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My girlfriend and I went to see The Princess and the Frog last night, and it was fun. Not great, but fun. Unfortunately Disney has managed to capture the spectacle but little of the soul of past great Disney movies (which is mildly ironic, given the movie’s setting). The Princess and the Frog was exquisitely executed (beautiful animation, great voice acting and characters, high-energy music) but something was missing, a core component that left the movie feeling ever so slightly flat.

My first inclination, comparing the film with my Disney favorites Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin was that Princess and the Frog had used those prior movies as a formula and that was what was jarring. Upon further thought, though, I realized that the use of a formula wasn’t the problem; I’d never noticed before Princess and the Frog made me think about it, but Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin follow strict formulas themselves. Heck, they’re practically the same movie:

• The movie opens, and shortly after introducing the main characters our heroine (or hero, but most of them are female for this particular sampling so for simplicity I’ll stick with the feminine) is brought to the villain’s attention. The villain reveals that the heroine has something that makes them uniquely important to the villain’s personal goals (Ariel is the key to Triton’s power, Belle is the only girl worthy of conquest, Aladdin is the only one who can gain the power of the lamp)
• Early on, our heroine reveals their core motivation via song (Part of Your World, Belle’s opening song, One Jump Ahead)
• A spectacular musical number reawakens our interest (Under the Sea, Be Our Guest, Friend Like Me)
• At some point, the villain has a lone musical number, partially spoken or otherwise not as melodic and memorable (Gaston’s song being something of an exception, likely because he’s more of a passive antagonist otherwise so they had to compensate somewhere to make him interesting)
• Various filler songs occur here and there, typically to advance the plot
• A love song occurs at the primary moment one (or both) of the love interests realize their feelings (or otherwise reach a turning point in their relationship)
• A showdown occurs with the villain, the heroine triumphs, and the culmination of their triumph is the marriage to the love interest and achievement of their dreams

You can break the formula down even further past the musical numbers to specific characters (villain’s humorous sidekick, heroine’s non-human helpers, etc.), but you get the idea.

It wasn’t that The Princess and the Frog followed a formula, then, that impaired the movie. In point of fact, the way it nails almost every aspect of the Little Mermaid/etc. formula may well be its greatest strength. Disney obviously brought a lot of budget and creativity to bear to bring the movie to life in the same vein as their old hits (even making the comparison explicitly in their previews, which is what cued me into comparing the two as I was watching it). Yet unlike Little Mermaid or Aladdin I didn’t walk out of the theater wanting to see it again, or utterly captivated by the characters, or excited and eager to tell my friends about the movie. I came out of the theater and thought, “Well, that was fun. Don’t really need to see it again.”

I’ve been pondering, and come to the conclusion that what the Disney movies of the early 90’s that I remember so fondly had that Princess and the Frog lacks is the spark, the soul, the story that needs desperately to be told. Without that inspiration, the formula falters, the pieces pull slightly apart, and the viewer is left with the realization that there is a formula and that it isn’t quite working.

Great movies happen because creative people get excited, and if they’re lucky they have the budget and direction they’ll need to create something fantastic. I think that people got excited about Princess and the Frog, but I don’t think that it was because of the story that drives the entire project forward. I think they got excited about the spectacle, the fun characters, and the setting. And in the end, that made the difference between a film destined to be a classic and one that is merely diverting.

The more near misses I see in the theater the more I’ve come to believe that story is the driving creative force that must exist for any narrative work to succeed, be it cinema, literature, or otherwise. Certainly, great characters are a part of the puzzle. A well-tested formula can help clarify and ease the story’s delivery. Talented people well directed can breathe a lot of life into any tale. But unless these things are born out of a story that needs to be told the pieces won’t quite snap into place.

The Princess and the Frog is not a story that needed to be told. It’s a decent story, an amusing story, a story that pleasantly reinforces our own delusions about ourself and our culture; but it isn’t a story that needs its telling so badly that it grabs the imaginations of its makers and viewers alike and refuses to let go even once the curtain has closed.

I don’t know where stories come from, or even how crafted and calculated the Disney movies of yore that I loved might have been behind the scenes. All I know is that in Princess and the Frog Disney has produced a film that sparkles, amuses, and tweaks gently at the heartstrings yet fails to achieve the vivid life bequeathed by story.

My girlfriend and I decided to go see The Dark Knight today. We both loved Batman Begins, and the previews for The Dark Knight were exciting. So we show up at the theater, and after being advertised and previewed at for a solid 40 minutes, we finally get to the movie.

And it’s good. Really good. The Joker is a psychotic killer, but he’s an exquisitely well-done psychotic killer. Granted, it’s hard for me to reconcile this gritty Joker with the Joker of the 1966 Batman movie (Batman: “An exploding shark was pulling my leg!” Gordon: “The Joker!”).

But still. Good movie, lots of action, and definitely in keeping with Batman Begins.

Then, almost at the ending, Batman is lying on the ground, possibly unconscious and certainly hurt, while the Joker stalks toward him. One of the Joker’s henchmen (where does he get these guys?) leans over our prone hero, and reaches for his mask. There’s a spark from the mask, the henchman starts jumping back, and at that very instant, everything goes dark.

The audience sits silent for a few seconds while it sinks in. Something went wrong. The timing really was that perfect. Spark, malfunction. Then we realize that we’re likely ten minutes or so away from the end of the movie and the laughter and catcalls start.

Turns out the power went out (the whole block the movie theater was on looked to be out, although it was hard to tell since it was a gorgeous sunny day without a speck of wind; very surreal), so unfortunately my girlfriend and I have still not seen how The Dark Knight ends. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to use the free movie voucher the theater gave us. But still. You couldn’t have planned that kind of timing.

This kind of thing is why I think god probably does exist: if we can believe the Bible, he was into angry, jealous smiting to start (”Worship someone else? DIE!”), then when that didn’t work fell back to cajoling and offering bribes (”Come on, if you believe in me I’ll treat you real nice in the afterlife!”), and finally got old and tired and said the hell with it, I’m just going to fuck with them. Which describes just about every parent-turned-curmudgeon who I know.

We rented Batman: Gotham Knight from iTunes last night, and it was decent. Not amazing or worth owning, but a fun sequence of six interrelated animated Batman shorts nonetheless. If you’re in the mood for some Japanese animated Batman action, it’s definitely worth seeing.

I have to say, though, the short sequence where Batman waxes poetic on the appeal of guns is like hearing commentary for some gun enthusiast’s wet dream. No, Batman. Having a gun, no matter how sleek and well-oiled, does not make you God. It makes you someone who can very easily kill or maim someone else. That is all. Go get laid.

My girlfriend and I went to see Get Smart a couple days ago, and it was a lot of fun. Not the best movie I’ve seen this year, but funny, goofy, and well-acted. Some of the humor occasionally crosses into the crude or excessive-physical-pain-as-slapstick realms (neither of which are really my thing), but such moments are balanced by the large number of hilarious bits throughout the movie that don’t rely on more vulgar humor (”Mom, Mom, Mom!” “Sean, Sean, Sean! See how annoying that is?”).

I highly recommend Get Smart for anyone who enjoys spy movies, comedies, or the classic TV show. It was well worth a trip to the theater.

Last week to my surprise and delight, I discovered that Hogfather was out on DVD. I hadn’t been aware that any of Terry Pratchett’s novels had been turned into films, and given the very positive reviews on Amazon and no easy way to rent it, I bought it. This, it turns out, was a mistake.

The Hogfather DVD is amazingly, phenomenally, mind-boggling bad.

Perhaps bad, even with all those adverbs, isn’t strong enough. Hogfather is horrible. Tedious. A crime against the book. Worse, it doesn’t even manage to be the good kind of bad (where the badness is in itself entertaining). I had to force myself to watch it all the way through, and I couldn’t do it in a single sitting.

At least some of my disgust with the movie comes from the fact that it’s not a movie. It’s a made-for-TV special. Perhaps if I’d been watching sitcoms and soap operas for a week or two and then watched Hogfather, it would be a lot more appealing. Unfortunately, as a rule I don’t watch TV. The closest I come is popping in my Arrested Development DVDs.

Despite my too-high expectations, though, it wasn’t low-budget special effects that ruined Hogfather. It was the fact that the movie completely failed to capture the book.

For anyone who has seen the DVD, this may seem an odd statement. The Hogfather DVD is very faithful to the book (the consistent comments in Amazon reviews to that effect were a big reason I bought it), which would normally make me overjoyed. I despise movies that abandon the books from whence they came (assuming it’s a book I’ve read and loved, that is). I practically can’t watch Howl’s Moving Castle. I loved Stardust, but was all but cursing as I walked out of the theater because of the Hollywood ending.

And yet Hogfather, which sticks fantastically close to the book, is nigh unwatchable.

I’d never thought about it before, but there are two things that a movie adaptation of a book needs: 1) the important details, and 2) the soul of the book.

Terry Pratchett’s work is exuberant, vivid, slapstick, witty, action-packed, and above all fun. The Hogfather DVD, although it got the witty dialogue right, completely missed out on the vivacious core that makes Terry Pratchett’s novels such great reads.

In any given scene in the Hogfather DVD, the actors stand around and talk. If they want to be threatening, they stand really close to each other and talk (”Ooh, I’m calling the personal bubble fairy!” *glingleglingleglingle*). Sometimes they do something while they’re talking, but not very often. Albert (Death’s helper) tries unsuccessfully throughout the movie to roll his own cigarettes. Not surprisingly, Albert is one of the best characters in the movie because he is capable of concentrating on two things at once.

I can only think of two times in my life when I have stood perfectly still (or close to) and talked to someone. Once was in debate class in eighth grade. The second time was during my brief stint as an actor in my final year of high school.

Why is it that mediocre actors think that conversation is about standing still? Human existence is, for the majority of people, about movement. We do things with our hands. If we’re feeling threatened or stressed our muscles tense up (and you can see that in every minor movement we make, even if we’re trying to stand still). Even if our mind is wholly engaged with a fascinatingly witty conversation, our body is up to something.

Terry Pratchett’s characters in the books are constantly moving. Even if there is an extended dialogue sequence, the reader still imagines the characters doing things, because Pratchett is a master at breathing life into spots of ink on a page.

What the Hogfather DVD spectacularly failed to do was capture this living movement. I’m not sure if it was bad acting or bad directing (I suspect both, with a bias towards directing), but the most exciting action in the show (apart from the badly animated CGI pigs) was people walking from place to place (and, in one memorable moment, walking from place to place while a building collapses around their heads; heaven forbid you should run to save yourself). Because the DVD is three hours long (two one and a half hour segments) you’re liable to fall asleep if you try to watch the whole thing in one go.

I could go on. There were innumerable other bad decisions that led to Hogfather being such a spectacular failure. The bizarre materializing beehive hairdo (which ruined the one attractive actor in the movie). The voice effects applied to the Auditors. The choice of Hogfather at all (while arguably the book with the best insight into the human existence, it’s far from Terry Pratchett’s best book and certainly not an easy one to translate to the screen). The fact that everything took twice as long as it needed to in order to fill the time.

There are some books where taking the time to present all the details works. The BBC six hour Pride and Prejudice special, for instance, is a good example (don’t ask how many times I’ve seen it; two younger sisters, ‘nough said). Of course, it had a better cast, as well, which can make all the difference.

Terry Pratchett’s novels deserve better treatment. Getting the dialogue and plot details right isn’t enough. Perhaps it isn’t even preferable. When a movie completely fails to capture the creative spark that’s animating the book, it doesn’t matter if it got every detail right; it’s still going to be a terrible adaptation.

I do not recommend Hogfather at all, even to die-hard Pratchett fans. People who haven’t read the book will be confused by the seemingly random rules of Discworld, while those who have will be forced to endure a lackluster attempt at capturing Discworld on film. Maybe someday a decent Terry Pratchett adaptation will arrive, but that day is not today.

Rented I Am Legend tonight from iTunes, and I was very pleasantly surprised. From what I’d heard when it opened in theaters, I was expecting a pretty terrible movie, but it was actually really good. Definitely an interesting twist on the typical zombie virus story.

Then again, I hear that about the only thing it shares with the book is the premise, so perhaps that’s why people were disappointed. The ending is, granted, a bit of deus ex machina and the “dark seeker” CGI was at times rather over-the-top, but what the hell. Last movie I rented was Beowulf; I can handle some CGI oddness and slightly wonked out storytelling.

If you like horror/zombie movies, I’d recommend I Am Legend. It is, at the very least, worth a rental.

For a movie made by a lot of people I respect, Beowulf is pretty spectacularly bad. I rented it via iTunes last night and watched it with my girlfriend, and about halfway through I turned to her and commented that I hoped whoever wrote the screenplay was never allowed to write again. Imagine my surprise when we reached the end and I discovered the screenplay was written (at least in part) by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors. Party foul, Neil. Major party foul.

Even worse, they decided to do the entire movie in CGI. While I enjoy a CGI movie as much as the next guy, the director and producers apparently decided to pour all of their budget into kickass water, cloth, and hair. Apparently no one thought to remind them that little things like facial expressions are actually way more important than long flowing locks. As a result, the dialogue sequences are like watching wax dolls who are half-asleep. Add that to the terrible script, and you’ve got a recipe for hilarity, but not in a good way.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a movie you can mock the whole way through, or some mindless fantasy violence, then Beowulf might be for you. Just don’t expect the normally high caliber of the actors and writers to mean anything.

Feast of Love should really have been called “Sex and Sadness”. My girlfriend rented it from iTunes and told me it was like Love Actually but more realistic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Love Actually, but the cover of Feast of Love made it look like a romantic comedy and after a weekend otherwise filled with realistic, tactical shooter violence I was in the mood for a light comedy or romance so I grabbed my girlfriend’s computer and watched it.

Oops. Now I am sad and shall need to eat ice cream. Feast of Love is a bit of a downer, even if it overall has a happy message. If you like montage-style movies that are very true to real life, then you’ll probably enjoy it. It doesn’t really have anything earth-shattering to say about the human condition, but it is a surprisingly realistic portrayal of life for something with big-name actors in it. Overall feeling: meh. Not a bad movie, but not great. And like I said, now I’m sad. Watch it if you’re feeling bittersweet; I recommend renting over buying.

Shoot ‘em Up is a movie that is in all ways gratuitous. Gratuitous sex (only one scene, but it’s really gratuitous). Gratuitous gore (lots). Gratuitous violence (lots doesn’t cover it; “constant” comes closer). No real character motivation, plot, or relationship with physics unless you’re willing to take your disbelief out back and shoot it.

I had mixed emotions about this movie. On the one hand, really over-the-top violence is sometimes hilarious (Kung Fu Hustle is possibly the greatest action movie ever). On the other hand, I’m often very uncomfortable with realistic violence (trying to watch Braveheart was a disaster). I probably won’t watch Shoot ‘em Up again because it was a little too violent/graphic for me, but I did laugh most of the way through. Your mileage will vary; rent first.

Objectively, it’s a really bad movie. But bad intentionally, and pretty hilariously.

I just watched the most original movie I’ve seen all year, and it was a Japanese animated movie called Paprika. Paprika was a fantastic movie with stunning animation, an original plot, and just enough reality intermingled with the dreaming to keep the action coherent and you on your toes. This is one of those movies where you’ll want to watch it twice to make sure that you didn’t miss anything.

My favorite scene is where two characters are driving in a car in the rain. As one of the characters talks about how several dreams have merged into a collective dream the camera focuses on a water droplet slide down the windshield, growing bigger as it subsumes other droplets and finally flying off with its own momentum.

It’s a beautiful piece of visual metaphor, and pretty much encapsulates the detail and design that made me fall in love with this movie. Keep in mind that although animated, this isn’t necessarily a kid-friendly film, mainly thanks to a couple scenes that could turn into nightmare material (and some female nudity). Other than that, though, I recommend Paprika without reservations.