Want to read my thoughts on the latest Toy Story movie? Click HERE! Believe me, it’s better than you’d think it is.
29 Saturday Jun 2019
Posted 2010's, Action-Adventure, Fantasy, Movie Babble, Movie Reviews, Pixar
inWant to read my thoughts on the latest Toy Story movie? Click HERE! Believe me, it’s better than you’d think it is.
23 Sunday Jun 2019
Posted 1970's, Movie Babble, Movie Reviews, Muppets, Musicals
inHappy 40th anniversary to The Muppet Movie, the one that started it all for the Muppets cinematic universe.
Wait, is there one? If not, there should be.
Anyway, here’s a link to my ranking of the movie’s iconic songs. Number One will not surprise anyone.
08 Saturday Jun 2019
Tags
1930's, 2D animation, action, Action-Adventure, animated ducks, animated short, animated shorts, animation, ants, art, black pete, canvas back duck, caricatures, cartoon duck, cartoon ducks, cgi animation, clarence nash, classic disney, classic disney characters, classic Hollywood, Comedy, computer animation, computer dot don, daisy duck, der fuehrer's face, Dewey, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animation, disney couple, disney couples, disney golden age, disney love, disney review, Donald Duck, donald duck and the gorilla, donald's better self, donald's dinner date, donald's lucky day, donald's nephews, donald's quack attack, donald's rocket ruckus, donald's snow fight, duck, duck pimples, ducks, ducktales, goofy, hand drawn animation, House of Mouse, Huey, huey dewey and louie, Kingdom Hearts, Louie, mathmagic land, Mickey Mouse, Mouse Works, mr. duck steps out, music store donald, nephews, officer duck, Peg-Leg Pete, Pete, propaganda, short, shorts, soup's on, spike the bee, the autograph hound, the clock watcher, the trial of donald duck, tony anselmo, traditional animation, trombone trouble, Walt Disney, world war two propaganda
Last November we celebrated a milestone for one of Disney’s most iconic characters. Today we gather for another – Happy 85th Birthday Donald Duck!
There’s a certain irony to Donald’s popularity: in the theme parks or shows like The Mickey Mouse Club or House of Mouse, Donald is portrayed flagging behind Mickey in fame and adulation if not outright forgotten. But in the real world so many people prefer Donald over Mickey, and I can see why. Mickey’s status as the company’s mascot rarely allows him to be a mischievous rascal like in the old days. Donald on the other hand has always been the feisty fowl generations could relate to due to how much he’s put through the wringer and his resulting temper flares.
Because he’s not on as high a pedestal as The One That Started It All, he’s given more freedom of personality, and, as a result, much more to do. Donald’s worn a variety of hats throughout his five-and-fourscore-long career. This also expands beyond traditional media. You’d be hard pressed to find a Donald Duck video game that isn’t at least a little fun to play. Getting to bash things with his trademark temper tantrums is a treat, and Disney always takes full advantage of it. In fact, before Sora was created to be the protagonist for Kingdom Hearts, Tetsuya Nomura imagined Mickey as the main character, but Disney wanted it to be Donald! They’re well aware that no matter how bad the scenario, Donald can take a licking and keep on ticking, and that’s done him well these past 85 years.
So to mark the special occasion, I’m counting down my Top 21 Favorite Donald Duck Shorts. Why that many? Because I like to go eleven steps beyond.
The rules from before apply: I’m not counting segments from or complete feature films like Saludos Amigos or The Three Caballeros. Donald has to be the main focus of the entire short feature, and not just “Mickey’s name is in the title though Donald takes up 90% of the action but it’s totally a Mickey short, you guys, for reals”.
But par the course for this blog, a few Honorable Mentions first:
02 Sunday Jun 2019
Posted Updates
inGreetings, all. The Desolation of Smaug is diminishing as I write this, and when The Battle of the Five Armies will commence is anyone’s guess, but the point I’m trying to make is this blog’s fourth anniversary will soon be upon us! I keep saying this every year but I never imagined I’d make it this far and it’s all thanks to you. Whether you found me through my Gravity Falls Reviews, Movie Babble, my YouTube videos or just stumbled across this blog at random, I am thankful for every view, comment, like and follow. You’ve made me strive to become a better writer and entertainer. And while I can’t extend this sentiment to certain despots I’ve expressed my disdain for, I’m eagerly anticipating another four years of this.
The question is, what to do to mark the occasion? I didn’t want to just pick a couple of movies for voting at random though I fell a bit short at assembling a coherent theme. And as much as I’d love to forego my Patreon goal of returning to tv show reviews and just dive back into doing them anyway, my current schedule forbids it. Besides, I spent the first half of this year missing most of my review deadlines and I’d hate to spend the next half repeating that mistake by letting too much work pile up again.
As such, I’ve decided to break a bit from the rules and share my thoughts on one of my personal favorite films, a classic that’s come up for voting more than once and nearly won on a few occasions. It’s part of an annual tradition in my home state and served as my introduction to two of the greatest comedians of all time. Plus it’s turning 85 years old this year, quite the milestone. I’ll leave you to guess what it could be. Until then, stick around because the best is yet to come!
PS – Shortly after the Desolation of Smaug review was posted, a new patron signed up to my Patreon! Thank you, Sam Minden! Your $7 contribution means your name will follow every review and you’re now privy to the vote count each month. I’m sorry my anniversary plans means you won’t be receiving the latter reward this month, but to make up for it, anyone at the $7 tier and up will get a clue pertaining to what the next review is if they want it.
01 Saturday Jun 2019
Posted 2010's, Action-Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Movie Reviews
inTags
action, Action-Adventure, alfrid, an unexpected journey, azog, balin, bard, bard the bowman, battle of the five armies, benedict cumberbatch, bifur, bilbo, bilbo baggins, bofur, bolg, bombur, burglar, desolation of smaug, director's cut, dori, dragon, durin's day, dwalin, dwarfs, elf, elves, elvish, erebor, evangeline lily, extended edition, Fantasy, fantasy franchise, fili, film franchise, film review, firedrake, franchise, gandalf, gandalf the gray, gandalf the grey, giant spider, gloin, gold, graham mctavish, hobbit, ian mckellen, journey, jrr tolkien, kili, laketown, lee pace, love interest, luke evans, magic sword, martin freeman, master of laketown, middle earth, mirkwood, motion capture, movie, movie review, necromancer, nori, oin, one ring, orcs, ori, original cut, orlando bloom, peter jackson, quest, radagast the brown, revenge, review, ringwraiths, sauron, sherlock, smaug, spiders, stephen fry, sting, studio interference, sword, sylvester mccoy, tauriel, the hobbit, the lonely mountain, the one ring, theatrical cut, theatrical edition, thorin, thorin oakenshield, thrain, tolkien, trilogy, Warner Bros., Warner Brothers, wizard
“If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together.”
Can you believe it’s been nearly four years since I reviewed the first Hobbit movie? *Sigh*, how time flies. My tastes may have matured and expanded, and I like to think my writing has improved too, but my thoughts on The Hobbit trilogy haven’t changed. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is superior, obviously, but I’m quite fond of this slightly smaller yet no less exciting adventure. I went into great detail why in the previous review, but if I had to sum it up I like how it expands upon Middle Earth lore hinted at in Lord of the Rings while decently tying it back to the events of those movies, and it fixes some major character and plot issues I had that kept me from fully enjoying the book it was based on.
While The Hobbit films do suffer from some the same issues as another prequel trilogy that people love to harp on – mainly an over-reliance on CGI and some contrived plotting – I’m relieved to say that poor performances and production value are not among them. The fact that they were able to bring together some great newcomers to the franchise as well as get as many cast members and locations from Lord of the Rings to return and make it all not feel like fanservice is a testament to the writing, craftmanship and direction that went into making these films, even more so since they were under double the studio pressure than they were the first time around. And if I may be shallow for a moment, it also looks really nice. Sometimes I like nothing more than to get lost in an inviting woodland fantasy atmosphere and this scratches my itch every time.
Now we have the much-anticipated Part 2, The Desolation of Smaug. This incarnation of The Hobbit was originally supposed to end here. But at the last minute it was decided that the Battle of the Five Armies, which happens during the last fifty pages of the book, was too important to relegate to the last act of a film that could potentially overreach The Return of the King’s runtime so they made it its own separate movie. I should mention that the copy of Desolation of Smaug I’m reviewing is the theatrical version since I received it as a gift. I saw the extended edition when it came out on blu-ray and the comparison between the two is an…interesting one. The extended cut fixes some of the inconsistent pacing and adds a few welcome character moments both original and from the book, but the rest I could do without. Some scenes stop the movie, sidetrack the main plot for something else to happen and take you out of the moment as a result, or simply add way more than necessary. One of these days I might get around to editing my own cut combining the best of the two, but for now I’d say you’re better off sticking with the theatrical cut in this case. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll give special mention to those parts when they’re supposed to come up. So let’s find out if it was it a wise decision to split these movies up or if those naysayers who edited the entire trilogy into one forty-five minute feature were right.