Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2009
Disney has a knack for turning television shows into profitable movie franchises-- Lizzy McGuire, Hannah Montana, and now The Wizards of Waverly Place. Since the formula hasn’t deferred much, it should come as no surprise that its latest show has caught on like wildfire. In the wake of a Harry Potter-crazed nation of tweens, Disney’s latest show follows the Russos—former wizard father Jerry (David DeLuise), non-magical mother Theresea (Maria Canals-Barrera) and their three wizards-in-training. Unlike previous Disney Channel shows, Wizards offers a refreshing cultural spin on the situational comedy with the Italian-Mexican heritage of its starring family.
The show focuses on the three children: Alex, Justin and Max. Alex (Selena Gomez) is a modern day archetypical Disney lead—a fresh-faced girl with an appetite for disobedience and a sharp tongue. She retaliates with rolled eyes and a snarky remark for nearly every parental request. Justin (David Henrie) is the Golden Child—an attractive young man who’s not above ratting out his younger sister to save his own skin. The youngest child, Max, is played by Jake T. Austin, and he essentially provides the comic relief. He’s goofy, annoying as many younger siblings are, and more confident than any pre-teen kid I’ve met lately. None of these characters are seemingly likable, but that hasn’t stopped the show from being one of the most-watched cable programs ever since its premiere on October 12, 2007. So, naturally, a movie was in Wizards’ midst. And what an impression it made. 11.4 million viewers tuned in to watch the August 28 premiere, making it Disney Channel’s second highest rated film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 15th, 2009
"For years, we've been putting a secret into the heart of every member of the Saberling Family. Be it the cryogenic refrigerator or the microwave heated coffee maker. A Secret which is at the core of any successful family: Communication."
When director Hoyt Yeatman's son Hoyt, Junior, got a pet guinea pig, he began to put soldier-like gear on the unfortunate animal and imagine stories that the rodent was part of a secret spy ring. He would imagine all kinds of missions for the little guy. Thus was born the idea for G Force. Yeatman took the idea to Jerry Bruckheimer, who in turn shopped the idea to Disney. Before you know it, Bruckheimer had put his extensive resources into making the next cute talking animal film for the Mouse House.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2009
This must be tool month at Disney. I ended up watching two of the specials that were released on the first, and both have tools as a central theme. This one is apparently about tools all of the time. Handy Manny is a Spanish handyman who has a living collection of tools in his box. They all talk. The Phillips and straight edge screwdrivers bicker. There's a tape measure named Stretch, a wrench named Rusty, and a pair of pliers named Squeeze, to name a few. Together with Manny's expertise, they can tackle any repair or building job.
Manny and his tool friends are preparing to go to Manny's family reunion. It's a long trip, so they're going to take Manny's motorcycle with a sidecar for the tools. Pat, the hammer, is depressed because he doesn't seem to have any family that's just like him. Apparently, Manny's tools are special and this isn't a world where tools ordinarily talk. When Pat sees a cartoon hammer on the cover of a tool catalog, he begins to believe it's his cousin, on his Mother's side, of course. On the trip to the reunion, Pat sees a truck with the same hammer on it. He sneaks into the truck with Squeeze and Flicker, the flashlight, only to become trapped and separated from Manny and the others. Now Manny must rescue the tools and get to the family reunion in time. Of course, along the way there are plenty of things to fix.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2009
Anyone who has come here long enough to get to know my likes and dislikes probably knows what a Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse fan I am. The man and the character opened the road for so much of what we have today, from Pixar to Tom and Jerry. But, if you're looking for the kind of cartoons you and I have grown to expect, this one is bound to disappoint you. It's an episode of the current television series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It's an animated Sesame Street, however, and not really a cartoon adventure.
While I use the term Sesame Street, I don't mean it literally. You'll find the traditional Disney characters, to be sure. There's Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Pluto and even Professor Von Drake. You won't find a Cookie Monster or a Big Bird anywhere. What you will find is that strictly educational style. The characters talk directly to the children watching. They ask questions geared toward teaching such basic concepts as identifying colors and shapes to basic math addition problems. There's a great deal of shouting encouragement as well. You should be prepared for your young one to answer Mickey's questions and join him in some hollering. There's a particularly annoying repetition as the gang calls for a character named Toodles. Toodles carries objects that the characters need to accomplish various tasks. Whenever they find they are in the need of one of these tools Mickey encourages everyone, including your child, to yell “Oh Toodles”, to bring the character to them with the needed item.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Just in time for the holidays, the Buddies are back for more cute puppy action. All of the retriever Buddies are back for this one. You are introduced to the “Buddies” right at the start, so it doesn’t really matter if you saw any of their other films. There’s Bud-Ha (Cate), a wise meditational pup. Next up is Mud-Bud (Panitz), an always dirty pup with a fondness for rolling in the dirt. The female Buddy is Rose-Bud (Mumy), who is the girly part of the team all decked out in a bow. Bud-Derball (Flitter) is the normal one of the bunch, followed by the rappin’ pup, B-Dawg (Gisondo).
The North Pole is having a crisis. It’s getting close to Christmas and Santa’s workshop is having a shortage of magic power. Deep in a cave at the North Pole hangs the Christmas Icicle. It is the source of all Christmas magic that allows Santa and his gang to do their thing. It is powered by people having the Christmas Spirit. Lately, not enough people are believing in Christmas, so the icicle is shrinking. Finally, global warming that really is caused by humans. Another problem in the North Pole deals with Puppy Paws (Gordon) son of Santa’s right hand, eh … dog Santa Paws (Bosley). Puppy Paws wants to be like a normal dog and doesn’t want the responsibility that Christmas means to his family. He finds Bud-Derball in Santa’s naughty files and decides that’s the kind of pup he wants to hang with. So he stows away on one of Santa’s express trucks and heads to Washington to meet the Buddies. At first they find Puppy Paws to be a bit of a pain to hang with. But when Puppy Paws is captured by the mean old dogcatcher Stan Cruge (Lloyd) the Buddies go into action to save him. What they didn’t know was that Christmas depends on them freeing Puppy Paws. There’s a side story that has Stan Cruge turning from a mean old Scrooge character to finding his own Christmas Spirit, and helping to bring back the Christmas Icicle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
The House Of Mouse first appeared on television in January of 2001. It took advantage of pretty much every Disney character from nearly every Disney property. Mickey was the host of a nightclub called The House Of Mouse, I guess a riff on The House Of Blues. The standard bearing characters ran the club. In the audience was where you’ll find all of those lovable characters from films like The Lion King, Aladdin, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Winnie The Pooh, and so many more. The shows were both performances by the characters and the showing of Disney shorts. The series was very much like the Warner 70’s show The Bugs Bunny And Road Runner Show. There too you had an audience and staff of Warner’s entire Loony Tunes library. There was also a rivalry there between Bugs and Daffy Duck. The same kind of relationship exists here between Mickey and Donald. The series only lasted a couple of years and was soon gone from the airwaves.
Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed In At The House Of Mouse aired November of 2001. The characters are all snowed in on Christmas Eve and can’t get home to celebrate the holiday. Mickey decides they should all throw a Christmas bash at the club. For the most part they’re all trying to cheer up Donald, who has a case of the humbugs. In between these antics a few shorts are shown. The most notable are a Disney version of The Nutcracker with ultra modern music and a telling of Dickens’ famous A Christmas Carol. Many of the vast cast get at least a couple of lines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2009
“Out of the night when the full moon is bright comes a horseman known as Zorro. This bold renegade carves a “Z” with his blade, a “Z” that stands for Zorro. The fox so cunning and free, Zorro who makes the sign of the “Z”. “
Zorro first appeared in pulp magazines in 1919 written by Johnston McCulley. He told the story of a talented swordsman who masqueraded as a dull, inept, and spoiled young rich man. But, when he put on his trademark black cloak and mask he took to the countryside of Spanish California in 1820, fighting for the peasants and anyone treated unjustly. He was a regular Robin Hood. While he did not steal, he was considered an outlaw and had to spend much of his time fighting off the law. He was known for using his sword to cut a “Z” on anything from trees to the clothes of his enemies. He lived by a strong code of honor and morals. He never killed, unless it was absolutely necessary, which it seldom was. It didn’t take long for this inspiring character to reach the silver screen. In just a year from his publishing debut, Zorro was a movie staring Douglas Fairbanks as the heroic vigilante. But it didn’t end there. McCulley kept writing books, and the character became one of the most famous characters of the age. Republic created serials and the films kept coming. From 1920 through 1990 there wasn’t a decade that did not feature a live action version of the hero. Comics would follow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 11th, 2009
“The future is bright at Monsters Incorporated. We power your car. We warm your home. We light your city. Carefuly matching every child to their ideal monster to produce superior scream. Refined into clean, dependable energy. Every time you turn something on, Monsters Incorporated is there. We know the challenge. The window of innocence is shrinking. Human kids are harder to scare. Of course, Monsters Incorporated is prepared for the future. With the top scarers, the best refineries, and research into new energy technologies. We’re working for a better tomorrow, today. We’re Monster’s Incorporated. We scare because we care.”
When you do this job you get asked the same question a lot.You get it from friends, family and people who just met you. They all ask the same thing. “What is your favorite movie of all time?” That’s a hard question, and it’s one that changes from time to time. But if you’re talking animated films, my answer’s been the same for several years now. It’s Monsters, Inc. You hear me gush about Pixar films all of the time here, but with all of their advances on technology, this is still the best film they’ve put out. And that’s saying something.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 4th, 2009
It sure seems like Pixar has a lock on the computer animated film industry these days. Their films appear to always hit just the right amount of adult and children content to win with both audiences. We may not all be laughing at the same jokes, but we do laugh. When we’re not laughing, we appear to be captivated by endearing characters that immediately feel like we’ve known them our whole lives. We are instantly concerned about the things that happen to them. All of this happens without a single live entertainer on the screen to guide us into these emotions. That’s because Pixar also happens to be the most state of the art studio out there churning out these kinds of films. The technological prowess is amazing. Perhaps the best compliment one can pay to a Pixar film is that all of these things, and much more, are true … and we never really notice it at all. We buy into whatever world they are offering without question and never realizing that we’ve done it. That’s not just good filmmaking. That’s magic. There’s a lot of heart in these zeros and ones.
Of course, magic is business as usual at Walt Disney Studios. Magic was Uncle Walt’s stock and trade, and so isn’t it just natural that Pixar would eventually find their home as part of the Disney family? For a while it seemed the two were about to part ways. At that time Disney was merely the animation studio’s distribution partner. A rift had developed when Disney was about to assert their contractual rights to make sequels from the Pixar properties they distributed, most particularly at the time, Toy Story. So, Pixar announced they were looking for a new partner in protest. A few deals were talked about, but in the end it could have been written as a Pixar film before it was over. Finding family is a common theme in the Pixar films. Eventually Disney and Pixar found each other again, this time cementing the deal when the Mouse House bought the animation pioneers. And all the while the continuing stream of classics hasn’t missed a beat. Okay. Let’s just forget about that Rat film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 3rd, 2009
“A changing of the seasons brings wonder to the world. For ages has the magic of the fairies been unfurled. But nature’s greatest changes come beneath the Autumn sky and mysteries reveal themselves as harvest time draws nigh. This year a shimmering blue moon will rise before the frost. Perhaps its rays can light the way to find what has been lost.”
After giving us Tinker Bell’s origin story in the first film of this franchise, we get a chance to look even more deeply into this wonderland of fairies and magic. Ever wonder where that magical pixie dust comes from that allows fairies to fly? The origin of the substance is explored here. It seems there is a grand tree that produces the dust. Dust keepers care for the tree and cultivate the dust. They distribute it to all of the fairies on a rationing basis. Every 8 years the tree needs to be renewed or it will grow too weak and perish. On the 8th Autumn the fairies put on a revelry to celebrate the season and the new life the tree is about to be given. When the harvest moon rises, its rays will pass through the precious blue moonstone and those rays will create blue pixie dust. It is this snowlike blue dust that revitalizes the tree and the entire existence of Pixie Hollow.
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