Poll

What should this month's theme be?

Sci-fi
3 (37.5%)
Filmspots
5 (62.5%)
Other (please specify below)
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 8

Voting closed: January 05, 2012, 09:15:41 PM

Author Topic: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!  (Read 11072 times)

smirnoff

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #40 on: January 30, 2012, 02:51:39 PM »
I can't speak to Wendy and Lucy but the others all center around a woe-is-me, despressed, self-pitying type. Maybe the films just aren't doing enough to convince you these characters deserve sympathy...

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #41 on: January 30, 2012, 03:19:34 PM »
I can't speak to Wendy and Lucy but the others all center around a woe-is-me, despressed, self-pitying type. Maybe the films just aren't doing enough to convince you these characters deserve sympathy...
They actually do make me feel sympathy, but the films are trying to make me feel empathy, and I just can't get there with those characters.

ses

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #42 on: January 31, 2012, 08:29:12 PM »
Winnie the Pooh (Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall, 2011)



I have to preface this review saying I grew up with all things Disney, and that most definitely included The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  I watched it again before I watched this film, and I think I could have recited it by heart.  It is one of my favorite Disney films.  It has such a warmth and heart that I think isn't around as much.  Animated films now seem to want to cram in pop culture references or appeal to the adults.  The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is simple and sweet.  So, this new Winnie the Pooh film had big shoes to fill, and I have to say I was excited about watching it, considering the trailer made me practically cry when it was all over the television this past summer. 



The new Winnie the Pooh followed the same formula as the first film, except there is just one story instead of three.  Eeyore's tail (tael) is missing, and everyone must find it.  The story felt a bit rehashed, like I had seen it before.  I mean, Eeyore loses his tail all the time, it's what he does.  I just thought they would make the main storyline more inventive than that.  That being said, it had a lot of fun moments, with a few zingers from Pooh, which are always cute.  Still it felt a bit cold for me.  Probably because I love the original so much.  This lacked a bit of the heart that the first one has.  It sounds like I am being a bit hard on it, but I did enjoy it, it's hard not to given the characters.  I think I just expected more. 

« Last Edit: January 31, 2012, 09:02:55 PM by ses »
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mousterpiece

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #43 on: January 31, 2012, 08:56:49 PM »
I might disagree, though it's hard to deny childhood affection for these characters. I've been a Pooh fan since birth, pretty much, but I think the new film had a better overall story. The 1977 version was too disjointed for my tastes. Still, like I said, when you have so much built-in nostalgia for the characters, it's easy to be a bit let down by the new film.
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ses

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #44 on: January 31, 2012, 09:02:09 PM »
I just think the new one could have had a much more inventive story. It worked very hard to stick to the same character traits, and I appreciate that. 
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Beavermoose

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #45 on: January 31, 2012, 09:12:36 PM »
I didn't remember all that much about the original film when I went in to this one. It just completely charmed me. There's a lot of really subtle and silly humor that works for adults without being crammed with pop culture references. There's this shot where  Pooh looks up at a tower of honey with such a sense of wonder in his eyes ( At the 4:21 mark ) and this is exactly how I felt watching this film. I honestly think its the best film to come out of Disney since Lilo and Stitch.

mousterpiece

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #46 on: January 31, 2012, 09:14:41 PM »
I think the new Pooh and Princess and the Frog are the strongest animation to come from Walt Disney proper since--and I know Fly's radar will flicker upon its mention--Hercules.
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ses

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #47 on: January 31, 2012, 09:16:10 PM »
It is charming, and I did enjoy it.  I think I am biased because of my love for the original, and I have seen so many other Pooh cartoons that the story felt repetitive.  I would gladly watch this again, though.  I love the characters, and I am glad that they stayed true to that. 
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oldkid

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #48 on: January 31, 2012, 10:15:22 PM »
I'm strongly biased toward the original as well.  I felt that the problem with the new one-- which is immensely charming and highly entertaining-- is that it's frankly too long.  The Many Adventures of... was a combining of three shorts, each the perfect length at just shy of a half hour.  The songs are frequent but snappy, and the simple stories are moved through pretty quickly.  You feel like you've watched a feature, even though it's only a short.  The new Winnie the Pooh could have benefited from more brevity-- there wouldn't have been as much repetition, the songs could easily have been shorter.  I think they were trying to make a feature length film (which they didn't really succeed at) from the material of a short.
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FLYmeatwad

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Re: January 2012 MDC: Filmspot Fever!
« Reply #49 on: February 04, 2012, 09:31:33 PM »
I'm not sure I can get on board with the feeling that this film felt too long. In fact, I felt quite the opposite, and I think I like it just as much as the original. Perhaps even more, because I like the idea of it telling a complete narrative. I like to think I wrote a review about this film, but the realist in me says I probably did not, and the lazy in me tells me I would rather type this than open another tab to check. Regardless, for a simplistic narrative I thought this film was a bunch of fun and as good as I could reasonably expect (while enjoying it much more than I reasonably expected too, even without knowing that I'd have to deal with Zooey singing all the time). Would be interested to hear what wasn't inventive about this plot when compared to the original film's shorts, I thought this was just as imaginative. I was also taken, as I always am, with how Pooh and the narrator interact.

I think the new Pooh and Princess and the Frog are the strongest animation to come from Walt Disney proper since--and I know Fly's radar will flicker upon its mention--Hercules.

I think Princess and the Frog is a decent film, but a far stretch from great (aside from the voodoo guy, who I guess I can see as being pretty great), but yes, Hercules is the finest film Disney Animation has ever created. However, Bolt is probably (easily) the exemplar of quality Disney animation post whenever we agree that the Golden Age/Renaissance ended.

Also, just in case you missed the memo, it's an acronym!  :P