Greatest Disney Animated Movie Round 2 Part 1

We finally have some upsets!!!  The final region in round one voting produced some of the closest matchups and resulted in the first upsets of the tournament.  There were four matchups that were decided by one vote.  Lilo and Stitch managed to squeak by The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, but Tarzan and Big Hero 6 weren't as lucky, as they fell to lower seeds, Oliver and Company and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, respectively.  I am really happy that Oliver and Company got some love and advanced.  In the fourth matchup decided by one vote, The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh summoned up enough love from the Hundred Acre Wood to defeat A Goofy Movie.  This was by far the most exciting region so far.



Now it's time to get into round two!  The second round should be quite exciting because we're getting matchups of more popular movies.  We begin this round of voting in the Lion King and Aladdin regions.  The Lion King region presents three really interesting matchups.  I think The Lion King will advance easily, but the 2-seed, Frozen, might have a more difficult time against Dumbo.  Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a blowout either.  I think The Jungle Book should advance as well, but it could be close.  And I really don't know what to make of 101 Dalmatians vs Mulan.  That could honestly go either way.

In the Aladdin region, Peter Pan vs Alice in Wonderland is one to watch.  Those are two really popular movies.  I'm curious to see how Fantasia performs as well.  It's a brilliant technical movie, and its influence on animation is immeasurable, but it's also really old compared to its opponent, The Princess and the Frog.  And I fully expect Aladdin and Pinocchio to advance easily.  But enough analysis, let's get to the voting!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Greatest Disney Movie Bracket Round 1 Part 4

Voting in Round 1 of the Beauty and the Beast region was surprising in the fact that all the matchups that I thought were going to be close were blowouts.  In fact, all the matchups were blowouts except one.  Dinosaur jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, but The Emperor's New Groove came back to win 4-3.  I was hoping for more than seven votes, but that's all we have to work with.  There's not much else to say about the other matchups.  I'm a little surprised that The Aristocats thoroughly dominated Bolt, but perhaps I overestimated the popularity of Bolt.  But let's take a look at what the bracket looks like now.

And now we head into the final region of voting in Round 1.  I could see some upsets in this region.  In fact, there are at least three lower seeds that I will be voting for, and I think others might as well.  First, I love Oliver and Company.  I remember watching that movie all the time as a kid and I think it is much better than Tarzan.  However, I wonder how many other people love that movie like I do.  I think Winnie the Pooh vs A Goofy Movie is an intriguing matchup as well.  There's a lot of cult love for both of those films, so it will be interesting to see which movie's fans show up to vote.  The other matchup that will be one to watch is Big Hero 6 vs Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Hunchback is not a very good movie, but Big Hero 6 is really new, so many people may not have seen it yet.  We'll see how that shapes up.  I think the higher seeds should win the other matchups, but I will say I am not of fan of Lilo and Stitch, so if that lost I wouldn't be heartbroken.  I don't think many people remember Ichabod and Mr. Toad, though.  Either way, I'm really excited to see how the voting goes in this region!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Greatest Disney Movie Bracket Round 1 Part 3

Well, I definitely underestimated Meet the Robinsons and the two Rescuers movies.  They were neck and neck in the voting for most of the round until Alice in Wonderland, Sword in the Stone, and Wreck-it-Ralph pulled away at the end.  I wasn't sure any of those movies would be able to keep things close, but it's nice to see there are fans out there.  It would be nice if more than 11 people voted, though, so please share with your friends!!!!  The other films in this region advanced quite easily, as I thought they would.

Here's a look at the bracket.


Now we move into the Beauty and the Beast region of the bracket.  There are some intriguing first round matchups here.  Aristocats versus Bolt should be very interesting.  I wasn't a huge fan of either, but it will be interesting to see how an obscure old school film fares against an obscure new school film.  Other matchups that I think will be close are The Emperor's New Groove vs Dinosaur and Hercules vs Treasure Planet.  I don't think any of those movies were overwhelmingly popular, with Hercules being the closest thing to a hit.  I'm curious to see how people vote in those matchups.  Personally, I think Dinosaur and Treasure Planet were underrated.  Finally, my personal favorite Disney movie is in this region, Robin Hood.  I don't see how Chicken Little stands a chance, but I know there is a small cult following for that film, so I'm a little worried.  But ultimately, I think Robin Hood will advance.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Greatest Disney Movie Round 1 Part 2

After the first series of voting in the Lion King region, there were no major upsets.  All the higher seeds advanced and it wasn't even close.  In fact, the closest match up was a 7-2 victory for The Fox and the Hound.  No real surprises and not much to analyze.

Here's the latest look at the bracket.


Now it's time to move on to the Aladdin region.  I think all the higher seeds will prevail here as well, but maybe one of the Rescuers movies or Atlantis could surprise.  Hopefully more than nine people vote this time around, though.  So please share with friends and spread the word.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Greatest Disney Animated Movie Ever!

With March on the horizon, that can only mean one thing.  Brackets!!!  And as has become a tradition with this blog, I create a specialized tournament which allows my loyal readers to vote for the winners.  This year's bracket is the Greatest Disney Animated Movie Ever!

For this bracket I aim to find out what Disney Animated movie people think is the greatest of all time.  I only looked at classic animated films, so no Pixar films in this bracket.  I debated including those films, but ultimately I decided that I wanted to just give the classics their time in the spotlight.  However, you will notice that there are not 64 films to include in the bracket.  Disney has only produced 54 films under the classic animation banner.  I decided to add A Goofy Movie and Duck Tale: The Movie to bring the total to 56 and enable the top two seeds in each bracket to have a first round bye.  Why did I choose those two movies to add?  Because it's my bracket and I can.

I'm sure you're all wondering how I decided to seed this bracket.  Well, I used a highly scientific algorithm.  Not really, but I did try to analyze all the data I could.  I looked at adjusted box office gross, although I wasn't able to get data for all the films.  I also looked at awards, both nominated and won.  I compared IMDB ratings, Facebook likes, and Google search results, though the latter numbers were a little misleading.  But I tried to look at as much as I could to try to be as objective as possible.  In the end, I had to make some personal judgement calls.  If you don't like the bracket, well, make your own then!  But take a look and feel free to curse me out.




The site I used this year only let me put overall seeds in the bracket, so if you want regional seeds, divide the overall seed by four.  If there is a remainder, round up.

Before we get to the voting, it's time for predictions.  My personal Final Four would Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Little Mermaid.  That obviously won't happen since three of those are in the same region.  But at least now you know I won't cheat.  My prediction is that we could have an all 90s Final Four with Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Little Mermaid.  And, yes, I know Little Mermaid was released in 1989, but it's close enough.  I do think Frozen will get a lot of love, but ultimately fall.  And I think Peter Pan and Jungle Book could be sleepers.

But let's start the voting!  We are starting in the Lion King region.  Please vote and share!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Valentine's Day Challenge

With Valentine's Day approaching, I notice that people tend to fall into one of two camps: those in a relationship who want to let everyone know they are in a relationship and those who are single and want to remind everyone that they are single.  Obviously, this doesn't apply to everyone, but it's a good majority.  Now, the relationship people like people to know just how happy they are and how wonderful their life is because they are in a wonderful relationship.  They tell the single people not to worry, that one day they will find love too.  This only seems to draw the ire of the single people, who like to remind everyone how much they hate this holiday and how lousy it is to be single.  But my question is, when did this holiday become solely about being in a relationship creating these two warring factions?  Isn't this holiday supposed to be about love?  And doesn't love come in many different forms?

This inspired me to research some of the history behind Valentine's Day.  I found a very interesting article regarding the subject on History.com, which I will try to summarize concisely.  There are multiple versions surrounding the story of St. Valentine, none of which can really be confirmed, but they all surround the idea that he was a heroic, romantic figure.  Valentine's Day itself actually started as a pagan holiday called Lupercalia, which was a fertility festival.  It involved slapping women with goat hides to make them fertile, and then the women would put their name in an urn for men to draw out and be matched with.  Ancient Rome was weird.

Eventually that festival was outlawed, and Pope Gelasius, at the end of the 5th century, declared Valentine's Day to take place on February 14.  In the Middle Ages, they day was also associated with the beginning of the birds mating season which furthered the connection to romance and love.  Written greetings didn't appear until after 1400, and the first mass-produced valentines didn't appear until the 1840s in America.  But it was common for friends and lovers to exchange tokens of affection.  Friends is the word that stands out to me there.  But if you would like to read the whole article, here is the link.
http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day

So even though the holiday has evolved into a romantic occasion for people to celebrate their romantic relationships, the origins are rooted in love.  And like I mentioned earlier, love comes in many forms.  So here's my challenge to all of you.  Whether you are in a relationship or not, use this holiday to show ALL the people you love that you care.  Let friends, family, lovers, whoever know that you love them.  Let's not focus on celebrating relationships, but instead focus on celebrating love.  The world could use a little more love, so let's all do our part.

Also, check out the following video for a useless Valentines Day fact!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Review

Let me start this post with a spoiler alert for both the 2013 film version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the short story it was based on.  If you haven't seen the movie yet, I can understand that.  But if you haven't read the story, shame on you and shame on your teachers.  It is one of my favorite stories of all time, and I loved being able to teach it to my students when I was teaching.

I was really excited to see the Ben Stiller movie version because I love the story so much.  However, I never got around to seeing it in theaters.  I finally caught it on Cinemax this weekend.  For the most part I enjoyed it, but I feel like it deviated majorly from the story.  I realize that the story is not the easiest to transfer to film, but in the story, Walter Mitty daydreams to escape from the monotony of his his life.  Little things he sees triggers wild dreams in which he puts himself in heroic, daring situations.  He is a man who wishes his life had turned out differently.

In the movie, Ben Stiller plays a single guy who daydreams a lot.  He is a guy that people make fun of, who is afraid to talk to women, and who is clearly dissatisfied with his life.  His daydreams make him seem brave and heroic.  Well, at least most of them do.  He imagines saving a dog from a burning building and as a romantic Spanish hiker.  Those fit with short story.  But then he also imagines himself getting in a fight and as a weird Benjamin Button like guy.  Those two daydreams seemed really odd and not much like the type of dreams the character from the story has.  Also, in the story he is married, but he does pine after a girl in the movie.

Then, all of a sudden, he starts doing things that seem out of character.  He starts talking to the girl, he impulsively flies to Greenland, and is apparently an amazing skateboarder.  You keep thinking that some of these things are more daydreams, but it turns out that they're not.  It all seems very out of character, and was fueled by the desire to find a missing photograph.  Now I understand that in a movie the characters need to have some sort of growth and there needs to be a story arc, but this happens so suddenly and drastically that it doesn't seem real.  He hikes through the Himalayas with no prior training for crying out loud!  And the daydreams stopped.

Now don't get me wrong, as a fellow daydreamer, and someone who has always related to Walter Mitty, I appreciate the movie showing a character who breaks through the daydreams and gains confidence to do the things he always dreamed about.  But it just seemed really sudden.  At the end I liked the message of the movie, and I was entertained for the most part, but the charm of the original story seemed to be missing.  Also, I had a feeling all along that the missing photograph was in the wallet that was given to him, so I was frustrated the entire time that he didn't look in there.  But I guess there wouldn't be a movie if he didn't have a missing photograph to try to go after.  All in all, I recommend the movie if you are a fan of the story, and if you're not a fan of the story you should definitely read it because it is one of the best short stories ever written.