Three stars entirely on the basis of the
Hirshfield-designed "Rhapsody in Blue", a perfect capture of what it would
have been like as a '40s Warner Bros short directed by Chuck Jones -- i kept
expecting the little baggy-eyed guy to find a singing frog... (The multiple
but obviously-destined-to- happily-intersect plotlines, meanwhile, rather
put me in mind of Will Eisner's "Spirit" -- particularly of the story of
Gerhard Schnobble, the man who could fly.)
Absolutely the high spot of the film.
The flying whales that so many have loved were, for me, beautiful graphically
and technically, but just a little bit silly.
The "Pomp and Circumstance" sequence, featuring Donald Duck in an unusually
good-humoured mode as Noah's Executive Assistant was about the most typical
piece of Disney short-subject animation in the film -- which meant i enjoyed
it, laughed heartily over it, and don't much care if i never see it again
(contrasted to Warner's "Duck Amuck" or "What's Opera Doc?", which i could
watch every other day and not tire of for a long time).
"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" was very well done -- though i thought that the
ballerina kept looking like heavily-processed motion capture CGI of a human
dancer, in contrast to the soldier and the jack-in-the-box who looked mostly
hand-animated. Also, can we *please* stop adapting Hans Christian Anderson
stories and giving them "happy" endings?
The "Firebird" suite was pretty, but, indeed, suffers a bit too much from
being altogether like the "Bald Mountain/Ave Maria" ending of the original
version.
Skipping back to the "Flamingoes with a YoYo" sequence -- it was hilarious.
Reminded me of something i'd have expected to see in "Allegro non Troppo",
Bruno Bozzetto's brilliant Italian satire/homage to the original "Fantasia".
I skipped over the "Sorceror's Apprentice" sequence -- however much i liked
it when i saw it on the original "Disneyland" teevee show forty-odd years
ago, i've seen it too many times in between. (Also, based on the few seconds
i *did* see, the picture quality suffers by comparison to the rest of the
film.)
The various "host/narrator" characters were, for the most part mostly harmless
-- except for Steve Martin, whose mere presence had my thumb hovering over
the "Stop" button on the remote.
So -- three stars because of the "Rhapsody" sequence, and the rest gets a
free ride. |
