Pinocchio (1940)

Pinocchio (1940)

Disney

February 23, 1940

Children's, Animation, Historical Comedy, Fantasy

DVD
C

I've of course seen this many times, especially during childhood.  (I think I had a crush on the Blue Fairy.)  This time, I just watched the first quarter hour, and I was getting a little annoyed with the characters and the soundtrack.  So I tuned out before B.F. actually showed up and brought the title character to life.  This is of course based on the Collodi stories.  The many directors are Norman Ferguson, T. Hee (a pseudonym?), Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, and Ben Sharpsteen,

Dumbo (1941)

Dumbo (1941)
Disney/ RKO
October 31, 1941
Children's, Animation, Fantasy, Musical
DVD
C

I watched twenty minutes of this, which is almost a third of the running time, waiting for that decisive moment when I was sure I'd stay to the (not that distant) end.  But I just wasn't into it, although the look is nice and the story is OK.  (And, no, I tuned out before the controversial "crows" scene.)  There are seven directors credited, so I guess I'll just tag them all.

Bambi

Bambi
Disney
August 21, 1942
Children's, Fantasy
DVD
C+

I think as a child this was never a favorite of mine, and it has nothing to do with Bambi's mother being killed.  There's too much macho posturing and yet too slow a pace much of the time.  This time around, Thumper was still my favorite character, and I could've watched sequences of him and his siblings for much longer, although admittedly that wouldn't be that eventful either (but cute as heck).  Bambi's mother's death, and the fire sequence, didn't really have much of an emotional impact.  I still like Old Owl's "twitter-pated" lecture (yes, back before Twitter was capitalized and changed history) and the lighter, brighter moments.  Not a classic, and I don't imagine most modern children warming up to it more than I did, and yet worth revisiting. 

Note that I'm using the "fantasy" tag for the talking animals.  I've tagged all the directors listed at IMDB.