Screen and Stage Review

I adore musicals. And that's probably all I need to write. But here goes. My husband made a point of showing me this trailer a month or so ago (I usually have no idea what's going on in the movie world). He knew I would be excited by it and I was. Fairy tales, a witch, a musical... These are a few of my favorite things! The acting was fantastic, the songs were great, and all the stories wound together in unexpected ways. I loved that Cinderella and Rapunzel were more from the Grimm version of the old tales than from the Disney versions. It was by turn dark and creepy and dark and funny. One of my favorite songs had to be the princes (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen) singing "Agony." They were hilarious! Johnny Depp's "Hello, Little Girl" was downright disturbing, as it was supposed to be. *shudder* But I also loved the whole look of the movie. The costumes and sets were stunning. We were a little puzzled by the way one character's story arc ended. We had no idea why it took the route it did. My cousin tried to explain it to me today but I'm still a little confused. I enjoyed myself immensely in this movie and recommend it to fairy tale fans! I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site. My opinions are completely my own.

My husband and I went to see the new Hobbit movie Saturday night. It's been 20+ years since I read the book so I haven't been plagued with the urge to compare it to the movies, which has been pretty nice. I've been able to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Then we got to the third movie. I've been wondering how such an average-sized book could possibly be made into a movie trilogy without ruining it. They saved the worst for last. Luis and I were both disappointed. I had a feeling we might be when the second movie just stopped right in the middle of everything. Well-written movies (or books for that matter) shouldn't have to rely on such blatant cliffhangers to keep viewers coming back. The third movie did pick up right where the third one left off but I knew we were in trouble when that particular scene ended within what felt like five minutes. What could possibly be left? Apparently just a bunch of seemingly endless fight scenes and a whole lot of stuff about Thorin losing his mind to "The Dragon's Sickness," i.e. greed. There was very, very, very little plot. I wrote on Facebook that the money they should have spent on a plot went toward the endless CGI war. I walked away feeling like I had watched a 2.5 hour battle. Of course there were smaller fights within the larger battles and those just got ridiculous. I'm sitting there as someone comes back for literally the fourth or fifth time after we thought he'd been killed off, muttering, "You've got to be kidding me." And then there was another individual fight that did not keep resurrecting one of the combatants but it managed to be even worse so then I'm sitting…

So, since I pretty much slammed Noah last week, I thought I'd tell you about a movie I did like. We went out to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier on Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have fairly solid geek cred, but that's based mostly on my love of fantasy novels and the occasional tv show. I don't read superhero graphic novels. I'm not knocking anyone who does, they're just not really my thing. I love the Iron Man movies and at least liked all the others that fall into the "Marvel Universe" but I only really got hooked when we saw The Avengers. Man. That movie was pretty much perfect. Plenty of action and smart one-liners. What more could I ask for? When Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered on ABC, my husband and I were quickly hooked on that too. We rush through dinner to make sure we catch it and if we're running late, we sit in front of the tv and eat. So now we're to the point where we have to catch the movies in the theater, the sooner the better. I liked the first Captain America but didn't love it. The guy's just too goody-two-shoes for me. All his talk of loyalty and honor just makes me feel like a lesser mortal. In his second movie, he's starting to question his orders and I like him better for it. He's not sure if he's doing the right thing but he desperately wants to. That, I can relate to. There's plenty of action (And I could follow it! I hate action scenes that are too fast and complicated.) and a few laughs along the way. I kind of figured out who the Winter Soldier was early in the movie but I quickly dismissed my suspicions.…

Saturday was rainy here so my husband and I headed out to the movies. Our decision-making process while choosing the film was, "Which one will be better on the big screen and which one will be fine on the tv?" Noah won and The Grand Budapest Hotel got saved on the Netflix queue. Noah lost me from the beginning. It dragged on and on and on and bore very little resemblance to the Genesis story as I remember it from Sunday School. I think it started going way off track when Noah was killing people, even in self-defense, and finally derailed when I realized that the "fallen angels" that had appeared in the Garden of Eden were going to stick around and help Noah build the ark. They looked like big rock Transformers. Seriously? Then Noah went all ultimate eco-warrior. They were all going to die. Not just the wicked world but him and his family too. His family would ride out the flood on the ark to make sure the animals made it through okay and then live out their days in solitude. No procreation allowed. He would do anything, including infanticide, to make sure that's the way it went down. Talk about alienating the audience. Add a sullen teenaged Ham to the ark and a murderous stowaway and you've got yourself a hot mess. The bit about a naked, drunken Noah got dragged in for no purpose I could see. One of the few things in the movie that I remember from the Bible and it was just a throwaway scene. And then suddenly they all lived happily ever after. My husband says he would give it 3.5 stars so we think my Baptist roots might be showing. But why mess with a story that's already epic enough…

I know that we've all heard plenty of opinions on The Hunger Games movie and I'm sure I don't have anything new to add. But this is what I feel like writing. So there. :-P I really, really, really liked it. I can't bring myself to say that I loved it, but it was close. I think it helps that it's been years since I read the first book, so the details have gotten a little hazy for me. Almost everything that I did remember made it into the movie. I was mostly impressed with the casting. I really liked Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She caught that inner fire very well. That spark of temper, the caregiver, the girl who manages to always do exactly the right thing by just being herself. I was very happy with Lenny Kravitz as Cinna and Amandla Stenberg as Rue. Donald Sutherland captured President Snow well, I just thought he should have looked a little more...polished. Gale. Wow. I've been Team Gale all along but Liam Hemsworth made sure that I will never change my mind. I feel like a cradle robber saying this, but, man, what a hottie! The two that I'm not quite buying are Peeta and Haymitch. Someone pointed out that Josh Hutcherson was the kid in Journey to the Center of the Earth and I couldn't really move past that. He just seemed too young in comparison to Katniss and Gale. They're all supposed to be about the same age, right? Woody Harrelson as Haymitch? Eh. It kind of worked. He did what he could. I just thought Haymitch would be older and heavier. Not goofy Woody. Some actors will never be able to leave some roles behind, no matter how they try. Woody Harrelson is one of them. The…