Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

Finally got around to watching The Princess and the Frog with some relatives last night. What I can say? The music felt a bit contrived and forgettable (thankfully) except the villain's song, which was awesome with an awesome villain. It was way better than the Disney films of the recent era, but it still felt like a mostly effort to try to add another Disney princess (an African-American!). I don't want to spoil it, but it also stretched the willing suspension of disbelief. For a traditional Disney animated canon film, the fact that it was set in New Orleans was a bit jarring. It was more realistic than the depiction of Hawaii in Lilo & Stitch: the main character's father died in World War I, and our princess' favorite condiment to add to food is Tabasco sauce.

But the new Disney film (CGI), Tangled, is much better in several aspects. It's based after the Rapunzel fairy tale, and holds a lot truer to it than what The Princess and the Frog is based after. It's also kind of hard to describe the category it fits in: it kind of follows the traditional Disney princess formula, which is to say that the heroine is a princess, but the male lead isn't exactly Prince Charming (spoiler: he's a thief). The non-human sidekicks don't talk, crude humor isn't why its rated PG, the songs aren't annoying, and the villain is delightfully evil.

It was possibly closest to Pixar (in more than one term) that Disney has gotten, outstripping Disney's CGI efforts previously and any DreamWorks picture you can name (yes, I think it was better than How to Train Your Dragon). Pixar, on the other hand, is making Cars 2, but that was one of the better films among many other ones, including CGI films based after the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, another DreamWorks picture (from the makers of Shrek...), a movie called "Disney Prom", and a documentary about a certain contemporary young pop star I'd rather see die of a drug overdose. That was a little harsh, but the sad thing is it's going to make a ton of money no matter how bad it is.

Thankgiving was great, and I'd like to make an update to the Pictophone post a while back. Some of the greatest ones I lost but only one I remember involved beavers wearing Darth Vader masks becomes a dark wizard turning people into waffles.

My Yoot Tower question was never answered (but it is definitely the system I know that much). I'm also creating new content for the master webpage (check it out today!)