Movie: Enchanted

Enchanted_poster

I have a confession to make. I have a soft spot in my heart for modern Disney animated musicals. Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite movies of all time. Aladdin and Little Mermaid hold a spot in my DVD collection. So I knew I wanted to see this movie when it came out.

Luckily, the Thanksgiving holiday allowed me and my wife to take my niece and nephew to see it, so as to avoid the cautious stares from other parents if we went to see it without kids in tow.

In a word, this movie is charming. If I had onlyt one word to describe thie film, that would be the word. Charming.

The movie acts as a variation, a tribute and a subtle parody of the typical Disney musical. Points should be give for having the music done by Alan Menken, co-writer of the music for Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules and Pocohontas, and Stephen Schwartz, who provided the words and music for the excellent Broadway fairy tale, Wicked. This tandem is can't miss. I hope Pixar, who is in charge of all animation for Disney now, can add a few traditionally animated films to Disney's slate and have these two provide the music.

The acting is great as well. Susan Sarandon excels as the villainess. She had the toughest job of all the actors. She went from animation, to acting under heavy make up, to voicing a CGI dragon and kept the characterization throughout.

Points go also to Amy Adams, who typifies the classic Disney princess throughout the movie with sincerity and believability. And I was especially impressed with James Marsden as the Prince. He throws himself totally in the role and creates a goofy and funny performance. 

Enchanted might not change the world, or challenge your way of thinking, but it is a fun diversion and a blast.  

 

 

Various and sundry news and notes

I know I havent been posting here all that often. I have been really busy with the holiday, X-Mas shopping and making plans to go back to college. I finally have time to blog today, so instead of posting 15 posts, I'll try to sum up as much as I can here.

 

1. Another reason for me to love R.E.M.: It appears that Peter Buck once worked in a comic books store:

450-buckwuxtry

Yay! I came across this picture through Pop Candy (I think) and it must be from the 1970s, judging on the comics listed. Cool!

2. Bionic Woman, Cancelled?: Rumor is yes. My verdict: mostly good cast, poor execution. I'm not going to miss it.

3. I support the WGA Strike: As much as I am bummed that the Daily Show, Colbert Report and Late Show are in reruns for the last month, I support the writers in this strike. They get .04 out of every $20 DVD sold. They want a boost to .08--and a piece of the internet profits. Since a DVD cost only .50 to produce, I think the studios can afford it. 

4. Fun with eBay: I like looking and the mixed lots in comic books. Mainly because every week there are lots with thousands of books from trhe Silver Age--including key issues--that I like to look at and think "One day, when I'm a multi-millionaire, I will bid on this auction." But occasionally, this category features unintentional humor. Mainly from people who luck into a box of comics, have no idea what they are worth, but think they are worth a fortune. Back in October I came across this auction titled only "Lot of comic books". The starting price was $500. This item description was as follows: "Mixed Lot of Comic Books dated mid 70's through mid 90's.  9 boxes total.  Please contact seller with any questions. " Better yet, here is the photo they ran with the auction:

Ebay picture

So, they don't list what comics are in the lot, except to say they come from the 70's (which might mean they have some value) to the 90's (which are pretty much worthless) without saying how many books are in each decade even, and the picture shows a two boxes of yellowed comics crammed into two random cardboard boxes, and the comics that are bagged appear to be in Ziploc bags, not exactly condusive to protecting the books, and the expect $500 for it? Naturally, it didn't sell.

5. Mephisto offers Peter Parker a deal: I get my comics on a monthly basis, but from what I read on the internet, in this week's Sensational Spider-Man, Mephisto offers to make Aunt May healthy in exchange for Peter''s marriage. And from what little we've seen of the Brand New Day, it appears he takes it.

A lot of fuss has been made about the ending of the marriage, the reasons behind it, and what it all means, but I feel a lot of people are missing a very important point. Spider-Man, all-around good guy, idol of millions, image on thousands of kids toys and clothing, is presumably aboput to accept a deal from Marvel's version of Satan. Think about that for a second. All we need is for a televangelist to seize upon this on a slow news day and this will become 1954 all over again. I am not the most religious man, but if this goes through, Marvel should be prepared for the consequences.