Dark Whimsy Favorites #46-50

Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #3: 50 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80 Days, 2005-2022, featuring four fantasy settings, and a fantastic follow-up for our finale.

I’m doing an overview of 40 50 of my Dark Whimsy favorites!

The first 45 are:
#1 (1944) Arsenic and Old Lace
#2 (1959) The Mouse That Roared
#3 (1963) The Pink Panther
#4 (1965) The Sound of Music
#5 (1965) The Great Race
#6 (1968) The Love Bug
#7 (1973) The Sting
#8 (1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#9 (1979) The Muppet Movie
#10 (1979) Being There
#11 (1980) Airplane!
#12 (1980) Oh! Heavenly Dog
#13 (1980) The Gods Must Be Crazy
#14 (1981) Arthur
#15 (1982) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
#16 (1982) Tootsie
#17 (1983) The Man With Two Brains
#18 (1984) Romancing the Stone
#19 (1984) The Natural
#20 (1984) Electric Dreams
#21 (1985) Re-Animator
#22 (1986) Stand by Me
#23 (1986) Little Shop of Horrors
#24 (1987) Raising Arizona
#25 (1987) Roxanne
#26 (1987) The Princess Bride
#27 (1987) Planes, Trains & Automobiles
#28 (1988) Big
#29 (1988) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
#30 (1988) Moon Over Parador
#31 (1989) Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
#32 (1989) Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
#33 (1991) Armour of God 2: Operation Condor
#34 (1993) Groundhog Day
#35 (1995) Toy Story
#36 (1996) Fargo
#37 (1997) Life Is Beautiful
#38 (1999) The Castle
#39 (2000) O Brother, Where Art Thou?
#40 (2001) Shrek
#41 (2001) Monsters, Inc.
#42 (2001) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
#43 (2002) Chicago
#44 (2004) Bride and Prejudice
#45 (2004) A Series of Unfortunate Events

We’re winding up our overview of my Dark Whimsy favorites with films so recent I’ve only seen them once. They are new favorites though. I’m looking forward to enjoying them again, and I’m confident they will grab onto A+ grades like a witch takes hold of a fat kid lost in the woods!:

#46 (2005) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Speaking of witches and fat kids...

#47 (2007) Stardust
Based on a 1997 illustrated novel by Neil Gaiman. On the film’s 10th anniversary in 2017, Vanity Fair writer Jennifer Still comes closer to using my coined Dark Whimsy genre name than I’ve seen anywhere else, when she writes of Stardust, “It also happens to be the best adaptation of Gaiman’s work, capturing his unique blend of darkness and whimsy perfectly.”

#48 (2013) Epic
Blue Sky animation studios was bought out by Disney, and went defunct soon after. Their best work was arguably a series of short films, but some of their feature films were top quality too, and I liked this one the most.

#49 (2014) The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, but lost to Birdman, a film I haven’t seen, which may well also be Dark Whimsy.

#50 (2022) A Christmas Story Christmas
A Christmas Story was my favorite Dark Whimsy film and top overall pick in my first review project, an overview of some of the best Christmas movies ever. Even though it’s not Christmastime at the moment, it still seems fitting to wind up this overview of Dark Whimsy favorites with this very worthy sequel.

#0 will be revealed tomorrow!
What?!?!?

Originally posted to text group 2025-01-18
Last updated 2025-02-04

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