INTO THE WOODS

Go see it. Tell me what you think. Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking




Have you seen "Into the Woods?"

http://movies.disney.com/into-the-woods/

I'm still thinking about it.


Here's what I think so far...
    
Meryl Streep's performance as the witch is extraordinary. Seeing Meryl and her transformation is reason enough to see the movie. Her appearance is alternately hideous and beautiful. She's a movie star's movie star, and my favorite actress.


Chris Pine (Cinderella's Prince) stole the show with his duet with Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel's Prince). I didn't recognize him at first. I mean - who can be Captain Kirk, and Jack Ryan, AND the Prince? Christ Pine does it all, and he can sing!
 
Anna Kendrick (Cinderella) was a WRONG casting move - - even if she's a big box-office draw with several movies this year. Her voice is wonderful, but she's not Cinderella, and she certainly is NO match for Chris Pine's Prince. Faith suggested Anne Hathaway as Cinderella.
 
Daniel Huttleston (the boy in Les Mis) was fantastic as Jack). He's fun and engaging to watch on the big screen.
 
Johnny Depp is the Wolf...a creature unable to control his appetites. Who else could it have been? Wish someone older had played Red Riding Hood - because the encounter in the woods between the Wolf and Red was "pedophile-ish."


Lilla Crawford was much too young to play Red Riding Hood, and the sexual overtones with Wolf would not have been so creepy if the part had been cast with someone older.
 
Emily Blunt (Baker's Wife) can sing! Who knew?! She's wonderful as the Baker's Wife. (Remember her in "THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA?" )


I searched the history of "Into the Woods." At first I thought the author (James Lapine) must have been drunk at a Hollywood party to come up with the notion of all the fairytales colliding. They more than "intertwine" - they collide - in the woods. Lapine's book is about the consequences of the character's wishes.
 
Author, James Lapine, said that the most unpleasant person (the Witch) would have the truest things to say and the "nicer" people would be less honest.


In the Witch's words: "I'm not good; I'm not nice; I'm just right."
 
Go see it. Tell me what you think.


I LOVE the details of the original fairy tales that Disney kept in the movie: like the hook that Rapunzel wrapped her hair around so visitors can climb up the tower; and her prince becoming blind from being thrown in the brambles by the witch; and the story-line of Rapunzel's mother's craving  stolen desires from the witch's garden.
 
I know these stories,. I memorized them from the book by Charles Perrault. Perrault was a 17th Century French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales -- which were rewritten by the Brothers Grimm, continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet theater, and film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Perrault

I traveled as a storyteller telling Perrault's fairy tales for over 10 years -- in a one-woman show -- doing all the parts of each character. Fairy tales are funny and romantic and entertaining for all ages.


The new Disney movie is a musical (music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim) based on the book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway on November 5, 1987. Bernadette Peters's performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim to the production during its original Broadway run. Into the Woods won several Tony Awards, including Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress in a Musical (Joanna Gleason), in a year dominated by The Phantom of the Opera.


Wikipedia has a great chart (scroll down to the end of the article) of the casting history of "Into the Woods."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Woods

Go see it the movie.

  Tell me what you think.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=into+the+woods+trailer+2014&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=0649E6B04C1B976361090649E6B04C1B97636109

Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

Marcia Norwood

America's STORYTELLER

Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public SPeaking

THE GIVER

Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com

Have you seen the movie,

THE GIVER ? 

 

I had to see it.  

It has some of my favorite actors:

  

 Jeff Bridges 

as The Giver

and

Meryl Streep

as Chief Elder.

Now I need to read the book.

We are a family of readers.

We read aloud to each other.

Some of us (adults) sit in the same room,

and some listen via the phone.

 

We are reading aloud through  

Insurgent,

the 2012 science fiction young adult novel

by American novelist Veronica Roth.

It's the second book in the Divergent TRILOGY.

   CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgent_%28novel%29

  

 THE GIVER  

was actually around 

long before  

THE HUNGER GAMES  

and DIVERGENT.   

THE GIVER 

is based on the acclaimed 1993 novel by Lois Lowry.  

It won the Newberry Medal.

It has been a staple

in middle-school literature curriculum for 20 years: 

introducing young students 

to sophisticated ethical and moral concepts.

Jeff Bridges has been attached as a producer 

to the film project for almost 20 years,

 

   CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/review-the-giver-349-02

REVIEW: THE GIVER can’t help but feel awfully familiar in the wake of so many dystopian teen sci-fi yarns.  

THE HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT are both slicker, sexier takes on essentially the same material, but it probably needs to be remembered that THE GIVER was actually around long before either franchise, with it being based on the acclaimed 1993 novel. 

So really, those films 

(THE HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT)

are derivative of this 

rather than the other way around. 

 
Read more at    

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/review-the-giver-349-02#0aRVP1AyKuUEvDRU.99

        CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/showbiz/movies/the-giver-review-ew/index.html   

  "There is a reason that Lois Lowry's 1993 book won the prestigious Newbery Medal and inspired millions of readers—as well as other dystopian YA best-sellers like The Hunger Games: It features children asking important questions and challenging draconian authority."

By Jeff Labrecque, EW

updated 6:30 PM EDT, Fri August 15, 2014

 

    CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:

http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/sgw1196.html

  CLICK on the link or COPY & PASTE the link in your browser:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-giver-2014

Sheila O'Malley

August 15, 2014   

20 years ago, Lois Lowry's dystopian YA novel "The Giver" won the Newberry Medal. Creepy and prophetic, told in a kind of flat-affect voice, it has been a staple in middle-school literature curriculum ever since, introducing young students to sophisticated ethical and moral concepts that will help them recognize its precedents when they come to read the works of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley.

Jeff Bridges has been attached as a producer to the film project for almost 20 years, and finally, "The Giver" is here, with Bridges in the title role. 

Directed by Phillip Noyce, with an adaptation of the book by Michael Mitnick, "The Giver" gives us the overall structure of Lowry's original work, adds a couple of understandable details like a sweet little romance and then derails into an action movie in its final sequence, complete with attacks from the air and a hi-tech command center. 

Children have been thrilled by the book for 20 years, and a chase scene still proved irresistible. Despite a truly pained performance from Jeff Bridges and a beautifully imagined, three-dimensional futuristic world, "The Giver," in wanting to connect itself to more recent YA franchises, sacrifices subtlety, inference and power.

...a couple of lines have been added to the famous last paragraph of the book.

 Jeff Bridges as The Giver 

Meryl Streep as Chief Elder 

Brenton Thwaites as Jonas 

Alexander Skarsgård as Jonas's father 

Katie Holmes as Jonas' mother 

Odeya Rush as Fiona  

Cameron Monaghan as Asher   

Taylor Swift as Rosemary

Director: Phillip Noyce

Writer:Michael Mitnick,  Robert B. Weide

Book:  Lois Lowry

Cinematograph: Ross Emery

Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action/violence

94 minutes

When I finish reading aloud

Insurgent to my family,

I will read Lois Lowry's book,

THE GIVER. 

To learn more about Lois Lowry, 
see her website at www.loislowry.com
"I will say that the whole concept of memory is one that interests me a great deal. I'm not sure why that is, but I've always been fascinated by the thought of what memory is and what it does and how it works and what we learn from it. And so I think probably that interest of my own and that particular subject was the origin, one of many, of The Giver."
Lois Lowry

I encourage you to read aloud 

to your family and friends...

to adults as well as children.  

I love it 

when my adult kids say to me:

"READ TO ME."

  

Daughters:  Sarah Zheng-Kang and Faith Fu Ju.  Copyright 2014 Marcia Norwood

   Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

 Marcia Norwood

America's STORYTELLER

Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com