Brave (2012)

Jack and I thoroughly enjoyed this animated tale of girl power wherein a medieval Scottish princess doesn't want or need a prince. Pixar's first heroine, teenage Merida, argues with her mother over it and things take quite a twist. This had been on my list for a while because I love Kelly Macdonald (covered in detail in Anna Karenina) who voices Merida, Emma Thompson (last blogged in Men in Black III) who voices her mother Queen Elinor, and especially Billy Connolly (as a comedian he is known as "The Big Yin" (the big one to us Yanks)--his stand-up is marvelous; he had two American TV serieses in the early 80s: Head of the Class and Billy; he received great acclaim for his performance as John Brown, the boyfriend of widowed Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) in Mrs. Brown (1997); had small parts in, among others, White Oleander (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), and The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008); and played the title role as a pet zombie with no lines in the very funny Fido (2006)) who voices King Fergus. Craig Ferguson (most recently on the big screen in the animated How to Train Your Dragon), Kevin McKidd (these days he's probably best known as Dr. Owen Hunt on Grey's Anatomy, but he, like Macdonald, made his feature debut in Trainspotting (1996), and has been in many fine productions, including Hideous Kinky (1998), Topsy-Turvy (1999), and De-Lovely (2004)), and Robbie Coltrane (last in The Brothers Bloom) voice the suitors. All above except Londoner Thompson are Scottish born and the unintelligible dialect that McKidd uses is native to his northern Scotland home.

It's not unusual for modern animated movies to have more than one director. This has two directors: Brenda Chapman (shared story credit on Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994), and Fantasia/2000 (1999); co-director of The Prince of Egypt (1998); storyboard artist and other credits elsewhere) and Mark Andrews (his first feature directing job; he worked as a a writer on a few things and storyboard artist on some) and one "co-director": Steve Purcell, a video game creator and artist. All three share screenplay credit with Irene Mecchi (shared writing credit on The Lion King and part of Hercules (1997) and Chapman is credited with creating the story. Speaking of artists, the drawings are great. Apparently Pixar developed a new software just to make Merida's wild orange hair bounce when she moved.

Music is by Patrick Doyle (among the 50 scores to his credit, my favorites would be Indochine (1992), Frankenstein (1994) Sense and Sensibility (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Gosford Park (2001), Calendar Girls (2003), Wah-Wah (2005), and Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Someone has thoughtfully, and probably illegally, posted the entire soundtrack on youtube. The song Learn Me Right, by Mumford & Sons with Birdy, has been nominated for a Critics Choice Award (they'll be handed out Thursday night) and a Grammy. You can hear it here.

The movie has been nominated for Best Animated Film Golden Globe, ten Annie (animation) awards including Best Animated Feature, and way more, maybe an Oscar in the morning. There are laughs and sight gags galore. Rated PG, this is suitable for all but the youngest of your children and grandchildren (here's the imdb parents' guide--it's full of spoilers). We watched it today on Time Warner on demand.