There is only one word that comes close to accurately describing the enchanting Mary Poppins, and that term was coined by the movie itself: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Even at 2 hours and 20 minutes, Disney's pioneering mixture of live action and animation (based on the books by P.L. Travers) still holds kids spellbound. Julie Andrews won an Oscar as the world's most magically idealized…
The 12 shorts in this collection were made at the Soyuzmultfilm Studio during the late '80s, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet regime ended the subsidies that had financed the studio's output since its establishment in 1936. Nina Shorina's mordant stop-motion film "Door" (1986) probably ranks as the best known work in the anthology. The outré inhabitants of a crumbling apartment house…
He may only come up to King Kong's shin, but Joe makes up in heart what he lacks in size. This sweet tale of a girl and her pet/best friend, an African gorilla with the soul of a kitten, pulls on a different set of heartstrings than the giant ape classic. Robert Armstrong practically repeats his role from King Kong as a Broadway producer who lures Jill Young (Terry Moore) and Joe, an ape she ra…
Monsters ~ Monsters
Bored, bored, bored. That's how young Keith feels about being stranded at the time-worn Mountain View Inn with his parents. Then he meets Ralph, an equally stir-crazy mouse who quickly befriends Keith and begs to ride Keith's toy motorcycle. Soon Ralph masters the tiny two-wheeler and "rrroom-zzzooms" through the hotel hallways, dodging four-legged predators, adults, and the occasional va…
This 1962 special marked the last hurrah of Mr. Magoo, who starred in 43 cartoon shorts, including two Oscar® winners, from the UPA Studio between 1949 and 1959. Magoo appears as Scrooge in a Broadway production of "A Christmas Carol" in this minimally animated hour. The play-within-the-show features forgettable songs by Jules Styne and Bob Merrill: Tiny Tim ("played" by the animated character…
Jules Verne's classic adventure is perfectly matched with Ray Harryhausen's timeless movie magic in Mysterious Island. Based on Verne's sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, this rousing Civil War-era fantasy begins when a band of Union war prisoners (and one Confederate straggler) escape in a hot-air balloon, which crash-lands on the titular island of mystery. Verne's novel doesn't include a…