Disney!Rasputin has the most sheer style of any Disney villian I've seen to date. (Then, I haven't seen many of the latest ones...) He makes undeath look good. I kept wanting to see more of him and of the bat.
I was also happy to see Sophie. While Anastasia is the main female romantic interest of the movie, Sophie is clearly the sexiest woman in the movie. Vladimir is all over her. She's sexy, she knows it, she flaunts it, and she clearly gets some. I approve. I highly approve. For those who haven't seen it, Sophie is lovely and plump and cheerful, and it's great to see the body type who'd usually be portrayed as the bustling cheerful sexless type as being very sensual and sexual. In a family movie, no less. It's nicely subtle, or at least it would be so to those who aren't used to the games that grown-ups who are going to be jumping into bed together next are playing. It comes off as "very silly" to kids.
Pretty movie. Sparkly dresses. Snark. Heavy snark. The sort of UST sniping that I adore. Plenty of UST -- that is, Potential Romance. Dancing. Mmm, the dancing. Did I mention that I love dancing? Anyone hoping to seduce me, take note and learn how to waltz. Anya kicking serious undead ass instead of waiting around to be rescued. I loved that part too. Oh, and lost memories being unearthed, and "coincidences" always get me teared up, too.
After watching the movie, I posed in the bathroom mirror. My hair is long and cascading now. After I settle out more reasonably, and the financial situation gets better, I think I'll start shopping for a good pair of boots again, the sort that goes up to my knees with the serious heels. I'd like to be wearing a pair of those, my spiked collar, crimson lipstick, and not much else, sometime, just to pose and look very very cool. It's the hair, I swear. It makes me look like a very bad girl in a very good way. "They make me wear LEATHER!" I'll have to break out my sketchbook and try to draw myself as a sexy Disney princess now. I've got the hair for it, finally!
I noticed that Anastasia's breasts seemed to reduce in size throughout the movie. They were unremarkable until she changed out of her orphanage rags and put on the dress, at which point they were huge. After that dramatic debut, they decreased to a less startling size, having made their point. Interesting.
And the song and dance routine with the bugs! Hysterical. I wanted so much more of that. And explosives! Usually when you've got a box marked "EXPLOSIVES! DANGER!" it's there to add suspense, because it's going to blow sooner or later. Instead, it was a truly Bujoldian piece of good luck. (One of LMB's writing rules is that while there is no limit to the bad luck that she may heap on her characters, she is not allowed to give them any good luck by Authorial Fiat. However, she may give them good luck provided it's disguised as a piece of sufficiently bad luck at the time.) Instead of a lengthy and rousing chorus of "Oh no! We must get this fixed or all the explosives will go up!", Anya grabs a piece and employs it handily. (I want to learn demolitions with flair like that too!) And the trees and the snow! As an Alaskan, I mark that snow and those trees Authentic. Ah, the homesickness.
Yep. I liked it.
