Fantasia 2018 starts this week! This week!
Kermit arm flailing time, it’s time to get excited and get deciding on what to see. OMG So. Many. Movies. I mean I want to see it all! But this year I cannot go for all the fest, but only a few days, so I will have to make choices, but not just yet, as right now is time to dream. Dream of what I want to see, not just what I can see. Here is, in a totally not scientific way, but a nerdtastic way, the films that have me muppeting all over the place.
BOOTLEG FILES 599: “Fantasia – The Censored Centaurs” (deleted characters from Disney’s 1940 masterwork).
LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Racially motivated humor that the Mouse Factory does not want you to see.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Oh, Lawdy!
In many ways, Walt Disney was way ahead of his times: his pioneering work in sound and color animation set new standards for filmmaking, and his genius for merchandising laid the foundation for contemporary Hollywood’s marketing machinery.
I got started as a critic in 2004 when I covered the Fantasia film festival for Film Threat. At the time I was pretty active on the Film Threat web board and one of the moderators, I believe it was Eric Campos, asked if I could attend the festival and write something for the magazine since I lived nearby. I must have done a good job because he let me stick around to do more stuff, mostly review indie films and write a series called “Versus” where I compared remakes with the original.
It was fun, but eventually I had to slow down because I was burnt out. I realize that “watching movies” doesn’t sound exhausting, but I always felt a deep sense of responsibility to both the readers and the filmmakers. It felt wrong to just go “This film sucks!” or “This film rocks” without exploring every little detail on screen and analyzing every aspect of the production.