Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 8:00PM In case you need a pick me up...
Bonnie Milligan and Laura Osnes duel and duet with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan but the funny peaks with Aladdin and Pocahontas.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at 7:20PM You asked some questions. I'm finally answering them. You know how this works. Please do chime in in the comments. The whole reason we do the column is for participatory flavor and that includes a pinch of you! Our Question of the Week which is Friday Night Lights themed is, annoyingly, from "Anonny" (how about a name?) so he/she gets to choose our next banner topic! (And how about our current "joy" banner. I put Jessica Lange in it for the first time and no one notices!?)
What is it, a crime? Is it a crime to look at Lange?
Pat Carroll recording UrsulaJAMES: Does the trend now that animated films only use "names" for voice work mean that we'll never see the likes of Pat Carroll again?
That would be among the greatest of cinematic tragedies. Unlike seemingly many TFE readers, though, I don't actually share an interest in voice actors getting Oscar nominations. But as with motion capture and the much discussed pioneering case of Andy Serkis, I do think this is where Oscar is really dropping the ball in terms of never giving out special achievement statues. I can't even remember when the last one was -- was it for Toy Story (1995) before there was the Animated Feature category? Pat Carroll's work as Ursula is the single greatest voice performance in the history of animation. (Team Experience shamefully put her in only 3rd when we took a poll)
The days of specialized voice talent getting prime opportunities like that are gone but there is hope: Pixar uses celebrities sometimes but they don't rely on them exclusively the way Dreamworks and other lesser studios do. And sometimes their "celebrities" aren't exactly household names so they aren't using them for advertising purposes, but because they genuinely love the voice. Wasn't Richard Kind a great choice for "Bing Bong" in Inside Out?
DEBORAH: If you could choose one lesser-known movie each from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that everyone should see, what would they be (and why)?
THE ANSWER AND EIGHT MORE QUESTIONS AFTER THE JUMP...
Monday, November 17, 2014 at 9:30PM 
Tim here, to celebrate the silver anniversary of one of the most important films in the annals of American animation. 25 years ago today – some of you are going to have to brace yourselves, because you’re about to feel very old – Walt Disney Pictures released The Little Mermaid, in one fell swoop rewriting the landscape for family entertainment and animation alike.
As hard as it is to believe now, once upon a time, Disney was an embarrassing underdog, whose theme parks were solely responsible for keeping its saggy movie division propped up. 1989 was only four years removed from the disastrous release of the pricey The Black Cauldron, and the takeover of the company by executives Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, who managed to stabilize the live action filmmaking division, while putting the animation studio under the command of Peter Schneider.
It was Schneider who managed an ambitious and terrifyingly foolhardy plan, concocted by Jeffrey Katzenberg to restore the luster of Disney animation after a generation or more of mismanagement, by releasing a new animated feature on an annual basis. The first film produced on that model was 1988’s Oliver & Company, a rock-solid hit, but hardly the triumphant return of Disney animation that everyone was hoping for. That came with the second film in Schneider’s plan, The Little Mermaid, and the rest is history.
Monday, August 25, 2014 at 12:25PM JA from MNPP here, using this week's round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series to commemorate the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the birth of that paragon of brute debonair charm, Sean Connery. Who even knew "brute" and "debonair" could be a simultaneous thing til he showed us? Rock 'em sock 'em and shake them martinis, it's a Bond off. I waffled between a couple of villains to face him off against - I do love Dr. No and his awesome plastic head bubble - but when it comes to a bigger-than-bad personality I think the odds are in Gold's favor.
I just flicked the laser's ON switch - you have one week to make your choice before your bits-and-pieces get all crispy-like, so maybe make it timely this week? I mean, I'm only thinking of your privates.
PREVIOUSLY We dove down under da sea to duke it out between Disney's ginger mermaid princess and the big bad brassy sea-hag whos after her pipes... well poor sweet Ariel kinda never stood a chance against so much divine deliciousness; Ursula swam off with a pirate booty's full two-thirds of the vote. Said Alan P:
"Ariel may be the leading lady we all love, but a diva is a diva, and a diva is forever!"
Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 3:53PM JA from MNPP here with this week's mite-late edition of this week's "Beauty Vs Beast" - sorry for the unexpected day-long delay, what can we say, a sea-witch stole our voice from us. Coincidentally The Film Experience is celebrating the year 1989 in the lead up to this month's Supporting Actress Showdown and whaddya know 1989 was the year that another gorgeous princess, not myself, had the exact same thing happen to her! I handled it with a much finer degree of decorum, natch, but she got Prince Eric so she wins. (Mmmm Prince Eric.) Yes I speak of Disney's The Little Mermaid, which is bringing us this week's animated face-off.
Life's full of tough choices... innit??? I feel like this one could go either way really, so making you cases in the comments could prove important. Sway the little fishies this way or that, people.
PREVIOUSLY If you felt a little falling sensation - kinda simultaneously plummeting forward and back - as you picked between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in last week's Vertigo round you ultimately made like Hitch and came out blonde - well blonde eventually (inevitably) anyway - in the end. Judy, poor poor Judy, won your sympathies along with 71% of the vote. Said Leslie19:
"Judy is the perfect Hitchcockian heroine: A blonde puzzle, with a past. A great wardrobe and the perfect palette for techicolor, in this case his use of green. Is there anything more to say?"
