Revies of Movies I Have No Intention of Seeing: The Princess, The Frog, and James Cameron's Ego

THE PRINCESS & THE FROG

Oh, goody. The Disney Corporation is back in the business of watering down and commercializing traditional human fairy tales. For a few years now they’ve been trying some different things, but since their computer-generated original stories have been failing compared to other studio’s efforts, they decided to do what they do best : 1) buy one of those other studios and 2) go back to the drawing board. Literally.

So what can we expect from The Princess & The Frog? Disney’s by-the-numbers fairytale recipe:

1. Pretty, young, passive female protagonist

2. Wishing upon a star

3. Handsome, bland, non-threatening love interest

4. Jealous magic-using villain

5. Talking/farting animals

6. Songs so catchy you’ll hit yourself with a hammer to make them stop

7. Dead parent(s)

8. Phalluses snuck into background drawings by bored, sexually-frustrated artists

If that’s what appeals to you, you can cough up ten bucks to see it again in the theater or dig out one of the copies of Snow White/Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/The Little Mermaid that Disney tricked you into buying on VHS/Laserdisc/DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Download. Hurry before it’s locked back up in the vault, sheep!

AVATAR

What am I missing about Avatar and how the movie-going experience will never be the same for those who decide to go see it? What’s the big leap forward? All I’m seeing is a CGI-laden senses-overloading fantasy spectacle in the same style we’ve been seeing innumerable iterations of over the last decade. Has Cameron been locked away working on this thing for so long that he didn’t hear about The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Will none of his yes-men tell the King of the World he’s been beaten to the computer-generated punch? What will he invent next? The wheel?

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?

No.

Nor do I want to.