Into the Woods

Into the Woods
December 25, 2014
Disney etc.
Musical, Fantasy
DVD
B-

When I saw this in the theater months ago, I would've given it a B+.  I'd seen two stage productions and I thought it translated very well to the big screen.  This time, I was less drawn in.  The music (especially those intricate Sondheim rhymes) seemed more contrived, and I found the film less emotionally moving.  That said, there are some good performances, most notably Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife, probably the most complex character.  Christine Baranski and Meryl Streep are not quite reunited from Mamma Mia!, because (as Cinderella's Stepmother and The Witch) they don't really have any scenes together.  Johnny Depp again plays a creepy character, this time Little Red Riding Hood's wolf.  And Anna Kendrick is a bit miscast as Cinderella (as always, she seems like the smartest person in the room) but she does sing well.

Frances de la Tour is sort of typecast, since she was Madame Maxime in the Harry Potter series and is a much larger giantess here.  Gioacchino Jim Cuffaro was a Wizard Parent in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and is a Villager here.

Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia!
July 18, 2008
Universal etc.
Musical, Comedy, Romance
DVD
B

This at times feels like a throwback to, no, not ABBA's glory days in the '70s, but rather the early '80s, when the cheesy, nonsensical musical sub-genre reached some sort of pinnacle, or depth, with Grease 2 and Pirate Movie.  In fact, watching this in the theater the first time (I went twice), the flipper-ballet on the jetty felt like a Pirate Movie out-take.  And yet, even when Pierce Brosnan is proving himself the worst singing James Bond since Timothy Dalton in Sextette, the movie has more heart than most modern movies.  Much of this is due to star Meryl Streep, who of course out-acts everyone but nearly out-sings everyone, with the notable exception of Amanda Seyfried as her daughter Sophie.  Seyfried has an incredible voice that Mean Girls gave no hint of.  In a plot with an incredibly fuzzy timeline (I think it's set in '97, but this is debatable), twenty-year-old Sophie wants to finally meet her father, and so she invites the three most likely candidates to her wedding:  Brosnan, Colin Firth (very sweet as the now gay one), and Stellan Skarsgård,  Meanwhile, other guests arrive, including Streep's best friends, one played by a surprisingly slapsticky Julie Walters.  Not every moment in the movie works, but the ABBA covers are great and I can't think of a weak one in the bunch.  Also, the Greek scenery is gorgeous.

Norma Atallah was Debra in Yentl and is Irini here.  Kirsty Mather, who's a Hen here, would be John's Boat Girl in Pirate Radio.