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The Movie

Note: the screen captures accompanying this review are taken from the DVD portion of Pete's Dragon: 35th Anniversary Edition.

Disney trotted out all the "Brazzle Dazzle" they could muster for Pete's Dragon, its big offering for the 1977 holiday season. I was a nine year-old Disney freak when it first came out, so of course my family had to go see it. Back then, while I remember having fun, the movie also left me with vague feelings of disappointment and exhaustion - it was too chaotic, and there wasn't enough of the dragon (honestly, if you're gonna call something Pete's Dragon, you better have some major dragon action). The experience probably didn't dash my childhood dream of someday b...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Please Note: The stills used here are taken from the bonus DVD included in the package and not the Blu-ray edition under review.

Everyone knows the story of Cinderella, the scullery maid tortured by her stepmother and her wicked stepsisters, forced to work day and night in their service since Cinderella's father passed away. When the King throws a ball for his handsome son to find a wife and decrees that all eligible women in the kingdom attend, Cinderella sees her chance to get out and have some fun. This is not something her evil family will allow, however; nor does Cinderella have the proper clothes. Only with the intervention of a fairy godmother can the young woman go to the ball. The sorceress conjures a gown and tu...Read the entire review

The Movie:

A few years after the success of James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, he and actor Bill Paxton returned to the subject matter a second time with the documentary Ghosts Of The Abyss, shot in 2001 and released in 2003. The premise this time is a very different one - to use the latest in submarine and video technology to explore the outside and, whenever and wherever possible, the inside of the wreck of the actual Titanic itself. Given that the ship had been resting on the ocean floor for the better part of a century when this was shot, this would be no easy task and the fact that it lay over twelve thousand feet down certainly wouldn't make this any easier. Cameron, however, was obviously quite driving, his enthusiasm and fascination with the subject matter (not to mention his deep pockets) allowing him to spearhead this expedition with the help of some Russian subm...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

I must confess that Hocus Pocus was one of my favorite Disney movies as a child. It didn't pander to kids, and the danger felt real. The comic rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" got played quite a bit in my house, too. Nearly twenty years have inexplicably passed since the film's original release, and Hocus Pocus remains as enjoyable - interminable to some - as ever. Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy leave subtlety in the dust as the Sanderson sisters, three Salem, Mass., witches looking to regain their youth by sucking the life out of children on Halloween. Max Dennison, the new kid on the block, accidentally arouses the sisters from their deathly slumber, and must protect his younger sister, Dani, and more...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Curtis Hanson's 1992 thriller The Hand That Rocks The Cradle was very much a product of its time. With 'sexy thrillers' popular in the early nineties and a trend in cinema seeing a lot of movies made where the family unit was being upset by some outside force, the casting of the beautiful and talented Rebecca De Mornay was all a lot of us needed to have our interest piqued, but the movie holds up well on more levels than one even if it is a bit on the predictable side.

The story takes place in Seattle, Washington where Michael Bartel (Matt McCoy) and his wife Claire (Annabella Sciorra) are expecting their second child. Michael works as an engineer and makes a good living for the two of them and their young daughter, Emma (Madeline Zima). Everything seems to be coming up roses for the family and they're all looking forward to the impending arrival of their new add...Read the entire review

One of the advantages of having a five-year-old daughter is that I find myself making time for lots of children's movies I might otherwise easily overlook. Such was the case of The Tigger Movie (2000), a Winnie-the-Pooh feature produced by Disney. I'd seen their original featurettes, each running about 25 minutes, in theaters: Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger Too (1974), Winnie-the-Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983), as well as the feature compilation of the first three shorts, The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977). The early shorts, while deviating quite a bit from A.A. Milne's original concepts, were excellent, with a gentler tone and a far more methodical pace than most theatrical and television cartoons of the period. The last short, however, was very disappointing and i...Read the entire review

Disney's Chimpanzeeis the latest film in a line of documentary films exploring differentaspectsof our world's nature. The documentary "theme" of the film is all abouttheworld of chimpanzees - that's a pretty precise way of describing thefilm as afoundation, but it does not describe the film as a whole. Chimpanzeeis as much a film about the importance of family andthose who are willing to take on a parental role as it is somethingexploringthe animal kingdom of chimpanzees.

Surprisingly,  Chimpa...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by the prolific Wolfgang Reitherman for Disney and released in 1970, The Aristocats has lost none of its charm in the forty-two years that it's been around. The humor still works, the story still grans you and the music still swings. With the film now released on Blu-ray for the first time, established fans of the picture can enjoy it in the best possible quality and hopefully the film will gain some new exposure to younger fans.

An aging and very eccentric millionaires named Adelaide Bonfamille lives in her stately villa in Paris with her cat Duchess and her three kittens Berlioz, Toulouse and Marie. So beloved are her cats that she decides that she will leave everything in her will to the four felines when she inevitably passes on, something that does not sit well with her supposedly loyal butler, Edgar. When he hears of this, he decides to take the ca...Read the entire review

I know the feeling!

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In 10 Words or Less
A day in the jungle life

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Interesting documentaries
Likes: Nature documentaries
Dislikes: Depressing reality
Hates: Seeing sad animals

The Movie
Animals are amazing, beautiful creatures. Despite lacking a lot of the elements of civilized society that humans enjoy, they are capable of much of the same behavior, but since we tend to see them in zoo settings, we can't really experience their world in a natural way. Thankfully, talented, dedicated documentarians help us explore worlds we'd otherwise never know. Thus is the case with Chimpanzee, which puts viewers right alongside a tribe of simians, so they can experience a different way of life, namely that ...Read the entire review

The Film:

If you thought you were going to see only one action movie this year with a heroine adept with a bow and arrow, you were wrong. And whether you loved or hated The Hunger Games, or even if you were indifferent, it doesn't matter. Brave is its own thing, a completely different movie, and irresistibly entertaining.

Set in medieval Scotland, Brave is the story of Princess Merida (voiced by Boardwalk Empire's Kelly MacDonald), the first-born of King Fergus (Billy Connelly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). Merida isn't so much a tomboy as she is just a girl with her own mind who likes archery and her f...Read the entire review

An unlikely blending of Japanese anime with John Denver's iconic "Take Me Home, Country Road," Whisper of the Heart (Mimi o sumaseba, or "If You Listen Closely," 1995) is another mesmerizing, positively unique feature from Studio Ghibli, the animation studio behind such films as My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, and Princess Mononoke. Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo (who died from overwork a few years after this was made) and written by Hayao Miyazaki, its story is told from the perspective of a Japanese junior high school girl, and its fantasy elements are very slight, resulting in a picture more concerned with capturing adolescent angst, which it does quite well.

As with all Studio Ghibli films, Whisper of the Heart is positively gorgeous throughout. Few of their films have been set in contemporary urban Japan and, speaking as a resident of Ja...Read the entire review

Rich Ross, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, was quoted saying:

"Moviemaking does not come without risk. It's still an art, not a science, and there is no proven formula for success. Andrew Stanton is an incredibly talented and successful filmmaker who with his team put their hard work and vision into the making of 'John Carter'. Unfortunately, it failed to connect with audiences as much as we had all hoped."

Yes, filmmaking is an art and there's no real way to gauge what's going to do well and what's not. Everyone has different taste and there's always the competition to consider. However, Mr. Ross's statement doesn't sit well with me because despite the smoke he's trying to blow up our asses, there wasn't a single decision about John Carter's production that was made with artistry in mind. It was all about the money, simple as. Andrew Stanton, a man whose impressive history...Read the entire review

You're not going to miss a cube of sugar the size of your thumbnail or a single piece of Kleenex. That's why the tiny people who've squirreled themselves away in Sho's house call themselves borrowers rather than

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thieves. ...Read the entire review