Animal
Tales Of Christmas Magic
(2024 Shorts Set/Distrib/Icarus DVD)/Gabby's
Dollhouse: The Movie
(2025/DreamWorks/Universal Blu-ray)/The
Miracle
(1959/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Tom
& Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology 1940-1958
(MGM/Warner DVD Set)
Picture:
C+/B-/B/C+ Sound: C+/B/C+/C+ Extras: C-/C+/C/B- Main
Programs: C+/C+/C/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Miracle
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for a new set of family-aimed releases...
Animal
Tales Of Christmas Magic
(2024) is a recent French theatrical film release offering five
shorts
created separately by Caroline Attia Lariviere (The
Journey of Santa Claus,)
Ceylan Beyoglu (The
Little Chicks First Christmas,)
Olesya Shchukina (The
Last Christmas Tree,)
(References,)
Haruna Kishi (The
Tanuki and the Christmas Surprise)
and Camille Almeras (The
Animals' Great Celebration.)
The short animations connecting the stories were created by Natalia
Chernysheva.
Simple,
all well designed and rendered, often more soft and quiet than the
animation we get today, very child-friendly and with no toys or the
like to sell (or hard sell,) it is a nice alternative to the glut of
holiday product, more than a large chunk of which are begin shoved at
us every July (!?!?!?!) so the set respects the season, faith and
audience. Though it is not stunning or groundbreaking and may not be
for everyone, its one of the few good new holiday releases of the
last few years and those interested should give it a try.
Extras
include a three trailers for other, unrelated releases.
Ryan
Crego's Gabby's
Dollhouse: The Movie
(2025) is based on a franchise I barely knew or heard of, but this
combo of live-action and CGI animation is actually not too bad,
though I am definitely not the audience for it. Based on the still
active TV series, the title character (Laila Lockhart Kraner) gets
help from her grandmother (the legendary Gloria Estafan) to go to
'Cat Francisco') on what is supposed to be a fun trip. Too bad the
evil-yet-cat-loving Vera (the underappreciated Kristen Wiig) steals
the Dollhouse!
There
is definitely some money and energy here more so than similar
commercial feature film release like it recent years, has some
unintended humor that is a plus and may set a world record in a
feature film for the use of the word 'meow' (which would be far
better than the horrid movie version of Webber's Cats
holding good any
record) doing that in ways that work without overdoing it. Those
interested and fans alike should enjoy this one just enough, so try
it out if curious.
Extras
include Digital Code, while the disc (per the press release) adds
DELETED SCENE: ''VERA MEETS CAKEY CAT:'' An exclusive scene
featuring Vera (Kristen Wiig), Cakey Cat (Juliet Donenfeld), Gabby
(Laila Lockhart Kraner), Grandma Gigi (Gloria Estefan), and Kitty
Fairy (Tara Strong)
Gabby
Vera
The
Gabby Cats
Gabby's
New Friends
KITTY
CAT SURPRISE SNACK BOX: Today's Kitty Cat Surprise Box doubles as a
popcorn bucket - purrrfect for your movie night at home! Learn how
to make your very own complete with fun decorations, sparkles, cat
ears, and lots of room for your favorite movie night snack!
CAKEY'S
PRETZEL CABIN: In the film, Cakey Cat whips up a beautiful and tasty
cabin made of pretzels, frosting, and sprinkles, and in this fun
how-to, we'll show you how to make your very own!
Producer
Steven Schweickart
Visual
Effects Supervisor M. Scott McKee
Head
of Story David Colman
and
Head of Character Animation C.J. Sarachene.
Irving
Rapper's
The
Miracle
(1959) is from the year Biblical tale (this one in Spain during the
time of Napoleon) peaked with Wyler's Ben-Hur
and can look good and even great, but one of the poorest films in the
genre (or cycle if you prefer) and has not aged well outside of its
cinematography. Carroll Baker is Teresa the Nun, an oddball at her
convent (ala The
Sound Of Music,)
who already has trouble fitting in when she meets a very competent
soldier (Roger Moore in an early big screen role) and starts to have
feeling for him despite her vows (ala Change
Of Habit)
which leads to her leaving the convent for many unexpected events to
follow.
There
is a war, drought and the uncertainty of her future. Running a long,
long two hours, any good or interesting moments are killed by
cliches, camp, corniness, condescending moments and a phony sense of
faith that the script wallows in. The title event happens at the end
of the film with suggestions that the Madonna herself has intervened,
that is in everything but the screenplay. Walter Slezak, Katina
Paxinou, Dennis King, Isobel Elsom, Carols Rivas and Vittorio Gassman
are in the supporting cast and the great Elmer Bernstein does the
score, probably one of the most challenging of his career.
Rightly
forgotten, it has been restored as much as possible (see more below)
but to be honest, it will be a 'miracle' if you can sit through this
one without falling asleep.
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer and two classic animated
Warner Bros. Technicolor cartoons: Bonanza
Bunny
and Hare-abian
Nights.
However, I have one other item.
Roger
Moore was a huge, long-term success as a star and actor once he got
established between hundreds of TV shows and a remarkable amount of
feature films, including his seven James Bond films and the massive
hit Saint
TV series. Though Moonraker
and Octopussy
even received 70mm blow-up film print releases, The
Miracle
is the only large-frame format (a film shot on a film stock larger
than standard 35mm film) movie he ever made. That might be hard to
believe, but that is the case.
Tom
& Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology 1940 - 1958
is far from the first time we have seen the classic cat & mouse
shorts on DVD or Blu-ray, with this Deluxe
Anniversary Collection
DVD set offering several of the key shorts here:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10021/Tom+&+Jerry+%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C+D
And
all the CinemaScope shorts were covered in this Blu-ray set we
reviewed here:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16573/Daffy+Duck's+Quackbusters+(1988)/Tom+and+Jerry
Then
the shorts have also turned up as extras on endless Warner Archive
Blu-ray releases and other past Warner DVD sets, so here they are on
a 5-DVD set and a Blu-ray set has also been issued. I will not list
all the shorts, as you can find them all over the place in
chronological order and with all kinds of summaries, including from
us. However, this is a convenient completist set for those who do
not care if it is in HD and that's fine. There are still flaws on
some of the shorts (picture and/or sound) that do carry over here, so
any correction would not happen until 4K sets are issued, we hope.
Looking
back, we somehow covered more of the duo on DVD than Blu-ray, but I
hope that changes soon. Still, its great how well these classics
hold up.
Extras
include 30 audio commentaries on various shorts, including two on
some single shorts.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition
image on Gabby's
is a
little soft from being an HD shoot, though this might really shine in
a 4K presentation, yet you can still see some great color throughout
in the live action and animated sequences. The
lossless Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mix is likely a mixdown from a Dolby Atmos
and/or DTS: X multi-channel soundmaster, but plays just fine.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on The
Miracle
was shot in large-frame Technirama (regular 35mm is a reduction print
of the larger frame) and is easily the best-looking release here,
even with some aged flaws at times. Color (by Technicolor) can be
amazing and dated effects offer some bad shots, but you get a few
remarkable ones as well. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix apparently the
original soundtrack, no stereo or multi-channel mixes, but it is a
little more restricted than I would have liked. I do not know the
sound source or what kind of soundmaster the film had, but it was
theatrically monophonic in both optical and magnetic sound formats.
Guess that part only survived so well. The sound restoration is
about as good as it can get.
The
anamorphically
enhanced
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Tales
have some nice color with a mix of some intentional softness and
softness from the older format, but not bad for the older format,
which I can also say of the
lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks on all shorts. Any
French soundtrack is not offered here. I wished this were in HD
often, but it still plays well enough for what it is.
The
1.33 X 1
image centered in an anamorphically
enhanced
frame on all the Tom
& Jerry
shorts look as good as they can in this older format, but we have
seen the restorations in HD plenty of times and they usually do a
great job of capturing a total representation
of 35mm, dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints. Luckily you
can get this on Blu-ray too. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is
also passable, but more compressed than the usual same mono tracks on
the Blu-ray versions.
To
order The
Miracle
Warner
Archive Blu-ray,
go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
