Contentar
Best movie of this year hands down!
PiraBit
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Kaelan Mccaffrey
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
JohnHowardReid
Pinocchio is such a masterpiece of enter¬tainment it seems churlish to start picking at the feast and making claims that some of the courses are more exciting to the film gour¬met than others. If you love every minute of Pinocchio with an equal passion (just as I love every minute of Snow White), I envy you.But as for me, stimulatingly colorful as I find the Monstro sequence, it is not an episode that I care to put through my projector five times a day. Once or twice a month is quite sufficient to whet my enthusiasm. The same goes for most of the early stuff with Geppetto too - though these are given added liveliness by dance and song. Even Pleasure Island starts to soften after a while (though familiarity will never dull the venom of The Coachman as animated by Vladimir Tytla and voiced with a Cockney accent by Charles Judels) and there have been days when I have felt - etched in such extraordinarily stark detail though the animation is - satiated by Stromboli.However, I can never get enough of Jiminy Cricket solo or J. Worthington Foulfellow paired with Gideon. (Figaro is a ceaseless source of joy too, though he is more difficult to isolate). My favorite sequence of course is the second. The rest of the film is full of wonder and enchantment, of marvelous technical effects and animation wizardry, of color and humor, of sly throwaways ("What does an actor need with a con¬science anyway?"), and sets of incredibly detailed imaginativeness, but they do not top Jack Kinney's astoundingly inventive episode which Walter Catlett brings so buoyantly to life.Kinney has constructed his whole sequence like a short cartoon. After a spectacular establishing shot of the whole town and some initial funny business with Pinocchio and Geppetto (which also cleverly provides us with needed background information), we are deftly introduced to the delightfully fruity Foulfellow and his comic companion. The action is brilliantly paced with episodes of fast and more furious slap¬stick interspersed with glib puns and such droll verbal humor as Honest John's vain attempt to spell Pinocchio. When John begins his famous song extolling the joys of the actor's life, Kinney's camera soars to the roof tops - a device that enables him to playfully contrast this birds' eye-view with the bizarre low angles of Jiminy Cricket. Rapid editing joined to a sophisticated, jaunty music score so further enhance these scenes they can be played over and over with no loss of expectation and enjoyment.All in all, Pinocchio is a treasure of moods and surprises, of quick-witted fun and even a little satire, of feline exasperation and crotchety humor ("I wonder what time it is?"), of the grotesquely amusing and the bizarrely droll, of silvery suspense and out-and-out terror. The wealth of detail in the craftsmanship and impeccable polish of the effects were never to be excelled and rarely equaled.
With overwhelming justification, many critics consider Pinocchio not only Walt Disney's masterpiece but the high point of cinematic animation. I don't dispute the second proposition - and if I didn't love Snow White so mightily I would certainly agree to the first!Pinocchio represents Disney at his weirdest (the movie is most definitely not suitable for young children), but also at his most inventive.
grantss
Jiminy Cricket finds himself at the home of Geppetto, a simple carpenter and toy-maker. Geppetto is old and his only company is his cat, Figaro, and goldfish, Cleo. He has made a toy puppet, Pinocchio, and wishes that the puppet was a real boy. To his astonishment, this comes true. Pinocchio now sets about behaving like a real boy, with Jiminy as his guide and conscience, but the novelty of being a wooden boy soon attracts the attention of some unscrupulous characters.Sweet, fun movie. Iconic too - one of the first movies you associate with Disney. Gave the world "When you wish upon a star", pretty much the Disney anthem.Not perfect though. After a wonderful start it does degenerate into a rambling adventure from a point. Not quite as profound or emotional as some other Disney movies, eg Bambi.Still a great watch though and ideal for all ages.
Byrdz
It has been ages since I watched Pinocchio. I remember being scared of Monstro as a kid and years later having to take a little boy out to the theater lobby when "the whale scene" came on. That segment is still a bit unsettling.The songs are still memorable. The fuzzy villains are so well done that they are actually "cute" doing their evil deeds. The human ones, not so much... but I do have a problem with people of their ilk.The typical "child in jeopardy", "child separated from parent" so beloved by the Disney Studio is here in spades but it works better here than in some of the later Disney films.The animated clocks and music boxes. Great stuff. Details galore. Worth using the pause and reverse buttons to look things over.Figaro ! One of the BEST cats ever. The disgruntled way he gets up to open the window is just terrific. Again, a little detail that works.Nostalgia ? Maybe. But then maybe not. It's a really good film and well worth watching.
Michael_Elliott
Pinocchio (1940) **** (out of 4)Disney's second feature tells the classic story of an elderly toy maker who makes a wooden puppet he calls Pinocchio. Before bed the old man wishes that he had a real boy and for that the fairy godmother brings the wooden doll to life but before he can become a real boy he must prove himself to be good.It's funny to think that upon its original release PINOCCHIO really didn't do that well at the box office and it ended up really hurting the studio. Of course when the film is discussed today it is considered one of the studio's best and most loved films and there's no question that there's really nothing like it. The story has been told countless times by a variety of people but nothing has come close to the magic of this movie.I use the term magic because when you get older and view this movie you can't help but be rather amazed at what all it contains. Of course there's the sweet side of the older man wanting a boy of his own and then there's the side of a puppet wanting to become a real boy. Both of these characters are great as is the Jiminy Cricket character who adds some nice laughs. Not only do you have the cute and charming side but there's also a very dark side to the film.It's funny but many people call this one of the scariest movies they've ever seen and you can read stories about how this movie traumatized young children. The scenes at Pleasure Island where kids are stolen from their families and turned into donkeys is just so dark yet at the same time you can't help but appreciate the message. Finally, there's the action inside the whale, which just adds to a great little sequence full of adventure and fun. Throw in the "When You Wish Upon a Star" song and you've really got one of the most complete Disney movies out there. As you'd expect, the animation from these original Disney features is wonderful and I really loved the terrific detail. Of course animation improved over the years but there's still something special and unique to these original Disney movies. PINOCCHIO is clearly one of the studio's best.
