Anika Noni Rose

TV Review: A&E’s ‘Bag of Bones’ Feels Empty

PatrickMcD — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:12:06 -0500

CHICAGO – A&E’s “Bag of Bones” is a mess. There are elements that work but a source material that doesn’t exactly translate to the mini-series form along with a mediocre script by Matt Venne and generic direction by Mick Garris add up to an experience that’s disjointed and inconsistent. There was a time when a Stephen King mini-series was an event – “The Stand,” “It,” even “Storm of the Century” – but what’s so disappointing about “Bag of Bones” is how inconsequential the whole thing feels.

Television Rating: 2.0/5.0

King’s “Bag of Bones” trods well-worn ground for the author. Once again, the protagonist is a writer, creative block plays a part, and, of course, there must be ghosts. The book has its moments but is also overly familiar for fans of the writer’s best work. What was most interesting about the novel was not the King cliches that were being trotted out once again but the feeling that the writer was getting even more personal, crafting a story not about someone else but using his own writer’s block as a jumping off point. The result was a novel that sometimes felt blocked itself, one that moved haphazardly at times but was also sometimes a fascinating look into the mind of its author.

Bag of Bones
Photo credit: A and E

As you might imagine, writer’s block is pretty hard to convey to cinema or TV. Venne & Garris get the external elements of “Bag of Bones” – they get big scares, nightmarish visions, and loud music beats to make you jump on a cold Sunday night. They don’t, at ALL, get the internal ones. The book was built around the inner workings, dreams, and loss of a man. It wasn’t a traditional ghost story, and yet Venne & Garris seem bored when they’re not allowed to play with their bag of haunted house tricks. The characters of “Bag of Bones” get lost under the emphasis on increasingly intense dream sequences. Believe it or not, another man’s nightmare aren’t that scary for a viewer. King never really intended them to be – “Bag of Bones” is not at all a book meant to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up – but that’s all the adaptation focuses on.

Bag of Bones
Photo credit: A and E

Pierce Brosnan carries much of the weight of the mini-series as its lead, celebrated author Mike Noonan. In the book, his wife Jo (Annabeth Gish) died of an aneurysm but the feeling that Garris & company wanted to “pump up” the book starts early as she’s instead hit by a speeding bus in the TV version. Mike holds the dying Jo in his arms and later learns that Jo was pregnant when she died. This revelation throws Mike as he’s been told he can’t have children and so he wonders if his wife was seeing someone on the side, perhaps when she went to restore that creepy old house on Dark Score Lake. After dreaming of the house a few times, Mike decides to move there for a bit, work on his book, and ask the locals if Jo ever had a male companion at the local diner.

While staving off the exhaustion that must come with increasingly intense nightmares, Mike stumbles into the life of Mattie Devore (Melissa George), a single mother whose husband went crazy, as many around the lake seem to do. Mattie’s father-in-law (William Schallert) has been slandering the mother of his granddaughter in an effort to get the girl (Caitlin Carmichael) for himself. Meanwhile, Mike has detailed visions of a blues singer named Sara (Anika Noni Rose), whose story may offer insight into his current dilemmas.

Brosnan is good here, proving himself a consistently engaging dramatic lead yet again. He still doesn’t quite get the credit deserved outside of James Bond and Remington Steele. The fact is that he’s always interesting and was a good choice for this material. The rest of the cast is a bit less memorable, although I’ve always liked George and wish she could find the right weekly TV vehicle for her talents. Jason Priestley also delivers in a few scenes, as does the always-good Matt Frewer. Gish and Rose feel a bit wasted.

“Bag of Bones” is the kind of piece cluttered with enough plot — Sara’s story, Mattie’s story, Mike & Jo’s story, the lake – that it probably couldn’t have been squeezed into one night merely because of its abundance of arcs but it also doesn’t have enough atmosphere to maintain what is ultimately a three-hour running time. It’s bloated with jump cuts, repetitive dreams, and some weak dialogue. Venne and Garris simply don’t have the delicate touch it takes to bring a piece like this one, a story free of massive set pieces like “The Stand” or “It,” to the screen. The result is a bag that’s filled with characters and plot arcs but nothing that really matters in the end.

“Bag of Bones” stars Pierce Brosnan, Melissa George, Annabeth Gish, William Schallert, Caitlin Carmichael, Jason Priestley, Matt Frewer, and Anika Noni Rose. It was adapted from a book by Stephen King by Matt Venne and directed by Mick Garris. It plays on A&E on Sunday, December 11th, 2011 and Monday, December 12th, 2011 at 8pm CST both nights.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: Tyler Perry’s ‘For Colored Girls’ Deserves Another Look

BrianTT — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:37:18 -0500

CHICAGO – Tyler Perry must have a bit of internal conflict. On one hand, he gets critically slammed for films that display little creative effort at all like “Madea Goes to Jail” or “Why Did I Get Married Too?” but those movies make money. Then he tries to do something clearly considered artistic with his adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” now truncated to simply “For Colored Girls” and recently available on Blu-ray and DVD, and it makes less than most of the films he’s directed.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

The movie is deeply flawed although certainly no more so than most of Perry’s hits. In many ways, it’s his most accomplished effort directorially and it features some very strong performances that play off the inherent power of the source. I can’t traditionally recommend the film but there’s enough that works here to feel bad that it was as summarily ignored as it was in theaters. Audiences seem likely to find it on DVD.

For Colored Girls
Photo credit: Lionsgate

The stage version of Shange’s choreopoem consisted of nothing more than monologues or poems – stories, life lessons, and confessions of a group of women finding their voices through expression. Perry gets caught in the gray areas between poetry, theater, and film in his efforts to expand the poem into something more cinematic. A 2010 film adaptation of a 1974 performed poem would have been a challenge for our best filmmakers and proved too much of one for Mr. Perry, but I certainly appreciate the effort more than seeing just another Madea sequel.

For Colored Girls
Photo credit: Lionsgate

This version of “For Colored Girls” essentially tells nine interconnected stories featuring Crystal (Kimberly Elise), Jo (Janet Jackson), Juanita (Loretta Devine), Tangie (Thandie Newton), Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose), Kelly (Kerry Washington), Nyla (Tessa Thompson), Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), and Alice (Whoopi Goldberg). They all have direct relations or minimal degrees of separation. For example, Alice is the mother of Nyla, who learns dance from Yasmine and is sisters with Tangie, who lives across the hall from Crystal, who is visited by Kelly.

The characters of “For Colored Girls” don’t just come with connections but also include heavy doses of intense, life-changing melodrama. Rarely has one film included more with Perry tackling spousal abuse, rape, murder, addiction, promiscuity, infidelity, unplanned pregnancy, and more. At times, the piece merely falls victim to the weight of the intensity of having so many subplots.

I’m not a fan of what a few of the actresses brought to “For Colored Girls” (Golberg, Devine, and Jackson strike not one believable note) but they are easily off-set by the cast members who work. In particular, Anika Noni Rose and, even more so, Kimberly Elise deserved discussion when it came to year-end awards for Best Supporting Actress. They’re that good. And they’re reason enough to check out Perry’s most ambitious effort to date. The film may still be far from perfect but at least its controversial director is moving in the right direction and that deserves more attention than has yet been given to “For Colored Girls.”

Special Features:
o DVD Version
o Digital Copy
o “Span of the Rainbow” Original Interactive Documentary
o “Prism of Poems” Enhanced Index
o “Transformation: Movie Magic” Making For Colored Girls
o “Music For Colored Girls”
o Living Portraits & Marketing Archive

‘For Colored Girls’ stars Kimberly Elise, Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Whoopi Goldberg, Omari Hardwick, Michael Ealy, and Hill Harper. It was adapted and directed by Tyler Perry. It was released by Lionsgate on Blu-ray and DVD on February 8th, 2011. It is rated R.

Film Review: Cluttered, Melodramatic ‘For Colored Girls’ Never Comes Together

BrianTT — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:24:47 -0400

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” was a landmark event in 1974, giving voice to a segment of society rarely seen on the stage. It took 34 years for a filmmaker to tackle this remarkable work in film form and Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” retains some of the inherent power of it source and features some strong performances in the process but never finds the narrative cohesion needed to translate it to modern movie audiences.

The stage version of “For Colored Girls” consisted of nothing more than monologues or poems – stories, life lessons, and confessions of a group of women finding their voices through expression. Perry takes several of those expressions and works them into a narrative, adding other characters, relationships, and connective tissue in an effort to make a piece of poetry into a piece of prose. The biggest problem is that it’s not that easy. Poetry works for different reasons than prose. Theater works for different reasons than film. And Perry too often gets caught in the gray area in between the multiple forms that he’s trying to weave into one fabric. It’s too easy to see the seams.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “For Colored Girls” in our reviews section.

More damagingly, the new structure of “For Colored Girls” falls victim to its own structure because Perry is forced to insert another emotionally draining scene nearly every five to ten minutes. Hearing different voices express the pain of their lives has a much different impact on an audience than trying to turn it all into one interconnected story. “For Colored Girls” becomes numbing in its melodrama as we know each moment of pain will be followed by another one a few minutes later. And it lessens the connecting scenes when it feels like they are merely pushing us to another breakdown. There are more shots of tears and snot in “For Colored Girls” than any other movie in a very long time.

“For Colored Girls” basically tells nine interconnected stories – that of Crystal (Kimberly Elise), Jo (Janet Jackson), Juanita (Loretta Devine), Tangie (Thandie Newton), Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose), Kelly (Kerry Washington), Nyla (Tessa Thompson), Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), and Alice (Whoopi Goldberg). All of the characters are related either directly or through minimal degrees of separation. For example, Alice is the mother of Nyla and Tangie, who lives across the hall from Crystal, who works for Jo, and so on. Every character in “For Colored Girls” comes with significant, life-changing drama including abuse, rape, murder, addiction, promiscuity, unplanned pregnancy, and more. There’s enough melodrama in “For Colored Girls” for an entire season of most soap operas.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “For Colored Girls” review.

For Colored Girls
Photo credit: Lionsgate

Slideshow: 19-Image Gallery of ‘For Colored Girls’ Starring Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton

BrianTT — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:13:28 -0400

CHICAGO – This 19-image slideshow contains all of the official press images for the highly-anticipated “For Colored Girls,” starring Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Ealy, Kimberly Elise, Omari Hardwick, Hill Harper, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, Kerry Washington, and Whoopi Goldberg. The film was written and directed by Tyler Perry. It will be released on November 5th, 2010.

Synopsis: “In 1974, Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf” made its stage debut, combining poetry, dance and music, and most significantly, placing the black female experience center stage. In lyrical, honest, angry, funny and tender language, Shange’s “colored girls” evoked the feelings woven into the fabric of black female life in America. Within two years, the play became a Broadway sensation, won an Obie and Tony Award, and would eventually be produced in regional theaters throughout the country. Now, thirty six years later, filmmaker Tyler Perry adapts this landmark work for the big screen, integrating the vivid language of Shange’s poems into a contemporary narrative that explores what it means to be a woman of color - and a woman of any color - in this world.

For Colored Girls weaves together the stories of nine different women – Jo, Tangie, Crystal, Gilda, Kelly, Juanita, Yasmine, Nyla and Alice – as they move into and out of one another’s existences; some are well known to one another, others are as yet strangers. Crises, heartbreaks and crimes will ultimately bring these nine women fully into the same orbit where they will find commonality and understanding. Each will speak her truth as never before. And each will know that she is complete as a human being, glorious and divine in all her colors.”

You can click “Next” and “Previous” to scan through this slideshow or jump directly to individual photos with the captioned links below. All photos courtesy of Lionsgate Pictures and Quantrell Colbert (except for #1, which is credited to Patrick Harbron). All Rights Reserved.

For_Colored_Girls_01: From left to right: Anika Noni Rose (as Yasmine), Kerry Washington (as Kelly), Janet Jackson (as Jo), Kimberly Elise (as Crystal), Phylicia Rashad (as Gilda), Loretta Devine (as Juanita), Tessa Thompson (as Nyla) and Thandie Newton (as Tangie) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_02: Janet Jackson is Jo in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_03: Loretta Devine is Juanita in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_04: Crystal (Kimberly Elise) and Beau Willie (Michael Ealy) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_05: Thandie Newton is Tangie in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_06: Phylicia Rashad is Gilda in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_07: Bill (Khalil Kain) and Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_08: Donald (Hill Harper) and Kelly (Kerry Washington) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_09: Tangie (Thandie Newton, left) and Alice (Whoopi Goldberg, right) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_10: Jo (Janet Jackson) and Carl (Omari Hardwick) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_11: Juanita (Loretta Devine) and Frank (Richard Lawson) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_12: Thandie Newton is Tangie in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_13: Alice (Whoopi Goldberg, left) and Nyla (Tessa Thompson, right) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_14: Kimberly Elise is Crystal in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_15: Kelly (Kerry Washington) and Beau Willie (Michael Ealy) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_16: Crystal (Kimberly Elise, left) and Gilda (Phylicia Rashad, right) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_17: Kelly (Kerry Washington, left), Gilda (Phylicia Rashad, center) and Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose, right) in For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_18: Director/Producer/Screenwriter Tyler Perry with Janet Jackson (as Jo) on the set of For Colored Girls.
For_Colored_Girls_19: Director/Producer/Screenwriter Tyler Perry with Whoopi Goldberg (as Alice) on the set of For Colored Girls.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodCh\icago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Thandie Newton on the Passion of ‘For Colored Girls’

PatrickMcD — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:19:57 -0400

CHICAGO – The expansive and intuitive prose poetry of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” comes to life in Tyler Perry’s film adaptation “For Colored Girls.” Thandie Newton portrays Tangie (color Orange) and saturates the character with a precise truth.

Newton is familiar to audiences as a performer in many notable films. After making a memorable debut in the Australian film “Flirting” (1992), she has been featured in “Jefferson in Paris” (1995), “Beloved” (1998), “Mission Impossible II” (2000), the TV show “ER,” “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006) and as Condoleeza Rice in “W.” (2008). She might be best remembered for her role as Christine in the Oscar winning Best Picture of 2005, “Crash.”

Confronting Themselves: Thandie Newton as Tangie and Whoopi Goldberg as Alice in ‘For Colored Girls’
Photo Credit: Quantell Colbert for © Lionsgate

Thandie Newton was in Chicago recently to promote For Colored Girls. HollywoodChicago got the opportunity to explore the film with her.

HollywoodChicago.com: This film is about the development of survival techniques in the face of soul and life crushing circumstances. What did you admire about Tangie in the way that she handled her situation and the way she eventually survived?

Thandie Newton: I did not admire how she handled her situation at all, which was why I found it hard initially to play her. I couldn’t get into the sympathy vibe at all, and once you start treating people badly, that is your wake-up call. For me, that’s when you need to reflect.

I didn’t know I was going to do the film until a couple days before I started, they had already shooting. But it was also great because there was a feeling of frustration and discomfort that I completely put into the role. The way she behaves is her coping strategy and I do admire her for having any way to cope with her history. You realize in the climatic scene between her and Whoopi [Goldberg, playing her mother in the film] that she hasn’t talked about this with anybody. You wonder if she had been in a form of denial about it herself. She obviously hasn’t dealt with it.

HollywoodChicago.com: What life choices of Tangie stood out as you were formulating the character?

Newton: You see the choices she has made. Money is of great importance. There is some kind of status with how many people she sleeps with and how she’s able to reject men…she takes pride in the fact that she’s not a victim. But of course she is a victim. She’s a complicated unconscious person. I felt it was a real value to play a character that was deep in her unconscious self sabotage.

Everyone is at different stages in their evolution in the movie. Most women have a sense of what their crap is and come to terms with it. Tangie has no idea, but she does at the end, so you do get a sense that there will be some type of catharsis.

HollywoodChicago.com: The title of the film almost sounds esoteric, toward a specific group of women. But in looking at this story as they try to reclaim their lives, do you see this as more of a universal theme?

Newton: Absolutely. For the playwright Ntozake Shange it started with what she knew, when she wrote it in the 1970s, among women studies and African-American studies. I’m English, and I didn’t know anything about the play until [director] Tyler Perry called me, it wasn’t in my cultural bibliography. So when I read it, it had huge relevance, and it resonated for me, even though it’s 2010 and not 1975. I do think it has universal themes, and in terms of the title of the movie, it is ironic, and what the work is really about is exploding stereotypes.

What Ntozake really meant when she called it ‘For Colored Girls…,’ was [the character names] red, orange, yellow, green, brown, white, purple and blue. That’s an invitation to look beyond the stereotype of ‘girls colored.’ We can go as far out as we want…let’s include men, let’s embrace all races and religions. Because frankly which country, which religion or which group doesn’t experience this kind of self sabotage and victimization.

HollywoodChicago.com: Since you were raised in England, what lessons did you have to learn about American racism when you first started working here?

Newton: Racism is racism wherever you go. Perhaps African American issues are so different because it stems from slavery. But it’s important to tackle the issue today, because it is universal. I’m glad that racism has been made illegal, that you can get a criminal record if you involved in any racist victimization.

Specific to the movie and the role, it’s actually quite nice to be in a movie which is specifically about black Americans, and there is no racism in there. It’s about how we effect each other, not about how we’re victimized. It’s a big deal to have a movie about black Americans and not have it be about race.

Secretary of the State: Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice in 2008’s ‘W.’
Photo Credit: Sidney Ray Baldwin for © Lionsgate

HollywoodChicago.com: In performing the character of Condoleeza Rice in ‘W.,’ what did you end up admiring about her and on the opposite spectrum, not admiring about her?

Newton: I didn’t know a huge amount about her, again because I’m from England. When I came to research Condi I had to rely heavily on research, because I didn’t have an opinion about her. I read biographies, watched documentaries, Charlie Rose and YouTube clips in unguarded moments. I got a really interesting portrayal together and what I ended up creating in the characterization, was that I was filtering everything that I researched. I don’t think it’s a particularly flattering portrait, but that’s what I came to believe. I was deeply disappointed that all her potential got channeled into that administration at the critical moment in history, which is still being felt massively today. I just felt deep disappointment and that hasn’t changed.

HollywoodChicago.com: I wanted to talk about your film ‘Beloved.’ What are you recollections of working with Jonathan Demme on that film?

Newton: Amazing. You know sometimes you can do something and realize that afterward it was amazing? I knew at the moment that this was the biggest challenge, the biggest opportunity based on a book that I loved and it was life and career changing. I’m really proud of everything I did in that film. It was as rewarding as it was challenging. So it was extremely rewarding.

That character was super hard to tackle. I’m glad it was in a point in my life where I didn’t have kids and I could really focus and really engage. Everything I had done up until then I used, my degree in Anthropology became powerfully important in how I got to the role. I embodied it utterly and it was very cathartic, too.

I didn’t feel a lot of trust for directors at that point in my life. I was suspicious and cynical about the power dynamic between directors and actors. But Jonathan Demme completely revived my faith, trust and joy in that collaboration.

HollywoodChicago.com: You once said you don’t derive pleasure in life from the movies, but you enjoy it as a career. Since you work rather selectively, how is the business for you today? How do you know when you want to do a project?

Newton: My career has a wonderfully accidental flow to it, I get knocked around but I make the choices as to where I go. There is never a formula to the next one, the more I work with people, the more people I meet and the more films that I make, I’m in the company of like-minded filmmakers. I find myself everything feels right now, this is where I should be. Working with Tyler Perry at this point feels right now.

Because I’m open, there is something very valuable about the fact that I worked twenty years doing this. That is good and bad. I’m not the new ingenue anymore, but I am tried and tested. I think I’ve earned my stripes in that I can’t be pigeonholed, and I’m very grateful for that. Also that I can still change and do different things. For me it’s all about changing. I don’t want to do the same thing, I want life to be different and interesting.

I appreciate learning about different people and situations through the work that I do. I never know what’s going to happen but I am really open. You know how if you are open and just try to be in the moment as possible then things come, as in if I predicted this or wanted it to happen, it exactly what would have happened. I feel like I’m in that place right now.

”For Colored Girls” opens everywhere on November 5th. Featuring Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Tess Thompson, Macy Gray, Michael Ealy, Omari Hardwick and Whoopi Goldberg. Screenplay by Tyler Perry based on a play by Ntozake Shange and directed by Tyler Perry. Rated “R”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: Excellent Release For ‘The Princess and the Frog’

BrianTT — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:15:12 -0400

CHICAGO – The importance of Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” should not be underestimated in that it not only successfully brought back hand-drawn, 2D animation in an era dominated by CGI but it presented an American fairy tale for African-American children and adults everywhere. It’s a lovely little film with a few flaws that are easy to overlook with such a marvelous Blu-ray presentation.

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Only the most cynical critic could look at the video transfer of “The Princess and the Frog” with its bright colors, perfect line detail, and gorgeous backdrops and not marvel at one of the best-looking releases of the year to date. At home, “Princess” is a more beautiful film than I remember it being in theaters and it’s starting to feel like Disney films might actually be a more complete experience on Blu-ray than they are on celluloid.

Thr Princess and the Frog was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 16th, 2010.
Photo credit: Walt Disney Home Video

“The Princess and the Frog” can be considered old-fashioned for those of us raised on the resurgence of Disney in the late ’80s and early ’90s with “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty & the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King”. The film could fit squarely in that award-winning and crowd-pleasing era of Disney even if it’s not quite as good as any of them. It still mostly works and is proof that there can still be animated life without 3D glasses.

Thr Princess and the Frog was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 16th, 2010.
Photo credit: Walt Disney Home Video

As made clear by the excellent special features, directors John Musker and Ron Clements very purposefully set their new fairy tale in New Orleans (almost all such fables are set in European castles) not long before the levees broke. Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is a lovely young lady who was raised with the right set of values by her hard-working parents (Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard). Raised on their lessons on what’s important in life, Tiana works multiple jobs to make her dreams of opening a restaurant of her own come true.

Through a series of events too convoluted to get into here that involve voodoo, mistaken identity, and a lavish party, Tiana ends up kissing a frog in the hope that he will become her prince. Of course, that would be too easy and Tiana is actually turned into a frog herself. The two humans stuck in frog bodies are forced deep into the bayou to try and return to their rightful species. While there, they make friends with a gator and a firefly and, of course, fall in love.

It may be trendsetting in some ways but “The Princess and the Frog” plays with themes familiar to Disney fans of any era — be true to yourself, don’t judge a book by its cover, good deeds will be rewarded, etc. Heck, Ray the firefly could be a cajun version of Jiminy Cricket.

As for negative, the music by Randy Newman is not as memorable as it should be. Having seen the film twice, I still can’t hum a single tune even if the visualizations of his numbers, especially the voodoo ones, are very well-done and interesting. I especially like the first act of the film with the bustling city of New Orleans brought to visual life.

It may not be perfect, but you can something about “The Princess and the Frog” that’s certainly not true of most recent animation in that every single minute of it is enjoyable as it unfolds, even if it’s not as memorable as one would hope later. 2009 was a landmark year for animation and it’s fantastic that a mostly hand-drawn Disney film will be a part of the story when history books write about this great time for the form.

The spectacular Blu-ray release, which also includes a standard DVD and digital copy of the film, contains some interesting deleted scenes still in storyboard form, a silly music video by Ne-Yo, and a great collection of behind-the-scenes featurettes like “The Making of a Princess,” “Conjuring the Villain,” “The Return to Hand-Drawn Animation,” “The Disney Legacy,” “Disney’s Newest Princess,” “Bring Life to Animation,” and more. It even includes a “Princess Portraits” game for the little ones. Disney continues to set the bar for Blu-ray animated releases.

‘The Princess and the Frog’ was released by Walt Disney Home Video and features voice work by Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, and John Goodman. It was written by John Musker, Ron Clements, and Rob Edwards and directed by Musker & Clements. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 16th, 2010. It is rated G.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Anika Noni Rose is Royalty in ‘The Princess and the Frog’

PatrickMcD — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:33:30 -0400

CHICAGO – Once the Walt Disney company confers the title of “Princess” upon one of their characters, in pop culture they live forever. Tiana is the latest title holder, and she is voiced by Anika Noni Rose in “The Princess and the Frog,” now on DVD.

Princess Tiana is an breakthrough, of course, because she is the first African-American princess in Disney animation history. The story is the classic girl meets frog, girl kisses frog, frog turns into a prince but with a spicy twist. Tiana is a girl growing up in early 20th century New Orleans, a town with a melting pot of Cajun, French, Creole, European and African American.

Her family is poor but proud, and Tiana is working several jobs to save for her dream of opening a New Orleans restaurant. Her fate changes with visiting Prince Naveen (voice of Bruno Campos), who gets mixed up with the voodoo culture and is turned into a frog. Encountering Tiana, the prince asks for the magic kiss, but the transformation doesn’t make him human, it turns Tiana into a frog like him. Their adventures to find their human form – and their connection – fuels the narrative in the animated film.

HollywoodChicago.com got the opportunity to interview the voice of Princess Tiana, the Broadway and film veteran Anika Noni Rose. She spoke of the her working relationship with Disney studios and their long tradition of bestowing the princess honor.

HollywoodChicago.com: This film represents the overcoming of obstacles to achieve a dream. What Disney movie did you like as a child that best symbolized these points?

Anika Noni Rose: Sleeping Beauty had a serious obstacle. She was knocked out [laughs]. My first favorite Disney film was ‘Fantasia.’ It was the first one I saw and I remember it vividly. My favorite princess was ‘Cinderella.’ She handled herself with grace and dignity, which is nice. Especially when the people around you are acting like complete and utter fools.

HC: It was pointed out that this was Disney’s first African American princess. In being part of a race whose very culture is defined by ‘firsts,’ what are your feelings in regard to representing this first?

ANR: That’s very interesting because that is not what I was thinking about when I went out for the role. The most wonderful thing is that she will be the first princess for every child of this particular generation. She will never have to be a trailblazer again. For these babies, she is their princess. They’re not thinking, ‘oh she’s brown,’ they’re just thinking she’s smart, she’s Tiana, she’s a princess.

I’ve seen black children in their Tiana gowns, tiaras and slippers just glowing, feeling every bit the princess. I saw an Asian child in the airport in Florida with her gown and her book. I saw these kids in Ireland when I went to the U.K. premiere with their gowns on and they loved Tiana. It says something about the times we live in, and it says something about us as adults. Because child, they don’t care, they love her for who she is. We teach them later to be constricted.

HC: How about being the first green princess?

ANR: [Laughs] I wasn’t, that was Princess Fiona in ‘Shrek.’

HC: [Laughs] You got me there. What is the most difficult aspect of doing voice work in animation. When a day came along when you were not ‘feeling the character,’ what adjustments would you make to overcome that feeling?

ANR: Sometimes we’d be going through the script and there would be an intimate scene that would come up from nowhere. And I would just say why don’t we put this aside for a minute and finish up with the pages we have, and just come back to it. I think that is the best thing to do. If we’ve tried it a few times and feel like we’re still not clicking in that moment. If you can, and you usually can with voiceover work, just hold off on that for a little bit. Come back when you’re not thinking about it so much, and just ease in. If that wasn’t the way, I would suggest starting a few pages ahead, so we can move our way into it.

HC: You beat out several high profile celebrities to win the part of Tiana. At what point in the audition process did you feel you put your stamp on the role, and what element of the audition do you think won the role for you?

ANR: I don’t know [laughs]. I put my stamp on it in the beginning, because it was very clear to me who she was. And I would guess what got me the role was me. I think that when anyone goes into an audition there is something that they bring which is particular and special about them. And hopefully, that is what gets them the role.

HC: The film is a celebration of the glory of old New Orleans in jazz, culture and food. It is in a background way also about the segregation and place in society of the black vs. white struggle. What do you think the Katrina situation represents in that struggle?

ANR: I think it was time for us to see New Orleans in its glory. We watched New Orleans in such a state of devastation for so long. I think we should, because it happened. It is really dangerous to forget that there are people who still don’t have homes, that there were people who were never really taken care of there and people whose land was stolen, because they don’t have their deeds anymore. It is very important that we don’t stop looking at that. But I also think it’s important for them, as survivors, to remember that where they came from is something beautiful and vibrant. It is a place of creation, the birthplace of jazz and many culinary arts. It is a major melting pot in America.

Anika Noni Rose and Patrick McDonald, March 9th, 2010
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

HC: In your three major roles, you’ve played strong and historical African American women. What has Tiana taught you about the 1920s, and what has Caroline [Broadway play ‘Caroline, or Change’] and Lorrell [’Dreamgirls’] taught you about the 1960s?

ANR: I listened to a lot of different music to get ready for The Princess and the Frog. I love jazz and I listened to a lot of really early jazz. There were a lot of female pioneers, and a lot of people I’d never heard of. And it was really cool to be able to do that. I also read up on the history of New Orleans, how it was formed and how jazz came to life.

As far as the 1960s, I didn’t feel that it was too far from where we are now. It still touches us and is a major part of pop culture. On television, there are documentaries on JFK that are so insightful, that it didn’t feel so absolutely foreign. Because of my characters, I may have more information about the era. When I was doing the play, we got copies of the ‘Test of Literacy’ that African Americans had to take to be able to vote in that time and place. It was like ‘are you joking?’ They were specifically made so no one could pass. And that is reminiscent of events surrounding the elections in 2000 and 2004, that disenfranchising is nothing new under the sun, unfortunately.

HC: How do you think Tiana will aid in the image circumstance of African American girls struggling to find their own identity? How does that relate to what you went through as a child?

ANR: I had really good parents in regards to who I am, what I looked like and what life was. I felt really good as me, I was comfortable in my person. My parents were very clear about giving me images that were just like me. As I said earlier, I’ve already seen what Tiana has done. It changes things because it gives an image of beauty that is familiar.

HC: In all of your show business adventures, what was the one moment where you stepped back and thought, ‘how did I get here?’

ANR: I am a Disney princess.

”The Princess and the Frog” is being released on Blu-Ray™ and standard DVD on Tuesday, March 16th. Featuring the voices of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Jennifer Cody, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard and John Goodman. Rated “G”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Disney Magic is Hopping to New Orleans in ‘The Princess and the Frog’

PatrickMcD — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:24:03 -0500

CHICAGO – The feature animation film tradition, invented by and fostered by the Walt Disney Company for close to 70 years, gets another glorious rendition in their latest release, “The Princess and the Frog.”

Rating: 4.5/5.0

In an unexpected twist, given the title, the story is set in the early part of the 20th Century in New Orleans. Tiana (voice of Anika Noni Rose) is a hard-working African-American woman who dreams of opening her own restaurant. She holds down several jobs in a dedication to her father, who never got to live out his similar dreams.

One of her best friends is Charlotte, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist in the Crescent City. She is anticipating the visit of Prince Naveen, playboy royalty from across the ocean. The Prince is only interested in the music and party aspect of old New Orleans, and subsequently falls under the spell of the evil Dr. Facilier. Faster that he can say voodoo, Dr. F turns the Prince into a frog.

Let loose on a costume ball thrown by Charlotte in association with Mardi Gras, the Prince frog convinces a reluctant Tiana – costumed as a princess – to kiss him and break the spell. Fortunately it’s not as simple as that, and the adventure begins.

The tried-and-true Disney formula: adventurous story, romance, wacky sidekicks and broadway style songs are all in place, but they are filtered through this valentine to the glory and promise of old New Orleans back in the pre-WW2 era. The jazz and the mystery are highlighted, through a talking alligator named Louis who just wants to blow his horn and the voodoo of the bad Dr. Facilier and the good Mama Odie. Throw in a cajun firefly named Ray and the scenario is as spicy as jambalaya.

”The Princess and the Frog” opens everywhere December 11th. Featuring the voices of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard and John Goodman. Rated “G”

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Princess and the Frog”