Hidden Gems of Disney + instant videos

Buddy, it's only January 19 today.

BadKen wrote:

I immediately launched Disney+ to watch...

... and it's not up yet.

The tweet says Feb 19, so I guess it starts later tonight?

Stele wrote:

Buddy, it's only January 19 today.

Shut up!! This is still 2020, right?

I blame the afternoon food coma.

And I'm not your buddy, chum.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joel Grey!

My kids (8 and 3) and I watched Cool Runnings over the weekend and ... it mostly holds up fine. I was happy to find that it didn't have any awful jokes that made me cringe in the way that so many movies from the same era do. The biggest knock I can levy against it is the almost complete lack of women (which granted, is a big problem). That's the sort of thing my daughter will definitely notice and call out but she didn't in this case, which probably speaks to how entertaining the movie was overall.

So we watched The Emperor's New Groove last week for the first time, and really loved it. Especially Kronk, best thing about the movie.

So now we're watching Kronk's New Groove and it's just fantastic.

I'll just drop this here.

I wasn't as taken by The Emperor's New Groove as many people seem to be, but this video essay gave me a huge appreciation for it.

Lucasfilm fired Gina Carano.

For further discussion I recommend the Political News post.

I can't tell what was more memorable about the first episode of The Muppet Show: Rita Moreno or Miss Piggy suddenly switching voices.

Rat Boy wrote:

I can't tell what was more memorable about the first episode of The Muppet Show: Rita Moreno or Miss Piggy suddenly switching voices.

I'd not seen this in decades and was amazed how much I still remembered and how well it's held up. The Fever bit had me in stitches.

The episode with Saint Rita Moreno was one of the episodes I had on VHS tape as a kid and wore it out. Love that one, and the rewatch was wonderful. Looking forward to catching up on all the stars I missed (and the running gags).

We're going through a bunch of episodes now and it still holds up.

So overall we binged around a dozen episodes of The Muppet Show today with friends, virtually of course. Many hadn't seen the show, including my wife, but my god not only does it hold up, the newcomers LOVED it.

Out of the eps we watched today, such as Christopher Reeve and Vincent Price, I think Danny Kaye was my favorite.

Miss Piggy's constantly changing voice in Season 1's really distracting me. Every time she pops up I ask, "Who is she this time?"

Oh hell. I adore Danny Kaye.

I’m going to have to get Disney Plus soon,

Joel Grey is almost as good as Danny Kaye.

Wrong thread

Super excited about finally having access to seasons 4 and 5 of the Muppet Show.

I watched the John Denver episode because I had the Christmas album growing up. Saw the Lynda Carter episode because I remember it being one of the most memorable episodes from my childhood. The Marty Feldman episode had the warning about inappropriate behaviours and stereotypes and I’m not sure if it was due to the whole Arabian Nights theme, the song about the woman sleeping around behind her partner’s back, something else or all of the above.

I started watching season 4 of the Muppet Show because I had the first three on DVD already. It looks like Disney moved some of the episodes around at some point from how they were first listed, because I just noticed that Kenny Rodgers which was the 3rd or 4th episode I watched is now episode 10. Then I'm going to have to go back and catch some that were skipped because Dyan Cannon and Victor Borge have been moved to episodes 4 and 5.

I've only encountered a grand total of 3 Disney content warnings about The Muppet Show over the three seasons I've watched off and on since it went live, but tonight of course the third had to the be the one that ended with "It's A Small World."

... at least they tried to be universally offensive.

Star Wars Bad Batch in less than a week.

So after watching Secrets of the Zoo (mostly because it was about my family' favorite zoo), we have fell into the SotZ whole and watched all of them. In order of which my family likes:

Secrets of the Zoo (Columbus Zoo)
Secrets of the Zoo Down Under (Taronga Zoo, Sidney AU)
Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom (Animal Kingdom, AK Lodge, and EPCOT)
Secrets of the Zoo Tampa (Tampa Zoo)
Secrets of the Zoo North Carolina (Ashboro, may still only be on NatGeo)

Cruella was boring. The story is kind of dumb. Was the acting bad, I don't know. Great acting couldn't have saved this movie. Also the movie was to long. They could have taken a hour off. Anything good, well the outfits were interesting. I also didn't die from watching it that is something.

So if I understand this correctly, the box will say:

Cruella, Better than the pandemic -. Baron of Hell, GWJ

That's a good rating in 2021.

I really enjoyed Luca

+1 on the Luca train
The beginning takes a bit, but it's off to the races once the second act starts.

I enjoyed Cruella. I liked the costumes, I thought the acting was excellent, and I loved watching Emma vs. Emma in all their scenes together. I didn't think it dragged at all, even though it's a longer movie (as opposed to Army of the Dead where it definitely *feels* long). I appreciated that it wasn't some retcon where Cruella is a completely sympathetic character. Some of the writing and canonical origin story fodder was silly:

Spoiler:

Dalmatians killed her mom, which made me literally laugh out loud.

And she definitely still has some privileged white girl energy in how she treats other people/doesn't consider consequences/doesn't think about how her actions affects others/doesn't treat even her friends well. Which are all the seeds at the root of her being a villain, IMO. But I found watching her character's journey from urchin to chaotic fashion mogul entertaining.

For me those flaws are somewhat forgiveable because the movie obviously and intentionally wasn't taking itself too seriously and they felt like conscious decisions and trade-offs for the type of movie they wanted to make. In terms of balancing pacing with canon and still trying to add a bit of a spin on things.

I'd recommend folks watch it once it's no longer on Disney+ Premium Whatsit, and at least give it a chance.

Luca was completely charming. It might not have had the emotional or philosophical heft of say Inside Out or Soul, but it did exactly what it wanted to do almost flawlessly.

Luca was pretty good. Nice animation, nice story, all around good. Not great, I probably wont think about again later in the year for best animation but it was still fun. Pretty safe movie. Note there is a after credit scene.