Enchanted Expectations

Been waiting for a once upon a time, a happily ever after and everything in between? Enchanted will likely fill the bill, if my sources who have already seen it are correct.

Disney's return to fairy tale princesses and the evil queens who hate them is not only receiving excellent advance notices prior to its opening November 21, it is even garnering some unexpected (but welcome) awards buzz, specifically for leading lady Amy Adams (who plays Giselle, the fair maiden displaced from her animated world into ours) as Best Actress. If Adams, previously in the race for her spunky turn in Junebug, is nominated, she would be the Mouse's first contender in that category since a certain English nanny took home the gold back in 1964.

And with 11 Oscars between them, Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz should get some attention for their music and songs. The film's soundtrack doesn't hit stores until the day before the movie opens (you can pre-order it right here, right nowfrom Amazon.com), but you can listen to excerpts at the film's My Space page, where you can also view the trailer and the complete "Happy Working Song" scene. (Not yet posted on Amazon, you can view the full track list in the comments section below.) You can also see and hear more about the film at its official website, which has a cool "pop-up book" design.

Already eyed as a potential franchise, Enchanted also looks to jump start Disney's flagging Feature Animation department, which hasn't had a real (non-Pixar) hit since 2002's Lilo and Stitch. For those in the know, this will be ironic because A) there's only about 15 minutes of animation in Enchanted and B) the animation was actually outsourced to James Baxter Animation, a separate studio run by the former Disney animator (he was the supervising animator of Belle in Beauty and the Beast and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

As you can probably surmise by now, this is my must-see movie this month. So starting next week, you can expect to see a special Movie Dearest weeklong countdown to opening day, hereby known as "Enchanted Day".


Links via Imdb.com, Movies.MSN.com, Newsweek.com, MySpace.com, FirstShowing.net and BlueSkyDisney.blogspot.com.