Thoughts on "The Princess and the Frog"

Before I get to my musings on Disney’s latest, I’m going to announce the winner of IPC’s first trivia contest, which illness prevented me from doing last week. Our winner is markwilliamsjr, who correctly identified “Love” from Robin Hood as the song in Fantastic Mr. Fox that makes reference to another animated film with foxes in the starring roles. Check at the end of today’s article for a new trivia challenge.


It’s no secret that I’ve been looking forward to The Princess and the Frog. Disney movies were what got me interested in animation in the first place and I have eagerly anticipated the studios return to their roots with a new hand-drawn feature. Plus, it felt pretty good to know that many more little girls would soon have a Disney princess who looked like them. But as the release date drew near, I was feeling conflicted. I liked a lot of what I was hearing about the film, but most of the trailers I had seen weren’t quite winning me over. I wanted the film to succeed and prove that hand-drawn feature films could still be successful. But at the same time, I worried that the film was going to be bogged down with unappealing sidekicks and suffer from all the same mistakes as the films that led to Disney kicking traditional animation to the curb. So when my husband and I finally found the time to see the movie, I was both excited and worried. Happily, the film soon put my fears to rest and gave me hope that Disney was really coming back.

The Princess and the Frog is Disney’s old recipe for success, with enough new ingredients tossed in to keep it fresh. The one that’s getting all the attention, and not without reason, is that the film features Disney’s first African-American princess. The New Orleans setting also gives the film a distinct flavor that helps it stand out, giving direction to story, visual, and music. It sits comfortably alongside the previous Disney fairy tales, but avoids feeling like a by-the-book retread.

One element the movie handles particularly well is making both of its protagonists interesting people with their own problems to work through rather than one being the person who needs to grow and change over the course of the story and the other being more or less an object of pursuit. Tiana is the daughter of working class parents. Her one wish is to realize her late father’s dream of owning a restaurant. In her eyes, her problem is that she needs money to make this happen. But her real, internal issue is that her pursuit of this dream has caused her to shut out almost everything else in her life except work. On the other end of the social spectrum is Prince Naveen, a foreign royal visiting New Orleans. Naveen is theoretically in town to meet, woo, and marry a young woman from a wealthy family, but he’s not particularly interested in doing so. It’s not out of any romantic dreams of true love; Naveen simply doesn’t want to settle down or stop having fun, despite the fact that his carefree pursuit of the good life is the very reason he needs to marry money. Naveen’s parents, disgusted by his spendthrift ways, have cut him off. So if Naveen wants to continue enjoying the lifestyle he’s accustomed to, he needs to find a new source of cash.

It should come as no surprise that these two characters don’t exactly fall in love at first sight. It doesn’t help the situation that by the time Tiana meets Naveen, he’s had a run-in with the nefarious Dr. Facilier and been transformed into a frog. The characters’ initial relationship with each other is based solely on self-interest and lies. Naveen outright lies to Tiana about his financial situation, promising a monetary reward if she kisses him and breaks the spell. Tiana isn’t quite as bad, but once she realizes that Naveen could provide her with the money she needs for her restaurant, she doesn’t exactly correct his mistaken notion that she is a real princess and not just in costume. The rocky start to their relationship makes for some pretty entertaining moments as they slowly become friends and eventually start to fall in love. One of the nice twists that keeps the story from feeling too familiar is that Naveen, ostensibly the less sympathetic of the two characters, ends up being the first to realize that the life he’s been pursuing may not be the path to true happiness after all, while Tiana takes nearly the whole movie to get her priorities straight.

The rest of the cast fares pretty well too. Particularly notable is Dr. Facilier the “shadow man.” His voice is provided by Keith David, who also voiced Goliath on Gargoyles. David is just phenomenal here, giving the main villain a dark charm and fast-paced energy that is reflected in movements that border on rubber-hose animation at times. The cast is generally a nice balance between voice and “face” actors, none of whom turn in a bad performance. One of my biggest concerns based on the trailers was that Ray, the buck-toothed Cajun firefly, would get on my nerves. But thanks in part to a very solid performance by the ubiquitous Jim Cummings, Ray is genuinely appealing and his personal story adds a good variation on the film’s central themes of believing in your dreams and the power of love.

The movie packs a lot of visual punch as well, retaining much of the appeal of past hand-drawn Disney films while adding in a few new surprises. There’s plenty of nicely observed detail, from Tiana’s skeptical expressions and hesitant body language when she first encounters the prince turned frog to the intricate metalwork on the balcony where they meet. Lighting plays a big role in setting the mood of each scene: sunlight gleaming through various colored glass bottles, Ray and his firefly clan lighting the protagonists’ way through the bayou, and the sunshine streaming in through the roof of the run-down building that Tiana hopes to turn into her restaurant, which both highlights the dusty, dilapidated condition of the place and casts the scene in the glow of Tiana’s hopes. Tiana’s nearly achieved dream also kicks off her “I want” song and one of the film’s two big stylistic departures. As Tiana sings “Almost There,” the Art Deco illustration that has been the physical touchstone for her dream comes to life. Such flat, graphic animation is nothing new, especially since Flash came along. But what’s truly impressive is that Tiana in particular never feels like a two-dimensional paper cutout. Even as the animation style changes, she still feels like a living, dimensional character. The scene was supervised by animator Eric Goldberg, who also headed up the Hirschfeld homage “Rhapsody in Blue” sequence in Fantasia 2000. The movie’s other visual extravaganza is Dr. Facilier’s musical number “Friends on the Other Side.” Facilier seals the devil’s bargain that will turn Naveen into a frog as the scene shifts to a black-light nightmare, complete with singing masks and dancing voodoo dolls.

Despite its strengths, The Princess and the Frog is by no means a perfect movie. One of my biggest gripes was with the designs of Naveen and Tiana as frogs. While they both move and emote well enough, the look of the characters just feels a little over-simple to me, like it could have used a little more finessing and detail. Randy Newman, who provided the songs for several of Pixar’s films, composed the film’s score and musical numbers. The overall score is something of a mixed bag. The New Orleans flavor is there, but the tunes themselves range from toe-tappers to pretty melodies to completely forgettable ditties. It’s worth noting that my husband, who is not a fan of the musical genre, liked the songs, but I found the majority of them merely OK. Borrowing Randy Newman may not have been a bad idea, but it there’s one thing that I wish Disney could learn from Pixar’s movies, it would be subtlety in storytelling. Though the story does keep the connection between race and social class from overpowering the story without eliminating it altogether, the main themes are much more blatantly stated. I look at a film like Up where so much is conveyed without words and where Carl never has to come out and say “My wife died,” or “I don’t need physical objects because I have my memories,” or “I have to stop living in the past and make new connections with people,” and I wonder why Disney can’t have a film where the theme is “Never lose sight of what’s important” without having characters literally say those words, let alone clarifying that love is what’s important. This is still a strong return to form for Disney that does a lot more right than wrong. But there are still problems, which I hope Disney will be aware of the next time they tackle a classic fairy tale.

The task of “saving” hand-drawn animation is a lot for any one film to take on. It’s not entirely a true picture of the state of the industry either. Whatever happens, hand-drawn animation will still be around, courtesy of other countries, independent animators, TV shows, advertising, and any number of other sources. At most, what’s riding on the success of The Princess and the Frog is the future of American theatrical hand-drawn animation, assuming that if Disney can’t make it work, other studios won’t bother to try. Even then, it may be only a matter of years before a new success or failure comes along and changes the future of the medium once more. I can’t tell you if The Princess and the Frog will “save” hand-drawn animated features in the U.S., whether audiences will go to see it in big enough numbers to make it a success or ignore it in favor of another film, if home market and merchandise sales will be good enough to make more such film seem commercially viable. What I can tell you is that The Princess and the Frog is a good movie with some fantastic visuals, engaging characters, and a fun story that make it well worth seeing.


Trivia Time! Disney’s return to hand-drawn fairy tales brings with it several nods to previous Disney films. You may notice the magic carpet from Aladdin being shaken out from a balcony in one of the film’s first shots. You’ll almost certainly recognize one of the Mardi Gras floats that shows up closer to the end of the film as King Triton from The Little Mermaid. And if you’re familiar with some of the people behind the scenes at Disney, you might spot John Musker and Ron Clements – the directors of Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog - tossing beads from the Triton float. But these aren’t the only in-jokes in the film and there’s another one that really warmed this old Disney fan’s heart. It has to do with the name of Louis’ band towards the end of the movie. What’s the name of the band and why is it a Disney in-joke?

Once again, the answer is not too hard to find online, should you choose to do so. The first person to post the correct answer will be named in the next article, with a link to the winner’s website.

Thoughts on "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

This is a film I’d been waiting for see for a long time. I don’t have and particular attachment to the Roald Dahl book it’s based on, which I vaguely remember as being mostly lengthy descriptions of how Mr. Fox goes about outwitting the farmers. But my husband loves the films of Wes Anderson, who was attached to Fantastic Mr. Fox early on. I was curious to see how Anderson would handle his first animated film and was looking forward to more puppet animation from Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The movie spent several years in development, surviving both the closing of its production company and Selick leaving to direct Coraline. For a while, I worried that it would be permanently stuck in development hell. But now its out in theaters and I’ve had a chance to see it.

As the film opens, the title character and his wife are stealing chickens from a farmer’s henhouse. During the heist, Mrs. Fox tells her husband that she’s pregnant and, like many a movie wife, insists that her husband find a safer line of work. Like so many movie husbands, Mr. Fox acquiesces, but later finds himself dissatisfied with his new life. He writes a newspaper column that no one reads and his meager income has his family living in a hole, acceptable by animal standards, but far from the good life. Mr. Fox purchases an upscale tree home, in spite of – or perhaps because of – the fact that it’s located near the factories of the notoriously nasty farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. Once settled, he starts planning his final heist, setting in motion events that will lead to the farmers declaring all-out war on Mr. Fox, his family, and the whole animal community.

The movie doesn’t go out of its way to be a movie for kids, which is fine by me. It isn’t that it’s horribly inappropriate for kids, or even that kids wouldn’t like it. But the movie is a Wes Anderson film first and foremost. If you’re already familiar with his work, you’ll find his signature all over this movie, from the Wes Anderson regulars in the cast (Rushmore star Jason Schwartzman as Mr. Fox’s son Ash, Owen Wilson as the school coach, and Bill Murray as Fox’s lawyer Badger) to the way the characters interact with one another to the movie’s overall quirkiness. This combines with the darkness that is present in most Roald Dahl stories to create a movie that doesn’t make a whole lot of concessions to a younger audience. There is no ambiguity about the fact that the farmers intend to kill the Fox family, a fact made more disturbing when it becomes clear that the farmers know the animals can speak, write, and paint landscapes. During the movie’s emotional low point, Mrs. Fox tells her husband that she does love him, but sadly admits that she now believes she should never have married him, a far cry from the traditional animated romances where love is all you really need.

I’m glad to see puppet animation still being made. The argument that it could be done equally well with computers is always there and will probably get more and more persuasive as the cost of computer animation goes down. But there is still something about the look of puppet animation that I have yet to see computers accurately replicate. This quality is on full display in Fantastic Mr. Fox. Henry Selick’s puppet animation films tend to be so smoothly animated that they almost lose the little nuances that separate puppet animation from computer animation. So I was happy to see the characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox moving in the rough, fluttery, almost choppy way that is particular to puppet animation. I wish I had a better description for how this movement looks, since the words I use make it sound inferior. But it isn’t inferior, just different. I find it very appealing and an excellent fit for the story.

Part of what makes the movie feel less like the average kids’ film is the fact that it doesn’t beat the audience over the head with every single concept and theme. Mr. Fox’s desires are not as simple as “a better house” or “more danger and excitement.” As he admits later in the film, what he wants is to be the fantastic individual the film’s title suggest that he is, someone who amazes everyone by accomplishing the impossible. This idea does get explained outright, but Mr. Fox’s realization that what he wants may not be what he needs is played more subtly. There are a couple of big speeches, but they are much less direct than “Now I know I can be fantastic by just leading a normal life.”

The secondary plot of the film revolves around the Foxes’ son Ask. While Mr. Fox is worrying that his glory days are gone forever, the adolescent Ash is experiencing more than the normal amount of youthful angst trying to live up to his father’s legacy. His problem is further emphasized by the arrival of Ash’s cousin Kristofferson, who has come to stay with the family while his father battles a serious bout of double pneumonia. Kristofferson is a natural athlete, everything that Ash wants to be. Making matters worse, Mr. Fox is greatly impressed with Kristofferson’s skills and Ask only looks worse by comparison. Ash’s character is a careful balancing act. He remains sympathetic because of his relatable desire to win his father’s approval, despite the fact that he never actually say “I want my dad to say the things that he says about Kristofferson about me.” But he spend much of the movie taking out his frustrations on Kristofferson, even going so far as to tease him about his father’s illness. Part of what keeps Ash from being totally unlikable is that his relationship with Kristofferson gets better and worse throughout the course of the movie as Ash tries to figure out how to deal with his feelings of inadequacy. One of my favorite scenes comes early on, when Ash has to share hi room with Kristofferson. Ash continues to be nasty to his cousin, calling his sadness an act and refusing to give him a reasonable bed. Ash hears Kristofferson crying. He’s not so heartless as to continue being mean, but he doesn’t apologize or have a heart to heart with his cousin. It’s too early in the narrative for that. What he does instead is climb out of bed and turn on his toy train set. Without saying anything, the two foxes sit together and watch the train go around and around.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Fantastic Mr. Fox completely breaks the mold for animated films. It has talking animals. It’s based on a children’s book by a beloved author. It’s not even the triumphant return of puppet animation that Nightmare Before Christmas was back in the day. What it does do is remind viewers that animation can tell all kinds of stories, or at least provide fresh perspectives on the typical animated film subjects. It’s not quite like any other movie out there, animated or otherwise. Whether you’re like me and get excited by the possibility of animated film tackling every that live-action does, or you’re just looking for a fun, entertaining film that’s a little bit different, check out Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Trivia Time! This is a new idea I’m trying out to encourage you, dear readers, to participate. I’m going to ask you a question about the movie being discussed and you post your answers in the comments. If you don’t know the answer right away, you can search the internet. I won’t mind; you’ll still be learning something. The first person to respond with the correct answer will get a shout-out in the next article, along with a link to your personal website if you’d like. And of course, you’re welcome to comment whether or not you want to play the trivia game.

So here’s the question: There’s a song Fantastic Mr. Fox that’s a nod to another animated movie starring foxes. What’s the other movie and what’s the song?

Image in this article copyright Twentieth Century Fox.

Thoughts on "9"

My husband and I caught an evening showing of 9 (not to be confused with District 9, the upcoming Nine, or this) on Thursday. I've had a couple of days to think about it, but I'm still torn. I like what 9 represents, but I'm not sure I like the actual film quite as much.




I had already seen and liked the original short film by Shane Acker that 9 is based on. I like how the character design feels informed by stop-motion, from the small scale of the characters to the real world object and textures that they're made of. The short has a beginning, a middle, and an end and gets its ideas across without the aid of dialogue. It's a very solid and enjoyable student film.

What was - and in some ways, still is - exciting to me about the movie 9 is that it retains that same stop-motion inspired aesthetic. There are no other CG films that look like 9. Additionally, (and my husband really deserves the credit for bringing this up) 9 is a heavily promoted animated action-adventure film in wide release that is neither aimed at young kids and their families nor a serious meditation on the horrors of war that is totally inappropriate for children. While I've certainly loved films that fall into both of these categories, it seems like most animated films today fall at the most extreme ends of the spectrum. There's a huge area in the middle that theatrical animation, particularly in the US, has left largely unexplored. The idea that 9, which was number two at the box office on its opening weekend, could kick off a new interest in animated entertainment for adults and older teens is pretty exciting.

There were definitely things I enjoyed about 9. The interesting and unique design from the short is still there, the same little sackcloth heroes and bone-machine hybrid monsters. The story begins with the end of all human life - and possibly all organic life - on Earth, a subject you won't find in most animated films for the kiddie set. I particularly liked the twins 3 and 4, mute characters with fluttery moth-like movements and eyes that flicker like film projectors. They act as librarians, gathering information left behind by the extinct human species and the details of the world around them. They keep a picture catalog of the various subjects they've researched. Each image is attached to a string leading to the spot where the information on that subject is stored, sort of a "low-tech Wikipedia." (My husband came up with that term. I should probably give him a co-writer credit for this article.) It's fun to watch and and interesting take on how information might survive in a post-apocalyptic society.

Unfortunately, 9 also has a number of big problems in both story and, surprisingly, visuals. Quite a few critics have commented on how thin the movie's plot is, so I went in expecting that. But I was still disappointed with how weak the story ended up being. Much of the action falls into a cycle of "run, then fight," to the point where the battle scenes start to feel repetitive. Despite the plot not being terribly complex, there are still ideas and explanations that make no sense when given even a moment's thought. Some of the films key concepts feel woefully underexplained. The end result is a string of action sequences that frequently fail to stand out from one another held together by exposition that is never quite enough to answer all the questions the film raises.

What really surprised me was that the visuals were not as good as I had hoped they would be. The film's protagonists all have protruding metal eyes that resemble small lenses. Their pupils can dilate and contract, but that's about all the expression the the animators can get out of their eyes. They do have brows, but since their eyes are rigid metal, the brows just move around without changing the shape of the eyes, which leads to weak expressions. It's not impossible to design a character with mechanical parts and an expressive face. Look at the title character in The Iron Giant, whose whole body is designed to allow a wide range of poses and expressions while still being convincing as a robot made of metal.

The lack of strong facial expressions in the main characters might not have been and insurmountable problem. But the character's body language is equally weak. From the first few scenes, I was noticing poses that were not conveying the action and emotion as well as they could have if the poses had been stronger. Combined with the lack of strong facial expressions and celebrity voice performances that seldom rise above a satisfactory level, it made for characters I didn't feel invested in, which is why I spent my time noticing flaws like weak poses and statements that don't make sense instead of worrying about the characters and their plight.

In spite of all my problems with 9, I honestly hope it does well. I can't recommend it unconditionally. If you were completely blown away by the original short, you may well enjoy the movie. If you only liked the short or found it just "OK," then you can probably wait and rent it when it comes out on DVD. But the potential for 9's success to open the door for other - hopefully better - animated films for adults with big studio backing and a mission to entertain is still very exciting for me. So even if 9 was not a film I enjoyed all the way through, I still wish it well because of the possible future it represents for animation.

Image is copyright Focus Features.

Thoughts on "Ponyo"

On Sunday, Tim, Liz, my husband, and I went to see Ponyo. We all enjoyed the film and it definitely gets my recommendation. I probably won't do a full-flown review until I have a DVD copy I can watch and rewatch at my leisure. In the meantime, here are some of my impressions of the film:

- As I suspected it would be, Ponyo is less like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke and more along the lines of My Neighbor Totoro. This may seem like an odd thing to say about of film with its fair share of magic and a storyline which include the moon threatening to pull the tides high enough to drown the world, but the scale of the film remains small and the central focus is always the two young children at the heart of the story.

- Though it may not be the constant parade of new wonders that Spirited Away is, Ponyo is still a very beautiful film with a lot to love in the visual department. The kind of attention to detail that fans of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have come to expect from Miyazaki films are on full display here. The scene where Ponyo is running along on the backs of her sisters, who have been transformed into creatures that seem to be half hish and half water, is unlike anything I have ever seen before and a truly wonderful interpretation of a storm at sea.

- Reportedly playing at roughly 800 theaters in the US and Canada, Ponyo boasts the widest North American release of any Miyazaki film to date. My guess is that this is partly because Ponyo is a very family-friendly film and Disney is hoping that this fact will help it to attract a wider audience. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any theaters near us with subtitled prints of the film, though they were available for past Miyazaki films in theatrical release. I wonder if this is an unfortunate side effect of the movie being marketed more to the general public. Perhaps Disney was concerned about kids ad parents accidentally ending up at a showing of the subtitled print.

- While I have believed for years that the reports of 2D theatrical animation's death have been greatly exaggerated, it is nice to see a film as agressively hand-drawn as Ponyo at a time when computer animated movies seem so dominant. Sometimes I like being able to see evidence of the artist's hand on the screen, like the visible colored pencil lines on the backgrounds in Ponyo. I never felt like it made the environments in the film feel unrealistic; it was more just a different look at the world. As Miyazaki's films so often do, Ponyo showed me wonderfully inviting places and describes them in such visual detail that I feel like I'm there.

- After the movie, Tim was talking about how the film "earned its cuteness." Ponyo is certainly a very cute film, but the cuteness comes out of the characters' invidual personalities and how they react to the situations they're in rather than generic visual and audio cues focus tested to ensure that the largest possible percentage of the audience goes "Awwww!" I'm currently writing a piece on a movie that does not earn its cuteness and the differnce is striking.

- It's pretty clear from the story that Sosuke's family is going through a rough patch. He and his mother Lisa (which does appear to be her original name and not an Anglicanized version of it used only in the dub) divide their time between their cliffside home and the senior center where Lisa works, which is next door to Sosuke's school. Sosuke's father works on a ship which keeps him away from his family for long periods of time. In the course of the film, he calls to say that he won't be coming home when he said he would, which leaves Lisa understandbly upset with him. What I enjoy is that his family issues do not bcome the defining problem in Sosuke's life. Despite being only five, he pretty much rolls with the punches and is even up to the task of comforting his mom when necessary.

- The movie's theme song is exceedinly catchy and the tune will probably end up stuck in your head. The translation of the lyrics into English - like most of the film - seems fairly faithful. However, unless you have your heart set on seeing all of the credits, you may want to exit the theater before the "Radio Disney remix" starts up.

- In general, I'm pleasantly surprised by how mainstream Japanese culture has become in the US over a relatively short period of time. Just a few years back, if an anime was being dubbed and was aimed at children, "Sosuke" would be changed to "Steve," rice balls would be indetified as doughnuts, kanji or any other Japanese writing would be replaced with English, and so on and so forth. Now importers of anime can reasonably expect audeinces of all ages to accept of Japanese names, Japanses writing, Japanese food, and Japanese culture in general without immadiately becoming confuse. Some writing still requires translation and certain cultural norms may require explanation, but there isn't the same need to localize absolutely everything anymore.

"Ponyo" In Theaters Now!

Just a quick reminder that Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo (Japanese title Gake no Ue no Ponyo meaning "Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea") comes out in theaters around the US today. It is not a huge release, but chances are if you live near a major metropolitan area or a theater with an interest in showing anime, Ponyo is playing near you. Disney has actually been marketing the film pretty well and I've even seen trailers on TV. Unfortunately, none of the ones I've found on YouTube will embed, so we'll have to make do with some links.

The first US trailer and the second one.

One of the Japanese trailers, including the theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head.

And even some ads for some of the Ponyo merchandise available in Japan.

Being a big Miyazaki fan, I'm pretty excited for this movie. A couple of friends and I are working out the details of our plans to see it this weekend. I'll share my thoughts with you once I've had a chance to see it. In the meantime, check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Image copyright Disney and Studio Ghibli