A couple days ago, the local variety radio station was talking about an article they found at Vanity Fair about their top 50 soundtracks from films. Their number one pick? Purple Rain. However, they found a couple hours later Entertainment Weekly’s top 100 film soundtracks. Their number one? A Hard Day’s Night. Vanity Fair won’t be posting the full top 50 yet (we have to wait until next month) but EW does have their’s posted. Disney was on there a few times with classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mary Poppins, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. But the most exciting Disney soundtrack to make the list? Beauty and the Beast (#80)!!!! The following is what they had to say about it:

The Disney musical was moribund before Howard Ashman and Alan Menken reinvented it with The Little Mermaid (1988). They topped themselves with Beauty and became the new kings of musical comedy, though, with Ashman’s untimely death in ‘91, the reign was short-lived. If you can think of a more wickedly funny and adult send-up of machismo than “Gaston,” be our guest.

Reading that, I totally agree with them. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were an unbeatable team. Not only did the two collaborate on three of the biggest Disney movies that revitalized the animated Disney musical (much less the Disney animation team, all together), but they also worked on one of the biggest off-Broadway productions ever: Little Shop of Horrors. It’s a shame that Howard had to die of AIDs, but Alan went on to score beautiful music for Hercules, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Speaking of which, a revitalization of the Disney animation department needs to be done. I can’t wait to see what they’ve been up to since…what was the last animated movie? Lilo and Stitch?  I’d like to see Enchanted at the theatres when it comes out, since it’s half animated. I’ve been doing some research for upcoming Disney releases, and though it’s still in its ‘to be announced’ stage, if everything is going right, a new animated musical (this one having songs written and scored from the great Randy Newman [Toy Story]) should be released in 2009. It’s called The Princess and the Frog or The Frog Princess and shall be set in old New Orleans with the main character being an African-American princess. Though its never been done with any animated musicals prior (at least not to my knowledge) it definitely sets the stage for originality.

Here’s what Movie-Source.com has to say:

A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz — New Orleans — “The Frog Princess” will introduce the newest Disney princess, Maddy, a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana’s mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn. Randy Newman will write songs and the score for the film.

Hey, if you want to be a Disney Princess, there’s basically a couple of requirements: 1) SING! 2) You need to have some sort of animal as your mascot 3) Be loved by all around you

Sounds like Maddy already has the makings of a true Disney princess. Hope it goes well for her.

I caught the High School Musical 2 movie last night. I wasn’t a “oh-my-god-it’s-high-school-musical!” fan. I just thought the movie was cute. The sequel however, I wasn’t too happy with. The only thing that made me NOT want to turn the channel was the awesome choreography and music. Story-wise, not so pleased. But I’m sure that won’t stop the sequel from being another hit for the Disney channel.

Straying away from that, my brother received a bearded dragon as a pet. It’s actually kind of cute in it’s juvenile stage. I saw some adult pictures of it, and I’m not so pleased with their looks, but right now, it is. It tends to just lay around and bask in the heat lamp though I managed to catch it flinging itself against the glass walls of its cage. Was it trying to gain more territory? Who knows. I found it quite amusing though. Ever since then, I’ve really only seen it sleep and attempt to hunt crickets. It’ll start to move it’s forelegs really slowly but it won’t move. I’m not sure why it does that, because it’ll scurry around and catch the crickets quite quickly when it wants to. Still, it’s amusing. Click on the thumbnail to see him bask in the light! Oh yeah, my brother hasn’t named it yet, so any and all suggestions will be helpful! We don’t know if it’s a he or she yet either because the PetsMart associate told them they can’t tell the sex of the dragon at its age.

Sadly, Tatonka has rejoined the herd at the buffalo farm. She didn’t seem to be coping too well when I saw her last week. I didn’t go this week because I felt lazy. Apparently, she doesn’t know she’s a buffalo yet. However, when I did go last week to the farm, I managed to spot a golden eagle! I caught it on camera, but it isn’t the greatest shot. It just sat there on the porch and let us basically come as close as we wanted. It was creepishly tame, yet had no band. The owner managed to scare it off - it had killed one of his chickens before we got there.

 Finally, I hope you all enjoy the new layout! I’m so proud of my first Wordpress layout. If you see any errors, please notify me as soon as possible and I’ll try to fix it. Thanks!

EDIT: There’s a new page, labeled ‘Writings’. Check it out if you care to read some of my literature. 

If you watch the commercials for Ratatouille, I don’t think anyone can really get a sense of what the movie’s about. From what I gathered, I thought it was about this little rat who befriended a human to get him out of some sort of predicament. I went to see this Disney/Pixar movie and I was quite surprised with what I saw. For the first time since Toy Story, I had a sense of the character’s “soul” in a CG film. With this new surge in CG animation, I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever see a character’s “soul” anymore in a film after 2D animation died. It’s a hard thing to describe, but it’s there and I was quite pleased to see that Pixar took great care and detail into breathing life into each of their characters in this film.

The film is about a rat, named Remy, who’s dream is to cook. He’s tired of his mundane life as a theiving rat and doesn’t understand what’s wrong with wanting to create something. His family, of course, believes he’s odd and doesn’t support him; they instead bring him down to earth by telling him he’s a rat. After a certain incident, Remy finds himself in Paris, torn away from his family. There he befriends a human after he was caught fixing up a soup that the human, Linguini, tried to fix but instead made worse. They team up to become a great chef.

It was so refreshing! I know I said before that I was sick of talking animals after movies like Happy Feet, Madagascar, The Wild, Over the Hedge, and Hunting Season, but because this was so refreshing, I soon forgot that I had made that statement before. What I loved even more than the animation was the storyline. It flowed nicely together, and though there were some age old cliches (boy gets girl), you couldn’t exactly guess what was going to happen next. I didn’t laugh out loud at every single joke, but it didn’t bother me.

The movie had everything a Disney/Pixar movie should. It had a wonderful sense of magic about it to engross children and make them believers. If Ratatouille doesn’t become a Disney classic in the next 20-30 years, then I’d be shocked. This movie has the potential to stand beside Snow White and Seven Dwarves and even Beauty and the Beast. If you haven’t seen it yet, you don’t know what you’re missing.