Ralph Mirrors My Past

You know, I'll be brutally honest here... There are days where I question my love for Disney. Now don't be alarmed, I'll always love Walt Disney's work - from the majority of his animated features to his television show to his best live-action movies to Disneyland itself - and it'll always be a pivotal part …

‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – An Animation Thesis

Quite timely... My fifth pick for my "Animation Thesis" review series is a film that's unique in that it can be both a Halloween movie and a Christmas movie... The motion picture is none other than The Nightmare Before Christmas. Released in the autumn of 1993 from Walt Disney Pictures through their "adult" Touchstone Pictures label, The …

‘Yellow Submarine’ – An Animation Thesis

Fifty years ago, feature animation and popular music came together, and created something glorious. My next pick for "Animation Thesis" is, unlike the three films before it, something that the House of Mouse was never involved with in any way... Yet, the House of Mouse considering doing a remake of it at one point in …

Marvel Hyperbole

Apparently Thor: Ragnarok is peak Marvel Cinematic Universe. I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it very much, but to me, it was hardly the greatest Marvel Studios film of all time. Apparently Thor: Ragnarok is the rare fun and breezy Marvel film, and fun and breezy film in general. Was I sleeping for three years? …

‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ – An Animation Thesis…

My next pick for animation thesis isn't an all-animated film, but it contains a lot of animation... Pure animation, too. Not VFX trickery and lifelike creations. Who Framed Roger Rabbit... A Walt Disney Pictures/Amblin Entertainment film released under Disney's Touchstone banner, spearheaded by Back to the Future trilogy director Robert Zemeckis and executive producer Steven Spielberg, …

The Odd Parallels Between Disney’s Animation and The Beach Boys…

Maybe I'm totally reaching with this, but I'm gonna go for it... Disney Animation and The Beach Boys are very similar to each other... Like, really similar. Both are American, both have hailed from California, and both are as iconic as baseball, apple pie, and the red, white, and blue. Both also are more than …

‘The Thief and the Cobbler’ – Another Animation Thesis

Weeks back, I wrote about how Walt Disney's 75-year-old animated feature film Bambi not only holds up, but is an animation thesis that argues why animation is an incredible medium. Some of animation's most special qualities are rather ignored today in the world of American mainstream animation, as we are pelted year after year with …

‘Bambi’: An Animation Thesis, 75 Years Later…

A nice little break from the more personal stuff and ramblings, I wanted to talk about Walt Disney's Bambi... Yesterday, August 9th, marked the 75th Anniversary of the film's world premiere in London, which predated the general American wide release by a few weeks. Disney recently re-released the title on Blu-ray to celebrate, in an edition …

The Typography of Disney Animation Logos #5: Three More Anthologies…

We are now well into the second half of the 1940s... Walt Disney and his crew still can't afford to do a single-story animated feature. They pressed on, doing more anthologies, more short cartoons, and then... Live-action pictures, from hybrid films (Song of the South) to short nature documentaries (the True-Life Adventures)... Three more post-war …

The Typography of Disney Animation Logos #4: Goodwill and Package Features

We're now on Round 4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio Fantasia Dumbo and Bambi Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, and Make Mine Music Fun & Fancy Free, Melody Time, and The Adventures of the Ichabod and Mr. Toad Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, and The Sword …