One More Disney Day...and Night

I've gone open to close at Disneyland many times over the years, but 24 hours straight?  Yeah, I'll take that challenge.

Disney Parks latest promotion, One More Disney Day, gives visitors to Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom in Florida the opportunity to enjoy the parks from 6:00 a.m. on February 29 (Leap Day) to 6:00 a.m. March 1. You can also enter to win a Disney trip or get special deals on off-season vacation packages, but the real appeal is the all-day, all-night marathon. I'll be there. Will you?

Twenty-four hours straight is unique, but extended hours and late-night parties at Disneyland and Walt Disney World are nothing new. Corporate events, Grad Nites and private functions after the regular guests have gone home have been the norm for decades. Last year, like its three film predecessors, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides had its world premiere at Disneyland:

In 1992, Elizabeth Taylor famously rented out Disneyland to celebrate her 60th birthday:

The 1986 premiere of Captain EO, produced by George Lucas, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Michael Jackson, meant another great Disneyland party...and a cheesy television special:

Captain EO was cause for several after-hours celebrations that weekend, like this one for members of the Magic Kingdom Club, Disney's free corporate discount program at the time:

Can you imagine attending an all-night party at Disneyland today and only paying $11.50?

Late night events at Disneyland are often special simply because, well, they're at night. Everything is lit up. Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Matterhorn and the Mark Twain all take on a special glow. The lights twinkle in the trees and sparkle all the way down Main Street. It's quite beautiful. Walt Disney himself understood the special magic his Magic Kingdom had when the sun went down. He explains it here in this clip from "Disneyland After Dark," an episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color that aired on NBC on April 15, 1962.

Some of my fondest memories as a kid were of late nights at Disneyland long after my sister and I wore Mom and Dad out and sent them exhausted back to the hotel. Terry and I ruled the park at night. The Rocket Jets (high atop the PeopleMover station) and the Matterhorn were always required riding. In 1976, a day or two after Christmas, Terry and I rode the last Mine Train of the night together. It would be the last time either of us would steam through Nature's Wonderland and the Rainbow Caverns. The ride would close a week later to eventually be replaced by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Have you ever rode Big Thunder at night? It's pretty cool too.

I haven't even begun to talk about the special nighttime shows and entertainment at Disneyland over the years. I think that'll be another post for another time. Suffice it to say for now, though, there's a reason my two favorite ring tones on my phone are from Fantasmic! and the Main Street Electrical Parade.

So, as the 24-hour Disneyland marathon beckons next month, I expect it be exhilarating, exhausting and fun. I'll be more than ready for it. After all, half of it will be at night.

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The Motion Picture Academy Releases New Oscar Poster

It's an encouraging sign that Oscar is getting back to its roots. First, Billy Crystal will return as host of the Oscars for the ninth time next year, replacing Eddie Murphy, who departed in the wake of the Brett Ratner debacle. Second, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is paying tribute to its past with the release of the official poster for the 84th Academy Awards.

The poster shows a large Oscar statuette next to images from Oscar-winning films Forrest Gump, The Godfather, The Sound of Music, Gone With the Wind, Driving Miss Daisy, Giant, The Gladiator and Casablanca.

The most recent film of the bunch (Gladiator) is 11 years old. This pleases me. I like the Academy Awards steeped in history. In recent years, the show has tried to be hip and modern to attract a younger audience. That approach never works. Hip and modern results in painfully awkward hosts like James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Give me traditional, thank you very much. Billy Crystal is a funny and entertaining pro and he's been sorely missed. Recall he got the biggest round of applause as a presenter during last year's Oscar show.

Now, if the Academy would just make the presentation of the Thalberg Award and other honorary Oscars part of the telecast again, I'd be a happy movie fan.

It's great to celebrate the best films of the past year, but it means nothing without honoring the history too.

The 84th Academy Awards will be televised on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on February 26. Nomination ballots were mailed to the 5,783 voting members of the Academy this week.

You can download the new Oscar poster at www.oscars.org/poster.

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Catching Up with 'The Rocketeer'

With the hectic holidays (almost) behind us, I finally checked out Disney's newly-released 20th anniversary edition of The Rocketeer on Blu-ray.

What a letdown.

No, not the movie. The movie's fun. It's a sincere piece of action hero hokum, with straight arrow aviator Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell) coming into possession of a top secret rocket pack that both the good guys and the bad guys are after. Set in the 1940s, the movie pays tribute to the delightfully absurd serials of that era, pitting good against mustache-twirling evil. There's a beautiful, spunky girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly), a plucky sidekick who's handy with tools (Alan Arkin) and a charmingly slimy villain (perfectly cast Timothy Dalton--if Errol Flynn had been a Nazi, this would've been him). The film has a striking Art Deco design--our hero's crash helmet looks like it was torn right off the Chrysler Building--and director Joe Johnston keeps the action moving forward nicely, climaxing with a nifty chase aboard a very flammable zeppelin.

The problem with The Rocketeer is the Blu-ray disc itself. You'd think commemorating the movie's release 20 years ago would be worth some tribute, right? Maybe a "making of" documentary or a commentary by Johnston (who added to his action hero cred this year with the whiz-bang Captain America: The First Avenger). Nope, nada. With the exception of a paltry 1991 movie trailer, The Rocketeer has absolutely no bonus features, and that's a shame. It may not be Disney's most acclaimed film, but it's well crafted and does have a loyal following--filmmaker Kevin Smith admits to being a huge fan. This year, Smith moderated a Q&A with some of The Rocketeer's cast and crew at a 20th anniversary screening at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. Some of that footage would've been a nice addition to the Blu-ray package. A commentary by Smith would've even been better.

That Disney pluses direct-to-video piffle like the Buddies franchise (see: Spooky Buddies or the upcoming Treasure Buddies) more than The Rocketeer is a disservice to one of its more under-appreciated films. I can recommend the film as the diverting action adventure it is, but its Blu-ray release deserved better.

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