Author Archives: stationmaster

Giving De Vil Her Due Part 2 (Hey, That Rhymed!)

Better the Devil You Know: 102 Dalmatians (2000) Since I specifically mentioned the opening credits sequences for the first two Dalmatians movies, I should note this one has a surreal visual one much like the original animated film. It’s not … Continue reading

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Giving De Vil Her Due Part 1

In my last post, I mentioned that one of my favorite things I’ve written on this blog has been a series about the 2014 movie, Maleficent, despite my having-at best-a very mixed opinion on it. I published it to coincide … Continue reading

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How Into the Woods (2014) is Messy but Worthwhile and Why That’s Weirdly Appropriate

Many eyebrows were raised when it was first announced that Disney would be doing a movie adaptation of the 1987 stage musical Into the Woods. Dark, cynical, adult deconstructions of fairy tales are kind of the opposite of what we … Continue reading

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The Real Problem with Emma (2020)

Back in 2022, I did a blog post about the three movie adaptations of Emma by Jane Austen. I had a middling reaction to the one from 2020. I admired what a good job Eleanor Catton’s screenplay did of compressing … Continue reading

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You’re On the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 3

Show the World What You Can Do: The Peanuts Movie (2015) When the news that Blue Sky Studios would be making a computer animated movie based on the Peanuts characters was announced, it was met with some skepticism. Blue Sky’s … Continue reading

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You’re on the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 2

Free as Running Water, Fresh as Morning Dew: Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977) The first line of this movie’s opening song is “it’s a new day,” and that’s appropriate since the third Peanuts film represents a lot of … Continue reading

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You’re On the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 1

In the past, I’ve lamented on this blog that of all the Peanuts specials, only A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are beloved when there are so many others just as great or greater to … Continue reading

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Adaptations as Introductions vs Adaptations as Commentary

This post is going to be a bit different from my usual. I’m going to be discussing a certain kind of adaptation, which I’ll call “the adaptation as commentary,” its advantages and disadvantages. As examples, I’ll be using two movies … Continue reading

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The Greatest David Copperfield but Not the Greatest David Copperfield

When I was writing my post about two movie adaptations of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, my original plan was to do a quick summary of my thoughts on my favorite adaptation, the BBC’s 1999 two-part miniseries. Maybe something along the … Continue reading

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Animation Station: The Amazing Balancing Act That Is Phineas and Ferb

For a brief interval, (theater) enables us to become gods. Stripped of all nonessentials, that, I think, is the ultimate nature of the theatrical passion, and that is why in one form or another, practically everything that goes on in … Continue reading

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