Make Mine Music (1946)

Make Mine Music (1946)

Directed by: Bob Cormack, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney

Starring: Nelson Eddy, Dinah Shore, Benny Goodman

Here’s another package film from Disney, and like Melody Time, it really wants to be another Fantasia, only without putting any of the effort into it. Guess what? People know about Fantasia, nobody’s ever heard of this unmanageable pile.

Make Mine Music has a retarded number of shorts packed into it. Most of them are tremendously forgettable, but there a couple slightly better ones. There’s a version of Peter and the Wolf narrated by Sterling Holloway (Winnie the Pooh) which isn’t all that bad, and a weird opera about a whale who sang opera. Oh, and a really lackluster telling of Casey at the Bat.

Really, I don’t remember any more specifics about the rest of the segments, because they weren’t memorable. At all. I can read on Wikipedia about the segments and I can recognize that, yes, I saw that… but if I was just going to repeat what Wikipedia says about the movie, that’d be a pretty huge waste of space, wouldn’t it? Nevertheless, I have to spend some more words padding this thing out a little more.

I know, I’ll complain about Casey at the Bat. Why is this damn poem such a national treasure? It’s about a guy who strikes out. Yeah, everyone thinks he can and he doesn’t and there’s a vague moral about overconfidence, but… why is it always everywhere? Whatever, I don’t really care. Yeah, I think this is enough words for this review.

Fun & Fancy Free (1947)

Fun & Fancy Free (1947)

Directed by: Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts

Starring: Edgar Bergen, Dinah Shore, Walt Disney

Fun and Fancy Free is another package film, this time only with two segments. Before I get into that, however, I want to pose a question: Why do Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd have IMDb pages? As actors and not characters? IMDb does realize that they aren’t magic puppets who can talk and act by themselves, right?

The first short is about a circus bear named Bongo, narrated by Dinah Shore. Bongo gets separated from the circus in the woods and falls in love with a lady bear. The lady bear slaps him (which is apparently how bears say “I love you,” according to a terrible song) and they live happily ever after. The second and far better segment is the version of Jack and the Beanstalk, but done with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. That part’s a classic, really.

It’s funny, between this and Melody Time, I’d seen parts of them before, but never as a whole. I guess they decided to deconstruct the unnecessarily put-together shorts and release them that way at one point. Anyway, if you haven’t seen Mickey and the Beanstalk, I don’t know what to tell you. You might still be legally considered a human being. Maybe. I wouldn’t try to get a loan or anything, though, lest they find out.

Another interesting thing is that, when it’s by itself, Mickey and the Beanstalk is narrated by Donald’s uncle, but in this film it’s done by Edgar Bergen (and his two magic puppets who are apparently alive, yes). That’s interesting, right? Of course it is! Such hilarious and insightful trivia I weave! I’m done.

Julie & Julia (2009)

Julie & Julia (2009)

Directed by: Nora Ephron

Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci

Okay, this is the last break before finishing up the Disney movies, I promise (I know because I actually finished watching all those movies yesterday, so I’m actually not lying for once).

Julie & Julia is really two vaguely connected stories. The main story set in present day (well, set in 2002, but there really doesn’t seem to be any reason for that) about a woman who starts a blog documenting her efforts to cook every recipe in Julia Childs’ first cookbook in a year. In between this, we get flashes to Julia Childs herself (Streep) at that time, and the sort of things she was going through, from learning to cook French cuisine to getting the book published.

This is a huge chick flick, as if you can see that poster and see that it’s directed by Nora Ephron and think anything else. However, the one saving grace it has is Meryl Streep as Julia Childs. Not only does she do a great job, but she’s actually really funny. The sad thing is, compared to that story, the ‘main’ story of the blogger woman and her annoying whiny life was even worse. Honestly, I think I would’ve been happy just watching a biopic about Julia Childs with Streep.

I guess the story about the blogger doing the cooking and all that is a real story, which is great and all, but… why in the world would you make a movie about someone who blogs about cooking? If I did a project where I watched every movie in the National Film Registry in a year and blogged about it, nobody would make a movie about that. That’s insane. Also, wanting to do that would be a little crazy, but that’s not the point I’m making. My point is: WHO CARES?! NOT ME!!

Melody Time (1948)

Melody Time (1948)

Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney

Starring: Roy Rogers, Dennis Day, The Andrews Sisters

Melody Time is one of the weird war films that Disney made that were basically just a bunch of shorts packaged together in film form. This one doesn’t even attempt to have a bridge between the segments, they just kinda show a bunch of unrelated crap. It’s almost Fantasia-ish, but not quite.

There are several sequences in Melody Time. And now I’m going to tell you about them. Exciting, isn’t it? There are a couple Fantasia-type sequences about kids ice skating or a bee, but they weren’t very interesting or visually compelling, so who cares. The three I remembered from this movie were a stupid one about a tugboat, a really, REALLY long retelling of Johnny Appleseed, and Roy Rogers singing about Pecos Bill.

I think I’ve seen the Johnny Appleseed one before, but I know for sure that I’ve seen the Pecos Bill one. You know why? Because Pecos Bill is AWESOME. He carved the Rio Grande because he was thirsty one day. To propose to his filly, he shoots down all the stars in the sky except for one, hence naming Texas the “Lone Star” state. He rode a cyclone and rolled a cigarette in his mouth while doing so, LIGHTING IT WITH LIGHTNING. PECOS BILL IS AWESOME.

The funny thing is, I was watching this with my girlfriend, who is from Texas, and she’d never even heard of Pecos Bill before! If only because she finally learned the origin of all the things about Texas, this movie was worthwhile. Unfortunately, you do have to listen to Roy Rogers sing about it the whole time. Oh well.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Directed by: James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney

Starring: Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone, Eric Blore

I actually have a pretty fond memory attached to this film, from back when I was in elementary school and I had to stay at some after-school day care thing, and we watched this movie. That was the same day I learned about Bloody Mary and the Candyman. I don’t know why I remember this, I just remember that I do. And now that you know all the pertinent information, I don’t have to review this after all!

Okay, fine. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is actually two shorts smushed together, one an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows narrated by Basil Rathbone, and the other an adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow narrated, voiced by, and sung by Bing Crosby. Weird. I’m sure you all know about Ichabod Crane and Sleepy Hollow (you know, the Headless Horseman? Yeah), but The Wind in the Willows is a bit more obscure. It’s about Mr. Toad, a guy who is bad with his money, and how he gets falsely arrested because he bought a car from a guy who later said he stole it. That’s pretty much what it’s about.

I remember the Sleepy Hollow short as being really cool, with this awesome Headless Horseman and he’s really scary and he’s chasing the guy around… Now as I watch it, it turns out that’s only about two minutes of the short, and the rest of it is about Ichabod Crane dancing with women. No wonder I only remember the cool part (it was still a cool part).

As for the other part, well, The Wind in the Willows is a really stupid story. What more or less saved it was Basil Rathbone narrating, which was cool. Not cool enough to make the story any better, but cool enough to keep one awake throughout.

This is one of a few package films that Disney did around the time of World War II, and I watched all of them. And they all suck. So prepare for that.