Film Snark

A white child (Tildy) in a yellow dress with blue sleeves and a blue bonnet, who is holding the handle of a wagon with an animal (might be a cat) in it, stands behind a white child (Jeremiah) in a checkered red shirt and blue overalls, who is holding a black sheep. Behind them is a fence and some tall green plants.
F
Disney Animated Features

So Dear to My Heart
Released: January 19th, 1949

This one is barely animated and it was boooooring.

This shouldn't even count as an animated film, tbh. But it's also......just bad.

Notable Grossness

A doll of a Native American won at a county fair, and glorification of Columbus - other than that, pretty much nothing.

This is so weird. There are some brief animated segments but they're........weird and seem out of place. This kid is trying to enter his black lamb into the county fair to win an award, that's the grander story. It feels like Charlotte's Web but much more boring. Also there's a moment in the movie where the religiosity gets pretty serious, and I half expected the grandma to start telling the kid to cleanse himself with self-flaggelation for daring to say that God couldn't take his pet lamb (i.e. let him die). I thought it was gonna go Rosemary's Baby for a minute. Granny Kincaid, a white woman in a long dark dress with a light colored long apron and a dark shawl, with brown hair, lifts a light towel off the ground, while looking down at Danny, a white child with blond hair in a red bathrobe who is kneeling on the ground. The caption reads, 'Not the good towels again! That's it, I'm calling Christopher Columbus to give you a good talking-to about morality'

Anyway, it's weird and boring, and not a great combo of actors. There are a couple of interesting moments and clever turns of phrase, but all in all, I'm good if I never see this again. I'm grading it super low because the animated parts were useless, poorly written, and not relevant to the story.

January 26th, 2021
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