DVDs In Brief: March 17, 2010
Twilight mania has become so pervasive that even people who’ve never read Stephenie Meyer’s books or watched the two (so far) movie adaptations may feel like they’re nonetheless hip-deep in the romance between a mopey teen (Kristen Stewart) and a broody vampire (Robert Pattinson). And the warmed-over Romeo And Juliet clichés just heighten that sensation. At least there’s something in movie No. 2, The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit) that most people won’t have already seen: the spectacle of Stewart woodenly doing dangerous things in order to provoke hallucinations of the departed Pattinson dourly scolding her…
After an ill-conceived move away from traditional cel animation and then an abrupt move back, Disney had a lot to prove with The Princess And The Frog. And the company largely does. The story’s beats are sigh-inducingly familiar, featuring a mismatched couple who hate each other but come to love each other, and a bad guy whose motivations don’t seem any more complicated than “Be bad!” But the animation is lovely and ambitiously rendered, and Randy Newman’s bouncy, New Orleans-inspired score (including two Oscar-nominated songs) is actually the kind that can be hummed on the way out of the theater…