246.
Mailed out holiday cards yesterday. Pretty much everyone who gave me their address should be getting them soon, though I'm afraid not in time for Christmas (for those of you that celebrate it). ;[
My brother and I very uncharacteristically spent a nice evening together the other night. We rarely hang out, or even cross paths regardless of the fact that we live in the same house. Our first order of business was to see The Princess and the Frog followed by dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant before heading home.
I'm sad to say it was a very lackluster experience, but I probably set myself up for disappointment because it had so many elements that amount to automatic win in my book: the 1920s, New Orleans/Mardi Gras, jazz music and interracial romance (the prince is Brazilian). But there was none of the usual Disney charm and the plot irked me.
To summarize, Tiana is a natural chef who dreams of opening her own restaurant in the French Quarter, managing to save up enough money to bid on a building. Unfortunately she's outbid by another potential buyer and has to top the offer to secure the property for herself.
Enter Prince Naveen, a freewheeling playboy who was cut off by his parents until he proves he's outgrown his wild ways by... settling down with a nice wealthy girl, I guess. |B They don't really explain that part very well.
The point is Tiana is literally unable to pay off the realtors until she marries Naveen and he's given access to his riches again. I wish that was an exaggeration.
There were a lot of other things that bugged me, too. For instance, Tiana's character design is very plain for a lead heroine. If you didn't know better, you could easily mistake her for a background character. She was incredibly pretty, but just didn't have that 'oomph' that her princessly predecessors did. Naveen, on the other hand, is a total clone of Prince Eric with little else appealing about him. He was sleazy, unlikable and a poor match for Tiana.
It bums me out that this marks Disney's "triumphant return" to 2D animation. The movie started out very strong, but it seemed to hesitate in the last 30 minutes or so, stopping short of being really impactful.
Still, I recommend it to hardened Disney fans because it does have dazzling musical numbers, lovely animation and the best damn villain I've seen since Hunchback's Frollo. Be warned, he doesn't get a lot of screen time.
Tomorrow morning Mom is having cataract surgery and then Alex, Shawn and I are going downtown to watch a public viewing of the original Black Christmas. I've never seen it before, but it's a cult favorite and even inspired John Carpenter to write Halloween.
It still doesn't feel like Christmas. /o\
My brother and I very uncharacteristically spent a nice evening together the other night. We rarely hang out, or even cross paths regardless of the fact that we live in the same house. Our first order of business was to see The Princess and the Frog followed by dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant before heading home.
I'm sad to say it was a very lackluster experience, but I probably set myself up for disappointment because it had so many elements that amount to automatic win in my book: the 1920s, New Orleans/Mardi Gras, jazz music and interracial romance (the prince is Brazilian). But there was none of the usual Disney charm and the plot irked me.
To summarize, Tiana is a natural chef who dreams of opening her own restaurant in the French Quarter, managing to save up enough money to bid on a building. Unfortunately she's outbid by another potential buyer and has to top the offer to secure the property for herself.
Enter Prince Naveen, a freewheeling playboy who was cut off by his parents until he proves he's outgrown his wild ways by... settling down with a nice wealthy girl, I guess. |B They don't really explain that part very well.
The point is Tiana is literally unable to pay off the realtors until she marries Naveen and he's given access to his riches again. I wish that was an exaggeration.
There were a lot of other things that bugged me, too. For instance, Tiana's character design is very plain for a lead heroine. If you didn't know better, you could easily mistake her for a background character. She was incredibly pretty, but just didn't have that 'oomph' that her princessly predecessors did. Naveen, on the other hand, is a total clone of Prince Eric with little else appealing about him. He was sleazy, unlikable and a poor match for Tiana.
It bums me out that this marks Disney's "triumphant return" to 2D animation. The movie started out very strong, but it seemed to hesitate in the last 30 minutes or so, stopping short of being really impactful.
Still, I recommend it to hardened Disney fans because it does have dazzling musical numbers, lovely animation and the best damn villain I've seen since Hunchback's Frollo. Be warned, he doesn't get a lot of screen time.
Tomorrow morning Mom is having cataract surgery and then Alex, Shawn and I are going downtown to watch a public viewing of the original Black Christmas. I've never seen it before, but it's a cult favorite and even inspired John Carpenter to write Halloween.
It still doesn't feel like Christmas. /o\