Author Archives: Jeff Giles

About Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes, Paste Magazine, and a number of other sites.

CD Review: Various Artists, “Disney Reggae Club”

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Once Ziggy Marley picked up a Grammy for his album of children’s music, you knew it was only a matter of time before Disney joined in the junior reggae fun. Well, that time is now, and The Disney Reggae Club is here, offering 13 tracks of the songs you (mostly) know and love (mostly) from the studio’s classic films, performed by an assortment of reggae artists that includes Yellowman, Burning Spear, UB40, Sly & Robbie, and — surprise! — Ziggy Marley.

Say the words “Disney” and “reggae” together and you might have to suppress the urge to vomit, but the truth is, The Disney Reggae Club isn’t bad. I was disappointed with the track listing, which strays into obvious choices (“Kiss the Girl,” “Under the Sea”) and well-known songs that aren’t really identified with Disney movies (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “What a Wonderful World”). On the other hand, it’s hard to argue with the acts they lined up for the album — and even if you never wanted to hear UB40 do “I Wan’na Be Like You,” and couldn’t recall a note of the Mulan number “True to Your Heart” if you were held at gunpoint (it’s performed here by the Wailing Souls), this is still a mighty fun record. I mean, if you’re going to listen to a reggae version of “Kiss the Girl,” it might as well be performed by Burning Spear, right? Continue reading →

DVD Reviews: Scholastic Storybook Treasures

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The ever-expanding Scholastic Storybook Treasures library just got even bigger, with the three latest DVDs — Giggle, Giggle, Quack, Runaway Ralph, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands — adding 14 stories and roughly three and a half hours to the already formidable stack of books that have been given the “read-along DVD” treatment.

If that sentence made you feel a little funny, you’re not alone. Given that some kids already need quite a bit of encouragement to read instead of watch TV, and given that many of the DVD segments in the series don’t do much besides add voiceovers and karaoke-style text overlays to still art from the books, it can be hard not to wonder just what purpose they really serve, other than helping exceptionally lazy parents avoid reading to their children.

Maybe that’s just cynicism, though. As parents, we’re so used to being inundated with pitches for more crap, and so accustomed to being disappointed by people who are supposed to have our children’s best interests at heart, that something like the Scholastic Storybook Treasures series can seem like a dirty trick even when it isn’t. There’s definitely something a little off-putting about a book publisher porting children’s titles to DVD, but that doesn’t really take away from the fact that these are wonderful books, and if you’re the type of parent who doesn’t see anything wrong with television in moderation, then having the option of letting your kids watch literature instead of Cartoon Network is fairly appealing. Continue reading →

DVD Review: “The Great Mouse Detective: Mystery in the Mist Edition”

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The resurgence of Walt Disney Animation is usually traced (get it?) back to The Little Mermaid, but as with most pop history, that’s not 100 percent accurate — though its efforts weren’t necessarily rewarded at the box office, the studio started its uphill climb years before Ariel longed to be part of our world. Case in point: 1986’s The Great Mouse Detective, which used a nifty voice cast and some early CGI/hand-drawn hybrid work to bring the Sherlock Holmes classics to kids.

Adapted from Eve Titus and Paul Galdone’s Basil of Baker Street books, The Great Mouse Detective uses a neat conceit — a sleuthing mouse named Basil who happens to share an address with Sherlock Holmes — to take advantage of the Holmes mythos without turning human characters into talking animals, a la Disney’s Robin Hood. (In a neat touch, cinema’s most famous Sherlock, Basil Rathbone, voices Holmes here, via some cobbled-together audio from an earlier film.) Detective isn’t a mystery in the traditional sense, given that the audience knows pretty much right away who the bad guy is — but that’s a forgivable sin, since the villain in question is voiced by a perfectly ominous Vincent Price. Nothing against Broadway vet Barrie Ingham, who plays Basil, but this is really Price’s show; it’s a shame there weren’t any sequels, because he could have turned the dastardly Ratigan into one of Disney’s top-tier villains. Continue reading →