Beneath went into production with a critical handicap: Charlton Heston was unwilling to play a major role in the film. As Taylor was the only sentient human character left alive at the end of the first movie, Heston’s decision left any potential sequel without a protagonist mainstream audiences could relate to. Of course, this needn’t have been a handicap at all. Any number of interesting ways to approach such a problem and take the story in a bold new direction consistent with the edgy, ambiguous ending of the original immediately suggest themselves. Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to go completely the other way instead.

The new protagonist is Brent, played by James Franciscus, yet another astronaut from Earth’s past, the sole survivor of yet another crashed spaceship, this one sent in search of Taylor and his crew. Brent immediately encounters Taylor’s mute girlfriend Nova, still carrying his dog-tags, then stumbles his way through an onerous retread of Taylor’s experiences from the previous movie that occupies roughly half of the runtime of this one. We learn via flashback that Taylor and Nova, after riding off together into the Forbidden Zone, encountered a series of strange phenomena (walls of fire, lightning without clouds, earthquakes), and then came upon a large cliff-face where nothing had been before. Taylor, apparently acting on impulse, dives right through the seemingly solid rock wall and vanishes until the end of the movie.

Meanwhile, Brent observes the gorilla army preparing to invade the Forbidden Zone (to confront the someone or something that apparently inhabits the region) before he and Nova escape from Ape City using the long-abandoned tunnels of the New York Subway, learning for the first time that he has arrived on a future Earth rather than another planet. Traveling deeper into the huge system of tunnels, Brent finally stumbles upon an underground society of mutant humans with powers of telepathy and a religion based on the worship of a nuclear “doomsday” bomb occupying the altar amidst the ruins of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Here Brent is finally reunited with Taylor, who has been taken prisoner by the mutants. The mutants then nearly succeed in forcing them to murder each other using their telepathic powers, but the pair manage to escape. The gorilla invasion is successful thanks to the leadership of the orangutan Dr. Zaius, who sees through the mutants’ telepathic illusions. As the gorillas charge in and lay waste to the mutant society, Brent and Taylor attempt to prevent the mutants from purposely detonating the nuke, and the gorillas from accidentally setting it off. Their efforts backfire horribly when Taylor is riddled with bullets and falls on the activation switch. In the film’s final seconds, the screen goes completely white and a solemn voice intones, “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.”

Apart from being a total downer, the film’s destruction-of-the-planet ending is rendered absurd in retrospect. What looked like a definitive end to the series was actually only the second of five films. Beneath the Planet of the Apes also tries very hard to be more action- and effects-driven than its predecessor, which just ends up making it far less thoughtful. There are, however, a few glancing attempts at social commentary. Most notable is a scene where a small chimpanzee peace protest is forcibly removed from the road to allow the gorilla army to pass. The soldiers grappling with the protesters is shot up-close with what seems like a shaky, hand-held camera, presumably meant to evoke news footage of Vietnam War protesters. The army then proceeds, trampling the peace banners under their horses’ hooves.

The heavy-handed evocation of Vietnam is nothing, though, compared to how this movie tramples on the first film’s rich thematic discussion of the tension between science and religion. Someone seems to have realized that the apocalyptic ending of the first film rendered its defense of science over religion fascinatingly ambiguous: Sure, religious dogma in ape society deliberately holds back scientific progress, even to the point of repression, but if the alternative is the complete destruction of civilization itself, which is really the lesser of the two evils? Beneath the Planet of the Apes works overtime to redeem science from the onus of nuclear devastation established in Planet of the Apes and shift the ultimate blame squarely onto religious fanaticism.

In mutant society, religion is depicted at its most absurd extreme in the mindless adulation of an inanimate object. That these bomb-worshiping nitwits also happen to be a race of hyper-intelligent beings with the power to control minds and the intellectual sophistication to turn the apes’ own religious superstition (the gorillas’ one significant handicap) against them doesn’t seem to have struck anyone behind the making of this film as a significant contradiction. Ultimately it is the wild-eyed nihilism of the faithful that dooms the world to nuclear destruction, rather than the cold, emotionless logic of the scientists who created the doomsday weapon that does the job.

For all that it gets wrong, though, Beneath the Planet of the Apes somehow manages to be memorable in a so-bad-that-it’s-good sort of way. Sure, it’s not particularly coherent, but it does bring a number of indelible images to the screen, mostly having to do with the telepathic mutants, the hideous visages they hide under their normal-looking human masks, the shining, phallic bomb they worship, and the wild illusions they produce to confound their enemies. The scale is also somewhat grander in this film, with the impressive gorilla army seen training for battle, traveling in formation, and marshaling for the final attack. Their leader, the charismatic, war-mongering General Ursus (who loudly declaims, “The only good human is a dead human!”) is an interesting new addition to the cast of ape characters.

It’s hard to deny that the film is a failure by any real standard of movie quality, and this remains the easiest of the series to skip without missing any essential details of the overarching plot (which the filmmakers were just making up as they went along anyway). Nevertheless, there is actually plenty of good, campy fun to be had in the watching of it, and any true Apes fan won’t want to miss out. And you’ve got to hand it to that ending: For all their threats to humanity, how many movies actually follow through with the total destruction of Earth and all human life?

Films had to be about something, and with audiences standing by to consume the latest movies as fast as the studios could crank them out, there was no time for a lot of originality.  Filmmakers turned to two established sources, drawn by the warm glow of familiarity, for inspiration: adaptation and genre. Film as a growing art form was quick to capitalize on the successes of the other narrative arts (literature and drama), and to revisit, over and over again, the kinds of stories audiences responded to, like romantic melodramas, slapstick comedies, westerns, and even the odd flirtation with horror.

However, as Carlos Clarens observes in his seminal Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films, “unlike the Western and slapstick comedy, horror movies were not indigenous to the American screen. Horror is nourished by myth, tradition, and legend—all of which require centuries of rich elaboration.” Still over a decade away from its sesquicentennial, the United States seemingly lacked the ingredients for horror that its European counterparts enjoyed, but for a canny director with a vision, there has always been plenty of material to work with.

In 1914, that director was none other than D. W. Griffith, in the midst of a highly successful transitional period in his career. The previous year, as an employee of Biograph, he had secretly made his first feature-length film, Judith of Bethulia. Biograph, peeved at Griffith’s defiance and convinced that audiences would not sit still for the full hour, refused to release it. In response, Griffith took his entire crew and defected to the Mutual Film Corporation, where he was given autonomy to produce his own films as joint head of the new Reliance-Majestic Studios. The Avenging Conscience (subtitled “Thou Shalt Not Kill”) was the last of four feature films that Griffith produced that year before beginning work on The Birth of a Nation. It is America’s first feature-length horror film.

For inspiration, Griffith turned to the man whose name is synonymous with the American tradition of Gothic terror and suspense, Edgar Allan Poe, freely adapting elements from several of Poe’s best-known stories and poems into an unmistakably Griffith-ian tale of morality and melodrama. Griffith had used Poe as a cinematic subject at least once before, in a brief biographical short made five years earlier to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the author’s birth. (How strange to realize that this film is further removed from us than that event was from Griffith.)

The plot of The Avenging Conscience draws most heavily on “The Tell-Tale Heart,” depicting the travails of a young man (played by none other than Henry B. Walthall, the star of Birth of a Nation) whose uncle (and guardian) forbids him to marry his true love, a girl whose appearances are accompanied by quotations from Poe’s “Annabel Lee” (Blanche Sweet, whose credits include the title role in Judith of Bethulia). Thwarted and despairing, the young man observes a spider killing a fly that has been caught in its web, and then watches a swarm of ants kill a spider. In his troubled state of mind, he concludes that nature is “one long system of murder,” and hatches a plot to kill his uncle (whose eye-patch suggests the single, dead “vulture eye” of Poe’s story) and conceal the body behind the brick facade of the fireplace. Unfortunately, there is a witness to his crime, and he is blackmailed for a portion of his inheritance.

To make matters worse, his new independence is tainted by the intrusion of his uncle’s accusing spirit, and he is plagued with remorseful visions of a melancholy Christ and of Moses angrily wielding the 6th Commandment. Suffering a nervous breakdown, he has himself committed to a sanitarium, which both fails to cure him and arouses the suspicions of an investigating detective. The young man’s fragile psyche quickly disintegrates in the face of intense interrogation, and he confesses to his crime before fleeing. A brief manhunt ends with the young man hanging himself and his sweetheart throwing herself off of a cliff. However, in a surprise twist, the young man awakes to find that it has all been a dream and his uncle is still alive and has reconsidered the situation, and everyone ends happily and at peace.

All of Griffith’s talent as a cutting-edge filmmaker and shortcomings as a hopelessly old-fashioned storyteller are on full display here. The cast includes several Griffith regulars like Spottiswoode Aitken, George Siegmann, and Mae Marsh (all of whom would go straight on to major roles in Birth of a Nation), but Marsh’s character is a particular oddity here. She plays a lovestruck maid opposite Robert Harron’s oblivious grocery boy in a comic subplot that feels jarringly out-of-place, and then vanishes 20 minutes in.

The whole first act, which ought to move swiftly into darker territory once the characters have been established, lags on and on as though Griffith is reluctant to reach his destination. The final scene in the movie is reminiscent of the grand conclusions of Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, depicting the two lovers enjoying a natural scene overlaid by a beatific vision of Pan charming forest animals and children in cheap costumes, but the slight subject matter renders the device even sillier here.

Still, despite obvious flaws, The Avenging Conscience excels throughout what is presumably the “dream sequence” portion of the film. Griffith’s seamless editing in the scene where the young man observes the brutality of nature serves as an apt and visually-arresting device for introducing the idea of murder. Griffith then ratchets up the tension as the young man works himself up to the deed. Having him forgo the relatively clean kill with his revolver to physically strangle the old man is a particularly visceral touch, and the audience is immediately implicated in the terror of the young man’s guilt through the suspense of whether he will be caught. Trick camera effects are also well-employed at several points to summon the ghostly uncle.

The film’s greatest success, though, is the confession scene. Lacking both sound and descriptive text to suggest the beating of the victim’s “hideous heart” that drives the protagonist of Poe’s story over the edge, Griffith relies on a tour-de-force of impressionistic editing to evoke a rhythmic tapping that is almost audible.  Cutting rapidly between the ticking clock, the detective’s foot tapping the floor, his pencil tapping the table, and the nephew’s darting eyes, Griffith works both protagonist and audience into a near-frenzy until the nephew rushes to the door, half-mad. Throwing it open, he witnesses a ghoulish procession of images suggesting hell, death, and encroaching doom. The combination of anxiety and the grotesque make this scene the horrific climax of a film that offers little in the way of true horror.

The many elements of romantic melodrama in the movie, coupled with the overtly didactic tone indicated by the subtitle “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and the general lack of legitimate scariness (particularly to a modern audience) may render this film’s horror pedigree somewhat questionable. Nevertheless, it does fit Robin Wood’s definitive description of the genre in “The American Nightmare”:

the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses, its reemergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and the happy ending [...] signifying the restoration of repression.

In early cinema, in fantasy films as well as horror and other genres, the involvement of the supernatural was almost universally revealed at the end to have been “only a dream” (a device that remained common after the advent of sound films, as evident in such famous examples as 1939′s The Wizard of Oz). As Wood explains, “the conditions under which a dream becomes a nightmare are that the repressed wish is, from the point of view of consciousness, so terrible that it must be repudiated as loathsome, and that it is so strong and powerful as to constitute a serious threat.” The overuse of this device in early films may well indicate the heightened repression of a pre-Jazz Age audience and their need for reassurance before exiting the “dream world” of the movie theater.

In this case, the emergence of the repressed occurs within a literal nightmare, which (by Wood’s definition) is somewhat redundant. Still, there is an element of catharsis when the young nephew of The Avenging Conscience awakes from his dream and is relieved to discover that he has not committed a murder. He proceeds to reveal the dream to his uncle, and the two share a hearty laugh about it. It does not seem to occur to either of them that the dream has revealed the nephew’s true (though repressed) desire to enact his uncle’s death. The audience, as well, is comforted to learn that young people in love are not capable of patricide, after all, even if they are frustrated with the restrictions placed on them by their elders.

The film’s central conflict also fits Wood’s description of the basic formula of horror: “normality is threatened by the Monster,” and either is or is not defeated. Here, as in many of Poe’s presciently pre-Freudian tales of psychological terror, “normality and the Monster are two aspects of the same person.” The young man is a dutiful nephew and devoted lover, but also a coldly-calculating killer. That this murderous monster exists “only” in a Poe-fueled dream should hardly be comforting to anyone who recognizes the truth it reveals: that everyone has a dark side waiting to be unleashed. But for movie-going audiences in 1914, such truths were best confined to a dream within a dream, as only the feverish nightmare of a character inhabiting the collective reverie of the motion picture screen.

Picking up immediately where the first part left off, as the evil Lord Voldemort (Fiennes) takes possession of the powerful Elder Wand and launches an all-out attack on Hogwarts, Harry Potter (Radcliffe) and his friends must move swiftly to recover and destroy the remaining Horcruxes that make Voldemort immortal and invulnerable before the forces of darkness overrun everything they hold dear.

Hard to believe now that, 15 years ago, Harry Potter existed only in the imagination of author J. K. Rowling. Strange to realize that the current generation of kids and teenagers don’t remember a world without Harry Potter and the cultural juggernaut that he became. And yet, all things must eventually come to an end, even the longest-running, most financially-successful continuous film franchise in history.* Given that status, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has a great deal of expectation to live up to, though my own hopes for this series have remained low since every film after the third sacrificed character development and the richness of the wizarding world to focus on the action set-pieces.

I have made no secret of my annoyance with the mediocrity of the second half of the Harry Potter film series, which I would classify as barely coherent “good parts” versions of the books on which they are based. Even the more exhaustive approach of the first half of Deathly Hallows felt like too little, too late, and only underscored the woeful inadequacies of the previous films.

Happily, none of that baggage really seemed to matter amidst the sweeping grandeur of the final film of what suddenly feels like a far more epic saga. Trying to imagine Deathly Hallows crammed into a single film is impossible (almost as impossible as imagining the same treatment for Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, or Half-Blood Prince, but okay, I’ll let it go). The final battle is both huge and deeply personal, as familiar faces flash past, locked in mortal combat. The level of death and destruction is frightening, driving the threat palpably home, and the effects are dazzling, probably the best the series has ever offered. Best of all, the supporting characters, brought to life by perhaps the most star-studded cast of all time, finally have a chance to shine one more time before the end.

In addition, splitting the story in half has allowed time for emotional revelations and plenty of significant, lingering glances (although perhaps a few too many of the latter). Here is a film that never lets us forget its portentousness. Some moments are so weighted down with the gravity of their own significance that they bring the film to a grinding halt, too, but perhaps this is an indulgence that can scarcely be avoided in the grand finale of an 8-film story arc that has been a decade in the making. Another difficulty for a film that is all climax is the anti-climactic feeling of let-down at the end. This is not so easy to dismiss. The movie builds and builds and builds to an unbearable pitch, and then drops the audience into the end credits almost entirely sans catharsis.

To explain why that is, it is necessary to take a moment to discuss the film as adaptation, and to reveal some details in this paragraph and the next that could be considered spoilers, particularly to anyone who hasn’t read the book. In Rowling’s version, when Harry has his final showdown with Voldemort, they are surrounded by all of the other characters, and Harry’s victory is accompanied by a jubilant outburst that explodes off the page as everyone celebrates the end of the long months of worry, sadness, oppression, and death. In the film, there are no witnesses to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort, nor is there any indication that anyone else even knows the Dark Lord is dead when Harry re-enters the school and finds everyone calmly eating breakfast. There is an enormous sense of relief, but no feeling of joy. The film draws to a close in a mood of quiet, contemplative exhaustion, but without any of the elation that we would expect.

This is a Big Deal, and I think it brings the franchise limping into port when it should have entered triumphantly under full sail, but large ships are unwieldy (almost as unwieldy as this analogy is becoming), and the filmmakers are to be commended for at least bringing this one in more or less intact. Meanwhile, I had two more quibbles with the adaptation, both of which relate to the religious undertones of the book, which I might as well air here. The first is that Harry does not extend a chance for redemption to Voldemort, as they do not really converse during their final duel. (Much of that dialogue is compacted and transferred to a later scene.) The second is, as near as I can tell, a new line of dialogue where Dumbledore stops and amends one of the greatest and most significant phrases in the series “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” to “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it.” I don’t want to take up too much space here going into why I have such a problem with this change, but more importantly, I can think of no reason that explains why it was done or what it is meant to signify.

These are relatively small matters. There is no doubt that this the greatest Potter film since Prisoner of Azkaban. I look forward to the chance to watch both parts of Deathly Hallows back-to-back, and I might even be convinced to rewatch the entire series in light of its successful conclusion, though I have seen the last four only once apiece and not felt the lack. Neither of the final films seems to have been meant to stand alone, and, if they can’t quite hold a candle to the pleasures of reading the series they are based on, they at least live up to the cinematic promise that such a massive undertaking has led us to expect. As adaptations of beloved stories go, it would be greedy to ask for anything more than that.

*A handful of other franchises have run longer than 8 films (most notably the Bond films, with 23), but none without regularly cycling through major characters or the actors who play them.

When billionaire oil tycoon Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) stages the first-ever World Grand Prix to showcase his new alternative fuel, Lightning McQueen (Wilson) agrees to compete, bringing best friend Tow Mater (Larry) along for the globetrotting ride. Soon, the bumbling Mater is working with British spies Finn McMissile (Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Mortimer) to foil a sinister plot involving Big Oil and a confederation of maligned and bitter “lemons.”

What a terrible novelty Cars 2 is: A bad film by a studio that has been reliably cranking out masterpieces for a decade and a half. It’s almost the reverse of last year’s How to Train Your Dragon from DreamWorks, which was a masterpiece from a studio that has reliably delivered mediocre films. Cars 2 is not the first Pixar film to be less than perfect; A Bug’s Life will probably never be considered a “classic,” and the first Cars was none too compelling. But while fans might argue themselves hoarse deciding which is the greatest of the many magical stories Pixar has brought to life, there isn’t any room left for disagreement about which is their worst.

Is this a bad film, though, or merely bad by comparison? Am I just holding Pixar’s movies to an impossible standard (albeit a standard they have set), thus ruining what would otherwise have been a more enjoyable experience? Perhaps, but I don’t believe so. I know what I like, and I disliked this movie after going in with low to moderate expectations. In fact, if it weren’t a Pixar production, I wouldn’t have gone at all. Maybe this movie was simply not for me, though. I am not a fan of NASCAR, or car racing in general, and I know very little about cars beyond how to drive and maintain them. There were definitely jokes and references in Cars 2 that went over my head, but again, I don’t think that’s the whole story.

Any movie that genuinely rates a sequel introduces us to a group of memorable characters who inhabit their own unique world. Whatever else we might say about Cars, it did do that much. A good sequel, then, will find new ways for those characters to grow and change, introduce new and interesting characters, and give us a chance to see more of the world they inhabit. The trouble is that Cars 2 only manages the second of those things, and only partially succeeds at that.

The most obvious problem is the world of Cars. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. We didn’t really see enough of it in the original for this to pose a significant problem, but in the jet-setting sequel, it’s impossible to get away from the issue. In Pixar’s other films, their characters inhabit the same world humans do, and much of the imaginative charm of these stories is the way they depict the secret lives of toys, bugs, monsters, fish, rats and what have you as they go about their business undetected. There are no humans in Cars. There are only, well . . . cars. This raised some strange questions. In Cars 2, those questions grow so large that they totally overwhelm the story.

Leave aside for a moment the quandaries of a world in which cars presumably manufacture themselves and exist as a sentient life-form that is an end in itself rather than as a mere means of transportation. In Cars 2, the characters journey all over the globe, and we are constantly slapped in the face with the fact that this isn’t just some alternate world inhabited by cars instead of people; it is our world and we have been mysteriously replaced by our vehicles with everything else left untouched.

Everywhere the cars travel they are surrounded by recognizable landmarks of our cultures and societies: Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, a rustic Old World village in Italy, Buckingham Palace and the Big Ben in London, etc. So many of these man-made (car-made?) landmarks that the film visits are in cities that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years, but the oldest automobile is, what, 150 years old? Where did all of this stuff come from? Did the cars’ ancestors build it all? Were they wagons? Chariots? Carriages? But the horseless kind, right? Because there aren’t any animals in this world. In one scene, a flock of tiny airplanes flutter away from a fountain, but that’s about it.

As these questions started to accumulate, I found it more and more difficult to make sense of anything, and my suspension of disbelief started to implode. There is a throwaway joke at one point, a cheap laugh, where Mater asks, “Is the Popemobile Catholic?” Then, a few scenes later, we see the Popemobile attending the race in Italy, riding in what is presumably the Popemobilemobile. Wait, what? I had idly wondered a few scenes before why cars would have churches: To worship and observe the sacarments, of course. Was the Jesusmobile wrecked for the sins of all vehicles? Do they gather for the Eucarist and sip motor oil and nibble hubcap wafers? The world of Cars is built on a whimsical but shallow conceit that it cannot sustain in any sort of coherent fashion.

I am over-thinking this to an absurd degree. The point is: Whatever was going on in Cars 2 was not interesting enough to keep these sorts of things from distracting me. Maybe I am an anomaly in this respect. Maybe these things won’t bother anyone else. The world of the movie, for all its absurdity, is still gorgeous to behold. Pixar hasn’t slouched in the visual department. So let’s lay that aside and consider the real reason this movie exists: Every year since 2006, Cars has been a multi-billion dollar merchandising bonanza. Cars 2 stands to boost those profits to a degree that exceeds my imagination by exponentially increasing the number of things that can be turned into cool toys, and deploying them in what amounts to a feature-length commercial.

Certainly the new major characters are a lot of fun, particularly Michael Caine’s way-cool, gadget-laden spy car and John Turturro’s charmingly arrogant Formula 1 Italian, Francesco Bernoulli. I would totally play with a toy based on Jason Isaacs’ Siddeley the spy plane, or the mad genius Professor Z. There are also some fantastic cameos, like Bruce Campbell’s brief appearance as an American spy car. But so much of the expanded population we see in the movie seems based on paper-thin stereotypes. There are some great laughs in the Cars 2 versions of Japan, France, Italy, and England, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that some of these cultures were being reduced to their broadest caricatures (okay, I’ll stop).

That uncomfortable feeling was only heightened by Mater’s character arc. Most of the original characters, though present, are lost in the crowd this time around, but Mater has moved to the fore as a celebration of loud-mouthed American ignorance abroad. As the automotive avatar of redneck culture, it is only natural that Mater’s fish-out-of-water experiences outside of his beloved Radiator Springs would form the comedic center of the movie, but by making him the main character, his abrasive buffoonery becomes the problematic target of that all-too-cliche kid movie moral: Be true to who you are.

Early in the movie, Mater’s oblivious and often rude antics are a source of constant embarrassment for Lightning McQueen, and even cause the loss of a race at one point, creating a rift between the two friends. Later on, Mater finally realizes that everyone sees him as an idiot, and painfully recalls his outrageous behavior, prompting him to seek reconciliation. But not so fast, because it is McQueen who comes crawling back first to tell Mater that he doesn’t have to care about what other people think, a view which is further confirmed by the supporting characters.

Thus, Mater’s intolerable boorishness and bad manners are affirmed, and even lionized, as an admirable quality. Presumably a character learning that you don’t have to sacrifice your identity to be polite and that it isn’t arrogant or elitist to acquire a little cultural sensitivity is just too nuanced, even for a movie filled with international intrigue in a battle between fossil fuels and alternative energy.

I get it. I really do. Cars 2 is a feature-length version of the sequences at the beginning of the first and third Toy Story films, where Andy stages imaginative and outlandish adventures in his bedroom. This is John Lasseter, playing in his bedroom with his toy cars for 2 hours. But there’s a reason the hilarious train robbery scene that kicks off Toy Story 3 didn’t continue into the rest of the movie: It would have amounted to empty, if sporadically entertaining, spectacle from storytellers who have consistently prompted us to develop an appetite for something more, and then delivered that something more. Cars 2 was not an unbearable experience, but I went home hungry.

It is the summer of 1979, and Joe Lamb (Courtney), son of a small-town deputy (Chandler), is adjusting to the loss of his mother and helping his buddy Charles Kaznyk (Griffiths) film a zombie movie. In the midst of capturing a crucial scene late one night, Joe, Charles, their friends, and Alice Dainard (Fanning), witness a catastrophic train accident. The next day, the Air Force is in town, all sorts of strange things are happening, and the kids’ “super 8″ camera may have captured some footage that the government doesn’t want anyone to see.

J. J. Abrams is so confoundedly tight-lipped about his film projects that it is difficult to know what manner of revelations about this film would constitute “spoilers.” That makes the reviewing process difficult and unwieldy, but there is nothing complicated or awkward about the simple, undeniable pleasure of watching this movie. With this throwback to the sorts of films Steven Spielberg was making three decades ago, Abrams milks the nostalgia factor just enough to evoke fond memories without losing his storytelling edge.

It would have been so easy for this film to be E.T. meets Cloverfield that it feels almost defiant in turning out to be something else entirely. Every summer we all seem to briefly forget that there can be blockbusters that are about something more than their own special effects, and it’s always a good summer when a movie like Super 8 shows up to remind us. Unlike, say, Pirates 4, this is not a movie about bewildered humans wandering aimlessly through a plotless wasteland of digital creatures and stuff blowing up. It is a movie about grief and forgiveness and friendship and wildly-improbable summer adventures in which things also happen to blow up rather spectacularly from time to time.

In fact, the primacy of story is, if not a major theme of Super 8, at least present as a nod to the audience and a word of advice to other filmmakers. In a scene which crosses the line into meta-commentary on the film itself, Charles explains to Joe that their movie is going to need more than just “good zombie deaths” to compete in the film festival. It needs a story with characters that the audience will care about, or else it will be nothing at all. Although Abrams may have tipped his hand too far with this bit of dialogue, the point is well taken, and even though Abrams has revealed exactly what he’s up to, we find ourselves caught up in the fates of his characters anyway.

It doesn’t hurt that he has assembled a brilliant ensemble of child actors, most of them complete unknowns (with the obvious, but welcome, exception of Elle Fanning). In fact, Super 8 marks the film debuts of both Courtney and Griffiths, the two leads. You’d never know it; they both do a phenomenal job in addition to the novelty of bringing fresh faces to the film. Seriously, where did they find these kids, and how did they get so lucky? But, to see where Abrams is getting his cues, go back to a movie like The Goonies (1985) in which familiar names like Sean Astin and Josh Brolin got their start as unknown child actors headlining a major feature film produced by Spielberg.

Oddly, the mysterious force at the center of the effects-driven mayhem in Super 8 is so totally upstaged by the kids and their story that its presence in the film is almost superfluous. And, although I will play the game and avoid discussing it further out of respect for anyone who has not yet seen the movie, the level of secrecy, in the advertising and in the movie itself, is absurd. There is nothing particularly original or surprising about the major plot revelations that take place late in the film, and the mystery surrounding the whole business just feels self-indulgent. Abrams should give his film-literate audience a bit more credit. Although, perhaps he simply meant this movie for a generation that hasn’t grown up on a steady summer diet of Spielberg. Either way, that complaint rather pales in the light of a chance to enjoy this welcome dose of fun and meaningful blockbuster fare.

After Baby Doll (Browning) is committed to an insane asylum by her evil stepfather, she retreats into an adrenaline-fueled fantasy world with fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Cornish), Rocket (Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). The five must work together to retrieve the five items that they will need to stage an escape before Baby is lobotomized in five days time.

Interestingly enough, this is Zack Snyder’s first screenwriting credit since he co-wrote 300. It can be no coincidence, then, that I haven’t seen a movie as repulsively exploitative, self-defeating, and relentlessly misogynistic as Sucker Punch since I squirmed my way through 300 five years ago. Despite the fact that Snyder spends nearly two hours literally nuking the screen with the most ridiculously cool things he can think of, his overt hatred of women taints every frame with a nauseous aftertaste.

There can be no denying Snyder’s immense talent as a filmmaker, so I won’t even try to pretend he isn’t good at his job. This is a man with an incredibly fine level of artistic control. He has a superb grasp of the elements of cinema at his disposal, and a visual aesthetic that is as magnificent as it is distinctly his own. But that is no excuse for the outrages that are on display here from the very first minute of the movie. Sucker Punch is what happens when a talented director has an eye for beauty and an ugly imagination. The only real question is how, despite his skill, Snyder got so many talented actresses to play out his warped fantasies for the camera.

The bulk of this film revolves around stylized depictions of sexual violence perpetrated against helpless women by grotesque lechers, and sexualized violence perpetrated by women doing battle in skimpy fetish costumes. The degree to which the camera lingers lovingly on both is downright disturbing for anyone who happens to be paying attention. It’s all undeniably gorgeous to look at, but what is it that we’re looking at, exactly? The audience is cordially invited to gorge themselves on a lush visual feast of repugnant sleaze that, most outrageously of all, somehow milked a mere PG-13 rating out of the obviously broken MPAA.

Meanwhile, the storytelling is about as brain-dead as anything I’ve seen. While, again, every action set-piece is absurdly awesome in a video game/music video sort of way, nothing of substance strings them all together and they lack both weight and internal consistency. Snyder is obviously hoping that we won’t notice how stupid it all is amidst the fireworks of his masturbatory orgasm of cinematic self-indulgence. So pervasive is this phenomenon that it is impossible to even single out a particular sequence for ridicule. Consider, though, the manner in which Snyder clumsily strings his ideas together to maximize the combination of exploitation and titillation:

Ostensibly the story is about Baby Doll escaping from the insane asylum. Only it isn’t interesting enough (or sexy enough) to just have her be in an asylum, so almost immediately her imagination transports her to some sort of underground club where she and the other inmates are sexual slaves, forced to perform for wealthy and powerful clients in outfits that are much more pleasing to the male gaze than asylum-wear. Except, even that isn’t interesting enough, so Baby Doll immediately discovers that she has the ability to hypnotically seduce anyone who watches her dance as she fades into a trance in which she does battle as a sexy schoolgirl against orcs, dragons, steam-powered Nazi zombies, giant robot samurai, and so on ad nauseum. That’s just a taste, though. It’s really far more incoherent than I am capable of expressing.

Probably the worst thing about Sucker Punch is not that it exists, but that so many people aren’t going to recognize what it truly is. They’ll confuse the scenes of infantilized, fetishized young women wielding guns and swords as symbolic of female empowerment, mistake the muddled confusion between reality and fantasy for some kind of profound statement about psychological coping mechanisms, and completely miss the significance of the film’s thin pretense that it abhors violence against women while it continually wallows in it. Zack Snyder should be ashamed, but I’ve just seen a pretty strong body of evidence that he hasn’t got any shame, and I expect he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

In the spirit of this time-honored tradition of second-guessing the biggest film awards show of the year, have a look at this short “Time” piece highlighting what they consider to have been the 10 most significant Best Picture snubs of all-time. And, in honor of the equally prevalent tradition of second-guessing the second-guessers, I present my thoughts on their thoughts. This list is in major need of discussion. After all, they’ve completely missed the three biggest snubs of them all . . .

There’s one very important thing that needs to be said about the Oscars, and awards shows in general, before one begins such a discussion. The entire concept of awards shows and what they are supposed to be about is wrong. Human nature seems to demand a clear winner, but it’s much better to appreciate awards shows as a celebration of excellence that includes not only a winner, but a pool of nominees from which the winner is chosen. Picking the winner is a formality (and if no winner was chosen, what would we argue about?), but the point is, most years, no one movie is the best of the year.

Sometimes, it’s like picking the best slice of a chocolate cake; all of these great films together represent the best the year had to offer, and all of them should be appreciated and enjoyed by as wide an audience as possible. At their best, awards shows and the whole awards process connect audiences with great art that they might not have been aware of otherwise, and get us all talking about them and their relative merits. It’s a magnificent conversation that I always revel in.

With that in mind, I’ve taken a look at each year covered in the “Time” list and pulled out a small selection of films they haven’t mentioned, rather than just one, and added a little commentary on the subject of “relative merits” . . . Enjoy, and feel free to toss in your own thoughts below.

1997 – They say . . .

L.A. Confidential should never have lost to Titanic. I agree, but 1997 was a surprisingly good year for films, both noticed and overlooked. Here are four films I’d submit for the Best Picture ballot alongside L.A. Confidential, any one of which could have easily replaced Titanic, and most of which I would pick over L.A. Confidential (which I quite like):

Gattaca – A brilliant, noir-ish twist on the gene-bending future of Brave New World
The Sweet Hereafter – Atom Egoyan’s achingly lyrical examination of people confronted with unimaginable tragedy
Jackie Brown – Quentin Tarantino’s whip-smart homage (okay, one of his homages) to the blaxploitation films of the ’70s
Boogie Nights – Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a towering epic about one star’s rise and fall in the porn industry during the late ’70s and early ’80s

1989 – They say . . .

Born on the Fourth of July should have beaten Driving Miss Daisy. They may have a point, but by 1989, the Vietnam War film had run its course as sure-fire Oscar bait. Here are four more-deserving candidates:

Crimes and Misdemeanors – Woody Allen’s greatest dramatic achievement; a thought-provoking rumination on the themes raised by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Henry V – Perhaps the best of Kenneth Branagh’s adaptations of Shakespeare
Jesus of Montreal – A fascinating examination of the mutually-transformative power of art and the gospel, each on the other
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – A glorious capstone on what many feel ought to have been only a trilogy of films, and the best cinematic Grail Quest of them all

1990 – They say . . .

Goodfellas ought to have crushed Dances With Wolves. No doubt. But what about . . .

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – A brainy adaptation of an equally brainy play that throws Shakespeare’s Hamlet onto its head by rewriting it through the eyes of a pair of minor characters
Jacob’s Ladder – A mind-bending pseudo-spiritual pseudo-horror film that will bury itself deep into your psyche, and then stay there
Edward Scissorhands – Tim Burton’s masterful suburban fairytale, and the first of many collaborations between Burton and Johnny Depp
Miller’s Crossing – Magnificent early Coen Brothers, and a top-notch gangster flick to boot

1980 They say . . .

That Raging Bull should never have lost to Ordinary People. I mostly agree. I prefer Ordinary People, but Raging Bull is clearly the superior film on pretty much every level. Still, there are some other possibilities:

Airplane! – An iconic disaster spoof that never stops being funny
The Shining – Stanley Kubrick’s disturbingly memorable foray into horror, based on the Stephen King novel
The Elephant Man – David Lynch’s most accessible film, and the direct inspiration for the Best Makeup Oscar
The Empire Strikes Back – The best of the Star Wars films, and an awesome and entertaining movie in its own right

1964 They say . . .

Dr. Strangelove should have gotten the award over My Fair Lady. They are dead on. Dr. Strangelove was the greatest movie of 1964, one of the greatest movies of the 1960s, and perhaps the best comedy of all time. Here are some more ’64 classics:

Mary Poppins – Disney’s greatest live-action success, and a musical with twice the charm of My Fair Lady
Becket – Based on the play, features Peter O’Toole as Henry II, who finds himself butting heads with his best friend Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) after making him Archbishop of Canterbury
Marnie – Lesser Hitchcock is still better than the best of most of the rest, and that remains true of this rather Freudian tale of frigidity, sexual repression, and kleptomania
The Train – A spectacular slow-burn action-thriller in which the French Resistance must delay a Nazi train that is trying to get a huge shipment of stolen art out of Paris ahead of the advancing Allies

1998 – They say . . .

That Shakespeare in Love shouldn’t have beaten Saving Private Ryan. I say I didn’t know anyone was still lauding that propagandist bit of Greatest Generation fetishism. I actually prefer Shakespeare in Love, despite its flaws. Not that Spielberg made a bad movie, it’s just not the best. It’s not even the best WWII movie to come out that year. In fact, a boatload of amazing films come to mind when I think of 1998, and I probably wouldn’t even put Saving Private Ryan on my top 10 above movies like Rushmore, Pleasantville, or The Red Violin . . . To say nothing of the five I would have chosen to fill the nominee slots:

The Truman Show – Jim Carrey does great dramatic work in a fable about the ultimate reality TV show that has only gotten more relevant with the passage of time
American History X – A hard-hitting examination of racism in America which, though limited in scope and a bit facile in resolution, remains incredibly powerful
The Big Lebowski – The best and most philosophical of the Coen Brothers’ comedies, and probably their most quotable film to date
Run Lola Run – A non-stop, hyper-kinetic adrenaline shot that never gets old, even after several repeated viewings
The Thin Red Line – Recently a tagline for Inglourious Basterds informed us that we had “never seen war” until we’d seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino . . . this movie shows that that claim is actually true of Terrence Malick

1944 – They say . . .

Double Indemnity shouldn’t have lost, and especially not to Going My Way. Hear, hear. Despite what I said above, I probably would put this one in the top 3 worst upsets in Oscar history. Double Indemnity was the best movie of the year, and maybe even the best film noir of them all. 1944 also brought us:

Laura – Another lovely little noir classic with some startling twists throughout
Lifeboat – Hitchcock’s love of technical challenges is on full display in this film set entirely inside of a small boat adrift on the open sea
Meet Me in St. Louis – Vincent Minelli’s spectacular Judy Garland musical is raucous turn-of-the-century fun
Gaslight – a spectacular psychological thriller that features an incredible cast and a spooky Victorian setting

1941 – They say . . .

How Green Was My Valley shouldn’t have beaten Citizen Kane. That’s almost too obvious to even say. Everyone knows that, even if they’ve never seen Citizen Kane (but how many today have seen How Green Was My Valley?). I wouldn’t dare to question the conventional wisdom about Kane, but 1941 was a pretty good year for other reasons as well:

Sullivan’s Travels – A classic social dramedy that manages to be both a great examination of Depression-era America, and a philosophical statement about the purpose of the film industry
The Maltese Falcon – The first really great film noir, and an archetype of the genre, featuring iconic roles for Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet
Dumbo – A short but sweet Disney animation classic, featuring a winsome protagonist who doesn’t have a single line of spoken dialogue
The Lady Eve – Preston Sturges produced not one, but two amazing films in 1941: Sullivan’s Travels and this, a hilarious screwball comedy with Henry Fonda and Barabara Stanwyck

1981 – They say . . .

Chariots of Fire should have lost to Reds. I’m not so sure that’s true, and at the very least, they’re doing Chariots a gross injustice. Plus, they’re overlooking another pair of worthy contenders (okay, yes, I couldn’t find a lot going in ’81):

Das Boot – The ultimate submarine movie, and Wolfgang Petersen’s masterpiece
Raiders of the Lost Ark – The one movie of 1981 that everyone has seen and loved should have taken the prize

1976 – They say . . .

Rocky should have lost to Taxi Driver, Network, All the President’s Men, or Bound for Glory. I’ve only seen the first three of those, but I’d definitely agree with any of them. Of course, the trouble is, they’ve picked too many candidates on this one, and I couldn’t nose up anymore worthy contenders. Of those choices, I’d have gone with Taxi Driver.

So that’s “Time” and their top ten Oscar snubs . . . Here are the three that they forgot. How could they?

1956 – The Searchers loses to Around the World in Eighty Days. The latter had length, budget, and a boatload of celebrities going for it, but the former is the greatest Western ever made, and the movie John Ford and John Wayne should have won their Oscars for.

1958 – Vertigo loses to Gigi. Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest thriller not only went unnominated for Best Picture, it lost one of its only two nominations to the shallow, utterly insipid and lackluster Gigi, which won an outrageous nine awards. The Academy will never live that one down.

1994 – Forrest Gump wins over Ed Wood, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption, and Pulp Fiction. I mean, sure, Forrest Gump is cute and all, but come on. Maybe the voters just freaked out because they were drowning in too much quality cinema to make any kind of reasonable decision. I don’t know what happened. I just know it was wrong.

As for the hosts: James Franco, I have to say, was kind of lacking in the charisma department. He walked out at the beginning and seemed like he was about to run screaming from the room from sheer nerves. When he came out again, he just stood there, stony-faced for the remainder of the show. Did he take something? Fortunately, Anne Hathaway kept plugging gamely along, carrying Franco as far as she could on bubbly charm (which she has in spades). Some of her jokes landed flat, but she didn’t linger. I give her top marks as an Oscar host.

As for the spread of awards, they were dis-satisfyingly thin this year. So much so that one would struggle to come up with a clear Big Winner. The King’s Speech, Best Picture, took only 4 awards, but so did Inception, while the night’s other favorite, The Social Network, received only 3. This ties The King’s Speech with (most recently) Best Picture winners No Country for Old Men (2007) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). What sets this apart, though, are the stunning 12 nominations that The King’s Speech had going in (compared to 8 and 7, respectively, for the other two). In fact, I think this might be the biggest nomination-to-award discrepancy every for a Best Picture winner. Clearly the Academy liked The King’s Speech . . . Just not that much.

As for the other categories, we’ve got 2 wins apiece for Toy Story 3, The Fighter, and Alice in Wonderland (a travesty), plus a single win for Black Swan to round things out. The other 4 Best Picture nominees (The Kids Are All Right, True Grit, Winter’s Bone, and 127 Hours) faced a complete shut-out in multiple categories (4, 10, 4, and 6, respectively). Of those, True Grit had the most devastating night of all, with the most losses. Very sad. At least they can have the satisfaction of having made a terrific film. I can’t wait to see what the Coens have for us next year!

Now to take a quick look at my predictions. I didn’t make public predictions this year, but I did continue my usual practice of joining the contest at “Beat the Crowd.” This year, unlike last year, I did not beat the crowd, and I actually logged my lowest score in years with only 13 correct predictions. Last year I had 15. That’s just how it goes sometimes. See you next year . . .

Full commentary continues below the fold.

I can’t remember a year when I’ve been more excited to just see what happens. I’m curious to see how James Franco and Anne Hathaway handle themselves as hosts (and what that will even look like), and to see what randomness crops up during the ceremony, but for once I’m just curious about the outcomes. I haven’t followed a lot of buzz this year (much less than normal, anyway), and I don’t feel a really strong affinity for any one movie over another in most categories. So this should just be a really fun night. We’ll see pretty soon.

Inception . . . What a great device to connect all of the nominees for a hilarious opener. Love it. Now let’s get some awards going. Also, holy crap, they are nervous.

I’m not sure what they’re doing with this Best Picture winners of the past thing, but I like it. Very cool to have a Gone With the Wind themed stage! I look forward to more. Oh, right now, okay. Alright, Tom Hanks . . . What award?

Best Art Direction: Boo. Alice in Wonderland is a crap movie, and its design was just all over the place. I would have taken any of the nominees over this one. I disapprove. Man, and here I thought I wouldn’t care who won . . . as long as Alice in Wonderland didn’t win any Oscars. Bummer. And not a great start for the speeches, either . . .

Best Cinematography: Wow, I’m genuinely surprised to see Inception win. Pretty cool, but the continued snubbing of Roger Deakins is not making the Academy look good. With another charisma-less speech we’re off to an ambiguous start.

Oh, my. Kirk Douglas is so old.

Best Supporting Actress: “Colin Firth is not laughing. He’s British!” Ah, Kirk Douglas . . . Say the name! Oh my goodness, say the name! Melissa Leo is freaking out. Nice. She is awesome, and I picked her to win. All of them were deserving performances, but only one of them vanished into their role. I watched 45 minutes of The Fighter before I realized which character she was playing, and I’ve been a fan of hers since The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Aaand, she just managed to drop the f-bomb. Classic. Someone is going to have to carry her off. Oh, Kirk Douglas is doing it . . .

Best Animated Short: Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are out to do this one. Can’t say I care for the homage to Shrek. I haven’t seen any of these nominees except for “Day and Night,” but I obviously need to. The award goes to “The Lost Thing” about which I know nothing. I’m sure I can go track it down in a few hours.

Best Animated Feature: I think we have 3 really deserving pictures here, but ultimately there can be only one. Who will it be . . .? Toy Story 3. Yeah, wake me up when Pixar wins a Best Picture award. There presence in this category makes it boring.

I have to say, the stage design this year is just freaking brilliant. I love it, and I love what they’re doing with it.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem are out to present. The Social Network picks up its first award of the night. Could this be a good omen? The buzz says not, but we can always hope. Dude, they’re playing you off. Leave the stage.

Best Original Screenplay: Our two top contenders aren’t competing for these awards, so it’s no surprise (and no disappointment) to see this one go to The King’s Speech. Nevermind what I said before about omens. I’m just waiting for the final count.

Great little Oscar in-joke number by Anne Hathaway (maybe a little too “in”?), and James Franco in mega-drag.

Best Foreign Film: A category that frustrates me every year because it’s so impossible to have any knowledge of it before the ceremony. The award, presented by Helen Mirren and Russell Brand (who are hilarious) goes to In a Better World (Denmark). Nice shout-out to the other foreign films and their makers. Best speech moment of the night so far (which isn’t saying much).

Best Supporting Actor: Reese Witherspoon is announcing this award. I was rooting for Geoffrey Rush in this category, but it’s hard to be genuinely sorry about a Christian Bale win. And I severely underestimated The Fighter, which is a fantastic film. Looks like Melissa Leo’s f-bomb is going to be the whipping boy of the night . . . I don’t recall my Oscar history, but I’m guessing that doesn’t happen very often.

Best Original Score: A fantastic little piece of film history here, beautifully displayed, and highlighted with the Star Wars theme! Could this get any better? Clearly not. Spoke to soon . . . Lawrence of Arabia, awesome. This is one of my favorite “minor” awards. Time to sit back and listen to the medley. Five really really great nominees this year, but the winner is: The Social Network! The King’s Speech has some catching up to do.

Best Sound: I’d tell you who are presenting right now, but I can never remember how to spell either of their names correctly, and I don’t feel like looking them up. Inception snags another technical award. No surprises there.

Best Sound Editing: There are like 3 people in the room who know the difference between sound mixing and sound editing. I’m sure they should be two separate awards, but I have no idea how to draw the distinction. Plus, with another win for Inception here, it’s hard to make that argument this year.

Now we have the little Science & Technology blip. It’s hard to overstate the importance of technology to film history and the film industry, but they really don’t pay enough attention to this part of the show to ever make it worth our while to hear about.

Best Makeup: Cate Blanchett is here along with an awesome shout-out to Lord of the Rings. I’ve only seen The Wolfman, but I really wanted to see The Way Back and missed it somehow. “That’s gross.” Hilarious. The Oscar goes to The Wolfman, which should not be an Oscar-winning film, but whatever. I find it very odd that no more prestigious films had outstanding makeup work this year.

Best Costumes: The Oscar goes to Alice in Wonderland a second time. Which is just so fail, but not like Art Direction. I will admit that this movie had impressive costumes. I’d have preferred a True Grit win, though.

Randy Newman performs his nominated song from Toy Story 3. Love the movie. Not a terrible song. Not really a Randy Newman fan. Next up, though, my favorite of the nominated songs, from Tangled. Really hoping this one wins.

Best Documentary Short: Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal are out to present. Gyllenhaal references the fact that no one knows anything about this category, and then Adams gives the award to Strangers No More. Might go find it later, might not.

Best Live Action Short: Some of these look really good. I might actually go looking for these. The Oscar goes to God of Love (which didn’t look that promising of the clips that I saw, but whatever). When in doubt, go with the artsy black-and-white. This winner is awesome, though. “Geez, I shoulda gotten a haircut.” Best speech of the night.

Now we have an epic montage of Auto-Tuned movie clips. Best. Idea. Ever.

Best Documentary: Oh, hi, Oprah. I’ve only seen a few of the nominees in this category, but this race seems wide open. I have no clue who will win it . . . Inside Job. I was kind of expecting Restrepo or Exit Through the Gift Shop. I need to see Inside Job, but . . . it’s about the financial crisis. Bleah. A nice little reminder to us all that the corporate thieves that masterminded the financial crisis still haven’t paid for their crimes.

This Oscar ceremony is feeling uncharacteristically self-referential. Still, I’m loving this homage to Bob Hope, the ultimate Oscar host.

Best Visual Effects: Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law are giving the award. And they’re making it feel like an ad for the Sherlock Holmes sequel (look at our hilarious chemistry!). Ah, well, on to the presentation. I think we all know who needs to win this one. And they do: Inception, which has now swept the technical awards and can go home happy.

Best Editing: I would give this to The Social Network, hands down. And so would the Academy, it seems. Hooray! Inception is actually ahead in the awards race right now, but it won’t win anymore.

A. R. Rahman is out to sing that song from 127 Hours. I’ve heard better stuff from Rahman, and there was better stuff attached to that movie. Still, it’s nice listening . . . that was really short. Anyway, Gwyneth Paltrow is out to do that song from Country Strong. I don’t like country, but I did like the song from Crazy Heart last year, and this is an okay song, too.

Best Song: Randy Newman wins the Oscar, much to my disappointment. I think the song from Tangled will become a Disney classic. This just sounds like all of Randy Newman’s other songs. He’s giving an amazing speech, though. I’m cracking up here.

A bit of a change in pace as we do the “In Memoriam” montage. Always a bittersweet moment in the show, as we remember all of the contributors to cinema who are no longer making great movies. (Wow, I don’t think I knew that Irvin Kershner died. How’d I miss that?) And now Halle Berry is talking about Lena Horne, for some reason.

With just 4 awards left to present, this feels like an unusually fast Oscar show. Let’s see how they manage to stretch the last 1/6 of the presentations waaay out.

Best Director: Anne Hathaway announces Hillary Swank announces Kathryn Bigelow who announces this award. Yeesh. Anyway, Best Director this year is Tom Hooper. I think we all know what that means. Time for The King’s Speech to pull out a minor sweep here at the end. David Fincher should have won this award, but no one is really surprised by this, I think.

Annette Bening introduces the Lifetime Achievement awards thing (which I’d forgotten about). This year it’s film preservationist and historian Kevin Brownlow, Francis Ford Coppola and Eli Wallach. They get to stand there and look at us as we go to commercial break.

Best Actress: Jeff Bridges (Best Actor winner from last year, as per tradition) is out to present this award. And he’s going to talk to each one of them, apparently, and then we’ll see film clips of the performances. Interesting. The award goes to Natalie Portman, as expected. Very exciting. I think it’s safe to say that she has finally overcome any of the stigma that might have been lingering from the days when she was being directed into the ground by George Lucas in the Star Wars prequels. And now she needs to stop talking, because it’s getting late, and we’re all a little tired.

Best Actor: Sandra Bullock out to present, for reasons mentioned above, and she’s going to be awesome, I’m sure. She just has no end of charm. And, of course, it’s a Colin Firth win. There really are no surprises left. “I have a feeling my career has just peaked.” He does a nice speech (speaking of no surprises). I’m guessing we’ve at least one more commercial break to sit through before the final, big award.

Best Picture: Steven Spielberg introduces the Best Picture montage leading up to the big announcement. Not sure why they played him on with the theme from Jurassic Park. That was a really cool little montage . . .

And the Oscar goes to The King’s Speech! No question about it, this is going to remembered as yet another Oscar miss. Happily, it’s one of those Oscar misses where I genuinely liked the winning film, and I’ll look forward to seeing it again. Meanwhile, The Social Network will go down as the Film of the Year, and nothing the Academy says is going to take that away. So, no worries here. And to all of the other deserving nominees in this category (surprisingly quite a few this year!), you definitely have nothing to be ashamed of. Fantastic.

David Fincher’s The Social Network is a film that has captured the cultural zeitgeist to a rare and almost frightening degree. It is a story of our time, chronicling the birth of Facebook as an event surrounded by personal conflicts that grew into legal battles over Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of a multi-billion dollar social networking empire. The movie’s tagline sums it all up perfectly: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” Indeed.

Two of those enemies are Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer in the film). The Winklevoss twins are a privileged pair, both physically and financially. They are tall and athletic, with smooth features and sandy blond hair. They are “Harvard gentlemen,” members of the rowing team, upstanding, idealistic, and courteous to a fault. They remind me of the Hardy Boys: clean-cut, all-American guys who always land on their feet. Until they meet Mark Zuckerberg, that is.

A few months after the Winklevosses and their partner Divya Narendra hire Zuckerberg to finish writing the code for their social networking site, he launches “Thefacebook” and severs his ties with them. They are outraged and bewildered. They have been too trusting. Tyler and Divya want to take legal action immediately, but Cameron is certain there must be some mistake. He believes that they must handle the situation like the gentlemen they are, but their frustration builds as Zuckerberg stonewalls them and the university refuses to take action. With each passing day, Zuckerberg’s lead grows as his site improves and expands to include other schools.

Into the midst of this little drama comes the rowing race at the Henley Royal Regatta. Most of the scenes in the film to this point, aside from a few “coding” montages,  have been about conversations, developing characters, exploring relationships. They have transpired in confined spaces: dorm rooms, conference rooms, classrooms. Even the outdoor scenes have a confined feeling in the midst of the majestic buildings on the Harvard campus. This is something different. It stands out immediately.

The scene fades in on an aerial shot of the River Thames, filmed with a tilt-shift lens. The unique effect makes everything look tiny and artificial, like miniatures or toys. The scene cuts between a few more images shot with the same or similar effect. The focus is blurred around the edges of the shot. People move in slow-motion. Several visual clues give away the British setting. The music is muted, and plays with a slight synthetic buzz, almost as though it, too, is out of focus. There is no other sound on the audio track.

Suddenly, the music shifts into sharper focus with a stronger, faster beat as the camera drops down from the sky onto a long shot of the race. The rowers are pulling directly towards the camera from several hundred yards away. The melody is obvious now: It is a “cover” of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The music and the sequence build slowly together for over half a minute, constructed from shots of about 4 to 6 seconds in length. We see the boats from multiple angles and distances, and the rhythm of the scene feels in tune with the rhythm of the rowers and their oars. There are repeated close-ups of various rowers as they pull back out of focus, straining against the oar, and then lean forward into focus again.

Now the music shifts again, taking on an urgent, frenetic tone. The rowers grit their teeth and puff out their cheeks as they exhale. The shot length drops to about 1 to 2 seconds as the pace builds. One long shot of the race features a spectator wearing a straw hat in the foreground, prominent but out of focus. He points to the boats, claps his hands, and mouths, “Come on!” The finish line is nearing, but the Harvard team seems frozen 2/3 of a boat-length behind “Hollandia Roeiclub.” They row gamely, but remain stationary relative to the other boat.

Less than half a minute has gone by, and now the shot length is shorter still, with multiple cuts every second. The intensity has reached a fever pitch. Two quick cuts show the numbered prow of each boat knifing through the water. The coxswains pound the sides of their boats and bark commands. A Winklevoss darts a glance at the other boat, judging the state of the race. And then, just like that, it is over. The Dutch team’s victory is shot from the side, revealing the flash of the camera recording the finish as they cross the line just ahead of the “Harvard Crimson.”

The winners, as exhausted as the losers, raise their arms in victory, and then there are three quick close-ups before the camera pans back up to the sky to end the scene. The first is of Divya Narendra, who turns away from the loss with a disappointed frown. Then we see one Winklevoss collapse backwards, while the other leans forward with his head between his knees, chest heaving. They have given the race their all, but have still come up short.

The entire sequence lasts less than two minutes. In the very next scene, the boys learn that Zuckerberg has extended his site’s reach “across the pond,” an almost intolerable revelation in the wake of their crushing defeat, and Cameron finally concedes that it is time to bring in the lawyers. The race scene simultaneously signals a major turning point for the Winklevoss twins, and serves as a perfect cinematic expression of who they are.

This is their world. Like the race they are competing in, it is as well-mannered as it is elite, governed by a rigid code of honor and sportsmanship, and reinforced by long tradition. But this is a false reality, as indicated by the tilt-shift that lends everything an air of constructed artificiality, and it is crumbling around them.

Everything that once came to them so effortlessly is now out of their control. The increasingly-frantic music and ever-shorter shot lengths match the grimaces and tightened muscles that mark their futile struggle to hold their position. Zuckerberg isn’t always as insightful as he thinks, but perhaps he is onto something when he observes later in the film that, “The ‘Winklevii’ aren’t suing me for intellectual property theft. They’re suing me because for the first time in their lives, things didn’t go exactly the way they were supposed to for them.”

Cameron and Tyler don’t really need the money. This defeat will not ruin their lives. Their futures are as assured as they always were, but their privileged background makes this a difficult pill to swallow. As they continue to row steadily, going through the only motions they know, Zuckerberg is pulling further and further ahead. Fair or not, he launched first, and in life, as in rowing, first is all that matters. They have lost the race. Deep down, they know it, and now the audience does, too.

A few years ago, Rachel and I watched the whole Disney canon (that is, full-length Disney animated films that received a theatrical release) as it existed at the time. I believe there were 46 or 47 movies at that point. In the years since then, we have always gone to see each new release as it joined an animation tradition that stretches back almost 75 years. A lot of these films, of course, I grew up watching (some dozens and dozens of times). Others I had never seen at all. It was a fun and very interesting experience to observe the evolution of Disney animation across decades of development, and then discuss between ourselves which ones were the true classics, and which were the stinkers.

That being the case, as soon as I saw the ranked list of Disney’s 50 animated features on “Rotten Tomatoes,” I knew I would have to make my own. My longtime readers know how much of a sucker I am for lists. I love reading through collections of films (and other things) that have been brought together within some category (whether it be genre, year of release, director, quality, etc.), and then ordered by personal preference. The best film lists are always put together by an individual or group with a real passion for films in general, and a genuine excitement about their selections.

So, while “Rotten Tomatoes” occasionally puts out some interesting lists, the way they go about it (via broad-based critical “consensus” and using an elaborate formula) is rarely satisfying. This list is no exception. After all, what living, breathing human being would rank a rollicking fun-fest like Robin Hood so near the bottom of the list, beneath even the truly dismal Home on the Range? And who would stick the deeply mediocre Bolt just shy of the top ten, even above The Little Mermaid, the film that kicked off the Disney animation renaissance?

Ranking the films myself wasn’t quite as easy as I expected, and what I came up with probably isn’t that far off of the RT list, but the differences are significant to me. And the list is mine. Here it is:

50. Home on the Range (2004)

Announced as the final Disney film to rely on traditional animation, there is certainly something funereal about the awfulness of this movie. Forgettable characters, juvenile humor, shallow plotting, and a cliche-ridden visual style combine to make this the worst Disney animated film of all time. As it is more of a death-knell than a fitting end to the form, we all rejoiced when John Lasseter brought 2D animation back just a few years later. Incidentally, is that not also the worst-ever tagline? “Bust a Moo” . . . Bleck.

49. Chicken Little (2005)

While not quite as painful as Home on the Range, the release of Chicken Little at a key point in the negotiations with Pixar Animation Studios definitively proved that Disney was not ready for 3D animation. Its entry into computer animation proved to be as lackluster as its departure from traditional animation. Here, perhaps even more than with Home on the Range, there is a failure of story on every level that makes this movie basically unwatchable.

48. The Aristocats (1970)

Not even being a cat lover can make up for the fact that this is a cheap, cat-themed rehash of One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Short on plot, and even shorter on strong characters, Aristocats also features one of the most irritating songs in the Disney collection. I’ve probably dropped this much lower than most people would, but something about this movie just gets under my skin, and 40 years on, it has not aged well.

47. Pocahontas (1995)

If Pocahontas has one thing going for it, its that fantastic, Oscar-nominated soundtrack by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. Unfortunately, their talent is rather wasted on a self-righteous, preachy tale that plays absurdly fast and loose with well-known historical fact. The result is pretty bland stuff.

46. Dinosaur (2000)

The original plan for Dinosaur was to make it without any dialogue, a bold and innovative idea that was apparently not marketable enough for nervous Disney executives. The film opens with a stunning sequence that seamlessly combines gorgeous live-action backdrops with computer-generated dinosaur characters set to a pulse-pounding orchestral score. Then the characters start talking and the magic abruptly departs, replaced with a predictable plot and a distinct lack of thrills.

45. Oliver & Company (1988)

For the life of me I can’t explain why this film just doesn’t work. It has lively characters, a fun soundtrack, and a solid premise: retelling Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist with an all-animal cast in 20th-century New York City. Somehow, though, the elements fail to gel, and cheap, lifeless animation and an excess of sentimentality don’t help, either.

44. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

At times reminiscent of Bambi in its depiction of animals and their environment, Fox and the Hound is crippled by a thin story stretched over an interminable 83 minutes, and (like Oliver & Company) it is overly-saccharine even by Disney standards.

43. Melody Time (1948)

Probably the worst of the low-budget Disney “package” films of the 1940s, Melody Time doesn’t feature any shorts that truly stand the test of time. A few are mildly entertaining, but most are entirely forgettable, and there is a randomness to the selection of seven shorts that keeps the film from holding together in any meaningful way. This is the very definition of disposable entertainment.

42. Brother Bear (2003)

While it manages to manufacture some genuine emotion, Brother Bear feels agenda-laden. Phil Collins reliably delivers a quality soundtrack, and there is plenty of gorgeous scenery, but the story plays out in a most distressingly-predictable fashion.

41. Bolt (2008)

Studiously inoffensive, Bolt swiped most of its best story ideas off of Pixar films (among other sources), but at least it steals from the best. The movie wants desperately to be enjoyed, and it succeeds at delivering the entertainment it seems to be aiming for (if very little else). You won’t think any deep thoughts, but you’ll probably have a good time watching.

40. The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Poised to usher in a glorious rebirth for traditional animation and introduce Disney’s first African American princess (*gasp*), this movie arrived with more of a whimper than a bang. The painfully obvious attempt at pandering managed to backfire, too, as the heroine spends the overwhelming majority of the film as an amphibian. Ultimately, the movie is just trying too hard. A few charming songs aside (I particularly like “Gonna Take You There” for some reason), this one is largely a pass.

39. Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Loosely adapted from a largely-plotless children’s book, Meet the Robinsons is a bizarre little tale with quirky silliness coming out of its ears. And, while the filmmakers appear to have thrown every random idea they had at the screen to see what would stick, its hard not to enjoy the sheer zaniness on display, as well as the involvement of what is surely the oddest Disney villain of them all. Long on laughs, short on substance.

38. The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Probably the worst thing that I can say about The Sword in the Stone is that it completely fails to do justice to T.H. White’s magnificent book. Other than that, there’s just not a lot to it. Much of the humor, which tries too hard to be hip and contemporary, has become badly dated, but an awesome wizard duel provides one of the film’s highlights.

37. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Atlantis is pure action, and succeeds rather well on that level, but never slows down enough for the audience to get its bearings, or get to know the colorful cast of characters. Loads of amazing sights and sounds fly by in an exhilarating blur, never satisfying the desire to stop and get a good look at some of them.

36. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Adaptations of two classic stories stitched clumsily together (even the title is clunky) make up this package film. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the two segments apart from their extreme brevity. Bizarrely, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is narrated by upbeat crooner Bing Crosby, while Wind in the Willows is narrated by the brooding Basil Rathbone, when the reverse should obviously be the case. This fact still bothers me.

35. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

This movie is particularly notable for its terrifying and memorable villain, Cruella De Vil, and the signature song composed for her by the heroes’ owner. Aside from that, the story has always struck me as very insubstantial, particularly by comparison with Dodie Smith’s amazing original novel. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was also the first film to depart from the lush, rich Disney animation of previous years, ushering in a decade of undeniably uglier animation thanks to a new, cheaper production process.

34. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

It is fitting that a movie as weird and whimsical as Disney’s Alice in Wonderland should have such a strange, slapdash history as well. A pet project of Disney’s for many years before it was realized, Alice did not do well when it was first released, but hit it big at the height of the drug culture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Fortunately, you don’t need to know any of that to appreciate this imaginative romp based on Lewis Carroll’s classic (just don’t expect much by comparison to the source).

33. Hercules (1997)

Hercules is easy to like, but difficult to love. What ought to be a large-scale epic is defined by wise-cracking silliness, and the major action sequences are mostly reduced to a stylized montage set to an (undeniably) catchy song. Sly references to pop culture and contemporary life fly thick and fast, and rather overwhelm whatever else this movie is trying to do (if anything). A decidedly mediocre effort.

32. Treasure Planet (2002)

An incredibly cool concept that doesn’t quite get there in the execution, but it’s still a lot of fun. More action-packed sci-fi following Atlantis, this has more interesting characters and doesn’t forget to occasionally stop and marvel at its surroundings.

31. Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Another awkward pairing of unrelated stories has the redeeming quality of one of them being exceptionally good (and the other being entirely forgettable). The package opens with Bongo, a rather dull story about an escaped circus bear cub, but then moves onto the beloved Mickey and the Beanstalk, featuring the classic fairy tale recast with the beloved Disney trio of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. It’s so good, you won’t even remember that you had to sit through Bongo to get to it (then again, with DVD, you don’t have to).

30. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

Sherlock Holmes has always been a favorite character of mine, and by extension I really loved this movie when I was a kid. Later viewings have revealed it to be a bit maudlin, and the animation looks decidedly cheap in spots, but it still holds up tolerably well on the story level. And it’s hard to understate the awesomeness of Vincent Price as the voice of the villain.

29. The Three Caballeros (1945)

This was the second of two animated features that resulted from the goodwill tour of South America undertaken by Walt Disney and several of his animators, commissioned as part of FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy immediately prior to World War II. If that sentence bored you, steer clear of this movie. The segments are decidedly inferior to those of the previous South America feature, and its primary interest is historical (which, if you’re into that, is considerable).

28. The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

The first ever Disney sequel (and one of the better ones, judged by the standards of the others) The Rescuers Down Under rather fails to distinguish itself amidst the brilliant films that the studio was putting out at the time. Still, with a solid voice cast and exotic setting, this is an exciting ride. It is also the first Disney movie to feature a new computerized animation process that delivers the incredible vistas of the Australian Outback.

27. Saludos Amigos (1943)

The first of the South American features mentioned above, this one is also better, if still rather fragmented. It is also the shortest Disney feature, clocking in at a mere 42 minutes. Which means that there’s not a whole lot more that one can say about it (cf. historical interest mentioned above).

26. Lady and the Tramp (1955)

I’m not a dog person (I love “The Siamese Cat Song”), but this is a genuine classic. The characterization is top-notch, with some of the most successful anthropomorphism of any Disney film, but the animals never lose their essential dogness, making them lovable and memorable. A general cuteness pervades the whole movie, but doesn’t overwhelm it.

25. The Black Cauldron (1985)

Family entertainment was so dark in the 1980s, wasn’t it? Even Disney took a turn for the deeply terrifying with The Black Cauldron, its first animated film to be rated PG. Unfortunately for Disney, families weren’t quite ready for the studio they grew up with to traumatize their children, and the movie bombed hard. Still, even though it isn’t really for kids, there’s a lot to like about this movie, starting with some pretty striking visuals.

24. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

There is quite a bit more of “Looney Tunes” about the manic Emperor’s New Groove than one would typically associate with a Disney feature, but laughs are laughs, and they never let up here. David Spade is perfectly cast as the whiny, sarcastic Emperor Kuzco, and the non-stop slapstick hilarity is positively inspired in spots. So much so, in fact, that one can almost forgive it from pushing Disney animation away from musicals for the next several years.

23. The Rescuers (1977)

At times rather frightening (but nothing like as frightening as The Black Cauldron), The Rescuers was nevertheless Disney’s last bona-fide hit before bottoming out over the next decade and change. I’d attribute this success to plenty of thrills and a solid source (Margery Sharp’s terrific book series). Likable and memorable.

22. Fantasia 2000 (2000)

While obviously less innovative than its 1940 predecessor, Fantasia 2000 is every bit as thrilling in its display of imagination and artistry, with a genuinely excellent selection of short animated sequences set to classical pieces. Stand-out bits include a bit with flying whales set to the majestic “The Pines of Rome” and a Depression-era story of life in the big city inspired by Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue.”

21. The Lion King (1994)

Although it is still the biggest box-office success of Disney Animation Studios, I confess to not really getting the hype that surrounds this movie. It’s not that it’s bad by any stretch of the imagination, but neither is it as fantastically good as the near-universal acclaim seems to indicate. The tone is too uneven and jarring missteps come too frequently to be ignored. This may just sound like I’m bucking the consensus, but I bear the movie no ill-will. It just kind of leaves me feeling cold and indifferent.

20. Tarzan (1999)

On top of being the best take on the “Tarzan” story to appear since the 1930s, this movie is just a lot of fun. Its innovative use of computer animation to mimic lush painted backgrounds is gorgeous to look at, and it sports a stirring, hit soundtrack by Phil Collins. Tarzan is the final film of the Disney “renaissance,” and (probably not coincidentally) the last musical Disney put out for several years.

19. Bambi (1942)

I find Bambi largely enjoyable, but positively dull in spots. However, there is no denying that this film set the gold-standard for Disney’s glorious depictions of the natural world. Although a bit thin on story, the artistry is well-nigh unmatched. This is probably the closest anyone has ever gotten to animating a nature documentary.

18. Make Mine Music (1946)

Often overlooked, this is the best of the “package” films of the 1940s: basically Fantasia with a focus on contemporary music and singers of the time. Make Mine Music features several delightful and innovative segments, ranging from abstract experimentation to charming storytelling. Some of the best include “All the Cats Join In,” “Peter and the Wolf,” and “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met.”

17. Tangled (2010)

This may be a premature assessment, but to me, Tangled is a great return to form for a studio that has wandered pretty far afield for most of the last decade. With memorable characters, catchy music, stunning animation, and a fun story, it’s not hard to peg it as an instant-classic. Here’s hoping it really is a revival of tradition and not just an anomaly.

16. The Jungle Book (1967)

The Jungle Book may have a rather flat central character, but that makes him all the more accessible as an audience surrogate while we enjoy the revelry of the star-voiced gallery of unforgettable animal characters: George Sanders as Shere Khan, Sterling Holloway as Kaa, Louis Prima as King Louie, J. Pat O’Malley as Colonel Hathi, and (of course) Phil Harris as Baloo. Add plenty of slapstick hilarity and toe-tapping tunes, and everyone is guaranteed a great time.

15. Lilo & Stitch (2002)

This movie is an absolute laugh riot, bringing together an unlikely combination of aliens, space battles, Hawaii, and surfing for a surprisingly coherent story about a girl and her dog (“dog”). Stitch is an all-around awesome character, and his antics are pure entertainment. And yet, despite its essentially comedic nature, there is something substantive about this movie that puts it head and shoulders above anything else the studio was putting out at the time.

14. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

This is technically a “package” film, composed of 3 previously-released segments all featuring A.A. Milne’s beloved characters, but it all hangs together so naturally that one would never really think of it that way. Certainly none of the package films of the ’40s have anything resembling the charm of Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore, Owl, Tigger, and the rest. If this movie has a flaw, it’s in being too short, and watching it is very much like curling up under a fuzzy blanket.

13. Mulan (1998)

How often does a Disney princess get to be an action hero? Well, at least once. Mulan swipes her father’s old sword and uniform and heads out to take his place in the Imperial Army of China’s fight against the invading Huns. Epic battles, great songs, and plenty of laughs (courtesy of Mulan’s tiny dragon companion, Mushu) ensue.

12. Fantasia (1940)

What can one say about such a bold, unprecedented experiment in animation . . . no, in filmmaking? It’s hard to imagine something so recklessly avant-garde emerging from a major studio today, let alone leaving such an indelible impression on moviegoers everywhere. It’s not surprising that the film was something of a failure when it was first released, but it’s even less surprising that it is now considered a classic of animation and cinema art.

11. Cinderella (1950)

I know so many women and girls who count this as their favorite Disney movie. Well, it isn’t mine, but it’s pretty good. I like the mice (and their chipmunk-y voices), and the deliciously obnoxious step-sisters, and all of the other colorful supporting characters. The two leads are a bit flat by comparison, to be honest, but that doesn’t seem to have affected my enjoyment of the movie a great deal, either then or now.

10. Robin Hood (1973)

My childhood may be showing here, because there’s no denying the rampant recycling of previous animation that appears throughout Robin Hood. However, while that may make it look cheap within the larger context of the Disney canon, there’s nothing cheap about the thrills this movie offers. Featuring another all-star cast voicing a menagerie of colorful animal characters, Robin Hood one-ups The Jungle Book with more action and more comedy (though, it must be said, inferior songs). I could watch it over and over and over again. In fact, I have.

9. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Sleeping Beauty is a fascinating, though costly at the time, departure for Disney, who opted for a totally new visual style inspired by medieval artwork in bringing this fairy tale to life. The public’s failure to embrace this artistic choice ushered in the xeroxing era of One Hundred and One Dalmatians and following, but we’re still left with the rewarding artistry of this lone gem sandwiched between two distinct eras of Disney animation.

8. Pinocchio (1940)

So many sequences in Pinocchio are deeply frightening that, rewatching it for the first time in many, many years, I recalled why I didn’t care for it a great deal as a child (though I know I saw it a number of times). I think what kept pulling me back as a youngster was the lush animation and rich characterization that brings the story to life, and that’s certainly what I appreciate now. This is a classic in ever sense of the word.

7. The Little Mermaid (1989)

There’s a reason why The Little Mermaid heralded an era of renewed creativity for Disney animation. Everything about it exudes new life and new energy, from the detailed wonders of Ariel’s undersea home to the Jamaican-inspired show-stoppers that give it the feel of a hit Broadway musical. Maybe the most incredible thing about it is that, despite the great entertainment it offers, it was just the beginning of a meteoric rise to ever-greater heights.

6. Peter Pan (1953)

This movie has everything: pirates, Indian stereotypes, mermaids, fairies, swashbuckling, flight, and kids who enjoy a perpetual youth without authority figures. And, although its treatment of the original source is perhaps the essence of “Disneyfication,” no one really seems to mind in this case. This was my favorite Disney film for many, many years, and I still feel like I’m guaranteed a good time whenever I watch it.

5. Aladdin (1992)

Aladdin is so good, I almost have to forgive it for igniting the celebrity voice actor trend and the Disney direct-to-video sequel trend. Robin Williams embodies his character too perfectly to wish for another star, and it’s really no wonder Disney wanted to milk this franchise in light of its richly-deserved success. Aladdin’s greatest strengths, among many, are its ability to create and sustain such an exotic atmosphere and its zany, nonstop sense of humor (provided mostly, but not entirely, by Williams).

4. Dumbo (1941)

This is the shortest Disney feature that tells a single story, a simple but incredibly emotional tale about a flying elephant. Dumbo is another great example of early experimentation by the studio, with a lovable main character who never utters a single word, an especially organic blend of storytelling and score, and the truly bizarre (but awesomely surreal) “pink elephants” sequence. And, just as an aside, I think “When I See an Elephant Fly,” toe-tapping wordplay, might just be my favorite Disney song.

3. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

A decidedly weird choice of stories to turn into an animated Disney musical, if there’s one thing wrong with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (debatable), it’s that it is decidedly not a movie for children. Though not as dark as the Victor Hugo novel, it is plenty dark, and wrestles with mature themes that you just don’t expect to run into in a cartoon. Everything about this movie is a pleasant surprise, and the incredible musical numbers raise it to a level worthy of Broadway.

2. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

I never saw this as a kid, and when I finally got around to it, I realized that the movie that launched an industry so many decades ago turns out to be pretty flipping fantastic in its own right. Snow White accomplishes something that is virtually unprecedented in cinema history: it did something completely and totally new and transformative, and it accomplished it so flawlessly on the first try that the result is still a masterpiece, even by modern standards.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

I could go back and forth between Beauty and the Beast and Snow White for the top pick, but I would hate to suggest that Disney has never managed to improve on its very first effort (which I suppose might beg the question of whether one can improve on perfection). In any case, a scant few years after animation was considered a dying art form, Beauty and the Beast came bursting out of the animation ghetto to score a Best Picture nomination. Its excellence could not be contained, and it set a new standard for animated musicals that we are still enjoying.

And that’s it . . . 73 years, 50 films, lots of great storytelling, lots of great memories. What are your favorites, and why? What did I overrate, or underrate? While you’re thinking about it, enjoy this charming montage of moments from all of these films and let it jog your memory a bit. Happy reminiscing.