Oook! First of the three Countdown posts for Disney. Today will be Sidekicks/Henchmen, tomorrow will be the second set, and Thursday will wrap it up. Onwards!
Top 10 Sidekicks (Heroes):
10) Maximus (Tangled)
9) Pegasus (Hercules)
8) Jaq and Gus (Cinderella)
7) Dr. Dawson (Great Mouse Detective)
6) Lady Cluck (Robin Hood)
5) Flora, Fauna, Merryweather (Sleeping Beauty)
4) Archimedes (Sword in the Stone)
3) Genie (Aladdin)
2) Cogsworth and Lumiere (Beauty and the Beast)
1) Kronk (Emperors New Groove)
Top 10 Henchmen (Villains):
10) Creeper (Black Cauldron)
9) Roscoe and Desoto (Oliver and Company)
8) Joanna (Rescuers Down Under)
7) Shenzi, Banzai, Ed (Lion King)
6) Lucifur (Cinderella)
5) Mr. Smee (Peter Pan)
4) Pain and Panic (Hercules)
3) Lefou (Beauty and the Beast)
2) Sir Hiss (Robin Hood)
1) Fidget (Great Mouse Detective)
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Top 10 Countdowns and Rankings
The first of two posts for today. Starting today I will be doing "Top 10" countdowns, as well as Rankings. So a quick overview on how both will work.
Rankings: These will come after a Genre or Marathon has finished, at which point I will rank all of the films, episodes, shorts etc. from that batch. Pretty straightforward. The ranking will be based off of the ratings I have given, which will largely determine the order.
Top 10's: Currently I am looking at simply expanding my countdowns from Top 5's to Top 10's from here on out. My first three posts following this new format will be an overall ranking of characters and songs for Disney. The way this works is all of my Top 5's for each group (Heroes, Heroines, Villains etc.) have been merged, and then whittled down to the favourite 10.
That should cover everything that I can currently think of.... so on with the first post!
Rankings: These will come after a Genre or Marathon has finished, at which point I will rank all of the films, episodes, shorts etc. from that batch. Pretty straightforward. The ranking will be based off of the ratings I have given, which will largely determine the order.
Top 10's: Currently I am looking at simply expanding my countdowns from Top 5's to Top 10's from here on out. My first three posts following this new format will be an overall ranking of characters and songs for Disney. The way this works is all of my Top 5's for each group (Heroes, Heroines, Villains etc.) have been merged, and then whittled down to the favourite 10.
That should cover everything that I can currently think of.... so on with the first post!
New Year's Post. The B(l)og is Back.
Happy New Year's all!
After some thinking, I've decided that I really want to bring this blog back and get it going again. Currently I am on the last couple days of my vacation, and the first couple days back home will be rather hectic.
With this said, this is the current list of what to expect this week in general:
- An Atlantis: The Lost Empire review. Somehow I overlooked this during my Disney Classic's marathon.
- A full countdown/ranking of the 51 Animated Classics for Disney. (Wreck-It-Ralph is excluded currently)
- Rankings of my Top 10 Heroes, Heroines, Villains, Henchmen, Sidekicks, and Songs for Disney.
- An Information post on how the Top 10's and Ranking's work.
With that said, I will be working on a list of other Extras and potential Countdowns I'd like to do, as well be writing up a list of all my current reviews so that I can track what I've already done, so as to avoid double dipping.
Coming up in January -after- I am caught up on the list above, I will be looking into starting a TV Show most likely to serve as my focus, or perhaps several TV Shows that I don't have a ton of. Marathons (such as the DAC one) will be announced a week or so ahead of time.
That is all for now, and I look forward to the next year in review. :)
After some thinking, I've decided that I really want to bring this blog back and get it going again. Currently I am on the last couple days of my vacation, and the first couple days back home will be rather hectic.
With this said, this is the current list of what to expect this week in general:
- An Atlantis: The Lost Empire review. Somehow I overlooked this during my Disney Classic's marathon.
- A full countdown/ranking of the 51 Animated Classics for Disney. (Wreck-It-Ralph is excluded currently)
- Rankings of my Top 10 Heroes, Heroines, Villains, Henchmen, Sidekicks, and Songs for Disney.
- An Information post on how the Top 10's and Ranking's work.
With that said, I will be working on a list of other Extras and potential Countdowns I'd like to do, as well be writing up a list of all my current reviews so that I can track what I've already done, so as to avoid double dipping.
Coming up in January -after- I am caught up on the list above, I will be looking into starting a TV Show most likely to serve as my focus, or perhaps several TV Shows that I don't have a ton of. Marathons (such as the DAC one) will be announced a week or so ahead of time.
That is all for now, and I look forward to the next year in review. :)
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Treehouse of Horror 2
Series: The Simpsons
Season: 3
Episode: 7
We return to the Treehouse of Horror for the second time this year, but the question is this: Is it better than last time? Well. For me, not so much. To backtrack a bit, I did enjoy this episode but not quite as much as the first installment of the Treehouse series. So lets take a look at the episode itself and see why.
The beginning starts off the same way as the first, where Marge pleads with the audience to send the kids to bed early, but gives up and says "Well you didn't listen last time." This is a rather fun opening, it adds a bit of continuity to the series, and references back to the original opening's dialogue. From here we move into the wraparound story that fills in between each segment. This time around, Lisa, Bart, and Homer all eat far too much candy before bed, and one after another have bad dreams. Again, this is actually a rather fun way to fill in the time between segments without having to rehash the treehouse filler from before.
Lisa's dream follows the family as Homer buys an old monkey's paw which is said to grant wishes, but at a price of twisting them around. Ignoring the warning, the family begins to use the paw for wishes. Maggie makes the first one, which oddly gets overlooked for the twist. Perhaps she's smart when it comes to wish making? Following Maggie's wish, Bart decides to wish for the family to be rich and famous. With the new found wealth, comes the price of having everyone annoyed with the family and their antics. Lisa then wishes for world peace, which backfires as the world becomes enslaved by Kang and Kodos. Annoyed with all the twisted wishes, Homer decides to use his last wish for a sandwich and winds up getting rather dry turkey. The segment ends with Kang and Kodos suggesting that humanity might doom themselves with war.
Following her dream, Bart's dream revolves around himself as he has the power to not only read minds, but to also change people and animals into whatever he wants. This puts the entire town on edge as they have to constantly think happy thoughts and cater to his whims. When Homer goes too far, Bart changes his father into a Homer-in-the-box. Through the rest of the segment, Marge turns to Dr. Marvin Monroe for help, who in turn manages to get Bart and Homer to bond, eventually saying "I love you" which makes Bart wake up screaming.
Our final dream is Homer's, as he drifts off thinking about work in the morning. Unhappy with his lazy workers, Mr. Burns fires Homer for sleeping on the job, forcing the man to find a new job as the local gravedigger. When Homer falls asleep at that job as well, Mr. Burns kidnaps Homer, thinking him to be dead. With Homer in his secret lab, Mr. Burns reveals that he's going to use Homer's brain to power a giant robot worker which will change the labor industry. This backfires, however, when the robot ends up as lazy as Homer was.
While the entire episode as a sum is rather funny, each of the dream sequences doesn't really stand out to me. All three seemed to really lack a larger horror aspect like the first installment, though these segments do prey on the fears of each family member. In a respect, the segments do have that element of horror to them but the concept doesn't feel fully realized in the end.
3/4
Season: 3
Episode: 7
We return to the Treehouse of Horror for the second time this year, but the question is this: Is it better than last time? Well. For me, not so much. To backtrack a bit, I did enjoy this episode but not quite as much as the first installment of the Treehouse series. So lets take a look at the episode itself and see why.
The beginning starts off the same way as the first, where Marge pleads with the audience to send the kids to bed early, but gives up and says "Well you didn't listen last time." This is a rather fun opening, it adds a bit of continuity to the series, and references back to the original opening's dialogue. From here we move into the wraparound story that fills in between each segment. This time around, Lisa, Bart, and Homer all eat far too much candy before bed, and one after another have bad dreams. Again, this is actually a rather fun way to fill in the time between segments without having to rehash the treehouse filler from before.
Lisa's dream follows the family as Homer buys an old monkey's paw which is said to grant wishes, but at a price of twisting them around. Ignoring the warning, the family begins to use the paw for wishes. Maggie makes the first one, which oddly gets overlooked for the twist. Perhaps she's smart when it comes to wish making? Following Maggie's wish, Bart decides to wish for the family to be rich and famous. With the new found wealth, comes the price of having everyone annoyed with the family and their antics. Lisa then wishes for world peace, which backfires as the world becomes enslaved by Kang and Kodos. Annoyed with all the twisted wishes, Homer decides to use his last wish for a sandwich and winds up getting rather dry turkey. The segment ends with Kang and Kodos suggesting that humanity might doom themselves with war.
Following her dream, Bart's dream revolves around himself as he has the power to not only read minds, but to also change people and animals into whatever he wants. This puts the entire town on edge as they have to constantly think happy thoughts and cater to his whims. When Homer goes too far, Bart changes his father into a Homer-in-the-box. Through the rest of the segment, Marge turns to Dr. Marvin Monroe for help, who in turn manages to get Bart and Homer to bond, eventually saying "I love you" which makes Bart wake up screaming.
Our final dream is Homer's, as he drifts off thinking about work in the morning. Unhappy with his lazy workers, Mr. Burns fires Homer for sleeping on the job, forcing the man to find a new job as the local gravedigger. When Homer falls asleep at that job as well, Mr. Burns kidnaps Homer, thinking him to be dead. With Homer in his secret lab, Mr. Burns reveals that he's going to use Homer's brain to power a giant robot worker which will change the labor industry. This backfires, however, when the robot ends up as lazy as Homer was.
While the entire episode as a sum is rather funny, each of the dream sequences doesn't really stand out to me. All three seemed to really lack a larger horror aspect like the first installment, though these segments do prey on the fears of each family member. In a respect, the segments do have that element of horror to them but the concept doesn't feel fully realized in the end.
3/4
Halloween
Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season: 2
Episode: 6
So it begins. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One episode down, quite a few to go. Easily one of my favorite live action shows growing up, I used to watch Buffy religiously. If it was on, or new, I was generally watching it, especially in the later seasons. Tonight's episode however, is one of the earlier ones that I missed, until the wonders of dvd made it available to me.
Halloween, the episode, almost feels a bit odd or out of place given how the entire show revolves around vampires, demons, werewolves, witches and the like. Despite this possible hamper, the show manages to make this episode work really well in how they approached it. Our villain makes his first of several appearances through the shows run, and with quite a bang.
Taking place on Halloween night itself, the episode follows Buffy and the early version of the Scooby gang as they are forced to 'volunteer' as supervisors to groups of kids who are trick or treating. What they don't realize, however, is that their costumes were bought at a store run by a warlock named Ethan Rayne. This man, who plays a role in Giles' past, decides to cause some chaos by turning everyone who bought his costumes into the creature they were wearing. This makes for some rather fun results as Willow turns into a ghost, Xander into a soldier, and Buffy into a simpering noble woman. It's rather fun to see the roles reversed as Buffy is kept rather helpless for once, while Xander finally gets a chance to shine as a hero. Or at least until Angel arrives and lends a hand with things.
There's not really a whole lot that I can think of to note as far as continuity goes. Xander's soldier persona will come in handy down the road for future seasons, and Ethan Rayne will also be back again. Aside from this, the episode largely nudges forward other story lines that start evolving in this season.
While this episode is a lot of fun, and quite funny at times, I do recall enjoying the later Halloween themed episodes a fair bit more. All in all, that doesn't change how enjoyable this one is, on its own.
3 1/2 /5
Season: 2
Episode: 6
So it begins. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One episode down, quite a few to go. Easily one of my favorite live action shows growing up, I used to watch Buffy religiously. If it was on, or new, I was generally watching it, especially in the later seasons. Tonight's episode however, is one of the earlier ones that I missed, until the wonders of dvd made it available to me.
Halloween, the episode, almost feels a bit odd or out of place given how the entire show revolves around vampires, demons, werewolves, witches and the like. Despite this possible hamper, the show manages to make this episode work really well in how they approached it. Our villain makes his first of several appearances through the shows run, and with quite a bang.
Taking place on Halloween night itself, the episode follows Buffy and the early version of the Scooby gang as they are forced to 'volunteer' as supervisors to groups of kids who are trick or treating. What they don't realize, however, is that their costumes were bought at a store run by a warlock named Ethan Rayne. This man, who plays a role in Giles' past, decides to cause some chaos by turning everyone who bought his costumes into the creature they were wearing. This makes for some rather fun results as Willow turns into a ghost, Xander into a soldier, and Buffy into a simpering noble woman. It's rather fun to see the roles reversed as Buffy is kept rather helpless for once, while Xander finally gets a chance to shine as a hero. Or at least until Angel arrives and lends a hand with things.
There's not really a whole lot that I can think of to note as far as continuity goes. Xander's soldier persona will come in handy down the road for future seasons, and Ethan Rayne will also be back again. Aside from this, the episode largely nudges forward other story lines that start evolving in this season.
While this episode is a lot of fun, and quite funny at times, I do recall enjoying the later Halloween themed episodes a fair bit more. All in all, that doesn't change how enjoyable this one is, on its own.
3 1/2 /5
Halloween Tree
Oh Halloween Tree. How I have missed you. This rather obscure Halloween film, created and narrated by Ray Bradbury, is a woefully underused and less recognized film in this current age of new and flashy Halloween films/shorts based off bigger name characters from companies such as Dreamworks.
With this being said, Halloween Tree is a somewhat dark tale about a group of four friends who have to try and save their friend, Pip, from the hook nosed Mr. Moundshroud, while also learning about the spirit of the Holiday and what their costumes mean. While Halloween Tree is a bit dark at times, it's also surprisingly educational in the degree that each of the children learn about their costume choice. We travel with the characters to Egypt and learn about mummies, get a lesson in witches who lived in England, learn of monstrous gargoyles who decorate Notre Dame, and finally learn of skeletons and how we can overcome our fear of Death.
A quick bit on the animation. Initially I thought "Well, it's fairly average for the time it was made." and, yet, now that I think about it more, I actually really enjoy the films animation and how it looks. There's almost a storybook feel to it, which might be helped by the fact that this was a version of the film that wasn't made pristine clear for dvd/blu. The Halloween tree itself, with all of it's jack-o-lanterns is really great to look at, and one of my favorite pieces of animation from the film, as well my favorite background. Another great bit to note is the kite made of circus posters that seem to come to life.
The use of Ray Bradbury narrating is kept sprinkled all through the film and at no point is he overused. Our opening starts off with some great prose by our narrator, and from here the film only gets better. Despite shedding a lot of light on various customs from around the world, regarding Halloween, it never comes across as a boring history lesson. The entertainment stays consistent which is what serves the story so well. I was surprised by the ending, having forgotten it, and it was a tad bittersweet.
If you ever get the chance, I would happily suggest that everyone checks out this gem of a film. While it may not be five star material, it is still a lot of fun and well worth a watch or two, and is certainly going to be a staple of my Halloween viewing for years to come.
4/5
With this being said, Halloween Tree is a somewhat dark tale about a group of four friends who have to try and save their friend, Pip, from the hook nosed Mr. Moundshroud, while also learning about the spirit of the Holiday and what their costumes mean. While Halloween Tree is a bit dark at times, it's also surprisingly educational in the degree that each of the children learn about their costume choice. We travel with the characters to Egypt and learn about mummies, get a lesson in witches who lived in England, learn of monstrous gargoyles who decorate Notre Dame, and finally learn of skeletons and how we can overcome our fear of Death.
A quick bit on the animation. Initially I thought "Well, it's fairly average for the time it was made." and, yet, now that I think about it more, I actually really enjoy the films animation and how it looks. There's almost a storybook feel to it, which might be helped by the fact that this was a version of the film that wasn't made pristine clear for dvd/blu. The Halloween tree itself, with all of it's jack-o-lanterns is really great to look at, and one of my favorite pieces of animation from the film, as well my favorite background. Another great bit to note is the kite made of circus posters that seem to come to life.
The use of Ray Bradbury narrating is kept sprinkled all through the film and at no point is he overused. Our opening starts off with some great prose by our narrator, and from here the film only gets better. Despite shedding a lot of light on various customs from around the world, regarding Halloween, it never comes across as a boring history lesson. The entertainment stays consistent which is what serves the story so well. I was surprised by the ending, having forgotten it, and it was a tad bittersweet.
If you ever get the chance, I would happily suggest that everyone checks out this gem of a film. While it may not be five star material, it is still a lot of fun and well worth a watch or two, and is certainly going to be a staple of my Halloween viewing for years to come.
4/5
Halloweentown
Halloweentown! One of the movies I remember growing up with as a kid, this film has a certain nostalgic value to it. This film is also one of Disney's earliest DCOM's or "Disney Channel Original Movie" which later spawned a multitude of films that only went down in quality over the years, even by Disney Channel standards.
The movie centers around Marnie Cromwell, who has a love for Halloween and all the weird things that come with it. However, her mother seems to have the opposite mindset in regards to it. After a visit from her eccentric grandmother, Aggie, Marnie and her siblings follow her home to Halloweentown after they find out that Marnie is a witch.
However, not all is alright in Halloweentown as an evil force is changing the citizens. When Aggie and their mother (who followed close behind) are captured, the kids have to band together to set things right and use a powerful spell to banish the dark force. Along with some help from new friends, as well their mother and grandmother.
The story itself is pretty basic, and a lot of fluffy fun. I certainly remember enjoying it a lot more when I could only see it once a year, and back when it was newer and therefore more exciting at a younger age. The film hasn't really aged well, much like most t.v shows of the 80's and 90's which only become more corny the older we get. With that being said, nostalgia is a powerful force and only helps reinforce the fond memories of this film.
While it is quite enjoyable as a whole, some of the digital effects and dialogue is rather poor. The acting is quite tolerable, save for Debbie Reynolds as Aggie Cromwell who is extremely fun and a highlight of the film. The character of Marnie certainly hits quite a few annoying notes, especially in the beginning of the film. Thankfully, in the latter half of the film she does start to grow out of that, and by the second film is a much stronger character with less annoyances. While it may not be an excellent film, it is definitely a staple in my viewing around Halloween and can be quite charming.
3/5
The movie centers around Marnie Cromwell, who has a love for Halloween and all the weird things that come with it. However, her mother seems to have the opposite mindset in regards to it. After a visit from her eccentric grandmother, Aggie, Marnie and her siblings follow her home to Halloweentown after they find out that Marnie is a witch.
However, not all is alright in Halloweentown as an evil force is changing the citizens. When Aggie and their mother (who followed close behind) are captured, the kids have to band together to set things right and use a powerful spell to banish the dark force. Along with some help from new friends, as well their mother and grandmother.
The story itself is pretty basic, and a lot of fluffy fun. I certainly remember enjoying it a lot more when I could only see it once a year, and back when it was newer and therefore more exciting at a younger age. The film hasn't really aged well, much like most t.v shows of the 80's and 90's which only become more corny the older we get. With that being said, nostalgia is a powerful force and only helps reinforce the fond memories of this film.
While it is quite enjoyable as a whole, some of the digital effects and dialogue is rather poor. The acting is quite tolerable, save for Debbie Reynolds as Aggie Cromwell who is extremely fun and a highlight of the film. The character of Marnie certainly hits quite a few annoying notes, especially in the beginning of the film. Thankfully, in the latter half of the film she does start to grow out of that, and by the second film is a much stronger character with less annoyances. While it may not be an excellent film, it is definitely a staple in my viewing around Halloween and can be quite charming.
3/5
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