Disney
milhayser | January 11, 2017Serving as an immediate prelude to the very first Star Wars film (A New Hope), Rogue One restores a measure of gravitas to the Star Wars canon that was seriously undermined by the goofiness of 2015's The Force Awakens. Rogue One is still a remarkable nostalgia trip, thanks to the digital recreation of familiar Rebel and Imperial hardware along with the likenesses of actors who first appeared in the original 1977 film. But without the need to consider future franchise opportunities for its stars, Rogue One is free to kill off all of its major characters, marking a narrative structure that is…
milhayser | March 16, 2016Would it surprise you to learn that the top movie at the North American box office, a computer-animated family film made for children, is a nakedly racist allegory, a celebration of the urban police state, and an insult to the entire animal kingdom and the natural world at large?
The premise of Zootopia is simple: a country bunny named Judy (yes, she's a rabbit) leaves her parents and her hundreds of siblings behind for a life in the big city. The difference between rural and urban living is the first ugly dichotomy the film establishes: farming carrots with your family is framed as a dead-…
milhayser | January 11, 2016It was high times for the Rebel Alliance at the end of Return of the Jedi (1983). Across the galaxy, crowds rejoiced at the destruction of the second Death Star and the apparent defeat of Emperor Palpatine. Princess Leia Organa, who two films earlier had seen her home planet exploded for sport, was re-united with a twin brother she never knew she had, becoming aware of her own Force sensitivity, and in love with a swashbuckling hero who would later father her son. It was a resounding victory, and deservedly so, even if Ewoks had to help.
The Force Awakens begins thirty years later, yet…
aardvarchaeology | September 11, 2013Though I really enjoyed my late 70s childhood visits to Disneyland and Disneyworld, I am no friend of disnification, and I've always seen the Paris Disneyland as a bit of a joke. But my mom wanted to treat my kids to a visit last week, and so I came along too.
The Paris Disneyland has five sections. The US small-town nostalgia section full of Disney memorabilia shops, the faux-16th century fairytale section, the adventure movie section and the wild west section didn't do very much for me – though the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is admittedly hugely atmospheric, and the Small World ride…
tsmith | July 8, 2011As good news surfaces regarding a new (well, old) potential drug to help combat malaria--a drug already used to treat river blindness--KeithB and Phil Scheibel alerted me to another old malaria fighter featuring Dopey, Sneezy, and the whole gang:
Other Disney disease-fighting videos include Water, Friend or Enemy, Insects as Carriers of Disease and Hookworm. A list of other wartime shorts is here.
grrlscientist | January 2, 2010tags: Scary Mary, Mary Poppins, spoof, film, parody, Chris Rule, Nick Eckert, streaming video
This recut of the original Disney film, Mary Poppins by Chris Rule and Nick Eckert, raises an interesting question about the film goer's perspective and how a scary film is set up differently from one that is not scary.
This contains the musical piece "A Violent Attack" composed by Caine Davidson for the film 'An American Haunting,' "Stay Awake" written by Richard and Robert Sherman for Disney's 'Mary Poppins,' and stock sounds from iMovie. Clips filmed with a Penasonic MiniDV camera and edited on…
sciencewoman | July 16, 2009Don't worry I'll be back to the course design series soon, but I spent yesterday focused on other things (paper revisions, grant proposals) and I haven't completed the necessary work to get the next post up. And it's Friday, so let's divert to lighter equally serious but different topics.
As the mother of a toddler daughter I've been struggling with the overt patriarchy of the classic Disneyfied fairy tales, in which a stereotypically beautiful damsel in distress is helpless until rescued by a prince. I'd been trying to avoid exposing my daughter to the princess stories (Cinderella, Sleeping…
grrlscientist | June 6, 2009tags: child stars, Disney, geneticists, satire, humor, funny, social commentary, streaming video
In this amazing news report, Disney claims its latest batch of child stars is so lifelike, you'll barely be able to tell they have no souls [2:40]
terrasig | May 15, 2009Well, it's mid-May at 36° North, the honeysuckles are blooming, my allergies are miserable, the air is damp, and that can only mean one thing: the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting is nearly upon us.
Held this year beginning on 29 May, the annual ASCO meeting coincides with all sorts of announcements of miracle cancer drugs and the sound of cash changing hands. Although being held in Orlando, Florida, this is far from a Mickey Mouse operation; in fact, the buzz of bullion here rivals that of the Walt Disney empire. With the abstracts released last night at 6 pm EDT,…
laelaps | October 9, 2007
Even though the Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) most readily comes to mind when I think of a long-necked mammal, there are many other living artiodactyls that have long necks for their body size, one of my favorites being the Gerenuk, Litocranius walleri. Gerenuks are most commonly seen in East Africa and often stand up on their hind legs while browsing to make the most of the available food resources, allowing them a bit more reach than many of their antelope relatives. The picture above is of a male, taken in the summer of 2006 at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, as horns are only…