"Coco"- Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "Coco".

I'd seen the trailers for this film, so I had an idea of the general premise, but the trailers didn't interest me enough to see the film previously.

The mariachi version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" that plays over the castle image before the film - I loved it!  I know they don't generally like to mess with the icon of the image or the music, but when they do, they do such a great job.  My favorite was the imagery change they did for "Tron:  Legacy".

I loved the telling of the backstory through the images on the papel picado (paper decorations).  (No, I didn't know that's what they were called.  Yes, I looked it up.  Movies that are entertaining and informational, yay.)

Oh, so Coco is the grandmother.  Ok, didn't know that.  Miguel Rivera tells the story of his family.  Coco's dad was a musician who went off to pursue his dream, leaving his wife (Imelda) and young daughter behind.  Imelda is so infuriated that she banishes anything musical from her family, and she starts a shoe-making business, which then becomes the family business.  But Miguel has a secret - he loves music.  He's just not sure how to let his family know.  There's a singing contest the next day, and while Miguel is shining the shoes of a member of a mariachi band, he encourages Miguel to enter the contest.  Just then, Miguel is found by his family, and his Abuelita is furious and marches the family home.  On the way, she's annoyed with someone (something?  I can't remember) and throws one of her sandles at him/it.  And I'm thinking, so now you've only got one shoe.  And sure enough, she continues the walk home with one shoe and one bare foot.  In the next scene, I specifically looked at her feet, and she had two shoes on, so she must have put on another pair from home.

Miguel idolizes a local hero - Ernesto de la Cruz, a famous musician and actor who was tragically killed when a giant bell fell on him onstage.

It's Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), when families put up pictures of dead relatives and offerings of their favorite food and other things so that the relatives can come and have a pleasant visit.  On this fateful day, Miguel discovers that he's related to Ernesto - Ernesto is Coco's father!  Miguel is more determined than ever to participate in the singing contest, but when Abuelita hears about it, she's so infuriated that she smashes the guitar that Miguel has made himself.  Miguel can't join the contest if he doesn't have a guitar.  After futile attempts to borrow one, he gets an idea - there's a guitar in Ernesto's mausoleum, so he decides to borrow the guitar just for the contest.  Kid, stealing things from someone's mausoleum is not a good idea, even if you think of it as "borrowing", and even if it's family.  Miguel retrieves the hallowed guitar and gives it a strum, and the leaves are illuminated and flutter.  Miguel then hears people outside say that someone is inside and trying to steal things.  Miguel prepares himself for the confrontation ... when people literally walk right through him and don't know that he's there.

Apparently, the strum on the guitar has now made him invisible to the living but visible to the dead, and he can see them too.  Not sure who was more startled, him or them.  He sees all the people crossing the bridge to visit their loved ones in the land of the living, but there's a catch - you can only cross over if someone puts a picture up of you.  The person is scanned, and if there's a matching picture put up, they can go through.  If not, they're turned away.  It reminded me a little of the entrance turnstiles at Disneyland, where they scan your admission media to find out if you're allowed to enter that park on that day.

Miguel decides to track down his great, great grandfather Ernesto, and street dog Dante decides to follow him.  OK, I knew there was a dog in this movie, but I didn't know he was just a random stray.  And why is Dante allowed to cross over when he's not dead, and he wasn't there when Miguel strummed the guitar?  Is it like a Twilight Zone thing where dogs can sense evil, so they can go anywhere, and they provide protection and guidance for their masters?

Miguel meets Hector, who asks Miguel to put his picture up when he returns to the land of the living so that Hector can visit his girl.  Hector says that he knows Ernesto and can help him.  They eventually have a falling out, and Miguel sets out on his own with Dante.

I can't remember where they were, but random dude says that he's allergic to dogs.  Miguel points out that Dante has no hair.  Random dude:  "And I have no nose, and yet, here we are."  I busted out laughing at that line.

Imelda has a spirit animal named Pepita that's kind of like a ginormous mountain lion with even ginormouser wings.  He soars and plays fetch pretty well as he goes in search of Miguel, who has run away because Imelda insists that he promise not to be involved with music anymore, and none of the rest of the family is willing to go against her.  In order for Miguel to return to the land of the living, he must have a family member give their blessing before midnight.  (Are you not supposed to feed him after midnight also?)  Miguel refuses to accept Imelda's no-music restriction and decides to look for Ernesto instead, since he's sure Ernesto will give him his blessing with the music restriction

Some mariachi band somewhere is playing, and I'm thinking, how can they play brass when they have no lungs?

Miguel eventually finds Ernesto.  Ernesto's spirit animals looked like multi-colored gremlin to me.  Not Spike-gremlin, but Mogwai gremlin.  (Hmmm, gremlins, midnight deadlines.)  Miguel tells Ernesto that he's his great, great grandson, and Ernesto shows him off at various events.  Eventually, it's time for Miguel to return home, so Ernesto gives his blessing and ends it with "I hope you die very soon", which would normally seem like a terrible thing to say to someone, but in this case, it's very sweet because it means Ernesto wants to see Miguel again soon.  Awwww...

But before Miguel can return home, he's intercepted by Hector, and it turns out that Hector does indeed know Ernesto.  Hector and Ernesto used to perform together, and Hector is actually the one who wrote all of their songs, including what had become Ernesto's signature song, "Remember Me", while Ernesto has been taking credit for writing all the songs himself.  And Hector remembers what else happened.  He had decided that his family was more important to him, and he was going to give it up and return home.  Ernesto tried to talk him into staying, but to no avail.  And then he came up with an idea - a final toast with Hector.  Hector agreed, but he didn't know how final it was going to turn out to be, because Ernesto slipped a poison in Hector's drink, and after Hector died, Ernesto took all of his songs and music and went on to become super famous.  Miguel, who knows all of Ernesto's movies, is horrified when he reveals that that very same poisoning scenario was duplicated in one of Ernesto's films.

Ernesto orders his guards to remove Hector, which they do.  Miguel nervously waits, hoping Ernesto will still send him home, but Ernesto is worried about what Miguel just heard, and Ernesto will do anything to protect his reputation and his name, so he summons his guards to take care of Miguel as well.  Dude, your own great, great grandson?  Heartless.

Miguel is tossed down some giant cavernous hole, which it turns out is the same giant cavernous hole that Hector had been tossed into.  (Miguel lands in water, so I guess there's no warning about not getting him wet.) Hector laments that he's never going to see his girl, and it's only then that's it's clarified that he means his daughter.  He had hoped to see her again, if not when he could cross over, but when she eventually arrived at the land of the dead.  But, Coco's memories of him are fading (Coco is experiencing some effects of Alzheimer's), and she's the last to know him, and no one in the family was allowed to talk about him, and once no one remembers him anymore, he will even disappear from the world of the dead, and he will really never see Coco again.

At the mention of the name "Coco", Miguel is stunned.  HECTOR is Miguel's great, great grandfather, not Ernesto!  Hector talks about the song "Remember Me", and that he wrote the song for Coco, because he knew he was going to be away for a while and didn't want her to forget him.  He sang the song to her, and she'd sing it with him.  (In the footage when Coco is a little girl sitting on the edge of the bed listening to him with her little feet dangling and swinging - how cute!)

Miguel is eventually rescued by Imelda and Pepita, but she is decidely not happy to see Hector again after all these years.  She learns what actually happened to him, that he didn't just abandon his family, but while she's not ready to forgive him yet, she is willing to help him.  The picture of himself that Hector had originally given to Miguel to put up for him is now in the hands of Ernesto, and they need that picture back so that Miguel can take it back with him, with Miguel's deadline looming as well.

A whole bunch of stuff happens, and when the podium rises, it takes Imelda up into the spotlight on stage that was supposed to have taken Ernesto instead.  (As the circle she was standing on started to rise, I totally thought of "The Hunger Games", when Katniss is sent up into the arena.)  And then a miraculous thing happens.  Imelda starts to sing.  (Now that I think about it, I think she sang at a running-away Miguel earlier, but I don't remember why.)  It turns out that she used to be a singer but gave it all up as part of her banishment of music from her life and family after she thought Hector had deserted them.  Hector goes out with a guitar to join her, and then the band plays along too, and everyone is happy!  Until Ernesto takes the stage with Imelda, in an effort to retrieve Hector's picture that she now has.

A bunch of other stuff ensues that I don't remember, but as Ernesto is about to confirm to Miguel that he (Ernesto) did poison Hector and that he (Ernesto) did then steal his (Hector) songs and go on a diatribe about how he's willing to do anything to keep what he has, no matter what, someone turns on the microphones, so all of his secrets are out as the audience hears his confession.  And they are not in a forgiving mood.  Something happens, and Ernesto ends up getting a bell dropped on him again.

They weren't able to retrieve Hector's picture, and Hector is about to fade away, but Miguel's time is up.  He has to go back to the land of the living or be stuck in the land of the dead forever.  Imelda gives her blessing with no conditions, and after Miguel wakes up back in Ernesto's mausoleum, he races home.  The rest of his family tries to stop him, but he makes his way to his great grandmother Coco, and he tries to get her to remember Hector.  Coco is non-responsive to his pleas, so Miguel starts to play and sing "Remember Me" and reminds her that her dad used to play this for her.  And soon, Coco is smiling and singing with Miguel.  She then takes out something and gives it to Miguel - it's the piece of the picture that was ripped off that had Hector's face.  Miguel holds it up with the entire picture, and the family picture is complete.

And the next year, everyone is able to cross over from the land of the dead to the land of the living.  And Imelda and Hector are together again.  Even Dante and Pepita come back, and Pepita turns out to be a regular cat.  So they both have dual lives, regular animals in the land of the living and spirit animals in the land of the dead?

Overall, I enjoyed this movie.  I'm not sure what they could have done with the advertising that would have gotten me interested enough to see the movie in the first place, though.  I did like that they gavve you part of the story in the trailer, but that turns out to not be the real story.  Oh, and the husband actually figured out ahead of the reveal that Hector was the great, great grandfather, not Ernesto.  He said that when Ernesto gave Miguel his blessing, the leaf didn't glow like when other people did it, which it wouldn't have since they weren't really related.  I'll have to look for that next time.

So since Hector kept pretending to be Frida Kahlo, I was thinking she better show up at some point, and she did!  Yay!

Ernesto is a jerk.  Like seriously, he's an asshole.  But I like Benjamin Bratt, so conflicted feelings

I wasn't too keen on Abuelita either.  She was bossy and much too overbearing.  I was so mad at her when she broke Miguel's guitar.  She had no right!

"The Great Mouse Detective" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Great Mouse Detective".

Back to movies I knew nothing about ahead of time.  Hmmm, Disney movie starring a mouse.  It's not Mickey, is it?  Nope, not Mickey.  Minnie?  Yeah, not likely if the mouse is a detective, especially back then.

And two of the four directors credited on this picture are the ones who directed "The Princess and the Frog", the movie I saw last week.  How weird is that?  Nope, not planned that way.

Awww, little girl mouse named Olivia.  She has a British accent but she also had some affectation I couldn't pinpoint.  Or maybe it's just that she's young, and youngsters don't pronounce everything the same as adults.  And then something terrible happens..  Her dad, Hiram Flaversham the toymaker, is attacked by a bat and then goes missing.  Well, this sounds like a case for a detective!

Poor little crying Olivia is found by Dr. Dawson, who just retired from working for the Queen.  She tells him what happened, and they go in search of Basil of Baker Street.

Dawson and Olivia arrive at 221 Baker Street and knock on the little door.  It looked like the address was 221s, but I couldn't see it clearly enough.  The husband is the one who recognized the silhouette upstairs playing the violin as being Sherlock Holmes.  The husband also recognized the address as Holmes'.  Ahhh, so this is going to be a sort of mouse version of Sherlock Holmes.  OK, that makes sense.  (I asked the husband, and he said the movie title did not make him presume that this is what it was going to be about.  OK, so it's not just me.)  So tall, skinny Basil is supposed to be Holmes, and more rotund Dr. Dawson is supposed to be Watson.  Got it.  (For some reason, I find myself wondering if there's a Muppet version of the Holmes story.  In my head, I'm seeing Kermit with Holmes' hat, but I don't know if I've actually seen that picture or if I'm just making it up.  Yeah, I know, I can look it up, but I'm just musing.)

While Basil is not interested in talking to Olivia at first (Did Holmes have an aversion to children?), Dawson convinces him to listen, and Basil is much more interested once he hears about the bat that attacked Flaversham.  (I noticed that Basil is left-handed.  Was Holmes left-handed?) Basil says it must have been Fidget, the bat with a peg leg.  Bat with a peg leg.  Didn't see that coming.  Someone needs to cosplay that at D23 Expo next year.

Basil goes on to say that Fidget works for Professor Ratigan, Basil's archenemy, who Basil has been after for quite some time.  Ratigan had Fidget (every time I type his name, I want to type "Figment" - mash-up cosplay?) kidnap Flaversham because Ratigan wants him to work on a secret project for Ratigan, some kind of robot thing.  Ratigan wants to be supreme leader of all mousedom.  I liked that title.  Ratigan can put that on a business card:

Supreme Leader of
ALL MOUSEDOM

And Ratigan sings!  I did not expect that.  And we find out that Ratigan has one trigger point.  He hates being referred to as a rat, even though that's what he is, and even though his minion mice refer to him as a big mouse.  (BTW, what was up with the ONE lizard minion amongst them?) The drunken mouse who refers to him as a rat has serious consequences - Ratigan feeds him to Felicia, his ginormous cat.  OK, now that I think about it, Felicia isn't really ginormous.  She just looks ginormous in relative size to Ratigan and the mice.  Speaking of looks, Felicia seemed like a cross between Lucifer from "Cinderella" and Marie from "The Aristocats".

Meanwhile, Basil has figured out where they need to go, and he takes Dawson and Olivia upstairs to meet Toby the bassett hound, who I'm guessing is supposed to be Holmes' dog.  (Did Holmes have a dog?  Have you gotten the idea yet that I kept wondering if the info about Holmes was "true"?)

I don't remember now who was offering them cheese crumpets, but Olivia seemed to really like those, and when she was stuffing them in her pockets, it reminded me of Meeko the raccoon from "Pocahontas" when John Smith was dropping biscuits.

Basil brought Toby to sniff out Fidget.  Meanwhile, Basil instructs Dawson to keep an eye on Olivia, but like not-Peter-Pan in "The Black Cauldron" with Piggie, Dawson has one job and fails, as Olivia is lured away by a toy Dumbo (!) that blows bubbles.  A giant fight ensues because Fidget has a laundry list of "honey-dos" from Ratigan, and next on the list is to kidnap Olivia, and toys are attacking Basil and Dawson as they try to get to Olivia.  At one point, this giant doll (again, probably not giant, just in perspective in relation to the mice) crashes down, and she reminded me of Gabby Gabby from "Toy Story 4".

Fidget escapes with Olivia and brings her to Ratigan, who instructs him to put Olivia in a bottle as a prison.  Fidget puts a cork in the opening, and I'm thinking, she's gonna suffocate!  Fidget makes the mistake of telling Ratigan that Basil was trying to intercept Olivia, and Ratigan gets so mad that he tries to feed Fidget to Felicia, but it doesn't take, and Felicia is cheated of a snack.  Ratigan allows Flaversham to see Olivia, but the reunion is short-lived because Ratigan is using Olivia as leverage to get a defiant Flaversham to continue the work that Ratigan wants him to do.  Flaversham complies.

Dawson finds the honey-do list that Fidget dropped, and Basil figures out that it belonged to Fidget and tries to figure out where Ratigan's hideout is.  As Basil is inspecting and tasting the list and talking about the composition of the paper, I was totally thinking of Goren from "Law and Order:  Criminal Intent".  Goren, I mean, Basil figures out that the note has come from the docks, so he and Dawson head there and wander into a pub, dressed with disguises.  Dawson looked to me like Smee from "Peter Pan", though his colors weren't the same.

They sit and the Moulin-Rouge-esque show starts, with Miss Kitty Mouse doing her show-stopping song.  The hardened pub patrons melt at the sound of her voice.  I thought she was dressed much more risque, with feathers and a garter, than I normally expect from Disney films.

Musical interlude over, Basil and Dawson follow Fidget to Ratigan's lair, which looks like it's inside a beer keg.  But it turns out that they've walked into a trap, as they are greeted by a banner and confetti (Disney confetti usually means the show is over, but not in this case.) to welcome them.

I forget what happens at this point, but eventually, we find out that it's the Queen's jubilee, celebrating her 60 years of queendom.  (I had started to realize that things in this film were a lot like in "The Rescuers", where there are mouse equivalents to their human counterparts.)

We then find out what dad was working on - a robot of the Queen, kind of like a Stepford version.  The plan is for Stepford Queen to take the real queen's place, and then Ratigan is announced as the Queen's consort, and now, Ratigan is in charge.  (Fidget wearing Mary Poppins' hat!)

But, here comes the cavalry.  Toby arrives to chase after Felicia as she was menacing Basil.  (And with seeing Felicia in proportion with Toby, Felicia is indeed a big cat, but she's not ginormous.)  Basil liberates Flaversham (even though Basil can't pronounce that name to save his life, which is a running joke throughout the film as he's talking to Olivia) from Ratigan's minions, and Flaversham makes Stepford Queen turn on Ratigan and announce all of Ratigan's dastardly misdeeds, and then Stepford Queen destructs in the time-honored tradition of Stepford women.

It's not over yet though, as Ratigan makes off with Olivia again, and a blimp / balloon chase ensues high over London.  Chase, chase, other stuff happened, they crashed into Big Ben (neither Peter Pan nor not-Peter-Pan were standing on the hands of the clock face), they save Olivia and Basil does not in fact plunge to his doom but ends up pedaling himself to safety.  (As he was falling, the husband called that.)  I don't remember what happened to Ratigan.  I think Fidget found a female bat?  I can't remember that either.

I enjoyed the film but likely won't see it again as I'm not really into the Holmes thing.  I don't know if a Holmes fan would like or hate this film.  (Even though I'm not into Holmes, I did enjoy the film "Young Sherlock Holmes", though I heard that lots of Holmes fans hated it because it didn't stick to canon.  Pretty sure they weren't trying to be canon, but hey, not my fight.)  I liked Olivia.  Fidget reminded me of Bartok from "Anastasia".

Vincent Price as Ratigan was a riot to listen to.  I so wanted to see the footage of him in the recording studio.  You could see him chewing the scenery even though you couldn't see him!  And he even did his own singing.  Actual singing, not just reciting, like he did for "Thriller".

While I thought Miss Kitty Mouse was just ok, I did really like her song, and I thought whomever sang it was fantastic.  And then I found out that it was sung by Melissa Manchester, who I like.  Well, of course, I liked her song.

I don't know if the name Basil was simply taken from the book which was the inspiration for this movie, or because it was in honor of Basil Rathbone, who was famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in films.  Or maybe the book picked that name to honor him.  In any case, I choose to believe that they were paying tribute to Rathbone because that would be cool.

The End

"The Princess and the Frog" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Princess and the Frog".

I had a general idea of what the film would be about since I'm familiar with the classic story of the princess and the frog (and not just from Peter Gabriel's "Kiss That Frog", which I happen to love), but I didn't know much about the details of this particular version of the story.

About half an hour into the film, I wondered to myself why someone hadn't forced me to watch this movie earlier. (A friend expressed the sentiment that she liked that I thought any of my friends could "force" me to watch a movie. Yeah, she's right. "Convince me to watch" is probably a better description.) I didn't quite love it as much by the time the movie was over, but I did like it more than not.

I loved the opening scene with Tiana and Charlotte as little girls, as Tiana's mother read them the story. I laughed at Tiana's reaction to the idea of kissing a frog.  I laughed quite loudly when she soon after saw a frog and screamed.  It made me think of little Moana's scream in "Ralph Breaks the Internet".

So, this was bugging me throughout this entire section of the film.  Tiana's little bit of curly hair that hangs down from the middle of her forehead reminds me of someone else, but I can't think of who.  I think it's another animated character, and it might be a child as well.  It triggered a familiarity for me, and I can almost picture it in my head, but for the life of me, I can't figure out who I'm thinking of.

Tiana and Charlotte grow up, and Charlotte's father is so rich and important that a visiting prince is going to stay in his palace, and Charlotte is determined to bag him as a husband.

Said visiting royalty, Prince Naveen, finds himself led astray by Dr. Facilier and ends up being turned into a frog.  Oh, green, get it?  He thinks that Tiana is a princess because she's wearing a gown and tiara borrowed from Charlotte, and he persuades Tiana to kiss him to turn him back into a human, lying to her that he can help her fulfill her dream of owning a restaurant, even though he's flat broke because he's been cut off by his parents.

But holy plot twist, Batman, kissing him instead turns Tiana into a frog as well.  Well, that's a fine pickle (green, get it?) she's gotten into.

Tiana and Naveen as their frog selves have an adventure in the bayou and along the way meet Louis, the gator who plays a trumpet.  So, I knew there was an instrument-playing gator in this movie because I've seen him in parades and such at Disneyland, and I figured he was a human who'd gotten turned into an alligator.  Nope, actual gator.  Ok then.

They encounter more bayou folk, like Ray the firefly, who's obsessed with Evangeline (no, not Freckles from "Lost"), who turns out to be a star (planet?) in the sky.

Mama Odie was kind of interesting, though I was not a fan of her helper because ... well, you know.  She was kind of like the wizard of Oz, granting people's wishes, but she was a lot nicer.

So then there's this whole story wherein Tiana and Naveen think that Charlotte counts as a princess because her father is the reigning king of Mardi Gras (yeah, I wasn't keen on that particular line of thinking), so there's a mad rush to get to her so she can break the spell.  That doesn't end up working out, and even though Naveen has grown to love Tiana (and she loves him back), he agrees to marry Charlotte if she will kiss him to turn him back into a human, but she has to promise to give Tiana the funds to purchase the restaurant space she wants.  Charlotte later relieves him of his obligation to marry her, and Tiana and Naveen are reunited in their love and decide to get married in their frog forms.

You may kiss the bride."  And they're both turned back into human form.  How, when the way to break the spell is for Naveen to be kissed by a princess?  Tiana's not a princess!  Ah, but she married PRINCE Naveen, so she is indeed now a princess!  I loved that plot point.  So clever.

Because Facilier fails in his bid to get his hands on Charlotte's money, the Shadow People that he's been bargaining with are not happy with him.  His whole pleading with them and explanation of why he failed and his demise reminded me a lot of Scar in "The Lion King" trying to explain himself to the hyenas before they descend on him.

Ray the firefly ends up being killed in the final melee, but he is re-born as a star (planet?) near his beloved Evangeline.  I know that was supposed to elicit FEELINGS but it actually didn't do anything for me.  Maybe because I didn't connect to Ray at all.  Or because I thought it was kind of a cheesy end to his story.

I really enjoyed the film when it involved Tiana and Naveen, though I really wanted to see more of Tiana in her human form.  I loved the scenes of her as a child, and I wanted to see more of that and of her as she grew up.  I loved her spunk and wanted to see how that developed further.  I also liked that she wasn't fixated on getting a man, which is all too common a theme with these kinds of films.  I mean, in the end, she does get a man, but she doesn't sacrifice her dream for him.  Instead, HE joins her in HER dream.  And she's actually the hero of the story, since she's the one who manages to destroy the amulet.

I liked Naveen, even though he could be a jerk at times.  I did really like that he was willing to sacrifice his own happiness by marrying Charlotte and letting Tiana go because it would guarantee that Tiana's dream of having a restaurant would come true.  It reminded me of Beast from "Beauty and the Beast", who let Belle go because it was the best thing for her, even though it caused pain for Beast.

Charlotte - I was a little irritated that she was so annoying throughout so much of the film because I'm quite partial to that name, but she ended up doing a good thing in the end, so ok.  For some reason, she reminded me of Glinda from "Wicked".

I laughed a lot during this film, which was nice.  I particularly enjoyed the bug scene, when both Naveen and Tiana are involuntarily controlled by their frog instincts and their tongues have a mind of their own, so to speak.

I want to visit Tiana's Place and try the gumbo that she and her dad created.

I liked the end song and was especially pleased that it was an actual song, rather than a pop version of a song from the film.

I noted one very subtle reference to the racism that Tiana was subject to, something that kids might not understand.  When the owners of the building she wants tell her that someone outbid her, they mention that given her history (or background, I can't remember which word they used), maybe it was for the best that she didn't have the restaurant because she wouldn't be able to handle it.  Wow, really?  You made a deal with her, jerks.

So, I had no idea that Oprah Winfrey voiced Tiana's mom until I saw the credit at the end.  I even went back to watch/listen to the scenes with Tiana and her mother.  She sounds very different from what I've normally heard of her.  Her tone sounded higher pitched than what I'm used to, and even knowing it was her, there were only moments when I could "hear" her in the voice.  I thought she did a good job.  I liked Tiana's mom.

I thought it was really interesting to see how they differentiated a female frog versus a male frog in the way they drew the characters without the obvious overused shortcuts, like lipstick, eyelashes or a bow on the head or some other frilly thing to make sure we know THIS IS A FEMALE.  Naveen looked to me more like what is normally expected to depict a frog, and then for Tiana, they drew her a bit smaller, a bit skinnier, with a smaller head and face and softer, smoother features.  I really liked that they went with just style and not accessories to differentiate male from female.

The things that I didn't really enjoy about the film were almost all of the supporting characters.  Ray the firefly, the frog hunters, and I forget who else, none of them did anything for me, and I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to them.

I thought Louis had a lot of potential, but then he kind of got lost in the shuffle, I thought.  I thought it was brilliant that he got to play with an actual band because they thought he was dressed up as an alligator for Mardi Gras.  I was very happy for him, and that in the end, he was able to continue playing with a human band.

I thought Facilier had a lot of potential too, but I also thought he got lost.  I didn't like that he didn't really have the power, that he basically answered to the Shadow People.

And the one thing that irritated me the most was in no way the fault of the movie.  Most if not all of the times that I've seen Tiana in some sort of entertainment at Disneyland, whether it was the Soundsational parade or the Mickey and the Magical Map show, she sings "Dig a Little Deeper".  Now that I've seen the movie, I now know that IT'S NOT TIANA'S SONG!!!!  It's Mama Odie's song.  Why is Tiana singing someone else's song as her signature song?  I really liked "Almost There", so why not that one?  It's even one of the songs that got an Oscar nomination!  But they don't use it because "Dig a Little Deeper" is catchier?  Or at least have some representation or reference to Mama Odie, that this is what Tiana has now learned from her.  It irritated me to make that discovery, like when I found out that Madonna had stolen the prostitute's song in the film version of "Evita".

I did like the movie enough that I'd like to see it again.  Maybe next time, I'll like the supporting cast more.

"The Black Cauldron" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Black Cauldron".

This was another case where I knew nothing about the movie.  I knew there was some kind of magical element to it, and I thought there were a group of three witches involved somehow, but that's it.

The story started with a mean king who was outright evil.  I don't remember them saying that he was magical, just that he was cruel, but then they said he was tossed into a black cauldron to contain his evil and that if anyone ever unearthed him, they could release his evilness back into the world.  OK, so magical, I guess.  It made me think of "Thor: Dark World", where the Dark Elves were looking to release their dark master to wreak havoc on the Nine Realms.

Awww, cute little kitty.  I'm gonna like this movie.  But then kitty disappears for the rest of the movie, so boo.

Piggie has magical powers.  Why?  I don't know.  He kind of looked like Wilbur from "Charlotte's Web".

And the Horned King is looking for the black cauldron so that he can harness the dark powers.  Who is the Horned King?  I dunno.  Is he the actual king of whatever kingdom this is?  Dunno.  Cause the last king was a pretty bad dude, so was he followed by another bad king, because if he was, this kingdom keeps getting the short end of the stick in the king department.  Anyway, the Horned King somehow knows that Piggie has powers that will reveal where the black cauldron is, so he sends his dragon minions to retrieve Piggie.

Piggie's caretaker has an assistant who looks and dresses a bit like Peter Pan, and he really annoyed me pretty much throughout the movie.  Look at me, I'm awesome, I'm gonna be the hero, I'm too good to be an assistant pig tender.  Yeah, and I fail at every turn, including losing Piggie, whom he was supposed to be taking to safety.  Dude, you had one job.

And then I guess we're at the Horned King's castle, and for some reason, he has some weird version of Esmeralda from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" there as well as one of the gargoyles, who appears to be the Horned King's office manager.

And then not-Peter Pan encounters a girl who looks remarkably like Aurora from "Sleeping Beauty", and she even has some little ball of light that she follows around that looks like the ball of light that Aurora followed up to the attic to the deadly spinning wheel.  Hasn't she learned that the ball leads her to trouble yet?

And then they meet a bard / minstrel who reminded me of the Keebler elves.  And not-Peter Pan finds and absconds with a sword, which turns out to be magical and is perfectly capable of holding its own in a fight without anyone actually wielding it, thank you very much.  Is this where Excalibur went into hiding?  That was my first thought, given that the movie I saw last week was "The Sword in the Stone".  The magic sword comes with a sheath that must also be magical because not-Peter Pan leaves the dwelling with not-Aurora and clearly nothing else, but then later, he somehow has the sheath.  Did the sheath find him or just materialize in his vicinity?

Not-Peter Pan and not-Aurora are wandering around, I don't remember why, and I kept thinking, where's Piggy and where's her light?  And then some weirdo creature shows up that they never explained, and I have no idea what it was, and I generally found it annoying too, with a speech pattern that was a mix of Stitch, Donald Duck and Jar Jar Binks.

And then they encounter some cave underwater where there are fairy babies.  OK.  And some version of Santa and his elves live there too.  OK.  And there's some discussion where they figure out where the black cauldron is, and they're going to go there because if they destroy it, the Horned King won't be able to use it!  How are they going to destroy it?  Dunno.

So how do they get to where the black cauldron is?  They spread pixie dust on them so they can fly / float.  No, really, I'm not kidding.  OK.  And when they get to where they need to be, they encounter 3 witches.  Ah ha!  See, I was right, there are 3 witches in this.  The 3 witches turn people and things into frogs so that they can eat them.  And one immediately falls in love with Keebler elf minstrel, acting like the lovesick female characters in other Disney animated films that I've already complained about. Just.stop.

Turns out the witches are somehow the gatekeepers of the black cauldron and talk not-Peter Pan into trading his magic sword for the cauldron.  We all know this is a bad idea, right?

Stuff happens, cauldron gets unearthed, Horned King shows up and tries to unleash the power of the cauldron but APPARENTLY, a voluntary life sacrifice will put an end to it.  Before not-Peter Pan can be the sacrifice, weirdo creature says he will do it and dives into the cauldron like Buffy Summers diving into the hellmouth to save the world.  More things ensue, and the Horned King ends up being tractor-beamed into the cauldron, and everything goes kablooey, leaving only the empty cauldron.

The witches come back and want the cauldron, so Keebler elf minstrel bargains with them, and not-Peter Pan wants to trade it back for weirdo creature.  And the merry band of travelers head off together to ... I don't know where.  The end.  Yeah, I wasn't really sure what all happened.

I will give Disney a lot of credit for attempting a film that's so different from everything else they've done.  It's definitely much darker and scarier than everything else they've put out, and I loved the visuals of the Horned King's castle and when magical stuff happened.  But I thought the story was a bit convoluted and not very well set out.  The main character is Piggie.  Umm, no.  The main character is not-Peter Pan.  Ummm, no, not really.  Oh, the main characters are the trio who go on their Lord-of-the-Ring-ish quest.  Ummm, no.  The main character is the Horned King.  Nope.  The main character is the evil king in the black cauldron?  Nope.  I give up.

I also had a problem with the constant switching of scenes back and forth, from the scary stuff involving the Horned King and his various minions, and then to the happy, pastoral, Disneyesque scenes with not-Peter Pan, not-Aurora and Keebler elf minstrel.  The stories weren't melded together  very well and instead seemed like two different movies were haphazardly edited together.

I didn't care that much about not-Peter Pan or his mentor or not-Aurora or Keebler elf minstrel or Piggie or really anyone else they associated with.  Except the kitty.  I would like to know the story of the Horned King and the evil king, so I'd watch that if they had the kitty in there as well.

"The Sword in the Stone" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Sword in the Stone".

I knew some of the backstory of the film, partly because of the sword in the stone ceremony they used to have with Merlin (I don't know if they do it any more) at Disneyland in Fantasyland by King Arthur's Carousel, and partly because it's a cultural reference pertaining to Arthur, King of England.  Obviously, Arthur is a child in this film, as I've seen from pictures and clips, so let's see what they do.

This was completely not the story I expected to see.  It was a story about a wizard teaching a kid things but it didn't seem to matter at all that it was Merlin and Arthur.  It could have been any random wizard and kid.  I don't think I expected Arthur to be a kid the whole time.  I figured we'd see him grow up at least some.  Nope.  When they turned into fish, Merlin is trying to teach Arthur how to use your brain and learn to adapt to solve problems.  OK.  But then the same thing happens more or less when they turn into squirrels and then birds.  Uh, yeah, different animals, similar lessons.  We had to see this three times?  I'll admit that I lost interest by the time they became birds.

My anticipation of the movie being about the Arthur story that I was familiar with came partly from the opening, when they mention that England had no king, and that whomever could pull the magic sword from the anvil in the stone would be the next king of England.  And then they showed a bunch of people trying to pull the sword out.  It made me think of Thor's hammer, that you had to be worthy to wield it.  None of the people were worthy of pulling the sword out.  (I wonder if Cap could have been the King of England?  Oops, sorry, spoiler and tangent.)  And that scene ended with something about the sword and the stone being covered with overgrown vegetation (like Sleeping Beauty's castle when the spell was cast) and was forgotten.  But then later in the movie, when Arthur discovers it, it's completely out in the open and even looks well-manicured.  So not so much hidden and forgotten?  And, I really didn't like that his pulling the sword out was just happenstance, and it wasn't even for him, but to give to someone else.

I didn't know that the Sherman Bros. did the songs for this film.  I didn't even know this film had songs.  I enjoyed the songs for the most part, but none of them made a specific impression on me.

There were two scenes that reminded me of "Beauty and the Beast" - the one where the sugar container was serving sugar itself, and the scene where all the dishes were washing themselves.  That latter scene also reminded me of the Sorcerer's Apprentice segment of "Fantasia", which came out more than 20 years prior, with the brooms doing the sweeping on their own.  I was kind of annoyed when Arthur's guardian (Sir Ector) put a stop to it all.  I mean, the work was being done, and efficiently too.  What's the problem?

Speaking of which, Sir Ector and his son (Sir Kay) reminded me a little bit of Lady Tremaine and her daughters from "Cinderella", but they weren't nearly as mean to him as Lady T and her offspring were to Cinderella.  Sir Ector wanted his son to win the competition and be king like Lady T wanted one of her daughters to marry the prince.  But at least when it turned out that Arthur would be king, Sir Ector respected that and made his son respect that as well.

I liked the stuff with Merlin knowing about all these things in the future and visiting places that hadn't been discovered yet.  I also liked how he was able to pack the entire contents of his house in his magic bag by miniaturizing everything.  That's a pretty nifty trick.  Hmmm, I wonder if he could fit more things in his bag, or if Mary Poppins could fit more things in her bag?

When Merlin turned himself and Arthur into fish, I thought it was funny that he was blue and Arthur was orange, just like Dory and Marlin/Nemo from "Finding Nemo".  If Merlin had turned himself blue and turned Arthur orange, that would have been even funnier because then Merlin and Marlin would have both been blue!

Normally, I like animals in these films, but I wasn't keen on any of them.  The wolf seemed to really serve no purpose other than inconsequential side story.  He was also drawn kind of funny looking, like Wile E. Coyote but not even that refined, instead of actually being scary at all.  I thought the owl on the whole was just annoying, and the only thing I liked about him was his name (Archimedes).  I really disliked the girl squirrel, who was just falling all over herself for Arthur and who was clearly sexually harassing him.  And then adult female squirrel comes along and does the same thing to Merlin.  Why are so many of the female animal characters so overly flirty and overly interested in attracting the attention of the male, like the female fox in "The Fox and the Hound", Miss Bianca in "The Rescuers", and Duchess and little Marie from "The Aristocats"?

Oh, and on a side note, how does something as vicious as the barracuda end up in a moat?  (I did think he was cool, though.)  Presumably, the moat is a closed environment, so it's not like the barracuda swam in from somewhere else.  Did someone flush a baby barracuda down the toilet and then it ended up in the moat?  Did someone buy a baby barracuda as a pet and then figured out it wasn't a good idea and then decided to release it in the moat?  When Arthur describes the big, vicious, toothy fish, even Sir Ector (I think) wonders how it got in the moat, and was there something weird going on.  And then we completely abandon that tidbit.  Maybe Ursula was responsible.

Madam Mim - She was supposed to be a villain, sort of?  I'm not really sure.  I didn't get much of a feeling about her one way or another.

Arthur - Given that he's the lead in the film (or at least co-lead, with Merlin), I didn't get much from him.  Yeah, I guess the point was that this nobody kid becomes this great king, another case of "ordinary person becomes a famous hero" that is often the foundation of the lead character in a film, but I didn't see anything in him that would lead me to believe he could make that transition.  I also wasn't fond of his voice, though I can't pinpoint why.  Maybe it was because doing the voice of the pre-teen was a man in his 20s?  I mean, that shouldn't really make a difference since voice-over artists should be able to voice people who are not their same age, cultural background, etc., but his voice for Arthur just didn't work for me.

The husband is quite enamoured of King Arthur stories and has either already read every version ever written or is in the process of reading them.  He'd seen this film before and knew that it was based on a book by T.H. White, a book that he was not fond of either.  I knew going in that he didn't really like the film or the book, and after watching it, he did tell me that they did take many elements from the book in making the film, as I was telling him the things I didn't like about the film.

I didn't dislike the film overall, but in addition to it not being what I expected going in, it didn't particularly interest me as the story played out.  There wasn't a character that I really liked or was interested in.