Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
It’s Spring Bank Holiday in May in the UK today! 🙂 It’s been a while since I did one of these, so let’s do another Disney+ Roundup on three films I’ve seen recently. Again, I know I’m behind on some ‘Star Wars’ and ‘MCU’ shows on Disney+, but hopefully I’ll get to check them out soon for my blog. 🙂
The first of the three films I saw recently on Disney+ is ‘Herbie Rides Again’, a 1974 film, which is a sequel to the 1968 film ‘The Love Bug’, which I reviewed quite recently earlier this year. 🙂 I enjoyed checking out ‘Herbie Rides Again’. I vaguely recall watching the film one Christmas back in the 1990s.
The film has a different cast though. Instead of Dean Jones, Michele Lee, David Tomlinson and Buddy Hackett, we have Helen Hayes, Ken Berry, Stefanie Powers, Keenan Wynn and John McIntire. Herbie, the titular ‘love bug’, is still in the film of course, and there are a few flashbacks to the previous film.
In ‘Herbie Rides Again’, the living Volkswagen Beetle helps an old lady to protect her home from a corrupt developer. Helen Hayes plays Mrs. Steinmetz, the old lady who is determined not to have her home demolished. She happens to be a nice lady, though she can be eccentric regarding Herbie.
She happens to be the aunt of mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz, played by Buddy Hackett in ‘The Love Bug’. I didn’t register that when seeing the film. Mrs. Steinmetz is helped by her neighbour – Stefanie Powers as Nicole, as well as Ken Berry as Willoughby, who is actually the nephew of Alonzo A. Hawk.
Keenan Wynn as Alonzo A. Hawk is the corrupt developer wanting to have Mrs. Steinmetz’s home demolished, and apparently was in the films ‘The Absent-Minded Professor’ and ‘Son of Flubber’ (which I’ve not seen yet). John McIntire plays Mr. Judson; an old-timer that Mrs. Steinmetz becomes smitten by. 🙂
The second film I saw recently on Disney+ was ‘Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’ (Gosh, that’s a long title 😀 ). This film was released in 2014 and apparently, it’s loosely based on Judith Viorst’s 1972 children’s book of the same name. I wouldn’t have known about this.
In the film, Alexander is a young boy who often has calamities throughout his days at school and with his family at home. He soon inadvertently makes a birthday wish, where his mother, father, brother and sister find themselves living through their own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
And if you think that almost sounds similar to ‘Liar, Liar’ with Jim Carrey, then you’re probably not far off as I had that reaction when seeing the film. In all honesty, this is a great film to make you feel good after experiencing a bad day, which I had lately following the postponement of a certain event.
The film’s cast are very good, including Ed Oxenbould as Alexander Cooper; Steve Carell as Ben, Alexander’s father; and Jennifer Garner (who played Elektra in ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Elektra’, and I’m looking forward to seeing her in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’) as Kelly, Alexander’s mother in this movie.
There’s Dylan Minnette as Anthony, Alexander’s older brother, Kerris Dorsey as Emily, Alexander’s older sister, and there’s Zoey and Elise Vargas as Trevor, Alexander’s baby brother. Apparently, Dick Van Dyke has a cameo in this film, and I was surprised to see Burn Gorman from ‘Torchwood’ in this.
The third film I saw recently on Disney+ was the 2023 film ‘Wish’. I did consider checking out this film when it came out in cinemas in November last year, but I decided against it. I wasn’t sure whether I would like this film or not and whether it’d be so worthy to celebrate 100 years of Disney.
After seeing the film, it’s okay. I don’t think it’s great, as there could have been plenty of opportunities to celebrate 100 years of Disney, particularly in involving returning characters from other Disney films, but it’s decent enough and the story’s enjoyable enough to check out on Disney+.
‘Wish’ is about a 17-year-old girl named Asha (voiced by Ariana DeBose), who makes a passionate plea to the stars in a moment of need. She meets a living, magic fallen star, and together, they face the kingdom of Rosas’ devious ruler Magnifico (voiced by Chris Pine from the ‘Star Trek’ reboot trilogy).
The art style of ‘Wish’ is a combination of computer animation with the look of traditional animation. I wouldn’t have registered that upon seeing the film, but then again, I think it would have been great if this film went back to a 2-D animation style instead of the recent 3-D animation style. 😐
I also think the film’s music and songs can be distracting whilst watching the film. It’s not as bad as what’s in ‘Encanto’ (Initially, I thought the songs were by Lin-Manuel Miranda) and the songs can be good and catchy at times, but I think there has to be fewer songs to provide a good enough balance.
So, out of the three films I saw, ‘Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’ did it for me, especially when coping with a disappointment I had recently, and it cheered me up greatly. ‘Herbie Rides Again’ is enjoyable too and I found ‘Wish’ a good entry in Disney’s long history of films.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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