Posted on May 8, 2014 by Josh Russell

The re-imagining of the fairy tale

Ask anyone in 2014 what a good fairy tale is, and they will probably point towards the works of Walt Disney – and rightly so. Classics such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, or in more recent times Frozen, capture the hearts and minds of children and adults alike all over. But what if they aren’t what they seem? Would you believe me if I told you that Frozen started out as a brutal tale about an evil witch kidnapping children?

The Snow Queen is a classic tale that was written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1884, and at its heart it is a tale about good and evil, from the perspectives of two children. Although Frozen is based on this classic, it certainly tells a different story. In The Snow Queen, the titular character is the evil villain, however in Frozen the same character is the beautiful queen called Elsa, who treats her powers as a curse. The Snow Queen is a benevolent, powerful and dangerous being to be feared, yet Elsa is a misunderstood woman who, after all, only needed the love of her sister to stop chaos ensuing. There are common themes through both representations, but ultimately one thing can be seen – time has changed this classic fairy tale.

Image via: http://frozenwallpaper.com

What used to be a dark tale of good vs. evil is now a light-hearted flick (with comic relief snowman included). So what has changed? Do today’s audiences only want these fairy tales, and are the dark morals of old stories not appreciated any more? Looking at the latest details for Disney’s Maleficent, perhaps the darker side of these fairy tales has not been lost to the ages.

Thought of as one of the most sinister Disney villains, Maleficent is fairly unknown. During Sleeping Beauty she is pretty horrible, cursing the poor Princess Aurora to die before her 16th birthday. But, low and behold, good triumphs evil and the Princess is saved by the handsome Prince Phillip, etc etc. In Maleficent, however, it looks like the tables could be turning. Disney are returning to deliver the untold story of one of the most iconic villains to date in a retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty, but from the perspective of Maleficent.

Image via: http://qfxblog.files.wordpress.com

There really is true potential here to turn the iconic fairy tale back into the darker fantasy tales of old. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. The classic story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was once re-imagined as the action film Snow White and the Huntsman, which shifts the focus away from the comic relief dwarves and onto the grittier side of things. And again, in the 2011 horror re-imagining of Red Riding Hood, the classic fairy tale was given a dark twist. This time, the wolf is actually a werewolf and preys on an entire town.

Should the classic fairy tale formula be left alone? The original tales of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm definitely had darker elements to them, but the majority of modern re-tellings are much lighter and happier in tone. Do people want these versions, or should we be looking to the past for inspiration? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Adam Burt

The long walk to the big screen

As it was reported by Peter Jackson last week, the next Hobbit movie has been renamed to ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ we decided to look back at some other films whose development has been ‘difficult’ to say the least.

1. Alien vs Predator

Image via ExplosionsAreRad.wordpress.com

Released in 2004 after more than a decade of different scripts, changes to the cast, false starts, orphaned tie-ins, several series of video games and even promotions of the movie.

2. Dallas Buyers Club

Image via slate.com

The screenplay for the oscar winning film was written 1992 by Craig Borten. It took 10 different versions of the script to finally persuade a production company to pick it up. It was then unable to secure financial backing, going through three different directors before Jean-Marc Vallée signed up and eventually released it in 2013.

3. Frozen

Image via Disney.com

Originally planned to be a biography film of the author Hans Christian Anderson (Yawn!!) before it was green lit by Disney to become an adaptation of the ‘Snow Queen’. The film then went into development hell twice, the second time in 2010 due to the difficulty of making the story of the Snow Queen work. It wasn’t until Disney bought in Jennifer Lee, writer of Wreck-It Ralph, as co-director, who decided to make the Snow Queen character of Elsa into one of the film’s protagonists.

4. Gangs Of New York

Image via IMDB

Martin Scorsese first started trying to get Gangs of New York made in 1978. He finally did so in 2002.

5. The Hobbit Trilogy

Image via Business Insider

The Hobbit went through development hell, before finally being green lit.The film then suffered additional problems involving creative control and the studio’s refusal to allow filming to take place in New Zealand, where the preceding film series The Lord of the Rings had been shot. This was a deal-breaker for director Guillermo del Toro, who left the project. Peter Jackson retook control of the project and split it into three films, the first of which was released in December 2012.

6. Inglorious Basterds

Image via Wikipedia

Quentin Tarantino announced his plans to shoot a World War II movie titled Inglourious Basterds shortly after the 1997 release of Jackie Brown. As of 2007, he was still working on the script. The film began shooting in late 2008 and was released in August 2009. Inglourious Basterds was Tarantino’s most commercially successful film until his spaghetti western homage Django Unchained was released three years later.

7. Iron Man

Image via Marvel

The film had been in development since 1990 at Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinema, until the rights were reacquired by Marvel Studios in 2006. The project was Marvel’s first self-financed film, being distributed by Paramount Pictures. The script was originally written by multiple writers and the film and attached to direct were several directors, including Joss Whedon, Quentin Tarantino and Nick Cassavetes. Originally, actor Tom Cruise was in talks to play the role of Tony Stark, before the role went to Robert Downey Jr. after Jon Favreau was finally hired as director.

8. Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Image via screenrant.com

The Star Wars sequel trilogy remained in development hell beginning in 1983 since the concept was born in 1975. Even though the prequel trilogy was created with the films released in 1999, 2002 and 2005, the sequel trilogy was changed and denied for several years. The trilogy was brought back in 2012 after Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, starting with Star Wars Episode VII, which is scheduled for a 2015 release.

9. Avatar

Image via hollywood reporter.com

James Cameron has previously stated that his idea for the story of Avatar was ready before he even began filming Titanic in 1996 but that the technology needed to make the film simply didn’t exist. Production company Fox eventually backed out of the film in 2006 due to budgetary reasons, it wasn’t until Ingenious Media offered to back more than half of the $237 million needed for the film that Fox returned to the project which went on to become the highest grossing film of all time.

10. The Lord Of The Rings

Image via nj.com

There is something about either Peter Jackson or J.R.R Tolkien and movies that simply does not work. Throughout all six of the films that Jackson has been responsible for bringing to the big screen there have been major problems throughout the entire production. The rights to a live action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings were sold to United Artists shortly before J.R.R Tolkien’s death in 1973; it wasn’t until 1994 that Peter Jackson was given approval to begin shooting. The first film was not released until 2001.

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Andy

The Death of Brandon Lee: One of Films Most Tragic Moments

March 31st 1993 will forever remain one of the saddest days in modern film history. 52 days into a 60 day shoot, Brandon Lee, son of the late martial arts expert Bruce Lee, was tragically shot and killed during the filming of the supernatural action film, The Crow.

As did his father (Enter the Dragon 1973), Lee never lived to see the release of his most successful work. However, also like his father, mystery and suspicion surrounding the actor’s death will forever immortalise Brandon Lee in movie folklore.

Young Brandon Lee with father Bruce.
image via es.wikipedia.org

On April 1st 1993, the Los Angeles Times reported “Actor Brandon Lee, the 28-year-old son of the late Kung Fu star Bruce Lee, was killed Wednesday after a small explosive charge used to simulate gunfire went off inside a grocery bag during filming on a movie set in Wilmington, N.C.”

However, the article later states that “it is still unclear whether the projectile came from the gun or the grocery bag or both. “When the other actor fired a shot, the explosive charge went off inside the bag,” said Wilmington police Officer Michael Overton. “After that, we don’t know what happened.”

Although admitting the case was still under investigation, Wilmington Police announced that they were treating the incident as an accident, yet many fans suspected foul play. After suspicion surrounding the cause of Bruce’s death from an apparent reaction to painkillers in 1973, many were sceptical about the causality of Brandon’s fatal last scene.

The unfinished 1973 martial arts film Game of Death, starring Bruce Lee, provides even more spooky coincidences that further fuelled the fire of many conspiracy theorists, as Lee’s character is shot in similar circumstances to his real life son, although he does return to take revenge.

So how did this tragic event really occur? In the scene, Lee is supposed to have been shot by thugs as he walks into his apartment to find his girlfriend being raped. It is believed that due to increasing time restraints, the decision was made to use dummy cartridges in the prop weaponry, which appear functional, yet contain no gun-powder.

The empties would be made from real cartridges, a responsibility handed to effects technician Bruce Merlin. To do this, Merlin, assisted by prop master Daniel Kuttner, would dismantle the live cartridges by removing the bullets, emptying all contained gun-powder, detonating the primer (a device for igniting the powder charge in a modern cartridge of centerfire ammunition) and then re-assembling the cartridge.

During preparation, Merlin and Kuttner tested the gun that would be used in scene by using a cartridge containing only a primer and a bullet with no gun-powder, which caused the bullet to become lodged into the forcing cone of the gun. When it came to shooting the scene, the live bullet remained in the barrel, which was then propelled out by the explosion from a blank cartridge, fatally injuring Lee in the process, as the cameras rolled.

Lee was pronounced dead at 1.04pm. After being buried next to his father in Washington, footage capturing Lee’s death was destroyed before ever being developed. Released in 1994, The Crow became a box office smash and is now regarded as a cult classic.

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Andy

Searching for Sugarman: The Story of Sixto Rodriguez

Many of us would like to believe in destiny. Many of us wander our way through life, satisfied in the knowledge that our path may already be laid out ahead of us. Others jump from dream to dream, waiting for fate to find them. Yet, no matter the journey, all of us yearn to reach the same destination, our fate, our happily ever after. Your dreams may become reality, or they could forever remain unreachable, a work of fiction.

Directed by Malik Bendejoull, Searching for Sugarman is a documentary film detailing the fascinating life of 1970’s musician Sixto Rodriguez. “Who”, I hear you ask? Well, the unfortunate truth is that if this is the first time you’re reading about Rodriguez, the likelihood is you, like many others, have never heard of him.

video via studiocanaluk

Rodriguez lived his life on the mean streets of 1960/70’s Detroit. He is described as being a drifter, a lost soul, and not much more than a homeless man, who would spend his days doing odd jobs and playing music around the city. Those who had contact with Rodriguez maintain his mysterious, prophet like image. He was a good man, who kept himself to himself, and until the release of Searching for Sugarman in 2012, those who had heard of Rodriguez had very little to add to that information.

After becoming somewhat of a local mystery, Rodriguez released Cold Fact in 1970, followed by Coming from Reality a year later. Both albums dramatically flopped in the US and Sixto was swiftly dropped from his label. Thought to have become depressed, he later committed suicide, allegedly shooting himself in the head during a performance in a local Detroit bar, though this information cannot be confirmed.

Compared by his management to Bob Dylan, in terms of song writing ability, the tragedy of Sixto Rodriguez represents how life has a funny way of putting you on a path to destiny.

South Africa was a dangerous place in the 1970’s. With apartheid in full swing, the troubled country was a cultural boycott. A behind closed doors situation, damaged by violence and racial tensions, with some events described as resembling the holocaust. Nobody is quite sure how the first copy of Cold Fact found itself in the country, but that album would change life in South Africa forever.

By 1975, Cold Fact was a platinum selling album in the country. Rodriguez’s music inspired musicians across the country to stand up and take action against their government. “Anti-Establishment” was not even a recognized word in South Africa before it appeared on a Rodriguez record. Cold Fact and Coming from Reality taught the South African people, of all races and creeds, that it was fine to be angry at the government.

Elvis; the Beatles; Bob Dylan; Cat Stevens, you name it, Rodriguez was bigger. Bendejoull’s Oscar winning masterpiece is an absolute must watch for fans of film, music and life. This is not a review, nor a recommendation. It is a command. If you’ve ever had a dream, this documentary is for you, and one is assured, the best is yet to come.

See the Studio Canal UK trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKXewWDh1og

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Adam Burt

Events, offers and releases 17/03/14

Shailene Woodley and Theo James in a still from Divergent.

Image via welivefilm.com

Divergent – Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Kate Winslet, Divergent is a continuation of the new cinematic genre such as The Hunger Games and Twilight. Set in a dystopian future, post-apocalyptic version of Chicago where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. Woodley plays Beatrice Prior, she is ‘divergent’ and therefore does not fit into any of the factions set out, something that is not accepted by faction leader Jeanine Matthews (Winslet).

In cinemas March 21st, if you like The Hunger Games, you’ll love this.

Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey and Ty Burrell in a poster for the muppets

Image via hypable.com

Muppets Most Wanted – Modern Family’s Ty Burrell along with funny-people Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey join forces with the Muppets in this second instalment of the fun franchise. great for kids and adults alike, this film will have you laughing out loud.

In cinemas March 21st.

To book tickets visit Odeon.

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