Rapunzel Unbraided, Pfeiffer Shorn (?)

Oopsie. Forgot to update the Say What? contest from the week. The winner is Michael Parsons who is the first back-to-back winner of this series. Next time I'll let him pick the winner and declare him ineligible!


There were other good ones if you click back though. There were also some interesting comments which I'd hoped to address. But this week went on as long as Rapunzel's locks. Jack observed/worried that Disney will be going all snarky/cynical with this one (note the poses) and misses the sense of innocence and wonder that used to be found in the genre. Duly noted and I do think that's a shame. Especially since I love the story of Rapunzel and if any character shouldn't be worldly and snarky it's probably the one who's a total shut in with no outside contact.

Can Disney movies ever be innocent again when they've discovered the billion$ to be grossed by merely adding princesses with new dress colors in each film? Didn't anyone wear purple yet? Rapunzel it is, then!

The color wheel gets more crowded: yellow for Belle; light blue for Cinderella; blue pink for Aurora; light green for Jasmine; browns for Pocahontas; multi-colors for Snow White and Mulan; silvery white (?) for Tiana; and one switch hitter in Ariel (though it's usually green or pink... take the pink! Let Aurora go back to blue, fools!).

Eventually they'll get around to a Princess swathed in red. Or black. Or flourescent beige.


But back to Rapunzel ! The originally announced voice for the girl in the tower was the singular Kristin Chenoweth so now that she's been replaced, I'm less excited about the heroine. Once you've dangled the Chenoweth in front of me everything else is a let down. But at least the replacement pipes (Mandy Moore) are musical ones. I'm more excited about the villain Madame Gothel who'll be voiced by the great Broadway star Donna Murphy who just never gets the good parts in movies even though she's a) insanely talented and b) beautiful and c) funny.

In other hairy news, reader Cristhian pointed out this photo (left) in which someone involved in this musical --why doesn't Rotten Tomatoes caption its photos? -- has a photo of Michelle Pfeiffer pinned to his wall. Look to the top right corner.

Did they use her blondeness for Rapunzel inspiration or is he merely a pfan? Curiously it's the same photo that they've been adorning her IMDB page with for ten years (it's lifted from The Story of Us I think). If it's not her hair I'm pretending she turned them down for voicework. She's done the animated films already (Sinbad and The Prince of Egypt) and she's not the sort of star who needs the easy money.

But speaking of hair, if she was inspiration for Rapunzel they may have caught her just in time. Has she chopped off her famous locks? Some photos from two days ago just hit the net here but some people are saying it isn't her. Discrepancies! Whether or not it's Pfeiffer, the overall look is very Ladyhawke / Into the Night (1985) era, don'cha think? With maybe a little Dangerous Minds thrown in by way of leather jacket.

In other Pfeiffer news: I keep forgetting to post this. This past Tuesday in Palm Springs, she presented a prize to Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart. I'm always thrilled to see the Fabulous Baker Boys duo reunited...


...and if she can't ever have an Oscar, at least he is probably getting one. I'm sure she'll be thrilled for him. She mentioned him, unprompted, while discussing Chéri when I met* her and he attended her star ceremony for the Walk of Fame in 2008. Why they've never reunited onscreen is an unsolvable mystery, something to hold against their agents and a bad decision on both their parts.

*well... "met" as in sat two seats away from her. But that's as close as I need to get. So much emotional/visual stimuli! ;)