Oliver & Company (Special Editi
Peanuts: 1970's Collection, Vol. 2 (Be My Valentine Charlie Brown / You're a Good Sport / It's Arbor Day / What a Nightmare / It's Your First Kiss / You're the Greatest)
Two of the all-time cartoon classics It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) and A Charlie Brown Christmas (a Peabody and Emmy winner from 1965) highlight this three-disc, six-episode set. Although the DVDs contain no extras (good grief!) and could have been combined on a single disc (drat!), the collection looks and sounds wonderful on DVD. The content is the same on the VHS and DVD sets,…
Peanuts 1960's Collection (A Charlie Brown Christmas / Charlie Brown's All-Stars / It's the Great Pumpkin / You're in Love / He's Your Dog / It Was a Short Summer)
Peanuts: 1970's Collection, Vol. 1 (It's a Mystery Charlie Brown / Play It Again / A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving / It's the Easter Beagle / There's No Time for Love / You're Not Elected)
Pee-wee's Playhouse: Seasons 1 & 2 (Special Edition)
Disney loved to mix live action with animation (Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks), but this 1977 effort falls on its face. The turn-of-the-century story concerns an orphaned boy whose only friend is a cartoon monster. While the latter is entertainingly rendered, the rest of the film strains to be enchanting and the cast overreaches in a big way. Not for anybody over the age of ten. --Tom …
This Disney masterpiece from 1940 will hold up forever precisely because it doesn't restrain or temper the most elemental emotions and themes germane to its story. Based on the Collodi tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, Pinocchio is among the most magical, mythical, and frightening films to come from the studio in its long history. A number of scenes make permanent impre…
Independent animator Bill Plympton first received widespread public attention when his outré "Your Face" (1987) was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. His short films--some as brief as 15 seconds--made between 1985 and 1991 showcase his unique talent much more effectively than his ponderous features, The Tune and I Married a Strange Person. Plympton's earliest films indicate th…