Editorial Product Review: :Based upon T.H. White's beloved novel, this Disney-fied version chronicles the tutoring of the Once and Future King, Arthur, as handled by the magician Merlin. Sword was a portent of things to come, with slapstick upbraiding storytelling, and cultural in-jokes substituting for wonder. But there's much to enjoy here as Merlin shows Newt, the young Arthur, things that will help him become the ruler of the Britons. The transformation sequences, where the boy is turned into a fish, a ...
Editorial Product Review: essential video:Disney's 1967 animated feature seems even more entertaining now than it did upon first release, with a hall-of-fame vocal performance by Phil Harris as Baloo, the genial bear friend of feral child Mowgli. Based on fiction by Rudyard Kipling, the film goes its own way as Disney animation will, but the strong characters and smart casting (George Sanders as the villainous tiger, Shere Khan) make it one of the studio's stronger feature-length cartoons. Songs include 'The Bare ...
Editorial Product Review: :Disney's 1977 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh may be the last word on (animated) Pooh because it so faithfully honors the first word on Pooh, penned in the 1920s by British storyteller A.A. Milne. Gently paced, subtly humorous, and blessedly understated, this adaptation reflects Walt Disney's original vision to develop the beloved British bear for a wider audience. The film is essentially a collection of the original Pooh shorts, 'The Honey Tree,' 'The Blustery Day,' and 'Winnie ...
Editorial Product Review: :Hollywood's excursions into Arabian Nights exotica don't come much daffier than Kismet, a 1955 MGM adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. The score includes two standards, 'Baubles, Bangles, and Beads' and 'Stranger in Paradise,' but the blend of Broadway razzmatazz and Middle Eastern culture is, to say the least, awkward. (One comic number revolves around a man about to have his hand chopped off for thievery.) There's plenty here for musical fans to enjoy, and a well-cast Howard Keel ...
Editorial Product Review: essential video:Four Winnie the Pooh shorts are repackaged into one set: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), the Oscar-winning Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! (1974), and Winnie the Pooh and a Day For Eeyore (1983). The first three were strung together in 1997 as the popular film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The merits of these adaptations of A.A. Milne's classic tales are up to ...
Editorial Product Review: essential video:Four Winnie the Pooh shorts are repackaged into one set: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), the Oscar-winning Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! (1974), and Winnie the Pooh and a Day For Eeyore (1983). The first three were strung together in 1997 as the popular film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The merits of these adaptations of A.A. Milne's classic tales are up to ...
Editorial Product Review: :Looking for a way to make the American Revolution come alive for your child? Based on Esther Forbes's book of the same name, Johnny Tremain takes place in Boston from July 1773 through April 1775, and tells the story of a young apprentice silversmith drawn into a fight for human rights. When an accident cripples Johnny Tremain's hand and ends his hopes of becoming a great silversmith, Tremain finds himself without work and accused of a crime he did ...
Editorial Product Review: :Among the most exciting of MGM swashbucklers, Richard Thorpe's 1952 Ivanhoe stars Robert Taylor as the medieval hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel. Returning to England from the Third Crusades, Ivanhoe is steadfast in his determination to raise the ransom for the captured King Richard (Norman Wooland), but the effort is full of peril. First is Ivanhoe's reunion with his estranged father (Finlay Currie), a Saxon who hates the Norman king and refuses to give his son the money. ...
Editorial Product Review: :The Disney animated films of any given period all seem to be cut from one big piece of the same brightly colored cloth. Whatever their sources, they have all been seamlessly Disneyized. The Winnie the Pooh shorts are typical products of the Wolfgang Reitherman period of the '60s and '70s, supervised by the animation director responsible for The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book. It's jaunty, tuneful stuff, but produced on the cheap, crude, and sketchy-looking in ...
Editorial Product Review: :Disney's 1977 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh may be the last word on (animated) Pooh because it so faithfully honors the first word on Pooh, penned in the 1920s by British storyteller A.A. Milne. Gently paced, subtly humorous, and blessedly understated, this adaptation reflects Walt Disney's original vision to develop the beloved British bear for a wider audience. The film is essentially a collection of the original Pooh shorts, 'The Honey Tree,' 'The Blustery Day,' and 'Winnie ...
Steering clear of many of the pitfalls that sapped past video-on-demand broadband solutions, Vudu delivers the closest thing to "Netflix in a box" that we've seen to date.
It's June 29th and Apple is finally ready to let the public play with the iPhone. The past six months have shaped up to be the highest profile mobile phone launch ever, Apple has conjured up an...
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