Tonight we cashed in some free movie tickets and took the girls to see Princess and the Frog in the "big girl" movie theater (or so we told them). Our only other previous attempts to take them to the dollar show ended in a bored Birdy who made it about 2/3 through. They were champs and Birdy was laughing and squealing all the way through!
I initally wasn't really interested in this one (in spite of the fact that I love the "traditional hand-drawn Disney movies). The early ads didn't make it too compelling. We got the new edition of Snow White and it had an extended trailer and the first scene from the movie and I was hooked!
Tiana is a driven, smart girl who has a goal/dream of opening her own restauraunt. She makes a satisfying main character. My only beef is that when played against the playboy Prince, she can seem like a nag because she always has to be the "responsible" one.
Of course, her journey is to learn to have more fun, while the Prince learns to mend his playboy ways. The supporting characters were just as much fun as the mains. The music is also so excellent we found a music store in the mall and bought the soundtrack right away. You can't help but want to dance along to the bouncy Jazz tunes and belt out the big numbers! I can't wait until we all learn the words :)
As you can see from this artwork I found, the anamation is beautiful. I love the bayou scenes that include darkness lit by fireflies (a la the Pirates ride?) to the vibrant New Orleans scenes. You just can't beat the classic hand-drawn animation for beautiful artwork, in my opinion.
Of course the big buzz around this move has been a sense of "took them long enough" to feature a black princess. Maybe so. But now that she's here, I can't imagine a better character and story for her! I am very glad that my niece (who is black) will now have a princess to identify with!
The best part of this movie (for me) is that it returns to the "tradition" of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin in that it has a great message and moral, but it doesn't have a huge, obnoxious social agenda. Tarzan, Pocahontas and other recent Disney (and other) animated movies have been pretty heavy-handed on the "People (that means you kids!) are bad, nature and animals are good" agenda and I find that, for me, it takes away from the story.
EJ says: We went to go to "Princess and the Frog". It was a lot of fun. We got to see our favorite characters. Everyone thought it was great and funny. I love the parts with Tiana. She was a great actress.
Also my favorite part was the frog catchers when Tiana and the prince said they could talk. Talking frogs are funny, I've never seen a frog talk!
Birdy: I like my favorite part- she turned into a princess! The bad guy was scary and there were scary ghosts.
Now on to the good stuff and the whole purpose of Thanksgiving- the food! Jenn and Jace once again set the standard for awesome turkey. They introduced the family to brining a turkey a couple of years ago and they raised the bar on innovation in turkey prep- turkey injector. It. was. awesome. And less work than brining. Here is Jace dissecting the bird:
Dessert was awesome- in addition to all the cookies we brought for the cookie exchange, we had pecan caramel cheesecake (me), Pumpkin Fluff pie (Jenn), Super-good blueberry cream cheese pie (Abby!) and turkey cupcakes that Cynj brought. Then we talked while the kids played and talked and laughed!