¡Sarah!

So my mom and I had to RUN LIKE THE WIND through the Seattle airport in order to make our connection (something that is becoming much too familiar to me) but we have made it home! Of course I would have been happy to stay in Anaheim, even though the parks this week were INSANELY BUSY. We didn't really have a choice of dates, because we had to go during my mom's week off, and yeah I don't think I would recommend mid-April (spring break! high school band/choir/dance trips everywhere!!), but by hitting the popular rides during the slower hours and by using Fastpass and hitting the shows and less popular rides during the busy hours, we managed to have a most excellent trip. :)

Anyway, although I know I fail at trip reports, I hope to manage a very lazy one after I have had some sleep. Right now I just want to type up some of my favourite jokes from my beloved Aladdin musical (which we saw three times) before I forget them. I definitely admit that the rest of this post is for me, but you are of course allowed to look at it too. :) ( Look, I'm soarin' over California! )

OMG FINALLY IT'S OFFICIAL!!!
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2009/12/captain-eo-returns-to-disneyland-resort/

(This almost but not quite balances out the horror I felt at learning that DCA's Aladdin musical is ending this summer, only to be replaced by still more Toy Story. Toy Story, I love you, but srsly - you are EVERYWHERE!)

Can you believe it's been almost an entire year since I stepped foot in a Disney park? BLASPHEMY!!!

Books!

7. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
I was not as surprised by this book as I felt I was supposed to be. "Wow, guys, did you know that minimum wage jobs can be just as difficult as higher paying jobs??" Uhm, duh. Actually I was most surprised that Ehrenreich apparently never had to deal with any customers horrible enough to write about. Okay, that's not entirely true, but she never writes about any customers who are horrible to her in that special customer service sort of way.

8. Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, Barbara Ehrenreich
I found this book more surprising, but also less interesting. I kind of took it out on a whim after I finished Nickel and Dimed but at this point at least I can't really relate to it. Well, that's a lie -- I can relate to applying for jobs online and never ever hearing anything back ever at all. >:|

(And yes I have some Canadian books on hold. ahaha I know, this is getting ridiculous. xD; )

Movies!

20. Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, 2006
I started watching this not having any idea it would be the most heartwrenching thing ever.

21. The Thief of Bagdad, 1940
Oh my god, this movie. XD It was entertaining in a really bad way, like I'm pretty sure the writers just had a hat full of plot devices that they would reach into every time they got stuck, and also the special effects were pretty well the funniest special effects I've ever seen. But ... I enjoyed it. XD; I mean there was an evil vizier named Jaffar and a sidekick named Abu and the main characters were all European while the background characters were all Middle Eastern, so it was pretty well just like watching Aladdin.

I KID BECAUSE I LOVE--! >xDD

22. Roman Holiday, 1953
I feel this is the first movie in which I understood the appeal of Audrey Hepburn! This doesn't, however, stop me from feeling totally betrayed by the ending. Apparently SOMEONE didn't get the memo that romcoms are supposed to have neat and tidy happy endings! KTHX.

23. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939
the_wykydtron can attest to the fact that I uttered the phrase "Oh my gosh, this movie is amazing" probably about a hundred times while watching this. xD I never ever thought I'd see a version where Phoebus DIES halfway through and Esmeralda and Gringoire ride off into the sunset!! And even though I have just spoiled it for you, you should all go out and watch it right now. I mean they turn Frollo into a CRAZY CAT LADY!!!, so you know it does not get any better than this. XDD

ahaha man why do I like Hunchback so much, I do not know. I still have the silent version to watch but now I am a little afraid to. I mean how can it possibly live up to the greatness that is Edward "Gringoire" Cullen, oh my god it cannot.

Having Aladdin on my nametag at work has produced some interesting reactions from guests, and I have written about most of them in at least in a general sort of way, but I have so far restrained myself from writing about my least favourite. Every so often I get a guest who is absolutely determined to inform me of Aladdin's true pervy nature, and refuses to take the hint that I am Not Interested in hearing about it.

For those of you not in the know (and the idea that people who are not in the know could still exist slightly baffles me), in the movie's balcony scene, Aladdin supposedly says, "Good teenagers, take off your clothes." And despite the fact that this is the most muffled line in cinema history (I have watched this movie many, many, many, many times and, in my opinion, you would have to turn the volume up unecessarily loud in order to make out anything he says at this point), people who believe this is what he says ADAMANTLY BELIEVE THIS IS WHAT HE SAYS. "Turn it up!" said my guest today, "It's there!" Fun fact? It's not there anymore. These adamant believers caused so much ridiculous controversy that Disney removed the line from the DVD. Way to fuel the rumours, Disney. :P

So yes, as you can guess, I don't believe Aladdin says anything of the sort, and I am SICK TO DEATH OF BEING TOLD THAT HE DOES.

Here is where this entry breaks off into its three alternate endings:

1) All this talk of supposed Disney perviness always reminds me of the one web page I saw way back when that set out to prove that the word "sex" appears in the flames of Frollo's fireplace during the Hunchback of Notre Dame song "Hellfire." Oh goodness I wish more people had latched onto this one, because I find ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS the idea that someone would get all worked up about the word supposedly for a split second kinda sorta maybe appearing onscreen but would completely ignore the content of the song that's playing over it. Because what is that song about? I mean, let's be honest here. xD

2) There is a line in the film in which Aladdin supposedly instructs "all good teenagers, take off your clothes." This caused a great number of press releases and angry letters from concerned parents who were apparently unaware that teenagers do this kind of thing anyway.

Oh, Disney Lies. You continue to be my favourite source for Disney misinformation. <3

3) One of the reasons I am so sick to death of hearing about the sexual messages supposedly hidden in Disney films is because of that essay I wrote in second year. Almost every time I told someone I was writing an essay about gender in Disney animation, they would bust out with the Aladdin line, or the Lion King dust, and one of my co-workers got angry at me when I brushed her comments off, claiming that a film professor had told her of these things and so they must be true. Let me tell you, sweetheart, I have read more than my fair share of academic writing about Disney, and it is the rare professor who actually knows what they are talking about with regards to this stuff. I have in my possession a scholarly and published article that spells "Disney World" as "Disneyworld" the entire. way. through. If they can't get the name of a theme park right, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't just blindly accept that Aladdin is a child-corrupting sort of guy.

Another of the reasons I am so sick to death of hearing about this stuff is because if you want to talk about the "dark side of Disney" or whatever, this is not it. Disney is a HUGE company that has been around for a good eighty years. They have done many things, both obvious and not-so-obvious, both current and buried by time, that could be considered much worse - and that I consider much more interesting - than Aladdin's supposed line.

But ... that is kind of part of why I love Disney, to be honest. <3 If you dig a little deeper than my guests seem to do, you can find some absolutely fascinating stuff.

(AW MAN this reminds me of that ginormous Mulan entry I want to write sometime soon. :d AND ALL THE DISNEY FANS WILL LYNCH ME, it will be exxxxcellent. xDD )

So for those of you who are man enough to take it, I made an AMV! xD

Aladdin and the King of Thieves - "This is How a Heart Breaks"

Gosh you have no idea how awesome I think it is that my very first AMV is entirely made up of clips from a direct-to-video sequel. xDDD

Aaaaaaand I was going to ramble about this for a while but now I don't feel like it. xD Well if you've never seen King of Thieves, feel free to ask me what this AMV is supposed to be about, hahaha. And if you care enough to watch it, please do tell me what you think! It's only my first try and it's certainly not perfect but I'm pretty proud of it overall. :D

And now I get to decide what my next AMV is going to be about! :DD I would promise it won't be as dorky as this one, but I think we all know that's probably a lie. xD

P.S. Jasmine has more screentime in this AMV than she does in the actual movie.

FACT. xD

(sorta kinda cross-posted to agrabah)

Man, you guys, Aladdin Jr. was awesome. And very interesting, I thought, to compare to the version playing in DCA. xD; But I'll spare you the pain of reading all my blabber on that and will just throw out some random notes. xD

( never had a friend like me )

Okay I think that's all that I feel a desperate need to say. xD Man, I guess this is why this is my number one favourite movie, huh - I can watch it over and over and so many versions of it over and over and I never ever start to get bored. xD

(And my brother's girlfriend and I spent intermission watching a trio of the most adorable kids ever make-believing they were Aladdin and pretending to karate-chop each other. hahaha, that was awesome, too. xD )

Yeah, so feel free to anticipate a lot more posts about Enchanted. I mean, gosh, it has been a good SEVEN YEARS since I had a brand new animated Disney musical to obsess over!! xD (I should really say eight years ... is Emperor's New Groove a musical? lulz, it's about as much a musical as Enchanted is animated. xD;; )

( A long and rambly and probably disjointed entry about Giselle and her relationship with previous Disney princesses. )

And almost completely unrelated to Enchanted but that it involves Alan Menken, I listened to my new copy of the Music Behind the Magic box set today. ^_^ (Yes, I had a previous copy. I lent it to a supposed friend eight years ago and never got it back, and it has since gone out of print so yay for paying double the original price. THIS NEW COPY NEVER GETS LENT TO ANYONE EVAR. >:( ) It is basically the soundtracks of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, but it includes demo versions and songs that never made it into the movies and oh gosh it's such a fangirl thing to own but so good, so good. <3 I can only listen to it so often, though ... for whatever combination of reasons they make me kind of bittersweetly sad. :( But oh gosh right now I am so in love with "Silence is Golden," I can't believe I never paid it any attention before. And the reprise of "Arabian Nights," maybe I'm totally stupid but I never realized the version used at the end of King of Thieves is like the exact one from this set. xD; <333

Augh okay please no one make fun of me for this entry, as of late I have gotten more than enough of that at work. ^^;

My number one favourite part of the brand new Disney Princess DVD:

"Let's play Good Cop, Bad Cop. I want to be baaaad."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA omg love you too, Iago. xD;;;;;

( An entry that won't make sense to anyone but me. )

This is all I can allow myself to write because I actually have to be up at seven tomorrow to start my day of FIVE CLASSES, holy man. ;_;_;_;_;_; But a closing comment: I enjoyed this DVD even more than I thought I would, from "Crazy Gakim's Discount Fertilizer" to "brand new camel" to "I speak several languages!" ... oh, and Aurora's half hour was okay, too. XD