Lately I’ve been hearing some great buzz over a certain film that opened this month. A film that could, yes, go on to receive an award of some sort, perhaps even an Oscar. And that movie is Sherlock Holmes.

Think about it, are you excited by anything new that opens in theaters this weekend? (I am for Invictus, but to be honest I’m the only one among my group of friends who’s the least bit interested in Eastwood’s latest.) If you live in a major urban area like New York City or Los Angeles than you’ve probably seen some billboards around with the words The Princess and the Frog stapled across it, but I’m talking from the perspective of every other state district.

I know there’s an audience that Frog is aiming for and that audience probably doesn’t include me. This is Disney’s return to 2D animation, though I’m a sucker for a good cartoon every once in a while. On December 11^th Princess expands from two theaters to, well, everywhere else in America.   Commercials are finally beginning to air on television. To my surprise, I was witness to the premiere of the first trailer for The Princess and the Frog back on May 9^th, and I was pretty stoked. However seeing some of the ads before something like Parks and Recreation…this just isn’t appealing to me.

So the princess is African-American (and is Disney’s first African-American princess). Who cares? I could go on a whole race thing here (one that includes my issues with our executive chief) but I won’t; that’s not my problem with this movie. Now I haven’t seen the film yet, and don’t get me wrong I desperately want to, but judging by the promos this feels a bit childish and tired. There’s a fat alligator who likes to play the trumpet and a lightning bug who’s main reason for being involved in all of this is for a few (or many) fart jokes.  I have seen this movie before!

The smartest move that Disney has made in recent years was teaming with Pixar. Pixar movies are magical without having to push anything on you, and their marketing campaigns aren’t centered on race or ethics or morals or even star power like DreamWorks’ animated films are. Look at Up; hardly anybody recognized that the adorable scout Russell was Asian! What I’m trying to say here is not that Disney is full of immature, racist hot-heads who make movies just to win awards for them. No, what I’m saying is that just because a movie uses hand-drawn animation, and that’s rare with cinema in this day and age, that doesn’t make it a good movie.

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