Joelene Pynnonen reviews Frozen

Princess Elsa of Arendelle was born with the magical ability to harness winter; creating ice and snow from the air. After a childhood accident that involved her younger sister, Anna, Elsa has hidden away that part of herself even though it means cutting herself off from her sister and her emotions. For years the sisters are secluded inside their castle, but with Elsa’s coronation approaching, the castle must open to the public once more.

When an argument leads to Elsa losing control of her emotions and her powers, the kingdom becomes trapped in a frigid winter. Now it’s up to Anna and Kristoff, a guide she meets along the way, to track the runaway Elsa and convince her to return summer to Arendelle.

I have been accused of trying to hold onto childhood at any cost, but stoutly maintain that animated films are getting better and better right now. If anyone was still in doubt, Frozen proves it. While it has all the markings of a children’s film, the storyline and script has plenty of entertainment for an adult audience. The fact that the screening I went to see started at eight-thirty pm and did not have one child in the reasonably sized audience means that studios are capitalising on making movies that resonate with various age groups.

 Beautifully animated and with a wonderful cast of characters voiced by talented voice actors, it’s difficult to find a reason not to watch Frozen. This is another Disney movie that works hard at breaking the conventions that stunted the original princesses. The traditional charm is there, but the female characters in Frozen have more agency than earlier princesses. Elsa and Anna have distinctive personalities that drive the storyline forward, and the film really unwinds around them. Kristoff is a lovely addition, as is the snowman, Olaf, but their roles are to guide and support Anna’s quest, not to take it on for her.

The one thing that let the film down was the musical score. ‘Let It Go’ sung by Elsa’s voice actor, Idina Menzel, is exceptional and fits the emotional complexity of the film. The other songs aren’t bad, but they don’t suit Frozen’s atmosphere in the same way.

For a gorgeous film that has some ultimately wonderful messages about love, family and loyalty, put Disney’s Frozen on your checklist. I had high expectations going in, and it surpassed most of them effortlessly.

Tana Bach wakes up hung-over in a bathtub; the place she’d gone to avoid her ex-boyfriend, Aiden, at the party the night before. Upon re-emerging, she discovers the bodies of the school-friends with whom she’d been partying. It seems that she is the sole survivor until she finds Aiden trussed up in a bedroom with a chained up vampire.

Possibly infected and unable to go back home, Tana finds herself heading for the closest Coldtown, a walled city in which vampires and humans live side by side, but not often peacefully. A place that no one is allowed to leave.

The book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is based on a short story of the same name that appeared in the anthology Eternal Kiss. Having read the short story a few years ago, I’d fallen in love with the world and was terribly disappointed that so much world-building had yielded such a short piece of fiction. Happily, it seems that Holly Black felt the same way.

For those of you who have read the short story already, the novel does not follow the same characters. For about two or three paragraphs this was a bitter disappointment to me. But then Tana happened and my fickle reader’s brain forgot all about Matilda.

Tana is young and dealing with the stress of a situation that is well beyond her. She won’t put the people that she loves at risk, which means that she’s relying on her own instincts and intelligence while at the same time trying to keep within her moral boundaries. Because of this, the plot isn’t as smooth as I’m used to for a Holly Black novel. It works though. Tana doesn’t always handle the situations she’s in well, but that’s what I like about Black’s writing. It’s messy and unreasonable in the way that humans are messy and unreasonable. Tana isn’t always in control of her emotions. Sometimes the horror of her situation puts her on emotional overload and she gets hysterical, or she blocks it out. Her reactions are real enough to pull you into the story and keep you there until the bitter end.

While Tana is by far the best part of Coldest Girl, the thing that makes the novel work is how real everything is. Black has a writing style that makes scenes palpable. You can taste the atmosphere, smell the blood and crawl into the characters’ heads to feel what they’re feeling. The plot unfolds around the way characters act; characters are not altered to suit the plot. And that creates a seamless chain reaction that is almost impossible to predict, but is wonderful to experience.

It’s safe to say that I’m biased when it comes to Holly Black. There is nothing about her novels that I don’t love to an unhealthy degree. I’ll reread pages for her writing style. I want to be friends with her characters and every single plot of hers feels like an adventure. Coldest Girl is no exception. It’s dark, the characters will not tolerate any sort of stereotype and it had me hooked from the start. 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black

Orion Books (September 3, 2013)

ISBN: 9781780621296

Jove Boyd is an ordinary Australian teen, except that water has always behaved erratically around him, and there has been a recent spate of suspected gang related activities in his small town that increasingly seem to be directed at him.

When Tia Favon, the hot, new girl at school protects him from a fire-wielding creature, his suspicions are confirmed. Now he must leave everything that he knows behind to escape with Tia and her father, Auster, and discover the truth about the world – and about himself.

Jove: The Human Chronicles introduces a world in which other species hide in the places that humans cannot find them. Each one controls an element, but they can’t match the technology that humans have invented. To balance the world, the species have created a being who wields all of the elements – fire, water, wind and earth. He is the Incarnate.

For a debut novel, Aarts has built up a pretty complex world here. There are five different species, each with their own cultures and values. None of them are deeply explored in the first novel, but the glimpses we get of them make it obvious that all of their societies are intricately woven. Each of the four species that are not human, seem set to be explored in more depth in later novels, and it will be interesting to see how Jove will react to them.

The characters are what keep this novel moving. Jove is for the most part an average teen, perhaps a little sweeter and with a firm handle on his morals. Tia, while older than Jove, has a cheerfully optimistic personality. They make a good team; neither of them getting bogged down in angst, but meeting their heavy obligations head on. It’s refreshing too, that romance isn’t a central aspect to this story. Tia isn’t willing to put her duty aside for it, and Jove respects that. The most compelling character, however, is one of the sea-dwellers called Maré. He brings a great sense of fun to the novel.

While the characters were easy to spend time with and the world was exciting to visit, the pace could have used work. Without the threat of immediate danger for much of the novel, I didn’t feel a sense of urgency about Jove’s situation and obligations.

I’ve always been partial to stories about the elements, and this one has some fantastic fresh ideas on elemental lore. So, if you’re a fan of The Last Airbender or Captain Planet this may well become your new favourite series.

 Jove: The Human Chronicles – A.J. Aarts

 Book Pal (August 27, 2013)

 ISBN: 9781742843254

Joelene Pynnonen shares her 5 Top reads for 2013

1. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

 A wonderful second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.
 
2. Purple Threads – Jeanine Leane
 
Both amusing and profound, this collection of interlocking stories is about a family of Indigenous Australian women that you will never forget.
 
3. One Small Step – ed. Tehani Wessely
 
Most of the books that hit my top five were a surprise this year. This one possibly more than the others. I’m not a fan of short stories but this collection of speculative fiction is amazing.
 
4. Etiquette and Espionage – Gail Carriger
 
A steampunk Finishing School for female spies and assassins. Everything about this story is made of win; but the narrative voice is what I loved the most.
 
5. A Wicked Kind of Dark – Jonathan K. Benton
 
A great debut novel. Part epic fantasy, part urban fantasy; this novel blends genres to create something new and exciting.
 

Most Anticipated Books of 2014 

 1. Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black

 This book is based on a short story of the same name. I know nothing about it except that the short story is breath-takingly wonderful.
 
2. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
 
Still have not finished this amazing series. I’m anticipating and dreading it in equal parts. Where will I go after this?

3. Academy 7 – Anne Osterlund
 
Outsider, Aerin Renning, is stunned to find that she’s been accepted into the exclusive Academy 7, but finds that she has to contend with the affluent Dane Madousin.
Divergent – Veronica Roth
 
A society divided into five factions, each one based on a virtue. I’ve tried to stay away from the reviews for this so that I can go into it without expectations, but it sounds like my sort of a book.
 
4. Ice Breaker – Lian Tanner
 
I loved the Museum of Thieves series and am looking forward to Tanner’s latest novel.

Joelene Pynnonen reviews the movie she’s been waiting for all year!

So I finally managed to see the one film that I’ve been waiting for all year, Catching Fire. As usual I went in with reservations in case the second movie didn’t live up to the first. For once, these reservations were wholly unfounded. Catching Fire outdoes Hunger Games on almost every level.

The film picks up a few months after Hunger Games ended. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) are about to start the Victory Tour of Panem. If journeying to each of the other districts and facing the families of all the tributes who died in the 74th Hunger Games wasn’t enough pressure, President Snow pays Katniss a visit before she leaves. Since Katniss defied the Capitol there has been unrest in the districts. If Katniss can’t convince the people that she is desperately in love with Peeta by the time the tour ends, her life and those of her family are forfeit.

Despite her best efforts, Katniss and Peeta’s act of defiance eclipses their supposed love in the eyes of the districts. With rebellions breaking out in the districts and the Capitol under threat, Snow makes the decision to destroy Katniss before she becomes even more of a symbol to the rebels. And what better way to do it than with the 75th Hunger Games? Once again Peeta and Katniss are thrown into the Hunger Games arena, this time going up against previous winning tributes.

While Hunger Games gave us a great introduction to Katniss, her supporters and her enemies; Catching Fire opens up the entire world. The other tributes are more fully fleshed out and are bigger players in the story. It also brings the politics of Panem to the forefront, giving audiences more of an understanding of why the Games are essential to the Capitol. All of this gives us some incredible new characters, Johanna Mason being my undisputed favourite.

More depth is added to the personal as well as the political though. Peeta’s character is explored more fully, and we begin to see what there could be to love in him. In the first instalment he’s lovely and loyal. Those traits are admirable, but they’re not enough. Katniss grows as well. While she previously didn’t care for anyone outside of her family and Gale, she is beginning to open up to others. For such a bleak premise, the interactions of such amazing characters are desperately needed to keep the film from becoming too desolate. Having characters that grow and change more slowly is refreshing for this kind of a series as well.

The film follows the book as faithfully as the first did. There are minor changes but the atmosphere and intent remains much the same. Because the film is so dynamic, however, it outshines the novel for me. The casting decisions made for Catching Fire are outstanding. As in the Hunger Games many of the emotions are imparted visually rather than being scripted. The same emotional impact could not have been delivered by a lesser cast.

There is far too much in this film to discuss in a review but, suffice it to say, it is a film that should be seen on the big screen (and more than once). Not the sort of story that should be bound to a certain age group or gender; it’s something I’d recommend to anyone.