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

Monster's University

I have been wanting to see Monster's University since I first heard that they were making it.  I was definitely more excited to watch it than Liam (my 3 year old son) was.  He is never too keen on watching new things until you convince him to give it a try.  I definitely enjoyed the movie although it seemed almost more geared towards adults than children.  I would have liked to have seen more of little Mikey and added some of little Sully.  But as always there were some great lessons to be learned for older kids.

In case you know nothing about Monster's University it is a 2013 Computer animated 3D comedy children's film.  It is the prequel to the 2001 movie Monster's Inc.  It is the first prequel that Pixar has created to date and was their 14th full-length film.  This returns to our two friends Mike & Sully before they met when they were both studying at Monster's University to become the top scarers.  They start the movie out as rivals. 

It was produced by Pixar and released by Disney.  Disney had plans to make a sequel to Monster's Inc since 2005 but due to disagreements with Pixar, they tasked their Circle 7 Animation studio to make it.  An early draft of the film was worked on but with the purchase of Pixar by Disney in 2006 it put that film away.  A Pixar made sequel was confirmed in 2010, but they decided on making a Prequel instead in 2011.  Overall the film received positive reviews and was a box office success grossing $743 million against a $200 million budget.  The original sequel was set to come out in early November 2012 but had to be preponed due to coinciding with The Twilight Saga-Breaking Dawn Part 2.  One a prequel was decided on, it pushed everything back to 2013.




Monster's University features a wonderful voice acting cast to include:
Micheal "Mike" Wazowski-Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally, Analyze This, City Slickers)
James P. Sullivan "Sully"-John Goodman (Roseanne, Argo, Community, Saturday Night Live)
Randall "Randy" Boggs-Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, ConAir, Boardwalk Empire, 30 Rock)
Dean Hardscrabble-Helen Mirren (Red, The Queen, State of Play, Teaching Mrs. Tingle)
Done-Joel Murray (Mad Men, Two and a Half Men, Shameless, Dharma & Greg, Still Standing)
Terri-Sean Hayes (Will & Grace, Sean Saves the World)
Terry-Dave Foley (Hot in Cleavland, Dan Vs, How to Be A Gentleman, Will & Grace)
Art-Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses, Pacific Rim, Third Watch)

Overall I have to say that this was a good standalone film.  When you compare it with it's predecessor Monster's Inc. which was such a phenomenal movie this one falls short of a 5 star rating.  I round it up to a 4 star because it is still good and fun to watch, but could have been better.  There were many great elements in the movie and Mike & Sully stayed in character.  I felt like almost every scene I had watched in previews was not featured in the actual movie such as Mike being turned into a disco ball by Sully.  It seems that the previews painted Sully out to be more of a bully to Mike than he was in the finished product and I am ok with that result but it always sucks when you are watching for certain parts and never seen them.  This film introduced a lot of fun new characters that brought a whole new element of "scary" to the monsters.  It did have a slightly darker tone than the original movie.  Once we got it started my son was definitely into it from the start and there are some great lessons on friendship and cheating and being excelling at what makes you unique.  I would definitely recommend this movie and would watch it again.

Here is the official website: monstersuniversity.com/edu/

Oz: The Great & Powerful

Having wanted to see this one for quite some time, I was very happy to finally find the time to watch it last night.  I am a huge James Franco fan and it had some other fantastic actresses and voice actors as well.  The cinematography/CGI was beautifully done and I give the highest of honors to it.  The movie started out so beautifully and when OZ gets to Oz initially you feel like he may have made a wrong turn and ended up in Wonderland...  Unfortunately by the time he gets to the Emerald City things start to get weird.

Oz The Great and Powerful is about the Tale of Oz from the Wizard's point of view and is a prequel to he Wizard of Oz, and Return to Oz.  It was released in 2013 and directed by Sam Raimi.  The film is based on the Oz novels of L. Frank Baum and is supposed to be set at a time-frame 20 years previous to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.  Oscar Diggs (otherwise known as Oz) is a struggling traveling magician who arrives in the Land of Oz in a similar fashion as Dorothy (by way of tornado) while riding in a hot air balloon.  Oscar finds himself recruited to restore order to Oz and in the middle of a three-way fight with powerful witches Theodora, Evanora & Glinda.

Despite mixed reviews it was considered a box office success with a general theatrical release date of March 8, 2013.  It grossed $493 million worldwide, $234 million in the US & Canada.  Oz is supposed to be dated in teh year 1905 (placing it 20 years before the original film The Wizard of Oz).

There are quite a few instances of paying homage to the original film in this one.  Such as the starting out of the film in Sepia and then fading into color once Oscar arrives in Oz.  Cameo appearances of characters in Kansas that are also characters in Oz.  Annie (when in Kansas) informs Oscar that she has been proposed to by a man name John Gale...  Possible relation to Dorothy Gale.  The rest you will have to view for yourself as they may present themselves as spoilers if you do not know the story.



There is quite an all-star cast in this movie as well to include

Oscar Diggs/Wizard of Oz: James Franco (Spider-Man franchise, 127 Hours, General Hospital)
Theodora: Mila Kunis (That 70s Show, Black Swan, Family Guy, Ted, Friends With Benefits)
Evanora: Rachel Weisz (Mummy franchise, Constantine, Constant Gardener, Agora)
Glina/Annie: Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn, Shutter Island, Dawson's Creek)
Frank/Finley: Zach Braff (Scrubs, The Last Kiss, Garden State, Chicken Little)
Also featuring Bill Cobbs, Joey King and Tony Cox)

The original Wizard of Oz was put out by MGM in 1939 as they had bought the rights to it first.  Walt Disney had always dreamed of working on an Oz film and later acquired rights to the remaining books of Oz, which lead him to start working on  The Rainbow Road to Oz with his Mousketeers.  Unfortunately he didn't like the way that it was going and didn't feel that it was worth of the Oz story and it wasn't until after his death that Return to Oz was released becoming a cult classic.

Initially Robert Downey, Jr was sought after as the role of Oz but once Sam Raimi was hired on and discovered the disinterest in the film by Downey they decided to look to Johnny Depp.  Depp declined due to his working on the Lone Ranger at the time and it wasn't until 5 months before filming began that James Franco was signed on for a 7 million dollar deal.  Franco & Raimi had previously worked together on the Spiderman franchise.  Art Director Robert Stromberg (Avatar, Alice in Wonderland) went with an art deco approach to the emerald city.  (This explains why the opening feels like Wonderland).  There were many artistic stipulation placed on this production to include the ruby slippers, the color of green of the original witches skin as well as the mole on her chin,  and they could not use a yellow brick swirl for Munchkinland.  This led to the green of the wicked witch being significantly darker, it has a special name but it could be a spoiler.

On March 7th, 2013, a sequel was confirmed.  Mila Kunis stated that all acting talent had already signed on for a sequel.  Sam Raimi was already made it known that a sequel would be directed by someone other than himself.  The sequel would reportedly NOT contain Dorothy and it was stated that 20 years between the prequel and the original allow for a lot to happen.

Overall I have to say that I give this film 3.5 out of 5 stars.  It was good, but not fantastic.  As I previously stated, it started out SO well with the lead up to Oz and then things started to get weird, there was a weird kind of love triangle interest int he beginning of meeting both witch sisters which was kind of left hanging in the air.  The movement of the witches was very irritating to me during battles, they were very jerky and much too fast and strange feeling.  Glinda didn't have the feel of being as good as you wanted her to be, I felt like she was more on par with the Wicked Glinda which was ok, but not expected.  Overall the story was really good when it flowed consistently, with the background of how the Wicked Witch came to be and with the Wizard of Oz.  However there were some seriously choppy parts that felt like things had been cut or taken out and then never smoothed over to make the movie flow as one.  I loved the use of the brain as opposed to magic and the belief in something to make something come to pass.  I also loved the costuming in the movies, some very awesome takes on witchy dresses and Oscar look svery dapper throughout in his suits.  It was a great backdrop as to how the Wizard became what we saw in the Wizard of Oz.  The scenes were very beautiful but the weird jerkiness and some of the witch battles that had some really tacky feeling CGI as well as choppy parts leave me with a 3.5 for this movie.  If you are a lover of Oz though it is definitely worth the watch...  but maybe not more than once.

If you would like to view the movie website you can go here: Oz The Great and Powerful

The Mighty Ducks

This used to be one of my all-time favorite movies as a child!  I had a huge crush on Joshua Jackson (Charlie) back then and I LOVED hockey!  There were a lot of hockey/figure skating movies that came out during my childhood and with the winter Olympics here, it reminds me of how I used to religiously watch all the time.  It was great to receive this great trip down memory lane on this snowy day.  Unfortunately this movie was a bit old for Liam and although I tried to watch it with him a couple of times, it kept getting ejected for things like Rugrats, Curious George, and Rio.  In his defense it is about Pee-Wee Hockey and a little above a 3 year old's head.

In case you missed sharing the Mighty Ducks at the height of it's fame in 1992 when it was released by Walt Disney Studios, let me tell you a bit about it.  It is an American sports comedy film directed by Stephen Herek (101 Dalmations).  It stars Emilio Estevez as a former pee-wee hockey star turned lawyer, who finds himself forced to coach for community service.  The team he is given consists of a cluster of a group of kids that have not yet learned how to work together.  The team includes younger versions of stars who made it big later in life, most notably Charlie who is played by Joshua Jackson.

The Mighty Ducks grossed over $50 million, making it a surprising success with audiences and spawning the beginning of a trilogy and also a spin-off tv show.  Critically this movie was a bomb, but the audiences loved it causing it to continue on into the trilogy with D2 & D3 coming out every 2 years respectively (1994, 1996).  The movie went on to inspire a real-life hockey team owned by Disney to be named after it in 1993, which when sold by Disney was renamed the Anaheim Ducks.






Stars you can find in the movie:
Gordon Bombay (the coach) played by Emilio Estevez (The Breakfast Club, Young Guns, St Elmo's Fire, The Outsiders, Bobby, etc)
Hans (Gordon's mentor) played by Joss Ackland (Kid in King Arthur's Court, Hunt For Red October)
Coach Jack Riley played by Lane Smith (Lois & Clark the New Adventures of Superman)
Charlie Conway played by Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek, The Skulls, Fringe)
Fulton Reed played by Elden Henson*aka Ratliff* (Butterfly Effect, Deja Vu, Lords of Dogtown)
Dave Karp played by Aaron Schwartz (Gossip Girl)
Connie Moreau played by Marguerite Moreau (Grey's Anatomy, Shameless, Parenthood)

The overall movie is about an underdog team!  And I loved it as a child!  Watching it as an adult was still great!  I give it a 4 out of 5 stars.  I do remember that the story gets better and will haev to revisit the rest of the trilogy as there were some holes in this script, and it had a rocky started but it pulled through and ended strong.  I definitely recommend watching it.   I would think kids age 10 and up would definitely be a great audience for it, and even younger if you child is into Hockey!  Also revisit the young Joshua Jackson and what really put him on the map!





Unfortunately there is no really good trailer that I can find so you can check out both of these videos to get an idea of whether or not you would be interested in this movie:

Here is the Disney Wiki Page *Caution it does contain spoilers: The_Mighty_Ducks

Disney's Robin Hood

It has been many years since I last watched Disney's version on Robin Hood.  I must admit that I was very excited when I saw that it had been added onto Netflix's instant watch.  This is the Disney version of Robin Hood as told my animals.

  It was released by Disney in 1973.  It was the 21st animated feature to be released by Disney.  The film is narrated by a singing rooster telling about the story of Robin Hood and Little John and the Sherwood Forest.  It was finished after Walt's death and was as such the first film to be continued on without him. 
Originally Disney considered doing a movie abotu Reynard the fox but there were concerns about whether or not he would be a suitable hero.  Reynard was a trickster fox from European folklore that was based primarily around satirical stories....  Using anthropomorphic tales (animals instead of people) which was probably the base inspiration for anthropomorphic telling of Robin Hood, using a similar casting of a wolf and a lion against the fox.

As the film was made during Disney's financial slump following the completion of Phase One of the Florida Project and therefore allotted a small budget, the artists reused footage from previous animated features. This is most noticeable during the song-and-dance number, "The Phone King of England"; the characters' movements strongly resemble those from The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Snow With

In particular, the section where Little John and Lady Kluck dance together mirrors part of the song "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book with Baloo and  king Louie respectively, and Robin Hood and Maid Marian mirror the dancing movements of Thomas O'Malley and Duchess during the song "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat" from The Aristocats (from which some of the musicians also mirror the movements of Scat Cat and his gang) and Maid Marian mirror dancing the movements of Snow White during the song "The Silly Song".  The animation of Little John, the bear in Robin Hood, is nearly identical to that of Baloo but Little John more closely resembles a brown or grizzly bear (Baloo was based on an Indian Sloth Bear). At one point, one of the elephants who acts as heralds for Prince John attempts to trumpet a warning. Lady Kluck grabs the trunk, preventing the trumpeting and leaving the elephant flapping his ears ineffectually.The movie also reuses the same animated shots several times, including those of the rhinos walking and running and those of Sis, Tagalong and Toby laughing. Several animated clips of the Sheriff of Nottingham are also recycled at different points in the film.

At the time of it's release it was received with mixed reviews, overall consensus being that it was on par with The Jungle Book, but could not touch some of Disney's greats.

I have to say that although this was definitely NOT Disney's finest work.  I still love it all the same.  I have always loved the story of Robin Hood and I always loved it being told in a an anthropomorphic way.  I think that the songs are catchy and generally fun for the time being.  It had a good ol' Disney Love song, that was actually reused in the "The Fantastix Mr. Fox."
Liam was definitely into it.  It would be in the top half of his attention getting movies, but wasn't the best one yet.

With that being said, it is definitely worth watching and fun to relive.  I give it 4 out of 5 stars.  I love what it had to offer for the 70s.  Enjoy.

To Visit Disney's website dedicated to Robin Hood go to: Disney Robin Hood