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By Michael - October 27th, 2011
Earlier this month I had the privilege of writing a piece for Storyboard, the official blog of the Walt Disney Family Museum. As readers will know, I’m a big fan of the museum so I was very glad to be able to help out. My story concerns the making of The Great Locomotive [...]
By Michael - April 12th, 2011

After a decade of troubled development, Disney Feature Animation’s take on the Rapunzel fairy tale finally arrived in theaters last fall. Despite near-constant meddling from executives and marketing mavens during those long years, Tangled scored a hit with both critics and audiences, and is one of the most thoroughly satisfying offerings from Disney animators in years.
While it took Tangled‘s sizable domestic and international box office take to offset the massive costs incurred by a decade of endlessly rebooted production, the fact is that the film was a big hit – which makes it all that much more confusing that its home video release (available on DVD , Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo , and Four-Disc Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo ) is so embarrassingly sparse. There are probably about 4-5 different versions of this film that were developed in the last ten years, and barely any of that work is hinted at in this release’s extra features. The apparent disregard by Disney’s home video department for fans and animation buffs is pretty glaring by this point, and the fact that a major new release comes out with barely any supplemental material shows how far things have fallen off at the studio since the glory days of the early 2000s. That being said, the movie is still excellent and well worth your time, so you might as well give into the darkness and check out this bare bones release!
Continue reading Progress City Home Theater: Tangled
By Michael - February 16th, 2011

Disney’s roll-out of classic titles on Blu-ray continues with the recent release of 1951′s Alice in Wonderland in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. While the high-definition release adds little new bonus content, the slate of extras ported over from previous DVD releases means that Alice still features far more to see than most new Disney home video releases.
Continue reading Progress City Home Theater: Alice in Wonderland – 60th Anniversary Special Edition
By Michael - December 17th, 2010
Oh Disney, what have you done?
Walt Disney’s 1940 masterpiece Fantasia and its millennial sequel Fantasia 2000 have been re-released in a “2-Movie Collection Special Edition” on both Blu-ray and DVD. Originally planned as part of the “Diamond” series of classic film releases, this “Special Edition” is anything but, skimping on the extras [...]
By Michael - December 16th, 2010
The third of the new documentary releases we’re reviewing, Waking Sleeping Beauty looks at the animation renaissance that occurred at Disney in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Directed by longtime Disney producer Don Hahn, the film is an absolute cannot-miss must-see treat for any fan of animation. The quality of the film [...]
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Four Decades of Magic

Essays about the first forty years of Walt Disney World, including two pieces by yours truly. Available in print and for Kindle.
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