Compared to the other Halloween specials I’ve watched this Spooktober with my daughters, Curious George’s is the one that is most clearly “for kids” with little concern for the attention span of the grown ups.
Tag: Short Review
As someone who recently fell in love with a semi-coherent documentary of old film footage soundtracked to voiceover ramblings, you’d think this one in the same genre might also do it for me.
I don’t have too much experience with the modern-retro Mickey Mouse shorts from the late 2010s, so it was enlightening to see it in full bloom for a 20 minute special.
For how cheap and rushed it should feel, given that it’s a 50-minute special advertising a theme park attraction, Muppets Haunted Mansion is surprisingly well-realized.
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The DUFF (2015)
I subscribe to the theory that much of a romantic comedy’s ultimate success or failure comes down to the cast even more than the script.
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Dumbo (1941)
In many ways, Dumbo feels like it should have been the first Disney animated feature.
This week, I watched a whole bunch of Legend of Sleepy Hollow adaptations for an upcoming episode of The Goods, including this 1999 Hallmark made-for-TV flick. (As opposed to the other 1999 Sleepy Hollow movie.)
Strictly as a movie, this is a bit slow and talky in a Masterpiece Theater sort of way. But as someone who spent the week reading and rereading the Irving short story, I really enjoyed this movie’s dedication to capturing almost all of the details of the source while fleshing out the town and the character relationships in a believable way.
Of note, Brent Carver’s take on Ichabod Crane is much less sympathetic than basically any other adaptation I’ve seen. Crane’s selfish and manipulative elements are played up so that it’s almost a relief when Katrina shuts him down.
The headless horseman chasedown itself is, unsurprisingly, a bit rote… until we get the double twist of unmasking Brom before another, presumably supernatural, headless horseman appears. It’s an odd choice for an otherwise faithful adaptation.
(The one adaptation I wanted to catch that I haven’t yet is the 1980 made-for-TV version with Jeff Goldblum as Crane. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect casting.)
First, if you are expecting an adaptation with even a glimmer of fidelity to the source story, you will be disappointed.
It’s tough to think of many other movies that are more cheerful than this one — it’s a movie where it’s easy to have a smile on your face during literally the entire duration without really realizing it.
Even when you’re a kid, you just know that this movie looks different from classic early Disney, even if you can’t put a finger on it: