Disney's Plans For 20th Century Fox Are Coming Into Place And They Aren't Pretty

This week, a more concrete picture of what exactly Disney has in place for 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight came into light by way of an updated schedule for upcoming Disney theatrical releases and a comment made by Disney head Bob Iger regarding how many annual releases we can expect from the new version of 20th Century Fox. Let's first talk about the more light-hearted news regarding release date changes for upcoming 20th Century Fox movies before we move on to the more pressing matter of the substantially smaller release slate we can now expect from what used to be one of the biggest movie studios on the planet.

Five Disney Brands That Never Managed To Take Off (In Laman's Terms)

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

So apparently, sometime tomorrow, Disney will officially announce that they've acquired all the media assets of 21st Century Fox, which includes the movie studio 20th Century Fox. To put it simply, I absolutely hate this news from top to bottom. I hate how it removes high-profile competition for Disney, I hate how now so many major American movies will be controlled by one studio, I hate how Disney will effectively be giving the Murdoch family $60+ billion to expand their Fox News state media emporium to a worldwide audience, I hate how Disney will likely shutter indie movie studio Fox Searchlight....there's just so much to hate here.

Come Sing Along With The Thoroughly Delightful Mary Poppins

I have been a Disney geek my entire life, to the point that my first word uttered on this planet was "Disney". I was doomed from the start to be a total nerd for all things Disney which is a key reason why I have such an encyclopedic knowledge of animated Disney fare and hold the man known as Walt Disney in such high esteem. Despite all of that though, I'd somehow never seen the movie Mary Poppins until just a few days ago. Perhaps the running time had put me off the movie as a lad, or perhaps because I wasn't as enamored with other classic live-action Disney movies as I was with classic animated Disney fare, but whatever the reason, Mary Poppins had evaded my eyeballs for over two decades of my life.

Disney's Live-Action Beauty And The Beast Is Overly Derivative Of The Original Animated Classic But Is Still An Entertaining Musical Romp

This new live-action take on Beauty And The Beast is an oddball little movie. It wants to be so much like the original 1991 animated classic its remaking, yet it also wants to be a more quasi-realistic take on the source material. That sense of realism also rubs up against its desire to be a big splashy over-the-top musical in some spots. When it just goes for being a straightforward fairy tale (not unlike the tone set forth in Jean Cocteau's 1946 take on this tale as old as time), it actually works fine. When it's trying to figure out how to ground things in realism while also being overly slavishly faithful to the original movie, well, that's when problems emerge.

Art And Humanity Collide In Life, Animated

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs turns 80 years old. Think about that for a second. This movie is only 20 years away from having existed for an entire century. While Snow White and her diminutive pals may be the oldest film in the Walt Disney Animation Studios library, it's far from the only movie the studio has created that's endured throughout the decades. Thes likes of Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo and Mickey Mouse have been entertaining kids and adults alike for so long now, it's impossible to imagine the current pop culture landscape would even exist without them. But how do films like these manage to keep going on from generation to generation? Maybe it's because for many, these Disney animated films aren't just movies but a way to understand the world around them.

Queen Of Katwe Has Absolutely No Trouble Lifting One's Spirit

I am very much upfront about not being a sports guy myself but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy plenty of good sports movies. The key of course, like a large number of other mediums of cinematic storytelling, is to make the character key and central, the sport the individuals actually play in the plot services the characters and not the other way round. That's why Rocky, for instance, is a fantastic movie for both boxing fanatics and people like me that have never watched a second of an actual boxing match. While the debate rages on whether or not chess qualifies as a sport, the film Queen Of Katwe, the newest directorial effort from Mira Nair, once again proves how important interesting lead characters can be to a film, as the world of chess becomes just one part of the tale of a girl becoming herself amidst newfound worlds and interests.

The Light Between Oceans Isn't The Brightest Bulb When It Comes to Cohesive Storytelling And Directing

When Disney and DreamWorks partnered up for a distribution deal back in 2009, visions of their future together were filled with hope and glory. And while some noteworthy effort emerged from Disney distributing DreamWorks movies for them over the past five years (most notably in top-notch Steven Spielberg efforts like Bridge Of Spies and Lincoln), mostly it led to forgettable films like Real Steel , The Help, Delivery Man and Need For Speed. Now, the final film in the two studios deal, The Light Between Oceans, ends their distribution arrangement on a sour note. At least we'll always have War Horse.

Pete's Dragon Is Far More Heartwarming And Well-Crafted Than I Could Have Ever Expected

Pete's Dragon is a pretty blatant attempt to cash in on the success of two March 2010 family movies; Alice In Wonderland, which proved remaking classic Disney movies could be a fruitful road to profit, and How To Train Your Dragon, another tale of a boy and his dragon developing a friendship. I'm sure some Disney producer was looking around for other titles Disney could remake after Alice In Wonderland became such a massive box office bonanza and thought Pete's Dragon could coast on the coattails of How To Train Your Dragon nicely. Yep, this is a pretty cynical cash-grab, a marketer's most serene fantasy....and it's also an emotionally thrilling with an excellent script and plenty of strong performances. Who'da thunk?

The Jungle Book Review

I'm a hardcore Disney fan (my first word as a human being, believe it or not, was Disney), but, to be perfectly frank, this new wave of live-action adaptations of classic Disney cartoons hasn't really done much for me. Alice In Wonderland was typical modern day Tim Burton pablum, Maleficent's few interesting ideas (namely weaving in a metaphor for rape into the backstory of its titular character) were severely overshadowed by how tedious and uninspired the rest of the film's story and characters were and Cinderella was only inoffensive at best. But finally, oh finally, one of these live-action adaptations has finally turned out to be a well-made movie in its own right.

A New BFG Trailer Has Arrived For All Of Us Human Beans to Watch!

Roal Dahl is a trick author to adapt to film. His works were so full of flights of the most fantastical kind of fantasy that it can be difficult for certain filmmakers to adapt such works into cohesive features. Tim Burtons Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, for instance, does not work in any shape or form any way you slice it. As its own thing, it's a repetitive slog sorely lacking in whimsy or fun, while as an adaptation it's borderline infuriating. Like I said, the books of Dahl thrived on the nonsensical and all of that vagary found in the text is tossed aside so that the root of all of Willy Wonka's idiosyncrasies are....daddy issues. His father was dentist ya see. Not only did it go against the spirit of the source material, it was an eye-rolling plot development take in the context of just the film itself. Screw that garbage.

Disney And Marvel Announce Protest Against LGBTQA-Discriminatory Bill In Georgia

Over in the state of Georgia, there is a "religious liberty bill" that will allow businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples. How far has this bill gotten? Well, the only thing preventing it from being enacted currently is the approval of Governor Nathan Deal. Numerous figures have already showed resistance to such a law coming to fruition, for obvious reasons, including the NFL (who are noting that such a law being passed could put Georgia out of the running for being a state to host the Super Bowl) and now, another big company has thrown their support behind dismissing the bill.

Five Underrated Disney Songs

It's hard to resist the various musical numbers found in a number of the 55 films in the Disney Animation canon, but in my book there's a couple of these tunes that could definitely stand to be more well-known. Thus, I've compiled a piece to examine five songs from classic Disney features that really do deserve more recognition for their accomplishments in numerous areas. For full disclosure, the only criteria to be eligible for this list is that the song had to be from the Disney Animation canon (which excludes films like Enchanted) and could not be nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar.

Now, let's get this started, shall we?

DreamWorks SKG To Leave Disney And Finally Reunite With Universal?

One of my all-time favorite books centering around Hollywood is The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte, a fascinating look at the highs and lows of DreamWorks SKG, a movie studio created by David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg in 1994. The saga of that studio looks to be continuing today, as The Hollywood Reporter notes that DreamWorks is likely looking to bail on their current distribution deal with Disney and go over to Universal.

Tron 3 Is Dead, Long Live Tron 3

There's no way in hell you haven't heard about this by now, but I just thought I'd toss in my two cents on the subject that's been grabbing headlines all weekend; Disney has cancelled Tron 3. The project had been pretty much declared dead until two months ago, when it was announced that the film would be shooting in October.

The Five Best Disney Villains

Writing about Treasure Planet last week got me to thinking about those wonderful animated Disney films that left such an impression on me on as a person After thinking about the topic over the course of the past few days, as well as reading Entertainment Weekly's ranking of 20 Disney villains songs, which insanely undervalued Hellfire), I thought I'd write about a crucial part of the movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios; the villains.

Two Of Quest For Camelots Songs Managed To Ape Disney While Creating Something Unique

Welcome to a new bi-weekly column called When Good Songs Happen To Bad Movies, in which I look at pretty well done songs that just so happened to debut in more subpar features.

Animation, like many other aspects of Hollywood that spawn success, seems to be a fertile ground for imitation, as seen by the surplus of fairy tale skewing animated features that were released in the wake of Shrek's phenomenal success or the insane amount of CGI animated films released in 2006 thanks to the success of Finding Nemo three years earlier. The 90's followed this sort of trend to a tee, with The Lion King's humongous box office managing to get every movie studio to create their own animation company to churn out would-be animation blockbusters.

And Now Winnie The Pooh Is Getting A Live-Action Remake

With Cinderella looking to make $500 million worldwide by the end of it's run, Disney is hellbent on making numerous other live-action remakes out of it's beloved animated features. Dumbo is on the way from Tim Burton, while 2016 will bring new updates of The Jungle Book and Pete's Dragon. Recently, Mulan got announced to be receiving a live-action update, and now Winnie The Pooh is getting ready for such treatment.

Star Wars 2016 Spin-Off Film Named Rogue One, Plus Episode 8 Release Date!

Well, some big news from that galaxy far far away just dropped today, as some crucial details about the next Star Wars films has been unveiled!

Tim Burton Is Directing A Live-Action Dumbo Movie. I Swear, This Isn't An Onion Headline

Disney's recent surge of converting their classic animated films to live-action/CGI features has only been done twice (I'd say count Oz The Great And Powerful, but it's not technically an extension of a Disney movie), but those two films were Alice In Wonderland and Maleficent, which both made big bucks at the box office. Hell, Alice managed to gross over billion dollars, paving the way for a sequel to that 2010 film (which arrives in 2016), as well as a cavalcade of updates to classic Disney movies.

Fifty Shades Of Grey Will Continue To Be The Box Office Winner This Weekend (Box Office Predictions)

It's really no question of who wins this forthcoming box office frame; Fifty Shades of Grey's record breaking $85 million opening weekend means it'll have no trouble securing a lead over the three new releases this weekend. Still, let's take a gander at those aforementioned newcomers, as there's certainly some variety in terms of genre's and stories among them.