IN: Review: but "Cinderella" gets my vote, not only for the worst of Disney's princess movies, but for the worst movie the company made during Walt's lifetime. The music is genuinely pretty, and the story deserves to be called "classic." What fails in this movie are the characters, particularly the title character, who could only be called "the heroine" in the loosest sense of the term.

After a brief prologue, the audience is introduced to Cinderella. She is waking up in the morning and singing "A Dream is A wish Your Heart Makes." This establishes her as an idealist (and thus deserving of our sympathy). Unfortunately, the script gives us no clue as to what she is dreaming about. Freedom from her servant role? The respect of her step-family? Someone to talk to besides mice and birds? In one song (cut from the movie but presented in the special features section of the latest DVD) Cinderella relates her wish that there could be many of her so she could do her work more efficiently. You go girlfriend! In short, Cinderella is a very bland character. She passively accepts her step-family's abuse, escaping into her unspoken dreams for relief. She only asserts herself once by reminding her stepmother that she is still a member of the family. For this, she is given permission to go the ball if she completes her housework and finds something to wear, a token gesture that is clearly absurd to everyone except, of course, Cinderella. Can anyone see Belle or Jasmine being such a doormat? If Cinderella is dull, her male counterpart is nothing short of lifeless. The Prince in Cinderella gets no dialog and almost no screen time. We are given no indication if he is a good man, if he respects Cinderella or anything. All we know is 1) he is a prince and 2) he dances well. Heck, even the prince from "Snow White" got to sing a romantic song at least. Not only does this lack of development make the romance less interesting, it makes Cinderella look like either a social climber or an idiot, weakening her already tenuous appeal.

Perhaps realizing how dull the main characters were, the animators chose to give excessive screen time to the movie's comic relief, Cinderella's friends, the mice. Granted, these characters are amusing. Even so, when the comic relief steals the show from the principals, well, let's just say your story has some problems.

Dinsey loves to proclaim all its animated features as "masterpieces." While many of them are, there are some that do not deserve this appellate in any way. Cinderella is a prime example of this fact.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: I was forced to see this because a) I have an 11 year-old girl and b) we had shown her the Bonita Granville Nacy Drew movies from the 1930s, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Personally, I didn't think it was as humorous as the 1930s flicks, but on the other hand, it wasn't the nauseating piece of intelligence-insulting fluff I feared it would be. It was an inoffensive, mildly entertaining movie. Although I'm pleased that they didn't try to "upgrade" Nancy to 21st Century "hipness" (Veronica Mars holds the title as the Modern Nancy Drew), I do think that they made her a little too bland, that they didn't do enough to develop Nancy Drew - the movie could have been titled "Jane Doe, Girl Detective". I have to blame the script: I think each actor did a good job with what they had to work with. I liked Emma Roberts in this role, but they gave her a made-for-TV, not theatrical release, script...
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: I generally find Loretta Young hard to take, too concerned with her looks and too ladylike in all the wrong ways. But in this lyrical Frank Borzage romance, and even though she's playing a low-self-esteem patsy who puts up with entirely too much bullying from paramour Spencer Tracy, she's direct and honest and irresistible. It's an odd little movie, played mostly in a one-room shack in a Hooverville, unusually up-front about the Depression yet romantic and idealized. Tracy, playing a blustery, hard-to-take "regular guy" who would be an awful chauvinist and bully by today's standards, softens his character's hard edge and almost makes him appealing. There's good supporting work from Marjorie Rambeau and Glenda Farrell (who never got as far as she should have), and Jo Swerling's screenplay is modest and efficient. But the real heroes are Borzage, who always liked to dramatize true love in lyrical close-up, and Young. You sort of want to slap her and tell her character to wise up, she's too good for this guy, but she's so dewy and persuasive, you contentedly watch their story play out to a satisfying conclusion.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Tea Leoni plays Nora Wilde, a serious photographer, who is going through a bad divorce. She wants her freedom but it comes at a cost. She wants to legitimate photography but is hired to work for the tabloids as a paparazzi. Her boss is played by the wonderful and divine Holland Taylor. The show was well-written most of the time. TEa's Nora was beginning to develop into quite a memorable character but the network just didn't support comedy and they still don't. Even when they brought in George Wendt from Cheers, they made unnecessary changes in casting and characters. The show was fine in the beginning and the audience was getting used to it but then the network botches it up like a bad plastic surgery.
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive