In addition to sharing healthy eating ideas, homeschooling helps, board game reviews, gameschooling inspiration, book reviews, picture book reviews, marriage tips, movies to watch, large family and homemaking ideas, breastfeeding encouragement, homeopathy healing stories, and all the other stuff I’ve covered over the years, I’m going to share one website a week. This week I’m covering the one shown above, myliveactiondisneyproject.com. Whatever your feelings about Disney and its current wokeness, you might want to benefit from this site.

I so wish this had been around when I was a young mom! As you have all probably figured out, if you are a parent, just because a movie has “Disney” on it, it’s not necessarily a great movie. As a child of the 70s and 80s, I remember when the VCR came to our neck of the woods. In the fall of 1981, our neighbors bought one and rented some videos from one of the now defunct video stores in town. The neighbors’ daughter, close to my age, had all the girls ages 9-11 in the neighborhood over for a slumber party where we watched The Black Stallion for her birthday.

I realize that’s not a Disney movie, but thus began the subconscious quest in my heart to find any good wholesome movie ever made and watch it, if not in the theater, at least at home on the mini-screen, Disney movies and beyond. My sisters and I watched a lot of Shirley Temple, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds, and Disney movies at home on VHS tapes with the neighbor girls. As we watched, we snacked on big bowls of popcorn and glasses of homemade orange julius-es, precursor of the 90s smoothies. Among other movies, we saw Pollyanna and The Three Lives of Thomasina and enjoyed those together.

This was back in the prehistoric dinosaur days when classic animated Disney movies were not available on demand. They were released every seven years or so in the theater. I’m not sure what the schedule was for the live action Disney movies, but it was probably similar. Gradually, as you might know, many of them were released on VHS tapes and then DVDs but I’m not sure what the schedule was. Now they are on Disney+ for livestream.

Fast forward to the 2000s when as a mom of 7 children I would look for a movie for my kiddos to watch every weekend while DH and I went out for a date. We had seen all the classic animated Disney movies. I wanted to share with them what I hoped were the oldies and goodies of Disney live action movies. We went through a phase where I borrowed every single Disney live action movie on DVD at the local public library for their Saturday night entertainment. So, I’m talking about The Absent-minded Professor, The Apple Dumpling Gang, the Herbie movies, Shaggy D.A. movies, etc. I had fond memories of watching these as a child.

Amnesia had settled in on my brain, however, as I had forgotten that I can’t count on all the Disney movies to be winners. Like The Boatniks? Yeah, I had seen that one as a kid, in the theater even. It’s entirely forgettable, so that’s why I forgot it’s a flop. I do remember loving Mary Poppins, of course, how could one not, as well obscure ones like Candleshoe with pubescent Jodie Foster before she was a megastar, and Napoleon and Samantha, when Jodie was prepubescent. Even back then, just as now, you can’t count on all Disney movies, whatever the age of the movie, to be of great quality.

So that’s why I’m so grateful for this site. If this website, which reviews all the live action Disney movies ever made, had been around 10-15 years ago, I would have definitely used it.

I love that the guy who does the reviewing, Mark, has a detailed system for reviewing the movies. See the chart below of his rating of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, one of the Kurt Russell at Medfield College movies I remember showing the kiddos. Final grade for the movie is B minus.

Using this system, he grades the movies from A down to F, just like grades in public schools and universities. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea gets an A. Old Yeller gets an A minus. Darby O’Gill and the Little People gets an A minus. The Parent Trap (1961), A minus. Herbie Rides Again a B minus. The Love Bug gets an F. I pretty much agree with those ratings. But Pollyanna gets an F as well!? What?! I disagree with that. It gets a B plus in my book, at least. Anyway, I would have used this to vet all those old movies from the library before I brought them home, and ignored the poor rating for Pollyanna, LOL. The great news is I can use it now and watch all the obscure and good movies that are rated above C. These are the ones I have never heard of, even in all my years of watching Disney movies.

So if you are a Millennial who thinks live action Disney movies are just the remakes of the animated movies, like the 2015 Cinderella, or a Gen X parent like me who just thinks of Annette Funicello, Fred MacMurray, Dean Jones, and Hayley Mills when you hear the phrase “live action Disney movies,” you are in a for a treat. Use this website to find the best and obscure Disney movies and avoid all the duds.

We are going to watch The Biscuit Eater (A minus) with Johnny Whitaker! As well as The One and Only Genuine Family Band (see more about it below)! One can really go down the rabbit hole with this site! Check out the index here and start searching. It’s a work in progress so not every movie is listed yet. I’m interested to hear what he will say about The Great Locomotive Chase, a rare Disney movie portraying a true incident in the Civil War. Fess Parker is fun to watch in it, but this will probably get less than a C I bet, as it’s not a great heroic arc of a story. It ends so anti-climatically. We found it a few years ago and watched it.

Anyone up to watching The One and Genuine Family Band? That’s next up for our family movie night! It got a C plus from Mark but he also “highly recommends it” as a “delight to watch.” Since it’s about a large family playing music together, and politics, I can’t resist! Interestingly, it features young Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, way before they liked each other, I presume. I’ve heard songs from it for years on my Disney Classic Music album but didn’t know where they came from.

I’m also going to watch the Dean Jones movie below that we missed when all the kiddos were home. It got a B plus.

Sometimes, I just need something to watch that’s light, yet not so light that it’s as fluffy as cotton candy for the brain. Often, I want my movies to be light, yet still wholesome in reinforcing my values of strong family relationships and old-fashioned values of honesty and virtue. This site definitely fills a need to help me find those light and wholesome movies! I’ll also use it vet all the new live action remakes. I’ll avoid Dumbo 2019 (D) but maybe watch Peter Pan and Wendy 2023 (A). I’ll especially be using this with the grandchildren!