Come and re-live the old time drive-in movie experience at Uptown Station’s Central Park. We show movies on the giant, 30′ inflatable movie screen – the only one on the Emerald Coast.
Bring your blankets, lawn chairs and coolers. (No pets or glass containers please.) We have vendors plus all the great dining choices of Uptown Station, to make this the best FREE night out on the Emerald Coast.
Tonight’s movie is:
The Princess and the Frog is an American animated family film loosely based on E. D. Baker’s novel The Frog Princess, which was in turn inspired by the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale “The Frog Prince“.It is the 49th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics line, and the first of these films to be traditionally (2D) animated since 2004’s Home on the Range. The film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, directors of The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, and Treasure Planet, with songs and score composed by Randy Newman and featuring the voices of Anika Noni Rose(as Princess Tiana), Oprah Winfrey, Keith David, Jim Cummings, John Goodman, Jenifer Lewis, Bruno Campos, Michael-Leon Wooley, Peter Bartlett and Terrence Howard. Princess Tiana is also notable as Disney’s first African-American princess.
The film, which began production under the working title The Frog Princess, is an American fairy tale, Broadway-style musical set in the French Quarter of New Orleans. A prince named Naveen (Bruno Campos) from the land of Maldonia is transformed into a frog by the evil scheming voodoo magician Dr. Facilier (Keith David). The frog prince mistakes a girl named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) for a princess and has her kiss him to break the spell. The kiss does not break the spell, but instead turns Tiana into a frog as well. Together, the two of them must reach the good voodoo priestess of the Bayou, Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), while befriending a trumpet-playing alligator and a hopelessly romantic firefly along the way. The film opened in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on November 25, 2009, and released in wide on December 11, 2009.
The movie opens with the evening star shining above New Orleans, taking place around the year of 1913, the time when Woodrow Wilson was elected as the 28th President of the United States, according to the newspapers. Young Tiana (voiced by Elizabeth Dampier) and young Charlotte La Bouff (voiced by Breanna Brooks) are listening to the story of “The Frog Prince” as told by Tiana’s mother Eudora (voiced byOprah Winfrey), a seamstress often hired by the La Bouffs (led by the bumbling yet kind sugar mill owner, Eli ‘Big Daddy’ La Bouff (voiced by John Goodman) mostly to make dresses for Charlotte. Charlotte is thrilled with the idea of kissing a frog and marrying a prince, while Tiana vows she will never kiss a frog. Instead, she shares a dream with her father James (voiced by Terrence Howard): to open a restaurant of their own, named “Tiana’s Place.”
As the Years pass by, as well as World War I, and Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is now working as a waitress, scrimping and saving, and seems to have let go of having fun (as well as everything else) in favor of her dream, as James has now died during his military service at the final years of World War I. She finally makes the money and shows her plans of turning an old riverside warehouse into a classy restaurant to her mother, who insists that she needs to look at other parts of life
Meanwhile, Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) of the legendary country Maldonia, arrives in the city with his butler Lawrence (voiced by Peter Bartlett). The prince has been cut off by his parents (the King and Queen of Maldonia) for his play-boy and jazzy lifestyle and either has to marry or get a job to support himself. Staying true to his word, Naveen plans to wed Charlotte (voiced by Jennifer Cody) to gain her fortune. The two soon meet up with Doctor Facilier (voiced by Keith David), though refered throughout the film as “The Shadowman”, a voodoo magician who intends on taking the La Bouff fortune for himself, who turns Naveen into a frog and gets Lawrence to join him in his plot to rule New Orleans.
At the La Bouff grand masquerade ball, Tiana learns that another client (possibly a real estate agent) put down a higher offer on the building she wanted for her restaurant, and is now left with nothing unless she can top him after Mardi Gras. Having given up hope, she desperately wishes on the evening star, when Naveen appears. Thinking that she is a princess, he convinces her to kiss him in order to break the curse and turn him back into a human again, but the spell backfires (because Tiana is not really a princess) and Tiana becomes a frog as well. The two are chased out as Lawrence uses a voodoo charm to impersonate the prince and win the heart of Charlotte. It requires Naveen’s blood to work however, so Facilier sends out his voodoo spirits to retrieve the prince, who has escaped to the bayou with Tiana. He plots on using Lawrence to marry Charlotte -thus gaining their fortune- then kill Big Daddy and take over New Orleans, feeding the souls of the citizens to his voodoo “friends”.
In the bayou, Tiana and Naveen encounter Louis (voiced by Michael-Leon Wooley), an alligator who wants to become human so he can be a jazz musician, and Ray (voiced by Jim Cummings), a Cajun firefly who is in love with the evening star ( who he has named Evangeline), which he thinks is another firefly. They take them to see Mama Odie, the good but eccentric voodoo priestess of the swamp. Along the way, despite their earlier disputes, Naveen and Tiana fall in love with each other, though the latter chooses to hide her feelings and pursue her goal of having her own restaraunt.
They eventually reach Mama Odie (voiced by Jenifer Lewis), who insists they need to “dig deeper” to get what they need. Naveen realizes this means being with Tiana, but Tiana misinterprets this as having to work even harder for her restaurant. Mama Odie reveals that for the two to become human, Naveen must kiss Charlotte, who is the Mardi Gras Princess, before midnight, when Mardi Gras ends. They proceed to return to New Orleans in time by hitching a ride on one of the riverboats. Along the way, Louis is recruited into a jazz band, who think that Louis is just wearing an alligator costume. Through a misunderstanding, Naveen tells Ray about his feelings for Tiana, and Ray is not suprised. Meanwhile, Naveen plans on proposing to Tiana, but as they pass by the warehouse that she plans to turn into a restaurant, she shows more interest in her dream than in him and he thinks she does not reciprocate his feelings. Knowing that he will never be able to get the money for Tiana’s restaurant unless he marries Charlotte, Naveen decides to marry Charlotte and give Tiana her money so that she can follow her dream.
However, Naveen is kidnapped by the voodoo shadow spirits and is taken to Facilier, who locks him away after obtaining a small amount of his blood. Meanwhile, Ray reveals to Tiana that Naveen truly loves her, and that he was meaning to propose. Tiana rushes to the Mardi Gras parade to find Lawrence (disguised as Naveen) marrying Charlotte, having re-fueled the voodoo charm. Thinking that he is the real Naveen, Tiana runs away to the graveyard, broken-hearted, and tells Ray that Evangeline is just a star and he will never actually meet her. Ray does not seem to believe her at all, and apologizes to Evangeline on Tiana’s behalf. He rushes off and manages to free the real Naveen and steal the charm, causing Lawrence to resume his true form and get arrested. He gives it to Tiana, telling her to run and to never let Dr. Facilier get hold of the talisman, just before Facilier fatally crushes him.
Feeling trapped, Dr. Facilier transports Tiana and himself into a “dream world” where Tiana has her restaurant as well as her human form. He says she could have everything she wants if she gives him the talisman (and tells her that it would make her father’s dream come true as well) , and though momentarily considering the offer, Tiana refuses upon realizing that what she needs-love and following her heart- is more important than what she wants-and that even though her father never got what hewanted, he had what he needed-and never lost sight of what was really important. She then shatters Facilier’s talisman, releasing the voodoo spirits from within who proceed to drag a screaming Facilier into their world for failing them, leaving behind a gravestone with his name and horrified face etched upon it.
Back at the Mardi Gras parade, Naveen offers Charlotte marriage, but Tiana confesses she’d rather have him as a frog and have him be a part of her dream, because she is in love with him. Charlotte offers to kiss him so he can marry Tiana, but it is too late. Mardi Gras is over and Charlotte is no longer a princess. Louis finds the wounded Ray and rushes him to the others. He sees that Tiana and Naveen are together and expresses his happiness before he dies. At Ray’s funeral, they look up and see that another star has appeared next to Evangeline, presumably Ray.
Naveen and Tiana are married in the bayou by Mama Odie. Their kiss turns them back into humans because through their marriage, Tiana is now a princess. The two go to New Orleans and get back the building by paying the money and having Louis frighten the real estate agents into keeping their word. They work together and open Tiana’s restaurant which is named “Tiana’s Palace”, a successful business where Louis plays trumpet in his band Firefly Five Plus Lou. The movie ends with the two kissing as the evening stars, Ray and Evangeline, twinkle from above.
To see a trailer of the movie click HERE
