Here is my list of most anticipated films for the year. I think I missed doing this list last year, but I wanted to make sure to put this list together for 2016. We now live in a world where there are new Star Wars films coming out regularly. I’m very excited about that, and have ranked Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as my most anticipated movie of the year. I have a feeling that’s going to be a running theme from now on. Anyway, here are my most anticipated movies of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

Disney has announced Frozen 2. It is official, and I’m looking forward to it. However you feel about Frozen, it’s still an excellent film with a wonderful message. I have friends with kids that have probably seen and heard the beginning of the movie a few hundred times. It’s not something that I’ve dealt with, but I bet that I will at some point in the future. I can only hope that it’s a movie at least half as good as Frozen. I don’t honestly think I’d mind having it “overplayed” though. I have a pretty high tolerance for repeated viewing of excellence.

The only thing I’m worried about, here, is where the story goes next. The Frozen Fever short that is playing before Disney’s new Cinderella (2015) was enough for me to get excited for another story set in that world, but I do know that it’s going to be quite a few years before the sequel is ready. The first thing that people tend to say is “I hope they don’t ruin it!” But my question to you is this: when has a sequel ever ruined the first movie for you? Did The Return of Jafar ruin Aladdin for you? Did The Empire Strikes Back ruin Star Wars for you?

These days, under the guidance of Bob Iger and John Lassetter, Disney Animation Studios (and all Disney production) will only create a sequel if they have a story that wants to be told. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to try a sequel when they have a hit as large as Frozen. We’ve seen what happened when Pixar made a sequel to Cars that wasn’t quite as good. It still wasn’t a failure by any means, it was just different. We’ve also seen two sequels to Toy Story, with each being better than the last. They’ve also created two shorter specials with the characters, and are now working on Toy Story 4. Needless to say, Disney has earned my confidence. The days of the sequel for no reason seem to be safely behind us, when it comes to major motion pictures.

I’m in for this one.

Now, I need to tell you about the Nendoroid Elsa. Here’s the description from the company’s website:

From the hit film ‘Frozen’ comes a Nendoroid of the Arendelle Royal Family’s eldest daughter, Elsa! Her intricate dress has been carefully transformed into Nendoroid size, even including the faint yet beautiful snowflake patterns! She comes with three expressions including a cute smiling face, a sidelong glance with a smirk and a singing face that looks ready to shout out ‘Let it Go!’ at any moment!

Olaf, the enchanted snowman with a love for Summer is also included with his comical expression from the series faithfully reproduced – his neck and arms are also articulated allowing you to recreate all sorts of fun scenes for the snowman too! A special Nendoroid base based on Elsa’s ice castle is also included to display them on!

When I heard that Disney was making a live action version of Cinderella at the 2013 D23 Expo, I wasn’t all that impressed with the idea. I’ve never been a big fan of the character (likely because I’m a guy, lol). Then they said that Kenneth Branagh was directing and that was enough to get me interested in seeing the movie. With an unknown actress in the title role, I was curious about what they were going to do with the story to make it different enough for the big screen.

The source material for the story is also relatively sparse and would make for a gruesome film.

Instead, what Disney has created is actually a film with far more depth than the story originally contained. One that is better than the source material and the animated film by a wide margin. The themes of forgiveness in the face of adversity, kindness in the face of evil and bravery in the face of abuse are well told. Lately, Disney has been taking a path of showing a villain in a different light, giving us a reason that they are being villainous. In this case, they do so very well, and instead of being something that helps us to understand the villain, it brings about more than that.

Spoilers follow.

The story is that of Ella, a girl with loving parents that teach her about magical things, how to be kind to all, and to have courage. After losing her mother, many years pass and her father finds love once again. But her stepmother isn’t ever able to understand Ella’s relationship with her father. But there’s more to her stepmother than that, and it shows us the kind of person that Ella could choose to become. Both Ella and her stepmother suffer huge amounts of loss in their lives, and both of them deal with this loss in very different ways. The stepmother allows this loss to consume her and inform every self-defeating decision that she makes, adding to her unhappiness. Ella looks at what she’s losing, and takes the time to grieve properly, and looks back toward the words of her mother: be kind and have courage.

Even when Ella is asked about how she’s living, and how she is treated, by a complete stranger in the forest, she says that “they do as well as they can.” She doesn’t badmouth them, even privately.

This is also the story of a prince that is looking for a bride. His father will not live for much longer, and wants him to take a princess as his bride to aid their country. There’s a moment, however, that is very human and heartfelt between the father and son. As the father is laying in bed, very weak, the prince and he have what could be their final conversation, and the prince curls up next to his father in the bed.

Another moment that Ella handles much better than her stepmother or step-sisters is upon hearing that her father had passed away on a trip. A friend that was on the journey comes with the news, bringing Ella the branch that she had asked for, telling her that she was all her father had thought about. Ella’s step-sisters were focused on what they didn’t get, and her step-mother was more focused on their current predicament, shouting “we’re ruined.” But Ella merely takes the branch and says “that must have been very hard for you” to the man that had to deliver the news. She handles it with a subtle grace.

It was the last thing that Ella says to her step-mother that takes this film to another level, and solidifies who they both are.

One side note about the movie that often goes overlooked: Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter, Captain America: The First Avenger) plays Ella’s mother at the start of the film, showing her ability to play a very wide range of characters. I barely recognized her at first. She does an amazing job with what is a particularly small but very important role for the whole story.

I very highly recommend seeing this film. It’s playing with an animated short called Frozen Fever, so make sure to be on time. The short is well worth seeing and hilarious. It was great to see another story set in that world, now that Frozen 2 has been officially announced.

For the first time in a while we have a year without a Pixar film.  I tend to put all Pixar films on my anticipated film list every year, but The Good Dinosaur was delayed until 2015.  That will mean two Pixar films will be on my list for 2015, however, and I’m very excited about that.  I’m pretty excited about this year’s movies, however, with the end of The Hobbit capping the a year filled with Muppets, superheroes, robots and biblical epics.

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About a year ago, Disney made the ultimate purchase.  One that made my dreams of seeing more Star Wars films on the big screen possible.  They bought Lucasfilm.  It was this purchase that has actually completed a project that I am now convinced was the plan from the time they bought the Jim Henson Company back in 2004 for an undisclosed amount somewhere around $200 million.  It was actually a much longer journey as Disney had originally purchased distribution rights to all of the Jim Henson Company productions way back in 1991.  It took until September of 2008 before Disney finally rebranded the Muppets Holding Company as Muppet Studios, and placed it under new leadership.

With phase one complete, it was time to begin work on phase two: the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment.  This was a massive purchase costing $4.24 billion.  Disney needed to get control of Marvel Productions, and this was one way that they could do so.  They didn’t want to have any red-tape, even though they very likely had all of the rights they needed thanks to the acquisition of the Muppets.

Lastly, they needed the final piece of the equation.  They needed the footage that was used from both Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.  And the best way to do that?  Spend $4.06 billion on the purchase of Lucasfilm.  That brought in both franchises.

With the total cost being about $8.5 billion, Disney is very close to being able to achieve their ultimate goal: the release of Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies on DVD and Blu-ray. I had been thinking about the overall purchases that Disney was making, and one day it dawned on me that all of these things were connected.  And with a little bit of research, I found that I wasn’t the only one to think of this.

From what I can gather, the only thing left standing in their way is a simple licensing of some footage from Ghostbusters from Sony Pictures.  Unless they plan on purchasing the rights to the Ghostbusters franchise (which I’d have no problem with, as they seem to just do everything right with the franchises they acquire).  There are also bits from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which belong to Paramount, among a few other things.  It seems to me that we’re as close as ever, and so is Disney.

That’s a pretty large investment so far, though, and I hope that the eventual release of this classic masterpiece of animation works out for them, and they make back the billions they’ve spent in gathering the exclusive rights to the series.

Disneynature is a company that was launched in April 2008 to bring back one of the staples of Walt Disney’s career: True-Life Adventures.  I’m a pretty big fan of the company, and their work, so it was with great interest that I’ve sought out more information about their projects on a regular basis.

I’ve seen most of their films, when they’ve had topics that have interested me, and so far I’ve only skipped one.  Starting with Earth, which was kind of a summary version of the BBC’s Planet Earth, I’ve been captivated by this series of films.  Oceans was a disappointment to me, spending too much time on climate change and not enough time on the strange and wonderful creatures that inhabit the deep.  The narration was lacking as well, with too little talking when we needed some more explanation of what we were seeing.

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