Amph What was the last movie you saw?

I might see Frozen after 12 Years a Slave depending on how awful I feel about myself after the latter.

 

Including the cover of the video box.

 

Amazing Grace (2006) — a pretty good film, I enjoyed it.

 

i am watching gods and generals bit-by-bit. plenty of cheesepenis moments for the civil war nerds and geeks, but aside from that it is enjoyable so far.

 

I just want to put out there that Disney's Robin Hood is up for Netflix streaming. I should be watching that instead of Pacific Rim, which isn't interesting me at all. I can't believe even a reviewer at NPR ranted about this movie.

 

Well, both of you let me know here how you felt. Eager to see other's opinions.

 

House of Flying Daggers. I decided to give Wuxia one last chance, and I'm glad I did. The wire work was considerable more restrained than in Hero or Crouching Tiger, so I wasn't annoyed and distracted from a compelling story of love and treachery. Interesting plot with unexpected turns, layered characters revealed behind their masks, and a wicked cool battle in a bamboo grove. Good stuff.

 

Now you have to watch Curse of the Golden Flower.

 

This movie was just an incredible experience for the 13 year old me who watched it when it came out. The fight sequence in the bamboo forest is breathtaking.

 

Catching Fire - What a great movie, characters were great, loved that elevator scene and DAT ending!!! Can't wait for next year

 

Disney's Robin Hood is a delight. It might be their most underrated animated film.

 

While I agree Robin Hood is a delight, I disagree that it's their most underrated film. When I bring it up with people they remember it well.

No, I feel that their most underrated film among the Big 53 is The Rescuers Down Under, because it was sandwiched between The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

Speaking of which, there's something I feel when it comes to Disney's Big 53. I refuse to take sides and answer such questions such as "Is ____ better than ____?"

What people find to be the best is an entirely subjective opinion, and often are dependent on movies that they as a kid have seen. For me personally I don't aim to find the best Disney movie out there because all of them, even the less-than-stellar ones, are great in their own way. The 53 movie-library of Disney ensures that each one is probably someone's first Disney movie, so they're free to have their own opinion.

HOWEVER, while I don't agree with comparing them all at once, I do find it easier and better IMO to compare in the decade-period of which they were released. Each decade of Disney shows different ideas, stories, etc. As such, here's my list of which Disney movies I feel to be the best in each decade:

1937-1939 (1 movie)-Snow White, duh.
1940-1949 (10 movies)-Fantasia
1950-1959 (5 movies)-Sleeping Beauty
1960-1969 (3 movies)-The Sword in the Stone
1970-1979 (4 movies)-Robin Hood
1980-1989 (5 movies)-The Little Mermaid
1990-1990 (10 movies)-Beauty and the Beast
2000-2009 (11 movies)-The Princess and the Frog
2010-2019 (4 movies)-Frozen

 

To be honest, I've never been much of a Disney guy, and most of my experience with their animated catalog has come against my will. For instance, my Dad took me to see Sleeping Beauty when it was re-released for its 30th anniversary back in the 80s. I was bored stiff. And I only watched The Lion King after several years of brow-beating from a co-worker. I did, however, love their animated TV shows like Duck Tales, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers and Tailspin.

I do agree with you %100 that the best way to compare them is by decade.

 

I don't consider myself an aficionado of the Disney animated canon, but I'm aware of the "Renaissance" period (about the time I was a child), which covered part of the 1980's and most of the 1990's. I'm not sure strict division by decade is the right way to categorize them.

 

Even the Renaissance period is debatable. About everyone agrees it starts with The Little Mermaid, but where it ends is a different matter altogether. Some say it ends with Lion King because at the time Pocahontas onwards is when Disney started to decline. Yet others will say it ends with Tarzan or Fantasia 2000 because of the end of the decade and the Emperor's New Groove & Atlantis: The Lost Empire being meh. Even more will say something different entirely because their nostalgia of those movies clouds their judgment.

If you have other ideas how to categorize them, I'm interested in hearing your ideas. I mostly became a Disney aficionado around when Princess & the Frog came along because that was the first 2D animated Disney movie and among the Animated Canon I saw in theaters. Everything else was through VHS and DVD.

 

Yeah, I think Darth Guy has a point, but Darth Xalfrea does as well; Periods or eras might be better than strict decade by decade, but we'd have to come up with an agreeable set of eras. Again, I know less about Disney animation than I do about Quantum physics (and that begins and ends with Dr. Sam Beckett), so I'm waaaay out of my depth here. I assume there is a "classic" era, followed by a downturn, and then the "renaissance" followed by a decline and the rise of 3D-style animation?

 

Might be better to categorize into periods, such as Pre-War (Snow White-Dumbo), War (all of those endless dumb compilations), Post-War Golden Age (Cinderella-Sleeping Beauty), Xerox (101 Dalmatians-Jungle Book), Post-Disney (Aristocats-Oliver & Company), Renaissance (Mermaid-Tarzan), Inevitable Endless Decline (Fantasia 2000-Frozen).

 

Lemme try my hand at this. Changed from the one above for some, but it's just my opinion of course.

Beginning Era (Snow White-Dumbo)
War Era (Saludos Amigos-Ichabod & Mr Toad)
Golden era (Cinderella-The Jungle Book)-Jungle Book was the last movie made with Walt was still alive.
Middle era (Aristocats-Oliver & Company)
Renaissance era (Little Mermaid-Tarzan)
Dark era (Fantasia 2000-Bolt)
Revival era (Princess & the Frog-Frozen)

Who knows what awaits us in the next one, #54: Big Hero 6?

 

Excellent. My only concern with combining those into Golden is that Disney's films of the 60s are often put into a lower tier. If not that, certainly there is a significant shift in style after the relative financial disappointment in Sleeping Beauty. Despite Disney's involvement, it's commonly thought that by the point of 101 Dalmatians/Sword in the Stone and later films, he wasn't particularly interested in the films his animation department was producing what with all of the other entrepreneurial projects in which he was currently invested. Granted, it's an arbitrary division either way; your choice is perfectly reasonable.

 

Just saw The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I thought it was extremely well done.

 

Homefront... So, some DEA agent has made some enemies in a meth biker gang (via an undercover operation), and decides to relocate himself & his daughter to a small Louisiana town. Shenanigans ensure as the locals (more meth connected folks) take issue with this new resident, especially after the daughter defends herself at school against a bully. More stuff happens, fisticuffs & gun play, shady events to draw the DEA agent towards a showdown. That happens, the movie ends. Nothing you haven't seen before in a film like this, but due to the surprising cast (aside from Jason Statham that is, you've got James Franco (the villain), Winona Ryder & Kate Bosworth in this), this is an effective enough action/brawl picture. *** out of ****.


Only God Forgives... This was one of the more ridiculous & frustrating films I've seen in quite sometime. There's bits & pieces of interesting stuff going on here, Julian's mother, the seediness of the Bangkok underworld, but all of that is engulfed with endless shots of folks just walking like ******* robots, staring into the abyss, despite the situation that's in front of them (ie: Chang's kid as Julian & his cohort take of business at the Chang home). Ryan Gosling in particular is awful here... you could have had a crash test dummy in his role, and nothing would have changed. * out of ****.

 

The MST3K presentation of "Quest of the Delta Knights", starring David Warner and David Warner.

 

Wake Up Ron Burgundy: This is the alternate cut of Anchorman with alternate takes and different gags, not to mention a subplot involving an SLA-like group of bank robbers (if you ever wanted to see Maya Rudolph with an '70s women's Afro, here's your chance). It was okay, but you can see why they went with the theatrical release on some things.