identical in nature to Fun and Fancy Free, two ideas for full length animated movies that ended up being condensed and released as a single feature. This would close out the forties for Disney, a decade marked by incredible achievements (Bambi, Pinocchio, Fantasia) and a desperate and sometimes ugly struggle to keep the studio from going under (pretty much everything else). The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad begins with the opening credits…and…is he there?…could it be?…YES!

THOR PUTNAM!

(more…)

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #10: Melody Time

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of the Walt Disney Corporation unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

You can listen to an audio version of this review HERE

***

Goddamit, No! No, I have had enough. I cannot do another one of these package films. You can’t make me. You want to know about Melody Time? Wikipedia this mother. See that description? “Mildly successful”. I ask you, has anyone ever wanted to read a review of a movie that was “mildly” anything? No! You either want to see me praise a classic to the heavens or grind some misbegotten abomination into the dirt. No one reads three star reviews. No one wants to hear about movies that are “fine”. You want my review of Melody Time? It’s Make Mine Music but not as good. There. Read the Make Mine Music review and induce a mild sense of disappointment. See you next week.

Ugh.

Alright fine. I’m doing this. But you owe me, people. For starters, get me a sandwich.

Lettuce? What am I, on a diet?

Okay, okay Melody Time. Melody Time. What can I saw about Melody Time? Specifically, what can I say about Melody Time that I have not already said about the other Never Heard of ‘Ems? I could literally describe the circumstances of its creation and its basic structure and you would not be able to tell whether I was talking about Make Mine Music or this film. Except, this was made in 1948 and most of the good ideas had already gone into Make Mine Music. You see, that’s the problem. You’ll recall I actually quite liked Make Mine Music, but this is just more of the same and it’s pretty forgettable all in all. But, screw it. Let’s get on with it.

(more…)

Disney Reviews by the Unshaved Mouse #9: Fun and Fancy Free

DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images used below are property of the Walt Disney Corporation unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.

There is an audio version of this review HERE.

***

By 1947 the war was over and the Disney studio was beginning the slow and often painful process of reconstruction. The animators were back from the front, and the US military had ended their four-year long virtual occupation of the studio. But it would be another three years before the they were ready to get back to “real” Disney movies, big full-length animated features. In the meantime, they soldiered on with “package” films, what I like to call the “Never Heard Of ‘Ems” as they tend to be the most obscure movies in the whole canon. Fun and Fancy Free is in many ways even scrappier and more thrown together than Make Mine Music or the two Caballeros movies. Whereas they were at least unified by subject (music and Latin America, respectively) Fun and Fancy Free is essentially the studio saying “Yeah. Here’s two short movies we didn’t have the time or money to make into full features. You don’t like it? Sorry. We were a little busy fighting for your freedom.”

And now everything I draw looks like dead Germans.

Cost saving was the driving force of this movie, and the next two that followed. Simply put, the market had not yet recovered to the point that Disney could spend the kind of money a new Bambi or Pinocchio would require. Europe, the movie industry’s second most important market, was no longer at war. But it was still in a very bad way.

(more…)