Cinderella movie review

Let me start out by saying this movie was much better than I expected it to be.  If I’m being totally honest, I went into it not 100% thrilled that Disney was just doing another live action re-make – especially after my disappointment with Maleficent.  Then we saw a “sneak preview” of the movie at Hollywood Studios, where they showed the complete fairy godmother scene, and I’ll be honest: I didn’t think it was very good.  Luckily, that scene was the lowest part of the movie for me, and the rest turned out quite well.

The animated movie spends a lot of time on the antics of the mice, and luckily they play a much smaller role here.  In order to make this a full length movie, we delve more into Cinderella’s back story, which pays off.  We meet her mother and father and see her life as a child, when things were happy.  It develops more of a connection with her, and also shows us more of the reasons why she fell into the position that she did in the household.  We also have Cinderella and the Prince meet initially before the ball, in a very sweet and captivating scene.  It’s the basic story of Cinderella with some extra stuff thrown in, with a nice pace and without adding too much unnecessary extras.

Thoughts on Peter Pan

Highlights:  Overall it is a really excellent movie.  I find it to be quite enjoyable, funny, and emotionally touching.  One of the nice things about this movie is that it keeps a good pace.  They go on lots of adventures but it doesn’t feel too rushed, and it never really drags at all.

Low points: The only slight downfall to the movie is Peter himself, because it can be hard to like a character that is so selfish and immature.  However, if we can accept the fact that we aren’t necessarily supposed to like the main character, even though the kids in the movie adore him, it adds a really interesting dynamic and brings out an important message that Barrie wanted to convey in his original book/play.  Plus, Tink is just a… “witch.”

Music:  I think Peter Pan‘s got a lot of great songs – with the exception of Fantasia, which was focused on music, I might even say that Peter Pan is one of the few “early” Disney films to have a really memorable and overall good soundtrack.  “The Second Star to the Right” and “You Can Fly!” are both really good numbers.  There are also some good character songs, with “A Pirate’s Life” for the pirates and “What Makes the Red Man Red?” for the Indians.  “Your Mother and Mine” is a beautiful lullaby, if not a little boring.  And the crocodile’s tune is both fun and catchy.

March 2015 monthly round-up

February was an exciting Disney month for me as I got to spend a week down in the world!  Our trip was packed with races, great food, fun times, and even a trip over to Universal to visit Diagon Alley.  Expect to see lots of blog posts about various things from my trip.  Big Hero 6 also just recently came out on DVD (I still have to pick up my copy!).  And finally, we are gearing up for the Flower and Garden festival, which I will be attending in April!

Disney in your Day news

My Enchanted 10k recap is up on the blog, but there will be lots more to come from my week in Disney, including a recap of the Half Marathon, some dining reviews, how I made my running costumes, and more.  Anything in particular you’d be curious to hear about?  I’m also still blazing my way through that Disney bucket list and will continue to post updates on that!  We are planning to go to Disneyland in September, so I may also be posting some planning stuff.  Finally, I’m still making my way through the Disney movies – just finished Peter Pan so I’ll have my thoughts on that up shortly!

Disney News

• The new Cinderella movie comes out on March 13th, but some people are even more excited about the Frozen short before it.  Check out screenshots and details here.
• For make-up fans, MAC has released a new line of Cinderella inspired make-up.
• It’s almost Flower and Garden season!  You can see some of the merchandise that will be available, as well as the menus for the food booths!  Not to mention a look at the new Anna and Elsa topiaries.
• A new cookbook called Cooking Safari with Mickey will be out soon, featuring recipes from Animal Kingdom and the Lodge.
• Slowly but surely Avatar land at Animal Kingdom is coming along, and the Disney Parks Blog offers a sneak peek at the concept art and what we can expect.

Kill, Refurb, Marry – Disney Sidekicks

Every month my friends over at Mouse on the Mind host a blog hop of “Kill, Refurb, Marry” – and this month’s topic is Disney Sidekicks!  Here are my choices – what would you choose?

Kill – Cheshire Cat

To be fair, he is a cool character – I want to kill him more in the sense of, “gahh I hate you!” rather than “I wish you weren’t in this film.”  He’s not necessarily a villain, but he’s a troublemaker, and he doesn’t seem to feel bad at all for Alice, even when she’s at her wit’s end and crying about home.  He’ll always point her in the wrong direction.  And I’m a cat lover, so he gives my cuddly creatures a bad name!

Thoughts on Alice in Wonderland

Highlights:  The series of nonsensical adventures that Alice goes through are cute and captivating.  There is a lot of silliness going on here, making it a pretty funny movie.

Low points:  Well, this was a highlight too, but the movie is just silly. There’s no real consistent plot to it, and sometimes it just gets a little too ridiculous for me.  The nonsense goes on for a little too long – I prefer a little more plot in my movies, or at least memorable songs.

Music:  There are a lot of songs in this movie, but most of them are super short or else just not that interesting.  But with so many mini songs that are so well known, I’m quite surprised that nothing from Alice in Wonderland appears on my set of Disney’s Greatest Hits CDs.  You have “The Unbirthday Song,” “I’m Late,” which are the most memorable, but you also have Alice singing “In a World of My Own,” “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” and the flowers singing “All in a Golden Afternoon.”  Lots of different songs throughout the whole movie – basically every time Alice goes somewhere else or meets someone else, they sing a song.

A Personal Film Festival

Another blogger over at The Animation Commendation tagged me in a post to create my own personal film festival – basically, a list of my favorite films from each year that I’ve been alive.  I’ll try to pass along the fun by tagging some other bloggers as well!  You’ll see a lot of Disney movies on this list, but maybe a few others as well.  I did some honorable mentions too since I have such a love of Disney, but enjoy other films too!   I talk about Disney a lot on here (obviously), but this will also give you a glimpse into other things I enjoy.

1988:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit

1989:  The Little Mermaid

Honorable Mention:  Dead Poets Society

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Disney Villains

Ooh, this sounds like it will be a fun one!  Disney villains are fascinating characters, though I will admit the thought of having to marry one of them might not be the most appealing thing in the world.  And then there was this question: is “kill” the villain I like the least and “marry” the one I enjoy the most?  Or the one that I would literally want to kill the most or marry the most.  I went with the more literal translation, so the villains in contention for kill are great characters – just they’re such great villains I want to kill them!  There were definitely some difficult choices this week, but here’s what I came up with for this month’s edition of Kill, Refurb, Marry.

Kill – Frollo

This was a tough choice.  Which Disney villain makes your skin really crawl the most?  And makes you want to punch them in the face?  There are certainly a number of contenders here, but I went with Frollo.  Talk about evil personified.  He is a cruel, heartless man, treating people terribly because they are different from him.  Even though characters like Maleficent and the Evil Queen do terrible things and are certainly evil, Frollo seems to hit home a bit more because he’s more human.  There’s no magic or evil spells that are causing him to do what he does, it’s just a malicious human nature.  Maleficent couldn’t exist in real life, but Frollo could.  And that is terrifying.

Thoughts on the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Highlights:  The Wind in the Willows is a fun short with a cute story and memorable characters.  The Legend of Sleepy Hallow portion has some high points in it, though overall I wasn’t a huge fan (though I know many people are).  But I did enjoy some of the music in it and some of the scenes.

Low points:  The Legend of Sleepy Hallow came off as a bit odd to me.  I think part of this is because the original story itself is odd, but then turning it into an animated movie presumably for kids makes it a bit weirder.  It seems funny and lighthearted at the beginning, but the ending… not so much.  Ichabod himself isn’t very likable so there’s not a ton of investment in the characters.