Two for One: Sneak Peek at Miyazaki and the Musker/Clements team

Warning: The following song is infectious and cause the consistent humming of it for the next twenty-four hours.

Check out the sweet Japanese montage for Ponyo on the Cliff. This is the next Hayao Miyazaki feature film to come after Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). Hopefully the story of a fish princess longing to be human with the help of a five-year-old boy will be much more compelling than his previous effort. I am expecting to be blown away from the man who has made Spirited Away (2002), quite possibly the best animated feature of this decade. For the record, Brad Bird’s The Incredibles (2003) is a nose behind.

While I’m on the upcoming animated beat, here’s the trailer for Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. Love the princess! Feel the frog’s pain! But I’m not sold on the firefly. Even the New Orleans French Quarter setting is inspired. The film reunites directors Ron Clements and John Musker since their work on Hercules, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and the criminally underrated classic The Great Mouse Detective. The princess will be voiced by the very fine Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls, 2006). The reliable John Goodman (Barton Fink, 1991) will also do a voice.

After four years, this is the first traditionally hand-drawn animated feature film released by Disney since Home on the Range (Anyone remember it? Anyone?). Thank the 2D-gods that John Lasseter has been instrumental in getting the Mickey Corporation to reconsider forgoing the animation method that has been the backbone of their industry for over eighty years. Hopefully this will be Disney’s return to form right after all of that magic dust Pixar has been sprinkling over it. “Sorry, Tink!”