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Pinocchio

Directors: Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske
Year: 1940
Run-time: 1 hr 28 min

- I find Pinocchio to be alternately tragic and vaudevillian. As a morality tale, it's oppressive, with the protagonist falling headlong into all sorts of terrible vices from the get-go. (The famous lie-detecting nose bit is actually the most understated.) As a piece of Disney animation, it's chock full of wonderful details and expressions in just about every character. Certainly the lead character himself moves like no other cartoon before or since, but Jiminy Cricket also has a strange dance-like gait as well that makes this film entrancing to watch.

- As a landmark in Disney's pivot towards serious, emotional feature films, it's probably more of a landmark than the pretty but asinine Snow White, but it's not even close to my favorite animated films.

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