I can’t really call myself an animation blogger, but I’m certainly a film blogger who has a vocal love of animation (particularly classic American animation). As such, I felt obligated to see The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s return to hand drawn musical fairy tales, but I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic. The trailer was a jumble of too many disparate elements, and to be honest I was a little annoyed they didn’t hire someone more daring than Randy Newman to do the music. I love Newman’s work, and I know he knows his way around the music of New Orleans (and everywhere else), but it would’ve been nice to see the job go to someone younger, hipper, and maybe, you know, black.
Newman does, of course, pull through just fine. The music isn’t knock-your-socks-off spectacular, but it’s fun while it’s happening and it moves the story along. In addition to the swinging jazz that plays in the New Orleans sequences, there’s also some zydeco (performed by fireflies) when the story moves out into the bayou, and a great (spiritually nonspecific) gospel number by the wise woman character, Mama Odie. I was disappointed that the Shadow Man’s big number wasn’t a little stronger, because villain songs are often my favorite. “Friends on the Other Side” starts out great, but it peters out for too long when the tarot readings start, and the climax seems to come from nowhere.
The story follows a pretty simple romance/quest/overcoming adversity formula, but it stays pretty engaging throughout. Disney also does their best to make amends for some of the damaging messages they’ve injected into the culture in the past. The explicitly stated moral of this story is that you have to work to build the life you want- you can’t just wish on a star or wait for your prince to come. I loved how they deal with Prince Naveen’s acknowledgment that his pampered upbringing has left him with almost no useful skills. I also thought it was a nice touch that the spoiled rich girl, Charlotte, turns out to be a decent person and a good friend, just a problematic one. Making her a villain in the end would have been both easier and far less interesting.
As far as the race thing which many people (myself included) were just waiting for Disney to screw up, I think they did okay. The movie feels a little focus-grouped at times, but I’d call that an improvement over egregious racism. If the protagonist were white, the portrayals of the villain and helpful wise woman as black would be unfortunate, but with a majority-black cast everything seems pretty balanced out. The ambiguity of Prince Naveen’s race is a little strange, particularly in the way he seems to be regarded by the film’s version of 1920′s society as an acceptable partner for either black or white women. Regardless of where he’s from (my guess was somewhere in French-colonized North Africa), it’s hard to believe that the Americans he meets wouldn’t want to immediately box him into a racial identity they understand and keep him there. Perhaps this is meant to be his aristocratic privilege mixed with the unique cultural dynamic of New Orleans?
The look of the film was beautiful, taking the old school Disney aesthetic and bringing it adeptly into the 21st Century. I loved the character designs, except for the Cajun firefly, who was a little too overtly silly-looking for me. Mama Odie was especially great, particularly the way her skin hangs off her face in the manner of the very old. Charlotte’s design was also a standout. You can see how she’d be regarded as a pretty girl, but her pug face has none of the classic Disney beauty about it. Tiana, in contrast, is immediately recognizable (for better or worse) as a “Disney Princess,” despite any efforts to give her recognizably black facial features. The frogs that she and Naveen transform into capture their human personalities to an impressive degree, while still maintaining their frogness (frogocity?).
Marketing aside, will The Princess and the Frog stand the test of time and be regarded as a Disney classic? Eh. Who knows what that even means anymore. It will certainly stand up better than anything they’ve made since The Lion King (all respect to the dedicated fans of The Emperor’s New Groove and Lilo and Stitch), which is no small feat. I hope that it leads to more big-scale animated musicals, and particularly more that are set in the last hundred years, and more protagonists of color. For all the problems people have with the stuff Disney produces (many of which I agree with), I’d love to see them go back to being a force to be reckoned with in the animation world, instead of continuing to focus their energy in the realms of television and pop music.
It goes without saying (since I already said it months ago) that my expectations were extremely high for Where the Wild Things Are. I tried my best to keep them in check, but there was no hope. Now that I’ve finally seen it, it’s taken me a couple of days to feel ready to sit down and write about the experience. In a way, the movie doesn’t feel real to me; it feels like a dream I had. With a movie like this, I can only regard that sensation as a mark of overwhelming success on the part of the filmmakers.
From here on, there will be what you could call spoilers, but if you’ve read the book you already know that Max’s supper is still hot at the end, so you’re probably safe reading on (but see the movie as soon as possible anyway).
To begin with, the structure of the narrative was everything I could have hoped for. From the trailers, I was expecting Max to travel back and forth more than once between the real world and the home of the Wild Things, which I felt would be an unfortunate departure from the book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is not the case. He only goes there and back once, preserving the importance of the journey, and of the goodbyes between Max and the creatures he’s befriended.
On the other hand, there was one key point of departure from the book that I felt was absolutely the right choice. In the film, Max’s bedroom does not become the forest. Instead, he leaves his house and finds an actual forest through which to travel. I’m fine with the “it’s all a dream” aspect of the book’s story, but in films that’s already an overdone trope that’s very rarely satisfying. Of course we know the Wild Things are all in Max’s head- where else would they be? We don’t need to have that telegraphed for us with scenes of Max falling asleep and waking up. For Max, it’s all really happening, and we get to see it that way too.
The Wild Things themselves are as perfect as they could be. First of all, every Wild Thing that appears in the book is in the movie (unless you count the Sea Monster as a Wild Thing, which I never have). Secondly, there are no new Wild Things created for the movie. We meet a few other creatures in that world, but they’re all recognizable animals rather than hulking amalgams. The combination of costumes and CGI used for the Wild Things creates a phenomenal effect. They have real weight to them in a way that CGI creatures rarely do, but their faces are far more expressive than animatronics would allow.
James Gandolfini gives an exceptional performance as an emotionally erratic Wild Thing named Carol. The other Wild Things are great too, particularly Lauren Ambrose as KW (the redheaded one) and Chris Cooper as Douglas (the cockatoo headed one). Nobody does a growly monster voice, which is a relief (fortunately, Christian Bale was not asked to play a Wild Thing). The kid who plays Max is so perfect that it feels like he stepped off the page, and Catherine Keener gives us some memorable moments in a small role as his mother.
The thing that really won me over about Where the Wild Things Are, more than anything else, is its emphasis on the emotional core of childhood. This is the most nakedly, unapologetically psychological kids’ movie I’ve seen in a long time. I love that the story of the Wild Things is all about their relationships. There’s no villain – no evil force threatening their homes which Max is their only hope of defeating – there’s just a collection of big, clumsy creatures who are even worse than Max at controlling their emotions. The Wild Things exist to teach Max how to be a part of a family, and they serve this function elegantly. There’s no pithy moral or “this is what I’ve learned” speech, just a growing understanding that loving others doesn’t always make it easy to get along with them, and that everyone has their monstrous moments, even those people we care about the most.
There’s a lot more I could say about this film (I haven’t even touched on the music, the cinematography, or that dog), but I’m going to end this review for now and leave the door open for more posts later. I can’t wait to hear other reactions (I’m sure they won’t all be as positive as mine), so if you’ve seen it, let me know what you think.
Judy Garland as Dorothy has the look of a DW Griffith heroine. She also has a strikingly adult singing voice considering her age at the time.
I used to think the Professor Marvel scene was boring and pointless and delays getting to Oz unnecessarily. Now I like how it establishes that we’re in the real world, in which people who claim to do magic are charlatans. At least he’s using his powers of manipulation for good- getting Dorothy to go back home.
I adore Garland’s performance when she first meets Glinda, from her delivery of “Now I know we’re not in Kansas anymore,” to the way she looks around when Glinda asks what kind of witch she is.
The Lollipop Guild is pretty much the best thing ever put on film. That weird kick-dance they do, and their facial expressions, and the devil’s haircut. There’s no way in which it could be better.
I’m going to come out and say it: I think Margaret Hamilton was pretty damn hot in her day. Granted, the fake nose and chin don’t do much for her, but her energetic performance and mindblowing voice work make up for it in my book. She’s definitely a sexier witch than Billie Burke.
The physicality of Ray Bolger’s performance is really something to behold. Even before we meet the Scarecrow, he has a great moment as a Kansas farmhand, hitting his finger with a hammer and spinning around. I want to see this guy in more stuff.
Could the Tin Man possibly seem any gayer? I don’t think that reading was intended, and Jack Haley was straight in real life, but it is kind of amazing how much his every line, gesture, and facial expression gives off a queer vibe.
The Emerald City’s look is much more sci fi than fantasy, as are the costumes of most of its inhabitants (except for the Coachman, who looks like a leprechaun). There’s a very Flash Gordon aesthetic at play.
I always forget how many characters Frank Morgan plays in this movie (five, for the record). I’ve never been sure if we’re meant to read the Gatekeeper, the Coachman, and the Guard as actually being the Wizard in disguise.
It’s always seemed strange to me how the Lion gets his own song (“If I Were King of the Forest”) and the Tin Man and Scarecrow don’t. The stuff Bert Lahr does with his voice is pretty fantastic, though.
The Guard just totally vanishes when he lets them in to the Wizard’s chamber. That does point to him being the Wizard.
Beloved quotes aside, the best line in the movie has to be, “Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?”
What is the deal with the Wizard’s cheeks? Are they stuffed with something? They freak me out.
As a kid I wondered if the Tin Man and Lion were jealous about Dorothy’s attraction to the Scarecrow. Now I realize they were probably more interested in each other.
When Professor Marvel shows up at Dorothy’s window at the end of the movie, it’s a very “for no reason, here’s Apu” moment. Also, the whole thing where Margaret Hamilton wants to give Toto to the sheriff is never resolved even a little bit.
Less than halfway through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I turned to Amanda and whispered, “This movie has a lot of sex in it!” I don’t remember what scene that was, but I’m sure it involved one teenager staring longingly at another teenager and sighing deeply. I was joking of course, but only sort of- considering this is a family movie with no actual sex scenes, or even discussions of sex, there’s a strong theme of sexual awakening running through the film. There’s nothing voyeuristic or lurid in its portrayal of teenage longing, but rather a powerful evocation of what it feels like to be sixteen, looking around at the people you’ve been in school with since you were kids and realizing you’re not kids anymore.
Of course, just like in real life, the adults insist there are more important things going on. Specifically, Lord Voldemort’s power is growing, and he’s sending his Death Eaters out on increasingly audacious missions of destruction. There are also rumors of an impending attack on Hogwarts itself, which may rely on the help of a certain blond mole on the inside. Strangely, Voldemort never actually appears, aside from flashbacks and brief Sauron-like visions. In his place, the primary villain this time around is the almost beautiful but utterly bugfuck Bellatrix LeStrange, who’s played by Helena Bonham Carter, doing that cackling insanity thing she does so well, and in desperate need of some dental care. Fenrir Greyback is around as well, played by Dave Legeno, but he pretty much just stands around and snarls (still a better actor than Christian Bale).
The war with Voldemort stays in the background for most of the movie, while the narrative focuses on the aforementioned teen drama, as well as Harry’s mission to gain a bit of information from the suspiciously friendly Professor Slughorn. Jim Broadbent gives a performance that far surpasses the character as he was on the page, particularly when he drunkenly describes a gift once given to him by Harry’s mother. Even though it was one of the most moving scenes in the movie, I had to be reminded that it was also in the book, which speaks well of Broadbent as an actor.
Visually, HPatHBP is gorgeous. The use of lighting and color make the whole thing feel dreamlike, without seeming clichéd. There are special effects in nearly every scene, but they never take the focus away from the characters. These are people who live their lives so surrounded by magic that it rarely warrants a second glance, and this film reflects that more than the previous installments.
In fact, this is easily my favorite of the Harry Potter movies. It displaces Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was the first of the film series both to display any sort of visual flair and to give the characters real emotional lives. Unfortunately, in the process quite of bit of world-building and exposition was cut. That’s something I’m fine with in general, but it hurts me on a gut level that Harry and the audience are never told who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are. The fourth and fifth movies are still more watchable than the first two, but never compared to the third. Half Blood Prince outshines them all because director David Yates finds the balance between telling a complete story and populating it with complete people, while not forgetting to make it look beautiful.
Can I just take a minute to say how completely not excited I am about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wondlerland? Most of his recent movies have been all style and no substance, and this looks to be no exception. And it’s always the same style- that ornate, lacey, top hat, striped tights, perky-goth thing. Corpse Bride, for example, had no memorable songs, no story to speak of, and no fleshed out characters. Just an hour and a half of that Tim Burton style. And of course Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, who are pretty much a permanent part of the style these days.
So today I saw the photo of Depp as the Mad Hatter…
Wow. That’s pretty hideous. And then Bonham-Carter (the Red Queen) has some kind of digital thing done to her head-body ratio, which puts her squarely in the uncanny valley:
And for some reason Anne Hathaway (the White Queen) looks exactly like she did in her final scene in Brokeback Mountain, when she was playing a seemingly bloodless platinum blonde Texas trophy wife.
Not a look I would expect her to want to return to. For curiosity’s sake, I do wish they’d included a portrait of Alice herself, since she’s, you know, the lead character and all.
And while I’m complaining, what’s with the inclusion of characters from both books, and the apparent conflation of the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts? If this is supposed to be a big family blockbuster, wouldn’t it make more sense to stick to Wonderland for this movie, so you can save Through the Looking Glass to be a sequel? But then, fidelity to the source material has never been Burton’s strong suit. Unfortunately, I’m no longer sure what his strong suit is. Top hats?
I know I’m far from the first to say this, but I’m so excited about the Where the Wild Things Are movie that it makes me uneasy. When I first heard about it, I thought it was an awful idea. I mean, the Dr. Seuss adaptations of the last few years are troubling examples of what happens when you try to make full-length Hollywood family films by adapting classic picture books. There’s just not enough story to go around, and of course what the studio hacks come up with is never near up to par. So when I heard that WTWTA was getting the live-action treatment, I was not enthused. It’s my favorite children’s book, and probably the single most flawless book ever written.
But then I saw the trailer:
I could probably gush incoherently about this for hours, so I’m to try to organize my thoughts into bullet points.
The visual style is a perfect match for Sendak’s artwork. The colors are muted, and the settings have character without being the kind of bright green CGI forests that we’re used to seeing in children’s films.
Every one of the Wild Things is recognizable from the book. There’s the chicken-headed one, the smaller goat-looking one, the one with long hair, etc. And they all look exactly like they did in the book, and yet somehow exist believably in three dimensions.
James Gandolfini’s voice. I wouldn’t have predicted him for a Wild Thing voice, but now that I’ve heard it, I can’t think of any actor who seems a more intuitive choice. After all, Tony Soprano, in his own way, was a cuddly monster.
“Wake Up” by the Arcade Fire. Like basically everyone else in the world, I’ve listened to this album maybe a few too many times in the past five years, but this really is an amazing song, and it gives the trailer a nostalgic, bittersweet flavor.
While it’s true that there are many scenes in the trailer that resemble nothing in the book, none of them feel instinctively “wrong,” or like a betrayal of the book’s themes. We see Max being an excitable kid who’s dissatisfied with the real world, and we see Max having fun with the Wild Things. No sign of an unnecessary “origin” sequence, and no hint of any human other than Max having any interaction at all with the other world.
It’s certainly possible that I’ll eat my words and regret my enthusiasm when I actually see the movie, but I really hope that’s not the case. If anyone’s out there reading this, how do you feel about the trailer, and how much is that opinion affected by your feelings about the book?
I can’t really call myself an animation blogger, but I’m certainly a film blogger who has a vocal love of animation (particularly classic American animation). As such, I felt obligated to see The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s return to hand drawn musical fairy tales, but I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic. The trailer was a jumble of too many disparate elements, and to be honest I was a little annoyed they didn’t hire someone more daring than Randy Newman to do the music. I love Newman’s work, and I know he knows his way around the music of New Orleans (and everywhere else), but it would’ve been nice to see the job go to someone younger, hipper, and maybe, you know, black.
Less than halfway through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I turned to Amanda and whispered, “This movie has a lot of sex in it!” I don’t remember what scene that was, but I’m sure it involved one teenager staring longingly at another teenager and sighing deeply. I was joking of course, but only sort of- considering this is a family movie with no actual sex scenes, or even discussions of sex, there’s a strong theme of sexual awakening running through the film. There’s nothing voyeuristic or lurid in its portrayal of teenage longing, but rather a powerful evocation of what it feels like to be sixteen, looking around at the people you’ve been in school with since you were kids and realizing you’re not kids anymore.
Wow. That’s pretty hideous. And then Bonham-Carter (the Red Queen) has some kind of digital thing done to her head-body ratio, which puts her squarely in the uncanny valley:
And for some reason Anne Hathaway (the White Queen) looks exactly like she did in her final scene in Brokeback Mountain, when she was playing a seemingly bloodless platinum blonde Texas trophy wife.
Not a look I would expect her to want to return to. For curiosity’s sake, I do wish they’d included a portrait of Alice herself, since she’s, you know, the lead character and all.
