Movies with music written by Alan Menken

With the arrival of Rob Marshall’s live-action The Little Mermaid, Disney has now successfully converted all four of their major late ‘80s/early ‘90s animated musicals into updated iterations. Of the quartet (which also includes Beauty and t...

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Disney was undergoing the resurgence that would transform it from a sputtering bastion of family entertainment into the juggernaut is has since become, there was arguably no more important creative v...

Perhaps the most appropriate word to describe Disney’s 2019 re-make of their 1992 classic, Aladdin, is “unnecessary.” “Pointless” might also apply. Although those terms could be employed for a host of remakes, they are more apt here ...

Spoilers Ahoy! This review talks in detail about plot points, including the ending, so if you haven’t seen either the play or the movie and want to experience it without knowing beforehand what happens, I suggest avoiding this review.In late...

Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager wrote “No need to remember when, 'Cause everything old is new again.” Lately, that has become the Disney way: take a classic animated film and remake it into something that, although shiny and eye-po...

Seen in "standard" (non-IMAX) 3-D. Tangled (which was called Rapunzel until the 11th hour) represents Disney's application of "new" technology to an old format. In many ways that matter, this film recalls the recent classics of the Magic Kingdo...

It's hard to believe that it's only been eight years since The Little Mermaid made its first appearance in movie theaters. Since the film's bow in 1989, when it introduced Disney's "new era", the studio has released six animated features (plus...

The 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors is a celebration of two beloved motion picture genres: the musical and the cheesy science fiction flick. Before making it to the screen in its final form during the '86 Christmas season, Little Shop of Ho...

Walt Disney's 1991 instant classic, Beauty and the Beast, is not only the finest animated movie ever made, but deserves a prominent position on any list of all-time greats. Although not the highest grossing Disney production, nor the best-reme...

Once upon a time, Disney was the king of animation. Today, in the realm of CGI and 3D, they remain at the top only by virtue of a partnership with Pixar. Hand-drawn animation - the kind responsible for many of Disney's most beloved classics - is ...