My review of The Princess and the Frog

Friday, December 18, 2009

"We need a black princess. Oh, and she'd better be a feminist, a Strong Woman, 'cause otherwise we'll be dealing with all that Cinderella crap again. And, umm, we've got our two-dimensional villain, right? OK, great. Now. What do we know about New Orleans black culture? Let's see...jazz...voodoo...and gumbo. Oh, and swamps. Make sure we get those in."


How would I rate The Princess and the Frog, as a waste of my time? Four stars!!

Granted, I wasn't really looking to be impressed, just going because I needed to get out of the effing house and there was no other movie all four of us would have wanted to sit through. Also, my husband inexplicably didn't mind it, so mine is definitely not the only perspective here. Me, I should've gone to see whatever was playing next door. I really wanted to punch this movie in the face.

I have two main complaints about this movie. The first is how vapid it was, and how it seemed to be written and animated by a bunch of pasty middle-aged white men enclosed in a stuffy room eating Hot Pockets who had never before encountered any of the things they were including in the movie (including black people, I'd guess). Everything felt second-rate and stereotyped, from the animation to the characterization to the ill-written script.

Making voodoo the main evil force was a strange choice. Actually, there was good voodoo and bad voodoo, and they sometimes called it hoodoo, but whatever. Just call it what it is: magic. Or a MacGuffin, since its existence doesn't actually matter by the end of the film.

It felt clumsy and shallow. The humor was, um, appalling and loathsome, but maybe they were targeting just the four-year-olds (I'm thinking specifically of the groan-inducing line spoken by the firefly: "Don't make me shine my butt!").

There is little emotional involvement with what's happening on the screen, except for one part near the end that managed to be forced and mystical and cynical all at once so that I wanted to jump up and shout expletives at the screen, curse the writers and animators who finally revealed their utter lack of humanity by allowing that part of the movie to make the final cut. The very young kid behind me was crying and protesting. I was very mad about it.

The second main complaint was that it was also so dull that my attention kept drifting away. Robert kept asking me, "What are you looking at?" I have no idea, but it wasn't the screen. I did watch the entire film - sadly, no napping for me - but I kept wishing I was elsewhere. It couldn't keep my interest.

Add songs written by Randy Newman, of Star Wars fame, and you've got a pretty vacuous evening ahead of you.

In fairness, I did like about five minutes of the ending. It was incredibly predictable, but I enjoyed it anyway. It just wasn't worth the dullness of the preceding 90 minutes. Definitely not a big enough payoff.

Oh, and I guess Oprah was in it somewhere, but I have no idea where.

Getting Santa-mental

Thursday, December 17, 2009

I am in complete agreement with my friend Melissa. I can't stand Santa. Santa isn't welcome in our house. Our kids have always known where their gifts actually come from, and they are the ones telling other people's children that "There IS NO SANTA!" (In my defense, I try to temper that last part, out of consideration for the parents and their right to choose the moment of their children's realization of betrayal.)

In the spirit of that sentiment, I'm thoroughly enjoying the following:

Sketchy Santas

And, really, which Santas aren't sketchy??

On writing and not getting anything else done

When I look back over the past 7 weeks, I recall a blur, a frenzy, an unrestrained festival of writing. I am not certain I've actually slept longer than 5 hours on any given night, as I have woken at 4:30 or earlier every single morning and sat down in this very chair to write and write and write until my responsibilities (namely children) call me reluctantly away from my keyboard.

Sadly, not a word of what I've written has made it to this blog.

However, over 60,000 words of it is part of a novel I'm writing. I started doing NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That ended on November 30th, and I reached my word count goal, but my novel didn't manage to wrap itself up during those crazy days.

I am, as suits my nature, obsessed with it. I think about hardly anything but my characters and how they are going to respond to/maneuver out of their situations. I come up with details that will never enter in to the story and write them in a notepad I carry around with me. I build and flesh out and sit back while they talk to or ignore one other and tramp around in the world I've made for them.

I have fallen for my characters, and often their experiences between 4:30 and 7 am affect my mood for most of the day. I was floating on a cloud when two of them unexpectedly found a little romance, and have been grouchy for a few days as they lost someone they cared about to a terrible injury.

To say "This is fun" is a wretched understatement. It is THRILLING.

Will anything actually come of all of this? I honestly don't know.

The NaNoWriMo process does not allow for extensive editing along the way, and so I'm just cruising ahead and writing my ideas down. My plans have changed several times, and now the beginning of the novel does not agree with what is currently happening. It's a mess. It's going to take a while to edit, even if only to make the plot make sense.

When it's done and polished, perhaps by this time next year, and if I feel it's worth sharing, I will seek publication. Right now, though, I'm still in the throes of giving birth to this adorable, time-gobbling creature.

Stragglers

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Halloween night!

Elizabeth had her face painted by Aunt Susie:

Unbelievable...

Friday, November 6, 2009

OK, I'm done with Cake Wrecks.

I have a deep love for the site, and the recent Majestic Coiled Crap Hound cake truly affirmed it. But I will never be a Wreckporter; I just can't find disasters like these anywhere. I have to live off the wrecks found by others.

Then I stumbled upon pure, unadulterated genius. Photoshop Disasters is a log of shameful, careless, unrealistically altered, and somehow still published, work. I set out to find some examples around me.

One of the biggest repeat offenders is Victoria's Secret. So I went to their site to see if I could find any examples of really bad photoshopping jobs. Within moments I found several.

This might be the only time you see girls in their underwear on my site, but I'm convinced it is totally worth it.

After all, I'm not sure they're actually human.

Check this out:

Do you see it?

What is wrong with her right leg?? And it looks like they tried to add a buttock. It just looks...creepy.

Well, apparently leg atrophy is a big problem among VS models:

Once you see a few of these, you start noticing them everywhere. There are extra arms, missing legs, vanishing navels, and lots of other serious problems.

So keep your eyes open. And realize that those unbelievably thin models don't look like that, either.

The originals are here and here.

Happy Halloween!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Crazy hair day:

At school on Friday:


I really like this picture; I love dropping off the kids on Halloween.


Our own 'ballerina dancing fairy':


Then back to the other school, for the parade:








Carved pumpkins:


Elizabeth's:




And Angela's:


The Mad-Eye version:


And mine!


I may or may not be posting more pictures after today. The stroke of midnight kicks off NaNoWriMo, and while I will be here, right here in this chair, for most of November, I will probably not be blogging a great amount. Well, we shall see -- I am a first-year WriMo, and I don't know how much I'm in for!

Every interaction should make society better

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Rob and I have had several conversations about economics. One principle that has stood out to me is the idea that all transactions are good if they benefit both parties, because they are making the entire society richer.

I think the same about interpersonal relations. If people come away from the interaction feeling good, it is a benefit to the society at large.

A couple of years ago I became involved in a scorching online blog debate. The other party was an accomplished but stubborn person who had a habit of dismissing those who didn't agree with her and not backing up her arguments. She got to be quite mean. The debate drew a crowd, but it seemed to feed her unpleasantness, and she never apologized nor made any concessions whatsoever. I withdrew rather than engage in what I finally realized was a pointless and one-sided debate.

I recently found this among her writings:

Conflict drives the comments section and makes the post “sticky.” People come back to see what nasty accusations others have flung at me this time and to see whether I tolerate the accusations or make the accuser look foolish. I give as good as I get, and people find that entertaining.

Am I alienating my audience? Certainly I am alienating some people, but, frankly, I’m amazed that people think I am being mean when I respond to ridiculous assertions and vile comments with demands to supply proof. One thing I know for sure, though, is that my audience increases.

And those nasty posts written about me? They are free advertising. I’m surprised that people don’t understand that. Every post written about me is not an insult, but is a small victory. It shows that what I write has hit the mark, has elicited strong feelings, has made people think. And of course every post written about me increases my readership.

Valid points, to be sure. I think that if your goal is to be read by lots of people, and you don't care about how you accomplish it, this is definitely one way to approach it.

But, thinking about how a good transaction benefits all involved, and realizing that the world is indeed short of kindness and warmth by a considerable amount, I have to object.

When coming up against this person, both parties are not edified. There's a good chance that one will leave the interaction angry, frustrated, and feeling unheard. Being provocative is not a status achieved without consequences. Making people feel is not the same as making them think.

It reminds me of this:

The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined.

~Margaret D. Nadauld

We need to set about making the world better by making our interactions with others positive. If both people come away from a discussion feeling good, they will likely spread that goodness through their interactions with others. The entire society benefits.

What happens when beneficial interactions don't occur? Positive feelings are drained from the world. Perhaps that's a little dramatic, but you see my point.