Actually I think adding Poochie to this movie would only help! ("Note: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet" is one of the funniest gags in "Simpsons" history.)

I think it was a combination of CGI and Rick Baker's specialty makeup, as was the case with Jim Carrey's Grinch (the CGI being allowed to further stretch out his evil smile, for instance).

The only line that's different is Maurice noting that the castle is alive, IIRC. And yep, a lot of it looks shot-for-shot, though it looks like they've restored the detail from the original fairy tale that the father causes trouble by trying to take a rose. Stagnant it is.

Spot on with the first three points, and I didn't think of Ewan's accent as more Mexican than French before, but you may have a point there too.

Love it, love it, love it!

Musicals were sooooo out of fashion in the mainstream — unless they were animated — for a good two decades, so this isn't surprising.

It's rare to find a trailer for a musical that actually admits it's one anymore, as the genre has so much baggage attached to it. "Moulin Rouge!", "Sweeney Todd"…they tend to downplay the songs if they bring them up at all.

Flat is a good descriptor. Given the huge anticipation there is for this one I expected more depth, more oomph.

I wasn't excited and this trailer makes me feel even less so. The acting looks really weak compared to the lovely melodramatics of the animated feature's voice cast — though Kevin Kline looks a better choice for Maurice (the father) than I thought it would be.

I think the problem is that the aesthetic is the same synthetic, CGI-based one Disney's been using on its fantasy films for well over a decade now, going back at least as far as the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I'm surprised by how much I'm reminded of the live-action Alice films.

"Pan's Labyrinth"-ize him — great description!

Rest assured — it is a full musical, and Menken's even providing a new song or two, but the trailer doesn't have time for that of course.

I'm a huge fan of Peter Capaldi-era "Doctor Who", but we're not getting more of that until this year's Christmas Day special. (Series 10 doesn't air until next spring and the spinoff "Class" is only avaiable in the U.K. right now.) As it is, his two seasons are often rather melancholy, even tragic, and the episodes…

Seasons 3 and 4 are the best Simpsons! Pretty much the only episode of those seasons I don't care for is "Marge in Chains".

The same songwriters wrote the score of an excellent stage adaptation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" — by which I mean the novel rather than its film adaptations — in 2013, and the West End cast album is available at iTunes and the like. The score does incorporate "Pure Imagination" from the 1971 film as the…

Whatever happened to the plans to get Seasons 4 and 5 on DVD, anyway?

As far as I (an actual autistic) can see, autism is still treated in mainstream pop culture as a horrible prison for the "real" person inside, a superpower facilitator, and/or fount of wacky quirks/social awkwardness; but however it's sliced, the autistic character has to "overcome" it in some way, if only to make…

Nathan's comment on the "Prince Charmless" cliche (as TVTropes calls it) now being just as hackneyed as Prince Charming is spot-on.

I'm curious as to why time travel is one of this season's "in" concepts for network shows. Sure, "Doctor Who", "Rick and Morty", "Legends of Tomorrow", and "Outlander" have devout fanbases, but in the U.S. only "Legends" is on a network; "Doctor Who" and "Rick and Morty" are basic cable and "Outlander" premium cable.…

Later this season, IIRC, there's Fox's "Making History" (comedy), and the CW's "Frequency" has timey-wimey aspects if no actual time travel. Earlier this year, there was Comedy Central's 3-part farce "Time Travelling Bong".