Fantasia

1940 cartoon

Rating: 16/20 (Emma: 1/20; Abbey: 15/20; Buster: ?/20)

Plot: Classical music and colorful animation collide! Dinosaurs, sorcerers, demons, naked fairies, flowers, hippopotomi, and mushrooms dance around. Especially mushrooms!

This ranges from undeniably brilliant and impressive and unforgettable to dated and completely forgettable. I hadn't seen this in a while, and there was an entire segment that I had forgotten even existed. As a kid, I actually liked the stuff with the orchestra silhouetted against those different colors. The introductions and orchestral shenanigans get tiresome after a while though as this movie creeps into what seems like it's fourth or fifth hour. I really like the first abstract piece, and I think it's actually impossible for anybody not to enjoy the fish, flowers, bubbles, fairies, glistening webs, leaves, foliage, flakes, and mushrooms with movements that so perfectly compliment the Tchaikovsky. It drew a lot of "wows" from Buster which made me happy. Then, there's Mickey (he's the mouse on the poster up there) in another bit of whimsical storytelling and cartoon choreography. Then, it's kind of downhill. The big creation thing, after the tickling of the senses the other pieces offered, is just kind of blah, and the dinosaurs in there aren't animated very well. Well, maybe they are for a 1940's cartoon. The mythology thing has far too many fairy baby asses and plastic centaurs. The crocodile/ostrich/elephant/hippo ballet never really did it for me, an almost-fun and harmless little excursion more than anything else. And then there's the "Night on Bald Mountain" bit that ends this that is damn near a religious experience and one of the most daring things that Disney's ever thrown at us. As an adult, you just say, "Geez, this shit really isn't for kids." As a kid, I remember being terrified of all the creepy imagery with the flabby warted demons and skeletal figures floating into town. I also always wondered as a kid why there wasn't more Satan in movies. The winged demon on top of that mountain (the guy on the poster up there who isn't the mouse) really deserves to be in some "Best Disney Villain" list, doesn't he? And it all ends beautifully with Schubert and lightbulb-headed walkers, a scene that should make us all feel that the Star Wars franchise is in really good hands.