One Day

One day!  It's coming out tomorrow!  Well, technically it's coming out tonight, and we are going to see it at midnight, as part of a double feature, as I have said.  We have a few additions to our usual costumes, thanks to a few well-spent dollars during our trip to Orlando a couple months ago, and we will be totally stylin'.  I guess I have nothing much else to say except that I'm way excited!  I'm sure that I'll be sad when it's all over, but for now I'm just so stoked.

To end this post with something a little more than a few sentences, I shall post this video that I came across yesterday.  I kept wondering aloud to The Wife just exactly why Voldemort kept yelling in that one way that he always yells so many times in the trailers.  Apparently I wasn't the only one who wondered this:



There's even a Facebook group devoted to this phenomenon! I don't know why they include that audio so much, but I hope it's not distracting to the overall movie! I'm sure I'll just chuckle, and then keep alternately gasping and crying and laughing.

See you on the other side!

Tangled

It's out!  I have seen it!  (Twice now!)  I really liked it!  (Even more the second time!)

 

Here are my animation-major (that is, -snob) thoughts.  I'll try not to make it TOO long, and break it up for easier perusal.

First, some pros:

•  It was a Disney movie through and through.  As much as the trailer tried to convince me that it was a so-so Shrek knock-off, this is no film from DreamWorks.  There's nothing cynical or sarcastic about it at all.  It was sincere and sweet, honestly funny and genuinely warm (without, I should point out, being sappy).
• It did look quite beautiful as a film.  Rapunzel's hair was really pretty stunning to watch, and it was interesting to see how they handled it, even as sort of a character itself (though not as a sentient, thinking entity as the previews made it seem).  The light and the colors and the sets were all really interesting and notably Disney as well.
• The story was strong and the characters really propelled it.  It didn't rely on potty humor (at all) or cliché plot devices.  In hindsight, there are hints of previous Disney films reflected in the story (Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Aladdin), which is probably partly why it fits so well in the Disney canon.  It was contemporary without being overly-anachronistic, and it really surprised me in a couple of places (since I was pretty much spoiler-free with this one, which is not my usual thing with Disney movies).  I won't give it all here, so as not to ruin anyone's future enjoyment, but it really was funny and the ending was surprisingly touching.
• The characters were charming and likeable.  Rapunzel and Flynn Rider are an excellent unlikely duo, and their relationship is believable but also really fun.  Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi provide both the speaking as well as singing voices for their respective characters, and are both fine voice actors.  I was hesitant about Mandy Moore, but as it turns out, she does pretty well with voicework for animation.  At times I forgot entirely it was Mandy Moore, she just knew the character so well.  Design-wise, she was cute and believably young, naive and optimistic, but still spunky and funny.  She had a really nice arc of development, growing up just enough to keep her endearing but making you care about what happened to her.  Zachary Levi also played his part with charm and swagger, but also really knew his character and where he was supposed to go.  I don't really know him as Chuck, but word is that a lot of people are surprised at his performance in this, especially his unexpected singing voice.  His development was a little more subtle than Rapunzel's, but it was just as it needed to be for who he was.  Mother Gothel is a standout Disney villain, with a surprisingly subtle and nuanced character, and Broadway veteran Donna Murphy was an excellent casting choice.  There was a slew of secondary characters (the "Pub Thugs") who perform their function adequately and amusingly.  Also, as a sort of departure for this sort of film from Disney, the animal sidekicks did not speak, but their acting was perfectly clear regardless (which is a real sign of great animation--non-speaking characters emoting and expressing dialogue--see Dumbo and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron).
• The music!  Don't get me wrong, Randy Newman did a fantastic job with his work on The Princess and the Frog, but it was great to see (read: hear) Alan Menken back in action.  The man really is the sound of "New Disney," and his writing was in fine form for Tangled.  It's interesting because it is sort of a unique sound compared to some of his other work for the studio (a little more pop than his other more Broadway-styled work, think Enchanted rather than Beauty and the Beast), but it's still decidedly Disney.  I liked the songs and score when I watched it, but it grew on me even more each time I listened to the soundtrack (which is to say at least once every day since I saw the movie--in fact, I'm listening to it even now).  It has all the types of song you would hope to hear in a Disney movie:  The main character's "I Want" song, setting the stage and developing the character; a fun and memorable villain song (with its more sinister and dynamic reprise); a random story progression showstopper featuring a band of secondary characters; the love song; a thrilling and moving score.  "I See the Light" is a lovely and understated love song, and fits perfectly in the Disney songbook:

Now for just a few minor cons:

• I just kept wishing the entire time it were a traditionally-animated film.  I love the look and feel of 2D animation so much, it just seemed in some ways a shame that Disney's "50th Animated Feature" should deviated in such a fundamental way from the artform that the studio is so famous for and perfected.  It was pretty enough, and in a lot of ways really played like a 2D film though, so I was able to mostly get over that (after all, it's not like I'm against ALL 3D films, as Pixar has yet to let me down).  It was more about the characters and the story than the medium, and it didn't rely entirely on the form of visuals used, but there were a couple of visual/story things that didn't seem to work quite as well.  For example, someone flying through the air over a castle tower and landing astride a horse or sliding down a conveniently-placed slope to safety after falling hundreds of feet down a ravine just seem to work when they're hand-drawn, but the element of slightly more realism in a 3D film seems to just make those sorts of things... kind of hard to accept.  Also, Rapunzel's eyes are just SO big.  It worked with Ariel and Jasmine, because they were drawings, but when it comes to this, it's a little off-putting and distracting.  You get used to it, sure, but I muttered to Julie about how big they were more than a few times.  Sometimes I see drawings of the characters and just sigh at how it could have been, the drawings are just so beautiful (see here and here and here).  Anyway, I could go on, but there you go.
• I still think it should just have been called Rapunzel.  I know the reasons they changed the title (a few times actually), or the few reasons they seem to hand out, and they make sense to me, but I just don't think it was necessary.  It just doesn't seem like the Disney thing, but then again, neither did the marketing campaign, which, I should say, according to box office reports, seems to have worked.
• It made me the slightest bit sad to see the Disney movie I've been dreaming of working on for over a decade made without me (yes, I have character sketches of Rapunzel from 9th grade), but at least it was made, you know?

So yeah, I had some minor issues with it, but I just can't not like it, it's just too much of everything I love about Disney movies.  It wasn't directed by Glen Keane, as had originally been announced, but his influence was quite evident in the character design and general look of the movie.  Overall, I really liked it, but it just didn't make me feel like The Princess and the Frog did.  (I still cry when I watch that movie, and this one did get me a little emotional, but not to quite the same level.)  I do get a tad defensive when people say things like "the first classic Disney film in years!" or "FINALLY a Disney princess movie!", because, HELLO, there was one barely one year ago!  And it was classic in a couple of ways that Tangled never could be.  That was the one that really needed the box office attention, which, sadly, it didn't seem to get.  I believe Disney will on occasion go back to their roots, since I really think both 2D and 3D animation can co-exist in life, but at least 3D films are getting better and not relying so much on the gimmick of the shiny look and feel.  And anyway, Tangled was a sight better than Disney's previous computer-animated films (don't get me started on Chicken Little...), and I'm glad to see it doing well.

As a sidenote, one of my friends from school worked on it, and I was inordinately excited to see the name of someone I know personally in the credits for a Disney movie.  He has achieved one of my life goals, now I hope to one day do likewise.

I highly recommend it, but REALLY people, if you haven't seen The Princess and the Frog yet, PLEASE do.  I have it on DVD and even Blu-Ray if you need to borrow it.

HP7.1, take 2

Yes, we saw it again last night.  Some friends who hadn't seen it yet really wanted to see it with us.  We didn't get to sit with them (assigned seating when ordering movie tickets online has its drawbacks), but they were pretty close, and it was still SO good.  And we didn't die on the freeway due to the blizzard on the way there or back.

Did I already say "ACCIO PART 2"?...

Tangled Teaser Poster Unveiled

And now, for something completely different...

This was released yesterday here, along with a few other official movie stills from the trailer:

So Wikipedia is reporting that it is indeed a Menken-penned musical, so it does have that going for it.  The trailer still plays like that of a Dreamworks movie, but I'll chalk that up marketing experimentation.  I'm still just excited to have a Disney animated movie to look forward to this Christmas.

Holiday Movie Preview Take 3!!!

Hot off the heels of the last exciting holiday movie previews, this is released! It looks so amazing, I'm (almost) not even annoyed anymore that they split it into two films! It's going to be epic, I tell you, EPIC! What a great Christmas season it's going to be for movies this year.

It's almost like the movie powers-that-be are giving us something exciting to make up for the lameness of this week's amazingly overrated movie release of you-know-what...

Drawing Closer

The title of this post could mean a great many things at this point in my life, but even though I've been rather busy and have a lot of things to post about, this one simply could not wait:



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enough said!!!

And coming up: Life after finals.

Opening Night...

Yes, yes, while people all over the world should be lining up and getting their first look at the latest Harry Potter installment, they're instead drooling over the drippy angst that is Twilight. And, in case it weren't bad enough that WB keeps taunting and teasing us with the fact that Half-Blood Prince is still half a year away, as if to add insult to injury, Twilight's date was moved UP from 12 December to 21 November. Apparently SOMEONE realizes that the fall/Christmas movie market is fairly lucrative. While I'm pretty sure the film released tomorrow is going to be fairly awful, I'm also quite confident it's going to be well-received. They could throw poo on the screen and call it Twilight, and some people will eat it right up anyway. After all, they were content with Breaking Dawn, right?

Recently Julie drew my attention to a relevant and disturbing piece of news:

...Just last week the 22-year-old British actor [Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward] was at an Apple store in New York City when a 7-year-old girl asked to take a photo with him. No big deal, right?

“But then she went really quiet and she was like, 'Can you bite me?' ... It wasn’t a joke...I looked at her and thought, 'Do you know what you’re saying?' There are these kinds of sexual thoughts that come out of people that they don’t even know are sexual.”

Source

There is something seriously so wrong about that. Poor guy, but at least he seems to realize the fans are insane. Good work, SM, another example of even a pre-tween caught up in the subtle, subversive sexual world of Twilight.

And now... back to my GRE prep. Only a couple days left.

Just Call Me Utah Jazz...

And now, for something completely different...

All right, all right, although it's against all my better judgment and taste, I'll put it up...


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Sheesh... Still, it could be far, far worse.

HP Fans... You're Not Gonna Like This...

Okay, so Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's release date has been pushed back eight (yes, 8) months. Instead of being released this November, we will be waiting until July 2009. Wow. Real cool.

Story here.

So much for "98 Days Left" as previously reported by MuggleNet.

Another exciting trailer released

Hot off the tail of yesterday's post, last night I saw the first official trailer for Disney's upcoming The Princess and the Frog. This film has been rumored and hinted at for months and even years, so while I was surprised, it's good to finally see an official trailer, with a release "date", though vague.

All silly, reported racial controversy aside (including major story and character changes), this trailer has me waaaaay pumped. I always said it was only a matter of time until Disney made a smart move back in the 2D direction, which means bringing back at least some variation of the formula that has worked so many times in the past--fairy tale, musical, princess, small, cute comic relief creatures, etc. It seems also that Disney has released a Pixar-styled trailer, in that it's sort of a tease toward the style and tone of the film and characters, rather than actual clips from the film itself. The characters have some instant appeal and charm, the look and feel is lush and gorgeous, and the music is tantalizing (apparently they switched from Disney standard Alan Menken to Randy Newman, who will reportedly be writing music for the characters in the style of classic New Orleans jazz). I am just so happy to see concept art and character sketches floating around the internet again. This could very well be a flop, but I think it has potential to do for Disney in this generation what The Little Mermaid did for Disney in the late 80s. Who says that 2D is dead?!?

So, while you can visit the Disney site to see a nice, big, clear version of the trailer, here's one posted on youtube as well.

Celebrity Update

Well, I was a little worried that I hadn't heard any instructions from the Scera regarding this week's events. I thought maybe my registration hadn't been saved or something. Anyway, unfounded fears because this morning I received an email from the Production and Programs Manager at the Scera with all the instructions I need. Hurrah, I'm signed up for sure.

So, here's my (probably) final blog reminder, although I sent out a very exclusive, elite (global...) invitation on facebook last night. I invite any and all to come and watch. Unfortunately, there's not public voting, like other well-known singing competitions, there is a reported panel of "judges", and it would still be fun to come and watch a live talent competition like such and thus. This event takes place at the Scera Shell Outdoor Theatre on Wednesday, 16 July, beginning at 8. 15 people will compete this night, and the singing order is predetermined, though they won't tell us when we'll be singing until we arrive that night. The email I received indicated it will go for 90 minutes, after which the included screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will begin. It does cost $4 per, although I think with a student ID it's only 3! Sit on blankets on the grass amphitheater and bring snacks and cheeses on which to munch.

"Join us for the 3rd Annual Celebrity... [singers will] compete before judges looking for Utah’s hottest talent! The winner will have multiple opportunities to perform throughout the year, including a TV appearance on ABC Channel 4’s Good Things Utah. Competition dates are June 11, June 18, July 9, July 16, Aug. 6 and Aug. 13. Three winners will be chosen each night and those eighteen will perform in the semi-finals on Aug. 22 prior to Dancing Under The Stars. The Top Six will open for Boyz II Men on Aug. 28...

Not a singer? Come cheer on the performers as they rock the mic to some of your favorite tunes. Then stay and watch an outdoor movie @ Dusk."

Information taken from http://www.scera.org/events/view/56 .