The Princess and the Frog

I'm so glad that John Lasseter reopened the hand drawn animation department when he took over as the head of Disney animation. It's hard to believe that it's been five and a half years since the last hand drawn Disney animated film (and even longer than that since the last good one, I'm not a fan of Home on the Range). It just feels right to have Disney doing this classic style of animation, and even better that they're doing it with such a charming, fun, and sweet film as The Princess and the Frog.

Tiana (Anika Noni-Rose) is a nineteen year old waitress working two jobs in jazz-era New Orleans, saving and dreaming of opening her own restaurant. The city is all aflutter over the visit of Prince Naveen (Brunos Campos), a charming, if arrogant and kind of lazy, noble on the lookout for good times, and just maybe a wealthy wife to help him with some minor financial difficulties. He falls in with voodoo magician Dr. Facilier (Keith David) with the ultimate result of his being transformed into a frog. His hope is that a kiss from Tiana will reverse the spell. Instead it does the opposite as she's transformed into a frog too. They have to work together in a journey across to the bayou in the hope that they can reverse the spell.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson has long been one of my favorite directors. Rushmore is one of my favorite films, and I honestly can't think of a single one of his films that I didn't at least moderately enjoy (yes, evenDarjeeling Limited). That being said, I think that Fantastic Mr. Fox is his most accessible film, and may even be his best.

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) put his days of poultry theft behind him when he settled down with his beloved wife (Meryl Streep) to raise a family. But familial bliss, and a career as a writer for the local newspaper isn't enough for him. Feeling unfulfilled, he packs up his wife and his strange, not particularly cool son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and moves them out of their hole and into a bigger, and better, tree. The only problem is that this tree is in full view of the farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the three meanest, most vicious farmers in the area. The temptation is too great for Mr. Fox and he soon goes back to his thieving ways, enlisting the help of his friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) and his nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) in a series of ever more difficult capers.

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