Cinderella (2015)

Friday, 27 February 2015 Starr5 Comments

My first early screening of the year was for Disney’s latest live-action adaptation, Cinderella.

I’ll be honest with you: I was not that excited for this movie. We’ve seen a few live-action Disney fairy tales and they haven’t done very well. And while Maleficent was a villain backstory, I couldn’t discern any actual new twists, and well, I own the original 1950 animated movie so I know the story? What is this new movie bringing to the table besides Cate Blanchett and a bunch of other actors that I don’t actually know very well.

ALSO, I’m not going to lie, I was a little salty about how bright blue the new dress is. Cindy’s dress was this silvery white that looked just barely blue in the light. It’s a beautiful dress, don’t get me wrong, but I just felt miffed by the color.

That is not a silvery blue. That’s an in your face, blue-as-blue-can-be kind of blue. Still pretty.

Also why does the shoe look so weird and polygonal? It just didn’t bode well for the movie, for me.

Sigh… Not sure what to expect from Disney live action adaptations anymore, but I tried to go into it with an open mind… and a themed DisneyBound of course!

Now, on to the actual review.

You know what’s kind of awkward… is when the movie ends and people want to know how it is. But they phrase it like this:

“Did you like the movie?”
“Well-”
“I loved it, it was amazing right??”

No. I did not think it was amazing, I’m sorry. I found it, basically, exactly as underwhelming as I thought it would be. That being said, I think I went into it with the expectations that this was a movie for adults. It’s not that it’s a movie for children, per se, but it’s also not quite a movie for adult Disney fans either…

Let me back it up and talk some of the things I liked about this new adaptation:

Costuming was exquisite. Seriously, it was pretty glorious. My cavorite costume of the film is Lady Tremaine’s first that we see in the film, with a spectacular black and gold color scheme. Most of her later costumes have green, and I don’t like green, especially wearing it, but I loved this first costume.
PLUS THAT HAT. Oh man, dream outfit. I would wear this. Complete with a grumpy cat.
Set design was beautiful. Oh man, it was really gorgeous. When Anastasia and Drizella are making fun of Cinderella’s house, it totally baffles me because uh, the house is beautiful. The Prince’s castle? Wow.
Action scenes are best in live-action. The scene where Cinderella is fleeing the castle as the clock strikes twelve is well-done in live-action. That kind of tension-building doesn’t come across as well in most animations, so this was done pretty well.
Scoring was also done really nicely. Although I will talk through some of my issues with it in a bit.

Essentially, my takeaway from this movie was that it took the fairy tale feeling that was conveyed by the animated 1950 films and translated that fairy tale magic through the aesthetics. Gilded everything, soft sunlit scenes. The movie was so nice to look at. But beyond that, I really found it lacking a lot.

Let me talk about the music really quickly. I was pretty dismayed that the songs from the 1950 movie weren’t used in this film, even in the scoring. The only song I recognized from the original soundtrack was when Lily James briefly sang “Sing Sweet Nightingale”. By briefly, I literally mean she sang the line “Sing sweet, nightingale” once while doing her chores. I didn’t hear the motif throughout the rest of that scene. I did not hear “So This is Love” as a motif in scenes with Richard Madden. I did not hear “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” at any point. And no “Bippidi Boppidi Boo” for our fairy godmother scene.

I didn’t love the casting of Helena Bonham Carter for the fairy godmother. It added to the confusion of what this movie was trying to be. After all, it wasn’t trying to be a super faithful live-action recreation because Helena’s fairy godmother is nothing like the matronly wise old woman archetype that we had in 1950. She is also not likely popular among children. So she’s cast in this film for adults and yet her role was so campy that I don’t understand what the larger goal was for this casting choice. And when you have so little screentime but are so heavily advertised (kind of like Johnny Depp in Into the Woods) you have to make THE MOST out of it and I just felt that her performance, much like many of the non-Blanchett performances, fell flat.

In fact, that was my major problem with the entire film. Overall, it seemed like it was aiming to just be a highly romanticized period film with some magic. But I felt so overwhelmingly uncharmed by it. What was it trying to be? It was not a faithful adaptation of the original animated movie, as it needed to do something original. (Didn’t love those twists, but I’ll talk about those in my spoilers.) It wasn’t innocent and light enough to be a children’s movie, but it was too campy to be an adult movie.

I definitely had an issue with the dialogue. Most of it was cringe-worthy. It was not natural, maybe because of this lofty romantic fuzzy daydream vision they were going for? BUT THEN explain Helena Bonham Carter’s character? The goofy fairy godmother? Goofier than Whitney Houston’s. I mean, she’s HBC. We know what to expect from her, and she deliver that, but it seemed so out of place in this film.

You know, let’s go back to talking about the actors for a minute. Cate Blanchett can do no wrong, but they gave her such odd lines to work with. Lady Tremaine as a character is just kind of cruel because she can be. They weakened that in this film, and I don’t understand why they did this. She did what she could, but even she couldn’t salvage the awkward dialogue. There’s nothing WRONG with the actors in this film, but the performances were just all so flat and lacked depth. Richard Madden? Lily James? YAWN. I do find casting Richard Madden as Prince Charming odd. He’s not handsome in the conventional Disney way of casting men who look young and dashing and charming? He’s more handsome in that John Stamos way, if that makes sense? It seemed odd. He was also one of the more expressive actors in the movie, and that’s saying something. The stepsisters were comical, as they’re supposed to be, but were they actually much more animated than everyone else or did they just seem so much more lively relative to their costars? True, their funny moments were pretty funny. The comic nature of how ridiculous the sisters are was maintained in this movie, thank goodness. Those two made the most of their time on screen.

Oh, but Cate Blanchett really was brilliant. Truly an amazing actress, and the little things sh did really reminded me of some of the great actresses that have graced the silver screen. She already is in their company. Amazing.

I’m going to cut to a trailer before I rip into this some more, but I’m going to rip into this some more after the trailer:

Cinderella is out in theaters March 13. Spoilers to follow:Read More »

Frozen Fever (2015)

Thursday, 26 February 2015Thursday, 26 February 2015 StarrLeave a comment

I was able to see an early screening of Disney’s newest live-action adaption, Cinderella, last night, my first screening of 2015!

But I’ll level with you: I think a lot of Disney fans were more excited for Disney’s newest animated short than for their newest live-action adaptation. From what I’d seen in my travels through the Disney fandom, Frozen fans were barely hibernating when they were able to spring back up in excitement!

Can I be a bit more honest with you? I was not excited. I was WAY over the hype for Frozen before the movie was even released. The soundtrack was fantastic, yes. Was it a good movie? Sure. But was it hyped beyond belief to the point where most Disnerds are a bit sick of it? YUP.

That being said, “Frozen Fever” was really cute!

Yes, there were some echoes of the original movie that were eye-roll-worthy. (“After all, a cold never bothered me anyway.” UGH, Elsa, no.) And some of the animation seemed recycled:

Pretty sure they just inserted Elsa into the scene of Anna waking up on coronation day? The lighting on Elsa seemed a bit off.

But it all worked to remind you that FROZEN HAPPENED, in case you forgot. They rode bicycles in the hall…

Notice that Anna is holding her favorite food: a SANDWICH!

and even Oaken and a portable sauna make an appearance, among other nods to the movie:

The premise is that it’s Anna’s first birthday post-events of Frozen and Elsa wants to make everything PERFECT to make up for being a cold ice queen for all of Anna’s life.

Of course, hijnks ensue because, well… think about the title. Also, it’s a Disney short; when AREN’T there hijinks?

It was definitely cute and fun and REALLY, I mean really, reinforced the idea of sisterly love. Elsa makes a lot of very grand gestures for her sister in this movie for Anna’s birthday, so if you’re not used to seeing grand gestures of platonic love, you’re going to be a bit confused. It’s okay, it’s super sweet and thoughtful. I mean, it includes this adorable/awkward family portrait:

I’m going to cut to the trailer now before I spoil too much. Even though I’m really sick of Frozen (and the folks in the theater were REAL sick of it), this was still a fun short to watch. Short and sweet. Definitely good for fans of Frozen and still a treat for Disney fans otherwise.

“Frozen Fever” and Cinderella will be out in theaters March 13th.

Into the Woods (2014)

Tuesday, 2 December 2014Wednesday, 3 December 2014 Starr1 Comment

Last night, I got to watch an early screening of Disney’s Into the Woods, the adaptation of the Tony-award winning musical by Steven Sondheim.

First of all, I do need to say that I watched the original Broadway run of Into the Woods in class back in middle school. It was a long time ago, so all it really means is that I am familiar with the story and the songs. I would not call myself a die-hard fan but it does remain one of my favorite musicals.

That being said, I thought the movie was a pretty faithful adaptation of the stage version! It wasn’t going to be perfect, by any means, especially because Disney adapted it. As most musicals go, there are some less-than-G-rated moments in Into the Woods. During development, we heard a lot of rumors of songs getting cut for being too Disney-inappropriate, like “Hello, Little Girl” and “Any Moment”, but those songs both made it into the movie. There were a few plot changes, which I’ll go over in the spoilers section below the trailer.

For my spoiler-free portion of this, I do highly recommend you see this if:

You like the original musical
You like musicals in general
You like fairy tales
You like fairy tale crossovers
You like after ever-after fairy tale stories
You like any of the cast members
You like laughter

Even though Into the Woods can get a little dark a times, it is a really funny show, so expect to laugh. A lot. Comedic timing was done REALLY well, it definitely translated very well to screen. That was key for me, because I mostly remember laughing along with this show and I laughed a lot during the movie.

I do need to say things about this movie that bothered me a little:

Maybe it was because of how close I was to the screen for this viewing, but the sound seemed a bit off. Some of the sound was WAY too loud but the rest of it was normal so I don’t know what went on. Let’s just say I definitely would not nominate them for a Best Sound Mixing Academy Award if that’s how they’re going to release the film.
Some of the camera work was distracting. Tracking a character shouldn’t be something noticeable but I noticed and it distracted me. If you can’t track your actors properly then don’t do such a tight shot. Zoom out so that they have more freedom to move about the frame. I usually don’t notice things like that but I did here and that’s kind of the problem. (I did appreciate a lot of their framing, though.)

Some [spoiler-free] casting notes:

Johnny Depp as the Wolf was pretty perfect. What can I say, he’s really good at playing creepy dudes. (See Pirates of the Caribbean, Willy Wonka, etc.) Even though his screentime was tragically limited (I am so not used to him not being the star of his films, I realize), he really made the most of it. The Wolf is a fun character and adding Johnny Depp’s special flavor of fun to the Wolf’s fun was pretty perfect. He has this great command of the screen when he appears, and easily his few minutes were some of the best minutes of the entire movie. Just because we are used to him playing these interesting characters does NOT mean it does not require great talent for him to do so. I don’t know, I am talking a lot about an actor who is on-screen for less than 10 minutes but everything is SO deliberate about his performance. Every movement, every look, every note he sings. It’s all extremely deliberate and intentional and really perfect for this role.
Meryl Streep can do no wrong, so obviously she was a fantastic Witch. There’s not much else I can say because we all know she’s awesome and amazing. The Witch is one of the MOST key characters in Into the Woods, and obviously Meryl made carrying a film look effortless. And you know, even though I don’t naturally think of Meryl for musicals, she does have a really expressive voice. “Stay With Me” was done so so well.
Chris Pine did great as Cinderella’s Prince, although I’ll admit that it doesn’t seem to be much of a challenge for him to play charming-to-a-fault types. (See Princess Diaries 2 and his Kirk in the Star Trek films.) But charming-to-a-fault is exactly what this role calls for and he delivers what he delivers best. Also, I didn’t know he was much of a singer until he was cast in this role and found out via this interview that he has a lovely singing voice. Pine Nuts, go crazy, this is Chris Pine gold.
To be totally honest, I thought that Anna Kendrick wasn’t really able to shine in her role as Cinderella. I absolutely adore her as an actress and as a person (I mean, have you seen her Twitter?) but this role felt so stifling in my opinion. It fell a bit flat for me. Even her songs just didn’t have that oomph that I was expecting from her. Most of all, I felt that she just wasn’t very expressive in this film. Both her face and her voice are very expressive but I didn’t get much of that in this movie.
Just have to share that I love that Lucy Punch plays a stepsister in this because she ALSO plays one of the stepsisters in Ella Enchanted. Apparently, it is the role she was destined to play. She’s great. Again, not much screentime, but she makes the most of it.
Left: Lucy Punch (center) as Hattie in Ella Enchanted
Right: Lucy Punch (left) as Lucinda in Into the Woods

Also, the stepmother and stepsisters had AMAZING outfits for the ball. Ohmygosh, where can I get a black and gold gown like those?
Daniel Huttlestone is really making a name for himself in these musical film-adaptations. You might know him as Gavroche from Les Miserables and he plays Jack (of beanstalk-fame) here. Really good voice on this one, and I love what he does with his facial expressions. Looking forward to seeing more of him.
I liked James Corden in his role as the Baker. It reminds me of his Doctor Who role as Craig in that he’s this sincere but kind of clueless guy with a baby. (Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All!) While I remember Chip Zien as this kind of scrawny guy playing the Baker, it makes sense to have a guy like James Corden play him.

(Character posters courtesy of International Business Times)

One thing to note about casting is that, for the stage version, there is a lot more dramatic irony with double casting of characters. For example, the Prince and the Wolf are played by the same actor, which makes their behavior make more sense when you realize it is essentially the same. These things get lost in the movie. Just like how we lost our Narrator and the Mystery Man. BUT of course, when you translate to film, you take advantage of talent wherever you can and you simplify things.

Overall, really solid and good movie, perfect for the holiday season. I’d give it 4.5/5 stars.

Here’s the trailer for Into the Woods, in theaters on December 25th. Definitely catch it when you can!

Big Hero 6 (2014)

Friday, 7 November 2014Saturday, 20 December 2014 Starr4 Comments

Last week, I was able to see Disney’s newest animated feature, Big Hero 6 early in theaters.

Me and Baymax! I’m dressed a bit like Gogo Tomago and worked hard to get her makeup look down, which you can’t see at all in this photo but it came out pretty well, lemme tell ya.

Basically, it was amazing fantastic awesome spectacular. This is kind of a longer review, but it gets a full 5/5 100% recommend you watch it for the following reasons:

Fantastic characters
Beautiful animation
Great promotion of the sciences
Fun story and funnier lines

I have been waiting for this movie for over a year now. No, really. (It’s not easy being a Disnerd. The wait for Moana is agonizing as well.) This is Disney Animation’s first go with a Marvel property and it’s pretty great.

Let’s look at our cast of characters first, because that’s really where this movie just comes alive.

From L to R: Fred, GoGo Tomago, Baymax, Hiro, Honey Lemon, Wasabi

These are our 6 heroes. Let’s meet them, shall we?

Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter) is the protagonist of our film. He’s 14-years-old and a casual robotics prodigy. We get a really good feel of his personality in the opening scene, where he’s at an [illegal] underground robot fight. As a character, there is a lot of depth to Hiro that I really really loved. Seriously classic example of how to put a character through hardships and see him pull through. He’s a teenager at the cusp of puberty, so he’s awkward and sassy and kind but selfish. He’s many things and that complexity is SO delicious because it makes him more real without making him too real. (I tend to dislike characters who are TOO realistically flawed.) I also really want to talk about his family, but just know that Hiro’s relationship with his brother and his aunt are really special.

Meet Baymax, our adorable squishy character. THIS is how you do a non-human sidekick. (Note: I hate Olaf from Frozen.) Baymax is squishy and chock full o’ comic relief because he is a robot and doesn’t understand our zany human ways! I’ll admit, I was skeptical of Baymax because it seemed like an Olaf-esque ploy to just push out merchandise and have a recognizable character for the franchise. But he’s completely terrific.

Gogo Tomago (voiced by Jamie Chung) is one of my favorite characters in this movie. First of all, I’m always thrilled when more Asian characters are added to the Disneyverse and Gogo Tomago is everything we could have asked for. She’s a no-nonsense butt-kicker who is, as with the rest of the team, also really smart. She works with electromagnetic disks (that you see her wearing above) and chews gum. Also PURPLE. She’s awesome, everything about her just screams cool.

Wasabi (No Ginger?) (voiced by Damon Wayans Jr.) is also a really fun character. He’s the biggest hero of the team (besides Baymax, of course), but he has this really funny neuroticism that makes him maybe too relate-able, personally speaking. He seems like the most real-world-esque character. He gets freaked out flying over the city, he is scared of creepy abandoned warehouses, he doesn’t like his workspace being disturbed because he has a system goshdarnit! He’s also wicked awesome with lasers.

Honey Lemon (voiced by Génesis Rodriguez) is a bubbly and cute character (although her accent was inconsistent in a way that I found slightly distracting). She is also really kind, and that is not really shoved down your throat too much, which is great. She’s just an overall sweetie and her love for chemistry is adorable.

Oh Fred Zilla (voiced by T. J. Miller) is easily one of the most fun characters in this entire movie. The only hero in our group who is not a genius student at SFIT, he is the mascot and dreams of being a fire-breathing dragon. So the team uses science to make that a reality. I usually don’t like characters like Fred too much (think Shaggy from Scooby Doo) because they’re a little TOO laidback and TOO silly. But BH6 did a really great job of making him likable for me.

Tadashi Hamada (voiced by Daniel Henney) (“I thought he sounded hot!” – my friend) is Hiro’s lovely older brother. Like brother like brother, he is the robotics specialist in the group of nerds at SFIT and built Baymax to be a healthcare robot and help people. His powerful desire to help other people is, again, not overdone but it really does affect everything he does. He saves his brother from an illegal robot fight, he gently encourages to use his genius for more noble pursuits, and more. It’s difficult not to really adore his character, I think because I’m just such a sucker for really beautiful families.

Speaking of beautiful families, this is Aunt Cass (voiced by Maya Rudolph) (but Tumblr says she looks like the animators used Tina Fey for a reference model). It’s not really explored much in the movie, but Hiro and Tadashi’s parents are dead and she is their guardian. She does the best she can and it really shows, just how much she loves her two boys. She works really hard to support them in their endeavors, runs a cute cafe, and is just such a cute and fun and loving character. She’s easily one of my favorite characters in this movie.

There are so many things I love about this movie. One is how appealing it makes getting a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) education. The heroes are all engineering geniuses, more or less. They attend a “nerd school” where they are changing the world. One of my favorite moments in this movie is when Tadashi, Hiro’s older brother who is a student at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, shows Hiro what he can be doing with his genius. I really think that Big Hero 6 will inspire so many children to look into studying science and engineering. It’s going to be amazing and I’m so happy that Disney has really been pushing this with lots of innovation-themed contests for kids. Amazing.

Also, can I just say WOWOWOWOWOWOW to the animation team? The animation in this movie was absolutely beautiful.

I can’t find too many examples online but I remember, even as I was watching, just being stupendously impressed with the attention to detail and the framing and WOW. Just visually, this is SUCH a stunning film.

I also think this is one of Disney’s funniest movies of late. I just found myself laughing so much because the screenwriters made such good use of awkward silence, omission, physical humor, puns, etc. You’ve probably seen scenes like this online already, and it is definitely one of the moments that shows you how funny of a character Baymax can be right here in his introduction:

Too good. Toooooooo good.

Please please please please go watch this movie, I promise it will be well worth your time.

Spoilers below the trailer! (SRS SPOILERS)

Feast (2014)

Tuesday, 4 November 2014Saturday, 20 December 2014 Starr1 Comment

Before I tell you guys about Big Hero 6, which I got to see last week at a groovy early screening, I really want to talk to you guys about Disney’s newest animated short: Feast.

Feast stars this adorable pup:

This cutie is Winston! He has a beautifully adorable appetite.

What the teaser doesn’t show is that this isn’t just a short about a dog who loves to eat. It’s also about his bystander perspective on the love story involving the kind man who takes him home one day.

I felt such an intense roller coaster of emotions watching Feast. Maybe it’s because I was just so darn excited to see both this short and the feature. I laughed, I cried. (No really, there were tears.)

What I really loved about Feast was just how much they were able to communicate in the background. Winston and his appetite is the main story, but the love story going on while he eats is told so beautifully and simply. The animation was great, too.