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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs isn't just a beloved Disney classic, but also the first animated feature to revolutionize the animation industry. With stunning visuals, highly memorable musical numbers, and iconic character designs, the legacy of the original movie was always going to be difficult to surpass. Nevertheless, Disney and director Marc Webb sought to reimagine the 88-year-old movie for a new generation.

Starring Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, Snow White is far more than a live-action update on the animated classic. Similar to Disney's Cinderella remake from 2015, Snow White further fleshes out the titular heroine's backstory, both with the Evil Queen and her birth parents, which calls back to the original Grimm fairy tale, Schneewittchen. Though the movie aims to honor the legacy of the original movie while updating the story's more problematic elements, it does fall short on executing its...

Quick Links Disney Hit Its Peak Songwriting Era in the 1990s Disney Replaced Lin-Manuel Miranda in Moana 2 With TikTok Songwriters Lin Manuel-Miranda Is Writing the Music for Mufasa

Disney is doing a rare thing as the studio preps for the release of Moana 2 in late 2024 with a live-action adaptation of the film's predecessor, Moana (2016), in its creative pipeline. In recent years, the company seems to be relying less and less on original material and more on the clout of its prior hits. Disney's success tends to come and go in waves, yet it never completely loses its grip on the viewing public. It helps that the Walt Disney Company's founder and namesake, Walt Disney, laid solid groundwork in its early days when it comes to branding. Maybe that's why whenever the studio finds itself creatively stuck, it relies on nostalgia to keep the home fires burning.

With...

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is an Oscar frontrunner for best animated feature, and if it wins, it won’t be the first time the Academy has honored the wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy. In 1941, Walt Disney’s Pinocchio became the first animated feature to win Oscars for best original score and song, for “When You Wish Upon a Star.” The 1940 film, based on children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, was the second animated feature released by Disney, after 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (which, incidentally, also earned an Oscar nomination for original score). Composers Leigh Harline and Paul J. Smith, who had written the music for Snow White with Frank Churchill, were enlisted to craft Pinocchio‘s score. Harline and lyricist Ned Washington wrote the tune “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which was immediately recognized by Disney as...

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Walt Disney never quite had a “court composer” for his movies, although legends like Leigh Harline, Frank Churchill and Paul J. Smith contributed iconic scores and song melodies to Disney classics from Snow White and Pinocchio to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But for the past three decades, the music in Walt Disney features — and the features themselves — has been redefined to recapture and rebrand the musical, a medium long thought dead in film and even on the Broadway stage. And if there is one man who is largely responsible for this resurgence, it’s Alan Menken.

The composer’s melodies for songs — “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid, the title song to Beauty and the Beast, “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas, “True Love’s Kiss” from Enchanted — have become as indelible as anything produced in the world of popular music. Says...

After five years of combining animated short subjects, and a combo live-action/animation feature, Disney dove into full feature animation fantasy again with the most basic of Fairy Tales. Just because he learned to create animation for a price doesn’t mean that the quality slacked off — the wondrous design and animation is augmented by terrific songs. Yes, half the picture is about cute mice and birds and other critters … which are done so well, the show is worth seeing multiple times. This handsome Signature Collection release follows earlier Diamond and Platinum releases … and don’t ask me to decode that classification system.

Cinderella

Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Code

Walt Disney

1950 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 75 min. / The Signature Collection / Street Date June 25, 2019 / 39.99

Voice Actors: Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Lucille Bliss, Rhoda Williams, Verna Felton.

Songs: Mack David, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston

Directing Animators: Les Clark, Marc Davis, Norm Ferguson, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl,...

'The Letter' 1940, with Bette Davis 'The Letter' 1940 movie: Bette Davis superb in masterful studio era production Directed by William Wyler and adapted by Howard Koch from W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play, The Letter is one of the very best films made during the Golden Age of the Hollywood studios. Wyler's unsparing, tough-as-nails handling of the potentially melodramatic proceedings; Bette Davis' complex portrayal of a passionate woman who also happens to be a self-absorbed, calculating murderess; and Tony Gaudio's atmospheric black-and-white cinematography are only a few of the flawless elements found in this classic tale of deceit. 'The Letter': 'U' for 'Unfaithful' The Letter begins in the dark of night, as a series of gunshots are heard in a Malayan rubber plantation. Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) walks out the door of her house firing shots at (barely seen on camera) local playboy Jeff Hammond, who falls dead on the ground.

Given how revered Disney's "Pinocchio" is today, it's hard to believe it was a flop when it was first released exactly three quarters of a century ago. Upon its New York City premiere, on February 7, 1940, critics hailed the film as a masterpiece, and even to this day, many prefer it to Disney's pioneering first animated feature, 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Yet it took the film many years and multiple re-releases to make a profit.

Today, of course, the legacy of "Pinocchio" is inescapable. Everyone's image of the puppet-boy with the nose that grows when he lies comes not from Carlo Collodi's original novel but from the kid with the Tyrolean hat and the Mickey Mouse gloves, as drawn by Disney animators. And the opening tune, Jiminy Cricket's "When You Wish Upon a Star," is ubiquitous as the theme music played before every Walt Disney movie and home video release.

Intrada Records has announced a new edition of the soundtrack for Joe Dante’s 1985 fantasy movie Explorers. The album marks the world premiere release of the film’s score composed by Jerry Goldsmith and includes more than half an hour of previously unreleased music. Also included on the soundtack is the track Space Movie by Alexander Courage. The album is available to order on Intrada’s website, where you can also listen to audio clips from the release. Explorers stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as misfit best friends whose dreams of space travel become a reality when they create an interplanetary spacecraft in their homemade laboratory.

The label has also announced the world premiere release of the soundtrack for Walt Disney Pictures 1953 adventure classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The album features 78 minutes of the score by Paul J. Smith. For audio clips and to order the album, visit Intrada’s online store.