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

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

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

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.