We Want The D

We're in that spooky time of year again, D-Lovers, and that means its time to tap that rich vein of theatrical Disney Halloween movies...unfortunately thanks to our Halloween month a few years back that vein is mostly dry, so we're left with material like THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. While probably the closest thing to a straight-up horror movie that Disney has ever done, all the classic set-ups for...

We Want The D returns to the romantic life of the traveling circus in this week's episode. Vicky, Nolan and Jill are once again itching to be charmed by wild animals in small cages, casual child endangerment, and that good 1880s era stank. And boy does Disney's TOBY TYLER deliver on all those fronts and more. It's hard not be delighted by recurring We Want The D favourite Kevin Corcoran (aka Jimmy...

Oh. My. God. D-Lovers - have you seen Disney's MALEFICENT? Have you seen how good Angelina Jolie looks in this movie? Have you seen her incredible performance as Maleficent? She's so powerful, so beautiful; whether she is wearing a cowl of snake skin or black silk. With or without her wings (so cruelly garotted off by Shartlo Copley) she strikes a very good silhouette, always perfectly lit. She is...

This week on We Want The D we're going back to a simpler time. A time when Disney animation was crisp and beautiful, with nary a hint of xerography. A time when you could make a movie about a princess who only says about sixteen lines of dialogue. A time when film run times were tight, villains were straight-forwardly evil, and you could arrange a marriage between two children while one was prepub...

It's the conclusion to We Want The D's Summer of Pirates and much like the franchise, our hosts are all worn out. For a series that start on a such high note of optimism and celebration, things sure have come a long way. Last week, Vicky, Nolan and Jill raged against the fourth installment of Disney's mega-franchise - this week it's a sad acceptance where all they could do is laugh at the ridiculo...

The Summer of Pirates continues on We Want The D with the fourth installment of the franchise, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES. The people may have been hungry for more Jack Sparrow after the conclusion of the initial trilogy, but Vicky, Nolan and Jill can't imagine anyone who felt satisfied by this high budget television episode of a movie. Disney managed to pull off a film that sorta...

Vicky, Nolan and Jill have made their annual pilgrimage to Bob's Lake, which means its time to check in on the Szalinksi family one last time in We Want The D's first foray into direct-to-video Disney. HONEY, WE SHRUNK OURSELVES lacks the budget and much of the cast of the first two films; but what it lacks in those areas is more than makes up for in product placement and some unfortunate implicat...

We Want The D presents another history lesson on the turbulent tenure of Disney CEO Michael Eisner in this special mini-episode. This time, we learn about how Roy Disney leveraged his family name and legacy to oust the man he believed was destroying it.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: after a bitter falling out, the parents of infant twins separate, but rather than splitting custody they each take one of the children and disappear from the others' lives. Later in life, the identical twins meet and an intense rivalry develops. Now we know what you're thinking, our hosts have already done both The Parent Trap movies, and you are correct. B...

As we've established (many times) before, the 1980s were a weird time for Disney, as the flailing and ailing company tried to outgrow their family-first approach with a more mature and gritty series of films. Most of the time, that didn't go over so well. At least once, however, they managed to harness a perfect storm of creatives and performers to make one of the most fascinating, ugly, dense and...

We'll be honest: this episode of We Want The D is a bit all over the place. But we're not going to apologize for it! How could you expect Vicky, Nolan and Jill to seriously discuss yet another live action Disney movie from the 1970s without breaking. The mere premise of this movie - "nowhere in the rulebook does it say a mule can't play football!" - is just the tip of the iceberg in how this film...

In this week's episode, Vicky, Nolan and Jill are unpacking why a movie that seems to have so much going for it can still end up failing. Disney's ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE has the pedigree of Trousdale and Wise; the voice talents of Michael J. Fox, James Garner and Cree Summer (to name only a few); and an art style inspired by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola - but for all of that it is as hollow, va...

The last time we saw Troy, Gabriella and the rest of the Wildcats they were leaving behind their high school (musical) days at the end of senior year, with little to no context of how they got there. This week on We Want The D, Vicky, Nolan and Jill are remedying that by checking out the middle installment of the Disney Channel Original phenomenon, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2. This time the Wildcats are...

It seems fitting that the longest film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise would mean an extra-bloated episode of We Want The D. But in our defense, AT WORLD'S END has a lot to unpack in terms of sheer plot. Each character has their own scheme to follow, their own betrayal to make, and for chrissakes they spend the first hour just trying to bring Jack Sparrow back from the dead. This may be...

This week's episode of We Want The D is all about a movie about overcoming adversity and obstacles to achieve your dreams. It doesn't matter if you're an unwanted orphan during the great depression. It doesn't matter if you're a pint-sized teenager surrounded by movie star wannabes, gingers who can't grill hot dogs, or a gruff mentor with bad hair extensions. It doesn't because, as the title of th...

Welcome to the most self-indulgent episode of We Want The D to date! In this special mini-episode Vicky, Nolan and Jill look back at all the most ridiculous, boring and flat-out bad Disney movies we've watched over the past 100+ episodes and try to come up with a definitive list of the ten worst Disney movies we've watched to date. Each of our hosts brings their own opinions to the table and duke...

This week on We Want The D, it's a tale of two grandfathers. One, a lumber magnate who started from the bottom and now is in command of his own massive logging enterprise, but still has a soft spot for his young-yet-corpse-like grandchildren. The other, a gnome who is despondent to the point of illness because his adult grandson will never get laid after all the other gnomes in their forest vanish...

The Summer of Pirates continues on We Want The D! The second installment of Disney's seafaring franchise has pretty much the whole behind and in front of the camera team returning with bigger action, bigger boats and almost certainly bigger paychecks. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST may have crammed way more action sequences and plot into what amounts to essentially half a story, but it...

We've established in past episodes that the early years of Disney weren't exactly smooth sailing for the company, what with that pesky Second World War and those damn communist animators striking for better wages or whatever. This week on We Want The D, we're taking on one of Disney's efforts to stay afloat without breaking the bank with THE RELUCTANT DRAGON. The title animated segment is just a s...

To celebrate the release of Disney's live action version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on blu-ray, DVD and Clamshell VHS; We Want The D is releasing our episode discussing the film. Recorded just a few days after Vicky, Nolan and Jill saw the movie in theatres, it's a blast from the recent past that will answer all your burning questions about how our hosts felt about this interpretation of these belove...

This week, it's another dead and deadbeat parents, fun concept turned into margarine on bleached cardboard, wrong-headed casting decisions extravaganza. And, for Vicky, Nolan and Jill, one of the most egregious examples at that. Disney did almost everything wrong in spotlight some classic Nazi comedy, doubling down with teacher-on-student bullying, and putting Lauren Graham in the worst outfit to...

Welcome, D-sciples, to the Summer of Pirates! We Want The D is celebrating the decades old tradition of blockbuster season by dedicating the next five months to one of Disney's most successful franchises, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. On the eve of the release of a fifth installment that nobody really asked for or wanted, Vicky, Nolan and Jill go back to where it all began - when a big budget movie ba...

It's prom season, y'all. The time of year when teenagers get all gussied up, tearfully reminisce about all those good high school times, and get underage drunk. Of course in Disney's PROM only two of those three things are going to happen. Vicky, Nolan and Jill may have grown somewhat cynical about this "greatest night of our lives" event, but our hosts still had a blast talking about this movie....

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...   DISNEY'S THE BLACK HOLE Episode I: We Just Made the One Episode A small tuna can-shaped ship drifts through the blackness of space, on a long search for intelligent life or a hospitable planet, or something like that. Crewed by an unlikely group of largely boring versions of better actors, as well as Ernest Borgnine and Norman Bates from Psycho, and on...

We've talked our fair share about Disney's recent trend of remaking their animated classics into live action spectacles here on We Want The D. But somehow, we forgot that this trend it older than the past few years. That in fact it dates back to the mid 90s, when for some reason, the people running the House of Mouse decided it would be a good idea to throw an absurd amount of money at making a li...