frozen

The kid and I checked out Frozen the other day. It only shares the slightest similarity to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen, so fans of Gerda and Kai may need to adjust their expectations before attending. Instead of a girl-power story of a young girl, against all odds and an evil Snow Queen, rescuing her young male friend Kai, Frozen features two strong female heroines, a pair of sisters (and princesses, of a northern country dubbed Arendelle) named Anna (Kirsten Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel). Elsa has a special ability — she can create ice and snow with the wave of her hand. But after some childhood play goes horribly wrong and her younger sister Anna is injured, their parents rush them to some friendly trolls, who take away Anna's memory and doom the fearful parents and Elsa to hiding their older daughter's gift away from the world — and her sister. "Conceal, don't feel," is the mantra they insist Elsa adopt.

Elsa, the Snow Queen - it's lonely at the top of a mountain of ice

Par the usual Disney fairytale adaptation, the girls' parents soon meet a tragically convenient end, leaving the sisters to grow up orphaned and estranged — as Elsa fears that she will lose control and seriously harm Anna and others. When Elsa comes of age there is a glimmer of hope at her coronation that the two sisters may finally grow closer, but that hope is quickly dashed when the impulsive Anna falls immediately for a visiting prince named Hans (Santino Fontana), and Elsa loses her temper and control of her powers, to the horror of her sister and coronation guests. She flees the scene, unwittingly covering Arendelle in ice. She may be forced into a life of isolation, but she is finally free, and no longer hides her ability but exults in it, constructing an enormous mountain castle made of ice.

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway 

"Let It Go," music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, performed by Idina Menzel

An intrepid Anna sets out after her sister, sure she can convince her to come home and "fix" everything. She is joined on her quest by some comic (and potentially romantic) relief — Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his lovable and loyal reindeer Sven, as well as a magical snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad).

Beware, spoilers below:

Frozen has a lot to recommend it. The vocals by Bell, and especially Menzel, are great. I do think, however, that apart from Elsa/Menzel's big number "Let It Go," the songs were pretty forgettable. Does every Disney animated movie have to be a mini-musical? Maybe it's time to move beyond Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Pixar and Dreamworks are making entertaining pseudo-Broadway song free animated movies.

Olaf the snowman is adorable and sure to have multiple spin-off cartoons, as his character of a snowman who yearns for sunnier days is just too great to resist. After the sisters have an unsuccessful reunion Elsa once again unwittingly injures her sister, lodging a shard of ice in her heart, You would think that after being able to build such an amazing palace of ice (a truly gorgeous sequence) she might pay a little more attention to what she does with her flying ice hands.)

Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven in a beautiful ice forest

When the trolls confirm that the only thing to melt the ice that is slowly freezing Anna's heart is an act of true love, it is assumed that true love's kiss will save the day. The audience knows that Kristoff, not Hans, is the candidate for that job. But there is a last-act plot turn that spoiled a bit of the magic for not just me, but my daughter. The screenwriters make Hans a truly nasty villain, robbing Anna of the ability to realize for herself that she doesn't really love him. They do minimize that blunder by having the love that saves the day be that between the sisters, and not dependent on romance, which, admittedly, is great. But the sour, clichéd character of Hans still hung over our movie-viewing experience as we exited the theater.

That said, I would still recommend Frozen. Making Elsa a conflicted and not evil Snow Queen was an interesting choice. Along with Tangled and Brave, Disney's princess stories are trying to take some forward steps. Teeny, tiny, baby steps forward. But next time let the girl be strong on her own and make her own decisions about love, and not let her get dumped and disappointed by a bad guy so that she then notices a good one. Let the conflicted, "dark" girl like Elsa be the main focus rather than her spunky, cute sister. Could Disney manage a story that didn't have princesses in it at all? The original Snow Queen didn't need Gerda to be a princess. Far from it — she and Kai were poor. Not every girl dreams of being a princess. Remember Lilo and Stitch? It's worth a try.

big miracle

From the previews, the movie Big Miracle looked to be pretty predictable fare. Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski team up to save some whales. In a sense, that is exactly what happens, but director Ken Kwapis manages to take the "based on a true story" traditional format and look at the story from a few different angles to come up with a fresh and entertaining film.

Based on the 1989 book Freeing the Whales by Tom Rose, Big Miracle reminds audiences of a story that was touching hearts across the country, and eventually the world, in 1988. Three gray whales became trapped beneath the ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. After local reporters' news coverage went national, Operation Breakthrough was created, combining the efforts of the local Inuit community, and the U.S. and Russian governments.

The whales have just a relatively small whole to breathe through the ice

Rachel (Drew Barrymore) gets to know the whales

Malik (John Pingayak) shows Nathan (Ahmaogak Sweeney) how to listen to the whales

In the first few minutes of Big Miracle I settled down to watch the stereotypes roll by. And there are a few. Drew Barrymore plays Rachel Kramer, a Greenpeace activist, the obvious do-gooder heroine. The wise local elder, Malik (John Pingayak), who seems to have a mystical connection with nature. Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell), an overly ambitious reporter who will do anything to get a story. But then the characters are allowed to show other sides to their personalities.

Rachel fights for animals in peril, and although her cause is just, she is shrill, abrasive and does not encourage cooperation. It's an interesting choice to make the hero of the piece such a prickly difficult person whose personality almost drowns out all the good she is trying to accomplish. We completely understand why reporter Adam Carlson (Krasinski) is her ex-boyfriend. He likes her and respects her, but she is definitely difficult to spend a lot of time with. By the end of the movie we end up liking her too, which says a lot about Barrymore's abilities as an actress. she never tries to charm us. She stays true to who she is, and like a lot of difficult people, she is still worthwhile getting to know a little better.

Ambitious reporter Jill catches Adam's eye (Kristen Bell). she represents a whole world beyond Alaska for him, and the story represents a real chance to move up in a business ruled by men for her. Jill's struggles with being treated like anything other than "Reporter Barbie" take her character beyond the villain or other side of the romantic triangle that other films would have relegated her to. Malik represents another way of life — the Inuit are actually whale hunters — but his character can see both sides, what is best for his people and what is best for the three creatures trapped beneath the ice, and it is he who initiates using chainsaws to cut a path for the whales to follow to the sea when it looks like the National Guard will not be there in time.

Dermot Mulroney plays a by-the-book National Guardsman charged with trying to tow an icebreaker to Barrow. He starts a flirtation with an aide from the Reagan administration (Vinessa Shaw) who believes a rescue will help the image of the outgoing (Reagan) administration. What a Hollywood movie cliché, right? But then we are greeted by wedding pictures of the real couple over the closing credits. Big Miracle weaves in real footage to keep reminding us that this all really happened.

Also on hand are Ted Danson plays an oilman who comes to create some positive P.R. and leaves as a lover of whales, thanks to the subtle maneuvering of his wildlife-loving wife (Kathy Baker), as well as many more familiar faces — Tim Blake Nelson, Stephen Root, James LeGros, Shea Whigham. Some of the characters are so deftly drawn that it is easy to forget that they do not all have a real-life counterpart, like Malik's grandson Nathan, a young Inupiat boy (Ahmaogak Sweeney) who dreams of leaving Alaska for the "lower 48." Kwapis has the audience invested in this frozen part of the world and its people that by the end of the movie we want to find out what happens to Nathan in the future.

Big Miracle does serve up a Barrymore/Krasinski romance to fulfill its the Hollywood movie requirements, but that is the least interesting aspect of the movie. Their characters are interesting as individuals. Whether they couple up or not is irrelevant. But what they teamed up to do in 1988 for a trio of whales is important. The ultimate "save the whales" event that may have helped to forever shift national popular perspective about wildlife.

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