Frozen 3D or Regular!

Frozen 3D or Regular!

How would you watch this movie? 

If you are like me you don’t always jump at seeing movies in 3D. Why spend the extra money and put on funny glasses to watch a movie when you can enjoy it just as well viewing it traditionally projected? For some movies I believe it makes them too overwhelming. This is especially of concern if you have a family member with Autism Spectrum or a similar issue. With Frozen I think the extra is well worth it! It is not overwhelming but it does add to the depth of the movie.

Don’t get me wrong I like 3D and think it has its uses. Some movies are designed just for 3D and are best viewed that way. Frozen can be viewed and is beautiful in the traditional flat projection. But the 3D adds a depth that is amazing! For some filmmakers 3D is just an excuse to use stupid gags that truly do not add to the story or enjoyment of the film. That is not the case with Frozen!

I saw Mickey Mouse – Get a Horse in 3D at the 2013 D23 Expo in August. This classic Mickey Mouse short accompanies Frozen. I thought the short was AMAZING!! The 3D effects really made the entire short unbelievable. To go from “flat” black and white hand drawn animation to CGI full color 3D was something that blew my mind! I was sad my husband did not get to see this in 3D at the D23 Expo with me. (He was covering another event for me.) I believe this short is a MUST SEE in 3D!!! I was excited to take him to see Frozen and Mickey – Get a Horse. I was disappointed that we saw it first in traditional projection.

Opening day of Frozen (actually the night before) we went to see it and because my husband usually does not like 3D (they usually bother his eyes) we chose to see it traditionally projected. He was blown away by Mickey – Get a Horse! He thought the effects were fantastic. I knew they were nothing compared to the 3D! I decided we HAD to go see it in 3D! We finally did yesterday. Let me say my husband was not disappointed and neither was I! There is an amazing difference!!

The smoothness of the 3D of Mickey – Get a Horse and Frozen is amazing. Many 3D films cheat at being 3D. If you were to take your glasses off during most close up sequences of 3D movies you would see that it is not in 3D at that moment. In fact much of a “3D” movie is not in 3D. Only the scenes requiring the use of 3D to add depth to visual effect or a scene using a sight gag of something flying out of the screen at the audience have the 3D.

During my viewing of Frozen in 3D I lifted my 3D glasses at random times to see if the scene was 3D. Many times I lifted them were close ups of the type that usually are cheated and 3D not used in most films. The main focus, head shots of characters talking were clear but the background was clearly in 3D. When I put the glasses back on the added depth was startling and beautiful. In traditional the same scene is as beautiful but flat and not as “deep” and amazing.

In my opinion Frozen is a movie well worth spending the extra to see in 3D. In fact I told my husband I want to save up for a 3D TV so in the future I can watch this wonderful movie at home in 3D. This is the first time I’ve ever felt 3D was worth bringing into my home.

Here are links to my past posts about Frozen and Mickey – Get a Horse:

Frozen – No Spoiler Review

http://pixiepranks-panstinkerbell.blogspot.com/2013/11/frozen-review-no-spoilers.html

Mickey – Get a Horse

http://pixiepranks-panstinkerbell.blogspot.com/2013/09/mickey-mouse-in-get-horse.html

I also did a post on Frozen in my faith based blog Pixie’s Faith.

If you wish to see a Biblical application of Frozen you can check it out here:

http://pixiesfaith.blogspot.com/2013/12/frozen-by-fear.html

Frozen - Review (No Spoilers)

FROZEN – Review (No Spoilers)

Our local theater had the first showing of Frozen at 7pm Tuesday. The audience was small but all seemed to enjoy it. I believe the small audience number can be attributed to the fact the movie was not publicized to be opening until Wednesday.

Frozen is Disney Animation Studio’s 53^rd animated feature movie. It is loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s story, “The Snow Queen”. The story is about the relationship between two sisters. They are princesses and much beloved by their parents. Elsa and Anna are the newest Disney Princesses! (And Disney said they would make no more Princess movies!) This is a new culture for Disney to do a movie on, Scandinavian. In the past they have done German, French, English, Chinese, Arabian, Native American, American of African descent, Scottish, Dutch (kind of).

The movie is full of wonderful music. This is a Disney Musical in the style of Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Little Mermaid and Jungle Book. This will be a soundtrack to get and enjoy for a long time. Some of the songs pull the heart strings and others make you laugh. Either way the music is enjoyable. There is one thing about the music that kind of confused me. Some was cultural sounding and other songs were in a different musical styles that did not quite “fit” for me. Most Disney movies stick with a general musical style or styles that complement each other. I still enjoyed it all. The music truly drives the story and moves the plot along.

The animation is beautiful and Disney at its best. The characters are believable, engaging and warm. The special effects are fantastic! The background artwork is AMAZING. There is a great balance between slapstick humor, romance, drama and just some awwww moments.

This is a great movie to take children to and discuss relationships and honesty. It is a good opening to talk about fear stopping you from using your abilities. It can be used to show how people can and should work together to solve problems. It is a movie the entire family can enjoy together and everybody can take something home to think about. We had 3 generations of our family together enjoying it tonight. Our 19 year old daughter being the youngest laughed many times throughout the movie. My husband and I were thrilled by the movie. My Mum-in-Love came and smiled the entire time.

Elsa is the elder sister who has a magical gift, or is it a curse. This causes her and her parents to fear what could happen if she loses control and people find out.

Anna is the younger sister with a playful spirit that adores and looks up to her elder sister. She thrives on their relationship and is crushed when the relationship changes with her sister.

Hans is a prince, 13^th in line for the throne of his country. He is good looking and suave.

 Kristoff is a woodsman that sells ice. He has a reindeer named Sven.

Olaf is a snowman that loves warm hugs and dreams of summer. He doesn’t have a clue!

I highly recommend this movie, 2 wings WAY up for this movie! One major recommendation, stay until the very very end of the credits! There is a very short fun added treat for those that do.

Now I’m going to tell you about Mickey in Get a Horse! Get a Horse is a Mickey short that plays with Frozen. Below are spoilers for this short so read only if you don’t mind spoilers!

Mickey Get a Horse is drawn in the classic Black & White 1928 Ub Iwerks style. (Ub Iwerks created the original Mickey Mouse cartoons.) The cartoon starts out in black and white. Mickey and the gang are riding on hay wagon pulled by an early version of Horace Horsecollar. Pegleg Pete come up behind the fun loving gang and starts pulling his usual tricks. Here is where the cartoon gets interesting. Pete tosses Mickey and Horace so hard they break through the screen and become color! If you see this in 3D it is really amazing as they go from black & white to full color (just the characters) AND to 3D from 2D style of animation!

Here is something interesting to know. The voice used for Mickey Mouse was Mickey’s original voice talent, Walt Disney. They compiled the words from other Mickey Mouse shorts that Walt did. The only problem was Walt only did the voice of Mickey for black and white cartoons. He never did Mickey saying the word “red”. When you hear that word in the cartoon remember it was never said by Walt. It took several months of cutting together the individual sounds to make up that word to get it right. Just listen for the word in the short!

My Christmas book, “An Angel Remembers 25 Voices of Christmas” is available!!

This is a collection of 26 short Christmas stories that together bring the amazing events of Christ’s birth alive. It is my hope that this will help encourage families to spend 10-15 minutes a day together during the busy holiday season remembering the true reason for the season.

You can find it for ALL eReader formats and PDF at:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94784

For your Nook the link is:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-angel-remembers-25-voices-of-christmas-carolyn-hoagland/1106912931?ean=2940032802624

It is also available at the iTunes book store and many other ebook seller sites.

The only big site not carrying my book is Amazon.

You can download a Kindle version from Smashwords.com

Happy Birthday Mickey Mouse!

Happy Birthday Mickey Mouse!

The Big Cheese turns 85 years young today! Well, that is not actually correct. Today is considered (by Disney and the fans) the day Mickey Mouse first appeared in cartoons. It is the day he first appeared as Steamboat Willie in 1928. But, it is not actually his first appearance in a cartoon. Mickey first appeared in Plane Crazy on May 15^th, 1928.

The Disney Brother’s Studio did not have a distributor when they first released Plane Crazy. Steamboat Willie was actually the second of 130 shorts Mickey Mouse has appeared in and the first that made him popular. Plane Crazy was not widely distributed and was not popular when first released due to distribution issues.

How did Mickey Mouse come to be? You may have heard the story Walt use to tell years ago that went something like this;

Well, it was on a train on the way back from New York. Disney had just lost Oswald the Luck Rabbit and needed a new leading character. Walt was sitting on train with his wife, Lillian and was just doodling and thinking about what to do next. A funny looking mouse was what he drew and it kind of struck Walt’s fancy. Walt wanted to name this mouse Mortimer but Lillian said that name was not right and suggested Mickey.

This is what really happened. Walt went to New York to sign a contract to continue distribution with Charles Mintz, a producer who distributed through Universal Studios. Walt was hoping to ask for more his very popular Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons but Charles Mintz told Walt he, and therefore Universal Studios owned Oswald and Walt was to take a 20% cut for making future Oswald cartoons. Not only had Mintz taken Oswald he had secretly hired most of Walt’s animators out from under him as well! So Walt was left with no character and only one trusted animator, Ub Iwerks. Ub was not only an animator he was Walt’s business partner and part owner of the studio.

While traveling home Walt sent a telegram to Ub Iwerks telling him of what happened and requesting he design some new characters for him to look at when he got pack. Walt also sent a telegram to his brother Roy. Roy’s telegram said something to the effect that they had lost Oswald but everything was going to be ok.

When Walt returned to the studio Ub had several characters for Walt to look at. There were dogs and cats along with a male horse and a female cow that later returned as Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow. There was also a frog that was later used as Flip the Frog.

The Disney Brother’s Studio was not the first animation studio that Ub and Walt had started. Laugh O Graham and the Iwerks Disney Studios were the other two studios they created. Both early ventures had failed. In 1925, at Laugh O Graham Hugh Harman drew mice around Walt. This picture of Walt with the mice inspired Ub to design the mouse that later became Mickey.

Walt provided the voice of Mickey from 1928 to 1946 and again for a soon to be released Mickey Mouse short (Mickey Mouse in Get a Horse) Walt’s voice is used again.

Jimmy McDonald, a sound effects artist at the Disney Studio did the voice from 1946 to 1977 when he retired.

McDonald trained Wayne Allwine to do Mickey’s voice before retiring. Allwine said the greatest advice to keep things in perspective from McDonald was, “Just remember this kid, you are only filling in for the Boss.” In 1983 Wayne make his theatrical depute as the voice of Mickey in Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Wayne was the voice of Mickey until his death in 2009. Allwine married Russi Taylor the voice of Minnie Mouse, you could say Mickey and Minnie were really married!

In 2009 Bret Iwan took over the voice work for Mickey. Even though he is the main voice actor for Mickey Chris Diamantopoulos does the voice of Mickey for the 2013 Mickey Mouse animated series.

Here are some quotes of Walt Disney about Mickey Mouse.

“The life and ventures of Mickey Mouse have been closely bound up with my own personal and professional life. It is understandable that I should have sentimental attachment for the little personage who played so big a part in the course of Disney Productions and has been so happily accepted as an amusing friend where films are shown around the world. He still speaks for me and I still speak for him.”

“All we ever intended for him or expected of him was that he should continue to make people everywhere chuckle with him and at him. We didn’t burden him with any social symbolism, we made him no mouthpiece for frustrations or harsh satire. Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purpose of laughter.

“I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing - -

that it was all started by a mouse.”

We can’t forget Minnie Mouse!!! She first appeared in Plane Crazy and then was with her sweety in Steamboat Willie!

So Happy Birthday Mickey & Minnie Mouse!!! May you continue to live to make us laugh!!!

To find out more about how Mickey was created see if you can find the documentary by Leslie Iwerks (Ub’s Granddaughter) called, “The Hand Behind the Mouse.”

My Christmas book, “An Angel Remembers 25 Voices of Christmas” is available!!

This is a collection of 26 short Christmas stories that together bring the amazing events of Christ’s birth alive. It is my hope that this will help encourage families to spend 10-15 minutes a day together during the busy holiday season remembering the true reason for the season.

You can find it for ALL eReader formats and PDF at:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94784

For your Nook the link is:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-angel-remembers-25-voices-of-christmas-carolyn-hoagland/1106912931?ean=2940032802624

It is also available at the iTunes book store and many other ebook seller sites.

The only big site not carrying my book is Amazon.

You can download a Kindle version from Smashwords.com