Fantasia 2000 – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2000 film Fantasia 2000.

Story

Like the first, this isn’t a regular movie and feels more like an anthology with various forms of storytelling. It’s creative and absolutely engrossing. Unlike the original, it’s extremely short; over an hour shorter then the first. The rhythm between the stories wasn’t as smooth.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Again, there aren’t many speaking roles in the stories themselves, but the characters were strong and interesting.

Score: 1

Dialogue

I liked that they re-used some of the original narration and added some celebrities. The part with Mickey looking for Donald was particularly funny. Most of the jokes hold up well for being almost 25.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The animation is pretty but there are places they used 3D animation and it didn’t age well. The whales at times looked plastic and poorly rendered. When the shorts were traditionally animated they looked fabulous.

The music is great. I recognized all the pieces and loved how they were put together.

Score: 0.5

Fun

It had enough of the feel of the original to be nostalgic and it was a lot of fun.

The kids liked this one better because they say it has less scary parts.

Score: 1

Overall

An attempt to recreate a classic that almost gets there but like it’s runtime, falls short. On its own it’s still a lot of fun to watch.

Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5

Fantasia (1940) – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 1940 film Fantasia.

Story

This isn’t a regular movie and feels more like an anthology with various forms of storytelling. It’s creative and absolutely engrossing.

Score: 1

Characters

There are a lot of characters and none of them speak, but they are animated to the music spectacularly.

Score: 1

Dialogue

This one is not applicable for most of it but there is the narrator who introduces the parts. He has some cute dialogue.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The animation is creative, innovative, and very pretty.

The music is iconic and sparked my love of classical music.

Score: 1

Fun

When I was young, my mom bought this on VHS and it had me mesmerized. It was my favourite movie for a long time. (Something my classmates did not understand.)

Other than the science in the dinosaur part, which was dated when I watched it, the movie holds up really well.

The kids say they didn’t like it but were glued to the screen the whole time and completely invested.

Score: 1

Overall

A classic that holds up well because of the timelessness of imagination and music. If you’ve ever loved it in the past you’ll still love it now, and if you didn’t like it before, it might surprise you.

Final Score: 5 Stars out of 5

Meet the Robinsons – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2007 movie Meet the Robinsons.

Story

The story follows the usual time travel tropes. I like that the main character isn’t the main time traveller. The story is happy, uplifting, and something I’ve needed lately, hopeful. It’s a bubble filled retro-futuristic happy future.

This is an incredibly easy movie to watch and it’s one of my comfort films. It was one of the first movies I saw in theatres with my wife.

All that being said, there are parts that haven’t aged well. Mostly little humour things. They use a lot of ableist language when it comes to mental illness, the whole thing with the future wife saying “I’m always right, even when I’m wrong” is weird, and the puppet aunt who beats her husband is a sad reminder that even now male spousal abuse is played for laughs. There’s also a few fat jokes. All of these come off as dated rather than purposefully hateful, but it’s still cringy.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The characters are lovable and relatable, mostly. I have a soft spot for Bowler Hat Guy, I too so love checklists. DOR-15 is one of the most terrifying villains in Disney. The interactions between Lewis and Wilbur are excellent.

I’m not a fan of some of the secondary characters. Both for what I said in the previous section and because they feel weird and cooky just to be weird and cooky. That’s not a good character motivation and makes them irrelevant to the plot. You can replace each of of them with any other similar family and you’d get little difference but the bit-gags.

I did enjoy that the lady taking care of the orphanage was a nice person who genuinely cared for her charges. It’s a nice break from the “Evil Orphanage” trope.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

From, “Keep Moving Forward!” to, “I can’t take you seriously in that hat” this movie has a lot of quotable dialogue that just hits the perfect tone between silly and insightful.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

This movie was pretty. The animation was okay for the time but not great. We watched the blu-ray edition and it did some upgrades to the rendering that make it stand up pretty well. Overall it’s a pretty and colourful movie.

The music in this is fantastic. Danny Elfman did a great job with the music. It’s a blend of 50’s sci-fi and Disney that works. The soundtrack includes a great list of late 2000’s bands doing great songs.

Score: 1

Fun

This is an immensely fun movie. It’s never too cringy, and is funny. I can watch this one over and over without getting bored or annoyed.

Score: 1

Overall

This a movie I really enjoy. Even more so for the nostalgia of having seen it with my wife when we were first dating. It’s a time travel story plot with a great, hopeful message. Some aspects didn’t age well but they’re secondary to the main story and message.

Final Score: 4 Stars

Time for a Contest

Hello My Imaginary Friends,

My daughter feel asleep on my lap and I can’t reach my computer to finish the Word of the Day story I had planned for today. It’ll be on Thursdays post.

A Dinosaur onesie with butterfly pants.
A Dinosaur onesie with butterfly pants.

The first five people who can guess what classic Science Fiction story this outfit is inspired by will be featured in one of the next chapters of this year’s serial story.

Send your answers as a private message to @ericdesmarais on Twitter or EricDesmaraisAuthor on Facebook.

 

Good Luck!

Éric

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part Seven

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

“How the heck are we going to get out now?” Felix looked across the chasm that they had somehow crossed.

“We can just time Jump from here,” Amanda, Miss Eris, said.

At the same time they looked at their hands that were both resting on the large diamond they then turned to each other and smiled.

The past day (was it really just a day?) had been filled with nonsense, dirt, and chaos but through it all Miss Eris had been there stalwart in her mission to save his life. That dedication impressed him.

The jump was no more pleasant than it had been before. The found themselves in a small village.

“Where are we? Shouldn’t we be bringing this thing,” he waved the diamond around, “To Tesla?”

Looking at him in the way his grade school teacher once had when he asked what the point of playing well with others was, she said, “Felix. We must do our best to not disturb the timelines. This means we must find that gangster’s grandmother and give her the gem.”

Rolling his eyes, Felix replied, “I hate time travel. How do we find the woman? All we know of him is that he’s a mob boss and kind of impatient.”

She snorted at the last comment and giggled. He ignored her outburst and looked around. It was a small village, assuming they were at the right place. The words quaint and smelly came to mind.

“Get out of my way, you stupid foreigner. You might be able to laze about all day but some of us have to do an honest day’s work.” Standing behind them was a woman who didn’t look impressed in the least. She also looked awfully familiar.

Holding his hand out he said, “Sorry ma’am, you’re perfectly right. Take this diamond as an apology.”

Scowling at him in the exact same way her grandson would, she took the jewel and continued on her way.

“Well that was easy. Now let’s go steal it back and get this damned day over with,” he was about to mention how he was looking forward to reading in front of his fake fireplace, the real ones were too messy, but he had forgotten had his apartment had exploded.

“Run!” Miss Eris took his hand into hers and pulled him down through a field. He considered asking why, or looking back to see what was chasing them but decided he’d rather not know. He concentrated on not falling and keeping up with Miss Eris.

As he stared down at his feet and where they were to land he saw that Miss Eris was still wearing those ridiculous high heels. He scoffed internally at the vanity of such footwear, and then had to admit she was quite nimble in them. He felt that it was him that was holding them up.

“How are you running in those?” he couldn’t help but ask.

His question must have broken her concentration because she paused in mid stride and fell forwards, right off a small hill, pulling him along with her. They tumbled down the long hill until they hit a grassy area at the bottom. Somewhere along the way he’d lost a sleeve.

Sitting and catching his breath he looked at the shoes again and shook his head, “Is it some sort of future technology? Are they the time machine?”

Her hair, that had escaped it’s bun in the diamond temple, was now all over the place. Her hair was a light reddish brown, now spotted with grass, twigs and other things.

“I just got used to them that’s all. They’re very comfortable,” her indomitable calm seemed flustered. She seemed angry.

“I find flat shoes uncomfortable I assumed those would be worse,” he said, trying to keep any indignation out of his voice. He didn’t want to offend her. Which was a lot for Felix, it meant he cared about her feelings. Feelings were messy, stupid things, but he didn’t want her hurt.

“Oh. In my time when you buy shoes, you choose the style and they scan your feet to make sure you have a perfect fit.”

“Ok. Are we safe from what we were running from?” He still wasn’t convinced that the heels could ever be comfortable, like dress shoes they should be made not to be comfortable. If Felix wanted to be comfortable he would work from home and avoid dress clothes all together.

“I don’t see the dinosaur that was chasing us,” She looked up the hill.

Standing up and offering her his hand Felix sighed, “Shall we go?”

Once again they jumped but this time instead of making him sick, it made him very sick. He was extremely happy to find a waste basket next to him as they appeared.

Once he’d lost what little food he’d eaten that day he looked up at his bedroom. “Oh thank god I’m home.” He headed towards his closet and opened it but instead of a change of clothes there was just a grey metal wall.

Turning around he saw that one whole wall of his bedroom was a glass mirror. On the other side of the mirror were children, at least he assumed they were children, they were small and of various shapes and sizes. He thought it rather looked like Halloween or a Star Trek convention.

The children were gawping and drooling, as children always do though Felix.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We’re in a museum,” Amanda replied, looking utterly defeated. That’s when he noticed the sign just to the left of their little exhibit that said, “Early third millennium time travellers.”

“Shall we leave?” he asked offering her his hand.

Looking a little sick, Amanda gave him a sad look and said, “We can’t. The fall damaged the time travel device.”

Read Next

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

“Let me get this straight,” Felix had given up disbelieving. It lessened the headaches. “We need to steal a diamond from a Mobster to give to Leonardo da Vinci. So that he and Nicolai Tesla can defeat the Dinosaurs that wants to kill me. Do I have that right?”

“Yes but…” Miss Eris looked uncomfortable and looked around but Felix wasn’t going to be deterred.

“Nope. Not getting distracted this time. You’re going to look me in the eye and tell me why they’re trying to kill me. Now!” His nose started to itch. There must have been a lot of dust where they were but he refused to look away from the vibrant green orbs that were her eyes. They were mesmerizing and all he could concentrate on for the seconds before she responded.

“I really think we should move just a few more feet to the left,” she avoided the question.

“I insist that we clarify this now,” he stubbornly insisted.

Rumbling and the sound of a steam engines horn pulled his attention away from her. It was an early model train and they seemed to be in a tunnel. Sighing he grabbed her shoulders and dove for the far wall.

Twisting as they flew towards the wall his back hit the stone with a hard impact. The train passed by them and he saw a human shaped Sauren sitting in the dining car with its family. They were dressed in early Victorian clothing.

“We’re running out of time, we have to hurry. This temporal area has already been converted.”

“Converted? What? Why?” She was reaching for his hand, and he sneezed. There was a breeze coming from somewhere and it wasn’t from either end of the tunnel. “I’ve had enough of being dragged around without knowing anything and being afraid.”

Reaching out he pushed on the wall that had, surprisingly, cracked from his weight and pushed on it. A large hole opened and an old stone staircase could be seen.

Seeing her confused look he said, “I don’t sneeze for dirt only dust,” and he walked towards the steps.

The stairway was narrow and lit by torches every fifteen steps. He was terrified and for the first time since he’d met Eris, he admitted it to himself. He wanted to go back to his comfortable, clean apartment and not be messing with time.

“Why are you going down there?” Miss Eris asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “These torches couldn’t have been here very long. Someone must be here.”

The final step led to a small corridor that turned sharply to the left. He was about to make the turn when she grabbed his arm and pulled him back. As he was going to argue he saw the person, or rather Sauren, who’d been here before them. He’d been shot by a dozen arrows on either side of his body.

“It’s trapped?” He yelled looking down the corridor. At it’s end he could barely see something glowing. It looked familiar. “That’s the diamond isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. But we’ll have to get through these traps to get to it.”

“Thanks, I was afraid you’d say that.”

“My pleasure,” she smiled looking happy to be of service. She had missed his sarcasm.

“Do you have a personal force field?”

“No. Why?”

Sighing loudly he said, “For a time traveller you’re not very prepared.”

“My mission was to find you and get you to safety and then ensure you stayed there for twenty four hours, I wasn’t expecting this.” She gestured towards the trapped corridor and her hand got to close. A Line of arrows shot out from where her hand had been and then another, creating a wave of arrows from one end to the other of the corridor.

“Well that’s interesting.” Felix passed his hand and then did it again nothing happened the second time. No new arrows escaped until the wave had finished. He tried again and the same thing happened. “We have two choices, run across trying to outrun the arrows or let the wave go and then run after it and hope it doesn’t go the other way.”

“Ok. Let’s do that.”

“I’d try to exhaust the arrows but something tells me that’s too easy.”

Taking a deep breath he reached out and set off the wave and then started to run. It seemed he and Miss Eris entangled hands before running.

They made it just as the second wave started from the opposite direction. The room they found themselves in was square and there was a small pedestal on the far end of the room with the diamond on it.

“This looks simple enough,” Miss Eris said.

“Wait, I’ve seen this movie before” he took a quarter out of his wallet and tossed it across the room. It bounced and rolled towards the left. The floor gave out on both sides of a narrow bridge. It was less a bridge and more of a pole.

“You had to say something.” He sighed again and put one foot in front of the other. Miss Eris was behind him, a little out of her element, and they were making good progress until the gouts of flame shot out from the pit around them. His nice suit was now crumbled, cut, and singed.

He heard a crunch and heard Miss Eris slip. He tried to turn and catch her but she fell onto the bridge. She held on for dear life. Her hair had escaped the bun and was flowing freely, daring the flames.

He reached down to grab her and almost fell. Finally he managed to awkwardly sit on the bridge and reach for her. She took an iron grip on his hand and he pulled her up. She managed to sit in front of him. Her business skirt had seen better days.

“Are you ok Amanda?” he asked, assuming it would be ok to use her first name now that they’d saved each other’s lives.

“Yes Felix I think I’ll survive.”

They moved together to the platform and he grabbed the diamond.

Taking his hand she looked at him and softly said, “I don’t know why they want to kill you. Just that they do.”

Read Part 7

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part Four

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

With a hissing voice, a human sized reptile riding a giant cyborg ape declared, “Felix Felicis, you are tried by the Sauran court and found guilty of crimes against time and space. Prepare to die.”

It was strange and frightening; especially the part where the lizard was pointing a machine gun at him, but it wasn’t as frightening to Felix as knowing that they had bombed his apartment.

“If they had been smart they’d have taken my brother or niece hostage,” Felix shook his head at the lizard’s poor planning skills.

“What about your sister in-law?” asked the now familiar voice of Miss Eris. Like an annoying itch he couldn’t reach, she was still following him. She must have walked up to stand next to him while he was gawping at the cyborg ape and its rider. He was amazed at how quietly and quickly she could move in her heels.

“I don’t have one,” Felix answered.

“Oh?” she asked.

“My brother has a husband not a wife. I have no sister in-law but I do have a brother in-law,” he answered curtly.

“Ok. What about him?”

“What about him?” Felix was confused, having already forgotten what he’d muttered. He turned to her, looking down into her green eyes. He couldn’t decide if she was being purposely obtuse or just annoyingly innocent.

“Why wouldn’t the Sauran kidnap your brother in-law?”

“He’s in Amsterdam for work and won’t be home for a few weeks. It would be highly inefficient for them to take him as a hostage. There would be little chance I would find out in time for them to get anything out of it.”

“Excuse me. I believe we were in the middle of something,” hissed the lizard.

“Ah yes, you were about to execute me,” Felix said, standing to face the strange creatures.

“That’s better, now stand still,” the lizard seemed quite pleased with itself.

“Felix, you can’t do this,” whispered Miss Eris.

“Trust me,” he half whispered, half sighed. Raising his voice he yelled, “Oh my god, watch out behind you. It’s a bear with sharks for arms.” Pointing behind the lizard he tried to look panicked.

There were a lot of things that irked Felix, but only one thing that he hated. Pranks were vile tricks played by bored or mischievous people. If he had yelled that out in a normal situation, he’d consider it a prank. Now he considered it a distraction.

The moment the lizard’s head turned, Felix started running. He turned into an alley and hoped the lizard hadn’t seen him. He’d never admit it but he was worried that Miss Eris would fall for the distraction. She didn’t and was magically keeping up with him as he ran down alleys.

It didn’t take long for his ruse to be discovered, however he was surprised that it wasn’t the lizard but the cyborg ape that noticed. In a loud booming British voice the ape yelled, “Poor sport, my good man” and took chase.

“So what’s the plan,” asked Miss Eris. She didn’t seem out of breath at all.

“Right now… Just run… and find someplace to hide. Good it’s chasing me…” he wasn’t being sarcastic. He’d rather that they chase him rather than stay and hurt his family.

“Do you want my suggestion?” How was she not out of breath?

“I was thinking the subway station, they can’t fit into there.” There were some screams as the large ape crushed fences.

“Why don’t we hide in the past?” she asked not having the decency to sweat. She could be having a polite conversation in an air-conditioned room for all she showed strain.

“Don’t be silly,” he snapped.

“Oh you think the future? No, no, the past is safer. Harder to get to.” With that she slapped his back and the world melted around him.

In total darkness he stopped running. He felt her warm hand on his shoulder and felt a little nauseated. Then the world came back in a flash. He was standing in the same alley and looking out into the street, only the street was filled with antique cars.

“See, isn’t that better?” Miss Eris asked chipperly. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, there was a loud clicking noise.

Felix recognized the noise from a few old movies he liked. They were the sound of guns being cocked.

Three men in nice pinstriped suits walked around the corner. Then another three came up behind them, “Mister Felicis, the boss wants to talk to ya. And don’t go trying no disappearing acts again. You won’t surprise us twice.” With that the rat faced man who spoke gestured at him with his gun to start walking.

“Much better,” he grumbled at Miss Eris.

Read Part 5

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part Three

Part 1 | Part 2

“DINOSAURS!” yelled Felix. The woman had forced him to come to work on his day off, which turned out ok since his house exploded, and then dragged him around town avoiding people who didn’t know how to spell and now she was blaming it on dinosaurs?

“Keep your voice down Felix. May I call you Felix?”

“No you may not. I’m leaving,” he stood up thinking that although she was attractive and saved his life, it was no excuse for him to stick around and listen to her crazy statements. But there was one thing he needed to know, “Why are ‘they’ after me and why does the news think I blew up my apartment?” He was standing now and was mildly impressed by the lack of interest people were showing in his loud and insane conversation.

“Mister Felicis. Please just sit down and I’ll tell you,” she sounded like a grade school teacher chastising a student. Her voice was calm and eyes narrowed.

He sat down.

“Good good. Now the police believe you blew up the building because they found a bomb inside your apartment. Or I suppose remnants of a bomb at this point. The Dinosaurs put it there.”

“And?” He had never tried to hide his impatience with her and he didn’t try now.

“Oh, I’d love to have an ice cream cone. I haven’t had one since two-thousand and twenty five. Oh and they make them with real milk here. What a treat.” She stood up and went to the counter to order her ice-cream cone.

Everything she said sounded odd but she talked about two-thousand and twenty five as if it was in the past. This worried Felix but he wasn’t sure why. When she came back he asked her, “What year do you think it is right now?”

Again she gave him a condescending look and replied, “Two-thousand and fifteen, April 1st.” she was right and ignored his confusion.

“Where are you from?” why was he asking these questions? He knew he wouldn’t like the answers.

“The future,”

“No. Try again.”

“Uhm… I come from the future.”

“Time travel isn’t possible. Any universe that would allow time travel would be messy and filled with paradoxes. In the end it would destroy itself.”

“I’m sorry but you’re wrong. The universe isn’t some priceless vase. It won’t crack that easy.”

This time he didn’t say anything he just stood up and left. The door out squeaked and cool air felt nice on his face. It was early afternoon now and he just walked. He had no idea where to go or what to do but he needed to get away from Miss Eris and her crazy theories.

It seemed that his subconscious had decided what to do when he saw that he was walking towards his brother’s home. Once there he’d explain everything to his brother Dean and his partner Sam and they’d formulate a plan.

Maybe the reason Miss Eris didn’t want him to go to the police was that she had planted the bomb in order to feed her sick fantasies.

His brother’s home was a small stand-alone house not far from downtown. It took Felix less than ten minutes to get there. It was small but cozy and despite Dean’s inability to organize, Felix still enjoyed visiting.

As Felix turned onto his brother’s street there was a loud whistling noise as if someone had built a sky scrapper sized tea-kettle. Felix fell to his knees and covered his ears. When the sound was over her looked down the street and blinked several times.

Standing in front of his brother’s home was a thirty foot tall gorilla. One of its eyes had been converted into some sort of laser pointer and one of its arms appeared to be made of metal. Attached to its hunched back was a saddle, sitting in this saddled was a small scaly reptile. Its yellow lizard eyes focused on Felix and it lifted what looked like a machine gun from an old gangster movie.

With a hissing voice it said, “Felix Felicis, you are tried by the Sauren court and found guilty of crimes against time and space. Prepare to die.”

Read Part 4

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part Two

Start from the beginning!

To say that Felix was having a bad day was an understatement.

He’d gotten up that morning to go into work, finish a business meeting, and go home before anything silly happened. He hated his birthday, the first of April, all most as much as he hated prop comedy. This year was turning out to be particularly frustrating.

Sitting across from him was a professionally and symmetrical woman. His younger brother Dean, would have said she was “hot”. Felix preferred to think of her as surprisingly attractive. It was unfortunate that she was completely insane.

They were sitting in a dirty and disgusting fast food restaurant and she was trying to explain something but he wasn’t listening, he was too busy disinfecting their table.

Moments after she had shown him his apartment building in shattered pieces, presumably from a bomb of some sort, the police had arrived at his workplace. He was going to confront them about their audacity in accusing him of doing something so distasteful but Miss Eris had grabbed his arm and pulled him into the staircase.

“Those aren’t the real police,” she said smiling as if she was having the greatest time of her life.

“How can you possibly know that?” he had asked her trying to escape her iron grip. He wasn’t a strong man, more tall and lanky than anything, but her head barely reached his chest even though she wore ridiculously high heels. She shouldn’t be that strong.

“The patches on their shoulders say, ‘Poleece’” she replied calmly still smiling. When he looked into the small window of the stairway door he did, in fact, see that the officers had misspelled uniforms. Beyond Poleece, there was, Aweficer, and SeeTee of Otttawaa.

“That’s terrible,” he exclaimed.

“I know, they’re here to kill you,” she replied.

“No not that, the spelling. Someone should really correct them,” he moved towards the door and saw from the corner of his eye, one of the Aweficers pull out their firearm.

The rest of the morning was spent running around in a distasteful manner. When she had pulled him into a fast food restaurant he’d sneered but sat down. He was sweaty and now sitting in someone else dirt. If he’d had a home, he’d go there to shower.

“Have you heard a word of what I’m saying?”

“I’m sorry Miss Eris. You seem like a nice, if unhinged, person but I have no interest in what you have to say. I should head to the nearest police station and turn myself in. I have done nothing and they’ll realize that soon enough.”

Tilting her head and looking at him as if he was the one who was insane she said, “They blew up your apartment and sent goons out to kill you. Do you really thing they will let you get to the police, and if you do they’ll kill you in jail. No the only safe thing is for you to come home with me.”

“That’s preposterous. Why would I go home with a Madwoman?”

“Because if you don’t, they’ll kill you,” she said it with genuine worry in her voice.

“And who is this ‘They’ you keep talking about?”

Lifting the large colourful book with a lizard on the cover she replied, “Why the dinosaurs of course.”

Read Part 3