wordcandy.net

Monday, December 19, 2011

Is that a Gremlins shout-out I'm hearing?

This one I will be seeing:

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Kitschy!

The trailer's out for the other Snow White adaptation, too. I don't think anyone is going to confuse these two movies:

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Friday, November 11, 2011

Snow White goes goth

It pains me to admit that I will probably see this:

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Friday, August 05, 2011

Too much is never enough

And now there's a third Snow White movie in the works, this one from Disney. Just what the world needs!

Labels: Fairytales

Monday, July 25, 2011

Snow White smackdown

Early character shots are out from the two upcoming Snow White movie adaptations. You have the Snow White: Joan of Arc version:

[Source]

And Snow White: Original Flavor:

[Source]

Pick your poison.

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Maladroit

I'm so happy this is a real thing:

Yes. Snow White, perhaps the most famous poisoning victim in all of fairyland, is hawking the very food that led to her downfall. Way to go, Disney!

[Via io9]

Labels: Disney, Fairytales

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Little Mermaid gets even creepier

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony is planning a film adaptation of Carolyn Turgeon's Mermaid, which is a "dark" retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's (already too dark for my taste) The Little Mermaid. The movie will be written and directed by Country Strong filmmaker Shana Feste, who seems to really enjoy writing stories about self-destructive women who Love Too Much.

I read and reviewed Ms. Turgeon's first book, and I'm pretty sure Wordcandy has a copy of Mermaid collecting dust on our To-Be-Read shelf. Nobody's been brave enough to open it yet—because if her last book succeeded in making Cinderella seriously depressing, who knows what Turgeon could do with a fairytale that's already a total downer?

Labels: Carolyn Turgeon, Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Once Upon a Fall Upfront

Fairy tales are clearly hot right now, at least if you're a network TV producer. NBC's Grimm looks straight-up terrible (although I enjoyed the creepiness of the mailman guy). The acting in ABC's Once Upon a Time is a slight improvement, but the CGI—well, the less said about that, the better.

Anyway, both of these look like shows I'll be nagging Megan to watch in the fall: groan-inducing, but possibly in a fun way.

Labels: Fairytales, TV

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Snow White and Jet Li

And speaking of poorly-conceived reworkings of classic plots, Disney is apparently in talks to develop a new live-action version of Snow White. This fresh take on the fairytale would feature seven warriors (one of whom would apparently be played by Jet Li), rather than seven dwarves, and is rumored to star Natalie Portman.

I could get behind the warrior thing, but I just can't stomach Natalie Portman's vacant screen presence. I'd rather see almost any other actress in this role—even Megan Fox. Seriously: anyone else.

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Check your fairy godmothers at the door

Salon's Laura Miller has posted an article about the National Book Award's stipulation barring "collections and/or retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales" from entering the contest. I had no idea this rule was in place—and, interestingly, none of the current National Book Foundation staff seem to know why it was thought necessary in the first place.

I know this is small of me, but I hope Robin McKinley—an American author who has written several (admittedly excellent) reworked fairy-tales but refuses to allow fanfiction based on her books—is aware of this rule and is irritated by it.

Labels: Fairytales, National Book Award, Rules and regulations

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

"You better watch yourself." Seriously, film?

Behold, the dark-and-sexy new film take on Little Red Riding Hood:

Okay... that looks hilarious, and unintentionally so. I am so there.

P.S. Is it just me, or did they steal most of their costuming/make-up ideas from The Princess Bride? The long red outfit, the pale blue dress, the pulled-back long blonde curls... it all looks very Robin Wright, doesn't it?

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Ah, gimmicks

Yet another snippet of Disney Princess news has come my way: a sing-a-long version of Beauty and Beast will be shown in a limited number of theaters on September 29th and October 2nd. Hopefully this will tide fans of the film over until 2012, when the company is apparently planning to re-work the film into 3D.

Labels: Disney, Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Witch-hunting for fun and profit

Cinematical is linking Noomi Rapace (who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) to an upcoming American project called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Apparently, the movie will take place 15 years after the witch-killing brother and sister's first brush with death, and focus on their new line of work: supernatural bounty hunting. Now this could turn into something like the painfully bad Van Helsing, but with rumored stars like Rapace and Jeremy Renner, as well as director Tommy Wirkola (who made the Norwegians-battling-Nazi zombies film Dead Snow) it should be interesting—or at least fully embrace its campiness.

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations, satire

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Right there with you, NPH

Wow, this movie (based on the YA book Beastly by Alex Flinn, and inspired by the "Beauty and the Beast" fairytale) looks seriously terrible:

I'm actually almost impressed by how bad this looks.

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations, teen literature

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

(Not for $48, though.)

There's a new collection of Disney Couture jewelry out, this time inspired by their take on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. I'm usually not a fan of themed jewelry, but something about these octopus earrings does sort of speak to me...

Labels: Disney, Fairytales, Shopping

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Let down your standards

I was really irritated when I first heard about Disney's decision to tweak their upcoming movie version of Rapunzel in order to attract more boy viewers. There's already a serious lack of girl-friendly entertainment out there, so Disney's decision felt like a betrayal of their core audience. But now that I've seen the trailer for the movie (which was retitled Tangled, because that's, like, way manly), I'm feeling much better. Tangled looks like a parody of the classic Disney "princess" movies of the past twenty years—the kind of film the minor studios make in an attempt to steal some of Disney's thunder. It's possible the movie will turn out to be better than this smirky and romance-free trailer makes it look... but for now, I'm perfectly content to let the boys have this one.

Labels: Disney, Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Time on your hands?

Whoa. This must have taken some serious effort:

And in other news, Disney has decided to go for a more dude-friendly take on the ol' fairytale genre: from here on out (says the Los Angeles Times), they don't want to be "put in a box" by making movies just for girls. Because there are already so many movies out there aimed at females, and Lord knows we'd want to be fair.

Labels: Disney, Fairytales, satire

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Spinning Disney

We try to avoid reporting on rumors (particularly rumors from a site like AintitCoolNews, which gives us an instant headache whenever we visit it), but this one's pretty widespread: whispers abound that Tim Burton is planning a cinematic retelling of Disney's Sleeping Beauty from the wicked queen's point of view... which sounds kind of awesome, at least if he'd be willing to change Disney's ending. (I don't want to get all attached and then have my heroine get stabbed by some tool in a silly-looking cape who goes around kissing comatose girls.)

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations

Monday, January 04, 2010

Cinderella's Sister

If you're still unfamiliar with K-dramas, A) you are seriously missing out, and B) you might want to start with Cinderella's Sister, an upcoming 20-episode series scheduled to begin in March. According to Dramabeans, the cast for this adaptation/retelling of the classic fairytale is going to include Tamra the Island actress Seo Woo (an up-and-coming star) and Moon Geun-young (already an A-lister in Korea, best known here in the US for her role in the horror film A Tale of Two Sisters). I have really high hopes for this drama--frankly, I don't think Moon would sign up for something at this point in her career without some amazing buzz behind it, and Seo Woo can probably pick and choose her drama projects, too.

Labels: dramas, Fairytales

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Ponyo in English

The English-language trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's latest film (the Little Mermaid retelling Ponyo) is finally up, and while they didn't quite sync up the voices and the mouths, it still looks pretty great:

Labels: Fairytales, Movie Adaptations