Annie

Bug has been a obsessed with Annie for a few months. We took her to see a live performance in the fall and H plays the songs in the car all the time. When the new Annie movie opened, we knew Bug would see it.Last Saturday we decided to give Bug the choice of activities for the afternoon. She had been doing our choice for days and days. She choose to see Annie.It was playing at a bunch of theaters and it was out for a few weeks. We decided not to preorder tickets. The chances of a show being sold out was crazy low....
We got to the theater 30 minutes early and discovered that there were only two seat, that were not together, left for the showing we wanted.....
The Internet saved the day. I opened the Movies app on my phone found a nearby theater that had three, just three, tickets left that happened to be together. Not sure when theaters started using assigned seating... Crying averted.
The seats were spectacular. The theater was equipped with powered recliners. Our assigned seats were in the front row and the reclining made watching the movie doable. Bug was particularly thrilled. The seat wrapped her in cushy comfort.
The movie itself was a fine update. The music updates the original while maintaining a clear heritage. The new Annie was well acted. The star walked the fine line between upbeat and saccharin. The adult cast was passable. Cameron Diaz almost pulls off Ms. Hanagin as a basically good person. Jamie Fox is wooden. The poor adult acting doesn't really detract from the movie. Annie manages to carry the weight on her own.
The writing is bad. Jamie Fox's character, aside from his acting, is hard to believe. The new Ms. Hanigan character is also pretty poorly drawn. I never really bought her sudden change of heart. The only character who is well drawn is the villain. He is appropriately over the top.
On a personal note I did appreciate that the new Annie is African-American. It is nice to have a young, strong, positive role model for Bug.
Bug sat through the whole movie without much fidgeting and only one potty break. There was occasional quiet singing. After the movie she danced it out to the end credit songs. Since she has repeated some of the lines in the movie and talked about the story. When asked thumbs up or thumbs down, she responded thumbs up.

Annie is a nice movie for the kiddie crowd and not a terrible one for the adult crowd.

Frozen

For Bug's first movie we decided on Frozen. It got generally good reviews from both the critics and other parents. I had also heard enough about it to believe that it wasn't the standard Disney princess movie where the hero and true love save the day. I'm not reflexively opposed to traditional fairy tale based princess movies, but I also like subverting tradition when possible.
Despite a rocky beginning, the outing was a success.
It turned out that the screening we went to was in 3D, so Bug was a little thrown by the glasses. Some of the previews were a little intense for her as well. The worst trailers, for a little kid, were for Maleficent and How to Train Your Dragon. How to Train Your Dragon was rough because, Bug saw the nice holiday special, so had happy feeling towards it. After the initial intro to the trailer, things get a little scary.
Frozen was excellent. There are a few heavy moments, but nothing truly scary. The music is great. The animation is luscious. The 3D effects were the smoothest I have seen. I do think that the movie is just as good without them; the 3D doesn't add anything. Bug stayed quite through the entire movie. She moved into the aisle a few times to get a better view of the screen. After the movie, she went home and asked to watch the trailers again. When asked what her favorite part of the movie was, she replied "the music."
Most of the story went over her head, which is to be expected given that she is under four. For us, or for a child old enough to follow it, the story is great. It balances serious and humor well. The tension is modulated well for the audience. You get that big things are being dealt with, but there are very few scares. The best thing about the story, for me, is its subversiveness. In many ways, it plays like the standard princess fairy tale with slight updates to make the princess more spunky ala Tangled. Then the plot turns and it is no longer in traditional fairy tale land.
The pre-movie feature, featuring classic Disney characters, is also top notch. To be most effective, it does require 3D, but it is a fun use of the technology.