We Want The D

Making live action movie versions of classic television cartoons may be all the rage now, but in 1999, there weren't too many examples. Maybe that's why Disney's attempt at bringing INSPECTOR GADGET to life feels like a total miss. Sure, Matthew Broderick channels the bumbling detective well enough for the most part, but Dr. Claw was never this hammy and showed much much less face that Rupert Everett. And Penny was certainly never as sidelined as she is in this movie. And we may be wrong here, D-Lovers, but we're pretty certain that no episode of the cartoon involved making a sex robot clone of Joely Fisher. Vicky, Nolan and Jill do their best to separate this adaptation from the beloved original, but even then this movie leaves us with more questions than answers.

It's time for another classic We Want The D double-header, where Vicky, Nolan and Jill take a Disney original and it's later remake and pit them head-to-head. This time we're pitting FREAKY FRIDAY from 1976 against what we have dubbed STREAKY FRIDAY from 2003. It's a hell of a match-up in all categories. Jodie Foster vs. Lindsay Lohan. Barbara Harris vs. Jamie Lee Curtis. Gomez Addams vs. Leroy Gibbs. Soul Patch vs. Jewfro. There's some battles for the ages in these two wacky hijinks-based romps, as well as some unexpected surprises. You wouldn't believe which of these movies fetishized the father/daughter relationship more, or which one was more racially insensitive. It's these kinds of surprises that make trying to talk about two movies in one episode worth it.

As podcast listeners, we can assume that you, our beloved D-Sciples, are pretty technologically savvy. But imagine trying to explain to your grandparents what a podcast is, or how to listen to one. Can you imagine their confusion and disinterest? If you're having trouble, might we suggest a viewing of Disney's TRON? A movie made in the early days of home computing about the inner drama of programs, their enslavement by an all-powerful, chess playing Master Controller, and their steadfast belief in all-powerful users who will come to save them. Tron is a confusing movie with a confusing story and a confusing visual aesthetic. But, if you need anymore convincing to watch this movie or at the very least listen to this episode of We Want The D, a sweaty Jeff Bridges does take his shirt off at one point, and wears a skin-tight leotard costume that reveals a lot by what it needs to cover up...

It's been awhile since we checked in with one of our favourite Disney performers, so this week on We Want The D our hosts are reconnecting with our beloved Hayley Brando Mills as she goes on a fantastic adventure with famous French lech Maurice Chevalier, the smarmiest teenage boy you've ever seen, the most British Lord you can imagine, and a little boy who is also present. IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS is a ton of fun with pretty impressive action sequences, charming Sherman Brothers songs, and lots of that good family-friendly fun that Disney has been known to pull off like no other company...but it's also capital 'P' Problematic in its depiction of Māori people and native tribes of the Andes - in the sense that they are depicted by tanned Italians and in little to no way reflect these actual cultures. The result is a movie that is at once hard to recommend, but hard to hate. A feeling that pretty much defines 1960s Disney.

For the third time in 2017 we're heading to France to visit some of Disney's most beloved characters. That's right, even in the direct-to-video sequel, the gang's all here. Belle! Lumiere! Cogsworth! Babette (for like two seconds)! Beast! A Jewish Axe! It's Christmas time at the cursed castle, so its time to dust off the estate's help that are trapped in storage AS WELL as in the form of an inanimate object and spread some holiday cheer. Because if anything will help your beastly master seduce the human woman he's holding prisoner, it's letting her celebrate Christmas. Add in family favourites Tim Curry and Paul Reubens, subtract a hefty chunk from the animation budget, and you've got BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: THE ENCHANTED CHRISTMAS. 

The holiday season is upon us once again, but unfortunately for Vicky, Nolan and Jill the well of theatrical Disney Christmas movies has already run pretty dry. Desperate for anything even tangentially related to Christmas, our host have turned to C.S. Lewis, an author who really put the "Christ" back in "Christmas" with THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. That's right, in their desperate search for a Lord of the Rings-esque high fantasy franchise of their own, Disney briefly hitched their wagon to the Narnia train, with decidedly mixed results. On the one hand, everything about this movie is pretty lousy, from the cast and performances to the score and soundtrack to Edmund - perhaps the biggest piece of garbage in movie history. On the other hand, a fresh-faced James McAvoy walks around shirtless but for a scarf, so at least one of our hosts is pretty happy. 

It's remarkable to think that Disney has been making theatrical films for nigh on eighty years, and they still haven't cracked the formula - sometimes they put out bona fide classics, sometimes they put out real stinkers. So it's always a surprise when we go deep into the Disney Canon and pull out something from their early years, and it turns out better than our hosts expected. This week on We Want The D, Vicky, Nolan and Jill watch the second fully live action movie the House of Mouse ever produced, THE STORY OF ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRIE MEN, and all three were pleasantly surprised at the competency on display. Shot on location in Sherwood Forest, featuring period costuming and set design, and actors who really embraced this family friendly version of a classic tale. Don't get us wrong, this is no cartoon fox version of the Robin Hood story, but its still a solidly entertaining outing all the same.

We'll try to keep this brief, D-Lovers - there's not much that can be said here that our hosts don't already say in this week's episode. Suffice to say, we highly recommend watching Disney's QUEEN OF KATWE before pushing play on this week's episode. Go ahead, it's on Netflix, we'll wait. We promise you won't regret it. Trust us, if Vicky, Nolan and Jill are anything to go off of, you'll want to spend the next sixty-plus minutes raving about what you just saw to anyone who will listen, and we've got you covered on that front on We Want The D.

Help us out here, D-Lovers - some of you must have seen Disney's ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN before and can explain how this movie spawned a few sequels and a remake starring The Rock. Because based on what is on paper (and film print), Vicky, Nolan and Jill can't quite figure this one out. Sure Tia's got great bangs, Tony can blow a mean mouth organ and Jason O'Day has a personality that lends itself to imagining a wild backstory (less depressing than his real one, at that). But all that AND a random bear appearance doesn't save this week's movie from being an extended car chase, and not in the cool Mad Max Fury Road way. 

On the surface, Disney's THE BIG GREEN is about as paint-by-numbers an underdog kids' sports movie can get. All the stereotypical plot points with none of the charm, this could have been another ingracious entry into We Want The D's dreaded bottom ten, but was saved by the oddly relevant portrayal of Small Town America on the decline. The setting of this week's movie is a Town that Voted Trump, a town where nine out of ten parents found themselves out of work when the local factory (of what?) closed down; a town where a foreign exchange teacher (a what?) can toss out the curriculum in favour of throwing her mixed-age class in a sport none of them have ever played; a town where the kids play a dangerous game involving cheeetos and pigeons just to feel alive. This town and it's citizens managed to capture Vicky, Nolan and Jill's imaginations, at least the times they weren't playing soccer.

This week on We Want The D, our hosts watched yet another bizarrely dark movie in the Disney catalog. Rife with animal abuse, parental neglect, and an all-around grim tone, you'd be forgiven if you assumed Vicky, Nolan and Jill were talking about some obscure film from the 1960s, or at the very least a Christmas movie from the 1980s. But nope, those are all elements of AIR BUD, a story that is only minimally about a dog that plays basketball, but it mostly about a child who hasn't grieved properly for his dead father; a sad, bad clown who may or may not be a serial killer; and a dog who can do a pretty cool trick but is probably going to be very sick because of all the vanilla pudding he eats. It's always a delight when you expect a silly movie and end up with bleak one, isn't it D-Lovers? 

Good day, eh, and welcome to this week's episode of We Want The D, where Vicky, Nolan and Jill once again battle against the rising tide of Disney's animation mediocrity of the late Eisner era. BROTHER BEAR doesn't have a lot going for it on paper - a voice cast anchored by Bob and Doug McKenzie and (for some reason) Joaquin Phoenix, a story with disturbing implications from conception to finale thanks to 29 writers not being able to get their shit together, and just the absolute worst songs Phil Collins had to offer. Aside from some decent background art, this movie was another nail in the coffin for traditionally animated Disney in the early 2000s and another nail in our hosts' hearts as we see yet more wasted potential. But at least we can still laugh about it with you, our beloved D-sciples!

Trick or Treat, D-Lovers, it's time for another We Want The D Halloween Special Spectacular. Having burned through so much of Disney's theatrical Halloween offerings, Vicky, Nolan and Jill are forced to turn to the strange and largely mediocre world of Disney Channel Original Movies once again, this time tackling the bizarrely beloved HALLOWEENTOWN. While our hosts can largely agree that Debbie Reynolds is an angel taken from us too soon, that's about where the common opinions stop as one host actively hated the movie, another actively loved it, and the other may have only given it the bare minimum amount of attention to qualify as having "watched" it. Much like those opinions, this episode is a bit all over the place, but we hope you'll enjoy it all the same as we unpack the story of an annoyingly lame tween, a weirdly Oedipal adolescent boy, and an all-powerful witch child going to visit their grandma in her boring little town.

We're in that spooky time of year again, D-Lovers, and that means its time to tap that rich vein of theatrical Disney Halloween movies...unfortunately thanks to our Halloween month a few years back that vein is mostly dry, so we're left with material like THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. While probably the closest thing to a straight-up horror movie that Disney has ever done, all the classic set-ups for scares, 70s teen fashion, and Bette Davis castings in the world couldn't save this movie once they decided on the nonsense non-ending - even though it was the third or fourth one they tried.

We Want The D returns to the romantic life of the traveling circus in this week's episode. Vicky, Nolan and Jill are once again itching to be charmed by wild animals in small cages, casual child endangerment, and that good 1880s era stank. And boy does Disney's TOBY TYLER deliver on all those fronts and more. It's hard not be delighted by recurring We Want The D favourite Kevin Corcoran (aka Jimmy Bean) in his first real starring role we've seen so far, even our hosts constantly fear that an angry chimp will rip his face off, he'll take a tumble off a bareback horse, or he'll fall fully into the nefarious and creepy clutches of Concessonaire Extraordinaire Mr. Tupper.

Oh. My. God. D-Lovers - have you seen Disney's MALEFICENT? Have you seen how good Angelina Jolie looks in this movie? Have you seen her incredible performance as Maleficent? She's so powerful, so beautiful; whether she is wearing a cowl of snake skin or black silk. With or without her wings (so cruelly garotted off by Shartlo Copley) she strikes a very good silhouette, always perfectly lit. She is the only thing in this movie - as evidenced by the fact that, despite some pretty decent production design and a few half-explored themes, it's the only thing that Vicky, Nolan and Jill can talk about. Seriously, she is so beautiful. Especially next to Elle Fanning's gross hands.

This week on We Want The D we're going back to a simpler time. A time when Disney animation was crisp and beautiful, with nary a hint of xerography. A time when you could make a movie about a princess who only says about sixteen lines of dialogue. A time when film run times were tight, villains were straight-forwardly evil, and you could arrange a marriage between two children while one was prepubescent and the other was fresh from the womb. If you haven't figured it out by now Vicky, Nolan and Jill watched SLEEPING BEAUTY, and like all of Disney's classic its cause for celebration of what the studio was able to achieve with animation, but with more than enough fuel for oddball digressions on the etiquette of baby shower invites, the merit of spells as gifts and whether pink or blue is a better aesthetic choice for Aurora in the scope of the Disney Princess line-up. Keep those eyelids from drooping, there's no time for sleep when there's a new We Want The D!

It's the conclusion to We Want The D's Summer of Pirates and much like the franchise, our hosts are all worn out. For a series that start on a such high note of optimism and celebration, things sure have come a long way. Last week, Vicky, Nolan and Jill raged against the fourth installment of Disney's mega-franchise - this week it's a sad acceptance where all they could do is laugh at the ridiculous of Jack Sparrow's latest non-adventure. Considering this fifth movie both relies on and completely ignores the story set up in the original trilogy, it proves understandably frustrating for anyone who expects even the smallest amount of continuity in a mythology. Instead we get a completely broken timeline, character motives based on nothing, and a general wet noodle of a movie. 

The Summer of Pirates continues on We Want The D with the fourth installment of the franchise, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES. The people may have been hungry for more Jack Sparrow after the conclusion of the initial trilogy, but Vicky, Nolan and Jill can't imagine anyone who felt satisfied by this high budget television episode of a movie. Disney managed to pull off a film that sorta looks like a Pirates movie and sorta sounds like a Pirates movie, but by no means comes even close to what came before. How could it, when the central character is sidelined for Penelope Cruz, time is endlessly wasting on a pointless mermaid/missionary love story, and the Spanish are just hanging out, popping in and out whenever they are needed. There are few franchises that can sustain themselves indefinitely, but for a series of films that started out so strongly, this one has worn itself out rather quickly. 

Vicky, Nolan and Jill have made their annual pilgrimage to Bob's Lake, which means its time to check in on the Szalinksi family one last time in We Want The D's first foray into direct-to-video Disney. HONEY, WE SHRUNK OURSELVES lacks the budget and much of the cast of the first two films; but what it lacks in those areas is more than makes up for in product placement and some unfortunate implications as to what happened to the older Szalinksi children and the original Diane. We're just saying, its weird that Adam's older siblings are barely mentioned. And who is this "Gordon Szalinki" who seems to have appeared out of nowhere? If we didn't know any better, we'd say that maybe Wayne Szalinski cracked a bit in the intervening eight years between films, but that can't be true...can it?