Movie Review: Free Birds (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

Remember the last time you ate turkey for Thanksgiving? The alluring smell of garlic and herbs wafting through the house as your mother-in-law took care to keep an eye on the roast bird while you watched the Macy's Day parade and got ready for some football? As it was placed on the table you took a picture of it in all its resplendent, golden-brown glory. You couldn't wait to dig in. And then, one bite of the turkey your father-in-law carefully carved, and you realize that you'll need either a ton of gravy or the tallest glass of water ever to counter its dryness. Well, that's what the new, animated Thanksgiving movie Free Birds feels like... a pretty, overcooked turkey.

Dispersing the Cloud (Atlas)

by Tony Dayoub

Six distinct but loosely related stories are told during the nearly 3-hour running time of Cloud Atlas, the New Age-ey, science fiction-flavored romance directed by the Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). The most compelling gimmick the film offers is its unique casting in which the principle actors in its ensemble play different roles in each of the stories. In this simple way (really only possible in film and theater), Cloud Atlas reinforces an idea explored in the 2004 source novel by David Mitchell, best described by the movie's pivotal character, Sonmi-451:

Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.

The repetition of familiar actors influencing successive stories with varying impact is one of the most attractive ideas explored in Cloud Atlas. But it is also one of its most frustrating flaws because you soon find yourself scanning the periphery of every scene to see if you spot the next recurrence of someone changing his/her appearance to—not always successfully—blend in with the demands of the plot fragment at hand. It takes you out of the movie. It is undeniable, however, that Cloud Atlas—at over $100 million, perhaps the most expensive independent picture ever made—is a monumental achievement of some kind. What follows is my attempt to unravel some of the more distracting/confusing elements of the film... to create a liberating mini-guide, if you will. that should allow the viewer to more closely follow this fantasy's more pertinent themes.

Movie Review: The Princess and the Frog

by Tony Dayoub



Not necessarily destined to be a Disney classic, The Princess and the Frog goes one better by effortlessly capturing the regional and temporal flavor of New Orleans in the Jazz Age. That means lots of French Quarter Architecture, Dixieland-style musical numbers (by Randy Newman, on loan from Pixar), creole-spiced food, and even a welcome touch of Cajun-style Zydeco in the form of "Gonna Take You There," sung during a short side trip into the swampland.




To some extent, credit for this minor gem—a return to Disney's traditional two-dimensional animation—should go to John Lasseter (Toy Story) who became Chief Creative Officer for Disney Animation after the company acquired Pixar. While Disney cartoons became grander and grander over the previous decade—reaching for Oscars after their unexpected Best Picture nomination for Beauty and the Beast (1991)— Lasseter's influence over Pixar drove that animation factory into doing narrower-scoped stories which grew increasingly more resonant with audiences than the out-scaled fantasies by the more established animation house.



Of course, the origins of this production stem from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, "The Frog Prince," so Disney hasn't completely abandoned their traditional template. But by concentrating the story in a specific time and place there is a transportive quality to this story that beckons the viewer in a different way than say, Sleeping Beauty ever did. That is because the French Quarter is somewhere one can actually visit. Sure, it may be a lot rougher around the edges (especially post-Katrina) than the magical New Orleans depicted in The Princess and the Frog, but if you squint you can kind of see it.



One inspired sequence in the film is complete fantasy, though. Taking a cue from the yellow dress Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) wears before the setpiece begins, it is a monochromatic dream in which she imagines opening her own Cotton Club-style restaurant in a flat, art moderne-influenced style. Broadway star Rose performs her solo, "Almost There," with verve, bringing some independence and moxie rarely seen in even the pluckiest Disney princesses.



Another welcome bit of casting is the deep, rich, sonorous voice of Keith David (The Thing) as the evil voodoo priest, Doctor Facilier. His mellow tones show surprising elasticity in his solo, "Friends on the Other Side," a showstopper where he rallies the spirits of the underworld in his effort to magically manipulate the prince (Bruno Campos) for his own needs.

Zeroing in on a landmark era in African-American cultural history, The Princess and The Frog fuses the smaller scale sensibilities of Pixar with the classic fables of traditional Disney to create a charming little return to two dimensional animation. It should have audiences anticipating Disney's inevitable followup.