Swag Watch: Lincoln Cooks, Brave Looks

Two yummy gifts arrived, courtesy no doubt of my BFCA membership. But I always pretend the gifts are bribes (don't judge) since I am CLOTHED IN IMMENSE POWERS OF FOR YOUR CONSIDERATIONING. I thought you might enjoy peeks at these.

Lincoln has been going all out. They have an elegant info-heavy free download app for everyone who wants to learn more about the movie and this week a cookbook arrived. The cookbook isn't new -- it existed before the movie -- but why not?

Lincoln isn't really a foodie movie but the recipes are from the Presidential Library -- some of them from Lincoln's own lifetime and family. The subtitle is "a cookbook of epic portions" but really I can't see Honest Abe eating all that much. So lanky.

The very first recipe in for caramel ice cream so I have no choice but to approve.

Brave gifted us with "The Art of Disney Pixar BRAVE" which is a book filled with info about the development of the movie and amazing artwork along the way. I've barely made it through the preface and forward but the moody paintings thus far are awesome.

I'll leave you with  two images, one that delighted me and one that grabbed my attention.

This pencil sketch is by Director Brenda Chapman's own daughter, six years before the film as we know it was released. The indelible pairing of feisty ginger Merida and mama bear were already a part of their lives. Emma Rose was Brenda's inspiration for the movie after all. She writes:

When I came up with the idea of Brave, my predominant inspiration was the bundle of passion, stubbornness, determination and strength of character that is my daughter. Having been a shy and submissive child myself (wink), I was completely unprepared for the impact she had on my life. We locked horns, we butted heads, and we control-freaked each other to distraction. And this was when she was only five! I wondered what she was going to be like as a teenager.

And here's two early sketches of Merida by the artist Steve Purcell back when he envisioned her much younger than she ended up being in the final version of the story. I love that her hair grew and grew and grew until the final version of the character. Hair so big it's full of secrets.

Comments

[Andrew K.]

The bits on "Brave" are lovely. They prove how full a realisation of the character there was before the film began.

I'm still really nonplussed as to the quiet (occasional) response of apathy - or worse - it has elicited in some Pixar devotees. I've never gotten the argument that its more obvious reliance on magic makes it more "Disney-esque" (in the -pejorative way the word seems to be bandied about) than something like "Up", for example, which doesn't have as strident an arc of magic but depends just as much on happenstance and unrealistic things.

But, oh well.

(Just HAD to get that off my chest when I saw some comparing "Brave" negatively to "Cars" and "Cars 2" of all things.)

[Nathaniel R]

agreed. if it's not quite great Pixar because it's too Disney than it's definitely great Disney... as far as these things go in the past 20 years.