Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Hot 888 Mama . . . for Clues about what MAY have motivated Steve Paddock to embark upon the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. History, need one look any further than THRU THE MIRROR? Psychiatry long has taught us about the "Irresistible Impulses" sometimes laid down in the brains of susceptible individuals (not unlike "ticking time bombs") by the subliminal programming messages fiendishly embedded within some mass market products. Exactly 7:15 into THRU THE MIRROR, Mickey Mouse begins mowing down scores of "playing cards" (all of whom have tiny human faces, arms, and legs) first Machine-gunning them with a fountain pen, then blowing them away with a fan. By 7:49, the only thing that you hear are frantic cries of "Help! Help! Police!!" Mickey's violent, unprovoked attack on the Little People "playing cards" (what better symbol for a crowd of tourists in Las Vegas?) did NOT come from the mind of THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS author Lewis Carroll. Rather, it stems from Walt Disney's demented id! Since I don't have access to very many Disney cartoons, please help me in screening the whole deplorable mess in order to inform the FBI of the specifics about the NEXT attack upon America. (After all, it's your Civic Duty!)

Foreverisacastironmess A little imagination goes a long way, and what a wonderfully vivid one the collective Disney animators had at this time... This is one of my all-time favourites, it's hands-down one of those timelessly special Disney shorts that seem to only get better with age, and that have the rare ability to make you feel like a little kid again for a moment while you're watching them. And this one, clearly inspired by Lewis Caroll's "Through the Looking Glass", is a real strange and entertaining little ride from beginning to end! Mickey falls asleep and enters a topsy-turvy dream mirrorland wherein many enchanting sight gags abound. Almost everything is alive and has a personality. Soon to be mean! Mickey shrinks down to the size of an actual mouse, but doesn't seem too troubled by it, and engages in a little dance with a pair of magician's gloves in one fabulously charming sequence... That's the part I always remembered about this short. Everything's just swell until Mickey also dances with the Queen of Hearts and makes the king jealous - at which point the fun 'trip' turns into a perilous flight for freedom! Ha, I love how he just tosses the alarm clock back in the drawer without a second thought and goes straight back to sleep! This is my favourite incarnation of Mickey with the iconic little red pants and yellow shoes and the adorable black dot eyes! At the start he's just kind of an observer, than a musical star in the middle, and an action hero by the end. I love the ink-pen machine gun! It's the playful innocence and heroic spirit of Mickey that made him such a lovable and endearing character. The lasting nature of this short and in particular the elaborate scene with the gloves had apparently not been lost on the Disney company because the gag with the gloves would later be imitated by the genie during the "Friend like Me" sequence of 1992's "Aladdin". Also there's a dog-like foot stool that's a little precursor to the one that appeared way down the line in "Beauty and the Beast", and then of course, there are those beautiful cards which make the short feel somewhat like a testing ground for "Alice in Wonderland" which came 15 years later. The entire deck of cards is especially well detailed and fascinating to look at. Undoubtedly, it must have been a gruelling nightmare animating, inking and painting all the cards featured here, but it was well worth it for the effect they achieved. The way they fold and scatter and leap in a coordinated line looks just amazing. The gloves and the cards are the short's strongest points in my opinion. The madcap structure is slightly reminiscent of the surrealism of the most fantastic Fleisher animations, only a lot less dark and threatening, and a whole lot easier on the eye. Practically every richly detailed and gorgeously animated moment of this looks excellent. I especially like the strange membranous effect when Mickey passes through the mirror. Still so utterly magical, even now. Not crude, not bland, nor dull but perfect. A little treasure!

Ron Oliver A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.Like the famous literary Alice, Mickey goes THRU THE MIRROR to find himself in a very strange room where almost anything can happen...and probably will.Here is one of the classic Mouse films - an exercise in sheer exuberant delight. Taking Lewis Carroll as the departure point, the Disney artists crafted a tale of visual excitement & great good fun. Music propels the action and Mickey's joyous dance - backed up by matches, white gloves & a whole pack of cards - proves to be a salute to both Fred Astaire & Busby Berkeley. The Queen of Hearts card - the Mouse's soulful dancing partner at one point - is a spoof of Greta Garbo. Look fast near the end for a quick cameo by King Neptune, who starred in his own SILLY SYMPHONY back in 1932. Walt Disney provides Mickey with his squeaky voice.Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

baz-15 This was made in the golden age of Disney animation (1935-1940). It involves mickey's adventures as he goes 'thru' the mirror and enters a world where inanimate objects are alive. there are many impressive bits. for example the scene where mickey eats a nut and is transformed in size is brilliantly done. there is a lot of dancing in the cartoon, mickey dances with a top hat and a pair of gloves and does a dance routine with some playing cards, and then there is a busby berkley type dance thing involving the cards. the climax involves mickey being chased by hundreds of cards and it is fantastic. you have to hand it to the artists who worked on this, it is a great cartoon. other superior mickey mouse cartoons include: the band concert(1935); mickey's garden(1935); clock cleaners(1937); moving day(1936); the sorcerer's apprentice (from fantasia (1940) ).