Movies: No Dark Cinderella and Maybe Witch Hunters is Awesome?

Photo by Dark Cherry on DeviantArt/ Official Movie Poster

The Cate Blanchett/ Mark Romanek Cinderella is a Bust
Gah! Just when we thought we might have a top-notch dark fairy tale coming down the studio pipe, Disney has decided that Mark Romanek's Cinderella is too dark for Disney. Click the link to hear Io9 rant and rave and echo my anger at this development. Fingers-crossed that some other studio has the gumption to snatch that project up. Disney doesn't need another regular Cinderella, or another modern twee Cinderella. Disney should have had the balls to delve. </rant>

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters Might Not Suck?
In other news, it turns out that Witch Hunters may not be so bad afterall? The new redband trailer has a tongue in cheek flavor to it:



My fellow blogger Drown My Books will probably disagree with me, but Jeremy Renner still has yet to earn a "I will see anything he is in" card from me. Gemma Arterton, on the other hand, from her performance in St. Trinians, I can definitely get behind. Something to Read for the Train (Cate, who is in fact a girl) weighs in with some really thoughtful remarks about the nature of fairy tales to reflect the values of the times, and how, while many had moral lessons, they were meant as entertainment. She also treats us to my favorite version of Little Red Riding Hood to illustrate her point.

I have a feeling it's gonna be an awesomely terrible action romp, with the cool fighting moves and awesome slow mo and dead-pan badass one-liners (I admit it! The "we'd do this shit for free" line in the trailer hooked me.) And I'm kind of ok with that. (Though, my fairy tale racism argument still stands!)

Book: Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

"I pad over and put out a paw. "Pleased to meet you, madam."
She blushes, the varicose veins in her cheeks swelling with blood. Instead of taking my paw to shake, however, she turns it over as if it's a piece of bruised fruit in a market. "Hmmm..." She pores over my palm, nodding like a fortune-teller. Her spectacles slide comically down the bridge of her nose, and when she looks up at me, her face is full of mock astonishment. "Oh, my! What big teeth you have!" She giggles and kicks her slippered feet."

Henry Whelp is the son of the wolf who killed Little Red Riding Hood. This has been the defining characteristic of his existence. He is currently in St. Remus juvenile detention facility for dropping a brick onto a moving truck (a Nimbus truck like the one that killed his mother). When a sudden death reveals some lost letters from his father, Henry must break out and discover the truth of his father's crime at any cost....


See the rest of the review on my other blog, Palimpsest!

End of the Year Roundup: Cinderella Movie, Cinderella in the News, and Maria Warner on The Brothers Grimm

Chadwick Tyler's photo of Imogen Morris Clarke

Well, well, ladies and gentlemen. I have kind of dropped the ball for the end of the year! And I am ok with that. Rather than focusing on trying to get every little bit of fairy tale news that comes down the pike, this year, I am going to focus on the things that really spark my interest, that I really feel passionate about. This will mean that my posts are fewer and farther between, but it will also mean that I will be able to devote some quality time to the posts I decide to write.

Here, however, is a digest of some other news items we missed in the mean time:

Cate Blanchett to play Evil Stepmother in New Cinderella Movie
While, yes, I still feel that we need a greater diversity of fairy tale movies, I love me some Cate Blanchett. Here's hoping that her endorsement of the movie means it has a good script. The director is Mark Romanek who directed One Hour Photo and Never Let Me Go, so here's hoping he does it as awesome as those!

We Are the Folk, Volume II: Cinderella in the Closet and Blood in the Shoe
Something to Read for the Train examines two more news stories that smack of fairy tales in modern life, and not in a happy ending kind of way. She explores schadenfreude in a way that shed new light on the idea for me (the comfort not only that we are not getting shat upon by life like those guys over there, but that we are not the crazy ones so we will be ok). She also delves into a horrible case of child abuse as a parallel to Cinderella, insisting that the marriage and the slipper do not a Cinderella story make; it is about a girl who rises from the ashes of abuse. She goes on to discuss why we shouldn't shy away from the scary or the gory in fairy tales (a favorite tune of mine): "What I would claim is that a child who hasn’t been sheltered from fairy tales is going to have a little bit more in her mental arsenal when the shit hits the fan, if only because they might have just that much more faith that all will turn out well, and that help, in whatever form, is on the way."

Maria Warner's 10-Part BBC Broadcast about Fairy Tales
While I have not listened to all of them, the topics look fascinating! She traces the ancient origins, discusses those who contributed to the tales, examines the fate of the tales in the hands of Nazis, delves into the psychology of the tales, the history of their censorship, and the future of the tales. All topics we here at The Dark Forest love to talk about!

That is all for now. For anyone who wants to know, yes I did love Once Upon a Time's midseason finale. They know how to do a finale. I do think that Mulan and Aurora should get together, and damnit Regina is awesome and deserves to be happy, but from what I have seen of the clips from "The Cricket Game," this is not going to happen any time soon. Here's Io9's recap/review.

TV: Quick and Dirty OUAT Mini-Reviews

Tallahassee

So, reaching back to three weeks ago.... I liked Neal. I didn't expect to when I first saw him, but he was fun! And potentially a fairy tale character because he believes in magic with only a slight "take a peak in my bag" from Pinocchio. The only fairy tale character that we know of that is out of Storybrooke is Bae. But Bae must be like 100 by now. We don't actually know how old Rumpelstiltskin is. (Something that was brought to my attention the other day: Hook is as old as Rumpelstiltskin. Boom. Mind blown. I reeeeeally want them to do something with that.)

Hook was sexy and charming. But still really only that. He is a damn good token sexy pirate, but he is still not Captain Hook.

And Jorge Garcia. I was going to be so mad if they had had him come roaring in and then knocked him unconscious and then that was it. But they gave him some beautiful nuanced stuff!

Io9's Review

Child of the Moon

I actually really liked this episode. A lot of people I know, including Io9, thought it was fluff, but Ruby really needed this episode to happen. I was waiting for it. And it explained the question of how Ruby got control over her wolf-self all of a sudden. Like Hulk in the Avengers.

Gus the Once-Was-A-Mouse was adorable! I really wanted that to work, but of course we knew that he probably would be dead by the end of the episode. Ruby must be totally traumatized for life because every boy she likes gets violently killed.

I loved the deepening of the Belle/ Ruby relationship. And the Snow/ Ruby relationship. Their friendship is now much more than "hyjinks and tracking in the woods." Snow is the only one who accepts both sides of Ruby, which I thought was so cool.

Oh Charles Whitmore. You are a villany villain. And deliciously so. No one likes you. Ever. But in keeping with this show's excellent treatment of villainous characters, I do wish that we got to see more of his motivation. Yes, your son died, and you are sad about it, and this douchebag who is pretending to be your son didn't do anything you said and took over your kingdom. But we never really see his side of things. All we get is him single-mindedly wanting to destroy Charming. I want a bit more ambiguity in my villains, thank you!

But oh Charming's heart breaking as he was about to shoot Whitmore. So much feels.

Io9's Review

Into the Deep

Ok this one is a lot fresher in my mind, but has still been festering for a week or so, so bare with me.

Let me just say, Regina and Rumple working together. I loved it! They are both going through magical villain rehab, and are having a difficult time letting go of their past. They should just establish a general amnesty, like in Fables. I'm sure everyone had fairy tale crimes and vendettas.

I did love that Regina and Rumple both have chosen to be weaker. Chosen attachments and love. Evil Rumple and Regina working together could flatten Cora like a bug, but now they are vulnerable and squishy because they love. Brilliant!

The plotline with Charming going in to the sleeping curse world was awesome. And so heartbreaking. Damn Snow and Charming's chemistry just makes my heart squee. And also cry and lament.

As for dear Emma. I honestly don't know why she is there? She has done nothing so far that Snow could not have done. And Mulan. I haven't yet got behind her character. I don't know who she is. She is not Mulan from the Disney movie. She is an Asian warrior chick, yes, but other than that I know that she likes Aurora. That is it.

But oh Aurora. I have no idea when she got her heart stolen, or how Hook did it. Honestly, can everyone do it? It's getting less cool the more people can do it. BUT. Cora can control her using her heart. I love it. So diabolical and dirty. I am excited to see where that goes.

Io9's Review

Interview: Guillermo del Toro on Fairy Tales and Darkness in Children's Movies

Guillermo del Toro (of Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy fame) recently did an interview about his new movie Rise of the Guardians, and he had some interesting things to say about fairy tales and darkness in children's stories, both favorite topics here on Dark Forest!

What's the biggest mistake people make in telling stories about children, or for children?

Well, I think that one of the things is to actually try and create a sense of darkness in the tale. A lot of people just make this sanitized super happy-go-lucky, "bright sunshine and clouds" type of childhood movies. And you really need an element of the dark in it. In the case of Kung Fu Panda 2, we really came up with a psychotic, sociopathic villain. In the case of [Rise of the] Guardians, we have Pitch, which is an incredibly sophisticated and articulate guy that tries to control your fear. In the case of Puss in Boots, we had a bad guy who was Humpty, who was capable of changing and capable of doing a good action at the end. He was incredibly neurotic.
And I think that people don't acknowledge that kids have all these sides. Kids are neurotic, kids deal with fear, kids are confronted by really hostile impulses from the adults around them and the other kids, and you know, movies should acknowledge all this and create these fables that help them deal with those things....

What's the difference between a monster movie and a dark fairy tale?

It's a very, very, very thin difference. I think that horror stories come from fairy tales, in a way. They share a lot of similarities. I think the difference is tonal. You know, the fairy tale contains a lot more elements of magic and whimsy and the the horror story contains a lot more, sort of, almost existential feelings — sort of dread, and ultimately they are similar melodies, played at a very different key.

Is there a limit to how dark a movie for kids can get? And do you think animated films are getting closer to classic children's books, and less like cartoons?

One of the master of children's fiction is one of the guys who acknowledged fully the darkness of the world — that is, Roald Dahl. He did really brutal passages in The BFG. There's really very, very creepy and violent [stuff] in The Witches. And so on, and so forth. He really scared a lot of [kids] from that side. He is the reason why... when the line is crossed, and then it doesn't function as a children's story any more — it can become an adult fairytale. It can become a fairytale that adults can enjoy. And I think there are some of those, particularly in the Eastern cultures. Like 1001 Nights — a lot of those stories are very harrowing. And people forget that a lot of the tales that the Grimm Brothers collected, they were actually meant to be told to adults. People think, "Oh, they were children's stories" — [but] not in the beginning. They were meant to be told to adults, to entertain them. But yes, to answer your question: It can get too dark.

That was one of the challenges with [Rise of the] Guardians. We wanted to keep that balance at all times. It would still be fun, it would still be a ride.

You can read the rest of the interview here at Io9. I must admit, I wasn't that excited for this movie, but it seems to be playing around with some fun ideas!

Interview: Fairy Tale Darwinism

The Huffington Post recently did a live hangout with Jack Zipes (preeminent fairy tale scholor), Tim Manley (fellow fairy tale blogger of Fairy Tales for 20 Somethings, and teacher/ writer), Donald Hasse (Editor of Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies), and Susan Kim (Writer and Filmmaker). They discuss the evolution of fairy tales, how fairy tales are a reflection of the culture, and what makes a fairy tale stand the test of time. And Jack Zipes goes off on how the original fairy tales are not good for children. You know how I feel about that. Though Adam Gidwitz says it better. 

He does also touch upon something we have discussed before, how modern interpretations have a faux-feminism, saying that all you have to do to empower women is have them swing a sword around. (See The Empowerment of Snow White). Should women have to "become masculine" to have power. Is wielding a sword (or fighting in general) masculine? Personally, I think if you have a weak female character whose only empowerment is having a sword, then yes, it is a sham. However, if the character herself is strong, no matter what she does, sword or knitting, she will be empowered. Any thoughts, viewers at home?

While the discussion is a bit all over the place, and it seems like the moderator wanted to tackle a bit too much for such a small time slot, it is an excellent interview! It is so great to see such different perspectives on fairy tales together in one (virtual) room. I just wish there was more time for them to argue.

RADIO: NPR's Interview with Maria Tatar on the Origins and Interpretations of Fairy Tales

NPR's On Point did a fantastic interview with Maria Tatar recently! It delves into why and how the brothers collected the tales, fairy tales in popular culture, misogyny, Antisemitism and violence in fairy tales, and personal interpretation of fairy tales. While many of you have heard these topics discussed before, this conversation is fresh and interesting.

Maria emphasizes that the Grimm version is not sacred. Our stories that we remix and reinterpret and add meanings based on our own life experiences. I love that! While I do get frustrated when people take the tales and make them something totally other than I myself interpret them to mean or kowtow to the Disney version when there are more interesting versions available, it is important to remember that we all approach fairy tales with our own baggage. There is no right version. One of the best qualities of fairy tales is that they are so malleable. We don't get the internal monologue of the characters, just the actions, so we can infuse their actions with meanings we relate to. The tales belong to all of us. We each have our own Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty, or Little Red Riding Hood.

Go to the original page for supplementary materials.