Home Video Picks & Passes 09.15.19
The classic Aladdin is a pick.
Aladdin (1991) — PICK
Aladdin (2019) — PASS
Mary Magdalene (2019) — PASS
Animation extravaganza! Not only are there new Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy editions of almost all non-Toy Story Pixar movies, you can also pick up new Blu-ray/DVD special editions of the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, the not-so-classic A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and a couple of quality Disney offerings, including Tangled and the classic Aladdin. (Don’t be fooled by the unnecessary, inferior live-action Aladdin remake, also new on home video.)
As regards Pixar offerings — it’s easier to say which to skip! Cars 2 and The Good Dinosaur are skippable; your call on A Bug’s Life and Finding Dory. Everything else is excellent; the best include Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E and Inside Out.
In non-animated fare, Garth Davis’ Mary Magdalene, starring Rooney Mara as the Magdalene and Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus, is a mixed bag, with too many problems to recommend. While it gets some of the Gospel ethic right, it ends with a feminist critique of the Christian Church in its foundations while ironically undermining Jesus’ own challenge to the patriarchal norms of his day.
CAVEAT SPECTATOR: Aladdin (1991): Some scary/intense bits. The same caveat applies to most Pixar movies (but not Charlie Brown films).
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