24 Nov 2013

Kat-and-Mouse Game: "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"

By Mike Schulz

Stanley Tucci and Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Catching FireTHE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE

My unfamiliarity with its source material was, I'm convinced, a large part of why I enjoyed last year's The Hunger Games movie so much. To be sure, I dug the film itself, with its exciting and moving survival-of-the-fittest encounters, and its fierce Jennifer Lawrence performance, and its bevy of grandly outré supporting figures (and, in the Capitol sequences, beyond-outré production design). But not having read any of the three books in Suzanne Collins' seminal young-adult adventure series, what I was most taken with was the surprise of the experience. Hunger Games newbies such as myself were allowed to take in Collins' richly imagined dystopian saga with gradual understanding and horror, much the way (I'm presuming) the books' readers did, and while we had every reason to expect Lawrence's teen warrior Katniss Everdeen to survive, the storyline was just spiky and unpredictable enough to make us wonder how, exactly, she ever would.

03 Jun 2012

Happily Grimm: "Snow White & the Huntsman"

By Mike Schulz

Charlize Theron in Snow White & the HuntsmanSNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN

The first words heard in Snow White & the Huntsman are "Once upon a time ... ," and for the next 125 minutes, the movie unfurls like a malicious, exhilarating fairytale for adults - or a bedtime story for really, really naughty kids. In an age when most screen adaptations of familiar childhood stories quickly descend into camp - either intentionally (Mirror Mirror) or unintentionally (Red Riding Hood) - the intelligence and violence and emotional hunger of debuting director Rupert Sanders' Snow White saga feel utterly welcome, and even somewhat revolutionary. By the film's finale (and I presume this isn't a spoiler), good has triumphed and evil has been vanquished, but the weight of the characters' horrific experiences hasn't been forgotten; it's clear from their serene yet exhausted expressions that while Snow White and her kingdom's subjects get their Happily Ever After, they'll more likely be living Happily, Hesitantly, Ever After.

22 May 2011

Privateerible: "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides"

By Mike Schulz

Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger TidesPIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES

During the first hour of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the third sequel in Disney's hugely successful franchise, characters are routinely told to beware of the mermaids - half-woman/half-fish beings who use their comely looks and tranquil siren songs to drag seafaring men to their deaths. Our adventurers take note of the warnings but pay them little mind, and really, why should they? Disney, after all, is the studio that gave us the benign cutie-pies of The Little Mermaid and (through its Touchstone Pictures label) Splash. Just how nasty can these things be?

We eventually find out, and as a result, I'll likely never look at Ariel or Daryl Hannah the same way again.

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