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    Film Review: ‘Moana’

    Princesses come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, though Disney’s latest addition to its ever-growing gallery of empowered female heroines — moana full movie 123movies (voiced by Hawaiian actress Auli’i Cravalho), the daughter of a Pacific Islands chieftain — doesn’t see herself as a princess per se. Even so, as her friend, the Polynesian demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), is quick to point out, “If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess.” Thankfully, while Moana is going through a pretty serious identity crisis in the new animated movie that bears her name, Walt Disney Animation Studios has resoundingly solved its own, delivering a musical adventure that’s a worthy addition alongside “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” two now-classic cartoons also brought to life by directors John Musker and Ron Clements, whose gift for hand-drawn animation translates beautifully to the realm of CG here.

    More than “Tangled,” more than “Frozen,” “Moana” keeps with the tradition that made Disney the leader in animated fairy and folk tales, and yet, showing a thoroughly modern touch, it’s the first to do so without so much as suggesting a love interest. Sure, there are men in Moana’s life, big hulking men shaped like Samoan rugby players with egos of a similar size: Maui wants mortals to adore him, and Moana’s father enforces a rule that no one from their tribe is allowed to venture beyond the shallow reef that encircles their island, Motunui. But the only force Moana answers to is the ocean itself, which behaves quite unexpectedly in an early scene, pulling back the water’s edge so that she can amble in over her head, peering at the sea life all around her as if staring into a giant aquarium.

    It’s a magical moment, and one that endears us to both Moana and the ocean for the rest of the film. As if witnessing Buzz Aldrin stare out into space as a child, we’re afforded the opportunity to see an explorer make first contact with her destiny, and if there’s any doubt that this is something special, the film front-loads her story with two exceptional original songs: The first conveys her father’s play-it-safe mantra, “Where We Are,” while the other gives voice to Moana’s own horizon-challenging desires, “How Far I’ll Go” — both the result of an inspired collaboration between “Hamilton” composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, longtime Disney music guru Mark Mancina, and Opetaia Foa’i, the lead singer of South Pacific fusion band Te Vaka. Much as “Moana” means “ocean” in Maori, effectively reinforcing the bond between the two, Miranda discovers a near-perfect rhyming connection between “daughter” and “water.”

    These two competing forces are as strong as those that control the tide itself, as her dad demands that she remain on land, while Moana dreams of setting sail on a quest to return to its rightful owner the “heart of Te Fiti,” a carved, jade-like stone stolen years earlier by Maui. You can practically hear the swagger in Johnson’s voice as he plays the vain demigod, the depiction of whom has set off some alarm bells among the culturally oversensitive. Frankly, it’s impressive all the myriad ways in which research trips to the region have informed the film’s design, and though Maui may not look like previous artists’ depictions, he’s a thoroughly original character. Plus, his massive size serves a practical function, supplying the canvas for elaborate full-body tribal tattoos, including a “Mini Maui” silhouette whose Jiminy Cricket-like advice is delivered via pantomime (instead of perching on his shoulder, Maui’s conscience is drawn directly onto his skin).

    For older audiences, especially those who came of age during the era of “Beauty and the Beast,” much of what follows will seem like Disney boilerplate, but that would be understating the shrewd yet significant ways Musker and Clements innovate. There’s the welcome cultural aspect of the female explorer, of course, plus the fact that the film gives its heroine a healthy, more realistically proportioned physique (reminiscent of the Hawaiian characters in “Lilo & Stitch”), rather than forcing Moana into the mold of past princesses.

    Freed of the Barbie body image and over-large Bratz-doll eyes of recent toons, Moana’s expressions seem more consistent with Disney’s classic 2D character form, reflecting all the subtleties of performance possible in hand-drawn animation. At the same time, liberated by the possibilities of CG, the virtual camera is free to swoop and surround the characters in dynamic ways, best reflected in the psychedelic disco thrill of “Shiny,” a musical number performed by Flight of the Conchords singer Jemaine Clement, in the guise of a monster crab. And, of course, there’s the not-insignificant challenge of animating water itself, and though Dory and “The Red Turtle” both swim in the stuff, it has never looked better or boasted more of a personality.

    Set mostly on the open sea, which can be as dull a place as the driest desert, “Moana” never lingers long enough for the energy to stagnate. There’s comic relief in the form of Heihei, a real dodo of a rooster, who’s there to supply laughs and sell toys, but otherwise has no business having left the island. Moana, by contrast, is only just beginning to get in touch with her people’s seafaring ways, but takes to the water so naturally she might as well be half-fish — like her distant cousin, “The Little Mermaid,” or Maui, who retrieves his magic fishhook, but is so rusty at shape-shifting that he manages only a shark tail at points (a somewhat restrained reminder of the Genie in “Aladdin”). In other words, the film gives the directors a chance to update what they do best, much as its more independent-minded princess manages to hold her own against the ultra-macho Maui and other rivals, including an army of coconut pirates and Te Kā, a supernatural beast with a volcanic temper.

  • The Grudge (2020)

    There are some who believe that when someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage a curse is born. The curse becomes an entity, s supernatural force called a Grudge, that’s reborn again and again, passing from one victim to the next in an ever-growing chain of murder and horror.

    Of course, Detective Muldoon doesn’t believe in any of that nonsense. She has enough pain and heartache to deal with in the real world. After her husband died from cancer, she found it difficult enough to simply comfort her young son, relocate to a new town and just try to start over. No need to waste precious energy wrestling with some mumbo jumbo about a curse.

    But wouldn’t you know it, that’s now on her plate, too.

    The very day she steps into her new precinct, Muldoon gets a case involving a rotting corpse in a car discovered in a nearby woods. Turns out, that desiccated carcass is linked to a house where a murder took place a few years back.

    An entire family was killed in that grisly crime. Muldoon’s new partner, Detective Goodman, is still so shaken by that case—one that he and his former partner worked—that he won’t even step into the house where it took place. He doesn’t appear to be some religious nut, but this grizzled cop talks of the energy of the house being all wrong.

    Muldoon has no such superstitious hang-ups. But the more she digs, the more disturbing elements she finds: other deaths, other peculiarities, other unexplained and unsolved links. And they all seem to connect back to that house. Goodman’s old partner, Detective Wilson, then brings up the whole curse thing. He tells Muldoon it’s all linked to the house, a curse you pick up just by stepping through the front door.

    Muldoon still isn’t giving the curse stuff a whole lot of credence, though, since Wilson is currently residing in a mental institution after trying to commit suicide. But when the former cop gouges his own eyes out right after talking to her, it leaves her unsettled.

    I mean, she stepped in the house in the course of her investigation. She’s also been seeing a whole lot of odd things lately: shadowy figures that aren’t there, things caught out of the corner of her eye …

    Man! As if she didn’t have enough to worry about. A cop’s life is no easy slog. It’s enough to make her feel a little ragey sometimes.

    POSITIVE ELEMENTS
    In the course of the film we find numerous examples of spouses and family members showing their love for one another. A young man named Peter and his wife Nina both proclaim their love for each other in difficult times, for instance. And after hearing that their unborn child will likely be born with a genetic disorder, they both emotionally speak of a desire to keep the baby. An older husband says that he and his wife had 50 wonderful years together, and he works to protect her now that her mental facilities are declining. A man put his life on hold to care for a dying mother. Etc.

    SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS
    (Spoiler Warning) All of the above people, however, are one-by-one swept up in the evil, dark “curse” and killed. Why this unstoppable rage-driven curse exists or is perpetuated on innocent bystanders is never explained, but the Grudge takes on the forms of ghostly figures—adults and children who have died in the past and reappear to physically torment and kill someone else. A couple of scenes also suggests that people are possessed by evil spirits and then compelled to kill their families before killing themselves.

    Ghostly fingers appear from the back of someone’s head while he washes his hair. A young girl’s spirit shows up in several scenes—sometimes in a translucent ghosty form, other times in a more corporeal but speechless form. Ghosts appear in mirrors and windows and step out of the shadows. A young spectral child is engulfed in flames. Creepy ghost figures are spotted sitting in the back seats of cars. A ghost lays on top of a prone woman, drooling into her face and open mouth. And ghosts masquerade as the living by taking on the form of adults and children.

    Mr. Matheson, an elderly husband who lives in the cursed house with his mentally and physically failing wife, admits that he has seen the house’s ghostly occupants. But he says he finds those ghastly things encouraging: “Seeing them gives me hope that maybe she might be around afterward, too,” he tells a therapist. “Anyone who has entered this house and anyone who will enter here, we’re all bound together.”

    We see a number of crosses and crucifixes hanging on people’s walls. Goodman has a rosary and some pictures of religious saints in his car’s glovebox. Goodman watches a biblical film on TV. (The camera catches dialogue from the Jesus character saying, “This is my body …” before cutting away.) Goodman also states that although he isn’t particularly religious, his mother was “into ghosty s—.” None of this religious paraphernalia seems to have any spiritual impact on ongoing events at all.

    Muldoon has a practice of encouraging her son to close his eyes and count to five when he’s scared. This technique doesn’t seem to help much either.

    SEXUAL CONTENT
    Peter and his wife kiss.

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