After a push from John Lasseter to get back to traditional animation, Disney has now released a new movie done in the traditional cell animation style.  Sure the studio used computers, but rather than being modeled and rendered in 3D software this movie has the traditional organic animation style to it.  If you haven’t seen this movie yet, then go.  It would be a good idea to bring a date.  She will love it.

The story goes mostly to the style of the classic princess fairytale storyline.  Not the fairytale of ‘The Frog Prince’ it does steer away and add some cool twists to that fable.  The classic princess and prince formula that was once the key to movies from Disney studios.

The girl who is called the princess actually isn’t a princess, but rather a hardworking girl from a poorer section of New Orleans.  The movie takes place in roughly the 20′s when people still liked jazz music.  Her main objective throughout the movie is to open a restaurant and make her dad proud.  So in order to do this she saves pennies, nickels, dimes, and dollar bills in jars.

Over the period of about 10 years she has just as many jars filled.  This is while working double shifts and not spending time or money on anything.  Why she didn’t convert her coins to cash is beyond me.  A couple of dollar bills stacked up would have taken a lot less space in her sock drawer.

When she gets closer to making her dream come true she gets transmogified into a frog.  Ouch!  There goes that dream!  But she doesn’t let her lack of humanity stand in the way, as she skips through the swamp collecting characters like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.

The animation on this movie is great.  It looks terrific.  The multiplane camera work was there.  The movements were believable.  This movie could have come out in the 40′s or 50′s when Disney was at it’s princess movie peak and it would fit right in.  I don’t claim to know anything about possible effects of the racial tensions of the time, so I am speaking solely of the look and style of the movie’s animation.  That and how clean and seamless the animation is would simply blow minds away.

Back to the story, one thing that is noteworthy is that the villian didn’t actually have any powers.  Spooky voodoo had powers and he could control them somewhat, but it put him in serious debt to the underworld.  The shadowman was a pupet, even if he didn’t believe it himself.  He was controlled by the man.  Then again, who isn’t?

There were quite a few references to the days of disney gone by.  My personal favorite was “The Firefly Five Plus Lou.’  Back in the heyday of Disney animation, a number of Walt’s 12 old men (his key animators) had a jazz group called “The Firehouse Five Plus Two.’  I was watching this movie and thinking about how much Walt would have liked it and how well it was made, but when that omage showed up, tears actually started down my face.  What a great way to honor these men.

Of course that was the big happy grand fanalie, so crying at that point made me look very out of touch with reality.  Just a few minutes before there was a really emotional part of the movie where an important character is on his deathbead.  Everyone else in the theater is sad and mopey, but I’m sitting there munching on popcorn.

With that, see this movie.  It is a princess movie.  It is a cartoon.  It is beautifuly.  Find an excuse to go see it.  Tell your friends you’re going to see Avatar again.  Then go see this movie.

[edit: Boy Do I look dumb, Crash came out second.  But in MY WORLD...]

Today it’s all about the movie ‘Love Actually’  If you haven’t seen it, but you have seen the movie ‘Crash’ then you really don’t need to watch this one.  Just make all of the story threads end on a festive Christmas happy note and it is essentially the same movie.

Although going from Love Actually to Crash is a little more difficult.  You have to replace Santa with a rapist and then replace the children’s Christmas pageant with kidnaping and decisions about if you want to sell a van full of people into slavery or not.  And add running over people, explosions, and massive amounts of racism.

Okay, so the comparison is only a one way street.  If you have seen Crash, you have seen Love Actually.  If you have seen Love Actually, you haven’t seen Crash unless you are really twisted and demented.  I’ll let you decide which one that is for yourself.

So the movie, the one in question (not the one that accidentally tripped and won Best Picture), is all about a bunch of people in their little lives going towards Christmas.  The people have some connection to one another, either by being second cousins to the Prime Minister or by being his brother in law’s secretary or perhaps by being his sister’s friend’s child who is in love with an American girl.  In case you couldn’t tell, the movie takes place in England.  Just like Crash…mostly.

There is one part of the movie where this guy falls in love with a Portuguese woman who speaks no English.  She is his maid while he works on his bad novel in the south of France.  She also falls in love with him, but he doesn’t really know it.  Also he doesn’t know a lick of Portuguese.  Really who does?  They talk, but they have no idea wtf the other is saying.

Soon after he leaves he gets sad and decides it would be a good idea to go marry her.  He runs off to do so, stopping only to take a two week course on Portuguese.  When he finally finds her, she is working as a waitress in a restaurant.  He impresses her by asking to be married and confessing his love in broken bits and pieces of Portuguese that he scrambled together.

Then comes the real tear jerker.  Knowing it ahead of time by reading the rest of this paragraph won’t even take away it’s potency.  She responds to him in English.  The grammar is messy and not structured, but it is in English.  She had been studying his language for the exact reason he was learning hers.

It reminds me of the Christmas story where the guy sells his pocket-watch to buy his wife a sweet comb.  Then she runs off and gets her hair made into a wig so she can buy a chain for his pocket-watch.  Both of the two sacrificed something they cherished for the one they love.  In the pocket-watch and hair story it turns out to suck for both of them.  But in Love Actually, it turns out to be very beautiful.

Some of the other stories that go along with the movie are also pretty good too.  There are about six storylines in total running through the movie.  One turns out to be a real downer.  Another illustrates how sad and lonely one guy is.  Another is neutral, like eating a sandwich.  But the remaining three are happy and heartwarming.

Hate to say it, but I liked this movie.  So I suppose that makes it nothing like Crash.