Best Documentary Film Nominees Mini-Reviews

Oscar season can be a frustrating time for the average movie fan.  Trying to see all the best picture nominees can be nearly impossible (a friend of mine was able to do it) with work and day to day life getting in the way.  Fortunately streaming video has made it a lot easier to catch up.  Although I’m woefully behind on my best picture viewing and won’t get there in time for Sunday night, I have been able to see all five nominees for best documentary.  All but one of these (20 Feet from Stardom) are available on Netflix (it is available for rental via disc or from other digital rental sites) (UPDATE: 20 Feet, as of March 21st, is available on Netflix Instant), so it’s pretty easy to catch at least one of these before the big ceremony.  As to which one you should watch, here are my quick reviews of the five nominees:

20 Feet from Stardom

First up is a look at African American back-up singers from the early 60s through today, profiling legends like Darlene Love and up and comers like Judith Hill.  It’s the lightest of the five, but it still goes in depth into how they helped artists like The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Sting.  They also talk about how the role of back-up singer has changed with the business and their attempts at taking center stage, as well as why so few of them achieved big success.  I’ve always been a fan of the supporting people who help the superstars be as great as they can be, but never get the glory.  Thankfully this film gives these talented ladies their due.

Grade: A-

The Act of Killing

My.  God.  This documentary follows two men who set about reenacting the murders of suspected communists they committed for the Indonesian government in the 60s.  It also goes into how the actions of these men—who never received any punishment for their actions, but rather became national heroes—shaped a country that openly discusses its brutality and corruption without any belief that it’s wrong.  Joshua Oppenheimer doesn’t resort to cheap tricks to demonize the subjects (it’d be pretty easy to).  Rather he lets them speak for themselves, and what they say is shocking both in its content and how casually it is said.  Unbelievable and unforgettable, The Act of Killing is easily one of the year’s best films.

Grade: A

Cutie and the Boxer

Zachary Heinzerling’s look into the lives of eccentric Japanese artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara is my least favorite of the bunch, but still worth checking out.  Ushio is an established Dadaist while Noriko is trying to make a name for herself as Ushio’s work becomes the subject of an art show.  There isn’t much more to it than they are from Japan, living in New York and have struggled for decades on art that usually doesn’t sell, but they are interesting characters to follow and Heinzerling takes what they do seriously.  After some of the more serious contenders, this would be a good way to break the tension.

                                                         

Grade: B

Dirty Wars

Dirty Wars, Richard Rowley’s film about Jeremy Scahill’s investigation into covert operations the United States have undertaken, specifically raids that have left a lot of civilian casualties.  His argument that the US is finding itself plunged into a state of perpetual warfare, is well made and non-sensationalistic, which makes it all the more chilling.  If you want to feel really bad about American foreign policy, this is the one to watch.

Grade: B+

The Square

Jehane Noujaim’s street eye view of the Egyptian Revolution that unseated President Mubarak in 2011 is a compelling portrait of a revolution and the struggles that come with non-violet protest.  Focusing on a small group, including a charismatic and passionate young man named Ahmed Hassan, as well as Kite Runner actor Khalid Abdalla, The Square manages to show a lot about Egypt so even those of us who didn’t follow this story can follow what’s happening.  It’s hard not to be rooting for them as they seek reform in their country.

Grade: A-

It should be safe to say my should win is The Act of Killing.  As to what I think will, I’m more split.  Killing is innovative in how it tells its story and has a good chance of bringing home the trophy, but there is also a chance 20 Feet from Stardom will take it, as it is lighter fare and more crowd pleasing.  Regardless, this is a pretty solid batch of films and I think whatever you pick will be at least interesting.

The Lego Movie Review

There was no reason this movie was going to be good.  It was based on a toy in what could be considered a cynical move by a creatively bankrupt Hollywood.  To make it worse, it comes out in February, recently uncovered as the worst month for wide releases.  On top of that the last film based on a game, Battleship, was a huge bomb both critically and commercially.  Of course we often make these prejudgments because we only have so much time to watch movies, so why waste it with one that’s likely to be bad?  So it’s always nice to see a film defy those low expectations and completely surprise you, like The Lego Movie.  Not only is this film watchable, it is one of the most purely fun films I’ve seen recently.

The film centers on everyman Emmet (voiced perfectly by Parks and Rec’s Chris Pratt), who lives his life according the instructions in an idyllic Lego world.  Only problem is things aren’t as perfect as they seem: President Business (Will Ferrell) runs Legoland as a dictatorship, with lackey Bad Cop (Liam Neeson) making sure the piece of resistance—which would threaten Business’ master weapon the Kragle—isn’t uncovered.  Emmet finds the piece after encountering Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), and Emmet’s by the books existence is shattered forever.  It is a classic hero’s journey story, but doesn’t at all feel stale.

The world of The Lego Movie covers several different types of worlds with incredible detail.  It’s this year’s Wreck-It Ralph as far as cameos from established properties are concerned.  However, the painstaking detail of the worlds, trying to represent everything on screen by its Lego equivalent, never ceases to impress.  Where stop motion ends and live action begins feels very blurry, another testament to how well made the film is.  This will likely be a really fun film to watch on bluray.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, when this was announced it was easy to write it off as a cynical cash in, but it is far from cynical as they could be.  The film is continually inventive and clever, from the reveal of what Business’ weapon really is to something in the third act I won’t get into here that opens up a whole new world to the film.  Writer/Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and the beloved cult TV show Clone High fame, have developed a film with layers no one could’ve expected.  The film is certainly silly, but it embraces that silliness in a way that respects its audience.  Clearly you can tell this film was made by fans of Legos and no doubt played with them a lot as kids and/or with their kids today.  It makes sense a film about toys is all about celebrating fun, creativity and playing.  With growing criticism of kids spending too much time on smartphones, game consoles and tablets, it’s good to have The Lego Movie encourage kids of all ages to think outside of the toy box.

Grade: A-

Miscellaneous (Spoilers):

-It is pretty brilliant that they put this out in February.  It could easily be seen as someone put this in the dead zone by accident, but considering this time of year is bereft of worthwhile choices, I imagine The Lego Movie is just going to steam roll the next couple weeks of new releases.  It’s the new Frozen.

-This will probably be the better movie with Batman and Superman in it.

-I love the title cards that show up to denote the passage of time.  My favorite is when Emmet yells how he could sing the insanely catchy “Everything Is Awesome” all day, cut to a time card reading “5 ½ hours later” and it cuts back to them still singing.

-Really the real world twist could’ve sunk the movie, but luckily it just reinforces a lot of what the movie is about (nonconformity, playing).

-Lando!  C-3P0!

-Will Arnett’s performance as Batman is basically Gob from Arrested Development, but a bit smarter and more competent.

-If you really think this movie is anti-business, you’re dumb.  Or you really want businesses run by sociopaths.

-EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

... 30 ...

To commemorate the 10^th anniversary of Facebook, the website launched a retrospective “Look Back” feature.  Being a sucker for nostalgia, I’ve watched every one that’s popped up on my feed.  I don’t want to say they triggered an existential crisis, but right after I got an invitation to play chess with the ghost of Bengt Ekerot.  Many of my friends’ videos had major milestones under their most liked posts like marriages, babies, houses and new jobs.  Mine had pictures of my Nanowrimo wins (I’ve never shared what I’ve written with anyone) and two posts that could be boiled down to “Breaking Bad is awesome”.  Don’t get me wrong, Breaking Bad is awesome, but it’s hard—even when you try not to sum up your life in likes and retweets—to see that sum up how you spent your twenties on Facebook as you are about to hit 30.

The day this posts, I hit the big 3-0.  Since I don’t drink, 30 is the first age I’ve had any interest in since 18.  It is pretty much the last major post where you can consider yourself young.  I am still younger comparatively speaking to a good chunk of the population, but I don’t associate being in your 30s as a decade of youth.  Your 30s are generally the decade you settle down: you figured out what you’re going to do with your life in your 20s and now it’s time to move from there.  Well, my 20s weren’t like that.  There were a lot of things that I won’t get into here, but suffice to say I didn’t expect to be where I am now and I didn’t expect to have made as little progress as I did.

It hasn’t helped that I had a series of difficult years through most of my 20s.  It culminated last year, which was defined as the year I lost my dad.  While it isn’t as intense as it was when it started, the death of my father is still often in my thoughts, and the grieving process has affected those thoughts more than any other problem I’ve been dealing with lately.  Then there were two of my high school classmates who died this past fall.  I wasn’t close to them (I don’t think I spoke to either of them after graduation), but the reality check was still powerful.  With these reminders of mortality, it’d be hard for it not to affect how I think about what I’m doing right now.

However, I don’t want this post to be a pity party.  I’m reminded of Conan O’Brien’s monologue at the end of his last show as host of The Tonight Show.  “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get,” he said.  “But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.”  I still believe that’s true.  Even the people whose Plan A worked out for them, it’s unlikely it played out exactly as they expected.  Not to mention sometimes failing can be the best thing to happen to somebody.  So while most of my 20s was unsatisfying, it could pave the way for a better 30s.

Those who know journalistic terms (or just fans of HBO’s The Wire, whose last episode is called “- 30 -“) will know journalists have used “-30-“ to denote the end of a story.  30 could be considered the end of a story, but as Dr. Manhattan said in Watchmen, “Nothing ever ends.”  This isn’t Logan’s Run where life literally ends at 30.  30 is a beginning.  There’s still a lot for me to experience in this life and things for me to do: I hope 30 is the year I finally finish a draft of my book that I could show my beta readers to list an example.  It is hard not to get hung up on other people’s progress compared to our own, especially as time goes on and we hit these milestone numbers, and social media makes it easier to see everyone else’s achievements.  All we can hope to do is play the game as best as we can, because ultimately that checkmate will come for us all.

How I Met Your Mother 200th Episode Review: "How Your Mother Met Me"

In my recent “Rest of 2013” piece, I criticized the writers of How I Met Your Mother for not using The Mother more in the final season.  Introduced in the closing moments of the eighth season finale, The Mother (played by Cristin Milioti) has been a breath of fresh air for the show.  How I Met Your Mother is in its ninth season and like just about every show that makes it to this point, the quality wanes.  The Mother’s appearances have been highlights, but unfortunately there’s the small detail that she and Ted (the ‘I’ of the title) can’t meet in the present part of the timeline until the finale.  While she’s shown up in other character’s storylines and in flashbacks and flash forwards, she’s been largely relegated to the sidelines until the 200^th episode “How Your Mother Met Me”.

The episode plays a bit like what I call a “Zeppo” episode (after the Buffy episode), where the show shifts its focus from the usual characters to supporting characters.  “How Your Mother Met Me” serves to fill us in on what The Mother has been doing for the past eight seasons.  It starts on a surprisingly tragic note, as she learns the man she believed was “the one” has died, and on her 21^st birthday no less.  Nobody at 21 expects something like that to happen, so that traumatic event expectedly echoes throughout her twenties.  Milioti nails the heartbreak, and the pace of the episode keeps it from being maudlin.

Most of the episode plays catch up as we follow The Mother across the major road markers of near misses Ted and she have had over the years.  They manage to cram a lot of call backs from the show in this episode’s 22 minutes; from The Mother being friends with “The Naked Man” Mitch to all the small details about her that Future Ted’s sprinkled throughout the run.  I definitely wish we could’ve seen more in this episode (or better yet, more of it), but for a single episode, they made excellent use of their time.

It culminates with The Mother, having decided to move on alone, singing a haunting rendition of “La Vie En Rose”.  “La Vie En Rose” is a beautiful song, but what makes this scene so potent is Milioti’s performance both as a singer and actress.  It might not be how she would sing it if she were cutting the song for an album, but it makes sense that that’s how The Mother would play it.  All the grief and heartbreak is there (anytime it appears that her voice breaks a little is a master touch), yet there is that sense that deep down The Mother is still a romantic like Ted, who no doubt fell in love with her hearing her sing it over the partition between their adjoining rooms.

Before they introduced The Mother, there was the common belief that the show should have ended the moment Ted and The Mother met.  Ultimately this episode proves just how bad an ending that would’ve been.  If that had happened The Mother would be just an object.  It might as well have been some expensive item Ted saved up for for eight years.  Having us meet The Mother before Ted does was the right thing to do and this episode serves to get us invested in her story so we end up falling in love with her and rooting for her to find that second chance we know is coming.

No doubt casting The Mother was a difficult process.  Finding someone to live up to the hype of eight seasons of TV, not to mention justify the existence of a subpar ninth, could have been a complete disaster with the wrong woman.  Luckily they found the perfect woman for Ted in Milioti and the case made for her here was Emmy worthy.  I understand the frustration some viewers have had in reaction to this episode after sitting through filler episodes (this reinforces my initial complaint that she was underused in the season so far), but this episode could be one that redeems the season.  This episode shows that while the series has seen better days, the heart of the show can be as strong as ever.

Miscellaneous:

-Among the things debunked: the Mother wasn’t the ideal match from the dating service Ted blew off in season one, nor was he the random woman who Ted bumped into during St. Patrick’s Day 2008.

-No confirmation on her name though, so the “Tracy” theory from way back in season one’s “Belly Full of Turkey” (Where Ted tricked his kids into thinking The Mother was a stripper with that name) is still valid.

-Louis is played by Louis Ferrigno Jr., Lou Ferrigno’s son.  Also Linus is played by Robert Belushi, Jim Belushi’s son.

-I may be wrong, but is this the first episode where neither Robin nor Marshall have any lines?

-I don’t know if they intended this, but both episodes divisible by 100 ended in musical numbers, though they couldn’t be more different.  “Girls Vs. Suits” ended with the elaborate song and dance number “Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit”, complete with dozens of backup dancers and Neil Patrick Harris being funny.  This one ends with a stripped down, intimate performance of just a ukulele and Milioti.  I don’t know which one I prefer, but both were fantastic.

The Rest of 2013 TV

In my attempt to get back into regular blogging, here is my first part looking back on the year in TV for 2013.  There was a lot of great stuff out there, but for my first part I’m getting the bad stuff over with first.  Here is my “Rest of 2013” list.  Since I’m not a professional and can pick and choose what I watch, stuff like Hostages and Dads were spared.  This is my list of the disappointments, the over praised and the just plain worst TV I watched in 2013.

Most Overrated: House of Cards – Admittedly, I still haven’t finished the first season (I’ve seen through episode nine), but even still, the remaining episodes would have to be “Ozymandias”/”Rains of Castamere”/”Hitting the Fan” levels of awesome to overcome it.  Had this not had the novelty of being Netflix’s first show, this would’ve been easily forgotten.  Although it was well produced and acted, the writers so wanted this show to be The Sopranos/The Wire or any other antihero show while failing to understand why the great antihero shows are great.  There’s no formidable opponent for Francis Underwood to do battle with, most of the characters are one note and for a show that was released all at once to encourage binge watching it was a slog, especially around the middle of the season when I gave up on it.

Biggest Disappointment: Arrested Development Season Four – Mitch Hurwitz really should have known better.  For a guy who talked endlessly about bringing back the Bluth family for more, this mess of a season had fans wondering what he was even talking about.  From the unwatchable first couple episodes to the excessive runtimes to the lack of any satisfying payoff (because—sigh—this was just setting up the movie that, considering the uphill battle it was to get this made, may never happen), Arrested Development’s latest and possibly final season was a missed opportunity that was highly ambitious but unforgivably sloppy.

Most Frustrating Disappointment: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Remember going into this fall TV season when we all thought Sleepy Hollow was going to be a huge bomb and S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be the big hit?  Hard to believe Sleepy Hollow turned into watchable fun and S.H.I.E.L.D. was such a dud.  With bland characters and storylines that resemble interchangeable late 90s syndicated action shows, S.H.I.E.L.D. is the first commercial misfire in the Marvel Multimedia Universe and a punch line among even the most ardent comic fans.  The only winner here is Dollhouse, which is no longer the worst show Joss Whedon’s done.  Maybe he should take a break from making Avengers 2 to correct this once sure thing.

Most Expected Disappointment: Community Season Four – We all saw it coming.  After firing show runner Dan Harmon the show continued in a shadow of itself, like something made by people who have only read about the show and tried to replicate it without understanding what made it good (see also: House of Cards).  The show felt flat, the characters meandered and bottom line, it wasn’t funny.  The show’s fifth season had Harmon back and it seems to be getting back on track, even planting seeds of referring to last season as the “gas leak season”.

Stupidest Show: The Following – Good God what a stupid, joyless show.  I gave up on this one after one of the acolytes killed himself by eating gauze with no hands (seriously?  Are you sure you’re not trying to be a sitcom?) and judging from what I heard, it didn’t get much better.  From over relying on characters making dumb choices solely to move to plot along and having random characters turn out to be followers when they found themselves stuck in a corner, The Following exemplified lazy writing.  The talented cast (Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy and Justified’s Natalie Zea) deserve so much better.

Most Derivative: Hemlock Grove – Imagine all the worst parts of True Blood, Walking Dead, Vampire Diaries, American Horror Story and Dexter (down to the theme for Hemlock Grove being a clear rip off of Dexter’s “Blood Theme”) duck taped together and it comes close to this, which I gave up on after only two episodes.  Poorly produced, acted, written and filled with a lot of misogyny, Hemlock Grove was a prime example of Netflix shows that wanted to be a type of show rather than just being it.

Worst Show I Watched the Entire Season Of: True Blood – Hoooo boy.  The show ran out of creative steam three years ago and man is it apparent here.  They literally benched this season’s big bad in the fairy world or whatever for the better part of the season.  However this, on top of the regular problems True Blood has (the irrelevant subplots that add nothing to the show), was overshadowed by that baffling finale.  After wrapping up the main storyline of the season, the show suddenly jumps ahead six months and the writers pretty much say “Who cares?  Let’s just take some nonsensical fan fiction, make it canon and not bother explaining any of it.”  It plays like someone really wanted to get fired.

Honorable Mention: Sons of Anarchy – It had one great episode, but the penultimate season of the FX smash was filled with problems.  It started with a school shooting, which in retrospect was done poorly because they used it purely for shock value then buried anything that would’ve earned the controversial move.  Then we had the runtimes of the episodes, which rivaled Arrested Development’s fourth season in sheer bloat (the season finale ran two hours, an hour and a half of which nothing happened).  Often it just feels like the shocking things were done in desperate search for story, like what happens to a major character in the finale.  There’s only one season left, but I don’t know if I’m up for spending any more time in Charming.

Worst Subplot in an Otherwise Great Show: Theon Greyjoy’s subplot in this season of Game of Thrones – “Theon (Alfie Allen) gets tortured” pretty much sums up what happened to him during the entire third season.  That’s it.  Nearly every episode featured him going through the ringer at the mercy of the psychopath Ramsay Snow (Misfits’ Iwan Rheon).  They stretched a little out a lot a long way and it grew tiring.  We didn’t really learn much about what happened until an info dump in the finale.  I know there are book reasons for why this drags (I won’t get into here for those like me who haven’t read ahead, suffice to say the second book does a better job setting this up than the second season), and this shows the shortcomings of having to adapt a book for TV or film.  For a show with dozens of characters occupying many subplots, this one was the clear weak link in an otherwise stellar season.

Most baffling network decisions: The gutting of G4 and FXX – It really is a shame what happened to G4. They were needlessly left to die, as most of its staff were fired last January to make room for Esquire to take over in April 2013.  Then they pushed Esquire’s launch back for several months, leaving G4 adrift with random repeats and movies.  In a final middle finger to G4, Esquire takes over for Style Network, which is what they should’ve done in the first place.  What were they thinking?  Now G4 is all but dead, taken off from even its parent company Comcast.

Then we have FXX, the new FX offshoot that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.  What is it supposed to be?  Is it just for comedy?  Then why are Archer and new show Chozen airing on FX?  And why is FXX airing its original programming against FX original programming?  It just lead to really low rated seasons of The League, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, the latter of which was canceled.  Maybe FXX will eventually find a groove, but for now, its existence seems completely unnecessary.

Biggest Failure to Jumpstart a New Show: Any attempt to get Breaking Bad fans to stick around for Low Winter Sun.  Remember when Lost was on and they would always try to put on a similar themed genre show after it?  Also remember how that show would inevitably tank because Lost fans weren’t interesting in anything other than digesting the episode of Lost they just watched?  Low Winter Sun was that for Breaking Bad.  While Breaking Bad had series best ratings, not even teasers placed during Low Winter Sun translated to making it a hit.  It also wasn’t that good from what I heard.

Worst Utilization of a New Character: Cristin Milioti on How I Met Your Mother – Yeah, the condensed timeline of this final season has also been clunky, but Cristin Milioti’s turn as the eponymous mother on the aged CBS sitcom has been a breath of fresh air.  Unfortunately she has not been used nearly enough, often going several episodes without an appearance.  I have to imagine we’ll see more of her in the second half of the final season and maybe get to see more of her and Ted’s relationship in flashforwards, but unfortunately the limitations of the show has kept her from bringing more life into the final season.

Worst Show I Didn’t Watch But Probably Will Eventually: Dexter – From everything I’ve heard the final season of Showtime’s hit was unwatchably bad and the finale that was so bad that it was one of the rare shows that truly is completely ruined by how it ended.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I have seen the treadmill scene and wow…remember when we all thought this was one of the best shows on TV?  Still, part of me is oddly curious when people really blast a show.

Of course even with the clunkers here, there was still a lot of great TV in 2013 which I’ll get into in future posts with my favorite shows and my favorite episodes (from shows that didn’t make my favorite shows list).

Frozen Review

There are few film presences better known in the world than Disney.  For most of us Disney’s films are our first exposure to the movies and many of the conventions that make a Disney film become ingrained in us from the hardcore cinephile to the casual movie goer.  However, they also are aware of the criticism Disney has faced over the years, in particular not having the most progressive idea of women.  Even in many of their great films, the women were often damsels in distress who needed to be rescued by men.  Their Pixar division also received complaints for not having a female lead until Brave.   Certainly these issues are at the forefront of Disney’s latest feature Frozen, a loose musical retelling of the Snow Queen fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.  Frozen confronts many of the clichés that have made Disney films a cultural force, while being a worthy addition to their canon.

In this version, future Snow Queen Elsa (voiced as an adult by Idina Menzel) isolates herself from her younger sister Anna (voiced as an adult by Kristen Bell) after a childhood accident involving Elsa’s powers.  This isolation lasts until Elsa’s coronation, where her powers emerge and get out of control, plunging their kingdom in a perpetual winter.  She heads into the woods in exile while Anna heads out to find her, encountering some help via outdoorsman Kristoff (voiced by Jonathan Groff), his reindeer and a snowman Elsa creates named Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad).

The film deserves a lot of praise for how they treat the female characters.  This is the first feature film from Disney to have a woman (Jennifer Lee, who also scripted) credited as a director.  Anna and Elsa aren’t defined by love interests, but rather the complicated relationship between themselves, which is so much more interesting.  Elsa and her parents fear her power and hide herself away from the rest of the world because they think that they won’t understand, and Anna finds the reclusive nature of being the Snow Queen’s sister lonely and is desperate for attention and to be a part of her sister’s life or anyone else’s for that matter.  It’s another in the very welcome post-Twilight trend of seeing more strong female characters to younger audiences who need to see them.  We’re going to need a whole lot to undo the damage Bella did.

Like the well-developed characters, you can definitely see Disney Animation CCO John Lasseter bringing the Pixar touch to elevate the regular Disney movies.  Along with last year’s Wreck-It Ralph, the quality of these films is comparable to their Pixar counterparts and in some cases, surpasses them.  The visuals look superb, and the 3D actually adds something to the film.  It is basically a computer animated answer to a lot of the Disney renaissance films from the late 80s/early 90s.

They also make the smart decision of casting actors with musical theater experience, but as a musical, the film wavers a little.  The songs are loaded more in the first two acts, and there’s a good chunk toward the end where they don’t sing at all.  Certainly it’s okay to forgo singing in favor of the action going on screen, but it feels like the songs were on the lower list of priorities, resulting in some songs that are simply okay.  There are exceptions: Olaf’s “In Summer” is a nice silly break and of course Elsa’s “Let It Go” is the big powerful song Idina Menzel will no doubt be belting at next year’s Oscar ceremony.

On the surface, Frozen appears like many typical Disney films based on fairy tales, especially the musical ones.  The filmmakers are certainly aware of those clichés and they question and have fun with them in a way that isn’t contemptuous of the material.  Instead, it revitalizes this type of storytelling for the next generation of film fans and reenergized the seasoned viewers who want to see something new.  That type of storytelling is what has kept Disney relevant all these years, and will certainly aid in keeping it that way for years to come.

As much as I enjoyed the film, the short that played before was the best part.  Get a Horse! begins like an old Mickey Mouse short (down to using archived recordings for some of the dialogue), but quickly expands into some Sherlock Jr.-esque breaking of the fourth wall and playing with the conventions of filmmaking, fully utilizing the 3D for seven dazzling minutes.  Like the people behind the technical side of Gravity, the producers of this short should get their Oscar speeches ready.

Frozen Grade: B+

Get a Horse! Grade: A

Miscellaneous notes:

-Man, the trailers for this, while I appreciate them not giving much away, gave off an Ice Age vibe I was going to avoid had all the good reviews not convinced me to give it a chance.

-There must have been more with Kristoff’s backstory that got cut, right?  They got the first song of the film but aside from him and Sven we never see the other Ice farmers again.

-Also thought the initial set up of the story, especially how the trolls connected to it, could’ve used a little more development.

-Between his work here and in Wreck-It Ralph, is it too early to call Alan Tudyk the John Ratzenberger of Disney Studios films?

(HERE BE SPOILERS)

-I liked how they called out Anna for getting engaged to Prince Hans the day they met.  Having characters fall in love that quickly is usually a problem with these kinds of movies, although it is motivated by Anna’s desire for human connection and Hans’ duplicity.

-Yeah, I fell for Hans being a good guy and seeing it twice I feel like it’s a twist they earned.  It also played off making the obvious villain the Duke of Weaselton just a shady character and not someone outright evil.

-I love that it was the true love between sisters that saved Anna.  It was true to the story and a refreshing twist on it always being some guy’s love that breaks these curses.  Don’t get me wrong, Kristoff is a nice guy and he and Anna are a good couple, but the story is about Anna and Elsa first.

6 Things I Learned Doing Nanowrimo

I was one of 315,904 participants in National Novel Writing Month or Nanowrimo.  The basic goal of the month is to generate a first draft of a story consisting of 50,000 words or more (roughly 1667 words a day).  It can be a grueling marathon, one that drains your mental facilities as you try to figure out what to do next with your work.  I have done it the last two years and somehow come out victorious both times.  It’s not easy, so here are a few things I’ve learned that hopefully aspiring writers can consider getting ready during the next 11 months.

1.       You Will Exhaust Your Initial Ideas Early, and That’s Okay.

Going in you may think you have all of the ideas for your novel knocking around in your head and all you have to do is put it to paper.  When I did Nanowrimo last year I had been thinking of my story idea for the prior two and a half years.  Before I sound like I was super prepared, I didn’t get that far.  In fact I hit the wall hard sometime around the end of week two both years.  That’s okay.  Even a 200-300 page novel is going to have more than you can keep going in your brain at the same time.

Don’t let that discourage you.  Getting those ideas out is good because it will make room for new ideas.  After you write everything you can think of think about what happens next and how to connect them all, and it’ll help strengthen your writing.  No writer has every single idea ready to go on the outset.  Some ideas will only come out during the writing process.

2.       Embrace Your Inner Swooper

When I try to write, it’s hard not to feel a little like Nicolas Cage’s Charlie Kaufman in the movie Adaptation.  There are so many options with writing a story it can be easy to get overwhelmed and constantly criticizing yourself for not writing the great American novel.  Countless stories never get told because the writer can’t get beyond these insecurities.  Following the Kurt Vonnegut model of swoopers (those who write prolifically and edit later) and bashers (those who write and scrutinize all the way), I’m a basher through and through, and I have to imagine a lot of Nanowrimo participants are bashers as well.  But to win Nanowrimo, I had to try to think like a swooper.

So it makes sense that one of the things Nanowrimo encourages is to allow its participants to give themselves permission to write crap.  This may seem counterintuitive: why bother putting in all this effort into a subpar product?  However, letting the bad ideas flow allows all ideas to flow.  Nanowrimo is all about getting in motion all the people who keep saying they’re going to write, but never get around to putting those ideas out because they get hung up on it not being a complete novel the first time out.  With editing, no one has to know about the cheesy dialogue, scenes that go nowhere and characters who don’t add anything.  How I got to the ideas isn’t necessarily important to the reader.

3.       Having a Plan Is Helpful, but Always Leave Room for Improvisation

During Nanowrimo I met someone.  Her name is Charlotte.  She’s about my age, British with long black hair.  She knows how to use a sword and is a little hyperactive.  She also was barely in any of my outlines for my story up until I started writing this year’s Nanowrimo.  One of the joys of writing is discovery; stumbling upon some idea that you never would have thought of before you started writing.  George R.R. Martin has a quote attributed to him classifying writers as being either architects (ones who intricately plan every small detail) or gardeners (ones who plant a seed and see what happens).  It’s similar to the “swoopers and bashers”.  Of course a good novel will need structure with its story, character arcs and plot progression, but as I wrote I needed to allow myself the freedom to explore and take risks because I could find something better than what I originally set out to do.

4.       Being Open to New Sources Helps

It’s a logical conclusion to want to avoid consuming other stories during Nanowrimo out of fear of being too influenced by whatever you’re reading.  Certainly spending more time writing will limit the amount of time you have to read, watch TV and consume stories anyway, but writing in a vacuum is generally a bad idea.  Aside from maybe ancient cave paintings, art is influenced somehow by other art.  The best way to combat being too influenced by other work is to consume a lot of different types of work.  Read high fantasy, true life stories, beach read murder mysteries, classics, graphic novels and read with an eye as to how things function in the work and how you can figure out what works in your writing.  To be honest I didn’t read a whole lot going into last year’s Nanowrimo.  However in 2013 I vowed to be different and I’ve read a lot, from several Vonnegut novels to Neil Gaiman to graphic novels like Fables.  All writers read and it’ll make your work richer the more you can fit in.

5.       Writing 50,000 Words and Being a Winner Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Technically speaking, if you write 50,000 words you won NaNoWriMo.  It is a huge achievement to generate that much over only a month.  However, sometimes people take shortcuts to get to that magical number that may cheapen the victory.  There is a thread in the Nanowrimo forum all about tricks and cheats participants can use to boost their word counts.  To be fair, there are tips that can be helpful, like writing in a character’s backstory or writing out your thought process as you work out elements in your story.  Then you get tricks like not using contractions, always referring to characters by their full names or having characters repeat things for characters who are, for no practical reason in the story, hard of hearing.  For those who use these tricks I have to ask: what are you really getting out of it?  Are these things making your writing or your work ethic regarding writing any better?  These tricks will be the first things cut from any revision you make, so why even bother putting it in in the first place?  Sure, there are instances where it makes sense not to use contractions or have characters repeat themselves, but if you have unnatural sounding dialogue spoken by a bunch of Jimmy Two Times, who is going to want to bother slogging through that?  Unless you’re doing it for a school assignment, these cheats can’t be truly helpful.

It’s a bit like Rocky (or for a more contemporary version, the Late Night trilogy episodes of Louie).  Where (SPOILER) both Rocky and Louie don’t get what they want, yet both end on notes of triumph because they gave it everything they had, and really, doing everything you can is the only way to combat regret.

6.       The End of November Is Just the Beginning

Some people hate Nanowrimo.  Like really hate it.  I can see why, with publishers complaining about December submissions clogging up their inboxes written by at best naïve and at worst delusional would be authors.  For some, once Nanowrimo’s done they think they can just throw in the raw word file out to a publisher and think that JK Rowling money is going to roll in.  For people who claim that they love writing, they aren’t really applying themselves.

As much as Nanowrimo emphasizes revising and editing, it’s hard to ignore that some of the sponsors of Nanowrimo are enabling the idea that what you wrote in November is a final draft and is ready to go on December 1^st, not to mention Novel Writing is in the full title (I guess “National First Draft Writing Month” isn’t as snappy).  It’s not that easy.  I’ve participated in Nano the last two years and you know how many people I’ve had look at my two drafts: nobody.  It’s not even close to being ready for anyone but me.  There’s still characters and story points that need clarifying and it needs to be put together into some cohesive whole.  There’s a lot of work ahead of me, but I think I’m closer to it than I was before Nanowrimo 2012.

Yes, there have been novels started in Nanowrimo that have been best sellers like Water for Elephants, but those writers no doubt put in the hours making them coherent novels before they were ever published.  You may be that one genius out of a million who can churn out a novel fully formed, but odds are you are not.  That type of writer is generally a creation of the movies (written by people who know better).  If you want to work as a writer, you have to respect and obey the work ethic of a writer.  That means reading a lot and writing a lot.  If you want to work as a writer, you need to treat writing like work.