La Forêt (2017)

Who's in it?: A bunch of extremely talented actors whom I didn't know before this.

What's it about?: When a teenage girl goes missing from a small town in France, the investigation uncovers all of the community's secrets. [French language with English subtitles]

How is it?: Wow.

I started watching La Forêt (listed as The Forest on Netflix) just because of its setting. I've always been into stories about small towns and even more so when they're located near huge, dark, old forests.

I'm not as into stories about child abduction or serial killers (I don't necessarily avoid them, but I don't seek them out, either), but it was clear from the first episode that this wasn't just a procedural about the hunt for a particular criminal. As the police and other members of the community start looking for clues, a lot of metaphorical logs get turned over and a lot of metaphorical bugs come pouring out all over everything.

The missing girl is named Jennifer and it quickly comes to light that she had some conflicts with a couple of her friends named Maya and Océane. Those girls are now behaving strangely which especially concerns Maya's mother, a police detective named Virginie who's taken lead on the case. And Virginie becomes even more invested when Maya and Océane also go missing.

The town is full of characters with secrets. Virginie's husband is clearly hiding something as is Océane's father. And one of my favorite characters in the six-episode series is Eve Mendel, a teacher at the girls' school whose past is so mysterious that even she doesn't know what it is. But details from Jennifer's case start triggering memories for Eve.

And then there's the police captain Gaspard Decker, who's new enough in town not to have secrets, but still plenty of drama. He has to decide how much room to give Virginie who isn't objective about the case for obvious reasons. He also has a teenage daughter whom he's concerned about considering all of these disappearances. And is that romantic interest between him and Eve?

All of these relationships and mysteries build to exciting revelations all throughout the series, culminating in a conclusion that ties up all the plot threads while also satisfying emotionally.

Rating: Five out of five priceless pedagogues with perplexing pasts.

Pinocchio (1940)

Who's in it?: Mostly voice actors whom I don't know, but Mel Blanc was apparently responsible for the hiccuping of the otherwise silent Gideon the Cat.

What's it about?: A superior adaptation of the classic Carlo Collodi novel.

How is it?: I usually remember Pinocchio as an episodic story about an unlikable kid, but that's every other version ever that's clouding my perception. Disney's adaptation manages a pretty stable throughline to pull the episodes together and makes the title character charmingly naive rather than outright mischievous. And of course he's totally heroic by the end.

And don't even get me started on how awesome the world looks with its casual inclusion of anthropomorphic animals, extremely attractive fairies, and all that amazing wood carving. I want to live there.

Rating: Five out of five Blue Fairies

Gretel & Hansel (2020)

Who's in it?: Sophia Lillis (It, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase), Alice Krige (Star Trek: First Contact, Deadwood), Jessica De Gouw (Arrow, Underground), and Charles Babalola (The Legend of Tarzan, Mary Magdalene)

What's it about?: The story of Hansel and Gretel retold to focus on Gretel's coming of age.

How is it?: Gretel & Hansel is a cool idea. Rather than have the kids be twins and more or less the same age, Gretel is a teenager and Hansel is her little brother, probably around eight-years-old. When they're kicked out of their home by their widowed mother, that puts Gretel in the position of making sure that she and her brother survive. Hearing about a community on the other side of the forest, Gretel leads Hansel in that direction, hoping that they can find work and a new life.

Just on a superficial level, I'm not in love with the production design on the film. The art department is clearly going for something in particular, but the simple costumes and clean lines of the architecture aren't my preferred aesthetic. Especially for a story based on a fairy tale, and a dark fairy tale like this one, I would have loved to see creepier, more ornate designs: baroque or gothic. I'd feel differently if I could tell what this specific design does for the story, but I can't. Maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. That's possible, because there are definitely thematic elements that I haven't quite put together either.

The forest locations look great though. I love every second that the characters are in the woods.

But even though the look of the film doesn't always connect with me, I appreciate the thought that's gone into the story and what themes can be coaxed out of it. I said "coming of Age" in the summary above, but that doesn't satisfactorily summarize it. Gretel & Hansel sees growing up as a dark, violent process and not just because of the loss of Innocence. Growing up inherently means severing ties with family. Not necessarily completely, but it's still a process that involves some pain. There's a lot that Gretel & Hansel wants to say about that and I wasn't able to follow it every step of the way. I'm not sure if that's my fault or the film's, but I'd enjoy revisiting it at some point to see.

Certainly the cast is perfect for me from Borg Queen Alice Krige as one aspect of the Witch, Jessica De Gouw (whom I loved in Underground) as another, and Nancy Drew / It Girl Sophia Lillis as Gretel. Charles Babalola plays a huntsman they meet early on. I didn't recognize him, but he's been in some stuff I love and deserves mentioning.

Rating: Three out of five woodland witches

Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 7: The Last Castle

Fables: The Last Castle was a one-shot special in 2003 that offered more insight to the Fables' homelands; specifically the closing days of the Adversary's invasion, the final stand of the defenders, and the last group of refugees to escape. The series had been slowly teasing out information about the mysterious Adversary and his campaign against the homelands, so the revelations of The Last Castle were a big deal and an appropriate subject for a fancy, stand-alone story like this.

It also answered a question that was on the minds of a lot of fans: With Bigby Wolf such an important part of the Fables series, whatever happened to his legendary prey, Red Riding Hood?

The framing of the backstory takes place because Little Boy Blue is depressed, as he always gets this time of year. Snow White finally asks him about it and he tells her that it's the anniversary of the escape of the final survivors from the homelands. Every year, those survivors gather for a private ceremony and Blue has special reason to mourn the experience.

He shares his story with Snow White and the bulk of the book describes an epic battle full of legendary characters like Robin Hood and his men, the Grimm Brothers' Bearskin, and of course Red Riding Hood, who barely makes it into the defenders' keep alive. All of it is beautifully drawn by P Craig Russell, himself a legend of fantasy comics for his Elric and Jungle Book adaptations, Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, and various volumes of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

It's a dark, emotional story and I would have liked it more if it didn't handle Red in a way I don't care for. That's super subjective though and Fables is such an unpredictable series that there's always room for it to come back to her in a way that I like better.

The Fairy Tale Project | The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Who's in it?: Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, Ocean's Eleven, Jimmy Kimmel Live!), Heath Ledger (10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, The Dark Knight), Lena Headey (300, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Game of Thrones), Monica Bellucci (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Spectre), and Jonathan Pryce (Something Wicked This Way Comes, Tomorrow Never Dies, Pirates of the Caribbean).

What's it about?: Witch-hunting charlatans Wilhelm (Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Ledger) question the truth behind their lies when they investigate a series of child abductions in a remote village near a dark forest.

How is it?: We're going to be talking about Grimm fairy tales for an upcoming episode of Filthy Horrors. I know that there won't be enough time to talk about everything I'll want to, so as I'm reading and watching things to get ready for it, I'll use this site as a journal to capture thoughts.

Before I even read one of the Grimms' fairy tales, Terry Gilliams' movie about them seemed like a good place to start. Although I'd completely forgotten that Gilliam directed it. It's got his trademark imagination and whimsy, but not many of the practical effects that I always associate with him thanks to his '80s movies like Time Bandits, Brazil, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I miss the inventiveness that went into bringing those fantasies to life. The 2005 CG of The Brother's Grimm doesn't hold up well.

The buildings and other settings all look wondrously fantastical though and the actors are delightful. Ledger is acting against type as the nerdier brother, Jake, who believes the stories he's telling, to the annoyance of the more practical Will. And it's great to see Lena Headey in a role where I can root for her as I always want to do. She plays the village hunter, daughter of a previous hunter who went missing when she was little.

The story is typical Shakespeare in Love shenanigans where we get to see the "inspirations" for so much of the writers' work. The villain (Bellucci) with her long hair, impenetrable tower, and magic mirror is responsible for legends of Snow White's evil queen as well as Rapunzel. She's trying to resurrect herself and reclaim her beauty by kidnapping young girls and putting them to sleep until she's ready to use them for her magic ritual. And she's assisted in this by a werewolf who opens the film luring into the woods a girl wearing a red hood.

To be clear, I love this stuff and the script does a nice job weaving it together. It even sets the story during Napoleon's occupation of Germany so that French characters (like Pryce's ruthless Delatombe) can interact with and potentially inspire the Grimms with Charles Perrault's versions of some of these stories. Cinderella in particular comes up a couple of times.

Rating: Three out of five hunting Headeys.