Pinocchio and the Grasshopper

Pinocchio
Pinocchio scarred the hell out of me as a child, just as Walt probably desired. Much of children's entertainment attempts to teach or reinforce morality, with various degrees of subtlety. This movie eschews any sense of subtlety by being a straight ahead morality tale complete with a third act trial of redemption. That's not to say the film suffers for it, the direct approach is quite effective in Pinocchio. Pinocchio's choices end up feeling that much more precious and crucial when thrown up against such monolithic forces of temptation. My only story complaint lies with Jiminy Cricket. Jiminy Cricket proves to be a good narrator, but his tendency to continue talking after having making his warning clear can be a bit annoying. They should have trusted the animation to tell more of the story.

This movie also benefits from incredibly fluid and active character animation that boarders on the uncanny. It's unfortunate that The Blue Fairy was so obviously rotoscoped, the rest of the human character animation still looks great. The effects animation was a great leap forward and still holds up great. The background art doesn't look as lush or detailed as Snow White's, though that could be because comparing a 19 year old VHS to Blu-ray is folly. (Seeing a preview for Aladdin that starts off by bragging about last year's Beauty and the Beast was incredibly fun.)

Grasshopper  

• 1 part Creme de cacao
• 1 part Creme de menthe
• 1 part Cream

This was the experience I had hoped for when initially adding cocktails to the Disney Challenge. Mint isn't a flavor that I seek out, so this was more of a challenge than the sweet Appletini. Unfortunately, the challenge didn't prove to be complex as the mint completely dominated my palate. Not that this is an entirely bad thing, I can definitely understand the appeal as a digestif. The trickiest part of mixing the Grasshopper was finding true, came out of a cow, dairy cream. It took half a dozen stores and a couple of explanations that 35% fat whipping cream was too heavy, but it paid off by giving the grasshopper an interesting and unique texture.

Fantasia and the Martini are up tonight. I'm off work tomorrow, so I hope to have the martini review up sometime before I skip town tomorrow night.
(I apologize for how long it has taken to get this out. Working 8 to 5 drains me of motivation to sit down to write anything longer than a tweet. I need to get better about that.)