It's A Wonderful Life

Nobody could make pictures like Capra. Nobody. The Criterion CAV is a fine grain archive print and gorgeous.

A film that only gains in significance over time as you grow older. Jimmy gives his tour de force amidst a supporting cast so fully realized that Bedford Falls becomes not merely a setting but a microcosm of the America we lost.

This is the blending of cinema's artificiality with the romance of times past.

And of one the most beautiful things to ever come out of the Dream factory.

4 balls out of 4. One of the greatest films ever made.

The Black Cauldron

What the hell did I just see? I loved the tone, the backgrounds, the art and the story's potential. But it is so cut down, the characters are so one note and completely undeveloped that you just wish the damn thing was over. Gorgeous scope animation designed for 70mm is wasted on a pitiful hodgepodge of story that is on so thin a plot that every single thing is dictated right down to the narrative 101 handbook. And to top that off the characters are drawn in the less refined style Disney practiced throughout the 70's.

This is a mess with an alarming number of great qualities. It should have worked, and probably would be somewhat better with the excised 12 minutes restored. The sound mix is very good, and the dark tone in a fantasy/swashbuckler type film is outstanding. Everything else STINKS.

I want to like this more but as it is the film just. does. not. work.

2.5 balls out of 4 egotistical dreamer young boys who can't even do anything of note and must leave it to the comic relief, obligatory unnecessary princess and magic sword to do everything for him.