MOVIE: Sleeping Beauty (1959)

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Sleeping BeautyYear: 1959Rating: GLength: 75 minutes / 1.25 hours Even though the whole Disney Princess franchise has a target demographic (that's more aligned with my daughter), I do have a favorite Princess movie. It's Sleeping Beauty (1959), but not for the reasons you might think. Sure, Sleeping Beauty is one of the few Princess films where the Prince plays a major role—even going so far as to have to fight a dragon to save the kingdom. However, the technical prowess on display here is perhaps forgotten by modern standards. And the fact they use Tchaikovsky for the soundtrack is a huge plus. As a Princess film, Sleeping Beauty has a few tropes it shares with its sister films. There's the bumbling father figures, the fantasy creatures added for comic relief, and the (by now) standard house style for all characters. It certainly spends a lot of time in its middle with almost meaningless filler, which doesn't even pad it out past 75...
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BOOK: Goldfinger (1959)

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Goldfinger Year: 1959 Author: Ian Fleming Length: 509 minutes / 8.48 hours For many years, I was aware that the James Bond series of books did not follow the same order as their respective films. Given the action/adventure spy thriller genre these books were written in, it is possible to mix them around and still have a good understanding of what’s going on, even if some of the references made within the novels could only be understood by having read the previous books in the series. In some respects, it is disappointing that the film franchise didn’t capitalize on a continuous narrative that the books provided. If the stories are out of order, then it 's hard to build up the constant battle between James Bond and the Soviet spy agency, SMERSH. Fortunately, since I had read a few of the first books in the James Bond series, I could appreciate Auric Goldfinger’s connection to the organization. That being said, I seemed to have jumped...
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BOOK: Psycho (1959)

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Psycho Year: 1959 Author: Robert Bloch Length: 323 minutes / 5.38 hours Once again, I find that the source material on which a famous movie is based is equally as good and equally as famous. What strikes me as interesting is that the quick turn on some of these literary masterpieces from page to screen has largely remained unchanged. Gone with the Wind only took three years before its film debut, The Martian took four years, and Psycho only took one. Clearly, these stories are practically screaming to be made into movies, and most have done quite well as the cultural icons of their age. Of course, having already seen the film on which this book was based, I was well aware of the twist ending. Nevertheless, reading through this book was almost enhanced by this a priori knowledge as one would probably not have guessed the twist if they were reading it for the very first time. There are just little hints here and...
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