"Wondrous Journeys" fireworks and "World of Color: One" reviews (spoilers at the end with plenty of warning) - Disneyland Resort, February 2023

 

For the celebration of the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company (which is actually on October 16, 2023), two new nighttime entertainment offerings recently debuted at the Disneyland Resort.  One of the things I really liked about both shows is that characters and films that aren't generally included in park entertainment are either referenced or featured in the shows.  And even in cases where a more familiar character is shown, it's not necessarily the most famous song that's used.  For the 100th celebration, it's nice of the company to recognize that it's not the same handful of characters that has gotten the company to where they are now.

(Note that my initial comments do not contain any spoilers about either show.  At the end, I do post spoilers about each of the shows, but you'll get plenty of notice so that you can avoid them if you choose.)

"Wondrous Journeys" is the fireworks show at Disneyland, which is a celebration of Walt Disney Animation Studios and includes a new song called "Wondrous".

Disneyland is known for their amazing fireworks shows, and this one fits right in.  As with recent Disney fireworks show, this show is heavy on projections that go along with the music and the fireworks themselves.  This one is especially heavy on the projections since it includes something from each of the Walt Disney Animation Studios films.  I've seen the show with a view of Sleeping Beauty Castle, and I'm looking forward to seeing the show from Main Street, it's a small world mall and the Rivers of America to see how the projections and fireworks look from those areas.

At Disney California Adventure, the celebration continues with a new version of World of Color, called "One".  I've always been less enthused about World of Color than some of the other nighttime entertainment at the resort, but I've come to appreciate different aspects of World of Color.  The theme of this show isn't as obvious as Wondrous Journeys, pretty much because before the fireworks, they tell you exactly what you're going to see and what they're celebrating.

With "One", it's a little more subtle, as the show is a celebration of inspiration.  For the various featured characters and vignettes, we see either what they were inspired by, what provided inspiration to them, or what they inspired others to do, what they became the inspiration for, and in many cases, we see both.  That's why the show is called "One", because it only takes one to be the inspiration, starting with Walt Disney himself, and it only takes one to be inspired to create something magical, like all of the people who have contributed to the legacy of The Walt Disney Company for the past (almost) 100 years.  (And yes, "One Little Spark" definitely came to mind as I was watching this show.)

In addition to the beauty of the show, there are some really cool new effects, in the play of the lasers in the water screens / fountains, as well as the effects on the roller coaster, which is used to great effect to enhance the show.

I don't think they've announced how long the celebration is going to run, but I expect it will last at least 18 months, which has traditionally been the case for big celebrations.  In this case, since they started the celebration so early, it might actually run two years or even longer.

I hope folks get a chance to visit to see these wonderful shows.

Following are spoilers regarding both Wondrous Journeys and World of Color: One, so if you don't want to read spoilers, stop reading here.  Thanks.

SPOILERS for "Wondrous Journeys" fireworks at Disneyland.

During the segment with "When You Wish Upon a Star", it was incredible for the Blue Fairy to come out over the castle at that point.  Traditionally, Tinkerbell flies during the Disneyland fireworks, but this was a nice substitution instead.  I also appreciated that the customary hidden Mickey fireworks went off on the "true" of "your dreams come true".

My favorite segment of the show is the combination of the "want song" from each of Hercules, Belle, Moana and Quasimodo.  The inclusion of Quasi and "Out There" has personal significance for me, so it especially hits.

Another segment I really like includes the song "Immortals" from "Big Hero Six", and Baymax flies over the castle!  I'd known that Baymax was in the show, but I had no idea he had rockets on his feet.  It's incredible to watch.

Most of the time, the fireworks show only includes the happy moments, so I really appreciated the inclusion of Judy Hopps and Moana, who are both at moments where they are questioning themselves.  Disney animated films aren't just about happy times, but almost always include some kind of obstacle to overcome, so I was glad that they included those moments in the show.  We all struggle sometimes.

I'm not necessarily a fan of Winnie the Pooh, but the inclusion of his segment about wanting to do it all over again from the beginning is absolutely perfect, because that's exactly what you want to do after you've seen the show - you just want to see it again!

The only thing I wish they had included in the show is a villains segment, with some of the villains that we don't see all the time.  The villains are just as much a part of Disney animated history as the princesses and other heroes.

SPOILERS for "World of Color:  One" at Disney California Adventure.

I loved the light and water effects during the Ratatouille segment - creating the Eiffel Tower with water and light was amazing!

Being a big Star Wars fan, I might be a little biased, but I loved the light speed segment.

The effects to enhance the avalanche segment in Mulan were incredible.  That was truly an amazing sight to see.

My favorite part of the show was the Moana segment, in her fight with Te Kā / Te Fiti.  That's where the giant fireball is unleashed, and it's a perfect accent to the segment.  Unfortunately, for various reasons, the fireball isn't always a guarantee, either the one during this segment, or the reprise of the fireball at the end of the show.

 

 

"Onward" - Disney animated film review

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

From the first trailer that I saw of this movie, I had already decided I wasn't going to see it. It really turned me off. It wasn't until the third trailer that I saw that I didn't immediately think NO, and that was when they were actually telling the story of the movie, with the two brothers on their quest. But even that trailer and then finding out that Tom Holland played the younger brother didn't inspire me to see the film.

The prelude in the film gives the backstory that once upon a time, the world had magic, and it was cool. But it was hard, and not everyone could do it, and then technology and innovation allowed everyone to do the "magic" things without having to master magic, and so magic faded from the world.

If you read my review of "The Emperor's New Groove", you know that I had trouble getting past the first 5 minutes and only made it through because of this project. For this film, I made it to 10 minutes in before I wanted to bail. I did end up liking parts of this film more than I did "The Emperor's New Groove", but that's not just a low bar, it's a bar that's on the ground so not hard to get over.

Oh, here's one thing I liked - at one point when someone was driving around, I noticed that the normal STOP signs said HALT instead. That made me laugh.

So the story is that younger brother Ian is shy and unsure of himself, and his father died before he was born, so he never knew him. It's his 16th birthday, but he's too nervous to ask a group of kids to come to his party. He finally gets the courage to utter a convoluted invitation, which they happily accept, but then his older brother pulls up and the kids don't have a favorable reaction to him (older brother), so he (Ian) hastily withdraws the invitation with the excuse that the party is cancelled. Once Ian gets home, he pulls out a cassette tape (I guess they haven't gotten that far in the technology and innovation timeline.) and a cassette player and pops in a tape. As it plays, it sounds like a test tape that his dad made, trying it out for the first time. After playing it through once, he plays it again, this time adding his own dialogue at the right time so that it sounds like he and his dad are having a conversation. He's clearly listened to this enough times that he knows it all by heart, words and pauses both.

Older brother Barley is loud and brash and annoying as hell.

Because Ian is so down, their mom (Laurel) decides to bring out a present early (she had meant to do this later in the evening) and give a present from their dad that is actually meant for both brothers, once they're both at least 16. They unwrap a wizard's staff and a magic gem and realize that their dad was a wizard. There are instructions that, when the spell is cast, will bring their father back for 24 hours. Barley attempts the spell and nothing happens, disappointing them both, as well as their mother. After they leave his room, Ian absentmindedly starts reciting the spell and doesn't notice that the gem is glowing. He finally notices, and Barley comes in and sees what's happening, and as the spell proceeds, their father starts to materialize, from the shoes up. Ian is struggling to control the staff, and Barley jumps in to help him, but in doing so, it throws the spell awry.

Once everything settles, they discover that their dad has only materialized up to his waist. With no other way to communicate with him, Barley taps "shave and a haircut" on his dad's shoe, and his dad responds. This was something they used to do, so Barley in this way communicates to his dad that it's him, and his dad acknowledges him. Dad's feet then go searching for Ian's, which he finds.

So then there's this whole story where Barley is really into gaming quests which are based on real events, so Barley knows one game that is exactly like the quest they're on - they're in search of another magic gem so that they can materialize the rest of their dad. Their quest takes them to the Manticore's Tavern, run by Corey, who's a manticore, of course. The formerly fierce tavern has now been turned into a sort of Chuck E. Cheese, with a cute, fuzzy mascot of Corey. Barley is disheartened that she's now just a businesswoman and implores her to rediscover herself, when she was fierce and loved adventure. After Ian and Barley leave, Corey does just that and turns ferocious. Laurel has just arrived in search of her boys, and Corey says they're already on their way, but she forgot to tell them about the curse, so she and Laurel try to catch up with them. I was thinking at that point, she has wings, why can't she use them? And then later, Corey and Laurel have a conversation where Corey says that her wings don't work very well because she hasn't exercised those muscles much. OK, point taken.

Ian and Barley are in need of gas, and Barley comes up with the idea that Ian can make the gas can bigger and that will increase the amount of gas. And I'm thinking, how do you know it works that way, that they won't just end up with the same amount of gas in a giant gas can? And after this whole elaborate explanation to Ian that he {Ian} has to concentrate and not be distracted while he's (Ian's) casting the spell, Barley proceeds to break his concentration and distract him the whole time, throwing the spell off. Are you seeing a pattern?

So instead of making the can bigger, it turns out that Barley is made tiny. They have to continue their quest, and because Barley is too small to drive, Ian has to drive, even though he doesn't know how and is terrified to try again after messing up really badly in Driver's Training.

Other stuff happens, and then while trying to get out of another scrape, Barley ends up finding out that Ian thinks he (Barley) is a screw-up. Ian tries to deny it, but Barley doesn't believe him. I don't remember what happened next, but at some point, there's music, and their dad can feel the vibrations so starts dancing to the music. Dad wants them to join in so goes to get them one by one, but how does dad know where they were?

Then there was a giant cheese puff floaty thing. They eventually get to where they're going and make their way through a maze of things to conquer. It was kind of like what Indiana Jones had to do to get the idol, but instead of a giant rolling boulder, they had to escape from a giant gelatinous cube. Barley said that the gelatinous cube dissolved anything it touched, but I saw bits of stuff in it, so I guess it doesn't dissolve every little bit? I just kept thinking it was a Borg ship made of jello with fruit bits in it.

And after defeating all of the obstacles, they get to the light at the end of the tunnel and finally make it through - back to their own town, right near Ian's school. Ian is incensed that they've wasted so much time because the 24 hour time limit is closing quickly, so he goes off to spend what little time he has left with his dad. Barley is determined to find the gem and follows a hunch and ends up retrieving the gem from the nearby water fountain. But then the curse is triggered, and red smoke pours out from the top of the fountain and permeates the area, destroying and absorbing things, and it turns out that it is taking rocks and wood and metal in order to create a giant dragon pieced together from those bits. The friendly school mascot picture as its face was pretty funny.

A battle ensues (and Corey [who has rediscovered the use of her wings] and Laurel arrive, and Corey joins in the fight) and the staff ends up getting knocked out of Ian's hand, but he realizes that he still has a splinter in his hand, so he pulls that out, and it magically regenerates into another staff. I wasn't really keen on that save-the-day measure. He's had to climb rocks and all kinds of other things that involved using his hands, and there's still a big enough piece of intact splinter in his hand?

Ian is able to use the staff and gem to cast the spell again, and this time, the spell is completed, and the rest of their dad starts to materialize. But the dragon is hell-bent on destroying them all, and while Ian had really, really wanted to meet his dad, he tells Barley to go instead, while he (Ian) fights the dragon. Earlier, Barley had told Ian that when their father was dying and almost gone, he had the chance to see him one more time, but dad had tubes and other stuff all over and didn't look like himself anymore, and Barley was too afraid to see him, so he never said goodbye. Ian wants Barley to have the chance to say goodbye to their dad.

Ian manages to defeat the dragon, and he's able to watch the final minutes that his dad has, talking to Barley, and it ends with a hug before dad disappears. When Barley comes to Ian, he (Barley) gives him (Ian) a hug on their dad's behalf.

At the end of the movie, when they're driving off and lift into the air, the husband and I both said, "Where we're going, we don't need ... roads." Geeks.

Barley bugged the crap out of me. He was the main reason I disliked the film so much, because he was such a jerk and pretended to know everything. And when Ian kept saying that it was all his fault because he messed up the spells, I was yelling (mostly in my head but maybe some got out), "No, it's not. It's Barley's fault." He insisted on grabbing the staff when their dad was materializing, so it was his fault that only half came through. He kept talking and talking and talking to Ian and distracting him, which resulted in Barley getting shrunk, so again, his fault. I'll admit, the moment he had with his dad was really sweet (as was his passing along a hug from their dad to Ian), and I almost cried at that (both of those), but I would have felt it more if I'd had ANY positive feelings about Barley prior to that point. Mostly, I thought how nice it was of Ian to let Barley have that moment, which would hopefully be a healing for him (Barley), and maybe it'll make him less of a jerk (that part is my thinking, not Ian's).

I thought Ian's story arc was unremarkable. I wish they had structured the earlier part of the story differently, so that it was that there was this list of things he wanted to do, but he thinks he never got to do them because he didn't have a dad, but it turns out, Barley filled that role. Instead, he had a list of things he wanted to do WITH his dad, but doing them with Barley was enough? If he'd been looking for a dad the whole time and then realized that Barley was there all along, I would have bought it more. Also, with the "flashbacks" to the things that Barley did for him when they were younger, we're supposed to all of a sudden see what a great brother Barley has been? A minute or two of flashbacks that I didn't see happen, per se, is not going to change my opinion that quickly. I would like them to have mentioned maybe one or two of them during their adventures, so we would have known that Barley hasn't been a jerk with Ian his whole life.

I thought Tom Holland was fine as Ian, but other than playing Spider-man, I really want him to not play "nervous, unsure teenage boy" anymore. I want to see something else from him. Even though it wasn't a big part, I liked him in "The Current War". More of that kind of stuff, please. I know, he still has a very young face, but that didn't distract from his serious role in "The Current War".

I liked Corey, moreso after I found out that she was voiced by Octavia Spencer. She does fantastic work in everything I've seen her in (I recommend "Gifted" and "Ma", yes, very different films from each other and this film, but she's fantastic, and both are films that I don't think got enough attention.), but I like Manticore Corey better than Tavern Corey. I don't plan to see this film again, but if I'm ever in a position where it happens, I'll be paying more attention to Corey.

I think part of my disinterest in this film (other than being constantly irritated by Barley) is that the fantasy genre has never been my thing. I like some stories in the fantasy realm, but I wouldn't choose it.

There were some parts of this film that reminded me a bit of "Wall-E". Automation had turned everyone lethargic so that they were all lazy and overweight and spent all their time in chairs that moved them around. In this film, technology and innovation had similarly made some of them forget themselves, with Laurel's minotaur boyfriend driving instead of running, and Corey not having used her wings in a long time, and magic had been neglected.


So this is the last film on my list for this project. Other than "Mulan" (which will be crossed off the list at some point after I've seen the new live-action version, whenever that is), I've seen all the Disney animated films I hadn't seen previously. Well, all the Disney animated films I hadn't seen previously that I was willing o watch. I haven't seen "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", "The Rescuers Down Under", "A Goofy Movie", "James and the Giant Peach", "The Tigger Movie" and "Dinosaur". I'm not counting them on my list. Why? Because it's my project, so I get to make the non-existent rules.

Speaking of unseen Disney animated movies, I want to mention three movies that I don't think got nearly the attention and love they should have, either when they were released or any time discussions of animated Disney movies arise. If you haven't seen them, I would highly recommend them.

1. "Meet the Robinsons" - I just wrote a short sentence to describe this movie and realized it's kind of a spoiler. Anyway, I do think it's a terrific movie with good things to say to kids and adults alike, and it also contains one of my favorite Disney animated characters.

2. "Bolt" - It's a lot of fun, and Bolt (who's a dog) is really cute, and you get to meet his friends Mittens (a cute cat) and Rhino (a funny hamster). Some of the characters are voiced by people I'm not fond of but they're good in this movie.

3. "Chicken Little" - Yes, it's that story, but with a twist, of course. I loved this movie. I thought it was so much fun. And Chicken Little is cute!


I haven't quite decided what I'm doing next, if anything. Thanks for coming along on this journey. I hope you've enjoyed it.

"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.

How Goob from "Meet the Robinsons" became a watch

One of my favorite animated characters is Goob from Walt Disney Animation Studios' “Meet the Robinsons”.  I think it’s one of Disney’s most underrated films, and there’s really no synopsis that does the movie justice, but if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend that you do.  Goob, whose actual name is Michael Yagoobian, is one of the little boys in the movie.  He plays a bigger part than that in the film, but that would be giving you spoilers if you haven't seen the film.  In any case, I thought Goob was such a cute little kid, and he just got some really unlucky breaks in life, and I felt bad for him.  I wanted to introduce him to Boo from Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.” (she’s also one of my favorite animated characters), and they could have adventures together, and she could teach him how to have fun, and I think she would be a good influence on him.  I looked for some merchandise with him on it, but because of how the story develops, the little boy is not in much of the film, and they couldn’t really market him without giving some of the story away.  There were certainly no figurines or plush of him, and as I recall, the only thing I found was a roll of stickers for the movie, and it happened to have the occasional sticker with him, so I bought that.

OK, so, that’s one part of the backstory.

I don’t remember exactly when it was (The movie was released in 2007, so it had to be sometime after that.),but for my birthday one year, the husband came to me and said that he had a gift planned for me, but he didn’t have it yet, and he wasn’t sure that he would actually be able to get it, and if he did, he had no idea when it might be available, and did I want to know what it was or just wait to see if it happened.  Ummm, ok.  I decided I would just wait without knowing what it was I might be waiting for.

Some months later, he was excited to tell me that the gift he wanted had indeed arrived, and he gave me a watch with Goob on it.

Now, here’s the second part of the backstory.

There’s a watch store on Main Street at Disneyland, and as you can imagine, they have all kinds of nice things in there.  I don’t know if they still have them now, but they used to have original artwork watches for sale, some of which were designs that you could choose from a book and some of which might be released for special occasions, like an anniversary of an attraction or for Disneyland's birthday.  If you purchased any of these original artwork watches, you also got the artwork drawing with it.  I know they don’t have this now, but back then, you could also get a custom watch with a design that wasn’t in the book, but there was a whole process of getting the design approved before they could make the watch.  That’s what the husband did to get this watch made, but there was a glitch.  “Meet the Robinsons” was a computer-animated film from Walt Disney Animation Studios.  The husband was told by a cast member at the watch shop that they had a contact to ask for approval for Walt Disney Animation movies that were hand-drawn, and they had a contact to ask for approval for Pixar Studios, who only made computer-animated movies, but because Walt Disney Animation Studios had not made many computer-animated films, this was the first time someone had requested a watch with a design from one of those films, so they had not yet created an approval process for that.  The husband was told that once they figured out who needed to approve the design request, and if the request was approved or not, they would call him back to let him know, but they had no way of knowing how long that would take.

So he waited.  I don’t know how long it took, but he said that eventually, he got a call back saying his request had been approved.  He had given them a screenshot he’d taken of the design he wanted.  My two favorite bits with Goob are both when he’s in his baseball uniform.  At one point, he has a juice box, and he’s trying to drink out of it, but I think the straw moves around.  In a later scene, after Goob has a black eye, he has a steak over that eye, and I absolutely love his line:  “Mr. Steak, you’re my only friend.”  The husband had given them the design with Goob and the juice box.  Once his request was approved, they had one of the artists do a drawing of the picture, which they then sent to the husband for approval.  Once a drawing was approved, then they proceeded to make the watch.

Here's the awesome Goob watch.  The detail is amazing, with the logo on the hat, and the dinosaur on his shirt, and his sleepy eyes with dark shadows under them because the poor boy is so exhausted, and the juice box and the little straw in his mouth.

They finally called the husband to let him know that the watch was ready, so he went by to pick it up.  As it happened, the artist who did the drawing for the watch, Dave Smith (but not the Walt Disney Archives' Dave Smith), was there at the watch shop that night, so the husband stopped by to tell him he was picking up the watch.  The husband said that Dave was happy to meet him and said that he really enjoyed drawing Goob and that many people stopped to admire his work and recognized Goob.  The artists did their work on the watch drawings out in the open, so you could see them if you were standing in the shop or just walking outside by the window.

All of the original artwork watches also came with a Mickey head buckle.  So cute.

Seriously, how cute is that little Mickey-head buckle?

So that’s the story of how I got this cute watch.  There was almost no Goob merchandise available, so the husband had to have one created for me!

"The Emperor's New Groove" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Emperor’s New Groove".

But first, a side note: I’ve never seen the Disney animated movie “Mulan”. It would definitely be on this to-watch list that I’m going through, but I wanted to see the live-action version first, but obviously, with its delayed release, I haven’t had a chance to do that. I don’t want to see the animated version this close to seeing the new version because I’d like to see the new film on its own merits, not in comparison to something else. So, I’m waiting until I can see the live-action version, and then some time after that, I’ll go back and see the animated version.

OK, back to last week's movie.

I will admit up front that I had serious biases against this film going in, which also accounts for the reason I’ve never seen it in the first place. I was pretty excited when I heard that they were working on a dramatic animated musical film called “Kingdom of the Sun”, especially since Sting was going to be doing the music, and I’m a Sting fan. And then, somehow, plans changed, and it wasn’t going to be called that anymore (I liked that title.), and now, it was going in a different direction, and it was now going to be a commentary, and would be called “The Emperor’s New Groove” instead. Well, it’s clear from the new title that it’s going to be a very different movie. Oh, and the lead will still be voiced by David Spade. Ugh. I am not a fan of David Spade. I am decidedly not a fan. I know many enjoy his particular flavor of comedy. I am not one of them. Have I made it clear that I do not enjoy David Spade’s brand of comedy and therefore avoid it? So, you’ve changed the animated film with Sting’s music into a comedy starring David Spade. That’s like promising me sushi and then trying to feed me dirt mixed with black licorice. (For those who don’t know, I do not like black licorice.)

Umm, yeah, no. And before any fans of David Spade try to expound the virtues of his comedy genius to me, I’m not saying he’s not talented or that he’s not funny. Many people find him one or the other or both. I’m saying *I* do not find him either, and I actually find him rather annoying, so my opinion of his work makes me not at all interested in watching him. OK?

OK, well, I tried to give the film as much of a chance going in as I could. I’ve seen films that are genres I don’t usually enjoy, and I’ve seen performers in things I don’t usually like, and in some cases, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed the film / performance. Maybe this will be one of those cases.

Yeah, no.

About 5 minutes into the film, I wanted to turn it off. I didn’t because I said I’d watch the film. I had to give it a chance.

10 - 15 minutes into the film, I *really* wanted to stop watching, and I would have if not for this little project that I’ve been engaged in. I forced myself to keep watching and mostly to keep paying attention.

Even from the very beginning of the film, Emperor Kuzco is every bit the self-centered, narcissistic, self-indulgent, unfeeling, unsympathetic, smarmy asshole that is the hallmark of David Spade’s characters that I despise. No one and nothing else matters, and he has to be the center of attention. Heck, that very sentiment is included in the plot of the story - don’t look at him, it’s my story, pay attention to me. He is a complete jerk the entire time, with zero consideration for anyone else.

Making a comparison to the prince in “Beauty and the Beast” is where I found him even more annoying. Like Kuzco, the prince was unkind and unfeeling and self-centered, and for his faults, he was turned into a beast who had to prove his worthiness to regain his life. He doesn’t know how to be nice and charming, but he tries with Belle, even though he fails many times. He learns empathy and caring and thinking of others.

On the other hand, Kuzco was accidentally turned into a llama instead of being killed, which is what rogue advisor Yzma intended when Kuzco put a stop to her attempt to usurp his position. He fired her, and in return, she wanted to kill him with poison, but her bungling assistant grabs the wrong potion instead. The entire time that Kuzco is a llama, he retains his asshole-ness, he thinks he’s just going to demand to be turned back into a human and it’ll happen, and he doesn’t change his mind about simply taking over a home and a village because he wants a summer home, and he even lies about changing his mind to the very person (Pacha) who he is kicking out of his home. He finally changes his mind at the last minute when he overhears Yzma say that she wants to find him and kill him like she’d intended, but again, his change is not because of his concern for anyone else. It’s still about him. He realizes he’s in danger, and that’s when he turns to Pacha for help. Yeah, at the end, he doesn’t take Pacha’s home and shares it instead (and apparently, that story bit is only because Sting sent a note to the production objecting to their original ending), but it’s so completely out of character for him without showing any reason for the change.

Pacha is the nice guy in town who can’t believe he’s losing his home, and he’s a family man, a husband and a dad, and he can’t bring himself to tell his wife or kids about the impending doom. And he really started to annoy me because no matter what Kuzco did or said to him, he was still nice to him and went above and beyond to help him. Dude, you’re a doormat. You don’t have to keep helping people who are consistently jerks to you.

I liked the little squirrel. I laughed when he wanted to pop the balloons so that it would awaken the panthers so that they would chase after Kuzco. I liked the panthers, and I especially liked the little baby panther.

Yzma was ok, and I enjoyed hearing her voiced by Eartha Kitt, but I wanted her to have more to do. I did think it was funny that she got turned into a little kitten.

As I continued to force myself to watch this movie, I kept thinking of “Leaving Las Vegas”. I hated that movie so much, and I really disliked Nicholas Cage’s character. I was rooting for him to die as early as possible because I knew that the movie would then be over. I had a similar feeling here. No, I didn’t root for Kuzco to die because I knew that wasn’t happening. I just wanted the plot to move along because I knew eventually, he was going to be turned back into a human and not take over Pancha’s house. The sooner that happened, the sooner the movie would be over.

Mercifully, the movie did eventually end. That’s 82 minutes of my life that I can’t get back. Wait, no, let’s say 75 minutes of my life I can’t get back. There were a few things that I did actually enjoy about the film, other than the squirrel and the panthers: 1) I liked the Tom Jones song. Of course, I’ve heard it in the context of many clips and such, but it was an inspired choice to get him to do the song. And he knocks it out of the park. 2) It happened many years ago, so I forget which runDisney race it was, but I think it was a 5K, and there was someone dressed in a costume for a race where I didn’t recognize the character. He was carrying a really tall tower on him, and he had to bend over quite a bit to get under the monorail track overhead in Downtown Disney after the race, which is where I saw him. I didn’t know until someone told me that it was a character from “The Emperor’s New Groove”, and now having seen the film, I know that it was Kronk carrying Yzma, so yeah, fantastic costume in and of itself, never mind running a race that way. And 3) They at least kept the Sting song which they played in the end credits, and I enjoyed it. And he even got an Oscar nomination for it!

So, after doing a little research, I realize that I need to find and watch the film “The Sweatbox”, which is a documentary about the making of “Kingdom of the Sun” and how it turned into “The Emperor’s New Groove’. The film was made by filmmaker Trudie Styler, who also happens to be married to Sting.

"Pocahontas" - Disney animated film review

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

I was a little hesitant going into this movie. I had a basic idea of what the movie was about, and while it did follow the likely-made-up version told by the real John Smith, I did appreciate that it was more than just that.

The dynamic of the tribal chief, Pocahontas and John Smith reminded me of the “The Little Mermaid”, released 6 years prior, with regard to Triton, Ariel and Eric. That’s reinforced later with the scenes of Pocahontas’ hair blowing in the wind much like how Ariel’s hair sways in the currents of the ocean. Pocahontas being unwilling to marry her arranged to-be husband reminded me of Merida, and her great line of “I will be shooting for my own hand” in the archery contest.

There were a few plot points that were entirely too stereotypical for movies like this, with Pocahontas as the “noble savage” who falls immediately in love with the blond-hair, blue-eyed John Smith (the ONLY blond in the bunch), who means well even in his ignorance, but her love and guidance help him to see the light. I did appreciate that instead of beating around the bush, trying to couch John Smith’s superior attitude toward the “savages” in a paternalistic sense of showing the uncivilized children how adults live and behave (even though John Smith says as much), I did like the immediate kick-back from Pocahontas as she challenges not only his viewpoint but the very words he uses. Having now seen and heard “Colors of the Wind” in the context of the film, I think it’s a fantastic song that conveys Pocahontas’ scolding of John Smith’s racist viewpoint. (And to echo my earlier comparison of Pocahontas to Ariel, there’s a scene during this song where Pocahontas’ hair becomes a frozen-yogurt-swirl, just like Ariel’s did in “Under the Sea”, maybe?) I feel like “Just Around the Riverbend” is more often used in association with this film, but this song is much more representative of the spirit of the film. I’m glad “Colors of the Wind” won Best Original Song at the Oscars.

Speaking of “Just Around the Riverbend”, I never knew there was a second verse to the song. I guess I’ve never heard the song in total, only snippets in shows and such, and they only ever use the first verse and chorus.

I thought the scene near the beginning where the ship encounters dangers on the ocean with the storm was a terrific scene and very well done.

Governor Radcliffe is very much depicted as a one-note character. He’s bad, all bad, and there’s nothing good about him. When he reveals that he’s after gold and envisions that finding such gold will bring him fortune, fame, power and even a kingship back home, he reminded me of Clayton from “Tarzan”, who had his own nefarious motives as well. I did find Radcliffe’s costuming to be very interesting. While all of the sailors are in browns and dark blues, Radcliffe wears a very flamboyant outfit with multiple bright colors. He looks like he’s dressed to attend the Festival of Fools from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and he’d probably give Clopin a run for his money in the costuming contest.

John Smith seemed pretty non-descript, and he looked a lot to me like the human form of the prince aka The Beast in “Beauty and the Beast”. I had forgotten that he was voiced by Mel Gibson, but I think he did a perfectly fine job.

I was a bit puzzled at the arc that involved Thomas. He’s set up as someone who’s going to play a role later because he’s the only one of the sailors that they spotlight as the ship is about to depart, so I kept expecting him to do something. Ultimately, he’s the one who kills the warrior that Pocahontas was supposed to marry, but as much of a flashpoint as that turns out to be, his involvement is brushed aside. He’s the one who actually kills him, but it’s John Smith who gets the blame and who is sentenced to death. Thomas is the culprit in the most critical event that happens in the entire movie and yet he remains in the shadows. That is, until he all of a sudden finds his voice and appears to lead the sailors in a revolt against Radcliffe. And then come to find out that Thomas is voiced by Christian Bale! Yeah, I definitely expected more out of Thomas.

One point that I absolutely hated in this film is the resolution of the language barrier. They establish that John Smith and Pocahontas speak different languages and so communication is a problem. But then, in the next minute, a wind blows in, apparently bringing with it a Universal Translator, and all of a sudden, the two are conversing perfectly easily. I understand that the language issue is one that needed to be resolved, probably fairly quickly, but this just seemed like a cheap way to do that.

One thing I really did like in the film was Meeko. I’ve known he was in the film but didn’t really know much about him other than that he’s Pocahontas’ raccoon sidekick, but he was really very cute. I loved that he was always pre-occupied with food, and I laughed as he was picking up the biscuits that John Smith was dropping. There’s also a scene later in the film where Meeko is sticking out of the top of a tree trunk and the pug is at the bottom part, and it made me think of Rocket the Raccoon! There were a few occasions when Meeko pretended to be a hat, which I also thought was funny and was a bit of morbid humour. When Meeko did that, he also reminded me of Sammy from the Country Bear Jamboree. And while Meeko is cute as can be, I’m pretty sure raccoons don’t know how to braid hair!

Radcliffe’s pug was incredibly annoying to me, even when he got converted thanks to Meeko’s intervention.

And Flit the hummingbird is completely superfluous in this film. Meeko is already the comedic sidekick, and Flit does very little to add to that, even though he is the reason John Smith is dancing around and spilling biscuits everywhere for Meeko to scoop up. I don’t know they they felt Flit was needed.

I was a bit concerned about how the film was going to end, either that Pocahontas would choose to go with John Smith, or John Smith would decide to stay, but I’m glad they resolved it the way that they did. They each went back to where they belonged. The “happily ever after” for each of them is different than what is usual in these types of movies.

And I usually don’t care for the pop versions of songs in animated films, but I think Vanessa Williams did a good job with “Colors of the Wind”. Sometimes, the pop version is too angsty or overdone, and she did neither.