“Every possible future points back to and is contained in this moment in time and space, and every possible past culminated in this moment” — Lawrence Tribe Loosely based on the 19th century novella of Friedrich de la Motte Fouque about an aquatic spirit who must marry a knight to gain a soul, but has…
For anyone willing to get into the Christmas spirit immediately after Halloween (that would be me, at least this year), there’s the arrival of Disney’s festive fantasia The Nutcracker and the Four Realms to help ease the transition from one treat-filled holiday to another. The title may be a mouthful, but the movie is a…
This latest Disney picture, Beauty and the Beast, joins a growing list of live-action movies which traces its origins to animated films, including “The Jungle Book,” “Pete’s Dragon,” “Cinderella” and “Maleficent,” among others. The bar here, however, is just a bit higher, considering the 1991 edition became the first animated feature to earn a Best…
For those who believe sequels are and integral part of the filmmaking process, I present the following recent exhibits: “The Hangover Part II,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Ted 2.” Yes, I realize there are also other examples where the sequel bested the original, such as “The Godfather Part II,” “Superman…
If you thought you had seen the last of Charlize Theron hamming it up as the icy, evil queen Ravenna in “Snow White and the Huntsman,” then you’d be sadly mistaken because she is back in The Huntsman: Winter’s War. But it gets better than that . . . Emily Blunt joins in on the…
In case you didn’t know it — Kenneth Branagh is a director who really grasps the magic of the screen. Whether it’s through Shakespearean adaptations like “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Hamlet,” or one of the larger tent-poles like “Thor” and “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” viewers can be sure of one thing: They’re in for…
Fairy tale revisionism has run rampant across screens of late, so with the marketplace heavily saturated, there’s no better time to revive Stephen Sondheim’s subversive musical “Into the Woods,” about a convergence of fairy tale characters discovering what lies on either side of happily ever after. Sondheim’s playful lyrics and rich humor ensure that his…
