MOVIE 1: INTO THE WOODS

Into the Woods overall is sort of a beautiful movie. Its interesting and completely all over the
place. James Corden as the baker is just phenomenal, and I always thought he was good even
though I had no idea who he was when I first saw the movie. Now, any musical theatre buff is
incredibly disappointed when watching Into the Woods because of the amount of cut numbers
that add to the overall horror of the plot, which especially are essential to someone like The
Witch’s character.

So: The Witch was played by Meryl Streep. And she did a fine job with it, but definitely the
character was not nearly as fleshed out in the movie as in the stage show, and it seemed as
though Meryl was not informed of the other moments with the Witch: AKA her performance
seemed underfed to me, like she was missing something. Maybe that something was an
amazing voice? Nevertheless, there was one scene she completely powered through: which
was the Witch’s transformation and swallowing into the ground. Not only did she act her heart
out and give into the scene and make it as over the top as possible, they added some extreme
CGI effects around that moment to add to the heightening of it. I can barely imagine her
writhing around on the ground plainly, without the CGI, knowing whats coming from the wind
and rain and being sucked into the ground. She’s throwing herself left and right singing
“ALRIGHT MOTHER WHEN / LOST THE BEANS AGAIN” and cursing the sky and, wow, that
part is incredibly convincing. You can’t look away. And then she was nominated for an Oscar.

MOVIE 2: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Live-action remake)

Woof. Okay. Firstly, the movie is f*cking stunning. Its visually gorgeous and completely
bulletproof. But there are some huge issues within the casting. Namely, having Hermoine
Granger be sung at for 3 hours about her being a funny French girl is about as unbelievable as
someone saying she has even a passing voice. AKA: Her accent is ugly-British, even when
she’s surrounded by Americans in this “French provincial” movie, and her voice makes me
want to die a terrible death. The movie especially does her dirty though, they are too to blame,
when she sings following Audra McDonald’s “big moment”, SEVERAL TIMES, and Audra is a
Juilliard-trained, multiple Tony-winning, opera star. So. The movie editors definitely were
annoyed with the directors choice in casting and chose to let Emma (Hermoine) sound just as
terrible as they knew she would.

Furthermore, after reading up on her in this movie, I soon discovered that Emma refused to
wear any sort of corseting or boning as a “feminist” choice. This made me so UNBELIEVABLY
angry. First off, I am a feminist—I’m first in line at the “call me feminist” rallies—but this is a
PERIOD PIECE. She looked awful in the dress and you are just making things more difficult for
your costumer. Even as a “feminist” in this era, you have to HONOR THE HISTORICAL
ACCURACIES. Thats like 40 years from now if someone said they didn’t want to wear a bra or
underwear underneath any of their clothing for a movie set in the 2000s. And BESIDES, the
costumer ended up building the boning into her dresses—SO IT WAS AS IF SHE WAS
CORSETED ANYWAY. Oof, that made me angry. EVERYONE AROUND HER is wearing
POWDERED WIGS and NEOCLASSICAL MAKEUP and yOU DONT WANT TO WEAR A
CORSET? Oh…that burned me a little bit. Feminism and historical accuracy—they are not in a
position where one exists when the other doesn’t. You can have both. Wild.

SO her portrayal included: some boned outfits, her cockney British accent surrounded by
Americans in this “French” film, her plain hair (looked terrible, by the way, where was the
colorist at?), and her awful singing. Excellent. I love when they bring actors in just for the
money.

MOVIE 3: THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

So, this movie is stunning, but not because of the plot particularly, or because of the acting,
but instead just the dance numbers. In fact, you could probably cut the rest of the movie and
just move from song to song and no one would complain. Firstly, the huge issue of turning the
real P.T. Barnum from the racist, homophobic bigot and opportunist that he was into Hugh
Jackman, who is likable no matter what he does, and a sweet, caring man who would never
cheat on his wife and only sees the best in other people, etc., was their first mistake. Truly, I
think they would have had a better time making P.T. an asshole from the start and then
focusing it on the rise of the “freaks” over him, etc., especially when he refuses to let them in to
his parties. The best acting and singing done by any person in this film, even though it takes up
a minutia of time, is Keala Seattle as the Bearded Lady. She’s the only person of real worth who
has any true weight—unlike the others who operate with as much depth as one would in an
episode of French Prince of BelAir. Keala, acting truthfully and singing her heart out, did not
leave a single dry eye in the audience. By the end of the movie, I kept wondering if she was
going to come back to do more—I was tiring of everyone else. Furthermore—Jenny Lind, the
opera singer didn’t sing an opera number, Michele Williams was just awful in the .5 seconds
she was relevant as his wife (she was more relevant in flashbacks, the 10 year old child actor
playing her had more screen time).

MOVIE 4: THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

For a long time I had a huge problem with the so obvious exploitation of death and cancer in
this film to make a sappy love story for teenagers—there’s something so grotesque about the
romanticism of cancer to the point that its a suitable story for two dying teenagers to be caught
in the throws of, and without the other pains. For example, they’re doing great, they can walk,
they can run, they go on flights, they’re exploring Amsterdam, etc., and then suddenly one of
them, who was completely cancer free, suddenly says in the middle of their vacation he has it
again and then he dies. And then, she dies. And their friend dies in a car accident a few days
later. Not really, but thats certainly what it seems like. Yes, life is like that, but this book, now
movie, sure as hell sucks itself off to the pity party its created.

That being said, the performance by Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters is very believable.
Something about his truthfulness and overall buoyancy throughout the movie keeps everyone
alive—metaphorically and actually. And then the sequences before his death are incredibly
truthful, even though, for some reason, all the cancer patients in this film have all their hair.

MOVIE 5: MALEFICIENT

So, keeping with the theme of movies about women, Disney of course, and heavily computer
animated…here’s JOHNNY! Or rather, MALLEY! The film is visually stunning, if not a little
boring and when it first came out I thought from the hype that it would be just incredible…well
its definitely stunning. The real boring part of the film, in my opinion, started when the swapped
the child actress playing Maleficient, who takes up 30% of the film, with grown Maleficient,
Angelina Jolie. Besides having cheek implants to make her look sharp, she turns from a fairy
into something more grotesque without explanation. The original Sleeping Beauty made the
character out to be someone who was evil all along and lived in the castle on the hill…this
version makes her a woman jilted in love and suddenly evil for no more reason than being
scorned. Also, the raven as a man is kind of wild. I saw little to no levels in Angelina’s
performance, and therefore, no motivation to do any of the things written. Or maybe the cutting
effected the overall story’s narrative? The movie was well constructed, but lacked in action
that, say, the original Chronicles of Narnia had…even though it was heavily CGI’d as well.