Films are works of art. As such they are not all equal and, more importantly, can’t please all the people all the time. Sometimes, for an indeterminate number of reasons, they just don’t connect with the audience. In other cases, a film might just be ahead of its time or looking for that niche fan base who will, one day, take to the rooftops and proclaim it a triumph. Critics are valued and trusted voices in the entertainment world. They serve as sign posts directing us toward the good and away from the bad…but they are not always on point. In fact, there are numerous instances where these gatekeepers of…
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Off the Shelf…Walt Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame I & II’
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is a very different type of Disney film and further a bold step for Walt Disney Feature Animation. To some Hunchback can be considered a classic as well as a paradigm shift that marks a divergent tone in series of features previously found in the Disney catalog. For years Disney films were filled with a mix of fanciful characters and/or led solely by an assortment of cute and fuzzy (sometimes feathered) animals. But when, save for The Lion King, have we got a misunderstood male character that was actually a male (read: human, not animal)? The answer, we think, is never. Anyway this story, about…