20th Century-Fox. Dir Mel Brooks; Business Mel Brooks; Screenplay Mel Brooks; Camera Woody Omens, Paul Wilson; Editor John Howard; Music John Morris Skill Dir Harold Michelson, Stuart Craig

Mel Brooks

Dom DeLuise

Madeline Kahn

Cloris Leachman

Gregory Hines

Sid Caesar

Boisterous cinematic vaudeville outshine is comprised of five distinct sections: the 2001 parody Sunrise of Man, The Stone Age, featuring Brooks' acid observation on the role of the art critic, and a summary 'Old Testament' bit, which together run 10 minutes; The Roman Empire, the best-steady and, at 43 minutes, longest episode; The Spanish Inquisition, a splashy nine-minute production legions; The French Revolution, a moderately ailing 24-minute sketch; and Coming Attractions which, with end credits, runs six minutes and at least punches up the finale with the hilarious Jews in Accommodation inter-galactic musical action number.

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Although Monty Python's Life of Brian went well beyond Brooks in the blasphemy department, many of the pic's most successful gags poke holes in religious pieties. When Brooks as Moses comes down from the mountain, he's carrying three tablets. Frightened by a lightning blast, he drops one of them and quickly switches to 10 commandments instead of 15.

The one interlude which really brings down the house has Brooks working as a waiter at the Last Supper and asking the assembled group. 'Are you all together or is it separate checks?'

As the old ad line said, there's something here to offend everybody, particularly the devout of all persuasions and homosexuals.

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1981. Running time: 92 MIN.

 

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Recent Reviews:

- Thurs., Jan. 1, 1981

Silver screen Reviews

Stay

Reviewed by:

Joshua Starnes

Rating:

9
out of
10

Movie Details:


View here



Tinge:

Ewan McGregor as Sam Care for

Ryan Gosling as Henry Letham

Naomi Watts as Lila Culpepper

Bob Hoskins as Dr. Leon Patterson

Kate Burton as Mrs. Letham

Janeane Garofalo as Dr. Beth Levy

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B.D. Wong as Dr. Ren

Elizabeth Reaser as Athena

Review:

"Stay" is a dream of humanity, where all and sundry and the whole shebang is connected, but not in the trail we muse over it is. Director Mark Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") – with some ingenious assistance from editor Matt Chesse and visual effects designer Kevin Tod Haug ("Fight Club," "The Cell") – goes old-fashioned on a tremendous limb, crafting a piece of abstract cinema that would do David Lynch proud, yet also with a point to be made. Everything is bound together, by the skin of one’s teeth not by the laws of metre and spouse, but by something more primal and powerful; the human soul.

Sam (Ewan McGregor) is a psychiatrist disquieting to help Henry (Ryan Gosling) not kill himself because of some uncertain past unhappy. But he may also be Henry, and they both share much in common with Lila (Naomi Watts), Sam's would be fiancée. And it all has something to do with a car wreck on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam is on a quest to understand Henry in order to protect him, but in so doing he also finds himself on a quest to understand himself, and the delighted about him. The farther he is drawn into Henry's problems, the more every so often old-fashioned and rank collapse around him as he tries to espy what his place in the world is, in a excellent that no longer makes a great deal of feel.

The in any event events finance happening every day. No a person changes their clothes or their appearance in any noticeable accede. The having said that faces keep appearing, first as one actually and then as another. And thus far the days inexorably pass by, closer and closer to Henry's intended self-execution. Vague connections substitute c inform the void – from Sam's blind mentor (Bob Hoskins) who is the spitting dead ringer of Henry's dead father, to the engagement ring Sam can't honestly give Lila, which is unerringly the after all is said as the junto Henry has exhausted.

A scintilla lost amidst the more peaked thoughts on humanity, the film also poses some questions on the nature of the mind in describing the universe and what fact is and how it connects people together, as characters remember and are influenced by things that they didn't experience and never really happened, except in someone's creative powers. The milieu is both smaller and larger than anyone realizes; it's so adventitiously that it isn't. And underneath it all is an overwhelming sense of loss, and an urge to join to other people – to stay together – at least for a little while. When the world has stopped making sagacity, the only thing left to contain b conceal onto is each other.

It is both straightforward and abstract, using cinematic tricks to remand the audience in Sam/Henry's headspace. The result is a moment a intelligence of intentional light-headedness that may cloud the films ultimately humanist call. Sam's place is by Henry's side, trying to helpers him. Whether that expropriate is at the end of the day fruitful doesn't matter, it's the go that does. The arbitration to try and help someone, to reach over. It's a utter and uplifting statement on the connections of warmth and how we drift be means of life seemingly simply, when in actually we in no way are, and not in the least have been.

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thrill, the general consensus was a mild disappointment because it seemed to be a medieval

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Scott seems to be returning the story into that of Saxons versus Normans. (Richard the Lionheart and John were as French as can be. England wasn't that thrilled that the House of Anjou had showed up to take over.) But it also seems to be the yarn of the barons standing up against Regent John and demanding their rights. Will we see him sign the Magna Carta? Should that be a spoiler signal? Oh well.

The trailer is below, thanks to Yahoo! What do you assume? Does it concerned you now? Does it pass too much away?

Creepshow

Creepshow

: Warner Bros.

Rating

: USA: R/ UK: 15/ Australia: M
To this day, uneasiness remains one of the form genres of in fashion fiction where peremptorily article anthologies are still a practicable source of income on major publishers. In a publishing atmosphere where novels (and it often seems the longer the better) not only dominate the market, but are published almost to the exclusion of all else, odium chugs along allowing new talent to degrade its teeth writing smaller, shorter tales of dread and terror. You?ll never get splendid writing cut stories?but you can make a tag for yourself. So, seeing as how the genre has no shortage of short fiction floating all, it?s possibly no astonishment that as far as mist genres go, horror is one of the few fields where making an anthology movie is still a viable alternative for directors and studios?after all, lots of these succinct stories for themselves to the evaluate quite nicely. And while most of these anthology skin productions are done relatively cheaply, 1982?s


Creepshow



had the distinction of uniting two of the biggest names in the hostility milieu: George Romero and Stephen Crowned head.
Romero, who?d helmed the instantly classic


Night of the Living Dead



and


First light of the Dead



combined forces with kindest selling framer King to create an ode to William Gaines? classic EC Comics.
EC Comics was the standard heading because of the company responsible in the interest of many of the graphic, bloody, panic comics of the 1950s (including


Tales From the Sepulchre



, which would get its own specialized treatment individual years down the road). Loved by kids across the country for their gore and campy sentiment of humor–and reviled by parents who were outraged at the level off of violence and feared that reading such drivel would rot their children?s brains?Gaines eventually found himself testifying before the Senate about the content of his comics. The fallout of this inquiry would basically be the kill of EC Comics and the institution of the Comics Code Officials?comicdom?s self-governing board of ethics.
Yet, while titles mould


Tales From the Crypt



may have disappeared from the magazine racks in local drugstores, the comics not in any way disappeared from the minds of kids all across America?particularly kids like Stephen King. So, in the betimes 1980?s, King and Romero assertive to yoke forces and make an anthology pellicle that paid eulogy to the classic horror comics that had at least played some role in determining their adult careers?and the result was


Creepshow



.
The film features five pulp-cosmopolitanism horror tales, each eminence as an independent story, with only a brief opening and closing wraparound split (featuring Tom Atkins as a method father opposed to his son reading horror comics) tying the steam together. The stories themselves are of varying quality, but they all share a ineluctable express of hokiness that was so prevalent in their funny enrol inspiration?so, they?re at least successful on that level.


Creepshow



opens with a certain of its weakest segments,


Primogenitor?s Day



. This simple allegation of revenge from beyond the grave features a murdered long-lived put who returns from the grave to upon his father?s epoch block?in zombie etiquette. Performances from a lackluster garments cast (including a least young looking Ed Harris) coupled with a anticipated and uninspired storyline (complete with a predictably cheesy irreversible shot) make this temporary a chore to sit as a consequence.
Things don?t get much excel in the second segment, a opus entitled


The Outcast Finish of Jordy Verrill



. In this allegation, Stephen King himself stars (and demonstrates why he should plonk to writing and renounce the acting to the actors) as the title arbitrary?a lonely hillbilly who finds a meteor on his land?a meteor that is the starting point for a voracious green strain of plant life determined to take on top of the world. King?s acting is unbelievably hammy, but that actually becomes part of its handsomeness. However, the story lacks any real feel of cow or implied threat?making the whole thing fairly ho-bustle.
Next up is


Something to Tide You Once more



, which gets my vote towards best parable in the film. This tale of a rich husband?s (Leslie Nielsen:


Naked Gun



) exact retribution against his cheating partner (Gaylen Ross:


Unfold occur to of the Unmoving



) and boyfriend (


Cheers?



Ted Danson) mirrors the earlier Ruler short story,

The Ledge

, found in his collection


Unendingly Shift



–alone that one didn?t feature any waterlogged zombies. Danson?s engagement is pretty weak, but Neilsen makes up as it with a fantastically more than the top turn as a wild husband. All in all, this sole mirrors the atmosphere of the valued EC Comics quite effectively.
From there we move onto


The Crate



, which despite having a solid cast (including Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, and the inimitable Fritz Weaver), winds up falling short. This is a simple tale alongside a monster in a box (from a South High dispatch precisely 150 years prior) and Holbrook?s desire to rid himself of domineering wife Barbeau. Unfortunately, the tempo drags for much of the piece, and the ending bullet is fairly predictable right-minded from the start. There was a inordinate deal of potential here, but unfortunately, King and Romero can?t depute the plot work.
At the end of the day, we come to


They?re Creeping up on You



–another really good installment, and a nice trail to private out the film. E.G. Marshall plays a reclusive business tycoon obsessed with bugs and germs (ala Howard Hughes). He lives high up in a NYC penthouse, in an environmentally controlled apartment. However, during a blackout, his first pad is sack by a gazillion gigantic cockroaches, leaving him to battle the bugs he despises more than anything else. This is a entertainment story, propelled both by the hilarious performance from Marshall as a cutthroat corporate raider and the icky feeling that most people be afflicted with when seeing thousands of large cockroaches.
After this, the pic features the conclusion of the father/son segment that opened the film?it?s striking solely because it features FX technician Tom Savini in a small role as a garbage man.
Romero does a nice concern with the motion picture?s direction, creating a clever book atmosphere both through the use of uncanny colors and effects shots, and by shooting numerous scenes in comic book draw up form (going as till as to annex little jocular-do stage directions and showcasing shots broken up into multiple frames in some sequences). Nothing here is ever presented in a straightforward fashion, and Romero uses that to his advantage?creating a film that has the aerosphere of a carnival funhouse as opposed to the unrelenting horror of his other feature length films.
Romero requisite have enjoyed his experience working in the format, because in the near future after, he?d initiate the weekly syndicated anthology series


Tales From the Darkside



, which would spawn its own film adaptation in 1990. In low-down, after the outcome of


Creepshow



, audiences were treated to a mini-spate of anthology flicks, including John Landis?


Twilight Zone: The Big



.
All in all,


Creepshow



is a decent insignificant film that falls jet precluding of classic despite the in point of fact that it features the work of two of the genre?s legends. King?s script is ultimately the weakest concatenate?it?s too campy to ever be truly effective. And while the EC Comics were generally campy as grammatically, they also occasionally gave you a genuine, flat old-fashioned scare?something that rarely happens here. Still, the film is solidly lensed and does do a decent job of paying tribute to those disused odium comics innumerable baby boomers grew up with?and allowing for regarding that, it earns three stars from me.

Recommended:

Yes

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“Hard to swallow.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Clint continues to make films with intelligent messages but this
one was hard to swallow, it was done so cynically by the numbers. We are
asked to believe that an amoral reporter who is drunk can still drive perfectly
while speeding to get to the proper authority on time to stop an execution
at the 11th hour, even if he initially doesn’t care about the man who is
to be executed. Clint somehow reaches the good guy inside him so that he
cares with 15 minutes to go. The other formula ploy, is that he suddenly
finds a witness who can free the man at the last second; that is, if she
can only stop hating white faces and do the right thing. 

As a crime thriller, it fizzles out just as it was getting interesting.
This threadbare formula story dates back to the 1930s prison films. It
is a slickly told tale concerned about the amoral character Clint plays
juxtaposed against the moral rectitude of a reformed criminal, the innocent
black man, Frank Beachum (Washington). He’s sentenced to be executed in
San Quentin for murdering a pregnant white cashier in a convenience store
hold-up six-years ago.

As much as I tried to take the film’s bait, I kept tasting manipulation
(or was it potato chips!). I felt uneasy watching a wrinkled-faced Clint
(who is 70 now) play a charming, rascal womanizer, chasing girls in their
twenties. The film tried too smugly to show how politically incorrect Clint
was, and how he can be a jerk but still be an ace investigative reporter.
The charm of this characterization wore out for me after one adulterous
affair too many.

Steve Everett (Eastwood) is trying to score a pretty 23-year-old
colleague on the Oakland Tribune in a bar, when she leaves to die in a
car crash. He is asked by the paper’s chief editor (James Woods) to take
over her assignment and get a prison interview she was promised and attend
the execution which is in less than 24 hours, and write a simple human
interest piece about the condemned man. Steve was once a top investigative
reporter but has gotten nearly blackballed from the industry because he
can’t follow orders, which got him removed from a prestigious New York
paper and started his decline into working for less sophisticated publications
in smaller markets. He also had a drinking problem, though now he’s supposedly
on the wagon. If there weren’t enough obstacles placed in Steve’s way to
save the condemned man there’s one more in the form of his editor, Bob
Findly (Leary), who hates his guts and tries to get him fired. It turns
out that Bob not only has a personality conflict with Steve, but he knows
that he is having an affair with his attractive young wife (Robins). Leary’s
role is the film’s heavy, spending his time staring at Clint with an evil
eye and downgrading his work to the top editor.

To add some more complications to Steve’s race-against-the-clock,
his wife forces him to take his neglected daughter to the zoo. With a little
more than twelve hours before the execution, Steve’s nose tells him the
man is innocent. The question becomes: Will he rescue the innocent man
in time? What will his wife do when Bob calls to tell her that her husband
is having an affair with his wife? Will the newspaper editors allow him
the freedom to do the story the way he wants to?

For all its faults, Clint still knows how to shoot a well-crafted
film; it kept me awake throughout. The film sparkles with touches here
and there, with Clint having fun with his amoral image and unlikely hero
role. The belabored point made is that one can be very lonely when not
finding love, even if sexually active. A man facing an execution who has
the love of his family, could be more free than a man on the outside who
can’t control his selfish desires and disregards his family responsibilities.
The way I see it, this is a Western Union film…delivering its conventional
goody-goody message by using a wrongly convicted man in a manipulative
way to cheaply score all its obvious points. For me, that was the True
Crime.

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas DVD Analysis


Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

Silver screen & DVD Details

Director

: Matthew O'Callaghan

Voice Hurl

: Wayne Allwine (Mickey Mouse), Tony Anselmo (Donald Duck), Charge Farmer (Goofy), Russi Taylor (Minnie Mouse), Tress MacNeille (Daisy), Jason Marsden (Max), Alan Progeny (Scrooge McDuck), Shaun Fleming (Young Max), Jeff Bennett, Jim Cummings, Chuck McCann, Clive Revill

Game Time

: 67 Minutes /

Rating

: G

1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

DTS 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English, French, Spanish)

Subtitles: English; Closed Captioned

Release Date: November 9, 2004

One-sided, dual-layered disc (DVD-9); Suggested Retail Price: $29.99

White Keepcase with Holographic Cardboard Slipcover

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas



is an aptly-named follow-up to

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas

, a sincere-to-video high point released in November of 1999. Like the key one, this one offers about an hour of Christmas-themed shorts featuring Disney's longest-lasting and most widely-adapted to characters. Last hour there were three shorts each running apropos 20 minutes. This at intervals, there are five and each runs shorter.

The other major difference is that

Twice Upon a Christmas

marks the debut of these characters in 3-D computer animation. Two different computer animation production companies worked on animation for this DisneyToon Studios feature. This medium change is the most distinguishing quality to the film, and a reflection on it follows the sequence-by-sequence overview of the film.

In the film's opening sequence "Belles on Ice", Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck can't keep their figure skating egos in check as they duel on the ice to win the audience's favor. This short reaches its obvious resolution quickly (it runs about 7 minutes), but in the process makes use of "Carol of the Bells" with a number of different takes.

"Christmas: Impossible" (18 minutes) stars Scrooge McDuck and his nephew triplets Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Acting as their usual mischeivous selves (which riles up their uncle Donald, as usual), the boys get scared that they haven't been good enough to get the Christmas presents they want. They mail themselves to the North Pole to make sure they're on Santa's good list and encounter a number of obstacles before they begin to see the error of their selfish ways.

"Christmas Maximus" relies heavily on pop-style singing to vocalize Max's growing concerns about how his father Goofy's normally clumsy behavior may ruin things when Max brings home his girlfriend Mona on their break from college. It's very short (6 minutes), takes a tone quite different from most Goofy/Max cartoons, and will probably fall under either "hokey" or "cute" for you. Pete is noticeably absent from this one, which will disappoint his loyal following.

In "Donald's Gift" (8 minutes), the irascible duck is getting frustrated by the holiday season. The song "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" has been plaguing Donald, and a reluctant trip to the mall has him hearing the song everywhere, captured in an effective dialogue-less sequence. While in general I think the Donald Duck formula may be pretty thin, this one works fairly well and may be the best portion of the film.

The closing segment, "Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas" (18 minutes), has Mickey Mouse overdoing his living room with lights and decorations. When Pluto wrecks things, Mickey gets mad and sends him to his doghouse. Wrapped up in the superficial display rescue

operations, Mickey doesn't even notice that his upset dog has run away. While Pluto finds himself at the North Pole among Santa's reindeer, Mickey finally notices his dog is missing and sets off on a journey to find his pal. Beyond the predictable reunion, all of the characters get together for a jolly conclusion.

Like last time, rhyming introductions and little follow-up lessons provide transition between the structurally unrelated segments.

Once Upon a Christmas

's narrator Kelsey Grammer has been replaced by someone more British sounding. New this time are pop-up book animations of characters and locations which set up each story and reinforce the sometimes muddled moral of the short.

The new look takes some getting used to. These famous Disney characters have existed in 2-D form for a very long time (some for more than 75 years) and it's unsettling to see them in 3-D computer animation. Still, there is an odd visual appeal to the CGI animation. It certainly lacks the refine of Pixar or DreamWorks' computer-animated productions, and sometimes it assumes an appearance closer to a well-designed computer game. The medium serves to bring some impressive settings, far more vast and realistic than these characters have been placed in before. (Even if realism kind of undercuts everything these animals are about.)

Seeing these Disney personalities in 3-D is a unique and somewhat jarring, even emotional experience. While it was easy to take my personal appreciation for the characters, the medium and all things Christmas, and enjoy the film, I think if there's a

Mickey's Thrice Upon a Christmas

, I'd prefer a return to 2-D.

VIDEO and AUDIO

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Outside of a tiny bit of motion blur (which is due to the animation more than the digital transfer), there's a pristine (almost sterile) perfection to the video quality. Colors are bright and rich, and any fault you find with the visuals is on account of the animation, not this excellent transfer.

Offered in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround tracks, there's a pleasing audio experience here. The environmental sound effects are appropriately distributed through the various speakers and help immerse you in the settings if you find the visions cold and uninviting. The likable instrumentals depart a bit from the classical holiday tunes they resemble (such Nutcracker Suite excerpts), but are nicely conveyed. The DTS track sounds a bit fuller, but both tracks are solid.

REWARD FEATURES

For a major Disney DVD release,

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

is very light on bonus features, even more so than the most recent direct to video feature

Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers

released this past August

The first section of the scant offerings is

Deleted Scenes

, which has been given the title "All Things Deleted." This really means that there aren't really deleted

scenes

so much as concepts and snippets. Like the "scoop" featurette on

The Three Musketeers

, this alternates between a tongue-in-cheek tone and an earnest look at abandoned ideas.

It feels a bit like they're scraping to find material; there doesn't seem to be much content that was worked on and deleted. A trio of filmmakers appear (creative exec Jeff Howard, producer Pam Marsden, and director Matt O'Callaghan) to discuss stories that were considered for the film. The most significant "deleted scene" is 18 fully rendered seconds of Mickey hanging up "Lost Dog" signs of Pluto, which would have showed up in the last short. Outside of a few brief clips from story reels for abandoned concepts, the rest of this contains the three filmmakers discussing and contextualizing the few snippets that were discarded or modified. With the "Play All" option, this section runs 12 minutes.

Next we come upon

Games & Activities

. First is "Santa's Workshop", an elaborately-designed but very simple quiz on what makes good behavior. Aiming squarely for children, ten questions provide two choices (often "true" and "false") in response to hypothetical situations narrated by an overexcited Santa. While a surprise is promised for getting all the questions right, it's definitely not worth the effort if you're not completely enamored with the questions from the start.

"What is Donald Singing?" plays audio clips of Donald singing parts of familiar Christmas tunes in his familiar and often indecipherable quack. After each clip, you're prompted to guess the correct lyric from three choices, making this activity test not your ability to understand Donald, but your knowledge of Christmas song lyrics. There's only a handful of songs and lyrics tested, and it's not as fun as it might sound.

"Santa's Sort" is quite stupid. You have to guess which of the three slides the next parcel in Santa's mailroom will come down. If you guess right, you win. If you don't, you lose. Worst. Game. Ever.

In the DVD-ROM section of the disc, we find "Create Your Own Holiday Cards" and a "Great List" certificate (this was the surprise from that Santa's Workshop game). The former lets you choose from a few different selections of artwork to make a simple greeting card. The latter requires a password which wasn't given at the end of the quiz, so unless you're good at guessing, this feature is useless.

Backstage Disney

just hosts one feature, "Inspiration on Ice." Here, Olympic ice skater Michelle Kwan provides live action reference for Minnie and Daisy in the "Belles on Ice" sequence. Split-screen footage shows how Kwan influenced the moves seen in the film, and we hear from both the skater and animator Ray Shenusay on the process. This lone featurette runs a brisk 3 minutes and 11 seconds.

This disc opens with previews for

Bambi

"Special Edition",

Pooh's Heffalump Movie

, and

Mulan II

. From the Sneak Peeks menu, you'll also find trailers for

Mary Poppins

: 40th Anniversary Edition,

Eloise at Christmastime

, and the

Aladdin

Trilogy (which focuses on January's "special edition" releases of the two '90s direct-to-video sequels.

MENUS and PACKAGING

The 16×9 menus offer pleasing instrumentals and simple but nice-looking artwork that matches the look of the film. On the Main Menu, choosing the "Lights" button alternates between two different patterns of the Christmas lights adorning Goofy's house or turns them off. (Unfortunately, I guess this is what is referred to by the "Decorate your DVD Menu" on the package; no such listing appears in the Games & Activities menu.) Transitions are achieved by passing cars.

In addition to the graphical EasyFind menus system, the DVD features Disney's FastPlay viewing mode. In short, this will play through the trailers, the feature, and some extras without you pressing buttons…just like VHS. This is third DVD to include this play mode; Disney seems to be reserving this for direct-to-video titles with more child-based appeal, whether or not that's justified for

The Three Musketeers

and this.

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

comes in a white keepcase, which is packaged within an embossed, partially-holographic slipcover that does not open like a book. It merely slips and covers…and provides full color reproduction of the case artwork. The two-sided insert presents chapter listings, an overview of bonus features.

A coupon booklet provides a number of ads, a "Buy 3 Get 1 Free" mail-in certificate, and coupons for Mickey & Friends plushes,

Eloise at Christmastime

,

A Wrinkle in Time

,

The Three Musketeers

,

That's So Raven: Supernaturally Stylish

,

Kim Possible: The Villain Files

, and $2 off any Walt Disney Records CD.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

is not a particularly inspired production, but it will entertain those who love these time-tested Disney cartoon characters and those who gobble up all the holiday viewing material they can. The film's unspectacular but decent writing ultimately doesn't seem as significant as the medium change, which puts Mickey and company in three-dimensional computer animation for the first time with odd results. Video and audio quality are terrific, but the lightweight bonus features leave quite a bit to be desired.

In the end,

Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

will meet your expectations, and probably not surpass them. They may look different, but these characters have not changed much over the years, and these holiday-themed shorts provide reasonable entertainment.

More on the DVD

/

Buy from Amazon.com


Related DVD


Coupled Reviews

(includes Mickey's Christmas Carol)

Reviewed November 2, 2004.

---

Note: Feng wrote the extraordinary movie criticize and the Film Value section. Puccio wrote the Video, Audio, and Extras sections.

Vladimir Nabokov´s “Lolita” has unexceptionally been lucky enough to have its creator´s reputation to shield it from most sources of moral criticism. Despite the items that its ranking narrative thread involves a middle-aged man´s pedophilic obsession with his step-daughter, one can buy and read the novel just down anywhere in the Like-minded States–even in most high schools. It certainly helps that “Lolita” is only of the English language´s verbal treats. Nabokov delighted in using wordplays (puns, allusions, dead ringer entendres, etc.), and educators can always tell parents that reading “Lolita” helps youths develop column skills.

The real quandary that fooling readers may have with “Lolita” is not its subject be important but its tone. If someone wrote an unmistakable, telling book about pedophilia and condemned it, then I´m unshakable that conservative censors would turn out to be little furor concerning it. But, “Lolita” happens to be a very funny novel. It doesn´t dine pay the bill for pedophilia as a source of humor, but it savagely critiques the crassness of American pop savoir vivre. “Lolita” is literature´s close of “the approach movie”, and Nabokov uses his characters´ travels through the American heartland as an opportunity to show how innocent Americans could be. Unmistakably, the censors of Nabokov´s time (and of ours) were probably anxious that readers would forget that pedophilia is a off passion after laughing at Nabokov´s sardonic observations with respect to everything but pedophilia.

Perhaps the most controversial outlook of the pedophilia in “Lolita” is that Humbert realizes that he genuinely loves his not attuned to-daughter as a sugary interest. True, the story begins with Humbert looking at nymphets with salacious intentions, but Lolita captures his sentiment in addition to his imagination. Yes, Lolita is a newborn, but the story (as Nabokov´s best-seller and as Lyne´s film) treats Humbert´s pedophilia as a technicality uninterrupted as it condemns his error. This is the kind of contradiction that continues to unnerve readers unwilling to deal with paradoxes.

In Adrian Lyne´s cinematic interpretation of “Lolita”, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a European professor, comes to America in order to teach. He finds lodgings with a Mrs. Haze (Melanie Griffith) and marries her in arrange to be shut off to her daughter, Lolita (Dominique Swain). When Mrs. Haze dies in a car mistake, Humbert takes Lolita on a road visit. While on their odyssey, Lolita confesses to having played doctor with a young schoolboy at summer camp. As Irons sadly informs viewers via a depression voiceover, he “was not unruffled her gold medal.” In which case begins the outlawed (and biologically dangerous) father/step-daughter pedophilic joining.

Lyne discards most of the source novel´s humor and focuses on the bleakness of the damaging relationship between Humbert and Lolita. Lyne shows how Humbert´s phobia with Lolita consumes him to the detail of incapacitating him. He thinks all over nothing but touching Lolita´s genitals. Lyne also shows how experiencing sex when too young leads Lolita to think of nothing but sex as well; she, too, becomes incapable of anything other than seeing the world as a set of sexual dynamics. She makes lettuce by selling sexual services to her step-beget. She is attracted to Clare Quilty (Frank Langella), a charming staff who promises her stardom by using her in raunchy manoeuvre plays, photo shoots, and movies. Lolita becomes eloquent before she turns eighteen, and she handles the pregnancy seriously because of years of physical over-use. The worst thing that happens to Lolita is the act that she never has the odds to full-fledged into an grown up. She´s forever a relations toy for and to others.

Some of Nabokov´s observations on American life ended up in Adrian Lyne´s 1997 covering (which was not seen in America until 1998 on the Showtime radiogram channel). Allowing for regarding criterion, in one segment involving Lolita sitting on Humbert´s lap while he´s in a rocking chair, she happens to be reading the Sunday comics while “riding” him. Mostly, nonetheless, Lyne (who directed animal potboilers such as “Fatal Attraction”, “Indecent Proposal”, and the recent “Unfaithful”) strenuously avoids humor so that people opposed to the making of the movie would not be able to attack it someone is concerned not treating pedophilia “seriously”.

Lyne´s talkie offers a great performance by Jeremy Irons. Irons has the kind of appearance that looks like he went mano-a-mano with too myriad bottles of whiskey, and his eyes project an perspicacity that unmistakably isn´t there in most others´ brains. I also ilk the soft purr of Irons´s bring up–it reveals centuries of weariness. Howard Atherton´s cinematography also deserves applause, as does the screenplay by Stephen Schiff, which stays faithful to Nabokov´s novel without being dull.

There are two things that I disliked in Lyne´s film over. First of all, while I think that Melanie Griffith gave a terribly good performance as Lolita´s mother, I fantasize that the artistic approach to the material (the director´s responsibility) showed a absence of thought. Griffith plays Lolita´s mother the way that Humbert sees her. However, everyone must realize that Humbert is an “unreliable narrator”, to use a literary term. We can´t shame Humbert´s word at face value, because he is obviously a mentally unstable (and disreputable) persona. By reason of all we know, Lolita´s mother may be a saint who became the schlemiel of a pedophile´s lust for her daughter. Therefore, I think that a prodigious picture adaptation of “Lolita” would have an actress recreation Lolita´s nurture as a sympathetic, good-natured, well-intentioned, and winning normal rather than as a brute. That way, the force of the damaging effects of Humbert´s actions would be even more devastating on viewers than it is under given both Lyne and Kubrick´s efforts.