"You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity."

Today's title comes from Buzz Lightyear in the first Toy Story movie. I apologize for being tardy with this post, but here it is! In this post, I'm going to give my thoughts on the Toy Story 3D Double Feature, and then I'm going to give my Top 5 Underrated Disney Animated Films.

Toy Story 3D Double Feature

In 1995, Pixar Animation Studios came out with their first feature film, Toy Story, and it was a game-changing film. This was the first fully computer animated feature film release, shepherding in Pixar as a major player in the animated film arena.

I've always considered to be Toy Story 2 to be the superior film (and I still think it is, if maybe by a slighter margin), but what surprised me on this viewing was how well the original Toy Story stood up and how much it made me laugh. Oh, and there was a big surprise for me in the opening credits: I never realized Joss Whedon worked on the screenplay of this film! I'd love to know where he lent his hand; I have a feeling he came up with some of the lines I love so much, like the one in my title.

What you're probably wondering is how is the 3D? Overall, it's nice. It doesn't get mind bending until the second film; in the first film, the 3-D is mainly used like it was in Up, a tool accentuate the setting. It's not a 3-D experience like you would get in Muppet Vision 3-D at Disney World, where things are popping off the screen at you.

Now, the shining moment of the 3-D came in the opening of Toy Story 2. I was really anticipating this scene for a couple of reasons: 1) It's one of my favorite scenes ever and 2) I had a feeling it would really pop with the 3-D, and boy did it ever! The stars that appear just look so lush and deep; you feel like you're going to fall into them, the title sequences explode in, and, finally, Buzz Lightyear zooms in, and you follow him through his little adventure of breaking into Zurg's castle. It's a stellar moment (no pun intended), and I'd almost say that it's worth the price of admission for this scene alone.

One thing that I liked about this viewing was that I noticed a few things that I hadn't noticed before. If you remember the outtakes for Toy Story 2, there's one with Flik & Heimlich from A Bug's Life talking about how excited they are to be making another film, and then Buzz chops off the branch they're on, sending them flying. Pay attention to that scene in the actual film, when Buzz is chopping a path through the brush, and you'll actually see Heimlich! That tickled me so much.

And, finally, just a little impression of the overall experience. Disney did a good job packaging the whole thing. It felt at times like I was at Disney World with the way there was a pre-show and intermission themed to the movies. It was a wonderful little touch, and I would definitely recommend going to this while you still can if you enjoyed either of the Toy Story films. At the moment, it will be playing in theaters for another week and a half (I'm not sure if Disney might extend the run if it's a success).

My Top 5 Underrated Animated Disney Films

So, although I haven't gone too much into it yet on this blog, if you know me from Twitter or Livejournal, you probably know that I'm a big Disney fan. I grew up watching all of the films my parents could get their hands on (our poor copy of Mary Poppins on disc got so much play!), and I unashamedly still love to watch their films.

There are some films that seem to be universally loved by all (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty), but there are a lot of them that either get overlooked or are just plain bashed for one reason or another. Now, I won't say that I love every single Disney film out there because it's not true, but I can usually find something of merit in their films. And so, I'm going to give you my underrated films and the reasons why I love them, and hopefully, you'll seek them out and give them a try. Again, these are in no particular numerical order; they're just however they popped into my mind. By the way, I apologize for my poor abilities to discuss the art-side of the films. I'm not trained as an artist in any way, but I can recognize unique art-styles and techniques when I see them. I hope I'm able to explain my view of them clearly enough. Please let me know if I'm way off in my interpretations, though!

5) Robin Hood (1973)

This one may be a little tainted by the memories of childhood, but I still think there is a lot of good to be found in this film. Robin Hood is a retelling of the classic tale using anthropomorphic animals for the characters (as you can see in the poster above).

Now, this one gets much maligned because it was one of the films pushed out after Walt's death, and it also features a lot of recycled animation (for example there was a dance sequence used that was traced from Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, and another dance sequence between Robin & Maid Marian was lifted from The Aristocats), but its strength lies in the voice work.

Granted, some of the voice work is a little bit jarring (a Sheriff of Nottingham with a deep-Southern accent?); however, I feel that the work of Brian Bedford as Robin and especially Peter Ustinov as Prince John elevate the film. Honestly, I've still never quite felt so much interest in a Robin as in this Robin Hood (no, I'm not a furry); the scene where he confesses his love for Marian after he's been captured at the archery contest still makes my heart clench a bit.

And Ustinov's PJ. . . he's still one of my all-time favorite Disney villains, and he never fails to make me laugh. He's so delightfully over the top (watch him freak out any of the times Robin steals from him or elude him, not to mention his thumb sucking and crying out for his Mommy), but he also has a deep edge of menace to him. Ustinov successfully melds the two sides of Prince John to make a memorable animated villain.

Oh, and no discussion of this film could be complete without mentioning the film's soundtrack by country/folksinger Roger Miller. If you were around in the earlier days of the internet, say 1997, you're probably more familiar with him than you may like: his Whistle Stop song from Robin Hood was used as the music for the Hamster Dance video.

The rest of the songs, thankfully, were a bit less head-smashing inducing (and, of course, that song was sped up for the video; the song itself was only used in the opening credits of the film). I still get an insane amount of pleasure from "The Phoney King of England," "Love" still makes me a little misty, and if you can sit through "Not In Nottingham" without feeling some sort of emotion for the characters and their struggles, well, my friend, you have no heart.

All in all, don't go into this looking for a masterpiece, but if you go in looking for some adventure and some laughs, I think you'll have a good time.

4) The Three Caballeros (1944)

This one has a soft-spot for me because it was one of my dad's favorite Disney films; in fact, we bought him a copy on our only trip to Disney World, and I remember watching it with him when we got home.

It's one of the Disney package films, a series of vignettes strung together by a loose story. The story in this one is that it's Donald Duck's birthday, and he receives a bunch of gifts from his friends in Latin America. Two of those friends, Jose Carioca & Panchito, come to visit him, and they take him on a trip through their homelands.

This film (and the film prior, Saludos Amigos) were commissioned by the US State Department as part of a goodwill mission with South America. The government feared the ties that some of the South American countries had with the Nazis, and so Disney was brought in to act as an ambassador.

Much of the film feels a bit like an exercise in experimentation as there is a lot of variation in the animation styles throughout the film. It's also one of the first films to blend live-action and animation, the first Disney film to do that being Saludos Amigos, and some of the techniques the studios learned here were put to use later in Song of the South.

Some of the segments are a tad forgettable, but there are a few that stand out for me, ones that I love to revisit time and again. The biggest one is the segment involving the Aracuan bird. The Aracuan is this wacky little bird that just runs around singing his song, popping in and out of the screen in highly mischievous and creative ways, and he has a tendency to annoy Donald.



Another of my favorites is The Flying Gauchito. This adorable little story is about a little boy from Uruguay and his adventures with a flying donkey he finds. He tries to use the donkey to win a racing contest, but it doesn't exactly work out for the best. One of the things I love the most about this story is how the narrator (who is the little boy as an adult) interacts with the story, like when he instructs the boy to cut the rope binding the donkey's wings at one point. It's a great little animated tale.

And no discussion of this film would be complete without talking about the title song. It's manic, psychedelic and unexpected. It's so unlike anything Disney was doing in the 1940s. It's a highly sing-a-longable song, and I never fail to laugh at the predicaments Donald goes through in this scene (like when his fellow Caballeros can make a guitar appear out of thin air, and he can only make every other musical instrument except a guitar appear).

3) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)Ah, one of the most contentious ones on my list! This one garnered a lot of wrath because the book got "Disneyfied" in its translation to film. I'm going to confess that I haven't gotten around to reading the original book yet, but that aside, I feel that this is an excellent film for many reasons.

First and foremost is Tom Hulce's (best known for playing Mozart in Amadeus) nuanced and touching portrayal of Quasimodo. He makes him an intelligent young man who is searching for who he really is and what he wants out of life, and you truly feel for him in his scenes with Frollo & Esmerelda. I think one of the best examples of this can be found in the Sanctuary scene. He takes you through an entire journey of emotion in just a couple of short minutes, and it always leaves me teary.

On the other side, we have the brilliant Tony Jay as Quasimodo's "master," Judge Claude Frollo.
Jay was one of those actors where you know his voice, but you probably didn't know his name. He did a metric ton of voice work over the years; some of his better known roles are Monsieur D'Arque (the man who ran the insane asylum) in Beauty & the Beast, Chairface Chippendale on The Tick, and Megabyte on ReBoot.

In HOND, he created one of the most memorable Disney villains ever. His Frollo is a supposed man of God, but he mentally torments poor Quasimodo by keeping him imprisoned in the bell tower and by treating him as a child. Not only that, but he openly lusts after Esmerelda, even while he strives to kill her and her Gypsy people. He's truly terrifying as he quotes the Bible while wielding a sword over the heads of Quasimodo and Esmerelda.

Also superb in this movie is the animation (although parts of it haven't held up so well) and the music. The downside of the animation can be seen in the crowd scenes; it was one of the first films to widely use computer animation, but, sadly, it hasn't held up so well. At the time of release, it was pretty astonishing to see such large crowds (like during "Topsy Turvy" or the Sanctuary scene) and to know that each one was moving independent of the rest, but you can pretty easily see that they only had a handful of models that they used multiple, multiple times.

Other than that, though, the animation is beautiful. One only needs to see the Sanctuary scene for that or Quasimodo's song "Out There." They used a lot of fantastic, cinematic camera work in those scenes, great pans of the city as a whole that swoop down to focus on a character. I always find it rather awe-inspiring. Oh, and I cannot forget to mention the opening segment, "The Bells of Notre Dame." It's one of those scenes I don't get tired of. The song is the character Clopin telling about how Frollo came to be the one to raise Quasimodo, and it constantly cuts between him in the present and the tale he's telling. One of the most brilliant moments is the line, "Stop! cried the Archdeacon." The animation cuts from the Archdeacon with a flash to Clopin, and it's just kind of an arresting moment (you can see this at about 3:48):

And the music. It doesn't matter how many times I watch this film, the opening bell-tolling with the Latin chanting just gives me goosebumps every single time. I do admit that I'm not terribly fond of the song "Topsy Turvy," but "God Help the Outcasts" is hauntingly beautiful, and "The Court of Miracles" is just a delight, so wicked and fun. Overall, it's just a great film that deserves more credit than it gets.

2) Hercules (1997)

The last two films on this list have a lot of common although they are completely different genres. We'll start with the broad comedy, Hercules.

As you can tell by the title, this is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Hercules (yes, I do know that Hercules is the Roman name for Heracles, but Disney does insist in the movie and in the later TV show that he was Greek, so we're going with that). We have musical narration provided by the Muses (featuring some of the best Broadway voices ever, like Lillias White & La Chanze), we have a sympathetic hero in the form of Herc, but the one thing most people remember about this film is his villain, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, perfectly brought to life by James Woods.

Woods' performance was incredible. Watching Hades is so much like watching Woods himself, and I remember reading back when the film came out that the animators had a lot of trouble animating Hades because Woods so often gave his line deliveries so fast. Nevertheless, he creates a manic, outrageous and memorable villain, a great foil for the "Wonder Boy," Hercules.

One reason I like this film so much is the art direction. It was a completely unique take for Disney, an area they hadn't gone before. I love how the character design is reminiscent of the old Greek and Roman, and the colors they used were amazing. I also love watching Hades and Phil because they look so much like their voice actors (James Woods & Danny DeVito respectively).

But the big reason I love this film is Susan Egan's performance as Megara. Egan, for those not familiar with her, originated the role of Belle in Disney's Beauty & the Beast on Broadway. She has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard, and she puts it to good work in her showstopper, "I Won't Say." She also shows a brilliant mastery of comic timing with her line deliveries, and she gave us something not really seen before: a strong Disney female.

Yes, we had had a few of them before then (the prime one being Belle), but no Disney female before or possibly since could stand up to Meg in my book. She's a woman who knows what she wants out of life, and she'll do just about anything to get it. When she tells Hercules, "I'm a big tough girl.", you believe her. She's independent, and she doesn't need Hercules to make her life whole. Actually, when she thinks she might be falling in love with her, she doesn't want it, and when we reach the end of the film, you see it's actually Herc who needs Meg. She's just a great character, and she completely makes the film for me.

1) Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Another unique path for Disney. This one was their first sci-fi animated film (and, sadly, pretty much the last, unless you count Treasure Planet, which was a mix of sci-fi & historical styles), and I think it gets a bum rap far too often. It's not a perfect film by any means, but I was so happy to see Disney try something daring and new. It's a shame that audiences didn't take to it so well.

The film follows a linguist (voiced by Michael J. Fox) who finds a book in his grandfather's belongings which seems to be a guide for finding the lost city of Atlantis. He, with the help of one of his grandfather's old friends, puts together a ragtag group of adventurers to seek out Atlantis, but things begin to go a little topsy-turvy.

One of the strongest elements of this film is the design, which came from comic artist Mike Mignola (best known for his Hellboy series). Every character has a striking and unique design, and there is such an angularity to the architecture in Atlantis. You can definitely see Mignola's influence everywhere.

The other strong point to this movie, the one that brings me back to it time and again, are the characters. Disney took what could have just been a melange of cliches, but they made it into something fun and unexpected. The team that Milo hires is comprised of a people of various races and backgrounds. You've got a French guy, an Italian man, a young Hispanic girl from the Bronx, and an African American man. You might think on first glance that you've just got a win for Politically Correct Bingo, but you'd be wrong. They put a nice spin on each of the characters. Audrey, for example, is the team's mechanic, even though she's just a teenager (and her sister is a champion boxer). Sweet, the doctor, is half-African American, half-Native American. Mole, the Frenchman, is just disturbing. Really, you have to see him. He's a just a creepy little guy who loves to dig.

And Vinnie. . I love Vinnie. I think he's probably my favorite character in the film, other than Milo. He's voiced by Don Novello, best known for his character Father Guido Sarducci, and he's just hilarious. Everything he says is so dry, and he's probably the one character who's the least like he seems he should be. He's the munitions expert with a passion for blowing stuff up, but his ultimate dream in life is to own a little flower shop. He's just great.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little exploration of the underrated side of Disney. I had fun putting it together, even if it took me longer than I expected. I'd love to hear your thoughts on either Disney films in general or my list in specific, so feel free to leave me a comment.