Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part Three-The Emotional Opening Number)

The thing about comparing the music of Frozen to other animated music features is that it was not as emotionally touching and charming as many songs I have seen at the beginning of these films.  "Part of Your World" also falls into this category; and technically Hercules leads off with the big showstopping Gospel Truth lady singers, but "Go the Distance" is our main character's big song moment.  "Belle" not only gives us her sweet backstory, but also an introduction to some of the other characters, notebly Gaston and his buffoon sidekick.  And my top favorite for lead off numbers is "Deliver Us" from The Prince of Egypt.  I recently rewatched this (it's been a while) and got the soundtrack to replace my worn out one.  The opening song is the definition of epic.  Hugely epic.  Of course, Frozen could have taken a cue from it; if you want epic and big music sound and emotion, like Wicked (is this not what they were going for?), you get Steven Schwartz and Hans Zimmer.  But Frozen has poppy little tweenage girl sound, and maybe they were going for that.  I do not know. 

Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part Two-The Little Mermaid)

I was 5 when The Little Mermaid came out and I LOVED it! I swam, she's a mermaid and the music is phenom so it made sense at the time that I had the soundtrack (back when CDs were new and all the rage) and the Ariel doll and all of the toys.  The big songs from this one hold up very nicely over the years, even her mushy song.  The best one though is definitely Ursala's though. She is a kick ass villain with a bad ass song.

Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part One)

So going through YouTube, I was able to find many of the musical clips I would categorize as my top classic animated hits.  "Let It Go" from Frozen is an easy listening addition to this list, however, it would not be my top song or even top five/ten.  It is very processed and while I like the not so fraught-y nature of it (definitely not a poop-song), it is quite pop-licious and feels very generic.  Idina Menzel rocks, there is no question; she brings it hard in Wicked and Rent, she just isn't given memorable music to utilize her awesome voice. 

Anyways, this may take a few posts to get them all here.  I will try to break them up into groups.  They are not just Disney, because that would be a huge mistake.  There are so many other musical animated features and tidbits out there.  Starting with two here from Ferngully. Not the most obvious choice for musical numbers, but Toxic Love really captures the awfulness and yet coolness of Hexus, and the Batty Rap paves the way for the Genie in Aladdin. 

As for Aladdin, the best songs are not the cheesy love-fest that is the pop duet although it is pretty and has key changes that make my heart happy.  One jump is poppin' and both the Genie's songs are the top tracks when I am making a must listen to playlist.

How I felt about Frozen

So we went to finally see Frozen and I was all pumped up for how awesome and wonderful and musically fresh it was claimed to be with its sweet neoDisney stance of sisterhood and lady-power and "you don't need a man" (yet Anna did some, didn't she, she needed Christoff to help her get up the mountain; wouldn't it have been fresher if it had been a lady ice peddler who helped the two princesses and the possibility of romantic love was taken out of the rescue equation?).  Speaking of love, I just wasn't sold; the amount of true love between Christoff and Anna that I was supposed to believe by the end but I didn't feel/get it.  And even between Anna and Elsa; yes they are sisters who have spent years not speaking to each other.  And why on earth are we telling Anna's story?  I read this question in a few places; I am not really interested in how it's hard to be the sister no one will play with.  I want to know more about the emotional baggage that Elsa deals with having uncontrollable powers that keep her isolated from those she loves and cares for in fear she will kill them.  We just don't get that deep with any of them.  It was just supposed to be emotionally magical and it fell very flat and shallow for me. 

Graphically it was pretty in moments and blurry in others, almost like rushed in a sci-fy movie, don't see how we didn't clean this up quite right kind of way.  This is not my area of movie watching expertise and yes, Sven the reindeer looked so fuzzy and "real" (um, we've been before too here with Sully's fur in Monsters, Inc), but it all seemed just not enough.

Which brings me to the music.  I held off listening to any of this until I could see it in context.  I was enlightened of its fabulousness and excited that others had rated it music better than Tangled which I highly enjoy.  With the double sisters duets, however, the movie had the musical feel of Wicked Light, or wannabe Wicked without being convincing.  Do You Want to Build a Snowman was cute and sweet.  Most of the songs I have walked away from not really remembering; the duet between Hans and Anna, Anna and Elsa's open the door song, the weird tribal song that bookended the movie (seriously, was that a throwaway track from The Lion King?), Olaf's second act opener, the troll song (worst!).  I give the women credit, they are fabulous singers!  You could give Idina Menzel "Mary had a little lamb" and she is going to make it sound as epic as a Florence and the Machine number.  "Let It Go" is basic pop fluffiness with a kick ass lady singer.  I have to say, I listened to it while running twice today.  It has a nice slow tinkly beginning, and soaring lady vocals that make me want to fly when I move my legs.  The instrumental music was fine, non memorable honestly.  Maybe this music will grow over time, but it didn't hit me in a sweet spot and while "Let It Go" is perfectly pretty and driving, it falls quite short of my top animated movie song favorites (I am compiling a list, when I have the energy to battle putting many videos into blogger, I will get them up). 

 

Happy 30 months and 2 days

Not after a while, though. More like right now and always. 

Looking ahead

Getting ready for talking about equality and fairness and diversity with the little folks this week. Happy MLK jr. Day (just a bit early-not that we couldn't use his spirit on a more regular basis).

January's Race and Punching Ice in its Stupid Icy Face!

Yes, don't those look snazzy and fierce?  Like they will karate chop ice right in its sneery icy face!  Let's hope so.  After not running because of the powdery devil I figured it was really time to not give up but get a set of these.  It was hard to tell on the box as it is also in these pictures, but those little triangles on the corners of the orange polygon, are metal spikes.  Meant to puncture and punish the snow and keep me from sliding to my utter demise on the ice.  Also purchased were a set of UA cold gear running gloves.  I have given up on finding the matching Nike one that has had a sad mate for over two years (now that I have made the purchase, the elves are sure to sneak it back with its partner-oh well, backups!).  They make exciting cold piercing sounds (the sound effects that I generally make up that don't seem to make my  husband wonder why he entered into this marital union) that battle the chilling temperatures that seem to have swallowed up January.  Now to get back into it, for reals.  I did also sign up for the first month's race.  There was a choice of either a 5 or 10-miler in Hermitage's Buhl Park.  It is in two weeks and going based on my lackadaisical training through December, I am going with the 5.  I don't have the time/energy to properly train for ten this soon.  It will be a good test of my winter racing endurance.  It will also be my first race in Buhl, which I have heard cool things about the place, so I am pumped to see someplace new.  It's a good feeling to get this going.    

A New Year's quote

So here we go 2014

http://funny2014.com/new-year-quote-2014/

What do I want to do (lots, so much to do, need more time!)? Where can I make improvements (plenty of areas for this) personally, professionally, spiritually, and athletically?

The big thing on my mind is school.  I have some habits I would like to work on and techniques I want to get better at.  I am hopeful to get moving on some more professional development and hopefully enroll and start my Masters this summer.  I just need to buckle down and get it done.  I love the extra learning opportunities; I could be better with making them count.  Sometimes I forget to follow through with my Act 48 hour online business for school, so I need to become more organized at making my PD count.  I am excited (read, EXCITED) to get back to school.  There are some fun, content rich things we will get to do over the next few months.  Sitting in the room the last day before break, listening to one of the girls read a beginners' chapter book was awesome and a real kick in the pants.  My kids are doing really well and I am ready to raise the level of the game to take them further.  I have lots of writing things to give them a boost and a connection to a skill that is not just a necessity but also personally gratifying (I will come back to this later).  I want them to want to do it; I just need to figure out what gets them to that point.  I did some organization of math/reading lesson plans that will hopefully streamline/expedite that process throughout the rest of the year.  I really want to work on the language barrier with my ESL guy and possibly add some of his first language to my repertoire to help this process. 

I am sure there are other school related goals I want to work towards, but I don't have the complete thoughts to articulate them now. 

From Mental Health 5k

Running was a big plus for me this year.  I hit some major milestones, with the marathon and the 5k wins.  I'd like to keep that momentum going in 2014.  Pete gifted me with a SWEET garmin running system.  I got a few tryouts of it in before more snow dumped down (some YAKTRAX might be my next running investment-seriously, I can do cold, but slipping and sliding is the worst).  It is a boss of a tool.  It tracks HR and the GPS tracking map is phenom.  I don't know if I would want to get lost with it, but it had my steps and where I was down to a T.  I think I clocked in about 1,000 miles for 2013; I'd like to do about the same for 2014.  Without a marathon to train for, this will be harder (it is easy to rack up miles with long-run Sundays), but I hope to make it work.  I would like to not just run but learn to be a more effective runner and a better racer.  I am doing a couple halves this year, but my big goal is to race.  I want to do at least one race per month.  I almost averaged this in 2013, but this year I want to get in any length race for every month.  This may require some hunting around to find some, especially when it is this time of year, but I am hopeful.  Also getting back into a tri or two would be nice.  Actually, being more committed to cross training on a more frequent basis would also be a good goal.  I have a sweet bike that needs more miles!

Last year, one of my goals was to read more, and while I successfully did compared to 2012, my reading was sporadic and sometimes not effective.  I have this habit of starting many books and not getting to complete any of them.  I also tend to reread, which is great for somethings, but not in helping me get through more material.  I covered some fiction and nonfiction which is good (I tend to lean towards nonfiction).  This year here is the reading plan; every month I want to do one and one-a nonfiction and a fiction.  I will not allow myself more than these two a month unless I have successfully completed them.  For the fiction, I have been stuck in juvenile work (Hunger Games, Matched trilogy) and I'd like to read something more appropriate and mature.  I am hoping to blog more about book reading like I tried before, but one step at a time.

Speaking of blogging!  I need to write, more than once every couple of months!  When did this get so hard!  I think I got to the point where I didn't think anybody would care what I had to say, so why was I putting the mental energy into putting stuff out there.  Well, dummy (read, talking to self), you write whether or not you have something interesting to say, whether or not people will care about it.  I had this notion once upon a time; I just let my writing muscles atrophy and getting them back into shape has been a mediocre effort at best.  So the writing plan (do you see I am big on plans this year?) is to set aside some time yet unknown once a week to write about something/anything.  I would like to write about what I am reading (more importantly, what I am getting out of it), or how school things are going, or what fashion trends I liked (this one is a must-I have tons of magazines that I need to go through, and this would give me a reason to commit to it), anything.  I just need to do this at least every week. 

Most importantly, I'd like to see and talk to my family more often.  I am terrible at maintaining relationships-this is a familial issue, we are proximity people and we are best at communication when the folks we want to communicate are right there.  This has made me sad though in that I feel like I sometimes shelter myself from the events/happenings of the people that are closest to me and I miss things, and I miss them.  I can do something about this though, or at least I am going to try to this year!  I would like to get on a regular talk schedule with Sarah and the HI crew, and maybe make more dinner or game dates with Tom and the Franklin crew.  It was too easy to let this relationship maintanance go by the wayside; now that job things are stable-ish (teaching-do we ever feel comfortable-or is this just me?), I have no excuses for being a slacker here.  Just get it done, Amanda Rose!

I think that about covers it. Maybe some other minor things (finding a local dentist and getting back into a regular routine with them; taking a multivitamin; continue to try to cook things-maybe), but for the most part, it looks like I have a pretty full plate of business ahead for me.

Oh!  I almost forgot!  Finish that effing quilt for your nephew in time for him to take it to college!  This quilt will be the death of me.