Disney Countdown

Let's continue with another film from Pixar, Ratatouille. The Movie: Ratatouille is the 8th film from Pixar, and the first of their three critically acclaimed yet more experimental films, along with WALL-E and Up.  It is also Brad Bird's second Pixar movie as director and writer, and it was based on an idea by Jan Pinkava, who Bird replaced as director.  Ratatouille was critically praised and performed well at the box-office.  It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for four other Oscars (Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Screenplay). The main character in Ratatouille is the rat Remy, who lives with a colony of rats in a French farmhouse.  Remy's strong sense of smell has helped him develop and more discerning taste than other rats, and he enjoys cooking.  When the rats are forced to flee, Remy gets separated from his family, and finds himself in the kitchen of the famous Parisian restaurant Gusteau's.  There he sees Linguini...

Now let's look at the follow up to Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros. The Movie: The Three Caballeros is the 7th movie in the Disney Animated Canon and the 2nd film of the Package Era.  Like its predecessor, this movie was intended to help foster good will with the nations of Latin America, this time adding Mexico to the mix.  The film debuted in Mexico City in December 1944, and was released in the US the following February.  The Three Caballeros garnered two Oscar nominations, one for sound and one for song score. Like the other package films, The Three Caballeros consists of multiple segments, but unlike most of the others, they are not as well-defined, with the segments and transitions bleeding into one another through the use of the character of Donald Duck.  The movie opens with Donald receiving a birthday package from his friends in Latin America, holding three gifts. The first gift is a movie called Aves Raras (Strange Birds).  This movie i...

Today we visit another classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. The Movie: Sleeping Beauty is the 16th movie in the Disney Animated Canon.  Upon its initial release, Sleeping Beauty received mixed reviews.  Even though it was the second highest grossing movie of the year, it lost money at the box-office due to high production costs and a protracted development.  This loss forced Disney into using cheaper animation techniques that defined the styles of the end of the Silver Age and the Dark Age.  Disney also abandoned fairy tales after this movie, and the company wouldn't make another one until The Little Mermaid thirty years later. Sleeping Beauty is based on the Charles Perrault fairy tale.  The movie opens with King Stefan holding a celebration for the birth of his daughter Aurora.  The evil Maleficent crashes the party uninvited, and places a curse on the child.  To protect Aurora, she is sent into hiding until her 16th birthday as Briar Rose, ...

Next up on the list is the Disney classic Alice in Wonderland. The Movie: Alice in Wonderland is the 13th movie in the Disney Animated Canon and the 2nd Silver Age Film.  It received lukewarm reception upon its initial release and lost money at the box-office.  Walt Disney himself was disappointed by the film, as he felt it lacked heart, and he didn't re-release the film in theaters, instead opting to show it on television.  It finally got a theatrical re-release in 1974, as the movie had gained a cult following, especially on college campuses.  Today the film is held up as a classic of the Silver Age alongside the other movies of that era. Alice in Wonderland is an adaptation of the Lewis Carroll novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with some elements taken from that book's sequel, Through the Looking Glass.  The title Alice is a young girl who, while sitting on the countryside and being bored by her lessons, sees a White Rabbit wearing clothes and ...

Today we examine a "tale as old as time," Beauty and the Beast. The Movie: Beauty and the Beast is the 30th movie in the Disney Animated Canon and the second animated musical of the Disney Renaissance.  It was released to near-universal praise and was the 3rd highest grossing film of the year.  Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to win the Golden Globe for Best Movie - Musical or Comedy and the first animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.  Today it is often held as one of the best animated movies ever made. Based on the fairy tale as told by French author Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, Beauty and the Beast tells the story of a young prince who turns away a beggar woman.  The beggar woman is actually and enchantress in disguise, and as punishment she transforms him into a hideous beast, and the curse can only be broken if he learns to love and is loved in return.  A decade later, an inventor named Maurice get...