Tag Archives: Disney

Frozen Fever

Attending a screening of Disney’s new live-action Cinderella, there was a hum of anticipation, and it wasn’t for the movie.

Preceding the movie is a 7-minute short starring everyone’s favourite princesses, Elsa and Anna. Because Frozen just won’t die. And Disney, profit machine that it is, has no interest in letting it die, or even slightly abate. So they’re feeding the frenzy with this short, and I have to admit, they’ve spared no expense. Though only 7 minutes, it feels like a complete experience, and the quality is not what we’ve come to expect from straight-to-video sequels. Disney’s not messing around this time. All the favourite characters are back, voiced by the original talent, and treated to a new story line. It’s Anna’s birthday, and Elsa is determined to give her one perfect day, to make up for all the ones she’s missed.

There was a two-year old girl sitting beside me, obviously a fan. One of the first things Elsa does upon waking the birthday girl is present her with a new birthday outfit. Even Elsa changes out of her famous blue dress and into a fabulous green, spring-like creation, with all the glam of the last one and very little convenience. No matter. She’s a princess and must dress the part. “Look at the dresses!” screams the little girl beside me, in rapt approval. Elsa’s train seems like a hazard when pedalling a bike built for two, but she’s game, and all catastrophes are cute.

To have her perfect day, Anna gets to follow a red string around her castle and around the town, from one gift to another. The only problem is that Elsa’s now feeling well. She has a cold (a cold never bothered me anyway, she insists). Anna wants to put festivities on hold, but Elsa pushes on, sneezing out tiny little snowmen along the way (note to Disney: this was a big hit with the kids, great device, but I knew that no matter how cute they are, they’re snot. I knew, Disney. I knew.)

The song is catchy and fun. The sisters spend quality time together. Olaf gets plenty of screen time. Disney did a great job, and your kid’s gonna love it. But it’s still snot.

Frozen – reviewed by the last man on earth to see it.

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I saw Frozen for the first time last night. Jay knew I hadn’t seen it and since all our nieces and nephews want Elsa dolls for Christmas, it seemed the time was right. I generally enjoy animated movies (or cartoons as I will probably always call them) and Wreck-It Ralph is one of my recent favourites. Since Frozen is Disney’s follow up to Wreck-It Ralph (at least chronologically) I thought Frozen might be quite enjoyable. As it turned out, there was a little bit of truth to that but not as much as I would have hoped.

The problem for me was that Frozen is basically another princess movie geared toward selling new dolls and dresses and direct-to-video sequels. And clearly it has been a massive success on that front, but it struck me as a very hollow movie. I think there were a few good choices made in its creation, mainly that Elsa did not become the bad guy (which Jay tells me was originally going to happen until they realized they were going to have a huge hit in “Let it Go”) and that the guy with the reindeer did not really end up saving our two princesses.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I don’t want to be unfairly critical or hard on Frozen. After all, it is a cartoon and a princess movie at heart and on those levels I can understand why it is beloved by all my little relatives. It’s just a big step down from Wreck-It Ralph, which really lived up to Pixar’s legacy as a movie that was designed for people my age as much as it was for kids (see Up, Toy Story, the Incredibles, etc.). It’s a high standard and a tough mark to hit but there have been some great animated movies produced in the last ten years (some not even by Pixar) and I hope most people making movies, animated or otherwise, are aiming to match or beat what has come before. Frozen had a few moments where something new and exciting seemed like it might materialize but I think it just ended up being too easy for them to stick to the tried and true princess formula instead of really making something original and memorable.

Hopefully Big Hero 6 will be a stronger continuation of Pixar’s best efforts, or at least be more exciting. That’s probably a safe bet because it seems to be about robots and superheroes so there should be very few princess cliches involved. And for whatever reason, robot and superhero cliches do not bother me at all; I will happily watch the same basic plot over and over if Batman is involved, but if you put a singing princess (or two) in the starring role and tell a generic story then I’ll call your movie unoriginal. So don’t be surprised to see my Guardians of the Galaxy review assign a final score of 21 out of ten space guns (or something equally clever) but in the meantime I am not ashamed at all to give Frozen a rating of six talking snowmen out of ten.

(Check out the comments for Jay’s rant on Frozen’s supposed feminism.)

Top 10 Disney-Inspired Tattoos

101 Dalmatians (1996)

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Pongo the highly intelligent dalmatian is not just Roger’s best friend, he’s his alarm clock, personal assistant, and milkman. Roger is a video game developer but no one’s interested in his dalmatian game because it lacks a proper villain, a desire to annihilate.

Meanwhile, at the House of DeVil, Cruella (Glenn Close) runs a fashion empire and her look would makes Miranda Priestley look like a schlub; indeed, the devil wears DeVil. Anita (Joely Richardson), owner of Perdita, and one of Cruella’s top designers, attracts Cruella’s attention and inspires a spotted fur coat that has her boss salivating for the soft fur coats of dalmatian puppies. Unbeknownst to Anita, Cruella will stop at nothing to get her hands on the real thing. And thanks to a mutual swim in a park pond, Anita and Roger meet, and their dogs fall in love. So do they of course, and after a double wedding comes a double pregnancy (perhaps it’s lucky that Cruella only covets the skins of puppies and not babies).

Fifteen puppies come, and Cruella shows up with a cheque and a sac before Perdita’s even licked them clean. Not liking the wild glint in her eye, Anita and Roger refuse to sell them to her in a true moment of no fucking kidding.

Cruella kidnaps them anyway of course and only a strange network of animals can get them back.

Over 200 dalmatian puppies were trained for this film, and 20 adult dogs as well, some of them truly frightened of Glenn Close in full costume, hair, and makeup. I don’t know how costume designers Rosemary Burrows and Anthony Powell failed to score an Oscar nomination for their wondrous, over the top looks.

John Hughes, who wrote and produced, got the biggest paycheque for this film than for any other in his career because he snagged a piece of the merchandising and a staggering 17 000 different items were pumped out for the film’s release. There’s definitely a Hughes flavour to the film, particularly in the second half when the movie starts to feel like a doggie version of Home Alone.

This is perhaps the first of Disney’s live action remakes, and another, a prequel starring Emma Stone as Cruella, will hit theatres this spring.

The Princess And The Frog

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I want to like this movie. I do love the New Orleans vibe, the beautiful bayou, and DISNEY’S FIRST BLACK PRINCESS. But in addition to this movie just not feeling up to Disney’s standards (or, I suppose, mine), it’s not even what it promises.

Disney’s first black princess is in fact a frog for most of the movie. So kudos to whoever came up with that little workaround: how to have a black princess without actually committing to it, kind of like how they just had their first gay character without actually doing that either. Person of colour, yes, but did that colour really have to be green? Classic movie, Disney. Also, how many of the characters feel like stereotypes? There’s a pimp, and a Mamie, and one with a fat ass and missing teeth. Erm. Tug on the ole collar. The voices alone feel deeply racist. And let’s not forget the bit fat white saviour, even if he is cleverly voiced by John Goodman.

And the truth is, the setting isn’t quite as spectacular as I wish it was either: put through Disney’s rock polisher, it’s scrubbed clean of any true colour. The score is kind of cool, kind of jazzy, but the songs are unforgivable generic, totally unmemorable, un-sing-alongable.

There’s no real flair here, and even worse for Disney, no magic.