I Dream of Arendelle

Last night, surely prompted by Frozen's Golden Globe win and upcoming Oscar run, I dreamt that I discovered a magical threat to Arendelle. I helped Queen Elsa find enemy spies who were watching her every move through carefully planted glittery baubles placed around the kingdom. Since Disney princesses veritable sweat glittery knickknacks, you can imagine how difficult the foreign objects were to discover and destroy. [more...]

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Wintry Hit Musicals and Anna Kendrick To The Rescue!

This time last year the instant if much-hated hit Les Misérables (2012) was topping Billboard's Top 100 Albums chart, powered largely by Anne Hathaway's belting through hacking fits from freezing pneumonia (or whatever she died of - she certainly wasn't dressed for the snow!). Fast forward one exact year: the instant and much-loved hit Frozen is topping Billboard's Top 100 Albums chart and at the same time it's crossing an incredible $300 million at the box office. That's quite a feat. No Disney toon has topped Billboard since Pocahontas 18 years ago and no Disney toon (sans Pixar) has crossed that box office threshold since The Lion King (1994)... though if you adjust for inflation it's closer to a Beauty & The Beast (1991) level of audience rapture. But still... that's quite a lot of rapturizing!

Fast forward to Christmas/Early January next year. Will it be Annie or Into the Woods moving the most discs/downloads? Both of them are opening for Christmas but -- happy news -- they're not the only movie musicals hitting us in 2014...

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Link is the New Blog

Salon Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black) continues to be a great spokesperson for trans people, shutting down Katie Couric's indelicate questions 
HitFix the composers from Frozen working on Bob the Musical for Disney. Sounds like a silly/fun project. 

Gawker Neil Patrick Harris has many margaritas in Mexico. LOL. #12 is my favorite, for the text as much as the picture 
Variety Meryl Streep's ode to Emma Thompson and Walt Disney diss at the NBR gala 

NYFCC Aftermath
Film Society of Lincoln Center has the audio of Harry Belafonte's moving speech in honor of Steve McQueen 
Variety reports on the damage control the critics circle is doing now 
The Carpetbagger on official apologies and Armond White's own denials that he heckled. Since I know people who were there, I know he's lying about other people lying about him.

Julianne Moore & Liv FreundlichFinally...
We never talked about Carrie (2013) after it hit theaters, primarily because I didn't see it. I guess it's on DVD next Tuesday? Up until very recently I had seen everything that Julianne Moore ever made after falling in love with her in [safe]. Yes, even that straight to DVD horror flick with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I have only met two people in my entire life who love Brian dePalma's Carrie (1976) more than I do: drag superstar Jackie Beat (who told me it was her all time favorite film) and my friend JA at My New Plaid Pants. He finally saw the misbegotten studio cash-in remake and lived to write about it. He predictably hated it but actually found one nice thing to say about Chloe Moretz so that... surprised me. 

The photo to your left is of Julianne and her daughter so you can see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and also because theyre so pretty and wouldn't you rather look at that glorious matching set than a still from Carrie (2013)? You're welcome. 

Podcast: A Disney Double, "Frozen" and "Saving Mr Banks"

On a quiet Sunday Nathaniel & Katey get together for a Disney Double that we are surprised to realize we hadn't yet discussed as a group.

Is Saving Mr Banks a 'corporation knows best' propaganda nightmare or a rich investigation of artistic compromise or somewhere inbetween? Does the existence of Mary Poppins, automatically make Disney (Tom Hanks) the hero and P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) the villain? We're more enthusiastic about Frozen. We see its gears and its formula and we don't necessarily love the song score but it transcends. Katey loves the message it's sending little girls.

Asides, as we do, to: Titanic, Tangled, The Hobbit, Blue Jasmine, and Meryl Streep in August: Osage County

You can listen to the podcast right here or download it on iTunes and let us know what you think of this Disney holiday double in the comments. 

Disney Double

Stage Door: Why no remake of "Oliver"?

In just one year's time the newest incarnation of Annie will be on movie screens. It'll be the third major filmed version after a handful of Broadway revivals. So why can't its boy counterpart Oliver! get any love? Both are musicals about optimistic orphans who get caught up in a web of criminal activity involving boozy lying scene-stealing adult caretakers (Miss Hannigan and Fagin). Both orphans escape the clutches of criminals to find great happiness / wealth in a proper home in time for the curtain call. The sun'll come out tomorrow, indeed.

I'm on record as being a huge fan of the much maligned Best Picture winner Oliver! (1968)  but the current stage production at Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey (running through the 29th if you're interested) is unlikely to provide me with lots of new company. [more]

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