Tag: Rob Marshall

Into the Woods

Rob Marshall adapted Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical in this mash-up of classic fairy tales.

Into the Woods PosterDo we really need another movie or show that reimagines old fairy tales? How many different ways can we tell the story of Cinderella? Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods” first premiered in 1987, but since then the spirit of taking beloved childhood properties and twisting their meanings to play up the dark imagery and fables at their core has exploded into pop culture. It hardly seems new to suggest that the Little Red Riding Hood story has gross undertones of, perhaps, pedophilia or otherwise. Ooh, how sinister.

And yet here we have Rob Marshall’s live action film adaptation of “Into the Woods”, which reimagines the fairy tales yet again but has defanged them even further. Marshall’s film is hardly as subversive or as slyly perverse as its subject matter, either by Sondheim or Brother Grimm, suggests. And like all the worst film adaptations of Broadway stage musicals, it pays more lip service to the theater than it does to cinema. “Into the Woods” often looks cheap and visually uninteresting, stimulated only by some above average singing.

Sondheim’s story is a mash-up of several popular childhood fables, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel, all brought together by a baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) who cannot conceive a child. They’ve been cursed by a witch (Meryl Streep) and can only break the spell by collecting four items, one belonging to each of the fairy tale characters. Their paths intersect in one of those frustrating cast numbers that look great when everyone is participating and moving on stage, but meander and jump around as a result of incessant film editing.

Streep is really the star of the show, going big and broad and bold in the way only she can and owning her songs. Constantly she’s stalking and hunching over with a grimace and dominating the screen. She’s only matched in hammy overacting by Chris Pine as Prince Charming, who may be both the best and worst part of the film. He has a so-dumb-it’s-amazing number called “Agony” in which Sondheim’s composition itself is dripping in self-aware swells, only enhanced by Pine nonchalantly brandishing his chest and tossing around his golden locks as though he were blissfully unaware of his masculinity.

Marshall however plays it mostly (ahem) close to the chest, allowing the actors to do all the heavy lifting. Say what you will about 2013’s ugly looking “Les Miserables,” but the film at the very least had a style. Some of the sets look flat out cheap, and by the film’s climax involving giants descending from the beanstalk, Marshall tries to pay homage to the original production by hiding them within the scenery, but it looks more like the budget simply ran short.

Only by “Into the Woods’s” end do the characters start to get a sense of depth as flawed figures. One song points the finger at every character and their intersecting mishaps, and it reveals themes of parenting, family, abandonment and more.

Surely Sondheim’s original production has its ardent supporters for this very reason, but Marshall just wants to put the musical on the big screen again. Hollywood has lamented the loss of popularity for the movie musical, but part of that decline might stem from only making films that can have a slavish devotion to a beloved source material. Put an original property in Marshall’s hands, and he’s talented enough to do more with what he’s done to Sondheim.

2 ½ stars

So you think you can save musicals?

It may come as a surprise to some of you that one of my favorite television shows this summer, and in fact for several seasons now, has been “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Yes, as it turns out I am a sorority girl with a love for dance and musicals.

Perhaps it was an initial love of Gene Kelly and “Singin’ in the Rain,” but I typically admired the show for its enormous dance talent and not for its programming. I once had a colleague ask me if I watched the show, to which I said, “I hate the show, but I love the performances.”

Except that too has changed, as “SYTYCD” as a reality show is leaps and bounds better than its counterparts “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

Unlike “Idol,” where the judges flat out lie about how the talent pool has gotten better and better each year, “SYTYCD” really does seem to be a show that consistently celebrates quality and continues to find 20 enormously talented and flawless dancers who are impossible to choose between week to week. Each show, they perform breathtaking works of actual art from visionary choreographers as opposed to karaoke covers of pop numbers from a carefully selected songbook.

Unlike “Dancing with the Stars” and “Idol,” “SYTYCD” is about dance instead of celebrity, and try as the show might to reward personality or quality, bad, unmemorable choreography can often land a dancer in the bottom three, if not headed home.

This is complimented by the fact that the show’s judges, Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy and a score of other choreographers and actors from Broadway and Hollywood, often give genuine criticism to their dancers on technique, chemistry and form. They do more than just give preferences or catch phrases about being able to sing the phone book (although Mary Murphy has her fair share of annoying tendencies too).

But why I really love the show is that “So You Think You Can Dance” is possibly the best looking reality show on television.

Here is a show that devotes time to making its enormous stage production and cinematography look cinematic. For the most part, the camera work accompanying each dance routine is planned and choreographed along with the performers. The show achieves emotional close-ups without forgetting the importance of full-bodied medium shots that allow the audience to take in the full range of motion of the dancers. It achieves perspectives and clarity that would not be possible if the cameras were only positioned at the POV of the live studio audience.

The camerawork is so precise, I recall a routine from Season 8 that incorporated a mirror on stage. Even with swivels, close-ups and shots from all angles, it was near impossible to spot a camera in that mirror.

I point again to “Idol” as an example of how not to shoot a reality show. “Idol” sets up three to four cameras, one or two in the center of the stage for close-ups of the performer and one on each side for sweeping crane shots. The camera is so uninspired that the interchanges between them are almost like clockwork. The stage right camera slowly pulls way back until it can go no further, we get a stationary close-up, and then the stage left camera slowly moves forward in the same arc pattern mirrored. This is adjusted based on the speed of the song, and nothing else. Every song looks the same, and only the ungodly colors on the stage backdrop change.

This season, “SYTYCD” experimented with lighting on their stage and the appropriate way to film it to the point that they’ve won Emmys the last two years in a row. One routine with Lindsay and Cole this season saw the camera using subtle low angle shots to emphasize enormous shadows of the two dancers along the walls as though it were a moment out of Fred Astaire’s “Swing Time.”

One complaint I have about the show is that in every episode the show seems to be patting itself on the back. “It’s so wonderful that there is a program like “SYTYCD” to showcase such phenomenal artists week after week,” the judges say, as though dance and the show were some horrible underdog.

And yet, they may be right.

Dance is thriving on TV right now, but it’s been completely brain dead in the movies for decades.

I’m not the first film critic to point out that movie musicals are not what they once were, but it probably has not been done in the context of “So You Think You Can Dance,” so forgive me for my lengthy TV review and for burying my lede after nearly 800 words. Continue reading “So you think you can save musicals?”

Chicago

As movies go digital and trail blaze ahead with 3-D technology, it’s nice to see an older film that feels as though it was grafted from the stage, rife with metaphorical depth and space, and yet still maintains its image as a film production of massive proportions impossible to recreate in any theater.

Considering “Chicago” is this decade’s rebirth of the musical, there are probably more important things worth paying attention to, but you have to hold on to both the big and little things the movies have to offer.

Rob Marshall’s adaptation of “Chicago” is a remarkable musical in the spirit of “Cabaret.” It is a delightful romp full of fun performances, catchy rhythms and fabulous choreography on a massive scale. To not enjoy such a film would be to dislike entertainment. No, the plot is not riveted with psychological depth and drama. There is no revolutionary fancy footwork throughout the film either. But it is still a joy. Continue reading “Chicago”