Frozen

The charm attributed to Disney’s latest feature animation is something that has passed me by. Exhibiting little originality in story, art or character, Frozen is nonetheless a double Oscar nominated film. Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen, this is a classic tale of Disney princesses overcoming adversity, finding happiness through hard work, perseverance and love. Following a typical first act tragedy, Princesses Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel) are left alone in their Scandinavian castle. Though formerly very close, Elsa’s ability to create ice and snow from her fingertips is considered a danger to others and she hides away for years until she’s old enough to ascend the throne. Soon disaster strikes and the Kingdom is plunged into icy darkness while Elsa absconds to the mountains to lead a hermit like life. This leaves her younger sister Anna to bring her back and save the Kingdom from ruin.

I have to admit that I found very little to like in Frozen. I was bored by the predictable storyline and disliked the musical theatre style songs. The one ray of sunshine though in this otherwise cold film was the character of Olaf the snowman. One of the best Disney characters in years, everything Olaf says and does is funny or sweet and he brightened up what was otherwise a dull 102 minutes.

Safety Not Guaranteed

The latest film from the Duplass brothers is Safety Not Guaranteed, a film about a sad young magazine intern (Aubrey Plaza) who joins her boss (Jake Johnson) and fellow intern (Karen Soni) in tracking down a man who has left an advert in a local newspaper. The ad reads: “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.” Intrigued and hoping to discover a crazy man worth writing a story about, the three of them set off from Seattle to Ocean View to track the man down. They find Kenneth (Mark Duplass), a paranoid man who believes the Government are following him. Slowly Kenneth begins to accept Darius (Plaza) into his plans but is he crazy or is he on to something?

I was recommended this film by Malone on Movies and had heard very little about it beforehand. Just this morning I saw it was on The Vern's worst of 2012 list which made me worried. What also worried me was my total lack of interest in Jeff Who Lives at Home, a film I really disliked. I have really enjoyed the Duplass’ work in the past though and to be fair this film was written by newcomer Derek Connolly and directed by Colin Trevorrow but retains a lot of the quirky plotting, expert dialogue and unusual situations which has made some of the Duplass’ work great.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Produced by go to comedy guy Judd Apatow and written by lead actor Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a comedy that I was never in much of a rush to see. I vaguely remember it being around in 2008 but it didn’t entice me to the cinema. I’ve since become more familiar with Segel’s films and when someone at work offered to lend me the DVD I thought why not? I’m glad I did borrow it as it’s a remarkable romantic comedy that completely surprised me with its extremely funny script, well drawn characters and endearing storyline.  

Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a fairly successful TV Composer who is in a five year relationship with the actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). One day and almost out of the blue Sarah tells Peter that she is ending their relationship and leaves him. Depressed and heartbroken Peter decides to go away for a few days and heads to Hawaii where, yup, you’ve guessed it, Sarah is also staying with her new rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Feeling even more depressed than he was back in L.A, Peter attempts to at least try and forget Sarah and is helped by the hotel staff which includes the attractive concierge Rachel (Mila Kunis).

Big Miracle

Based on a true story, Big Miracle is about the efforts in 1988 to save three Grey Whales from drowning in frozen seas of Point Barrow, Alaska, one of the most northerly inhabited settlements on Earth. Anchorage based reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is reporting from Barrow when he spots a small gap in sea ice through which three whales are struggling to breathe. Once his story gets national coverage, thousands of reporters, National Guard and Greenpeace activists including Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) descend on Barrow to cover the story and help set the whales free.  

Although billed as a family film, for me this feels like the next generation disaster movie. We’ve already seen a shift from the terrorist style movies of the 90s towards the 2012 environmental type movies and this feels like the next step. Throughout the film I was constantly reminded of Deep Impact and Independence Day. There are several intertwining stories with overlapping characters, families watching the proceedings on TV, reporters from all over the world lined up in that tracking shot which you always get, enemies coming together, several love stories, tragedy to open the third act and surprising international cooperation saving the day. If you substituted the whales for a meteor or alien invasion then you have the exact same disaster film which everyone has seen before.