Mortality Blog

It’s kind of weird how much of my childhood movie-watching experience involved Disney - well, maybe not weird logisticly, but interesting to think about. Wikipedia chronicles the classic ‘cannon’ Disney films, and I thought I’d look through them and pick some favorites, in chronological order, along with the bits that I like the most.

• Pinocchio - The part where they go to Pleasure Island is the best, where they get to do all the stuff that adults would normally try to discourage them from doing - drinking, smoking, gamling, and… wait for it… hanging around playing pool. Their punishment manifests in a somewhat scene of transformation from little boys into donkeys. That’s really the coolest part of the film.
• Fantasia - The last act, Night on Bald Mountain, where the demon thing (whose name is ’Chernabog’) rises from the volcano and summons all the spirits and everything into a big spirtal around him - man that part was cool. The mushroom dance in the nutcracker part is cool too.
• Dumbo - Sure, the crows are totally caricatures and arguably racist depictions, but whatever. That part is still my favortite, and the part where Dumbo actually flies during the performance and puts out fires with his trunk is good.
• Peter Pan - Captain Hook is never not good, and the proximity of his crocodilian stalker never fails to inspire hilarity. The other best part is another scene that’s raised accusations of racism - the ‘What Made The Red Man Red?’ song sequence. Not only is it a great song (another one I’m considering remixing) but it follows the well-known oral tradition of the youth asking the elders questions about their history, and receiving answers in the form of stories that happened in the past, which explain the state of the present.
• Sleeping Beauty - When the witch turns into the huge dragon at the end of the movie. Mom claims that part used to scare me, but I’m not convinced. Also, her raven minion is named Diablo.
• One Hundred and One Dalmations - The standout scene is, of course, the ‘Cruela De Vil’ song - and the fact that the main villain’s name is basicly ‘Cruel Devil’ and her henchmen are the ‘Bad Ones’.
• The Sword in the Stone - Probably one of my top 5 favorite Disney movies. I can’t even pick out any particular good parts - Merlin’s fight with Mim is pretty memorable, though. But the dialouge especially is super standout good.
• The Jungle Book - This is right when Disney died, unfortunately. It’s got its own issues with racist depictions - if you squint and turn your head a little, you’ll see that the monkeys are black jass enthusiasts who dance to jungle rythems and want to become human. There’s some good stuff in there, though - ‘The Bare Necessities’, the afore-mentioned ‘I wanna be like you’, and ‘That’s what friends are for’. Kaa is like a sneak-preview of Hiss, the snake second-in-command from Robin Hood.
• Robin Hood - another one of my top favorites. Okay, okay, it’s totally a furry movie, I know - but that’s more of a credit then a opportunity for modern criticism, that they managed to take a story about humans and anthroporphize animals to assist the process of defining the archetypcal characteristics - the clever one is a fox, the royalty are lions, the snake is sneaky, the hen is motherly, et cetera.
• The Great Mouse Detective - It’s like Sherlock Holmes, except set from the perspective of members of Rodentia. The villain Ratigan’s werewolf-like transformation from mob boss faux-mouse to mostrous sewer rat while sillhoueted against the night sky, perched atop the hands of Big Ben, high above London - that’s epic-scale animation. Of course there are plenty of puns for fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories as well. I kind of want to mark this as a turning point in Disney films - this seems like the start of a new age for the studio, although I don’t really know what to attribute that to.