The Ultimate Walt Disney Company Performances Bracket -- Round One, Day Twenty-Four

I'm a fancy lad!

I will once again encourage you to ignore the fact that the photo above this sentence references a film that you are not voting on today. Look only at the performer! Or look here at the words in this paragraph before scrolling down to vote on more performances! (And by the way, with today’s matches, we’re getting ever closer to the second round.)

Let’s dive right in, friends! Or…just keep voting?

(6) Ellen DeGeneres, Finding Nemo vs. (59) Dennis Quaid, The Rookie: Listen, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I think Ellen DeGeneres is great on the whole. (There’s enough evidence, with or without a meme of Dakota Johnson glaring on the set of her talk show, to suggest the opposite is much closer to true.) But her performance as Dory wasn’t just enough to help catapult her back into fame; it’s both extraordinarily funny and surprisingly emotional. (Very much the Pixar formula by now.) Dennis Quaid does not stand a chance.

(27) Brian Cox, 25th Hour vs. (38) Bryce Dallas Howard, Pete’s Dragon (2016): I am on record, often, as saying that the 2016 remake of Pete’s Dragon is tender and heartfelt and easily the best of the Disney remakes. And Bryce Dallas Howard’s warm and emotional performance is a big part of what makes the film work. I don’t want to dismiss her performance here, and I won’t be sad if she wins.

However. Brian Cox — if only for the final scene of Spike Lee’s brilliant 25th Hour — ought to get this. Both of these actors are doing excellent work, as parental figures of different kinds, but Cox is the big winner in my opinion. What do you think?

(11) Angela Lansbury, Beauty and the Beast vs. (54) Chris Elliott, Cabin Boy: Wouldn’t it be wild if I said you should vote for Chris Elliott here? Of course it would! But I’m not that crazy, because Angela Lansbury is a legend, and that’s that. Sorry, fancy lad.

(22) Dwayne Johnson, Moana vs. (43) Irene Bedard, Pocahontas: While I do enjoy the songs in Pocahontas — aspects of that film are arguably underrated, such as the music and animation, and other aspects (such as…y’know, the story) are not — I can’t give much credit to Irene Bedard for that since she did not provide the singing voice for Pocahontas. And Dwayne Johnson, to his credit, very much did provide the singing voice for Maui. A solid voice performance all around, and that’s more than enough to send him through to the next round for me. What say you?