Passamaquoddy

Before Henry Jones Jr. ran from a rolling boulder, the heroic crew of the pointy little ship did the same in an exciting scene from “The Black Hole”.  Just another ingenious special effect under the eye of Peter Ellenshaw…

My two way wrist radio hasn’t been filled with “Too much Dick Tracy” messages.  Either you love them, or I’m the only techie with a two-way wrist radio…  (I’ve also got a toaster that can handle two slices at a time!)

So what would a gangland hit look like using Sunday morning comic colors? 

Four decades ago, it seemed a Disney film couldn’t be seen that didn’t have one or the other of these guys.. mostly both. Don Knotts and Tim Conway carried on a long tradition of dumb and dumberer with such ease and natural flair.

In this scene, bumbling bank robbers Amos and Theodore scope out their next big score…

After the “story” in Tarzan comes to a close, there is brief epilogue.  Almost a curtain call, we get a brief callback to most of the characters that have touched Tarzan’s life as he and Jane playfully swings through the jungle.  It’s a vine party! The fast paced animation style wasn’t for everybody, but only a grump could avoid laughing when the prim and proper Janes’s father, Archimedes Porter swings wildly into scene.

After the Mayor was returned to Passamaquoddy after being stranded on an uncharted desert isle, thetown decided to make March “Castaway Month”.  So, thats a load of what everyone is talking about now.  Movies with Castaways… Attractions with Castaways… Books with Castaways… you get the idea.  So tonight, counting on theweather remaining dreadfully cold, we’re gathering inside the old schoolhouse to watch a couple films. 

The evening opened with a short Disney cartoon called Sea Salts, narrated by an understanding cricket ‘Mac’ Bootle Beetle, not unlike Jiminy.  Of course, Donald spends the entire film taking advantage of the cricket…

We’ve had such emotional news of late with the missing townsfolk that we thought we’d examine some of the lighter stuff in life. The above scene from the video game film TRON is surely not up to Pixars standards, but it sure paved the way for them. Second only to an X-Wing or Tie Fighter, I don’t know of any vehicle that any Disco era young boy would rather drive then the light cycles.

My favorite element of Disney’s telling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is in the casting. Not every role is a perfect fit but two stand out as great achievements.

The first is most obviously Kirk Douglas in the role of Ned Land. Mister Douglas had already picked up a couple Oscar nominations by the time he signed on to Disney’s take on the Jules Verne story. But his previous roles were far more serious roles. His fun-loving portrayal of the harpoon hunter quickly personified a “Disney performance”, one where viewers have an unwritten contract with the performer that ‘everythings gonna turn out okay, let’s have some fun’. He even finds time to perform a song or two during the film, one time doing some fancy guitar work that may not musically make sense, but it sure is clever. It is important to understand Kirk Douglas’ take on Ned Land to fully appreciate the next performance.

James Mason also had a big career on stage and screen long before taking command of the Nautilus as Captain Nemo. In a film where the stars work within their clean family film performances, James Mason did not get the memo. His take on Nemo could easily fit into a serious biopic of a troubled, ingenious man. His dark characterization is so unique in the film - so un-Disney - that it is easy to see Nemo as a truly stellar individual, concerned only with his slanted view of a perfect world.

Hats off to both of them…. You gotta love it.

This time around, the toys were involved in a huge chase that took them all the way to the airport - where the story is wrapped up. But now they have to get the toys back to Andy’s bedroom without wasting any time explaning how.  So, they threw this out the window…

Woody has finally learned his lesson. Now, his attempt to rescue Buzz from the evil Sid is no longer to preserve his own standing in the toy community, but rather because Buzz is now his friend. And Woody’s alliance with an army of mutant toys shows the viewer a new Woody.