Saw The Princess and the Frog this weekend.  Although it's extremely formulaic, fully embracing the Disney animated princess fairytale template (with light influential sprinklings of Shrek 2), it is a splendid film, gorgeously animated, and filled with colorfully likeable characters.  The cast is absolutely pitch-perfect, especially Anika Rose as Tiana and Keith David as the villainous Shadow Man.  Jim Cummings also turns in a particularly memorable performance as Ray.

It's Randy Newman's score, though, that really elevates the film, offering its own distinguished flavor.  His naturally upbeat style is a perfect pairing for the jazzy, big Broadway production numbers, and totally sells the 1920s New Orleans setting.  "When We're Human" and "Friends On The Other Side" are definite standouts -- as is the showstopping "Down In New Orleans", played up to this wonderful montage.

Hand-drawn animation, how I've missed you.  I'm kicking myself for missing Ponyo this year (will be picking up the home release the first day it hits in March), but Princess and the Frog is a stunning return to form by the house that Mickey built.

Randy Newman singing about what he sees...

Angela,

What is your take on the critique that Tiana kissing the frog so that she can get money for her restaurant is metaphor for prostitution?

I've read this critical statement on a variety of publications. Everyone is so happy about the story HAVING a black princess, but I'm concerned about how the writers choose to portray and design the protagonist.

I have not seen the film yet. I understand the music is wonderful, and I'm just happy to see 2D animation again. But I do have my concerns about the plot.

Ramza

Wow, I hadn't even heard of that one until now.  Not to get into spoilers, but the idea that Tiana, of all characters, would dip into prostitution is absurd.  From the get-go, they establish two crucial aspects about her character.  The first is that, out of disgust, she makes a self-imposed promise that she would never, ever kiss a frog -- even for the prospect of a 'lived happily ever after prince', or, in this case, riches.  The second and more important point is that they firmly establish her as a good, honest worker.  Truth be told, you may be hard-pressed to find a more devoted-to-work princess in all of Disney lore.

When it comes to the pivotal moment, I do believe the kiss hinges on something of a desperate necessity.  At that point, she's at risk of losing her restaurant, and the prince does make the promise of a cash reward -- but given what we know about her character, it's a reluctant compromise that, quite obviously, she regrets for much of the rest of the film.

Well yeah. It's a metaphor. Of course Tiana wouldn't actually be a prostitute. The idea is that other women in *desperate situations* have made the same compromise Tiana has, but on a grander scale (sex instead of frog-kissin'). And they too regret it for the rest of their lives.

I believe the CS Monitor and a few other editorials out there have made the comparison. One cannot properly separate New Orleans (particularly, the beginning of the jazz era in New Orleans) from rampant prostitution. Not if you care to know the history.

Thta said, maybe people who know their history are just reading too much into a Disney film.

I can see where they're coming from, but I think what you said here is far more likely. Once you start analyzing at that level of detail you can make almost any BS claim. I know because I've had to do it before. XD I guess you just can't keep everyone happy. I wonder what those people think of the original frog prince story. I mean, the premise itself isn't that much different...

Anyway, I saw this with my sister and it was fantastic! Visually it was a wonderful return to form for Disney's traditional animation. The backgrounds were detailed and lovely, good use of color and light, fluid movement, etc. No complaints at all. The story is what one would expect from Disney and that's fine with me. There were some good characters, the story kept me engaged (not bad considering it's a kids / family film), and there were actually a couple surprises along the way too.

My only complaint was the music. I enjoy Randy Newman as a composer and he does some good work on this film. It didn't quite feel like it was at the same level of quality as past Disney films though. To be fair, it's hard to top the Menken / Ashman team and Randy really did do a good job. "Almost There" and "Dig a Little Deeper" stood out as some of my favorites and the score was good too.

I'd give the film a solid 4 out of 5. Definitely worth seeing, but I hope that this isn't a one time affair. We need some more classic Disney and I'll be eagerly awaiting their next endeavor.

Curious, Boco.  Have you seen Enchanted?  What did you think of the collaborative effort between Menken and Stephen Schwartz?

That's sort of an interesting case. I've seen the film and I own the soundtrack, but it's sort of a hit and miss affair. There are some songs that I really enjoyed and others that didn't come together as well for me. And the soundtrack itself seemed to be lacking some of the magic found in previous Menken / Schwartz collaborations.

I'd say Newman's The Princess and the Frog is at least on par with Enchanted. Perhaps a little bit better. I'm not so good at ranking soundtracks. :3

I saw the movie, and although it was not bad, it was not good either.

The Good: I liked the "princess" and the prince. They were pretty good. The hand drawn animation was beautiful. I liked the beginning of the movie and the premise.

The Bad: There was still a lot of computer animation! OK, maybe I'm being picky here (it's my right), but there was a LOT of computer animated "effects"! Disney said all the characters and backgrounds were hand drawn (they looked beautiful), and the only thing that would be computer generated would be the effects. Well, there sure were a LOT of effects in that film! Everything from fireworks, to fireflies, to glass bottles... I thought it clashed with classic art of the film. Nope, I didn't like that at all. Why couldn't they just have a FULLY animated film?

The music... well, it certainly wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either. In fact, I don't remember a single song from that film. On the other hand, films like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland...ect... all have memorable songs. Of course, this is a matter of personal opinion, but that's my opinion.

Bigger Complaint: I wasn't a fan of the supporting cast. I thought there were simply too many of them, and I didn't feel like they had such great personalities. There was the alligator, the firefly, the debutante, the debutante's father, Tiana's mother, Tiana's father, the prince's butler... and overall I felt like there was very little character development.

Anyway, my date liked it, and she was cute, so it wasn't all bad
I would recommend it to little kids or to those going on dates, but in general, it's mediocre at best. I do however hope Disney will continue with hand drawn and maybe eventually return to a FULLY animated movie with NO computer generated anything! Is that possible?

cheers,

-avatar!

Saw the movie and found it very enjoyable, though admittedly part of that was just the joy at seeing hand-drawn animation on the big screen again.

Keith David can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. He turned in a great performance as Dr. Facilier and "Friends on the Other Side" is now my second-favorite villain song. He was equal parts fearsome and charming; everything a great villain needs to be. Mame Odie served as a nice counterpoint, cliche as she may have been. I actually would've liked to have seen more of her than we got.

Naveen was a unique take on the traditional prince. Princes in Disney movies tend to be fairly nondescript, so I thought it was a bold move to give him negative character traits. Tiana was also a refreshing change of pace, though I found the "hard-working" aspect of her character to be too excessive, as if they were trying too hard to make up for 70+ years of damsels in distress. It permeated some of the lyrics, and I ended up cringing at some of the cliches.

I agree that the supporting cast was a little superfluous. Ray was fine and added some emotional punch, but Louis and Lawrence weren't too necessary. And that whole hillbilly scene was just silly.

I thought the songs were mostly fantastic myself, and I'm one of those people who's grown a little tired of Randy Newman. "Down in New Orleans" was quintessential Newman and did a great job at setting up the atmosphere. I especially loved the up-tempo final reprise. "Friends on the Other Side" and "Dig a Little Deeper" were the other highlights for me. I'm still surprised they gave the firefly the love song, though.

There were young children, both a row ahead and two seats next to me, who were crying during the song.  Admittedly, it is a scene with very powerful images and overtones.

I am curious as to what your numero uno villain song is.  I want to guess The Lion's King's "Be Prepared"..... because that one's my fave.

Without doubt, the best villain song is Poor Unfortunate Souls from the Little Mermaid!

I was going to say, as soon as I saw "villain song" mentioned I immediately thought of "Poor Unfortunate Souls." The sad but still sort of cool thing is I actually have the cassette of that soundtrack hanging around my house.

For the unenlightened, a cassette tape is... j/k

"Be Prepared" and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" are certainly on my top 10 list, but the top spot easily goes to "The Mob Song" from Beauty & The Beast. The rhyme scheme is brilliant, and it has one of my favorite lines ever: "Screw your courage to the sticking place." Oh, and I love a good angry mob.

As far as I'm concerned, if the kids aren't crying then the villain isn't any good.

Just a heads-up that 7digital currently has the soundtrack album as 320k MP3s on sale for $4.
http://us.7digital.com/artists/various- … he-frog-1/

Terrific price for a terrific soundtrack.

I wish there was a site offering the French release of the score for download.  I just have to have Au bout du rêve and La Nouvelle-Orléans.

After perusing the Blu-ray release all week, a fit of passion fueled me to take on the lofty task of culling and recording all the songs from the four featured language tracks.  This includes English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese - and at nine songs per language (Ne-Yo's "Never Knew I Needed" is only featured in English), that totals out to 36 songs.  Interestingly enough, the officially released French album (which I had referenced in the post above) had completely new performances that's different from the French language track originally featured in the movie, so I threw it onto the following download as well.  With Never Knew I Needed, that brings the track total up to 46.

Recording was done via standard stereo line-in (not the highest-grade setup for accurately capturing Blu-ray audio, I'm aware), and encoded at 48,000hz/VBR-0.  I did my best to compensate for the varying degrees of audio quality differences between the four tracks, but there are still some obvious contrasts between the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English track and the Dolby Digital 5.1 French, Spanish, and Portuguese ones.  The French album songs naturally sound the cleanest, since it was ripped straight from CD.

Two links, a Megaupload and a Sendspace one.  Enjoy..... because you really haven't experienced The Princess And The Frog until you've heard Médico Facilier in all his evil Español-infused glory. :)