MYST #6 – Frozen

With the holiday season over, it's that time of the year again where Chicago says, "Oh yeah! Fall was supposed to change a month ago!" and drops on us three months of hardcore winter. What more of an appropriate time stuck in a seemingly perpetual ice wonderland than to watch a movie about getting stuck in a seemingly perpetual ice wonderland! Enter Frozen!

Frozen is the next big Disney musical fantasy movie similar to the likes of those produced during their "Renaissance Era" (eg The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, etc). Loosely based of the old fairy tale The Snow Queen, the story follows two royal sisters Anna and Elsa. Elsa possesses cyrokinetic powers (ability to manipulate cold and ice), and after an incident that injures her Anna at a young age she is forced to keep her powers a secret from everyone including her sister. After years have past, Elsa is of age to become the Queen of the land (Her parents died on a voyage across the seas. Y'know, typical depressing Disney backstories). However, on the night of her coronation, after refusing to give blessing to her sister's fiancee, whom she had literally just met (and thus becoming a running gag), an argument with Anna escalates to the point where her powers are revealed. Panicked, Elsa runs away and inadvertently unleashes an eternal winter across the land. Now, it is up to Anna to try to get Elsa to restore the country with the help of some new friends along the way: Kristoff, a mountain man (SPOILER the actual love interest), with his reindeer buddy Sven; and Olaf, the talking, humorous snowman who dreams of experiencing summer (and also whose main role is to provide an easy marketing strategy for the Disney business conglomerate).

Now, ever since the end of their Renaissance, Disney had relied on Pixar to produce the best animated films for the 2000s. However, after the release of Cars, Pixar's most finically successful yet least critically successful movie at the time, the Walt Disney Animation Studio seemed to step their game up. The movies released in the subsequent years, Bolt and The Princess and the Frog, seem to validate. But something interesting happened. Since 2011, the movie produced by the Walt Disney Animation Studio were more critically acclaimed than those produced by Pixar. This still held true this year with Frozen, and I have no problem with it. Pixar held its dominance for quite a long time throughout the 2000s and made some of the greatest animated movies of all time, but I think everyone knew that their stride wouldn't last forever. With that, however, brought into light a whole new level of creative exposure in the world of animated film, bringing movies like How To Train Your Dragon, Paranorman, Rango, Wreck-It-Ralph, and even Frozen into this new specialty spotlight of being "better than Pixar."

Speaking of which, I really enjoyed Frozen.  It was very fun and adorable, the music had that awesome Broadway spectacular feel (the music was half penned by the guy who did the music for The Book of Mormon), and the animation, especially the snowy sequences, looked beautiful. For fans of of animation, or anyone who wants to see a cool movie, it's a must-see.




I give this movie:


9/10 for quality


9/10 for watchability.


I hope you all enjoyed my review of Frozen.



Fond regards,
~Grant Dunderman
January 2014
Film Studies Period 10

MYST #5 – Man On Wire

When was the last time you sat down and watched a documentary that wasn't for a class assignment? (Discover Channel doesn't count) Wow, really? A long time? Well, dust off the ol' Netflix search box and take a break  from binge-watching Dexter because the next thing you should be watching is a little doc called Man on Wire.

The movie follows the life of Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, and his journey towards his dream of high-wire walking across the World Trade Center in 1974. The film dives deep within the mindset of the tight-rope walking as well as conducting interview with him, his family, his friends, and even his colleagues.

Now, most of the time documentaries tend to follow the same general principles: show the people being interviewed, have their voice projected over images, show archival footage, and, on occasion, have a voice-actor fill in any gaps. This film does this, but in the best way possible. See, the story of how Petit was able to get a high-wire up on top of the World Trade Center had a very espionage and thriller vibe to it, so the logically thing to do was to presented it like so. Now, this would seem like a very difficult process to do in a documentary, but the filmmakers were able to grasp it with such skill that it was more engaging and thrilling than the last James Bond movies. They made the people interviewed the storytellers (unlike just being there for personal aesthetics), and with the use of fine editing, impressive archival footage, and the occasional dramatic reconstruction scenes (which, by the way, were the most realistic I've seen in any documentary), the story of Philippe Petit made this movie one of the best movies I've seen all year.




I give this movie:


10/10 for quality.

9/10 for watchability.


I hope you all enjoyed my review of Man On Wire.




Fond regards,
~Grant Dunderman
January 2014
Film Studies Period 10