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The latest animated 3-D Disney movie Tangled isn’t as dryly subversive as one of those great old “Fractured Fairy Tales” on Rocky and Bullwinkle, but it has a similar vibe—of people goofing on the Brothers Grimm and having a jolly time. The fairy tale in this case is “Rapunzel,” the heroine (voiced by Mandy Moore) a princess shut up in the high tower of a castle by a bogus mother (Donna Murphy) who stole her as an infant for the rejuvenating power of her long tresses. It’s a full-scale musical, too. Early on, Rapunzel sings a ditty called “When Will My Life Begin?” that recounts how she spends her days and nights, and though it’s awfully sprightly for a lifelong shut-in, Moore has a supple voice, the staging is amusing, and the tune (by Alan Menken) is catchy. Rapunzel has a little chameleon named Pascal with huge eyes that perches on her shoulders and gets a few good reaction shots. I can’t help liking a movie with chameleon reaction shots.

Editor’s note: Late last week, a small intergenerational fracas erupted in our offices. Film critic David Edelstein and “Agenda” movies editor Miranda Siegel had sharply differing opinions about Tiny Furniture, Lena Dunham’s film about post-collegiate anomie, and the conversation was spirited (and entertaining) enough that we asked the two of them to have it out on Vulture.

David: Miranda—thanks for joining me here. I dragged my feet when it came time to write about Tiny Furniture because, rightly or wrongly—possibly both—I have been struck by the indignation of certain segments of the audience when I pan films reckoned beyond my realm of experience. I don’t get Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the charge goes, because I’m not in my twenties. I cannot possibly understand Precious because I’m not African-American and a woman and a poor Harlemite and a rape victim and an AIDS sufferer. I was irritated by Tiny Furniture because I’m not a female of the mumblecore generation. (Paradoxically, I liked Sideways too much because I was a less-than-svelte fortysomething alcoholic critic who’d have died happy if someone like Virginia Madsen ever took an interest in me.)

I think a work of art must transcend individual experience and touch a larger chord with people young and old, fat and thin, gay and straight. At the same time, I’m interested in knowing what a movie like Tiny Furniture means to people who did grow up in Lena Dunham’s world and share her wavelength.

Miranda: I enjoyed our little inter-cubicle back-and-forth the other day, and I agree that Tiny Furniture should have been able to win over a fiftysomething critic as well as a new graduate. I guess it’s a knock on the film that it didn’t. But it had an extremely powerful effect on me, and if you look beyond the superficial aspects of the material and characters, it’s addressing something I suspect you can relate to.

I will admit that the film can appear a little glib, like so much indulgent, self-effacing mumblecore muck: It’s an ambling, tragicomic ode to well-off twentysomething ennui, centered around the sad-sack existence of a liberal arts grad moping around a Tribeca loft. So: eye-rolling understood. But there’s a much darker and more twisted story underneath, one that effectively captures the feelings of uselessness that define, as her character puts it, “post-graduate delirium.” It’s a sharp portrayal of the ugly feedback loop generated by the constant need for validation, and the self-loathing that inevitably accompanies that need. Aura is not seeking love, or sex, or even a job, really. She’s heard over and over that her parents’ wealth and success give her access to anything—that even if she makes something of herself, it may not be because of anything she has done. It goes deep, to the point where Aura may never know whether she’s actually any good at anything. What she really wants is for someone to tell her that she’s not a total waste of oxygen.

There are so many terrible ideas in Andrei Konchalavsky’s The Nutcracker in 3D that the terrible execution is almost irrelevant: Even if the film were well done it would still be a travesty. Start with the notion of reducing the amount of dance to about 45 seconds, axing most of Tchaikovsky’s score, and writing lyrics for what’s left, which is mostly iterations of “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.” Go on: Try singing something — anything — to “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” and see how awkwardly it sits (or stumbles) on the tongue. The lyricist, Tim Rice, squeezes two songs out of that over-familiar piece, the first, “It’s Relative,” sung by a miserable-looking Nathan Lane as the children’s mysterious uncle. Said uncle is now, for no reason I can discern, Albert Einstein. Nothing like trimming the Christmas tree with your Jewish relatives.