Frozen

What's old feels strikingly and delightfully new with Disney's fifty-third animated feature Frozen, a fresh and engaging musical charmer that hews closely to the Mouse House's patented wheelhouse, yet nevertheless is sharply woven together with the very fabrics that established said wheelhouse.  Loosely based on Hans Christen Anderson's The Snow Queen, Frozen is yet another princess fairy tale to add to the canon, but one made with a generous supply of warmth, tenderness and visual aplomb, beckoning back to the hallowed Disney Renaissance days.  And that's the remarkable thing about a good Disney flick, the way it charms the senses back to that child-like sense of wonder, magic and possibility, one that begs you to tear down all the formulaic trappings on the wall and  marvel at something mystifying.   With its grand sense of play Frozen does that just enough to pull at the heartstrings and, in its stronger moments, make you in believe in the beautiful hokum that can only be concocted in the land of make believe.

The film takes place in the make believe village of Arendelle, a lush Nordic retreat (rendered beautifully in all its wide screen glory by the films ace technicians) that houses two princesses-- Elsa and Anna.  First seen as playful imps, Elsa and Anna frolic about in carefree bliss; Elsa has a magical secret which makes playtime even more fun-- the magical ability to turn anything and anywhere into a wintery wonderland-- Ms. Freeze if you will.  With  power comes responsibility, just as with secrets comes a consequence-- a common movie totem and plot propellent-- and a young Elsa is forced to hide her gift and even cause her charming village to be nearly hidden away out of protection.  Such to the extent that when the two girls grow older and eventually become orphaned (this is a Disney film; that's a must too!) and Elsa is set to made queen, her coronation marks the first time in many a moon in which the gates to Arendelle have even been opened.  Princess Anna, however, made magically unaware of her sister's talents finds herself developing into a ripe and cheery young woman in the very mode of her Disney princess sisters of yore; at first it reads that co-directors and screenwriters Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee are aiming for parody; Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) is so perkily come hither.  Nearly intoxicated in boy-crazy rushes, she's instantly smitten with Prince Hans (voiced by Santino Fontana) that she becomes engaged to him only hours after meeting.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The one-sheet for Disney's Saving Mr. Banks, which goes behind the scenes of the making of Mary Poppins, which is incidentally the one and only live-action Disney film to get a Best Picture Oscar nomination-- Walt himself, won 22 Academy Awards, but received only one nomination for the big one.  Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney; Emma Thompson plays Poppins author P.L. Travers.

Frozen and the State of Animated Feature

The trailer debuted for Frozen, in house Disney's latest.  Looks very Ice Age-ish-- in fact, isn't the teaser essentially selling the same joke?  Anyhow it's something upon the horizon on the heels of this weeks release of Pixar's latest travesty, ahem-- fourteenth full length feature, Monster's University, a prequel to the positively delightful 2001 stand alone film Monsters, Inc.  2013 has been so far a fairly barren ground for animated features, with the box office sensation The Croods and the more earthbound grosses of Epic making up a largely artistically forgettable field for this years animated features Academy Award.

Much has been written of the current state of Pixar and the diminishing returns of the fabled studio house since 2011's Cars 2 broke their longtime tradition of excellence-- last years Brave was a decent movie (and the eventual winner of the Academy Award), but still left an impression as a minor achievement to say the least.  With Monsters University, the are continuing to further brand characters, and to say nothing of the film (I have not seen it yet), it strikes as an increasingly desperate undertaking for the house that prodded story as their most important asset.  Further pillaging will take place as a Finding Nemo sequel is in the works.

What's interesting about 2013's crop of animated features is just how few of them are original, and what impression that might leave at the end of the year-- on top of Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 opens in July and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens this September.  Looks like a potentially weak field at least on the onset-- GKids, this may well be your year to pounce.  Monsters, Inc. was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in the first year of its inception and famously lost to Shrek (the funny thing about legacies is that sometimes you just never know-- at the time that seemed like the right move), so could Monsters University achieve what the first film failed to do?  The cases for Despicable and Cloudy are much fuzzier because neither of the their originals were in contention in the first place, rendering them longshots at best.

Based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson

That may be where Frozen comes in.  Coming off an especially strong 2012, in house Disney seems poised and more confident than ever, even if the sheen and shine of the early '90s Renaissance is well behind them.  With last years Wreck-It-Ralph (considered by many much more of a "Pixar" film than Brave) and Frankenweenie, Disney had it's most artistically fruitful year in over a decade.

Still this year doesn't exactly look the most promising. 

May the Force Be With...J.J. Abrams

Ever since news came about of the acquisition of Lucas Films to the Walt Disney Company, with the promise of another round of Star Wars films, the never-ending question became...who would direct it?  Well, now it's confirmed that J.J. Abrams-- mastermind of Lost, Super 8 and Star Trek will helm the next generation of Star Wars.  It was previously announced that Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) would pen the screenplay.

“It’s very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,” said Kennedy. “J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture.”
George Lucas went on to say “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.”
“To be a part of the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, to collaborate with Kathy Kennedy and this remarkable group of people, is an absolute honor,” J.J. Abrams said. “I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid.”

What about that.  Now the question comes-- will the Star Trek/Star Wars helmer find himself in conflicts between the two.  And the added irony that the two science fiction prodigal projects are in eternal conflict within one another perpetually.   

The Force in Michael Arndt

Ever since the bombshell news that the Walt Disney Company snapped up LucasFilms and thus, Star Wars, and making the announcement of new films, there's so much buzz surrounding the who, who, what, when.  Well, now comes the announcement that Michael Arndt, Oscar winning screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, and Oscar nominated for his work on Toy Story 3 will pen Episode 7.  Yay?  Nay?  Whatcha think?

Paperman

For those you ventured into Wreck-It-Ralph, and judging from its phenomenal opening weekend grosses many of you did, you no don't caught the ingenious Disney short, Paperman.  A wistful and delicately romantic film, brimming with joy, and shot in beautiful black and white, mixing state of the art 3-D effects with more classical hand drawn elements.  There's a sense of magic, old school allure and style, but matched with such an effervescent, old-hand slight of Disney hand-- I felt a child-like shiver of unbridled emotion matched with a aching sense of glee.  Telling a simple story of a brief encounter between a young man and woman and meet-cute aboard a subway platform and transfixing on their hopeful play of fate, there's a small sense that the romantic comedy genre maybe rebounds slightly here.  As the would-be lovers separate, He sojourns to his demeaning office job, lorded by an oafish office monger, and She ventures to a ill-fitting meeting of her own.  He, by chance, notices She across the glorious New York street and rabbles for her attention, first by awkward body movements and unheard screeching, and finally by throwing paper planes to her window.  No dice, but fate has mechanics in store, and this lovely wordless film makes a lovely testament to the power of such, and incandescent wonder of films, no matter the length.  A  

The Empire Strikes

In a news item that will either make your geek boot tingle or twitch, the Walt Disney Co. snapped up LucasFilm for $4.05 billion, and thus will own the rights to the not just the Star Wars franchise, but the entirety of the George Lucas vault, including effects house Industrial Lights & Magic.  Further plans are evolved as Lucas himself has written a treatment for a trilogy that would released under Disney, with a planned arrival date of 2015.  This is a major purchase.  Disney, of course already has theme park attractions of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but now with this purchase, as well as it's slightly murkier ownership rights of Marvel Entertainment gives the company a significant boost in overall blockbuster tentpole output.  This alongside Pixar, means that Disney-proper could very provide very creative output of its very own, and still earn end of the year bragging rights; the mega-money earned earlier this year for Marvel's The Avengers proves there's still much green to be earned.  And even as the Star Wars prequels did little (or nothing) to advance the franchise creatively, all of which earned major cash merely by brand alone.  Another trilogy, merchandising, further theme park attractions, and geesh, the investment will pay off in dividends, even as a potentially, a generation of film fans will have their childhoods snatched in the process.

Now, only if Disney could snap up The Weinstein Company, all would come full circle in life.  And then purchase me, you, and all of our friends, merge with Oprah (since an outright acquisition would be out of the question), we would all have a magically life.

Brave

The aura of legends means something in the film Brave, the thirteenth feature film from the legendary and stalwart brand of Pixar Animation Studios.  A deeper legend surrounds the film with Pixar's tradition of mesmerizing storytelling, which has demonstrated the best, the brightest and the most hopeful place of fostering warm films, rich in humanity and emotion since 1995 when the first Toy Story changed the facet of modern filmmaking.  That penchant for matching unparalleled vision of scope mixed with heart and state of the art visual mechanics has made the brand indispensable and altered the filmmaking consciousness of the awe and power of animated features in mode that might seem tantamount to when Walt Disney unveiled Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs in 1939.  While that one-upman-ship game of expanding their reach ended with last years inert (but still financially viable Cars 2) stalled the regime of it's unmatched critical prowess, they have struck back with a honorable, beautifully rendered film, that while a bit pale in comparison to the storytelling heights they have soared, can be seen as a calm, it's-okay-it-will-get-better plea for their most ardent fans.

Set in a mythological time and place in old world Scotland, Brave tells the tale of Merida (voiced with a sly authenticity by Kelly MacDonald), a new world princess begrudging of her old world traditions.  A tomboy adventurer with a Katniss Everdeen prowess for the bow and arrow, Merida rejects her mother, Queen Elinor's (voiced by Emma Thompson) proper princess grooming and seeks to run wild with reckless abandon.  She's a pretty good shot too, and while Brave may hit it's point a bit too on the nose from time to time, she's a fine character and worthy of the title of Pixar's first female protagonist pole position.  In a nice mode that distinguishes her from the normal sect of damsel in distress princesses in the Disney line is her rebellious streak, spiteful tongue and unwaveringly bouncy red hair.  While never quite read as a feminist sermon, Brave does have a few wittily and encouragingly you-go-girl streaks.  Rather than play to customs of her mother's old world values of obtaining a suitor, Merida persists in showing them up, embarrassing the sad lot of boys pinning for her affections.  Her father, King Fergus (voiced by Billy Connolly) is the proud lout of the land.

The heart of Brave is it's mother-daughter bond and the angst and anger that separates them.  Without giving way to spoilers, Merida makes a huge mess of things after running away in a huff and making a visit to an elderly witch (amusingly voiced by Julie Walters) who sets a spell that changes the dynamics of mom and lass; cuing the lessons of mutual understandings to come.  At once a bit overly simplified and strikingly less than ambitions per Pixar standards, Brave settles in more as an enjoyable diversion than a riveting animated tale despite a visual technician that is one of the venerable studios most robust (the darkened 3-D image takes away a bit of that, sadly.)  Credited by five writers and created by Brenda Chapman, who also served as co-director (before she was dismissed), the unfortunate piece of the puzzle seems like an incomplete connection between Merida, certainly a spirited character, and the audience who has come to expect more than mere perfunctory character development from the legends of the great animators and artisans.

For a while Brave coasts on an easy going, enjoyable ride, but never reaches the transcendental apex that one hopes for.  There's never a moment that connects emotionally in the same vein as WALL-E's dance in space, or Up's novelistic prologue-- the sense of maturity, magic and humanity never coalesces.  Instead, there's lots of manic slapstick and a pace that never quite catches fire, while at the same time never reaching the embarrassing lows of Cars 2.  One suspects that if Brave had been the product of a brand with a less studious legend attached, it might be easier to applaud its sprightly and eager-to-please charms; but that legend looms within every frame and scene and makes the heart grow ever fonder of the storytelling brand that Pixar has become so associated with.  Merida is an eye-catching character, but in the end reads only slightly more interesting the below-the-line stock princesses of Disney proper's past.  She's got the fire, but not the outlet to unleash her power.  B-

Disney vs. the Annie Awards

The Annie Awards are the annual kudo-fest for animated features.  And now there appears to be trouble afoot as the Walt Disney corporation has seemingly bowed out of the organization.  Official statement from Disney-Pixar president Ed Catmull:

“We believe there is an issue with the way the Annies are judged, and have been seeking a mutually agreeable solution with the board.

Although some initial steps have been taken, the board informed us that no further changes would be made to address our concerns.”

It's been addressed that membership requirements for the Annies are purchased, not voted on by governing peers, and gossip appears to have surfaced that DreamWorks Animation has bought each new employee a membership.  Perhaps it's unsurprising when in 2008 the animated feature category was awarded to DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda, despite the competition of the vastly superior in every way triumph that was WALL-E.  It seemed that voting practices were changed after that year, but apparently not enough for Disney.  It remains to be seen what may come about for this years animated selection, which might potentially be free of Toy Story 3, now the highest grossing animated feature of all time, and what should be seen as a frontrunner, as well as Disney's fall animated film, Tangled.

Annie Awards at a glance:

2009- Up
2008- Kung Fu Panda
2007- Ratatouille
2006- Cars
2005- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
2004- The Incredibles
2003- Finding Nemo
2002- Spirited Away
2001- Shrek
2000- Toy Story 2

Could this potentially just be sour grapes-- the Disney track record has been pretty strong this past decade.