I love Aladdin, but for me his most memorable roles were Dead Poets' Society and Good Will Hunting.

Good Will Hunting has been my favourite movie ever since I first saw it, and remains so to this day. Not because I think it's the best movie ever, it has its flaws and there are parts I don't love, but man, something about that movie just gets me every single time.

"Oh Captain, my Captain" somehow sums it up best for me. So very, very sad.

I think the author just thought Dauntless was so COOL! and BADASS! and her excitement over the whole wearing dark clothes! and leaping off moving trains! and getting tattoos! irritated me. I don't know, I don't remember much about the story now because I read it so fast and disliked it so much that my brain can only dredge up random pieces of information about the story. I do remember one character being so EVIL! that it took me entirely out of the story. Write in a villain, by all means, but give them some kind of humanity/sympathy/motivation beyond mustache-twirling, please. I actually feel that is especially important in YA fiction. The YA phase of one's life is the time when you learn about life not being black and white, so YA books that present the world that way drive me mad.

The world of Divergent made no sense to me, which was a major block for me. (And Tris was annoying, and Four was such blatant teengirlnip that I was quickly bored by him. He's the typical Bad Boy With A Heart Of Gold that we've seen soooooo many times before. Never any suspense there as to a) where he came from and b) whether he'd fall in love with Tris or not.)

But I shouldn't be too critical because writing is hard. I am trying to write a YA dystopian novel just as a response to this, and The Hunger Games, because I've pinpointed mostly what I am not seeing and what I want to see, so rather than just ragging on existing works, I figured I should write what I want to read. But it turns out world-building is super hard, so maybe I should cut Veronica Roth some slack. (Maybe not. She can go cry into her giant stack of money and just not read her Amazon.com reviews at all.)

I'm keen for a commentary on "Frozen".

I listened to the podcast you linked in the other forum, from the guy who wrote "Spotlight". I was hoping, as an author of YA fiction myself, to get some insight from the interview about what it is that he felt made the story work. I think I just wasted half an hour of my life listening to someone wail on about how everyone is wrong to disrespect it because Stephenie Meyer is really good, even though her prose is lacking but her allegory is interesting. I disagree.

I read the first Twilight book at summer camp (I was a counselor) because my campers were all reading it and talking about it, so I felt that I should have some perspective on it. I read the first book in about 48 hours, including reading under my covers with a flashlight while the girls were sleeping. It was a very easy book to read and I digested it quite quickly. I knew where the story was going, but was along for the journey. I went straight into New Moon and found it a trial because Bella's moping was SO irritating, but I really enjoyed Jacob's character. I moved on to Eclipse and I remember almost nothing from that book so I guess that sums it up for me. I do recall reading Breaking Dawn (I think that either came out during the same summer, or the following summer) and laughing and groaning in equal share as I read it. By that point I was finding it offensive and another counselor and I spent some time reading portions out to our campers and discussing how controlling and abusive Edward was. Jacob's character went in that direction too, and the whole fourth book was just laughably bad.

I do remember discussing Breaking Dawn with the girls prior to its release, and saying that I hoped Bella became a vampire, lost her self-control and killed Jacob's father (he's in a wheelchair, he's a sitting duck). Which would change the focus of the battle between Edward and Jacob over who 'deserves' Bella to who is going to be stuck with her / take responsibility for what they've turned her into. Of course that didn't happen, Bella turned into a perfectly self-controlled vampire and had the world's most perfect baby, and I gagged and threw the book on the floor.

For the record, I haven't seen the movies and I think Robert Pattinson is incredibly unappealing. I have long subscribed to the "mop" theory as explained on your podcast - call it Edward and they will swoon, no matter what it looks like. (Notably,Stephenie Meyer said she envisaged Edward as looking like Henry Cavill, back when he was in "The Count of Monte Cristo". Now that one I can get on board with.)

I'm with the FIYH podcast on Twilight, there is very little in the podcast that I disagree with - except the assertion that the books get better as the series goes on. I would argue the complete opposite.

And if we're sharing YouTube videos about Twilight, I like the "Alex Reads Twilight" ones. They're hysterical.

So when are you going to do Frozen?

Just listening to this now. I haven't seen the movie but it seems interesting, so I'll have to look it up.

Teague, what are your thoughts on the music for "Tangled"? I was re-watching it the other week and started out saying "The problem with this movie is that there's only one song" (because I only remembered "At Last I See the Light"). Halfway through the song my roommate said "There are lots of songs in this." I said "Yeah...but can you remember any of them? What was the melody of the song that JUST finished?" We honestly couldn't recall. So I looked at the credits afterwards to find out who wrote the songs, and was shocked that it was Alan Menken, because usually he's great. What happened there? Is it just me that can't remember any songs from that movie or did Menken drop the ball?