These days everyone thinks Disney when they hear the word “Cinderella,” but the folk tale dates back to 7 B.C. and has spawned thousands of variations. The most common in western culture has been Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon (1697), which added the pumpkin, fairy godmother, and those uncomfortable glass slippers.
The Cinderella of this 2021 Norwegian film has been tweaked to reflect 21st-century values, though maybe something was lost in translation, because I couldn’t figure out what the three wishes might be—unless she wishes she could have a pet owl, like Hermoine Granger; wishes she could ride a horse and successfully pose as a man, like Mulan; and wishes she could shoot a bow and arrow as deftly as Katniss Everdeen.
I have to admit, it’s refreshing to revisit the Cinderella story from a non-Disney perspective. Yes, this Cinderella is kind to animals and people, and as a result, everyone loves her. She’s down to earth and always willing to help, but also feisty and far from submissive. Three Wishes for Cinderella is still a romance, but this princess doesn’t really need a prince, and she’s perfectly capable of rescuing herself. The happy ending is the result of two people being attracted to each other and mutually agreeing to be together. And in this century, that’s the happiest and healthiest ending.
The Internet Movie Database lists more than 400 filmed variants of the Cinderella story, and descriptions suggest this version may be closely related to a Czech/East German 1973 production that I haven’t seen, so I can’t offer any comparisons. I did notice that the 1973 film was shot in winter, and this Norwegian production followed suit. That alone adds an element of interest to a tale that should make Three Wishes for Cinderella stand out.
The other major selling point, especially for young viewers, is that charismatic pop star Astrid S is the lead actress and makes for a warm and extremely likable Cinderella. Astrid does it all when it comes to the songs that have over 2.3 billion streams—performing, writing, and producing her music and directing her music videos—and she manages to do it all, range-wise, in her acting debut. She shifts gears effortlessly, whether it’s playing the victim opposite a cruel stepmother, taking the blame for a servant’s blunder, chastising a hunter with a snowball to the back of the head, wielding a bow with precision, or trying her hand at guy-talk when she’s disguised. Astrid and the gorgeous Norwegian winter cinematography absolutely carry this picture, but there’s also added interest with the familiar fairytale plot getting tweaked a bit.
You know how you have to make up a list of positives and negatives when you’re undecided about something? That’s what I had to do in order to review DC League of Super-Pets.
Right about now, any children or fans of the DC Universe who are reading this are shaking their heads and muttering Loser or something to that effect. And I get it. My take might go against the grain, because this 2022 Warner Bros. picture earned a 73 percent “fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes and an 88 percent favorable audience rating.
Don’t get me wrong. This is an entertaining film—one that I think puts it in the low-to-mid B range. But it took the ledger method for me to reach that conclusion.
I felt conflicted from the very beginning, when a somewhat sappy scene featuring a giggling baby and his perky puppy set against a minimalist background seemed designed to go straight for the heart. All films manipulate viewers’ emotions, but this was a little too obvious and clichéd for me. But very quickly it’s revealed that the baby is Kal-El, and as his conflicted parents put him in a mini-spaceship and wave goodbye, the baby beckons . . . and the puppy obliges, sliding under the closing door as slick and in a nick of time as Indiana Jones. And I thought, How clever!
Throughout the film, I found myself similarly conflicted, but the positives far outweigh the negatives, so let’s start there.
+ It makes sense that if Superman has powers on Earth, so does his dog, Krypto. But the writers did a good job coming up with a logical explanation for how and why the pets in a shelter come to Toy Story life with powers of their own: Orange Kryptonite. It causes a tough-looking, gruff dog named Ace to become so super strong he can shield others from all sorts of weapons and explosions. Meanwhile, a potbelly pig nicknamed PB can balloon to various gigantic sizes, while an elderly poor-sighted turtle named Merton (a playful allusion to Dr. Seuss?) of course becomes suddenly super fast, and a squirrel named Chip (take that, Dale), whose eyes already look plugged-in, turns into someone that can channel electrical charges. And how clever is it to turn the idea of shelter animals on its head—to have those creatures normally rescued by humans doing the rescuing . . . of super-humans?
Grade: B-/C+ Mystery-Thriller Not rated (would be PG)
Another release timed for Halloween is The Bat (1959), which is in the public domain and widely available for free . . . in blurred versions that are no better than VHS tapes (remember those?). The way to watch, if you’re a fan, is on hi-def Blu-ray from The Film Detective, which becomes available on October 25. Transfer purists might wince at a few compression artifacts, but this print is still plenty sharp and a major improvement over the free stuff.
Don’t let the title, tagline (“When it flies . . . Someone Dies”) or star fool you. The Bat isn’t a horror film. With Vincent Price onboard and cover art reminiscent of The Pit and the Pendulum, you’d certainly think as much, but when I watched this film for the first time a single thought kept popping into my head: the old “Shadow” radio serials.
With a radio mystery feel to it, The Bat has more in common with Edgar Allan Poe’s detective stories than it does his tales of the macabre. And while Price gets top billing, Agnes Moorehead (Samantha’s mom on the old Bewitched TV series) has the most screen time and is also more engaging. She plays a mystery writer who rents a mansion that has a sketchy past and rumors of hauntings and crazy people, just so she can get ideas for her next book.
Men in Plaid
Sleeping in a haunted house all alone except for a terrified female assistant (Lanita Lane)? No problem. Cornelia van Gorder is more like her sleuth heroes than the typical writer immersed in a real-life adventure that we encounter in movies. Nothing seems to faze her, this creation of Mary Roberts Rinehart, who in 1920 based her three-act play The Bat on her 1908 novel, The Circular Staircase, and lived long enough to see two Hollywood adaptations. She died a year before this faithful adaptation was released on a B-movie twin bill with the 1959 Hammer version of The Mummy. But based on a play, it feels like a play.
Maybe the kids aren’t old enough for Donnie Darko and that old slasher pic Halloween, or they’re still unsettled after you broke your own rule and let them watch it . . . or It.
Maybe they’re too old for Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin, and maybe Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, like retail stores these days, lumps Christmas and Halloween a bit too uncomfortably together in one tidy package.
Or maybe everyone has had their fill of Hocus Pocus, Hocus Pocus 2, and Monster House and you’re all Halloweentowned and Beetlejuiced and Sleepy Hollowed out.
If so, you might turn your attention this trick-or-treat season to the most benign (and still funny) serial killer film ever made.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) begins, “This is a Halloween tale of Brooklyn, where anything can happen—and it usually does.” We see all sorts of Halloween decorations before the cameras zoom in on the old gabled Brewster house, which is located next to a cemetery—the next best thing to an isolated haunted house. But there aren’t any ghosts here, and the only “monsters” are two sweet, misguided little old ladies . . . who flavor the elderberry wine they offer lonely older gentlemen with arsenic and strychnine.
Criterion released a Blu-ray of this classic black-and-white dark comedy just in time for Halloween, and it’s going to be one of those films that sticks with you because of the situation, those little old ladies, and star Cary Grant. Even more than His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby it reinforces what a wonderful comic actor Grant was. Though Bob Hope was the first choice of director Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), Grant so totally made this role uniquely his that you can’t imagine anyone else as the star.
Grant plays Mortimer Brewster, a recently married writer who returns to the home where he was raised by two elderly aunts so he can tell them the good news and introduce them to his wife (Priscilla Lane). But very early in the film he learns that Aunt Abby (Josephine Hull) and Aunt Martha (Jean Adair) have taken to offing the men who respond to their ad for a boarding house room. Why? Well, it all makes perfect sense in their sweet, twisted minds. And while it comes as a surprise, it’s not a complete surprise to Mortimer, who knows that insanity has haunted the Brewster family for generations. A brother still living with the aunts (John Alexander) thinks he’s President Teddy Roosevelt and yells “Charge” every time he runs up the main staircase, while an older brother had been institutionalized for being criminally insane (Raymond Massey as a Boris Karloff lookalike). That brother shows up with classic horror actor Peter Lorre in tow as Dr. Einstein, while the familiar-voiced Edward Everett Horton (Fractured Fairy Tales) appears as Mr. Witherspoon.
Grade: C+/B- Fantasy musical comedy romance Not rated (would be G)
Disney didn’t invent family movies. As early as the 1930s, studios were adapting literary classics by Stevenson, Verne, Kipling, Dickens, and Twain with the intent that they might appeal to whole families. Disney’s philosophy was to make films for children that adults could also enjoy; those early family films were made for adults, but with content that might also keep children entertained. So many of these films were pleasant entertainment, which is to say a kind of middle-of-the-road offering meant to please a lot of people a little.
When The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther reviewed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(1949), he called it “that good time to be had by all.” Like many costumed adventures the studio system produced, this Twain adaptation featured a fantasy common to children (being transported to another time and place) and musical numbers that were a staple back then. While the adults were enjoying the romance and music, children were engaged by the escapist adventure and comedy, with everyone appreciating crooner Bing Crosby (The Bells of St. Mary’s, Going My Way, Holiday Inn) as Hank Martin, an easy-going blacksmith/mechanic from 1912 who awakens from a bonk on the head to find himself in medieval England, where he falls for King Arthur’s niece (Rhonda Fleming), becomes a knight, and has to out-wizard Merlin (Murvyn Vye) in order to survive.
But that was then, and this is now. Despite the engaging premise, A Connecticut Yankee doesn’t have quite the same crackling energy and spitfire gags as Bob Hope’s costumed pirate romp The Princess and the Pirate (1944), nor does it have the intricacy of plot and memorable scenes that still make Danny Kaye’s The Court Jester (1955) a great film. Both of those costumed adventures are stronger than A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which may have been more restrained because director Tay Garnett had a better track record with dramas and war movies than he did musicals or comedies. In fact, his last comedy prior to this one was seven years earlier: the bomb My Favorite Spy, with Kay Kyser. Everything in A Connecticut Yankee seems as mellow as Crosby’s character, when a more accomplished comedic director might have varied the pacing and contrasted Crosby’s mellowness with more madcap situations or manic characters.
Island of the Blue Dolphins was released just four years after the 1960 Newbery Award-winning book on which it was based. If you’re a fan and haven’t seen this film by James B. Clark (A Dog of Flanders, Misty), you’ll be glad to know that the writers and director steered as close to Scott O’Dell’s book as anyone could. And both the book and the film have been used in classrooms to broach discussions of feminism and the mistreatment and resilience of indigenous people.
Parents should be cautioned that this children’s book was written originally for adults, which means that there are some adult things here. Island of the Blue Dolphins has more in common with a novella like John Steinbeck’s The Pearl than it does your typical Newbery Medal recipient. Though there isn’t much blood, many people die in a brief battle, a main character is killed off-screen, and a beloved animal dies onscreen. Through it all, what’s emphasized is the strength and fortitude of a female character that is 12 years old when the story begins.
Black-and-white promo (film is in color)
Celia Kaye, part Cherokee, won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer as Karana, who must learn how to fend for herself in Robinson Crusoe fashion after her people decide to leave their Channel Island off the coast of southern California following a battle with Russian fur traders and their Aleut trapper allies. Karana is in the evacuation boat when she realizes that her six-year-old brother (Larry Domasin) is still on the island. Rather than leave him, she dives into the water, which is indeed populated by dolphins. That split-second decision will lead to many years of relative solitude and self-sufficiency.
The book and film are set in 1835, and Karana must learn how to do things that were forbidden for her to learn because she was not male—things like how to string a bow and shoot arrows to protect herself from the feral dogs on the island, and how to feather arrows and make nets. When the film was first released, a New York Times reviewer pronounced it a film for children. Maybe that’s because the script calls for the characters to speak in simple language with no contractions to suggest an earlier time period; maybe it’s because the plot itself is as simple as a fable, but with a less obvious lesson; or maybe it’s because the reviewer was conditioned to think of it as a children’s story since it had been published as a children’s book. But for a 1964 production, Island of the Blue Dolphins doesn’t seem all that dated because of these things. And it’s not nearly as slow as the film version of Robinson Crusoe due to the constant presence of a threat on the island.
Sometimes you can’t help but hear the buzz about certain films, and I heard two main complaints about Lightyear (2022): that the character wasn’ta toy at all or acting very Buzz-like, and that Disney made a lesbian movie (gasp). And that kind of response slowed down this film at the box office.
Come on, people. In Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear was an action figure programmed to speak a limited number of sentences, like the old Chatty Cathy dolls. That it came to life when people weren’t around was pure fantasy, and the toy Buzz, upon learning he’s not the real space ranger Buzz Lightyear, spent the rest of the moving dealing with a Pinocchio complex (“I wanna be a real boy”). Meanwhile, Lightyear states its basic premise on a pre-title sequence card that’s onscreen long enough for even slow readers to process: “In 1995, a boy named Andy got a toy from his favorite movie. This is that movie.”
In other words, this animated Buzz is the living human film character that inspired the action figure seen in the Toy Story movies. People complained, Why isn’t Tim Allen the voice? Uh, because Tim Allen voiced a toy; the real Buzz is a different character, voiced here by Chris Evans—who knows a thing or two about playing a superhero. Later critics who gave Disney credit for the cleverness of the idea complained that Disney settled for making a typical origin story, but that also kind of misses the point. To inspire action figures and all sorts of merch, it takes a by-the-numbers blockbuster, and that’s what we get in Lightyear.
As for the lesbianism, I’m guessing that the people who are now losing their minds over a black mermaid are the same ones who bashed this film because it “exposed” children to gay characters. If you haven’t seen the film, you should know that the sexual orientation of Buzz’s best friend and fellow Space Ranger Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) is introduced in innocent, matter-of-fact fashion. When she tells Buzz she got engaged, Buzz responds with the delight of any best friend and tells her how wonderful it is, adding, “Who is she?” Meaning, he’s already known about her orientation and accepts it as another fact of life, like hair color or temperament. So should moviegoers. And it’s treated so subtly here that many children won’t even notice. There are brief touchstone visuals and references to the married couple later parenting a child, and yes, there’s a kiss—but it’s the same kiss of greeting children receive from relatives of all genders. Same-sex marriage is such a blip on the screen that it’s a shame so many people are talking about that instead of the film.
If people have to rip on something (and finding fault with Disney pictures seems to be a national pastime, like Wordle or Sudoku), I’m surprised they haven’t attacked the logic behind the film’s main situational premise.
Buzz, best friend Alisha, and a rookie (Bill Hader) carry out an exploration mission on the planet T’Kani Prime. Quickly they (and we) learn the planet is populated by tentacled life forms, and after their ship is destroyed Buzz declares that they’re marooned. But fast-forward a year later and there’s a full-blown space colony with all kinds of people and the capacity to engineer, build, and operate high-tech buildings and vehicles. And they’re still trying to figure out how to repair or replace the hyperspace fuel crystal that will allow them to return home? Meanwhile, the commander and the rest of the colony (where’d they come from?) decide they want to stay on the planet, so they construct a biodome to protect them from hostile indigenous life forms.
Even small children may wonder about the effectiveness of a dome when the tentacled creatures seem to come from underground, but logic and action movies don’t exactly go hand in hand. And Lightyear is an action movie—a slam-bang ride that abandons warp speed only a handful of times so everyone can catch their breaths and also process poignant Up-style montages that explain why Buzz’s new right-hand ranger has to be Alisha’s space-phobic granddaughter, Izzy (Keke Palmer). Lightyear also alludes to and ramps up elements found in previous slower-paced space films as 2001: A Space Odyssey (instead of H.A.L. we get I.V.A.N.) and Interstellar (a fearful space glide especially stands out). Adults have all the allusions, and the kids will hone in on the action (when the bugs start getting zapped, older youths might have Starship Troopers flashbacks) and the characters—young Izzy, especially.
In Disney movies, animal friends aren’t just foils for characters or a source of comic relief. They’re minor characters who have the potential to steal scenes, and that certainly happens with Sox (Peter Sohn), a robotic cat assigned to be Buzz’s “personal companion robot” to ease his emotional transition after he had been on a long solo mission to retrieve a crystal. Also engaging are the ranger trainees that Buzz ends up with after his return: Izzy, Mo (Taika Waititi), and the gravel-voiced Darby (Dale Soules), who all find themselves facing and fighting a robot invasion coordinated by . . . yep, Zurg (James Brolin), who is shot at times to make viewers think of that late, great space villain Darth Vader.
Viewers are either going to love all the Star Wars references and consider them clever allusions, or they’re going to hate them and think they’re lazy or unimaginative rip-offs. But they’re present in force, and you’ve been warned. I personally think they add a referential element that feeds into the whole idea of a space blockbuster and shows that director Angus MacLane and his cast and crew were trying to have some fun with this film. Ultimately, that’s what it is: a fun animated film that’s nota prequel, not a sequel, and not an origin film. It’s a related film that helps to add depth and breadth to the Toy Story universe. Just don’t expect Woody or any of the other toys to show up.
Lightyear is streaming now on Disney+, but decent bonus features on the Blu-ray and repeat-play potential also make this worth adding to your Disney-Pixar home movie collection so you can play it even after it disappears from the online menus. And you know it will. Disney has that habit of returning titles rather quickly to the “vault.” The 7.1 DTS-HDMA soundtrack also has a commanding presence, and I’m not sure that’s the case with the streamed version.
Entire family: Yes Run time: 105 min. Color Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 widescreen Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 7.1 Bonus features: C+ Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Code Amazon link Trailer Rated PG for action and peril
Language: 1/10—Aside from a few euphemistic versions of swearwords that I can’t even recall, this is one squeaky clean galaxy
Sex: 0/10—Nothing at all, unless the mere mention of progeny somehow offends you
Violence: 4/10—Mostly it’s peril, because the violence itself is pretty tame, with the tentacled creatures losing a few here and there; when Zurg’s robot army appears, children who’ve been on the Buzz Lightyear theme park ride will get the same shooting gallery sensation watching this film, even down to the sounds
Adult situations: 2/10—A character has to deal with feelings of loss and displacement
Takeaway: Disney-Pixar still has a friend in me, as long as they keep producing high-quality films like this one that continue to reflect the studio’s commitment to creativity and excellence
Unlike many reviewers of Where the Crawdads Sing (2022), I don’t have an axe to grind or a subject to bludgeon. I never read the first novel by 70-year-old Delia Owens that this Olivia Newman film is based on, and only heard about the hype—a Reese Witherspoon book club selection that sold 12 million copies in four years—and the controversy after watching the film. For some people, Owens’ background makes a difference, so I’ll address it briefly, though even without the backstory there’s plenty enough to get riled up about.
The film, like the novel, tells the story of a girl who is forced to fend for herself in the marshes of North Carolina after her abusive father drives off her mother and older siblings, and later bows out of the picture as well. Shamefully, it doesn’t occur to any of her family to take her with them. They just take off, leaving her alone with him.
The townspeople aren’t much better. They dub her “the marsh girl” and obviously recognize her situation, but only one couple shows her any kindness. And they certainly could have done more for her. Kya attends school barefoot, but is treated so shabbily that she never returns. Later, as a teenager after living in the marsh for years, she draws the attention of two young men: one a rich boy with a penchant for partying and taking what he wants, and the other a college-bound youth who at one point decides to teach Kya how to read. Some think that sweet; others call it condescending and controlling or a perverse sort of relationship imbalance fetish.
Maybe the razors were sharpened after it was brought to everyone’s attention that Owens, like Kya, was (and is still) a suspect in an unsolved murder. In the film, one of Kya’s suitors ends up dead and she stands trial, with David Straithairn playing the kind of down-home country lawyer with uncommon wisdom and empathy that we saw in Harper Lee’s attorney, Atticus Finch. In real life, Owens and husband Mark were working as biologists and environmentalists in Zambia and were being filmed when a poacher was shot and killed . . . on camera. The couple left the country and was advised not to return because they remain persons of interest, as shown on ABC’s 1996 special Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story.
But back to the film. Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild) wrote the screenplay, Witherspoon co-produced, Polly Morgan (The Woman King) was responsible for the gorgeous location cinematography, Taylor Swift co-wrote and sang the theme song (“Carolina”), and Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People, Under the Banner of Heaven) headed a talented cast as Kya. Though men also are involved in the project, Where the Crawdads Sing feels very much like a female empowerment story and holds considerable appeal because of that.
Rewatching Twice Told Tales on the new Kino Lorber Blu-ray, I found myself wondering about the ideal audience for this film adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories featuring screen legend Vincent Price.
Children old enough to have read the stories in school might be curious to see how the 1963 film treatment was handled, but I’m not sure that they will appreciate a tone that tends toward the melodramatic. Director Sidney Salkow took a break from directing popular TV series like Death Valley Days to churn out seven B-movie genre films: four westerns, a mystery, and two fantasies—one of them being this anthology of Hawthorne tales.
Whether by design or coincidence, the three stories are presented in descending order of appeal. The strongest tale, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” is a short story that plumbs the depths of human desire for a fountain of youth or immortality. Like the frequently anthologized Edgar Allan Poe story “The Cask of Amontillado,” it involves a friendship that’s solid on the surface but bubbling beneath with hidden emotions. Sebastian Cabot—whose voice children may recognize as the narrator of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh films and the character Bagheera in Disney’s animated Jungle Book—plays Carl Heidegger, who celebrates his 79th birthday with best friend Alex (Price), his only companion since his beloved fiancée Sylvia (Mari Blanchard) died the night before they were to be married 38 years ago. But a “dark and stormy night” causes the door to a crypt in the backyard where her coffin is housed (yep, we’re talking Gothic romance) to open. Carl feels compelled to check on her, and both men are shocked to see that her body appears as it did when she was alive. The rest of the tale follows Dr. Heidegger’s drive to discover what preserved her and maybe even bring her back to life.
The type of horror included in these Price Told Tales is the same sort one would find in a Jaycee’s haunted house: skeletons, dead bodies, creatures dying instantly as if from witchcraft, blood oozing from strange places, etc.—minus the jump scares. It’s pretty tame but still somehow memorable . . . because of the images or concepts, or because of their pairing with old-time melodrama?
Americans have never been good at thinking about the future. A 2019 Northwestern Mutual poll found that 15 percent of Americans age 40 and older haven’t even put aside a single dollar toward their retirement years. And if the price of gas isn’t too crazy, no one gives a second thought as to whether the oil will run out some day, or whether the polluting side-effects of petroleum consumption will one day become intolerable. Same with the mountains of trash that Americans produce on a daily basis. Does anyone wonder if there will ever come a time when all the refuse becomes too much for the government to handle?
Costa Brava, Lebanon (2021)is an environmentalist fable in Arabic (English subtitles) from Mounia Akl and the Lebanese entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. A cautionary tale set in the near future, it has an engaging cast and some powerful moments as it tries to sound the alarm to alert people to an impending crisis of waste management. Except that in some countries it’s not all that impending. It’s already happening. Visitors to Egypt’s pyramids, for example, must first drive past mounds of trash pushed to the sides of roads and freeways. And that could happen anywhere . . . and everywhere.
Saleh Bakri and Nadine Labaki star as Walid and Soraya, a couple who eight years earlier decided to leave their Beirut home because of the poor air quality, pollution, and corrupt politics that made life there untenable. Now they live in the mountains with Walid’s aged mother and the couple’s two daughters: a teenager eager for more than the sheltered life her parents provide, and a precocious adolescent. Presumably because of the mother’s previous income from her pre-marriage career as a popular singer, they were able to build a house in the country’s last unspoiled place, an idyllic hillside home that even has the luxury of a small in-ground swimming pool. But it doesn’t take long for this paradise to be lost, and that’s the whole point of the film. Society’s problems are everyone’s problem. There’s no escaping them—even if you try to live off the grid.
You’d think that Walid and Soraya, former activists who met at a protest, would know that. But the impulse to survive and protect loved ones is even stronger than the drive to fight for the change that society needs. Alas, not long after we meet this family, men from the government show up. And like the earth-moving equipment operators from earlier films such as The Emerald Forest or Avatar who displaced forest-dwellers, the workers force the family to make the same hard decision that drove them to the mountains in the first place. On a micro level, Costa Brava, Lebanon could have been about any disaster, because it’s an intimate look—rendered so by Akl’s directorial style—of how one family deals with adversity.
Family Home Theater 