I saw Roger Rabbit in one of those old HUGE theatres in Mission Valley,CA. The ones built in the late fifties with velour seats and gold curtains that probably cost twenty grand back then, two outdoor ticket booths, and a lobby bigger than most AMC theatres today. The theatre was already hitting hard times by that time, but would always manage to get the Disney flicks and anchor the first showing midnight sneak previews.

If one is going to see movies in theatres - that's the way to do it. They had Roger Rabbit and it was a sell out showing, like most of the Disney flicks were when first released. The special effects were great and I really enjoyed the first 3/4's of the movie. Somewhere near the end it all seemed to fall apart. The vat, the toon professor and the ending left me with a head ache. I think it perhaps overreached a bit and tried to include too much stuff and demonstrated, too me anyways, that the toon/human bit is a very tricky balance to get right.

Last time I saw it, that theatre had shut down and because it was such a big structure they dismantled the seats and other innards and used it like a convention hall to hold swap meets and the like. Bummer. After seeing films like Ben Hur, 2001 and most of the Disney animated stuff starting with The Little Mermaid on the huge screen nothing quite lives up to that sort of film experience.

The old cartoons are a real mixed lot and while I enjoyed most of the Warner Bros stuff as a kid, I disliked the Walter Lantz stuff (they would always play those before movies at drive-ins for some reason) and lots of those other thirties cartoons really creep me out. Even that Sebben Dwarfs bit was sort of creepy, though not nearly as bad as some stuff they churned out earlier. I think some cartoonists visions of alternate realities were more cogent than others and are much more watchable as a result, while some seem like the cartoonists were storyboarding and drawing en masse while taking a bad trip.

Anything where flowers or plants are singing in it - really bad stuff.

;-)