The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on April 2, 2014

This my no-brainer choice as a topic for this blogathon. This is because I knew many of the individual films I was likely to want to cover would be taken, and because I had already toyed with this idea in the past. As I started to develop the list it...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 29, 2014

Yes, this is an advertisement, and a webtoon at that, however, even in advertising there is room for creativity. Also, as I have discussed before with Disney animated shorts there is room for advancement without neglecting the past. Here to introduce Disney’s then-new online check-in for their   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 27, 2014

You may or may not have heard that Disney had filed suit against Phase 4 for trademark infringement. Basically, the claim Disney was making was a rather obvious one: owing to the success of Frozen Phase 4 decided to try to bamboozle more unwitting consumers in the market place by...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 25, 2014

In screening Interior. Leather Bar. the other day oddly enough the perfect segue to discussing the stigma or connotation that an actor participating in Disney film is hung with. Interior. Leather Bar. is a film that toes the line of narrative documentary in an attempt to recreate/reimagine the foot   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 23, 2014

It’s not exactly a new phenomena that I’ve seen creeping up on the internet lately. Disney films, whether Walt was at the helm or not, have always been rife , fertile grounds for actual and fraudulent film theorists alike to put forth their theories. When discussing actual theories I mean...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 22, 2014

Whether one is fully aware of it or not, foreign Disney branches and the foreign Disney parks do contribute to the canon. Here is a short Holiday (Christmas) themed greeting featuring Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit (Walt’s first creation), and his girl Ortensia. It’s interesting for both thos   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 21, 2014

Introduction Leslie Nielsen as The Swamp Fox A few other things that come to mind when I think of Disney are apparent in the series “The Swamp Fox.” They are the association with music (while both the theme songs are good, Elfego Baca’s doesn’t have the earworm quality of this...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 20, 2014

Introduction This is a post for the Big Stars on the Small Screen blogathon. The titles and actors I chose to cover are Robert Loggia as Elfego Baca, and Leslie Nielsen as The Swamp Fox (Tomorrow). Both of these television narratives aired in rotating fashion on an ABC program called...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 19, 2014

There are likely a branches of the Disney media empire I’m not too big a fan of, perhaps the one that is the most confounding to me is the line of altered-for-younger-audiences musicals like Aladdin Jr., The Little Mermaid, Jr. and the like. Part of what I really don’t get...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 15, 2014

If there was something I wanted to shout from the rooftops after having seeing Get a Horse! was “Thank God for Disney (as a company) not completely forgetting Mickey Mouse’s roots but also fighting to keep him relevant and update his image.” Of course, I knew that there were new...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 12, 2014

Labor Day I will try and promise that this is my one release date/calendar rant of the year, but I will try and make it count for something. Here I will discuss the release path of Labor Day and some issues with the film calendar that it illuminates. Now as...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 11, 2014

The cliche is that Disney is all happy puppies, sing-a-longs and Hollywood endings. Yes, Disney did defend his work by saying “Everyone is a little bit corny.” However. his films did get away with more than we often give them credit for because of the way they end. There are...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 10, 2014

Introduction Last year to coincide with a trip to Walt Disney World in March, I decided to have a month-long focus on Disney fare. Their vaults are vast and varied enough such that this is a theme that could recur annually. Below you will find links to the inaugural posts...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 9, 2014

Introduction Last year to coincide with a trip to Walt Disney World in March, I decided to have a month-long focus on Disney fare. Their vaults are vast and varied enough such that this is a theme that could recur annually. Below you will find links to the inaugural posts...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 8, 2014

While I feel it’s a bit thematically similar to last year’s Paperman there’s no doubt that The Blue Umbrella is another very strong Disney/Pixar short. It’s especially impressive in its animation technique, which looks nearly photo-realistic at times, and is, of course, visua   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 7, 2014

Introduction Last year to coincide with a trip to Walt Disney World in March, I decided to have a month-long focus on Disney fare. Their vaults are vast and varied enough such that this is a theme that could recur annually. Below you will find links to the inaugural posts...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 4, 2014

As profiled on one of my newer pages this is my annual tribute to Disney and its works in all shapes and sizes. On the aforementioned page you can see the titles I have profiled in the past. This year I am seeking to cover a few more and dip...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 2, 2014

As has become tradition I will drop here my off-the-cuff thoughts on the ceremonies and the winners as they proceed. Enjoy. Red Carpet I intended to cover more of the red carpet this year because I haven’t seen an awful lot of the nominated films, but I tuned in about...   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on March 1, 2014

In my intermittent posts on the blog lately I have neglected to mention this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts. If you’d like to see the films either ahead of, or just after tomorrow’s Academy Award ceremonies. You can find information on a number of streaming/on demand options here.   read more

The Movie Rat Posted by Bernardo Villela on February 26, 2014

For all intents and purposes 31 Days of Oscar, for me, has been snowed out this year. What I mean by this is that there were many demands on my concentration between script rewrites, home renovations, the Winter Olympics and the like it was hard to get any momentum built...   read more