We all need an escape right now. Here’s what I’ve got for you today.
I will freely admit that this is inspired by another March Madness-style bracket I saw floating around Twitter, combining some (but not all) of the films from the Walt Disney Animation Studios canon as well as many of Pixar’s films. The seeding and placement were somewhat baffling to me, though it likely falls in line with personal preference — in one 16-title bracket, Tarzan was seeded 2, Toy Story 2 was seeded 7, and when pitted against each other, Tarzan won.
Now, I can’t control which films win in this bracket. I can encourage you to vote, however. And if you viewed the bracket above carefully, you might be able to see that you need to vote on something right now. There are 58 films in the Walt Disney Animation Studios canon, which left six spots missing. I’ve chosen a number of films with ties to Disney Animation, like Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, as well as films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, which are treated close to canon-like at the Disney theme parks.
Ah, but there’s two films vying for the 10 seed in one bracket, and they’re coincidentally both directed by the same animator, Kevin Lima: Enchanted and A Goofy Movie. You can vote in the poll via this tweet.
Starting tomorrow, April 9, I’ll post four polls per day, with four different matchups. My plan is to culminate everything on Friday, May 1, meaning that I’ll skip any polls on the weekend. So, tell your friends and make sure to vote.
Your Recommendation for Today
I’ll be writing at length about A Goofy Movie in a freelance capacity soon, so I’ll skip recommending that here. Instead, let’s recommend the other title being voted on today, Enchanted. Real talk: I don’t love this movie. I like it a great deal thanks primarily to three performances.
Amy Adams, James Marsden, and Timothy Spall are all god-level in this film, period, full stop. Adams should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her screwball-comic performance, with a range of emotions flitting over her face often in the span of seconds. It’s an incredibly challenging performance that she pulls off with aplomb. Marsden is doing the charming-doofus thing years before Chris Pratt became a movie star thanks to riffing on the same beat. And Spall is gleefully over-the-top as a self-loathing lackey who slowly approaches self-awareness.
The movie surrounding them has flashes of vibrancy, as in the “How Do You Know” production number. It also has Susan Sarandon making very questionable acting choices with her tongue (literally), and very bland performances from the actors in the “real world” environment. But man, when Adams and Marsden are the focal points of a scene, with Spall flitting around, this thing is aces. (It would get my pick in today’s vote.)