Film Snark

Bianca, a white mouse wearing a pink hat and a pink cape with a bow, looks at Jake, a tan hopping mouse with a notch in his right ear, wearing a brown jacket with a belt and a brown brimmed hat, holding a map. Bernard, a gray mouse with a red turtleneck and brown newsboy cap, also looks at the map. Behind them is tall grass and brownish-red dirt.
B-
Disney Animated Features

The Rescuers Down Under
Released: November 16th, 1990

This is legit one of my favorite movies.

Oh my good goddamn, I had high hopes for this movie holding up and it did.
Cody is darling. Bernard and Bianca are at their best. John Candy as Wilbur is the best replacement we could have gotten for Orville (given that the voice actor had died) - he's perfection in this film. Jake the Kangaroo Mouse is charming and just enough of a background character to make Bernard and Bianca's relationship the focus of their time together. Joanna! What a jerk she is. And McLeach is just EVIL. I love it.

Notable Grossness

per Wikipedia - "In addition to this, Ranft entered creative disagreements with the studio management and marketing executives, including one disagreement where he optioned for the casting of an Aboriginal Australian child actor to voice Cody, which was overridden with the decision to cast "a little white blonde kid." Also McLeach calls Joanna "stupid" and "idiot" a lot.

The animation in this is mostly great. The flight scenes in particular, but also zooming through the outback, the animals' mannerisms, the restaurant scene at the beginning with the bugs preparing pea soup. There's a lot of really delightful animation to enjoy. The only thing I think they got lazy on is McLeach's big truck - it looked like a different truck every single time I saw it and it plays a pretty big part of this film.

I love the music. There aren't any songs with lyrics, and I think that suits this film.

I was so disappointed to read the critical reception on Wikipedia - people did not think this movie was good for a lot of the reasons that I thought it WAS good. There were complaints that Disney was trying to build off the Crocodile Dundee Australia hype and that it was over by the time this movie was made; this movie made me SUPER interested in Australia.

There were complaints that the animators didn't even use the Australian locale to great benefit and that the movie "could have taken place anywhere". I'm not sure what better use they could have made of the Australian outback locale than having a bunch of native wild animals and showing Uluru; maybe it's just cuz I'm a city kid but I think any movie set in a place without a lot of human civilization basically just has to rely on the animals and scenery, so...... ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I am much happier it was set in the outback than having some kind of obligatory "running through the opera house" scenes if it had been set in Sydney. I just thought that was a weird critique.

There were criticisms that the Rescuers didn't appear until too far into the film and they were only partially involved; this is literally why I like this movie better than the original Rescuers. Cody has agency. Cody is trying to solve problems himself. The Rescuers help, but he's the hero of this movie (or rather, they all are). I love this structure.

Also I want to address this particular bit of criticism: "The villain is far too malignant, the young vigilante hero seems to be a kiddie 'Rambo,' and some of the action is quite violent, if not tasteless." Personally I think "the villain is too mean" is a pretty ridiculous complaint. The kid has a pocketknife and cuts through a couple of ropes. This is hardly Rambo territory.

Anyway, all in all, I love this dang ol movie. I initially had it higher on the list but the more I thought about it the more I realized I'm leaning into nostalgia. Now that I've seen it again, I probably won't watch it for a long time. I'd be far more likely to turn on The Jungle Book than this one.

June 22nd, 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