For the 70th anniversary, Walt Disney Studios has released a stunning Blu-ray transfer of their 1941 masterpiece “Dumbo,” which  along with a ton of fascinating extras, hits shelves today.

Most people know that between 1937 and 1942, the legendary Walt Disney released five undisputed, feature-length, animation masterpieces: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), “Pinocchio (1940), “Fantasia” (1940), “Dumbo” (1941), and “Bambi” (1942). What you might not know (and I didn’t until I watched the extras) is that in 1941 Disney Studios was in deep financial trouble. It’s hard to imagine today, but both “Fantasia” and Pinocchio” were box office disappointments and if the studio’s next feature failed to make up for those losses, bankruptcy was a real possibility.

Therefore,  ”Dumbo” was something of  hail mary and for that reason the story of a flying baby elephant is notably different from its predecessors. To cut costs, the film is only 67 minutes long and the animation itself is nowhere near as rich in detail. But as someone who personally believes that limits force artistic innovation, this actually helps to explain why “Dumbo” is so special.

The economy of story is remarkable. In a little over an hour — which  includes a few musical sequences that don’t even move the story (which is usually a criticism, but not in this case), the wealth of characterization and emotion is so full you don’t feel cheated in any way by the runtime. And while the animation isn’t as cutting edge as what you’ll see in “Pinocchio” or “Snow White,” the artistry more than makes up for this. Each scene and sequence is directed with dazzling imagination. You might not see each hair on Dumbo’s snout, but the rich, vibrant colors and mind-blowing set-pieces like the “Pink Elephants On Parade” make all of this a non-issue.

“Dumbo” is every inch a visual masterpiece.

Best of all, the story itself is brilliantly simple. If you’ve been conditioned by present-day Hollywood, you’re going to watch the narrative unfold and wonder when the villain will arrive to try to shut down the circus or how poor Dumbo will be exploited after the world discovers he can fly. But there’s none of that. Instead of all that clichéd filler, the story goes something like this: Dumbo is born different, ostracized for being different, separated from his mother, and other than a wise-cracking mouse — friendless.  Other than the climax, that’s it and once the final notes of the Academy Award-nominated “Baby Mine” fade out, it’s a story as rich and moving as you’ll ever see.

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Click here for Part 1 on Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, here for Part 2 on Roger L. Simon’s Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine, here for part 3 on David Mamet’s The Secret Knowledge, and here for part 4 on Breitbart’s righteous Gen-X indignation.

Generation Y’s great filmmakers have not yet arrived. And don’t expect too many of them.

William Strauss and Neil Howe argue in their fourth book of generational theory, Millennials Rising, that the babies born from 1982 through 2003 are part of a “Civic” generation. This is the same as the GI Generation (the accurately named “Greatest Generation”) born from 1901-1924 who went through World War II as young adults.

The Greatest provided us with many cinematic giants but none made a deeper footprint on the 20^th century than Walt Disney. The Disney Effect came not just in the artistry of his films but his technological innovations and capitalist ventures. He constructed a billion-dollar corporation which has changed our lives. That’s what leaders of Civic generations do: build transformative institutions.

The Millennial Generation has already seen our Walt Disney emerge and release his equivalent of “Steamboat Willie.” It’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook is only the primitive beginning of what he’ll build in the coming decades. Today because of our saturation in cartoons we fail to appreciate how groundbreaking “Steamboat Willie” and “Snow White” were to a world that had never seen such creatures. And so it shall go with Facebook in a few decades’ time.

Narrative films and television programs were America’s unifying, transformative cultural experience of the 20^th century. Computers, the internet, and technology are their equivalent for the 21^st. (more…)

“The thing will get more beautiful year after year.  And it will get better as I find out what the public likes; I can’t do that with a picture it’s finished and unchangeable before I find out whether the public likes it or not.” – Walt Disney on Disneyland.

Walt Disney found different reasons to build his seventeen million dollar Magic Kingdom in Anaheim in 1955.  The idea had originally stemmed from his dissatisfaction with Los Angeles amusement parks in the late 1930s. While his two young daughters would ride the merry-go-round, Walt would look at the tawdry surroundings and wonder why the place couldn’t be better.  Also he was receiving letters from people who wished to take tours of the Disney Studio–what would they see, guys bent over drawing boards?  Walt had flirted with the idea of a small park across the street from the studio, and then put it aside bowing to opposition from the city of Burbank, plus financial setbacks largely due to the initial failures of Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi.

On a personal note, in 1948 Walt built his own personal miniature railroad in his backyard.  The one-eighth scale Carolwood Pacific was a fun hobby that allowed Walt to escape business pressures, but his wife Lillian wasn’t thrilled with her grown husband spending long days riding on a choo choo train through her begonias.  Disneyland would eventually provide him with a bigger train to ride in without the spousal disapproval.  But perhaps most important to Walt, Disneyland gave him a unique opportunity for a never-ending project.

For a perfectionist like Walt Disney, filmmaking was often a frustrating experience.  Even when one of Walt’s pictures did well he sometimes lamented that they could have been better if he hadn’t faced a deadline or had a chance for a do over. After the short cartoon The Three Little Pigs (1933) became an enormous hit, Walt had been pressured by bankers and distributors into making sequels, which had not been nearly as successful.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had made eight million dollars at a time when movies cost 25 cents for adults and a dime for kids, yet Walt fretted about a scene where the prince seemed to shimmy and years later complained about not being able to improve on it.  Other features that Walt personally loved such as So Dear to My Heart (1946) and Pollyanna (1960) did not do well at the box office.  (more…)

Pop quiz: what do the following movies have in common?

Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), The Sound of Music (1965), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Ten Commandments (1956), Titanic (1997), Jaws (1975), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Exorcist (1973), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1939), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Ben-Hur (1959), Avatar (2009), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Sting (1973), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), The Graduate (1967), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Fantasia (1941), The Godfather (1972), Forrest Gump (1994), Mary Poppins (1964), The Lion King (1994)

If you said they all made scads of money, bravo — they are the top twenty-five domestic box-office champions of all time (adjusted for inflation, of course).

But consider another similarity: surprisingly few of them relied on established A-list movie stars — the most famous, the highest paid — for their moneymaking prospects. Gone with the Wind had Gable, yes. The Sting had Newman and Redford. The Godfather, Brando.

As for most of the rest, they either featured no A-listers at all, or used them before they became bonafide movie stars. In fact, many of those pictures can take credit for sending now-famous actors into the celestial Hollywood firmament in the first place. Gone with the Wind made Vivian Leigh known to the world. The Ten Commandments did it for Charlton Heston. The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman. The Godfather, Al Pacino. Star Wars, Harrison Ford. Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews. (more…)

It doesn’t happen often enough, certainly not as much as it once did, but every now and again, up on the magic screen that expresses the best and worst of Hollywood, something special happens – a moment of perfection that allows you to ease back and relax in the knowledge that you’re in the very best of storytelling hands. Pixar’s tenth and best film, “Up,” opens in just this way, with a montage bearing witness to the childhood friendship, courtship, marriage and old age of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen (Ed Asner and Elie Doctor).

There’s nothing terribly special about the life of the Mr. and Mrs. Fredricksen.  They shared no slow motion runs on the beach or proposals of marriage atop the Eiffel Tower. There’s was an ordinary existence built on abiding love and the moments of the everyday. But it’s from the familiar that the power of this unforgettable sequence comes from. We relate to the decades that pass between them, recognizing them as our own. And when Ellie dies, leaving Carl without his soul mate, we also recognize that they pass much too quickly.  

Carl and Ellie had dreamed of an extraordinary life. One filled with travel and adventure. But reality always intruded, eating their savings and worst of all, the years. Today, at 78, Carl seems content to bide his time alone until he can rejoin Ellie, but reality intrudes once again when Carl’s faced with life in a nursing home. His decision to inflate thousands of helium balloons and float his house to South America has little to do with a desire for adventure. He’s hanging on to Ellie in the last way he knows how – by finally living out their dream.

Along for the ride is Russell (Jordan Nagai), an 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer and accidental stowaway. Filled with hyper-enthusiasm and a fearlessness borne of his ability to see the “cool!” in every situation – no matter how dangerous, he drives poor, grumpy Carl — who wants only to peacefully and in solitude live out his days on a cliff next to a waterfall — nuts. (more…)