‘Hot Frosty’ and ‘Moana 2’: What Even Are Movies?

Hot Frosty 2024

Netflix's snowman rom-com: a young widow (Lacey Chabert) builds a snowman who comes to life as a himbo (Dustin Milligan, the Schitt's Creek vet), with Craig Robinson as a sheriff who seems to be in a different movie than everyone else. Rob wanted the widow to sleep with the snowman and felt cheated when she didn't; Yasi, a devoted watcher of the streaming-Christmas genre, rates it an 11 out of 10. Licenses Pretty Woman for a shopping montage and closes on a fake-Coldplay needle drop.

Mean Girls (2004) 2004

Lacey Chabert's high point; Hot Frosty winks at it when Lindsay Lohan shows up on a TV in the background.

Mean Girls 2024

The musical remake, which Sean takes as evidence that Mean Girls is somehow back in the culture.

The Crow (1994) 1994

The reason Yasi is on the show: Sean had planned a whole episode around her love of the original.

The Crow 2024

The Bill Skarsgård reimagining, which stunk so thoroughly Sean gave it four minutes on air and no episode of its own.

Moana 2 2024

Started life as a Disney+ series before the studio turned it into a theatrical feature, with a new directing team and Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear replacing Lin-Manuel Miranda on songs. Sean finds it a disappointing McGuffin hunt that maps too cleanly onto the first film; the kids in the theater loved it anyway.

Moana 2016

The Musker-and-Clements original Sean rates as about as good as Disney animation gets. Yasi rewatched it to pregame and cried against her will.

The Great Mouse Detective 1986

Where Sean starts the Musker/Clements résumé.

The Little Mermaid 1989

Beauty and the Beast 1991

Aladdin 1992

The Lion King 1994

The second-golden-age run that hands off to Toy Story and Pixar in 1995.

Hercules 1997

Tarzan 1999

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

Cinderella 1950

Sleeping Beauty 1959

Sean's example of the beautiful-but-passive princess: she sleeps through the final 30 minutes of her own movie.

Tangled 2010

A more self-sufficient Rapunzel, part of Disney rethinking the damsel.

Frozen 2013

Frozen II 2019

Rob walked out sure the songs were trash, then came around to it hard.

Encanto 2021

Rob's favorite of the era, movie and soundtrack. Mirabel has no love interest and isn't special, which is the point.

Babygirl 2024

Yasi's pick: 'now that is a Yossi movie.'

Wicked 2024

Rob still hasn't seen it; a man left Moana 2 furious that Wicked turned out to be a musical.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 2024

What Rob's kids want; Jim Carrey back as Robotnik.

Conclave 2024

Sean's Pope movie, best seen in a theater full of elderly people.

The Wild Robot 2024

On VOD; Sean's waiting for it to drop below $25.

Our Little Secret 2024

The low-end Netflix holiday one: two resentful exes stuck together after their partners turn out to be siblings.

Better Man 2024

The Robbie Williams biopic in which he's a monkey.

A Complete Unknown 2024

Sean's seen the Dylan/Chalamet movie but won't talk about it until the show does.

Music Box: Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary 2024

Garrett Price on his Ringer/HBO doc reclaiming yacht rock. Michael McDonald's and Christopher Cross's daughters put him onto it, Toto turn out to be the session-player bedrock of the whole sound, and the film nearly collapsed while he waited on Donald Fagan (who hates the term) to clear six Steely Dan songs.