Tag Archives: Disney

What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1998

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

Fresh off another controversy at the 70th Academy Awards regarding original vs dubbed voice performances, movie fans looked to the films of 1998 to bring some stability back to the category.  1998 would turn out to be a solid year for animation, including the return of Pixar to the big screen, a solid entry from Disney, a wider variety of studios producing animated films and some strong competition between two movies with similar settings.

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What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1997

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

Following the general confusion of the 69th Academy Awards, no one knew what to expect for 1997.  Pixar had yet to reassert itself following the success of Toy Story, but the slate of feature length animation for the year was considered to be much stronger than that of 1996.  What was not anticipated was the new controversy that was about to crop up.
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What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1996

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

There was a lot of excitement to see what 1996 would hold, given the huge success of the 68th Academy Awards.  Toy Story had energized the industry, and while Pixar’s next film was still several years away people remained hopeful for a battle for the Best Voice Performance Oscar that matched the one between Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.  When no clear frontrunners emerged, talk about the award started to die down, and industry analysts marked the category as one to ignore this year.  They were wrong, because when the nominations were announced the category was one again at the forefront of conversation.  However, instead of excitement the overwhelming tone of the discussion was one of confusion. Continue reading →

What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1995

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

When Jeremy Irons won the award at the 67th Academy Awards, the general consensus was that the category had finally produced a winner that represented the dramatic performance quality that the award had been created in order to recognize.  There was still some grumbling over the fact that the nominees were largely dominated by one film, but The Lion King had been so impressive that it was hard for people to complain too much about any of the individual nominees.  Disney was set to release another animated film in 1995, Pocahontas, based on a time period and series of events ripe for drama, and featuring the voice of Mel Gibson, who would go on to have a huge year with Braveheart.  But what no one could have predicted was Toy Story and the emergence of Pixar. Continue reading →

Trailer Tuesday: Frozen

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

We’ve been given a third trailer for Frozen, at the end of which all fans of musicals shout, “Hallelujah.”  Or, maybe we sing “Hallelujah,” since we’re talking about music.  Feel free to choose your favorite musical instance of the word, whether it’s Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” or Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus.  But regardless of your chosen form of angelic singing, celebration is in order because Disney is finally marketing Frozen as a musical.  Before I get too far ahead of myself, take a look below at the new trailer, which features many scenes we’ve seen before but is also full of new goodies:

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What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1994

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

After a disappointing slate of nominees at the 66th Academy Awards, the speculation was that another year of mediocre nominees would doom the category once and for all.  Fortunately, there was a savior on the horizon, in the form of another big release from Disney, The Lion King.  It was even speculated that the film could take all five of the nomination slots, given the strength of its casting, its popularity and yet another dearth of competition.  Even if The Lion King ended up with all of the nominations, it was already predicted that the film’s mere presence would be enough to grant the category a stay of execution for at least another year. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Songwriting – Beauty and the Beast

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

I’ve seen Beauty and the Beast more times than I could possibly remember, and have listened to the soundtrack even more frequently.  It’s one of my favorite song scores for film, particularly as its structure and styling is very reminiscent of traditional Broadway musicals, filled with reprises and cast cues that feel very familiar to those on the stage.  (It also helps that the songs for the film were largely recorded live with the orchestra, helping it to feel more like a Broadway cast album rather than a studio recording.)  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons its stage version was so successful.  However, until just this week I had never picked up on one of the most clever aspects of the song score.

During the opening number, “Belle”, we’re introduced to the film’s protagonist, who is viewed by the villagers as too dreamy and bookish for their tastes despite her beauty.  Continue reading →

What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1993

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

Following Robin Williams’ win of the first ever Best Voice Performance Oscar for his role as The Genie inAladdin, industry experts began looking ahead at 1993’s slate of animated films, trying to anticipate who the next winner might be.  Both the experts and the Academy were more than a little dismayed to find that not only was Disney not releasing a classically styled animated films along the lines of Beauty and the Beastand Aladdin, but that there were very few animated films lined up for the year at all.  There were calls from opponents to drop the category entirely, while even some supporters of the award thought it might be best to hold the award back and only bring it out on years with better prospects.  Nevertheless, the Academy decided to press on with the award as an accepted part of the ceremony, not knowing exactly what the nominations would bring. Continue reading →

What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1992

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Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards, in a moment that changed the face of the animated film landscape forever.  It signaled that the Disney Renaissance that began two years earlier with The Little Mermaid (or perhaps even earlier with Oliver & Company) was not just a fluke and was destined to continue on.  It showed that animation is just as important as other types of film, and that they could be just as artistic and meaningful.  And while it eventually lost to The Silence of the Lambs, it still stood as the moment when animation as an industry and a media announced itself as an equal to the rest of Hollywood.  And while it was a number of years before feature length animation received its own category in the awards (2001) and even longer before another animated film would be nominated for best picture (2009’s Up), the fact that animated films are now consistently among the highest grossing films each year and are often the most popular and longest lived of new releases owes a lot to Beauty and the Beast.

But what if Beauty and the Beast had done even more for animation?  Continue reading →

Quote of the Day

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The Muppets

Neil Patrick Harris: No, I… I don’t know why I’m not hosting this.