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Pop icon Ariana Grande is calling for Disney World’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to stay exactly as it is. In a passionate appeal, she’s urging Disney to keep this fan-favorite ride standing tall, honoring its nostalgic thrills and spooky ambiance.

Ariana Grande has made her love for Disney’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror known in a big way, and she’s not holding back. During a recent appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast, hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, Grande spoke out in favor of preserving the classic Hollywood Studios attraction.

“Please allow the iconic and tremendous Tower of Terror to stand tall, permanently in the name of historical preservation, spooky honor, and good, old-fashioned fun,” she said, capturing the hearts of Disney fans who share her dedication to the ride’s eerie atmosphere and thrilling drop sequence.

Ariana Grande is very concerned about the...

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has soft opened to Annual Passholders at Disneyland, but not everyone is happy with the reimagining of the classic ride. Here’s why some guests are calling it “empty” and lacking the original charm.

Mixed Reactions to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the reimagined version of the beloved Splash Mountain, has faced a mix of excitement and criticism since its debut at Disneyland. While some fans were eager to see Tiana take the spotlight, others have voiced disappointment over what they perceive as a reduction in the ride’s magic and fullness.

Lack of Animatronics and Claustrophobic Design

Fluff Skwovet, in a tweet that gained considerable traction, criticized the ride’s emptiness, stating: “Tiana’s sucks on Disneyland, literal darkness & very empty, even more empty than Wdw’s version, terrible retheme no matter what version.” He pointed out the reduction in the number...

The passing of John Amos has been a reminder of his historic starring role in one of the more unlikely Disney live-action hits ever!

The news that John Amos died in August at the age of 84 has led to some looks back at his long acting career. Breaking out as weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Amos took the lead role in the hit comedy Good Times. After leaving the show following a beef with the producers, Amos starred in the Emmy-winning mini-series Roots. 

After that, Amos was a familiar face on TV and in movies, with notable appearances in Coming To America, Die Hard 2, The West Wing, Men in Trees, and more. Yet amid all that, it's easy to forget Amos' starring role in one the weirder Disney films of a weird period.

The World's Greatest Athlete. 

This 1973 film was notable, with Amos in his...

After waiting a year, the re-theme of the iconic Disney ride, Splash Mountain has opened in the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. The new ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, turns the characters of 1946’s Song of the South into the 2009 animated film The Princess and the Frog. On the ride we see Princess Tiana and her friends gather a group of musical critters to play at her party.

The re-theme has been surrounded by controversy, with many Disney fans wanting the ride to stay the same. However, a push to include more recent I.P. into rides (among other reasons) led to the change. The ride has been plagued with multiple technical problems ever since its opening. It has gotten to the point where riders were required to be evacuated. Despite adding new animatronics, the attraction still has the same 30+ years of wear and tear. Very few refurbishments seem...

The first hit album of Frank Zappa’s career, Apostrophe (‘), will be expanded into a comprehensive box set for its 50th anniversary. Available in a variety of formats on Sept. 13, the reissue in its most extravagant form, a super deluxe edition, will feature a remastered edition of the original album with bonus tracks, live recordings from Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, and Dayton from 1974, and a Blu-ray that includes the album in 5.1 surround sound and its original quadrophonic mix in addition to high-res audio.

The release, available to preorder now,...

On July 17, 1989, Splash Mountain opened at Disneyland Park; three years later, a version of the same ride opened at Disney World. It was a problematic attraction from the onset — the ride had all the classic charm of other timeless Disney fare like Peter Pan’s Flight and Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, but this iteration was founded on a troubling principle.

The film the ride was based on, Song of the South, had been voluntarily removed from circulation by Disney three years before Splash Mountain ever opened. The film was widely known to be racist and was heavily criticized for romanticizing the plantation-era South in America, and for bolstering harmful stereotypes about Black people.

Now, over 30 years later, the uncomfortable subtext of Splash Mountain has been put to rest, and in its place splashes down something all the more charming, festive and fun.

Gone are the hillbilly-ish caricatures of Br’er Rabbit,...

Hollywood has had its fair share of good and bad cinematic projects, with some even exceeding the bar to be termed as “racist” or “controversial”. One of these movies was the 2004 comedy/crime White Chicks, starring the renowned Scary Movie actor Marlon Wayans. This film recently celebrated two decades of its existence and, in the meanwhile, also ended up sparking a heated debate.

White Chicks. (2004) | Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing.

This debate was regarding the controversy surrounding the movie. Apparently, one viewer deemed this critically panned but fan-favorite piece of work as “the most racist movie that ever came out of Hollywood.” Ever since then, fans have been engulfed in a heated debate on whether this opinion is actually laughable, or laudable, when literal pieces like the live-action Dragonball: Evolution exist!

Marlon Wayans’ White Chicks Has Sparked a Controversial Debate on its 20th Anniversary

Helmed by filmmaker Keenen Ivory Wayans, one...

This piece was originally published in November 2019. It has been updated since and is most current as of June 12, 2024.

“Song of the South” remains the most controversial film in the history of Walt Disney motion pictures, live action or animated. But you’ll never see directors Harve Foster (handling the live action) and Wilfred Jackson’s (behind the animation) 1946 Uncle Remus adaptation on the Disney+ streaming service even as the company continues to roll out its vast library of legacy titles on the home-viewing platform. And not even with a disclaimer. Disney CEO Bob Iger made that clear back in 2020, even before the dated racial politics of classic movies returned heavily to discussion around the Black Lives Matter movement’s impact on entertainment later that year.

Set in a Reconstruction-era American south just as the Civil War has concluded and slavery has ended, “Song of the South” is most famous...

Janis Paige, the ebullient redhead who starred in the original Broadway production of The Pajama Game and in such Hollywood musicals as Silk Stockings and Romance on the High Seas, has died. She was 101.

Paige, who was discovered in the 1940s while performing at the legendary Hollywood Canteen, died Sunday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, her friend Stuart Lampert announced.

Paige starred on her own network sitcom, playing a widowed nightclub singer struggling to raise her 10-year-old daughter, on the 1955-56 CBS series It’s Always Jan, and she had recurring roles as Dick van Patten’s free-spirited sister on ABC’s Eight Is Enough and as a hospital administrator on CBS’ Trapper John, M.D.

The actress also turned in two memorable guest-starring stints in 1976, playing an attractive diner waitress named Denise who tempts Archie (Carroll O’Connor) to cheat on Edith (Jean Stapleton) on All in the Family...

David Bordwell, the noted film scholar, teacher, author and researcher known for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of cinema with movie lovers everywhere, has died. He was 76.

Bordwell died Thursday after a long illness, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced. He taught at the school from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was its Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.

For more than two decades, Bordwell supplied commentaries, visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 insightful episodes of Observations on Film Art on the Criterion Channel.

In a statement, Criterion called him “a great, longtime friend and a tireless champion of cinema who spent decades imparting his wisdom and passion onto film lovers around the world.”

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Bordwell wrote his essential textbooks Film Art: An Introduction,...

He simply may have watched more movies than anyone else alive. That’s the kind of legendary detail that followed film scholar David Bordwell, dead at 76 after a long struggle with a degenerative lung disease.

Was that true? Impossible to determine, and Bordwell’s cinephilia was never about bragging or the accumulation of knowledge to score points — but instead, to share with others and enrich our collective understanding of cinema. If you studied film on any level in academia, you almost certainly have heard his name.

For several generations of film students, you read Bordwell’s “Film Art: An Introduction” in your fall freshman Film 101 class. That was me in 2004, and I believe that book was already on its seventh edition by that point — it had first been published in 1979. If you went deeper into your studies, you’d undoubtedly encounter his “Film History” textbook as well. Both of these...

Lunar New Year is a key box office period in several Asian territories, but nowhere was it more hotly contested this year than in Vietnam, where several local, Japanese and Hollywood movies were slugging it over the week-long holidays (February 9-15).

Tran Thanh’s Mai, a romantic drama that delves into the psychology of its female protagonist, was the clear winner — at the time of writing it was topping the box office with a haul of VND400BN ($16.4M). Produced by Tran Thanh Town and Cj Hk Entertainment, a joint venture between Korea’s Cj Enm and local outfit HKFilm, the film has the potential to break the record set by Tran Thanh’s own The House of No Man, released this time last year, which is Vietnam’s highest ever grossing film with VND476BN ($19.4m).

Also released over the holidays, known as Tet in Vietnam, was Nhat Trung...

Disney parks purists rejoice.

The company’s Imagineering team has released the first look at the actual Tiana character that will enliven the upcoming Tiana’s Bayou Adventure attraction at U.S. parks, and it is refreshingly old school.

Unlike the initial face-projection characters from Epcot’s Frozen Ever After, which creeped some guests out, Tiana is fully animatronic in the tradition of classic Disney rides like Pirates of the Caribbean. Catch your first look in the video below.

@disneyparks

First Look...

An is the main character of the Doan Gioi novel Song of the South. The Vietnamese author tapped into the spirit of adventure when he wrote about a son’s quest to meet his father. The emotional journey has a very interesting backdrop: the strife between the French army and the rebel army. The new Netflix film adapts the novel and tries to create a cinematic equivalent of An’s journey, and it works in most parts, especially when dealing with An’s story.

The novel was the foundation for the TV series in 1997, which was quite a hit in Vietnam, and it’s no surprise that Quang Dung Nguyen has tried to tell the story again by directing this film. The film immediately reminded me of stories that are quite profound, usually because of the journey of the protagonist. The coming-of-age aspect of the film is reminiscent of films...

The Vietnamese film Song of the South is based on the novel of the same name by Doan Gioi. It is a tried-and-tested story, as it was made into a television series way back in 1997. It is a beloved and epic tale of a boy named An who goes on an adventure to meet his father. The time period of the film also brings almost insurmountable obstacles for An, as this is a story set when Vietnam was a French colony. An’s father was the leader of the rebel army, trying to fight for the country’s freedom. He lived away from the family, and An’s mother was the one who had to take full responsibility for raising An. The story takes a turn when An and his mother have to escape as the French are going after the rebels and their sympathizers.

Spoilers Ahead

Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?...

By Le Chou

December 30, 2023

For the first time in modern Vietnam cinema since the establishment of its box office tracking, six local films topped the Vietnam box office in 2023 and combined to capture more than a third of the total box office receipts. This dominating performance by local films is a stark reversal of 2022, when the top local film only placed sixth in the year's overall ranking behind Hollywood and other foreign films.

As 2023 comes to a close, here's a look at the 6 films (in order of box office performance) and the directors who helmed them:

1. Nhà Bà Nữ (The House of No Man)

Directed by Trấn Thành, starring Uyển Ân, Song Luân, and Trấn Thành.

Trấn Thành marks his solo directorial debut with Nhà Bà Nữ (The House of No Man), which unequivocally became the box office champion upon its release during Tết (Lunar New Year). The film stars...

The period drama is the sixth film to reach vnd100 billion ($4m) this year.

Vietnamese period film The Last Wife has passed the vnd100 billion mark at the local box office, making it the sixth film to reach this milestone this year. It is equivalent to approximately $4m.

Directed by US-born Vietnamese filmmaker Victor Vu, the film has been dominating the Vietnamese box office since its opening on November 3. It crossed the $4.09m (vnd100bn) mark on December 8 for distributor Lotte Entertainment.

It also opened in North America through 3388 Films and Australia through VeOnline & Film Viet Tai Uc on December...

Exclusive: It’s not just Netflix that made a bid for Warner Bros.’ scrapped Coyote vs. Acme. Paramount, Apple and Amazon have seen the movie as well. Of those, Paramount has made a bid, and the plus there is a potential theatrical release. The Melrose lot could use it on the 2024 release calendar. Debt-laden exhibitors would want it, too.

Meanwhile, Amazon is mulling, I’m told, with no formal bid made. First, it takes longer over there to conduct business and get decisions through the proper channels. I also hear that marketing execs are trying to get their heads around the picture (seriously — there’s a lot of action scenes in the movie and hysterical jokes that easily could be used in trailers. I’ve seen the movie. Look out for the Porky Pig pant-less joke).

Warners is playing hardball as it wants to cover the $70M and then some.

Ideally timed to Disney’s centennial, a short film entitled “Once Upon a Studio” assembles 100 years’ worth of animated characters from the company’s vaults for a group photo outside Walt Disney Animation Studios headquarters in Burbank, Calif. That’s the building, shaped like Mickey Mouse’s conical blue hat from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” where the walls are lined with images from a century’s worth of iconic toons.

Conceived and directed by Trent Correy and Dan Abraham, the project involves a live-action walkthrough of the place where the magic happens — that is, where much of the work on Disney’s animated features is done. But there’s an extra sprinkling of magic here, as cartoon characters leap out of their frames and wander the halls where they were originally drawn or rendered.

That hybrid style, where animation embellishes live-action footage, was first implemented by Disney on 1946’s “Song of the South,...

The influence of classic movies on modern culture is immense, and there remains a high demand for these timeless works, which is why many in the industry viewed Warner Bros. Discovery’s move to lay off key executives and otherwise reduce staffing at Turner Classic Movies with such alarm.

Parrot Analytics’ demand data — which takes into account consumer research, streaming, downloads and social media, among other engagement — allowed us to compile a list of the top 10 most sought-after movies released before 1970, which form a substantial part of TCM’s catalog.

These movies all achieved outstanding demand levels within the first five months of 2023, above the 97th percentile for the U.S. market. This suggests that despite a market saturated with modern blockbusters and franchises, classic films still command substantial attention from audiences. For streaming services, a quality library of such films contributes to retention. Warner’s Max streaming service has a TCM hub,...

Bruce Willis‘ wife, Emma Heming Willis, shared a video of the family’s recent trip to Disneyland in California.

Emma, who married Willis in 2009, has been posting family photos and videos, sometimes alongside Willis’ ex-wife Demi Moore, 60, and her daughters Rumer, 34, Scout, 31, and Tallulah, 29. The two families have often been seen together publicly after the actor was diagnosed with aphasia in March 2022.

Last month, they celebrated Mother’s Day together after Rumer’s daughter was born this year.

In the Instagram clip, Willis, 68, can be seen riding the Splash Mountain attraction with his daughters, Mabel Ray Willis and Evelyn Penn Willis. He puts his arm around one of them and says, “You better watch out, I think we’re going to go again.”

The trip comes after Willis’ family announced his diagnosis in February 2023 of frontotemporal dementia (Ftd), a progressive brain disease that can have similar symptoms to Alzheimer’s.

Halle Bailey Photo: Disney There’s something wrong with the Disney Vault. In the early 90s, the studio’s legendary safe housed all its classic animated masterpieces to force scarcity on the marketplace. Parents would have to run out to Suncoast Video and pick up a clamshell VHS copy of...

Halle BaileyPhoto: Disney

There’s something wrong with the Disney Vault. In the early 90s, the studio’s legendary safe housed all its classic animated masterpieces to force scarcity on the marketplace. Parents would have to run out to Suncoast Video and pick up a clamshell VHS copy of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs...

Splash Mountain, the Disneyland flume ride which has been criticized for racist and stereotyping related to its roots in the 1946 Disney film Song of the South, will officially close at the end of the day today to begin its renovation into an attraction based on the more modern film The Princess and the Frog. Walt Disney World closed its version of the ride in January.

According to Disneyland officials, the renovation project is expected to last more than a year. The re-imagined ride, which will be called Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, is scheduled to open in late 2024. When the attraction closed in Orlando earlier this year, Splash Mountain saw a record wait time of 220 minutes on its final day. It looks like there is a similar turnout at Disneyland today, with some reporting a 200-minute wait by 2 p.m.

How’s This for a Disneyland crowds check?! Here’s Adventureland...

Tl;Dr:

The Beatles’ Help! is racist against Eastern culture and bigoted against Hinduism. The film depicts Hindu worshipers of Kali as bloodthirsty and has white actors playing Eastern characters. Despite this, the song “Help!” is great and topped the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom. A poster for The Beatles’ ‘Help’ | Lmpc / Contributor

The Beatles‘ Help! is not a good movie. In addition, it’s painfully racist in multiple ways. However, the film also produced the band’s beloved single “Help!”

The Beatles ‘Help!’ is a mockery of Eastern culture and Hinduism

The Beatles’ movie Help! just isn’t funny. The film tries to be strange but it doesn’t reach the heights of Monty Python, Douglas Addams, or other great British surrealist humor. In addition, none of The Beatles put much effort into their performances.

But that’s not the real problem with Help! The...

The Country Music Hall of Fame has announced its inductees for 2023, with two of the genre’s most successful artists, Tanya Tucker and Patty Loveless, marking the first time since 2011 that two solo women have been inducted in one year. Songwriter Bob McDill rounds out this year’s inductees.

Tanya Tucker, who joins as the Veteran Era inductee, had already scored her first major hits when she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone at age 15. Her long-awaited inclusion as a Hall of Fame member finds her basking in the...

Mark Russell, the sly satirist who skewered America’s political elite for more than a half-century by blending stand-up comedy with biting song parodies, died Thursday. He was 90.

Russell died at his home in Washington of complications from prostate cancer, his wife, Alison, told The Washington Post.

Perhaps best known for his series of one-man PBS comedy specials that aired from 1975-2004, Russell also served as one of the hosts of the popular 1979-83 NBC reality program Real People, and he wrote a syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times for several years.

However, he was most at home in front of a live audience, and he spent two decades on the speaking circuit, hitting his peak in 2000 when he racked up 100 appearances in 100 different cities.

“Mark Russell was a D.C. institution who did the hardest thing a comic can do … relentlessly and righteously mock his neighbors,” Jon Stewart said in a statement.

Brendan Fraser is finally an Oscar winning actor, deservedly so for his performance in The Whale. The outpouring of love and recognition for Fraser in the last year has been heartwarming because he’s always been great, since his powerhouse debuts in 1992’s Encino Man and School Ties. His specialty, it would turn out, would be in acting opposite CGI visual effects.

Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser | Universal Studios via Getty Images

From the late ‘90s to early ‘00s, Fraser appeared in several movies with co-stars who would be added in later with computers. It was already becoming a common practice after Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, and hasn’t stopped with the Marvel movies. Nobody ever did it better than Fraser though, and these three roles are the proof.

The ‘Mummy’ movies shows CGI couldn’t phase Brendan Fraser

1999’s The Mummy took inspiration from Indiana Jones for its swashbuckling desert adventure.

Lyrics from “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” have been quietly removed from the set list of Disneyland’s Magic Happens parade. The melody originates from the 1946 feature “Song of the South,” which has been criticized for featuring racist imagery and themes.

Disneyland officials confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that a lyric from the song was removed from the soundtrack of the Magic Happens parade, which is held twice daily at the Anaheim resort. The Magic Happens parade returned to the park on Feb. 24, ending a three-year hiatus prompted by the Covid pandemic. According to the report, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” has been replaced by a song from the 1953 feature “Peter Pan.”

Representatives for Disneyland were not immediately available for comment.

The change in the parade follows plans to close the park’s classic ride Splash Mountain, which was designed with references to “Song of the South.” The attraction will be reconfigured to feature themes and...

Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update discussed how former presidents and vice presidents have responded to the classified documents saga, while throwing in a dig at the Catholic Church and questioning a recent ride closure at Disney World.

“Representatives for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued statements saying they all turned over all classified records before leaving office, while Jimmy Carter issued a statement saying, ‘Come and get ’em, you bastards!'” co-anchor Colin Jost joked while an image appeared on screen of the 98-year-old wielding a...

Colin Jost and Michael Che were back roasting the week in politics and pop culture on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” and this time Donald Trump, Kanye West and Walt Disney World took some hits.

Jost started off the night by poking fun at Trump after Facebook announced they were reinstating the former President of the United States adding, “But this time they’ll put guardrails in place to keep him under control, which I think is the same thing they said every time they tried to reopen Jurassic Park. Also, what even are guardrails on Facebook and can they apply to my uncle? Because he’s posted some very disturbing fan fiction about the green M&M.”

Related Story ‘SNL’ Cold Open Urges DOJ To Probe Tyre Nichols’ Killing By Memphis Cops; “Damn Right,” Kenan Thompson Says Of Need For Justice Related Story Michael B. Jordan Lets "The...

It was the end of an era yesterday at Walt Disney World as the Florida theme park shut down its popular Splash Mountain attraction to star work on its replacement, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The Orlando-area revamp will open in late 2024, though an official date has not been set.

At Walt Disney World yesterday, throngs of fans gathered before Splash Mountain was even open to get one last ride. When the velvet rope dropped , a wave of people moved toward the familiar clay-colored hillock.

The final rope drop to Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom pic.twitter.com/NnMJMK9rFP

— Wdw News Today (@Wdwnt) January 22, 2023

In fact, Splash Mountain saw a record wait time of 220 minutes yesterday, according to Thrill Data. That’s just above the previous record of 210 minutes in 2020, according to the site.

They were still there 12 hours later. As the ride began to close, a crowd encircled...

There was a funeral at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom on Sunday night. It wasn’t for a person, mostly because the park’s strict rules would never allow that, even if the person was buried in a trademarked Disney coffin. No, hundreds of Disney enthusiasts flocked to the Florida theme park to say goodbye to the controversial but dearly beloved ride Splash Mountain.

First opened in 1989, the ride is a 10-minute log flume that takes viewers through woods populated with singing animatronics and a final, splash-heavy drop at the end.

Splash Mountain will be transformed into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, with the reconceived attraction set to open at Disneyland and Disney World in late 2024.

Carmen Smith, SVP, Creative Development – Product/Content & Inclusive Strategies for Disney, confirmed the plans in a blog post.

Disney had indicated in 2020 that it would overhaul the attraction in 2020, sharing the news as protests against racial injustice were roiling the country. Splash Mountain had been based on the Uncle Remus Br’er Rabbit story in the company’s controversial 1946 film Song of the South. As Smith’s post and an accompanying YouTube video took pains to note, the focus of Imagineers in this updated effort is to pay homage to the history and heritage of New Orleans.

The new tie-in will be to Disney’s 2009 animated film, The Princess and the Frog. The flume ride’s new incarnation will pick up the story of the movie after the final kiss,...

Back in 2020 Disney announced that its popular (but highly controversial) attraction Splash Mountain would get an overlay, this time themed to “Princess and the Frog,” its 2009 animated feature that starred the studio’s first African American Princess, Tiana (voiced memorably by Anika Noni Rose).

Now the company has finally announced some details, chiefly that the attraction’s new name will be Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and that it will open at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in late 2024. If you want to take one last trip to the Laughin’ Place, you might want to do it soon …

Announced today during Essence Fest in New Orleans (where the film and new attraction will be set), Disney also announced the first concrete details of the attraction’s storyline: “Picking up where the film left off, guests will join Princess Tiana, Naveen and jazz-loving alligator Louis on an adventure through the bayou as...

Click here to read the full article.

Disney announced the name, arrival date and more details about its reimagined Splash Mountain ride on Friday during a special Essence Fest panel held at New Orleans’ Preservation Hall.

The revamped attraction, titled Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, will make its debut at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Disneyland in late 2024, according to the Disney Parks Blog. The new attraction, which celebrates the characters and real-world Louisiana setting of The Princess and the Frog, is a musical adventure inspired by the 2009 film and first animated Disney feature to star a Black princess.

The experience will pick up where the film left off, with riders joining the movie’s leading characters Princess Tiana, Naveen and the jazz-loving alligator Louis on a bayou adventure that sees the trio hosting a Mardi Gras celebration. Disney promises that the attraction will feature both new and familiar faces to the New Orleans-based universe,...

The House of Mouse has long prided itself on providing wholesome entertainment for the masses with its feature films. Yet, as you might expect, there have been plenty of exceptions to that rule dating back to the company's early days — from Disney movies that featured racially and/or culturally insensitive depictions of certain people and places (like "Song of the South" and "Peter Pan") to films that included grisly acts of violence. Curiously, however, one of the rare cases of a Disney movie being censored came about for a very bizarre reason that had...

The post The Bizarre Reason Disney's The Reluctant Dragon Was Censored appeared first on /Film.

This commentary on the life and legacy of Sidney Poitier was first published in the 2006 BAFTA/LA Cunard Britannia Awards, as part of the organization’s lifetime achievement award tribute to the trailblazing star, who died Jan. 6 at the age of 94.

Is Sidney Poitier the most important actor in American history?

One could quickly defend that question affirmatively simply with a newsreel of clips showing heroes like Martin Luther King Jr., from Birmingham to the March on Washington, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks; Olympians Tommy Smith and John Carlos with their fists in the 1968 Mexico City air; rabid segregationists Bull Connor, Lester Maddox and George Wallace; the sit-ins and the accompanying firehoses and attacking police dogs; the segregated public spaces, the high-profile Ku Klux Klan marches and their low-profile lynchings.

To any American film fan who lived through the Civil Rights revolution of the 1950s and ’60s,...

For years after its theatrical release in 1985, Disney essentially shunned "The Black Cauldron" and pretended it didn't exist. In this case, though, it wasn't because the Mouse House saw it as an embarrassing mistake like "Song of the South." It was just that the studio has spent nearly 15 years and $44 million making it (a then-record amount for one of Disney's animated films), only for the adaptation of Lloyd Alexander's beloved "Chronicles of Prydain" novels to earn a tepid critical reception and flop at the box office.

Part of the reason "The Black Cauldron" cost so much was because it evolved...

The post Why Test Screenings for Disney's The Black Cauldron Had Parents Fleeing From Theaters appeared first on /Film.

In 2020, the Covid pandemic caused the motion picture academy to cancel the Governors Awards, which has been a stand-alone event since 2009. Instead, it presented the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to both Tyler Perry and the Motion Picture & Television Fund during the Oscars. This morale booster was a bright spot in the ceremony.

The Governors Awards are set to return on January 15, 2022. Honorary Oscars will be presented to multi-hyphenate Elaine May as well as actors Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Ullmann. Another actor, Danny Glover, will be feted with the Hersholt for his work on behalf of Unicef.

There have been four honorees at the Governors Awards every year but two since 2009. As detailed below, all but one of the academy’s 17 branches — Visual Effects — are represented among the roster of 138 winners of honorary Oscars. In the case of Visual Effects, the academy has presented special achievement awards to a host...

A genuine ‘sleeper’ hit, this ‘all in the family’ noir pits innocent childhood against cold blooded murderers. Little Bobby Driscoll witnesses Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman committing a murder, and can’t get Mom and Dad to believe him because of a habit of crying Wolf. But the killers believe him … and they live right upstairs. The beautifully made film evokes a rough, broken-down block in New York City in great detail. Rko’s new boss Howard Hughes did what he always did with a hot feature ready to release: he shelved it for more than a year. The Wac’s restoration is eye-opening.

The Window

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1949 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 73 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date September 21, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman, Anthony Ross, Richard Benedict.

Cinematography: Robert De Grasse, William O. Steiner

Art Directors: Sam Corso, Albert D’Agostino,...

In June 2020 Disney announced that Splash Mountain, one of the mainstay rides at its U.S. parks whose theme was based on the Uncle Remus Br’er Rabbit story from the studio’s controversial 1946 film Song of the South, would be reimagined based on its more recent film The Princess and the Frog, which gave the world its first Black Disney princess. Today, Disney revealed new details about the forthcoming attraction at Disneyland and Disney World.

The timetable and name for the new rides have yet to be announced, but Disney Imagineering Senior Creative Producer Charita Carter, who is steering the parks’ Tiana project, said her team has been hard at work behind the scenes crafting an all-new story for Tiana and friends that will be set after the events of the film.

That process has involved a lot of brainstorming, planning and general imagineering. It will also include multiple research trips to New Orleans,...

With every new President, the Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney World expands and this year is no exception. The Disney Parks Blog just reported that the attraction is set to unveil its new Joe Biden Animatronic sometime in August; a specific date has yet to be set.

The attraction regularly closes to create a new Presidential figure although this is a rather speedy turnaround for the Hall of Presidents. The Biden figure will recite the Presidential Oath of Office, which the President personally recorded at the White House for the attraction. The table next to the Animatronic will also include items significant to President Biden, from peach blossoms to represent his home state of Delaware to a pair of Biden’s favorite shades (aviators).

And if you’re curious, the last Animatronic made for the attraction, that of former President Donald Trump, will be placed amongst the other Presidential Animatronics who have served.

Tina Turner joins the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2021 in Cleveland this October, along with Jay-Z, Gil Scott-Heron, Todd Rundgren, Carole King, Foo Fighters, and The Go-Gos. Tina is already an honoree as a member of Ike and Tina Turner, and she is also once again distinguishing herself from the group. Even before she went solo, Turner had star billing, such as her turn as the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s film adaptation of The Who’s Tommy. But Tina had to skip the credits for her work with Frank Zappa, who was posthumously inducted into the Rock Hall in 1995.

Turner recently made a gracious exit from the stage in HBO’s feature documentary Tina. She is also highlighted in Apple TV+’s upcoming 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. This was the year Ike and Tina’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” hit No.

An op-end in The Orlando Sentinel slamming Disney’s “wokeness” has set Twitter ablaze with Patricia Arquette, James Gunn, Patton Oswalt and many others weighing in to defend the company’s tweaks to popular attractions at Disney World.

“Disney is in the process of taking the woke scalpel to the Jungle Cruise. Trader Sam is out because he might offend certain people. Every grown-up in the room realizes that Trader Sam is not a representation of reality and is meant as a funny and silly caricature. It is no more based in racism than every Disney caricature of an out-of-touch white American dad,” wrote Jonathan VanBoskerc, of North Las Vegas, Nevada, in the paper today.

The self-proclaimed Christian, conservative Republican first objected to a recent edict from Disney brass allowing staffers to sport tattoos on the job before taking aim at changes to Splash Mountain “because of its association with Song of the South,...

Disney announced that it will allow employees at its theme parks more flexibility when it comes to personal presentation after years of enforcing a strict dress code.

Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, announced the decision Tuesday, April 13th, stating that Disney will “allow greater flexibility with respect to forms of personal expression surrounding gender-inclusive hairstyles, jewelry, nail styles, and costume choices; and allowing appropriate visible tattoos.”

Disney park employees have been subject to rigid dress and presentation codes since Disneyland first opened in Anaheim, California in the mid-1950s.

Every month, Disney convenes an eclectic group of advisers via videoconference to tell the media conglomerate what it and the many entertainment companies it has acquired over its nearly 100-year history have gotten wrong. It’s a long list. Song of the South. Jar Jar Binks. That episode of The Muppet Show where Johnny Cash sings a duet with Miss Piggy in front of a Confederate flag.

“We’ve had some very raw conversations on those Zooms,” says Gil Robertson, president of the African American Film Critics Association, who sits on Disney’s advisory council, part of its Stories Matter ...

Every month, Disney convenes an eclectic group of advisers via videoconference to tell the media conglomerate what it and the many entertainment companies it has acquired over its nearly 100-year history have gotten wrong. It’s a long list. Song of the South. Jar Jar Binks. That episode of The Muppet Show where Johnny Cash sings a duet with Miss Piggy in front of a Confederate flag.

“We’ve had some very raw conversations on those Zooms,” says Gil Robertson, president of the African American Film Critics Association, who sits on Disney’s advisory council, part of its Stories Matter ...

Most of the classic films that run on TCM are introduced by a single host. In March, some will require a whole team.

The WarnerMedia outlet on Thursdays this month will seek to put some popular but troublesome films in better context, part of an effort it calls “Reframed.” A team of the network’s on-air personnel will introduce viewers to some of Hollywood’s most seminal pictures, which remain popular but are increasingly being scrutinized under a different lens as the nation ponders more deeply how people of different races, backgrounds and creeds treat one another.

Teams will ponder cultural issues posed by films such as “Gone With The Wind,” “Psycho,” “The Searchers,” “My Fair Lady” and “Gunga Din,” among others. Some of the hosts hope the initiative will continue beyond the next four weeks.

“We are hearing more and more from audiences about moments they are really puzzling over,...

In the 80 years since Tom and Jerry made their cartoon debut, the duo have zonked, bonked and kerplonked one another too many times to count, and somehow the joke has never gotten old. Nor have the aggravated gray cat and his rival the clever brown mouse, who remain forever young, and forever scrappy — a hand-drawn Punch and Judy whose ruthless slapstick antics have withstood critiques from all corners, including parents who think such animated violence could be a bad influence on kids.

The erstwhile MGM stars got bad reviews when Film Roman tried to go the feature route in 1993 (that movie never should have given them voices), and they’ll probably get skewered again now that Warner Bros. has tried to position the animated duo alongside a live-action ensemble (led by a pair of daffy performances from Chloë Grace Moretz and Michael Peña) in “Tom & Jerry.” But these two...