Frozen

My sister and I are best friends, but we didn't used to be. We didn't really get to BE friends until I moved away to college - I don't know if we were too close or not close enough in age (we're three school years apart, about two and a half years apart in age), but we bickered and fought and pushed each other away for most of our childhoods. Now, we go out together. We talk on the phone. We are friends, confidants, an essential part of each others' lives. I tell you thing because it's a key part of why Frozen was so deeply, deeply affecting to me.

Disney has been on a role lately, portraying familial relationships that are just as, if not more important to the characters in its movies than romantic relationships. In last year's Brave, there WAS no romantic relationship - it was all about Merida and her mother. Likewise, the central relationship in Frozen is not that between Anna and one of her two suitors, but between her and her older sister Elsa. And let me tell you, Frozen GETS it. Frozen takes you into the relationship between these two girls and shows you how hard it is to be so close to someone, how hard it is to grow into different people, and how necessary it is to hang onto that bond. Yes, I had some problems with a few of the musical numbers (a couple felt shoehorned in, like they were more obligatory than necessary, and I just didn't care for one on a musical level), and yes, I wish the story had spent more time on Elsa and her struggles. But this is a movie about sisters, and it gets the sister relationship so profoundly right that I have a hard time complaining about the other stuff.

There is one other thing the story does that I won't spoil, but suffice to say, it is a complete departure from what you'd expect and what Disney has been criticized for doing in the past that I just have to applaud them for doing it. You'll know it immediately, and when you do, we can talk about the implications it has for the future of Disney princesses. It is a development that excites me.

One unexpected thing the film did in a really fantastic way: that snowman. If you're like me, you watched the trailers for Frozen with no small amount of dread, because of that AWFUL snowman. I was so afraid that he'd be this intrusive, forcefully comedic character that the movie wanted for marketing purposes. But! Olaf the snowman is quite well utilized. His humor is well deployed, so that it enhances rather than detracts from the emotional moments. He walks a fine line between endearing and annoying without ever falling on the bad side. I ended up laughing sincerely with him much more than I anticipated.

This is all to say nothing of the sheer beauty of the film - Frozen is incredibly lovely. The ice and snow glitters, and the other colors are vibrant against the white landscapes. The voice acting is likewise fantastic, with Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel voicing the sisters to great effect (if you haven't seen the "Let It Go" sequence, which Disney recently put up on YouTube, I highly recommend it - it doesn't spoil the plot, and gives you an enticing taste of Menzel's power in the role of Elsa). i

Frozen has been getting a lot of controversy, regarding the overwhelming whiteness of the cast and the trimming of female characters from the source story The Snow Queen. Both are legitimate criticisms, but don't let them prevent you from seeing such an incredible story about the love between sisters and the power of family. At the end of the day, Frozen is about two sisters who save themselves, regardless of the other people (including men) that enter their lives. And that is an achievement worth celebrating.

Catching Fire

Before we get into Catching Fire, I want to say a few words about Paul Walker.

I unironically love the Fast & the Furious movies. I think they are tremendously entertaining films that know exactly what they're offering, and they do what they do very, very well. The chemistry between the actors has always been strong, and while they aren't the best examples of solid plots or coherent writing around, they are fun, exciting, and have a shitload of replayability. Paul Walker was a big part of that - while he wasn't the best actor around, he was solid and reliable, and always came across as charming and likable. Going back to that chemistry, he was great fun to watch with Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster, and he made a good anchor for the films.

I didn't know much about him outside of that franchise, but reading about him postmortem has been enlightening. Apparently he was involved in marine conservation projects, and he drove actual race cars, and he has a young daughter. The fact that these things were never widely splashed on the tabloids, and the fact that I never had his personal life shoved in my face, tells me that he was a private, classy guy for Hollywood.

The death of anyone at age 40 is tragic. I mourn Walker, and Roger Rodas, the driver of the car. I'm sad we won't get to see Walker on screen again, and my heart goes out to his friends and family.

Now. The Girl on Fire.

I've been trying to start this review for a few days now, and I don't know why it's been so difficult - I liked the movie quite a bit. It's a very similar story to the first one (which was why Catching Fire was my least favorite of the HG trilogy), but the good parts are better and the bad parts have been mostly expunged. The shaky cam filming is gone (thank GOD), because this is not a story that needs to emphasize the tension. It's more brutal, more emotional, the new characters are better and the old ones get more to do.

One of the strengths of the novel that really gets emphasized here is that we spend more time with the other Tributes. In my review of The Hunger Games, I believe I mentioned the strength of the acting - that's a trend that continues, with Sam Claflin as Finnick Odair and Jena Malone as Joanna Mason as particular standouts. I was skeptical about Claflin, but he gets Finnick's smarm and sleazy smile while ALSO getting the good heart and strong emotional current under all the act. He makes Finnick's grief as real as his charm. Malone as Joanna is everything I ever wanted: tough, sarcastic, shoving her middle finger in the face of the Capitol and rolling her eyes through the whole thing. Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, and Woody Harrelson are all back with bigger, better rolls and impress just as much as last time.

Visually, you can tell that the studio got a bigger budget after the success of The Hunger Games. Everything looks better, including the rehashed fire effect on Katniss and Peeta's clothes at the opening ceremonies. The arena is more detailed, the violence is harsher, the costuming is better. If I had one nitpick about the cinematography, it would be that I wish we got to see more of the Capitol with an increased budget - there is a scene set in the President's mansion that hints at the extreme opulence, and I wish they'd really pushed the lavishness there.

The movie's biggest problem is that it's clearly there as set-up for the Mockingjay two-parter. It has the unenviable task of being the middle link in the story, where the backdrop has already been established but we're not to the payoff yet. Some trilogies handle this better than others (The Two Towers springs immediately to mind) and The Hunger Games struggles with this, especially because the movie doesn't linger too much on the rising rebellion in the districts. We have to hear about most of that secondhand, which makes the ending feel more inevitable and less like the big reveal they're clearly going for. But they squeeze in more than the novel did (there's a bit when Katniss and Peeta are on a train and see graffiti of her mockingjay pin fly by), and at the end of the day, I'm still looking forward to the story's conclusion.

Even if it is, completely unnecessarily, going to be two movies.