Frozen-Hot Take

-


 Frozen ( 2013 US) Its #FemaleFilmmakerFriday and todays entry is this Billion (with a capital “B”) dollar franchise from Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck. A Princess was born with super powers she has a hard time controlling. This is not a hidden gem that got overlooked. A good chunk of the planet has seen this film so I won’t go into what its about or if its any good. You probably have a good idea by now if you like it or not. However, what I love to talk about in this film is what Lee & Co didn’t say. I originally saw this in theaters with my daughter like every other parent. On the way home we had so many unanswered questions. Why isn’t Elsa a card carrying member of the X-men. She created sentient ice creatures. She had some serious powers going on. How would a queen like this shift the balance of power in Europe and other places. The implication is that it took place in the mid 19th century. The kingdom would not need an army just round the clock guards on Elsa and food tasters. No other kingdom would dare mess with a queen who could send an army of Ice Monsters to invade or just send them into eternal winter. That’s a whole lot of political power and would have likely translated to wealth for her people. Does her powers go so far as the Southern Kingdoms or was that too much for her. Was there a Dragon Queen in the South worried that winter is coming? If she had a long life she would likely have had an impact on WWI. She seems like the type of queen who would intervene and put a stop to hostilities. She could have sent her army of ice giants to destroy all weapons and force all sides to negotiate a peace treaty, or else. No WWI, there may not have been WWII. Then what? Are her children also mutants? Would there have been a war in Ukraine? So many question. I can imagine that Elsa’s military advisors would recommend making an example of the incursion from Weasleton and invade them with ice monsters. You know, to send a message to anyone else to think twice before trying to take over her realm. Would U.S envoys have tried to get her to intervene in the Civil War? I could see her becoming a civil rights activists showing up to free slaves on ice bears. I really could go on. I dare you to rewatch with all of this in mind. Find it on Disney Plus or for rent on most streaming. If you are a girl parent you likely already have it and have seen it at least 30 times.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bound- Noir Hot Take

-
Image
  Bound (1996 US) Todays second entry for #FemaleFilmmakerFriday is this Wachowski sisters neo-noir masterpiece. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon concoct a scheme to steal money from Tilly's mob boyfriend. Tilly rocks as the femme fatale. It just felt like she was loving this role. Gershon plays the sap and she knocks it out if the park. It’s really hard to shoot noir style in color. The Wachowskis pulled it off with muted color production design and black to get the proper contrast and shadow. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of having bright colors and crushed blacks to get the contrast. Happy colors don't scream noir. It screams Teletubbies. Wikipedia says the budget was 6 million but I heard 3. Why is that important? Lower budgets are really going to cut down on so many things including locations. There was limited locations in this. Either way audiences liked it and it made money at the Box Office. It’s on Tubi and Pluto for free and rentable on other streaming pl
Read more

Shrek-Hot Take

-
Image
 Shrek (2001 US) Its #FemaleFimmakerFriday and today's entry is this now classic animated kids film directed by Vicky Jenson and Andrew Adamson. An Ogre sets upon rescuing the princess from a tower guarded by a dragon. If you are interested in going to see Dungeons and Dragons you will find there is a similarity to Shrek with D&D being just a bit more mature and live action. Jenson was not the first choice of director in charge of story. Kelly Asbury was first choice but departed to work on another film. Jenson and Adamson had their work cut out for them as a lot was going wrong including their star Chris Farley had passed away. Jenson was in charge of story and she was tasked with finding the right tone and story for the film. She did great and the film won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. You can clearly see her influence on the film: for instance the princess does not really need rescuing. When I first saw that I was like, "wow! I didn't know they could do that?&
Read more

Brick-Noir Hot Take

-
Image
  Brick (2005) This Neo-noir stars Joseph Gordon Levitt and was written and directed by then first time feature filmmaker Rian Johnson (Star Wars, Knives Out) and had a whopping budget of 450k (I have also heard 800k). This film was basically a Chandler story... in high school and Levitt was Marlowe. If you think that sounds weird. Well it is kind of but Johnson and Levitt made it work. Getting traditionally noir shots is hard and audiences and fans know their stuff. What I loved about this gem is that Johnson adds to the vocabulary of noir or neo-noir. How? New ways to get high contrast, deep shadow and the incongruent lines of German Expressionism. Johnson did his absolute best to get those lovely noir shots and he did quite often and with a budget of 450k. That's really hard. Johnson is one of my favorite directors. He just keeps surprising me. Like many low budget films this was all about natural light and locations. worth a watch. Rentable on most streaming.
Read more