Disney Planning a Cruella Movie

There has been a trend lately of Disney adapting some of their best animated features into live-action films. It all began with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010, which led to Maleficent, due to open in the summer of 2014, and Cinderella, currently being filmed for a 2015 release date.
As was revealed in a Hollywood Reporter article, the next film to be given that treatment is 101 Dalmatians (again, technically). Just like Maleficent, this movie will apparently focus on the villain, Cruella de Vil, and will be titled Cruella.

Munir's Disney Retrospective -- Animated Classic #17: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

Make Sure You've Read: Munir's Disney Retrospective -- Silver Age (Part 2) Introduction

The first film to use the Xerox technique, 101 Dalmatians was reportedly very much liked by Walt. With his mind on other projects like his TV show and his magnum opus, Mary Poppins, most of the burden went to story artist Bill Peet and 101 Dalmatians truly is one of Disney's best films and a real classic. The story of two dogs rescuing their puppies from a mad woman was a departure from the fairy tale lands that graced past Disney productions. By setting the movie in real time, 101 has a fresh tone that hasn't diminished with time. It's full of action, gags and the character animation is simply amazing. Cruella De Vill is one of the greatest villains created for an animated film and one of the most memorable characters ever committed to film. Add two very likeable leads and 99 adorable puppies and you have a charming an endearing Disney classic. Rating: 5/5.

Next Week: Animated Classic #18 Review: The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Munir's Disney Retrospective -- Silver Age (Part 2) Introduction

Silver Age (1950-1977)
The 60s

Overview

After a very productive decade, Walt entered the 60s as a very established personality. Disneyland was fully operational and plans for Walt Disney World had started, he was a TV personality, and the five films released in the 50s were mostly well-regarded and turned out profits (except for Sleeping Beauty which was the most expensive film Walt ever made). But because Sleeping Beauty failed to recoup its monumental budget, the studio was in financial trouble yet again and, in order to keep it afloat, the animation department developed a new technique called Xerography were the animation sheets were processed and coloured automatically without the aid of the ink & paint department. While this technique made the animator's work more visible, this also meant that the ink & paint department closed, laying off many people and concluding a beautiful animation era. Nonetheless, the three films that were released in this decade are full of charm and at least two of them are regarded as classics nowadays. These three films were the last ones that had Walt’s touch before his unfortunate death in 1966.

Tomorrow: Animated Classic #17 Review: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

101 Dalmatians is out on Blu-ray!

Walt Disney's 17th animated feature film, and one of my absolute favourites, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, is out of the Disney Vault! Not only is there no longer moratorium on it, but 101 is also now in glorious high-definition. The classic tale of Pongo, Perdita and their century-and-one of pups is out on Blu-ray for the first time today - and also re-released, with a whole host of special features, on DVD.

While it is a UK release, the good news for US and other worldwide fans is that it's listed on Amazon as being region free! I assume this isn't a mistake, and, while there'll be some hefty postage and packaging costs, it's a great addition to anyone's Disney collection.

With Cinderella and The Aristocats also recently released (and listed as region free too!), and the Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 2 due out in just over a month here in the UK, it's certainly a good time to be a Disney fan. Now if they'd only get round to releasing Jungle Book on Blu-ray...

You can buy 101 Dalmatians on Blu Ray and DVD from HMV, or, slightly cheaper, from Amazon.

Christmas Thoughts - 2011

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and that you all had a wonderful day yesterday. I thought I'd, as I did last year, share my thoughts on some animation related gifts I received.

At the top you can see the vast majority of them, I was incredibly overjoyed to receive these presents, as you can see, and as you can probably tell from reading my blog, I quite like animation, so these presents were fantastic for me.

To go through the presents one by one, I got, which is probably my favourite present, 'The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts and Select Art From 25 Years of Animation'. The book which touts colour scripts from all of Pixar's 12 feature films, as well as from some of their shorts and includes several pieces of art made for each film, is fantastic. Authored by Cartoon Brew co-founder, Amid Amidi, the book is rather scarce on text, but what there is is rich in detail and history. However, as it should be, the main focus of the book is the fantastic, jaw-dropping, beautiful artwork from the artists of Pixar; and if they included the level of detail in the text we see in the individual 'Art of' books, this one would be substantially larger than the 300-odd pages it is at the moment. The book is a brilliant read and I would definitely recommend it. I will likely publish a full review of the book in the coming week.

In terms of DVDs, I got a decent amount of animated films this year, including Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (a fun and quirky animated film that was one of my favourites from 2009), Rio (which isn't pictured, as the box is somewhat trashed, as the security stopper wasn't removed for some reason, so we had to pry the box open) and Kung Fu Panda 2 (which seems even more awesome than it did when I first saw it). While I loved these films and would have been more than content with these, two of the best presents I got were in the form of the Disney classics, Peter Pan and 101 Dalmatians, two of the films that helped form my childhood; utter classics in every form, it meant even more as a present, given that they had to be, not cheaply, purchased second hand as they're in the Disney Vault at the moment.

In terms of other knick-knacks and whatnots, I also received official Wallace and Gromit slippers and an alarm clock, and Muppets socks and a T-shirt (not pictured), all of which were just brilliantly fun and quirky presents to receive.

As I'm sure you can tell, I loved these presents and this is just the animated portion of them, it was a great horde of gifts to receive this Christmas and one that I fully appreciated.

Feel free to share your own lists of presents and what you're thankful for this Christmas, I hope the season treated you all well.

Disney Turns 88

88 years yesterday, on October 16, 1923, The Walt Disney Company was founded.

Starting off as the pipe-dream of brothers, Roy Disney and the eponymous, Walt Disney, as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, this was the studio destined to become the world's largest media conglomerate, changing the world forever, in terms of films, TV and in terms of all of the millions of lives it has touched.

From the Golden Age of its animated films way back when, with films like Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo, through the Silver Age of films like 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book and more, and to the Renaissance of such modern classics as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King and beyond to modern day; Disney has long been the gold standard of animation. Although accused of a dip in quality in more recent years (although currently undergoing a revival), Disney is, in essence, the company that made animation an art form.

From the debut of "Disney's folly" and Walt and his company proving to all comers that animation was, and is, a sustainable medium that can inflame the imagination and inspire the world, moving us all to laughter and tears, to today, there is rarely a person on the face of the world who hasn't heard of Disney and its famed mouse.

I'll try to keep this brief, as there is oh so much I could say about Disney, its influence on the world and on its influence on me, and more - particularly, of how, without it, it is questionable that Pixar would be the giant it is today.

Disney, in one word, means magic. At its best, nothing can touch Disney, the classics are unparalleled and without rival. Magic is imbued into every frame of so many Disney films, although Disney has rolled out several not so brilliant films, the fact that this is the company that brought us Bambi, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid more than makes up for that.

Simply put, I love Disney and I'd like to take this opportunity to say: thank you Disney. Thank you for the films, thank you for the music, thank you for the magic, thank you for the memories and thank you, most of all, for making my childhood as wonderful as it was.

Long live Disney!