Film · Prime Video · 2015

Frozen Fever

A short, and a sound one. The party matters less than the sister.

Elsa overreaches for Anna's day and unravels, and the day is saved by the people who do not need the spectacle. That is the right size for a short. It does not reopen the whole kingdom's theology. It says a sister is not a performance.

Fifteen minutes is the correct ambition. Watch it between larger things. If a child only remembers the song, sing the song and then set the table yourselves.

The eight

Industry
5/10
Preparing a feast is work.
Household
8/10
Sisters. The gift is presence.
Piety
4/10
No new creed. Affection.
Courage
5/10
She tries, past her strength.
Republic
4/10
A castle household.
Temperance
6/10
Excess is corrected.
Truth
7/10
The perfect day was the wrong aim.
Stewardship
7/10
A small picture of showing up unwell and loved.

Live historicallyLet a small celebration be small, and show up anyway.

Film · Prime Video · 2005

Corpse Bride

A vow is a real thing. The film knows it, then spends too long in the underworld's party.

Victor's trouble starts because he treats the words of a marriage as a rehearsal he can mutter in a wood. The dead hear him. That is the right metaphysics for a comedy: a vow is not a draft. Emily is pitiable and she is also wrong to hold a living man to a mistake. The film lets her release him. That release is the decent ending.

The land of the dead is more fun than the land of the living, and the living wedding is a transaction between anxious parents. Count that. A marriage in this story is saved by mercy, not by the party downstairs. Watch it with older children. Do not let the skeletons outvote the vow.

The eight

Industry
5/10
A pianist, a wedding as a contract. Work is mostly nerves.
Household
6/10
Marriage is the subject. The parents treat it as a merger.
Piety
5/10
The dead have a claim because words were spoken. Then the claim is surrendered.
Courage
6/10
He tells the truth and goes back upstairs.
Republic
4/10
The town is a set of grasping families.
Temperance
6/10
The underworld's joke is appetite. He does not stay for it.
Truth
8/10
A mistaken vow is confessed, not hacked into a happy theft.
Stewardship
6/10
He returns to a living marriage. She lets the living go.

Live historicallySay your promises out loud before you make them, and only to the living person you mean.