Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters represents the latest salvo in Hollywood’s barrage of “gritty/clever” updates on classic fairy tales, the littermate of Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman, Red Riding Hood, Beastly, etc. (It won’t be the youngest of the lot for long, with Jack the Giant Slayer and Maleficent on the way.) All things considered, it’s been a brutally banal run. In a risk-averse industry of copycats, uninspired genre/subgenre streaks are not all that unusual, but still, there’s usually a progenitor, a movie that blows up the box office and triggers the cascade. With a little...  read more

Fairy Tales: Past, Present and Perhaps The Future

Could 2011 be the year of the fairy tale? According to Screen Rant, Eleanor Tomlinson has signed on to be the princess in Jack the Giant Killer, Hollywood’s adaptation of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in which Jack breaks peace between giants and humans to rescue the princess. Ewan McGregor will play the giant killer....  read more