Review: "Snow White and the Huntsman"

This article was originally published in my movie column at Towleroad

"Fairy tale revisionism" has been rapidly climbing the Hollywood idea chart. In the past few years we've seen Alice in Wonderland, Rapunzel in Tangled, Red Riding Hood, and Snow White in Mirror Mirror (reviewed here).  There are several more on the way including Angelina Jolie as Maleficent terrorizing Sleeping Beauty Elle Fanning. This weekend Snow White returned to theaters for the second time in three months. Her timing is apt since the apple-munching princess is celebrating her 75th big screen anniversary (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in 1937). Why so many fairy tales? Modern Hollywood thrives on branding so the more familiar the movie before it arrives the better. And what's more familiar than fairy tales?

Tale as old as time. 
True as it can be…  ♫

Oops wrong fairy tale. Regret to inform that Snow White and the Huntsman does not have a theme song sung by Angela Lansbury but let's borrow that song anyway as framing device. Snow White and the Hunstman does have a theme song but it's a less catchy dirge-like ballad. One of the seven dwarves coughs it out at a funeral until Florence and the Machine take over on the soundtrack as the heroes rise up against evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) in montage. 

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you can suspend your disbelief that Kristen Stewart is "the fairest of all them all" in a beauty contest with Charlize Theron, read on...

Click to read more ...

Link to the Future

Past
The New Yorker a memoir about growing up with B Movies
Aint It Cool News looks back at Alien Ressurection. The Alien franchise is on everyone's brain now that Prometheus is (nearly) upon us. 
IndieWire the cooking channel's Baron Ambrosia names his five favorite food movies. Not the usual comfort food answers. The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover? Well done, Baron. 

Present
Coming Soon The Avengers will come to home video as part of a 10 disc set of Marvel Universe movies. (Hey they gotta move those Incredible Hulk discs somehow.) Details forthcoming. One billion dollars at the box office clearly wasn't enough booty! 
World of Wonder Charlize Theron teaches us to walk like queens. "Just think MURDER..."
My New Plaid Pants today is my friend JA's seventh anniversary online. His blog is still great. 
In Contention Michael Mann will chair the Venice Film Festival this year 
Emerging Artist Contest Quentin Tarantino is hosting a contest for upcoming filmmakers although finding your own voice here means remixing and mashing film clips from Django Unchained and others... makes sense that Tarantino would want a new voice adept at mixing old voices (sound familiar?) but if you're a filmmaker this contest is definitely worth checking out. 

Future
TMZ Lindsay Lohan on "preproduction" set testing out her Liz Taylor biopic look.
Awards Daily has the first promotional photos for Only God Forgives the Refn/Gosling follow up to the great Drive. Including this one...

Rope of Silicon seems that the Andy and Lana Wachowski have finally shaken off the Speed Racer blues with Cloud Atlas arriving soon and Jupiter Ascending which will "reinvent action" in preproduction. Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis will star.
The Mary Sue realizes that Charlize Theron is the coolest girl in the movies while she talks Mad Max and, uh, Game of Thrones. It's weird to me that people are still unaware that Charlize Theron is most awesome when playing herself... but welcome to Charlize fandom one and all.
24 Frames Kristen Stewart wants to make a new East of Eden picture, the James Dean movie being one of those pesky adaptations that sacrifices huge swaths of a book in order to make itself into a great movie. How rude of it! 

"Remember that time I followed up my Oscar with Aeon Flux?"

Have Link Will Travel

New York Times on Paul Thomas Anderson's secretive new movie The Master. It's about... something.
MNPP Charlize Theron and Alexander Skarsgård are dating? The Mayans were right about 2012 
Your Movie Buddy interviews The Hunter's storied leading man Willem Dafoe 
Draw Adrian Draw isn't happy about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman but is sketching her anyway
Michael Musto "who's your favorite Taylor?" fun question except there's only one appropriate answer. La Liz! Not that I don't appreciate Taylor Mac...

The Incredible Suit unexpectedly loves The Avengers ... even the Hulk part.
Awards Daily Sasha Stone loves HBO's Girls and Lena Dunham in particular
Stale Popcorn meet the Cannes class of 2012. Serious Thespians (lol) 
Flavorwire always finds interesting things. Did you know that crazy auteur Werner Herzog didn't realize that crazy auteur John Waters was gay for 30+ years. lol
Gold Derby who will Laura Dern (Enlightened) knock out of the Emmy Best Comedy Actress race this season? 

Today's Most Oscary Discussable:
Stranger Than Most looks at the oddest Best Picture snubs of all time. i.e. films that were nominated in the always Best Picture related fields (Dir+ Editing + Screenplay + Acting) and still missed out. Incidentally I love every single one of the "top five" that weren't actually top five (They Shoot Horses Don't They, Hud, Thelma & Louise, Bullets Over Broadway, and My Man Godfrey)  Like crazy 'would run away with them for lost sex-weekend' kind of love. That's how much!

Hud (1963), for example, is a movie I continuously feel guilty about not forcing upon people at every opportunity -- we should totes do it for "Hit Me" but I keep forgetting to put it in the schedule. It's just a freaking masterpiece. And it's weirdly underdiscussed given how many of Paul Newman's films endured.

That Linking Feeling

Go Fug Yourself riffs hilariously on a photo of Noomi Rapace & Charlize Theron at the Prometheus premiere. Guldbagge!
Film Studies for Free "all that pastiche allows" looks at Far From Heaven, All That Heaven Allows and other examples of pastiche
The Kid in the Front Row discusses "the scene that made it all worth it" in Friends With Kids. I still haven't seen this one but love the cast. Same deal with Salmon Fishing... What's keeping me?
Liz Smith on all that's riding on the product known as Jeremy Renner who'd rather be "a good human" 

The Guardian Darth Vader and son. Tee hee
Indiewire wonders if Matthew McConaughey could be an Oscar contender for Magic Mike. I wish I had done a post about this last week. It occurred to me and I even wrote a wee note about it on the supporting actor page but my then original thought will now be lost in groupthink.
Clutch have you heard this shady catfight rumor re: Michelle Obama vs. Kerry Washington?
Metro on Kathleen Turner still touring with the play High. Love this quote from her on her many health problems and continuing on through all of them. I wish one of my other favorite actresses [ahem] felt similarly committed to her gift:

There has been a lot of work that had to be done to be able to continue and carry on and I can’t imagine not being able to act. It’s what I set out to do when I was a kid and I love it so much... I know that I would find another work for myself if I really couldn’t (act), but until I’m completely, physically incapable of acting. I am not giving it up.

Cinema Blend has a gallery from the digital artist TXE (name?) which illustrates 93 (!) characters from the Game of Thrones franchise
The Mary Sue has a piece on actors who have starred in multiple franchises. "Get Over It"... I know most people enjoy this but I can't be the only person who hates hates hates the same actors starring in everything? I am too much of a polyamorous film slut? I need some variety up in here! I really do. I don't like the idea of Storm being Catwoman and Iron Man being Sherlock Holmes and so on. 

Randomness: Here is the new poster for Rust & Bone. J'adore Jacques Audiard movies. I mean Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet...

What a roll, huh?

If Rust & Bone is as good as those it'll be one of 2012's highlights for sure.

offscreen just for kicks
Monkey See "I died on the Titanic" a personal memoir 
Boooooom shows you impossibly tinyfood sculpture
The Mary Sue animal mating rituals described in humanoid cartoons. Isabella Rossellini is surely sporting wood reading this.