Film Snark

Snow White, a young white girl with black hair, a red hair bow, and a blue, red and yellow dress, holds a red apple in her hand. An extremely old white woman with a wart on her reddening nose, white hair, and a black cloak, holds Snow White's hands in herss.
D
Disney Animated Features

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Released: December 21st, 1937

Man I hate Snow White. I remembered hating it but haven't watched it in decades. Confirmed: I hate it.

The songs are irritating, the story is boring, let alone the usual "princess/prince" plot that is.....not great. The animation is fine, but I wish they had spent as much time on the character building as they did on the beautiful animation of the dwarves' instruments. It felt like it could have been a 30-minute movie that they dragged out.

Notable Grossness

No arguments can be made for "it was a different time" - I find it exceptionally irritating that Snow White's only skills seem to be singing (debatable) and cleaning house. Caveat: I absolutely love Sleeping Beauty, largely because most of the movie is barely about her, and the rest of the characters are so much more interesting. :shrug: I'm a hypocrite.

So much of my time watching this movie was me being angry at everything that came out of Grumpy's mouth. We spent altogether too much time watching the rest of the dwarves trying to force Grumpy to wash up. Sleepy, a white dwarf with white beard and hair, a green hat, and a tan tunic, looks on as Grumpy, a white dwarf with a white beard, red tunic with elbow patches, and brown hat shouts and wags his finger. What he says, and is captioned, is 'And all females is poison! They're full of wicked wiles.'

Grumpy, you are annoying as hell.

This review might seem super harsh, but they solved basically every problem listed here in their very next animated film, Pinocchio, which I just started watching.

October 27th, 2020
Pete's Dragon
A movie release poster shows a group of white people, 4 men, a woman, and a young boy, surrounding a green animated dragon with pink wings and red hair. The poster says "Coming at Christmas, Walt Disney Productions' Pete's Dragon"
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Five human actors, a woman, a man, and three children of various ages, sit on a flying brass bed with a floral blanket, with the moon and clouds behind them. Below them, illustrated animals are in various poses: two fish dance together (one in a suit); two fish and an octopus play in a band together with the words "The Briny Boys" on the front of the drum kit; an alligator, a rhino, and a gorilla run around a soccer field in yellow and green athletic outfits; a lion in a crown and red royal robe stands with one foot on the soccer ball; and a secretary bird in a suit with glasses stands watching.

Recent Snark

Bert, a chimney sweep, Jane, a young blonde child in a red dress and yellow overcoat, Michael, a young strawberry blonde child in short pants and a button coat, and Mary Poppins, a nanny in a red dress with a black hat with white flowers, stand on a rooftop, covered in soot.

Mary Poppins

Julie Andrews is a genuine delight, whether she's being fun or she's irritated. It's not just her voice, her whole presence is just delightful. George and Winifred Banks are excellent side characters, and the kids are as adorable as they need to be. Dick Van Dyke is a national treasure and I won't hear a word against him.

Structurally, there's not really a plot, but that makes sense given that it's based on a series of kind of episodic books. It's also very long. I think the length and episodic nature takes away from the character study of stuffy, cross Mr. Banks and how he learns from his children (and Mary Poppins and Bert) how to retain a sense of wonder and joy. But it's consistently fun. The music is delightful, the dancing is wonderful, and the adventures Mary Poppins and Bert and the kids go on are spectacular. I'm sure I have nostalgia for it but I think this stands up, to be honest.

The dings on the grade are for occasional bad costumes, bad makeup, the length, the imperialist nonsense. I'm honestly tempted to raise it back up because of the flawless animation/live action melding.

September 13th, 2022
Bigfoot, a giant humanoid creature with red fur, sits in front of a cardboard box with a downward pointing arrow on the side, wearing a pair of white men's briefs underwear on his head. He holds the crotch hole open with his fingers so he can look out. Goofy, a dog-like humanoid cartoon with black skin and a pale face, and long ears, watches from his yellow car several hundred feet behind Bigfoot, with his son Max in the passenger seat; Max looks similar to Goofy.

A Goofy Movie

I know this is shameful for someone my age but I've never seen this movie before. I may have caught bits of it when my brothers were younger, but the only thing I remember is Pauly Shore doing the leaning tower of cheese-a. I'm pretty much going into this one blind.

March 1st, 2022