Tarzan

Liam and I recently watched Disney's Tarzan, which I hadn't seen in forever.  Let me just say that I cried 3 times in the first 10-15 minutes of the movie, and that by the end I had cried a total of 6 times.  I don't remember my heart aching so many times before, I am turning into my mother.

Tarzan was released in 1999 by Walt Disney Animation and is considered the last of the Disney Renaissance films.  It is the 37th Walt Disney Animated Classic and the first animated feature of the story of Tarzan, based off of the book Tarzan and the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Tarzan is a story about a British couple who are shipwrecked on an island with their baby and cannot survive the wildlife.  An ape who has recently lost her own baby hears Tarzan crying and raises him as her own with the gorillas.  As an adult, other humans come to explore the island and Tarzan is torn between wanting to be with his own kind and staying with the family that raised him.


Voice talents include:
Tony Goldwyn as Tarzan (Scandal, Divergent, Law & Order: CI, Last Samurai, Ghost)
Glenn Close as Kala (Simpsons, Damages, Hoodwinked, The Shield, Stepford Wives, Air Force One)
Brian Blessed as Clayton (Peppa Pig, King Lear, Star Wars Episode I, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)
Minnie Driver as Jane (Good Will Hunting, Grosse Point Blank, About A Boy, I Give It A Year, Riches)
Nigel Hawthorne as Professor Porter (Amistad, Demolition Man, Yes, Prime Minister, Black Cauldron)
Wayne Knight as Tanto (Seinfeld, Jurassic Park, Space Jam, The Exes, Hot in Cleveland, 3rd Rock From the Sun)
Rosie O'Donnell as Terk (Flintstones, Now & Then, League of Their Own, The View, Rosie O'Donnell Show)

It's production budget of $130 million made it the most Expensive animated film of all time at the time of its release.  Disney's Treasure Planet finally topped it t $140 million in 2002.  Tarzan gross $448 billion worldwide as was the first Disney film to open at #1 since Pocahontas.

For the movie Tarzan, the production team developed a new CGI concept called Deep Canvas, which allowed artists to created CGI backgrounds that looked like a painting.  This technique was awarded a Technical Achievement Award in 2003 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.  The songs for the film were written and performed by Phil Collins.

I loved this movie, and although it has some disturbing emotional scenes for adults, my toddler didn't seem to be negatively affected.  He loved the movie and keeps requesting to watch the "movie with the baby" which is what Tarzan is now called in our house.  4.5 out of 5 stars. 

You can visit the official site: Tarzan

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Yesterday my sister and I took Liam to the movies to see How To Train Your Dragon 2.  I must say that my sister and I enjoyed the movie immensely more than my toddler did.  It was a great movie for older kids and adults and any younger kids who love dragons.  As for my son, there were moments that he enjoyed it but he got bored with it and was ready to leave.  It took a lot of convincing and bribing to get him to stay for the entire movie, and it was definitely a struggle, with that being said.  I definitely loved the movie for me.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is (surprise) the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon.  It is a Dreamworks Animation film.  It is the second in a trilogy with the original coming out in 2010, and the third expected to be released in June of 2016.  It is based off of a book series with the same name by Cressida Cowell. The main character is a boy named Hiccup and his nightfury dragon named Toothless who is from a Viking culture.  This film is 5 years from the original film with the characters now as young adults.  It is quite a site to see Vikings as dragon riders.  At the end of the original film Hiccup helped his Viking village of Berk make peace with dragons.


The voice casts includes the talent of:
 Jay Baruchel as Hiccup (Are You Afraid of the Dark, She's Out of My League, Robocop, Tropic Thunder)
Cate Blanchett as Valka (Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Lord of the Rings, Blue Jasmine, Robin Hood)
Gerard Butler as Stoic (300, Olympus Has Fallen, PS I Love You, Phantom of the Opera, Gamer, Law Abiding Citizen)
Craig Ferguson as Gobber (Brave, Winne the Pooh, Drew Carey Show, The Late Late Show)
America Ferrera As Astrid (Ugly Betty, End of Watch, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Our Family Wedding)
Jonah Hill as Snotlout (21 Jump Street, Superbad, Wolf of Wallstreet, This is the End, Get Him to the Greek)
Christoper Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs (Superbad, Kickass, Role Models, Neighbors, This is the End, Year One)
Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut (Bridesmaids, Despicable Me 2, SNL, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Friends with Kids, Paul)
Djimon Hounsou as Drago (Gladiator, Blood Diamond, Amistad, Constantine, The Island, Push, Eragon, Beauty Shop)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the first Dreamworks Animation film to use scalable multi-core processing, which was developed with HP.  This enabled artists to work in real-time, instead of having to wait 8 hours to see the results of their work.  This was also the first film to use new animation and lighting software throughout the entire production (Premo & Torch).  This allowed subtle improvement to movement and facial features such as the the appearance of skin moving over muscle or fat jiggling.  By the end of production over 500 people had worked on the film at the Dreamworks headquarters in Glendale as well as branch offices in Redwood city and Dreamworks India in Bangalore.


The sequel was written, directed and executive produced by the same man as the original: Dean Deblois (Lilo & Stitch).  he agreed to come back on the condition that it would be a trilogy.  The entire original voice cast returned for the sequel. This film was focused on Norway as the primary location.  Overall the film has received positive critical acclaim, but is thus far unimpressed with it's overall monetary gross of $75 million to date with it currently behind 22 Jump Street in North American sales. 

I thought that this was a really great movie with a high re-watachability rate.  It made me laugh, it made me cry, I did wish for someone else to have voiced Hiccup, but otherwise the picture quality was great and the storyline was great as well with many learning points.  The characters were lovable and seeing the vast amount of different dragons that appear as butterflies was amazing.  I also enjoyed some of the dog aspects adopted in the mannerisms of the dragons.  I love the idea of this story and I think the delivery was good.  I give the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it, especially if your child is about 6 or 7 or older. 

Visit the official website: www.howtotrainyourdragon.com

The Croods

I have been wanting to watch this one since I first saw a preview for it.  Now that it is on netflix, I keep trying to convince Liam to watch it with me.  Finally I forced it upon him.  I can say that I enjoyed it more than he did, but he was ok with it.  He likes the visuals, but I think the moments between action would start to bore him a bit as it was more  of a story and not a musical like some kids movies are. 

In case you also have not seen The Croods, it is a 2013 3-D animated adventure comedy.  It did definitely have some hilarious moments that had me laughing.  The Croods was produced by Dreamworks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox.  The Croods are a cave dwelling prehistoric family that have their world turned upside down with the world starts to shift.  It takes place in a fictional prehistoric time with imaginary creatures.  The man of the cave (Grug) finds his place as leader and security provider threatened when a prehistoric genius gets the family to leave their comfort zone for future safety. His teenage rebel daughter Eep is enamored by Guy (the genius) which makes him even more adverse to the new guys "ideas."






The voice talent of The Croods is as follows:
Nicholas Cage as Grug (National Treasure, Ghost Rider, Lord of War, Windtalkers, Family Man)
Emma Stone as Eep  (The Help, Easy A, Amazing Spiderman, Zombieland, Superbad)
Ryan Reynolds as Guy (Green Lantern, Just Friends, Turbo, Definitely, Maybe; Smokin' Aces)
Catherine Keener as Ugga (40 Year Old Virgin, Captain Phillips, Capote, Death to Smoochy, 8 MM)
Cloris Leachman as Gran (Raising Hope, Beerfest, Malcolm in the Middle, Touched by an Angel)
Clark Duke as Thunk (Hot Tub Time Machine, Two & a Half Men, The Office, Greek, Kick-Ass)

The Croods premiered in the US in March of 2013.  It received mostly positive reviews and was considered a success with earnings of over $587 million on a $135 million budget.  This success caused the movie to launch a sequel that will be released in June in 2017 and a tv show that is already in development stages.  The Croods was the first feature film to be featured in 4DX format featuring strobe lights, tilting seats, blowing wind and fog as well as odor effects in Budapest, Hungary.  The Croods is the second highest grossing Dreamworks Film behind King Fu Panda. It received a lot higher reviews internationally and opened at number one in 54 countries.   It was nominated for many awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Overall I thought this was an excellent movie.  I think that the American crowd prefers the animated features with musicals.  I thought that the story line was great, it even made me cry, and had some great witty humor jokes built in.  I think that older kids and adults would enjoy it a lot more than my toddler did.  I definitely recommend this movie and give it a 4/5 stars. 

The Croods Movie Dreamworks Official Site

Lilo & Stich 2: Stich Has A Glitch

As promised, I am here to review the second movie in the Stitch series.  Although there may be some confusion since technically The Stitch movie was made second, this movie actually falls second in terms of story timeline, so I consider it the second movie in the series.  This movie has been the reigning favorite with my son.  I personally like the first one and The Stitch Movie the best, but this one seems to always get Liam's vote. Luckily they have great repeat watch value as a parent and especially for a toddler which is priceless as any parent well knows. 

We are once again brought into the tropical Hawaiian world of Lilo and her pay Stitch in this movie!  Elvis music reigns supreme but in a good way.  Most notably in this sequel, Stitch no longer tries to hide who.what he is, and he is a much more talkative character in this movie.  Stitch is learning how to fit into a human society and learn how to raise his "goodness level".  We get to see our main character Lilo a young girl aspiring to be a hula dancer and her alien friend Stitch who everyone calls a dog for lack of anything better to call him.  Lilo lives with her older sister Nani (their parents were deceased before the start of the original movie).  The character David is trying to further a relationship with Nani throughout the movie.  Lilo's main focus is to come up with the best Hulu dance ever for a competition so that she can win as her mother did before her.  Stitch is to be her partner in the dance when all of a sudden he starts "glitching."  During his "glitch" moments he is quite destructive and actually semi dangerous to those around him but the normal Stitch which is now good does not know what happens during these times or how to stop it.  His creator Jumba and pal Pleakley are on a mission to try to fix Stitch (they decided to stay on Earth after the end of the first movie).   Social worker Cobra Bubbles was absent from his role in this film.

Lilo & Stitch 2 was released in 2005 (the original was released in 2002).  The add-on "Stitch Has a Glitch" was never associated with the original film in any titling but became commonly associated with the movie and was later added on to the title and in advertising.  This is the only film in the entire franchise where you will hear Lilo with a different voice (Dakota Fanning) due to the scheduling conflicts with the Lilo & Stitch tv show that was also airing at the same time as recording for this show.  Chris Sanders (writer/director) of the first film still did voicing but did not participate in any of the production of this film that was a straight to DVD release after an original theatrical release plan.  It received mixed reviews, with most of the negative responses saying that the story was not as engaging as the original and that the humor had gone from intellectual witty to a much more dumbed down younger sort of humor.  To me there was a bit more of dark undertone to a lot of the humor in the original that I admittedly loved.  But this movie showed a lot more lessons in friendship and love. 

Voice acting remained the same with Dakota Fanning, in place of Daveigh Chase (Donnie Darko), although I must admit that having seen all of the films multiple times now, that it is not a noticeable change by any means.


Lilo is voiced by Dakota Fanning (Man on Fire, Twilight Saga, Push, War of the Worlds, Hounddog)
Stitch is voiced by Chris Sanders who also wrote the screenplay
Nani is voiced by Tia Carrere (Wayne's World)
David (Nani's love interest) is voiced by Jason Scott Lee (Bruce Lee's Dragon)
Jumba (Stitch's creator) is voiced by David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth, MASH)

I give this film 4/5 stars.  Although it is not as great as the original film in my opinion, it still has a lot of great values.  I love that the animation is different that you would usually see, especially for a Disney film.  The characters in their personalities, especially Lilo are very real in the way that she feels about people and school and going through sorrow and anger in a way that is not often faced in young children, especially in cartoon movies.  You can see her growth through her friendship with Stitch.  This movie also will always stand out to me because Liam was able to empathetically connect with this movie in a way that I have never seen him do so with other movies.  Towards the end of the movie Stitch is in a possible dead state and my three year old son actually felt the sadness and the loss and had tears welled up into his eyes.  The love of Lilo is what ultimately feeds Stitches life-force and the loss is short lived and then you are able to rejoice in the happiness, so that for younger children this is not ending on a sad note.  This movie held overall a lot less violence than the other films, and mostly featured inner turmoil and the fact that teaching lessons such as hurting a friend and scratching them can be very hurtful to another person.  You can tell that overall the audience for the film was intended to be younger.  I definitely recommend this movie and to continue in the story line to get the full effect don't miss out on the original Lilo & Stitch.


Here is the official website: Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch

In case you missed my review on the original: Lilo & Stitch you can find it here: Lilo & Stitch

Frozen

This was the first movie that Liam ever saw in the theater.  Grandma was here and insisted on taking Liam to his first movie, and auntie Shayna came along as well.  I was very worried about Liam going to see a movie and actually sitting still through it at his age (he is three in case you don't know).  He actually did remarkably well...  Now as far as the movie selection, the big Disney movie showing at that time was Frozen.  It started off kind of awkward with the new revival initiative of Disney to try to add on snippets of old black and white Mickey cartoons at the beginning of movies.  Now Disney makes a living on mostly children's movies, and in so doing you think they would have picked a bit more of a tasteful excerpt.  Instead we had a cow flashing her udders and someone kidnapping and trying ti simulated take advantage of Minnie Mouse....  Now I didn't have a problem seeing it myself, but I did think that Disney studios have to know the society of parents and children right now and that it probably wasn't the greatest choice to show before a kid's movie....  With that being said let's move on to the actual movie.
Frozen is about two sisters Anna & Elsa.  Elsa is the elder sister and has a magic with ice, winter, snow.  This is something that can be used by evil if anyone were to find out and so her parents force her to hide it from everyone so that no one will ever be hurt, forcing her to look herself away while growing up.  Anna is the littler sister that has no idea why her sister is locking herself away and is spending her life being lonely.  When Elsa accidentally released some of her power on her coronation she runs away leaving Anna to fend for herself.  Anna only wants to find love and to have her sister as a friend, so they set out on a treacherous journey with unlikely allies in an attempt to save her sister and her kingdom.

Voices featured in this movie:
Anna is voiced by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Sarah Marshall, Gossip Girl)
Elsa is voiced by Idina Menzel (Rent, Enchanted, Glee, wife of Taye Diggs)
Kristoff (an unlikely ally) is voiced by Jonathan Goff (Glee)

Frozen is a 3D computer animated musical fantasy comedy movie.  It was released in 2013 and is the 53rd Disney movie to be released.  It is loosely based on the story the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, which may explain why it has a bit of an older feel to it.   So far is has grossed $764 million worldwide and has won several awards.  The awards won include Golden Globe & Critic's Choice for Best Animated Feature as well as Critic's Choice award for Best Original Song for "Let It Go" also sung by Idina Menzel.  Frozen became Fandango's top advance ticket seller among animated features beating out Brave.  It is the 4th highest grossing 2013 film.


Disney has been looking at producing their version of the Snow Queen since the 1940s but had trouble getting the story to a place where they felt that the audience could relate to it.  They had a hard time modernizing it and trying to lighten up an originally dark and seemingly inhumane story.  One main way in which this happened was by making Anna & Elsa sisters.  In the late 1990s Disney picked the story back up and worked on it for almost a decade before it was scrapped again in 2002.  In 2008 a new idea with the film was pitched by director Chris Buck under the title of Anna & the Snow Queen with plans to use traditional animation and portray the Snow Queen as light-hearted as opposed to a villain, but by early 2010, there were again complications with making the story work.  In December of 2011 after the success of Tangled Disney decided to again pick up the story and move forward with 3D and a new development team.  With the character Anna now being written by Chris Buck as the Snow Queen's little sister they were able to show new dimensions in the relationships of the characters while subtracting a lot of the darkness away from the story.  Jennifer Lee (one of the screenwriters from Wreck-It-Ralph) was brought onto the team.  Her work and involvement became so involved and extensive that she ended up being promoted from screenwriter to songwriter and pre-devlopment and was brought up to director alongside Chris Buck.  This was a major accomplishment as in all of these years Jennifer Lee became the first woman to direct a full-length animated motion picture by Walt Disney Animation Studios. 

Frozen had a very nice clear and crisp picture.  It was definitely a musical and seemed like there were more songs than dialogue.  The songs were quite pretty though and easy to sing along.  I did however feel that the theme of the movie was more directed at the tweens-pre-teen age group as opposed to the younger crowd.  There wasn't much for a young child to relate to like there is in some Disney movies.  Liam was definitely enthralled with the snowman Olaf and I myself found Sven the reindeer to be the best character in the movie.  I did notice that with the older theme, that when the sister Anna finds her independence and possibly older, slightly darker stage that her whole appearance changed, her hair was now in a messed braid instead of in a tight orderly braid, and she was wearing a lower cute almost sheer dress, it was definitely showing that becoming darker is sexier and more appealing...  but perhaps I was reading too much into it.  On a positive note it did a great job of showing the independence of women and was the first Disney film to question a woman marrying a man that she just met.  There was the grand theme that true love comes in many forms.  My adult self sees Disney movies in a different light and as a mother knowing how much every little detail is sponged into the minds of youth.  Overall I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.  I would give it 5 stars because it had great songs and great characters, but it seems like there were a lot of holes in the story and if given more time it could have told more about the story instead of just touching upon elements such as Anna's power and the Trolls.

You can visit Disney's Official Site here: Frozen

I suggest not watching this hilarious unnecessarily censored video of excerpts from the movie unless you have seen it already,  It could ruin it for you.

Lilo & Stitch

This is the beginning to a run of 3 other movies that were all definitely watchable on repeat with a toddler.  In time I will review them all, but I can't review the following story without starting at the beginning.  Lilo & Stitch is one of those Disney movies that I somehow missed until I watched it for the first time with Liam.  I must say that I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed the storyline.

Lilo & Stitch is about a Hawaiian girl whose parents have died and she is being raised by her big sister Nani.  She feels very alone in the world and wishes for a friend.  Nani takes her to the pound to get a dog and she ends up adopting Stitch.  Far from a canine, Stitch is actually an alien that is on the run from the law of his own planet and is hiding out as a fugitive on Earth.  He is the creation of an evil scientist who has been sent with an Earth expert to capture him and bring him back in for justice.  There is a larger Elvis presence throughout the film and his impact on Hawaii and Lilo.

Lilo & Stitch was released in June of 2002.  It is the 42nd animated Walt Disney feature.  It was written and directed by Chris Sanders who also wrote all other Lilo movies as well as both Croods movies, How to Train Your Dragon, Mulan I and II, The Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty & the Beast. He also plays the voice of Stitch.  It was nominated for an Academy Award for best Animated Film but did not win. 


There are a lot of famous voices in Lilo & Stitch
Lilo is voiced by Daveigh Chase (Samantha in Donnie Darko and in S. Darko)
Stitch is voiced by Chris Sanders who also wrote the screenplay
Nani is voiced by Tia Carrere (Wayne's World)
David (Nani's love interest) is voiced by Jason Scott Lee (Bruce Lee's Dragon)
Cobra Bubbles (Social Worker) is voiced by Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible series)
Jumba (Stitch's creator) is voiced by David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth, MASH)

Chis Sanders (the writer and director) had originally created the story about Stitch in 1985 for an unsuccessful children's story pitch.   The storyline required a remote non-urban location and was originally going to take place in Kansas.  Deciding to change the location to the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i was a major decision, as no Disney movies had previously taken place in Hawaii.  Dean Deblois cowrote with Sanders ad he had done with Mulan previously. Disney wanted to keep this low-budget so everything remained pretty small until final production which lead the set and character designs to Sander's own personal style.  On location research the tour guide for Kaua'i explained the meaning of the word "ohana" in regards to family.  This ended up becoming a major concept for the movie.  Tia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee (Both raised in Hawaii assisted in rewriting the script to show true Hawaiian dialect and colloquialism).

Sanders chose to use watercolor backgrounds that had been long abandoned by most Disney films at the time.  They were used in films such as Dumbo and Snow White.  This was to flow with the story and with Sanders unique artwork.  He wanted the artists to be more in tune with their medium.  As you may notice the people in Lilo & Stitch are portrayed vastly different from people in any other Disney Animation.  The body shape especially with the extra long legs and the torsos always stood out as different to me, and now I know why.  Sanders also wanted the extra terrestrial objects to be similar to marine life.

Deleted Scenes include a major change int he original story where Stitch was an intergalactic gang leader and Jumba was one of his followers but that changed to Jumba being Stitches creator.   Also at the end Stitch originally flew a Boeing 747 to rescue Lilo but after the September 11th attacks this was changed to have Stitch flying a spaceship instead. 

Lilo & Stitch opened at #2 less than $500,000 behind Minority Report with $35 million.  Overall finishing with $273 million worldwide. 

Overall I find that this is a wonderful story and possesses a lot of great elements and lessons that don't always exist in Disney movies and can be hard to get the message across including death of parents, being raised by your sister, Social Workers, aliens, depression, bullying, etc.  I give it 5 stars out of 5 and highly recommend it to anyone.  Check it out if you missed out on it like I did and revisit it if it has been awhile.

The official Disney site: Lilo & Stitch

WALL-E

I was sure that I had already done a review on this awesome movie, but it looks like it got missed somehow.  I introduced Liam to it about 6 months or so ago and he loved it so much that I finally bought it for him.  It is a great story with a very intense message that revolves around a robot named WALL-E and his robot love interest EVE (WALL-E calls her Eva).

WALL-E Was released in June of 2008 by Pixar studios and is considered a CGI romantic comedy.  WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth-Class) Is a robot that was created to help clean up the trash on Earth in the future (2805) when Earth has become covered and uninhabitable.  He falls in love with a robot that is brought down to Earth named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).  When she is taken by a spaceship back out into space he follows her on an adventure that will change the destiny of robots and humans alive.

WALL-E grossed over $63 million in it's opening weekend ranking it 5th in the Pixar movie releases.  However it took over in the award wins and got excellent reviews all around.  2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Film, 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation the final Nebula Award for Best Script the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Film as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards. WALL-E ranks first in TIME's "Best Movies of the Decade".

The film was seen as a critique on larger societal issues. It addresses consumerism, nostalgia, environmental problems, waste management, the immense impact humans have on the Earth, and the direction in which the human race is headed.

In my research as to the making of WALL-E because I like to include some of the background in my reviews it was so extensive that I was blown away.  WALL-E was originally worked on in 1995 after Toy Story was completed but it wasn't until 2002 that it was really picked up again.  Originally it was to have a lot darker tone and aliens would have sent EVE to Earth instead of humans.  There was originally no happy ending and I have to say that I like what they ended up going with a lot better than the many concepts.  Most Pixar movies require abotu 75K story boards, whereas WALL-E took over 125K to give you an idea. There was extensive thought to go into the lighting and the colors that were to be used. 

Suffice it to say this movie required a lot of work, and the hard work paid off phenomenally.  This movie stood out spectacularly with a very limited amount of speaking, but it was not needed to get the point across. The visuals and the communication of the robots was done brilliantly and my son loves the movie and can connect with it.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it to anyone.  Somehow you find yourself lost in the robtos and rooting for WALL-E and wanting him to get the girl and have his true love. 









Here is the official Disney site: WALL-E

Oliver & Company

I always loved Oliver & Company as I was growing up.  With Liam's continued request to watch Bolt again and his love of dogs and cats I was sure that he would love this movie.  Unfortunately from the very beginning he was seriously not feeling this movie.  He kept begging me to change it and he did not feel very engaged by it at all.  In his defense it wasn't as good as I had remembered.  There was a serious lack of action in terms of current Disney movies.  The coloring and backgrounds were not as bright or interactive as most movies are now and it had the older animation.  The story was more adult-based themes rather than something that Liam could really get into and was over his head.  I of course still watched the entire thing and was happy that I had.  I was sad that it wasn't as awesome as I had remembered, but it was still good and worth watching.  Still had some catchy tunes with  a great voice staff, a few cameos and  of course the voice talent of the late Dom Deluise making you want to go back to Itchy in All Dog's go to Heaven and Tiger in An American Tale and Jeremy in the Secret of NIMH and Stanly from A Troll in Central Park.....

Olive & Company is loosely based on the story of Oliver Twist.  Oliver is a kitten and gets in with a gang of dogs, led by Dodger who are owned by a down on his luck guy named Fagin.  Fagin borrowed money from a thug (possible mafia ties) who is wanting his money back in 3 days.  The gang goes out to hustle for some money for their owner when the come across a limo with a little girl inside named Jenni who takes Oliver home with her.

Oliver is an orange tabby kitten voiced by Joey Lawrence.
Dodger is a apparently supposed to be a Jack Russell Terrier, which I did not know until I looked this up.  If that is true, he is drawn disproportionately with the rest of the characters as he should be much smaller than he is in comparison with the other dogs.  He is voiced by Billy Joel
Tito is a ballsy Chihuahua voiced by Cheech Marin
Rita is a Saluki, and Dodger's love interest voiced by Sheryl Lee Ralph
Fagin is the owner of the dog gang and voiced by Dom Deluise
Georgette is a prizewinning show Poodle and is voiced by Better Midler

Oliver & Company was released in 1988 as Disney's 27th animated film.  The working title of the film was Oliver & the Dodger.  At a certain point this film was being tailored as a sequel to The Rescuers.   This was the first Disney film to make heavy use of computer animation.  CGI (computer generated imagery) was used for skyscrapers, cars, trains, the chase scene with Fagin's scooter.  This film signified the first time the Disney had created an actual department dedicated just to computer animation. 

Oliver & Company was Disney's test film back into the musical venue that they had steered away from since 1981 with the Fox & the Hound (somehow I don't recall the Fox & the Hound being much of a musical).  Although after watching Frozen, I think that Disney may have gone too far into the musical scene and lost actual speaking to tell a story ;)  After the success of this film at the box office, Disney created all of it's films as musicals for the next decade (ironically only excluding The Rescuers Down Under). 

This movie was also a test for new sound effects that would regularly be used by Disney studios, the next movie to attempt a plethora of new sound effects was The Little Mermaid in 1989.  It was also the first animated film to include real-world advertised products.  Such as, Coca-Cola, USA Today, Ryder and Sony.  Reportedly this was merely for realism and the mass amount of advertising in NYC that would have made NYC unbelievable without advertising and was not product placement. 

Cameo appearances are made in the beginning of the film when after recently watching the Lady & the Tramp I thought for sure I had seen some familiar faces and was just losing my mind.  When in fact there is a cameo appearance from Peg, Jock & Trusty as well as an appearance from Pongo from 101 Dalmatians. 

Oliver & Company was released on the exact same day as The Land Before Time which was released by Don Bluth (a Disney expatriate).  I am sure there was some drama going on behind the scenes with that one.  The box office success of the movie lead Disney to make plans to release at least one movie annually from then on.  The only years thus far this has not happened were 1993 and 2006.  It also started the partnership with McDonald's and joint licensing and product promotion with christmas musical ornaments of Oliver & Dodger.  Despite box office success it got mixed to low reviews at best.

My final review on this movie is a 3.9.  I still love it from when I was a kid but it can't quite push itself over to a 4.  I still love the Why Should I Worry (main theme song sung by Billy Joel) and am happy that I got to see it again. 

*If you watch closely you can see Pongo's cameo

If you want to see the Disney Link go to Oliver & Company

Megamind

Liam and I finally got around to watching Megamind today.  I know I know, I am WAY behind the times again.  I have to say that it was pretty good.  Not eh best Pixar movie ever.  There was a lot of jumping around going on.  It wasn't bad though and definitely worth watching if you have never seen it before.  It lost Liam's attention after about 45 minutes and he wasn't interested in it much the rest of the way through.  I did watch it to the end to get the full story and it did have a good ending.  I think my expectations were too high because of what I had heard other people say about the movie. 

Megamind is about a super-villain that was basically pushedamerican pretty boy looking Metro Man the hero.  Megamind is supposed to be "super intelligent" but he didn't seem to have any real original ideas and was considered a joke by the people.  He ends up finally getting a plan to work that kills Metro Man.  Now he can take over Metro City and he grows bored without anyone to fight. So he goes about creating a new super hero with which to fight.  The first half of the story lacked much originality but then it did develop into a better story for me.  For a child, it could be hard to track the frequency with which Megamind is changing what his appearance and demeanor is when pretending to be other people.  

into the villain lifestyle due to life circumstance while his nemesis is all-

There are a lot of great people behind the voices with Megamind being voiced by Will Farrell.  The love interest reporter Roxanne is voiced by Tina Fey.  Metro Man is voiced by Brad Pitt.  You will also find Jonah Hill, David Cross, and Ben Stiller.   I did like the fact that Megamind liked 80s rock to fight to haha.

Ben Stiller was originally cast as Megamind and then Robert Downey, Jr.  However there were scheduling conflicts and ultimately the role went to Will Farrell who I think did a good job with the character.

Overall I give this movie a 3.5/5 stars because it could have been a LOT funnier which such an all-star comedic cast.  

You can view the official website at: www.megamind.com

Bolt

I was so pleased that Liam seemed to love one of my top favorite Disney movies just as much as I did.  The last five days have had us watching this movie at least 8 times now haha.  You know it's good when you can still sit down and continue to enjoy it that many times in a row.  In case you have been missing out on this truly awesome Disney adventure or in case you need to revisit it, let me tell you what the story is about.

Bolt is a Disney movie that revolves around a dog named Bolt that is an action/sci-fi star for a tv show.  He is the protector of a teenage girl (his human) named Penny and has been altered to have powers such as super bark, super strength and heat vision.  His entire life he has been led to believe that he truly has all of these powers, and the tv sets are set up so that he can never know that it is all just a show.  When the show ratings start to drop, they decided to leave a cliff hanger episode that ends with Penny getting kidnapped and Bolt has not saved her at the end of the episode like he used to doing for years.  This makes him go on an adventure to try to rescue her when he thinks she is in danger.  He accidentally ends up instead across the country in New York and must make his way back to Hollywood to Penny, all the way he truly believes that he has the super powers from the show and ends up on a cross country voyage with an alley cat and a true believe fan hamster as they try to save Penny.

 This movie is just amazing!  I love everything about it.  The elements of the show.  How much thought went into the entire thing.  The way that the characters all play off of one another and work together in this show.  I think this is one of the top genius shows that Disney has put out. 

Bolt was originally released in 2008 as the 48th animated film by Disney.  Bolt is voiced by John Travolta, and Penny by Miley Cyrus.  It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film but ended up losing out to Wall-E.  What a great year for animated films. 

At first, the film was going to be titled American Dog, the story of a dog named Henry, a famous TV star, who one day finds himself stranded in the Nevada desert with a testy, one-eyed cat and an oversized, radioactive rabbit who are themselves searching for new homes, all the while believing he is still on television.  However once reviewed it was decided that some changes need to take place, the original director was removed and the new directors were given just 18 months to complete the Bolt which we see today.  Normally computer animated films are slotted with 4 years to create, so 18 months is quite a feat and to have such an amazing result, I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with the result.  It opened up at the box office in the 3rd position behind Twilight and Quantum of Solace.  It grossed a worldwide total of $309,979,994.

The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh

I know I watched and loved Winnie The Pooh as a child and it has been so great to share it with Liam and watch him become completely attached to it.  So haven't watched it multiple times recently I decided to do a review on it.

I was very surprised by how old it was and how relevant and recent it still seems when you watch it.  Netflix informed me that I was way off base and that it was actually released in 1977.  How crazy that it can still be so timeless and wonderful.  Having loved this for as long as I can remember I always love Tigger, but it was Eeyore that really stole my heart and in high school and right after I started collecting Eeyore's each time I went to a Disney Store.  Unfortunately I have lost some of the most awesome special edition ones in moves :(  But I still love Eeyore all the same and will buy one if I find any different than I already own.  Liam has also taken to loving the many wonderful characters of the movie.

Liam especially loves the songs, most notably "I'm Just a Little Black Raincloud."  I catch him around the house and in the car saying "Tutt Tutt Looks Like Rain."  This movie is great for little attention spans because it is really just a compilation of shorts linked together to create the movie.  The topic changes help keep smaller people more interested throughout the entirety of the film.  I love the way that the story is a part of a book at times :)

The characters are wonderful and loveable-even if they have been linked to the faults of man in each character, which only a negative person would look for in the film.  Although the timeless question of whether Eeyore is a boy or a girl with the pink bow on his tail, is definitively answered, at least in this movie with a deep many voice for him, leaving no other option. I love that Pooh sings a song about being "short fat, and proud of that."

The songs are catchy, there are Heffalumps & Woozles, many lessons about friendship and sharing.  Overall I definitely recommend this movie with 5 stars.  Don't miss this, due to it's age especially if you have children of your own now.  They are sure to love it, just as much if not more than you did as a child.  If you ever missed out on this 1970's classic, be sure to add it to your repertoire.  It is definitely worth the time to sit down and watch it! 

Here is a link to the official site: Winnie The Pooh: Disney

Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey Review

I figured that with all of the times that I have seen this recently that I could write a review on it.  In case you don't already know, Curious George is one of Liam's favorite things to watch of all time.  So I was happy when I found it on Netflix, George AND an elephant.  Win Win right?  Or so I thought....  Little did I know that Liam would want to wake up and watch this movie come home and watch this movie and try to watch it before bedtime.

In case you don't know anything about Curious George, he is a monkey that is owned by "The Man in the Yellow Hat."  You never really know what this man does or what his name is in the tv show.  He looks like he could possible work at a zoo or lead safaris.  However in the movie you are told he is up for a job of museum director and that his name is Ted.  I didn't like how far from the show this movie went in regards to changes from the show.  "Ted" is never once called the man in the yellow hat.  Also his job doesn't seem to mesh with his background.

Returning to the background of Curious George.  George equates to about a 7 or 8 year old child in my mind as a monkey.  And he is left to his own devices quite often.  His curiosity gets him into trouble, but also helps him to learn valuable lessons.

Up to his regular tricks in the movie George goes to the circus and an Elephant is performing tricks but messes up and George wants to cheer him up and takes him home with him.  This leads to the Elephant being reported as kidnapped an a chase across the country to get her back.

If I had never seen the show before I would think that this was a great cute kids movie.  However I have, and with that being said I have many issues with this movie!  For instance, what happened to Professor Wiseman?  You never really know for sure if she is "Ted's" love interest, but she seems to be, and now there is some blonde chic that works for him names Maggie that is into him...  Ok what about Ted as a name?  It is just weird and doesn't sound right at all.  And then let's get to the apartment, How can you get rid of the doorman and Hundley the Dachshund that is one of George's friend's?   Those are the main things that really irked me.  But over all the movie was good.  If they could have stopped saying "Ted" all the time, I think it would have sat better with me.  However Liam didn't seem to notice or complain as long as George was involved and so he loves it all the same.

George is a great tool for learning, always using Science and Math.  So even with my issues with the movie, I still recommend it as a good clean safe kids movie.

Alice in Wonderland Review

Last night I watched Alice in Wonderland the 1951 Disney version with Liam for the his first time.  He was really into all of the different songs and noises and interesting characters.  I had the general sense as a mother at how much darker and different children's movies were in the 1950s than they are now.  I wasn't sure if it was good to have my son see the part that always bothered me with the Walrus and the Carpenter leading the oyster babies into the house and gaining their trust and than eating them.  It always bothered me and despite all of the craziness within the movie, it seemed like the most messed up part to me.  However I am also aware that my son is young and may not grasp this, but we did call the Walrus a bad man and talk about the oyster's being sad and going bye bye.  The movie score was actually not bad and definitely fit in well with the movie.

I have always thought that Alice in Wonderland really looked a lot of the dark personas and the character flaws of society by putting them into each of the characters, we see forgetfulness and time management issues, lack of responsibility, vanity, liar, etc.  Of course becoming older and becoming a parent makes you look at movies (especially kid's movies) in a whole other light.
Alice in Wonderland is based off of the Novels "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carrol.  I have always wanted to read these books, and definitely need to add them onto my list of classics to acquire.

I found a lot of VERY interesting information about the Disney version of the story when I was researching it for example that parts of this film were created as early as 1923 when Walk Disney was merely 21 years old and was working for a different movie studio.  Before finishing the short comedy series the studio was closed and Walt Disney went on to use the adapted short film as a sort of pilot to show to new prospective distributes.  The Alice's comedies series was on air from 1924-1927.  Now remember the movie version wasn't actually released for another 24 years after that.
In 1932 Walt was toying with the idea of making Alice into a feature length film but ended up turning his priorities to Snow White & the Seven Dwarves instead.  However Lewis Carrol's books still resonated with him as he made the Mickey Film "Through the Looking Glass" in 1936.  (Still 15 years before the film came out).
 In 1938 Walt officially registered the title of "Alice in Wonderland" and started working on it, but did not like the dark and grotesqueness of the script and the way that the animation was turning out.  This was also during the economic devastation of WWII and Walt decided to shelve Alice and created instead the films Pinocchio, Fantasia & Bambi.

In 1945, after the war had ended Walt decided to revive Alice but found that the scrip had taken on too literal of a translation of the book.  He had it changed to focus on comedy, music and the whimsical side of the book.  It almost became a live-action animated version but ended up all animated due to the difficulty of doing justice to the book.
Alice did not do well and was one of Disney's lowest grossing films.  British critics felt that Walt Americanized the story and ruined it and Walt felt the film failed because the character of Alice had no heart.  It was the 13th film released by Disney.

 Another interesting fact was that Alice was voiced by Kathryne Beaumont who later went on to voice Wendy Darling in Peter Pan. 
So what is the story of Alice in Wonderland?  Loosely it is a dreamland created by Alice in which nothing is at is seems and everything is as it is not.  Alice falls asleep and ends up in this psychedelic dreamland, where flowers talk and she is about tall, although sometimes growing and shrinking due to mushroom, pill and liquid substance use.  She is constantly chasing the white rabbit who she sees to lead her into the world, and she meets lots of interesting characters.  In the end it was all a dream. 

FernGully: The Last Rainforest

FernGully was always one of my favorite movies as a kid!  It was released in 1992.   It had fairies and animals that talk and magic, and evil humans and evil pollution.  Definitely a "save the trees" kind of movie.  However, as a child themes like saving the trees weren't as apparent.  I have introduced Liam to FernGully and although he wasn't as in love with it as I was a child, he was willing to put up with the entire movie before switching back over to Fireman Sam.  It has a great soundtrack and great voice actors.

FernGully is an Australian-American movie based on a book with the same name by Diana Young.  I have admittedly never read the book, but definitely would like to go do so sometime in the future.  The story is about a girl coming into her magic as a fairy named Christa.  The fairies live in the rainforest and believe that humans are long dead and only "fairy tales."  She is a very curious fairy and goes exploring when she bravely goes above the canopy and sees smoke in the distance.  She goes to investigate and finds a group of loggers that are chopping down trees.  Having never seen humans before she is enthralled and finds herself in danger needing to use her "not quite yet mastered" magic skills and ends up shrinking one of them to her size.  This human is named Zak and she takes him back to FernGully to meet her master instructor "Magu Lu."  That's where the trouble begins as the fairies find themselves in a fight to save the rain forest from being destroyed.

As I said before there is an all-star voice cast to include:
Robin Williams
Christian Slater
Cheech & Chong
Tone Loc
Tim Curry
Samantha Mathis

The soundtrack was pretty great as well.  I would definitely recommend this movie.  It will capture you into the magic of the rainforest.  And it may make you look at the movies Avatar and Epic in new light.  :)






*Robin Williams does a rap in this movie :)  Definitely don't want to miss out on that.

There was a sequel created that I have not yet seen.  I get a little skittish around sequels that come out long after the original film was released.  It was called FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue.  This was released in 1998 and did not have any of the returning voices from the original.