DISNEY - FANTASIA SET

Fantasia(1940):

The first Fantasia is truly a classic in every sense of
the word!!!! This has wonderful animation combined
with some of the best music created over the centuries!!! A+

A review from Amazon:

Groundbreaking on several counts, not the least of which
was an innovative use of animation and stereophonic sound,
this ambitious Disney feature has lost nothing to time since
its release in 1940. Classical music was interpreted by Disney
animators, resulting in surreal fantasy and playful escapism.
Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra provided
the music for eight segments by the composers Tchaikovsky,
Moussorgsky, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Bach, Dukas,
and Schubert. Not all the sequences were created equally, but
a few are simply glorious, such as "Night on Bald Mountain,"
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and "The Nutcracker Suite." The
animation ranges from subtly delicate to fiercely bold. The
screen bursts with color and action as creatures transmute
and convention is thrust aside. The painstaking detail and
saturated hues are unique to this film, unmatched even by
more advanced technology. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Not as impressed with this one!! Actually found it quite
boring!! C+

A review from Amazon.com:

More ambitious in scope than any of its other animated
films (before or to come), Disney's 1940 Fantasia was a
dizzying, magical, and highly enjoyable marriage of
classical music and animated images. Fantasia 2000
features some breathtaking animation and storytelling,
and in a few spots soars to wonderful high points, but
it still more often than not has the feel of walking in its
predecessor's footsteps as opposed to creating its own
path. A family of whales swimming and soaring to Respighi's
The Pines of Rome is magical to watch, but ends all too
soon; a forest sprite's dance of life, death, and rebirth
to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring too clearly echoes the
original Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria
sequence. But when it's on target, Fantasia 2000 is
glorious enough to make you giddy. Hans Christian
Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is a perfect
narrative set to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2,
and Donald Duck's guest appearance as the assistant
to Noah(of ark fame) set to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance
marches is a welcome companion piece (though not
an equal) to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the one original
Fantasia piece included here. The high point of Fantasia
2000, though, is a fantastic day-in-the-life sequence of
1930s New York City set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
and animated in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld;
it's a perfect melding of music, story, and animation.
Let's hope future Fantasias (reportedly in the works)
take a cue from the best of this compilation. The music
is provided by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted
by James Levine, interspersed with negligible intros by
Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl
Jones, and others. --Mark Englehart

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