The Fairy Tale Project | Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001)

Who's in it?: Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Conjuring, Bates Motel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), Clancy Brown (Highlander, Shoot to Kill, Carnivàle), Vincent Schiavelli (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Better Off Dead...), Michael J Anderson (Twin Peaks, Carnivàle), Warwick Davis (Return of the Jedi, Willow), and Martin Klebba (Corky Romano, Pirates of the Caribbean, Scrubs, Mirror Mirror).

What's it about?: An Everything But the Kitchen Sink version of the fairy tale.

How is it?: I almost gave up a couple of times, but finished the film out of sheer stubbornness. Miranda Richardson is pretty great as the Queen and so is Vera Farmiga as one of her disguises, but Kristin Kreuk, while heart-breakingly beautiful, is also heart-breakingly empty as Snow White. She gives nothing to the performance and there's no way for me to connect to the character.

And even though she's fun, I don't connect to the Queen either, because unlike other versions and the original fairy tale, she's not trying to hold onto what her culture values about women. There's no social commentary, she's just evil and greedy. She doesn't actually care about what the King thinks of her; she's just trying to take over the kingdom. Boring.

I guess someone could argue that that's a more feminist take, but I'd argue back that it's not, because it doesn't actually address feminist issues. And that's not even considering that the power the Queen uses in her attempted coup comes from her older brother (Clancy Brown) who I guess is a genie or something?

The genie is indicative of my biggest problem with the film, which is that it just keeps layering on random elements for no reason. Like how the prince gets turned into a bear and then shrunk and put into a snow globe. Or how the dwarfs are named after days of the week, given the corresponding personalities from the "Monday's Child" song, then color-coded so that together they make a rainbow, but then they can actually turn into a rainbow and use it to travel long distances. Any one of these things could be interesting if there was a point to it, but it's all just thrown on top of the story without any consideration for what the story becomes.

I disliked the movie, but I'd have hated it more if not for Richardson and Farmiga's clearly having fun as their versions of the Queen. And the dwarf casting was pretty great, too. In an instance where a random, unexpected detail actually worked, Vincent Schiavelli is thrown in as one of the dwarfs alongside favorites Martin Klebba, Warwick Davis, and Michael J Anderson.

Rating: Two out of five Evil Farmigas.

The Fairy Tale Project | The Grimm Brothers' Snow White, or Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)

Who's in it?: Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Ghostbusters, Galaxy Quest, The Village), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Crusoe, Hunt for the Wilderpeople), and Monica Keena (While You Were Sleeping).

What's it about?: A widowed nobleman (Neill) marries an insecure woman (Weaver) with dark powers, but his daughter (Keena) is less than welcoming to her new stepmother, instigating a series of horrifying tragedies and betrayals.

How is it?: I'm not clear on which name came first, but the print I watched has The Grimm Brothers' Snow White in the titles and that's also the name on what appears to be the original poster (above). Every place else though, it's called Snow White: A Tale of Terror. But even though IMDb lists that as the "original title," it feels like a post-release marketing move; letting home video audiences know that this is a dark, horrific version of the classic fairy tale. Whichever was first, I like the version with the Grimms' name, because Michael Cohn's film is clearly working from their version as his inspiration.

Like in the Grimms' story, Weaver's character is the protagonist, at least at first. She's not a queen, nor are Neill and Keena a king or princess. This is a grounded version of the story that keeps the fantastical elements to a minimum. Snow White is never called Snow White, she's just Lilli Hoffman. Her father is Frederick Hoffman and her stepmother is named Claudia. The Hoffmans are wealthy, live in a castle, and are clearly influential in their area, but they aren't royalty. And though Claudia is a witch with a mirror, her powers have more to do with potions and sympathetic magic than actual sorcery. Her mirror's power is ultimately undefined, but the film leaves open multiple interpretations about it. I like to think that it's all in Claudia's head, but that's a tough reading considering that the mirror does affect another person at one point.

Claudia clearly enters her new marriage with good intentions, but when she's rejected by young Lili (played by a 12-year-old actor named Taryn Davis in those scenes) and Frederick continues to dote on his daughter and talk about how much she reminds him of his deceased wife, Claudia's low self-esteem becomes unmanageable and she starts plotting ways to increase her security in her new home. This is very much in line with the motivations suggested in the Grimms' story and it's impossible not to feel sorry for Claudia until she takes things too far.

There's no huntsman in this version. Instead, Claudia has a brother whom she orders to murder Lili. And when Lili escapes, she discovers a secret hideout in the forest belonging not to dwarfs, but to a group of bandits, many of whom have been unjustly outlawed and outcast for various reasons. Some of them have deformities, which causes Lily to question the value of physical beauty.

And that's the real message of the film. Lili has grown up hearing that she's beautiful, including the story about how her mom wished for her after seeing red blood on the white snow through a black window frame. The story of the wish is straight from the Grimms, but in the film it's a childish tale meant to make Lili feel loved and connected to her mother. Add that to a thousand other attentions and Lili becomes a bit spoiled and focused on physical attractiveness. Which then combats explosively with Claudia's hangups about beauty. By the end of the film, Lili has taken over as protagonist, because she's the one who learns something from these experiences.

This is never going to be a definitive version for me, because of all the deconstruction it does to the fairy tale, but it's a fascinating and powerful take.

Rating: Four out of five Sandra Bullock's sisters-in-law.

The Fairy Tale Project | Snow White (1987)

Who's in it?: Diana Rigg (The Avengers, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Great Muppet Caper), Sarah Patterson (The Company of Wolves), and Billy Barty (Legend, Masters of the Universe, Willow).

What's it about?: A surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Grimm Brothers' story by way of Rankin-Bass specials and '80s fantasy movies.

How is it?: I wanted to see this because it's the one other thing that Sarah Patterson did in the '80s besides The Company of Wolves. And of course Diana Rigg as the Queen was irresistible. Billy Barty as one of the dwarfs sounded promising, too. I love him in Legend.

I got real nervous when the first character broke into song though. And a pretty bad song at that. This was made by Cannon Films, the notoriously low budget company, during the Golan-Globus era when they were cranking out stuff like Delta Force, the Sho Kosugi ninja trilogy, and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Not that those aren't all fun and great in their own ways. It just demonstrates the level of quality we're talking about here. And indeed their Snow White is fun and great in its own way, too.

That first song was horrible and none of the songs would make it into a Disney film, but a lot of them are charming enough. The best of them are about the same level of quality as a Rankin-Bass Christmas special. Any time the dwarfs sing is pretty cool and Snow White herself has a couple of good numbers. If that's really Patterson's singing voice, I don't know why she didn't have a longer career.

The dwarfs are pretty awesome in an '80s fantasy movie way. They look terrifying in the poster above, but the filmmakers spent some money on makeup, so the dwarfs are more than just costumes. They're charmingly acted, quite physical, and just generally a joy to watch.

Patterson is also good, though she's only in the last third of the movie. Snow White as a child is played by a younger, equally good actor named Nicola Stapleton who's gone on to have a successful TV career in the UK. She stays in the film up to when Snow White discovers the dwarfs' cottage; at which point years pass and she grows into Patterson. That interpretation is possible in the Grimms' story, which is vague about Snow White's age. She appears to be a young girl when the Queen orders her death, but is clearly of marrying age by the end. Where the growth takes place is open to interpretation and I like that this version makes an unusual choice with it.

In most ways Cannon's version sticks very close to the Grimms; sometimes to its disadvantage. Snow White comes across pretty dumb when she falls for all three of the Queen's appearances at the cottage. The Queen wears different disguises in each, but Snow White ridiculously takes the dwarfs' warnings extremely literally, so if they say, "Don't let anyone in the house," Snow White thinks it's fine to stand in the door and let a stranger comb her hair. This is absolutely in keeping with Snow White's intelligence in the Grimms' story, but I expect better out of adaptations.

And while Riggs' Queen is deliciously campy, the script isn't at all interested in her motivations as an actual human being. We're told up front that she's Evil and so she is. She's vain of course, but that's as deep as it goes. Similarly, the hunter decides not to kill Snow White for no other reason than because that's how the story goes.

With all this faithfulness to the source material, I was looking forward to seeing if the Queen would die by dancing herself to death in hot, iron shoes, but sadly the film doesn't go that far. It does have her show up at the wedding and die there, but it's due to a mistake she's made in her own anger, not because Snow and the Prince take revenge. It's satisfying, but like so much else with the film, it's not all that it could have been.

Rating: Three out of five droll dwarves.

The Fairy Tale Project | Faerie Tale Theatre (1982)

In the '80s, Shelley Duvall produced an awesome series of fairy tale adaptations for Showtime. It was shot on video and the sets weren't always lavish, so the look doesn't necessarily hold up as top tier, but Faerie Tale Theatre had top talent working on it, in front of the camera as well as behind.

The sets were often designed to imitate the work of famous illustrators, so "The Frog Prince" looks like Maxfield Parrish's work, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is inspired by Norman Rockwell, "Hansel and Gretel" has an Arthur Rackham vibe, and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is based on NC Wyeth. I understand that the "Beauty and the Beast" episode was designed to mimic Jean Cocteau's excellent 1946 adaptation of the tale.

Duvall also got great directors to work on the episodes. Eric Idle directed "The Frog Prince," Roger Vadim did "Beauty and the Beast," Nicholas Meyer did "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," Tim Burton did "Aladdin," and Francis Ford Coppola did "Rip Van Winkle."

And the actors are a Who's Who of '80s (and beyond) celebrities like Robin Williams, Teri Garr, Hervé Villechaize, Jeff Bridges, Mick Jagger, Mako, Edward James Olmos, Anjelica Huston, Mary Steenburgen, Malcolm McDowell, Ricky Schroder, Joan Collins, John Lithgow, Pee Wee Herman, Carrie Fisher, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Lee, Jeff Goldblum... As impressive as that list is, it's maybe a third of the top-name people who appeared in these stories.

I watched three episodes for this project and I bet you can guess which ones they were.

Elizabeth McGovern (She's Having a Baby, Downton Abbey) plays Snow White and she's certainly beautiful, but her performance isn't as inspired as the true stars of the show: Vanessa Redgrave (The first Mission: Impossible movie) as the Evil Queen and Vincent Price (oh, you know) as her Magic Mirror. Price is charming and droll as he rolls his eyes at the Queen's vanity, but Redgrave is next-level amazing with the way she prances and primps in front of the mirror. I'm pretty sure Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs learned everything he knows about preening from Redgrave's Queen. She's marvelous and tragic as a woman who deep down understands that Snow White has replaced her, but is fighting it with every ounce of will that she has.

Other cast members in this one are Tony Cox (Spaceballs, Bad Santa) as one of the dwarfs, and Rex Smith as the Prince. Smith's coolest other role has to be Daredevil in the Trial of the Incredible Hulk TV movie from 1989, but he also appeared opposite Linda Ronstadt in the '83 movie adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance. He puts those singing skills to good use in Faerie Tale Theatre.

"Cinderella" has Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, The Bride) in the title role, Jean Stapleton (All in the Family) as her fairy godmother, and Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) as the Prince. A highlight of this one is how much time it spends building a relationship between Cinderella and the Prince. It shows a lot of the ball and Beals and Broderick do a nice job convincing me that they're falling in love. That's especially good since the theme of the FTT version is that Cinderella is perfectly capable of winning the Prince over by herself. The Fairy Godmother just gets her in the door.

There's also a fun bit between the stepsisters and the prince at the ball, since one of them is played by Edie McClurg. She was also Ed Rooney's secretary in Ferris Bueller the following year, so we get to see Grace hit on Ferris. Another actor worth mentioning is James Noble as the King. If you're familiar with the sitcom Benson, Noble is basically still playing Governor Gatling in this.

"Sleeping Beauty" was easily my favorite of the three episodes, mostly because it has Bernadette Peters as the princess and Christopher Reeve as the prince. It also keeps Perrault's Don't Rush Into Love as a theme and presents it in a really fun way. Most of the story is told in flashback by a woodsman to the prince and his squire (Ron Rifkin from Alias), but we also get flashbacks to the prince's past. We see both the prince and the princess trying to find potential spouses, but failing because their parents throw them at awful people, who are also hilariously played by Peters and Reeve. Other actors in this one include Rene Auberjonois (Benson, Deep Space Nine) and Sally Kellerman (MASH, Back to School) as Peters' parents, Beverly D'Angelo (National Lampoon's Vacation) as the evil fairy who curses the princess, and Carol Kane (The Muppet Movie, Taxi) as the good fairy who modifies the curse.

The Fairy Tale Project | Fractured Fairy Tales (1959)

In the '50s, the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show had a segment called Fractured Fairy Tales, which were humorous adaptations of the classic stories. I wasn't around at the time, but Rocky and Bullwinkle were still in heavy syndication when I was a kid. And Fractured Fairy Tales was always one of my favorite parts of any episode.

I didn't want to watch all of them for this project, but I thought I might watch at least the three stories that I've read up to this point. I was surprised to find the silly, little spoofs actually insightful.

Like in the Grimm Brothers' version, "Snow White" focuses on the Queen and her obsession with holding onto the value her culture assigns her as a woman. When her magic (coin-operated) mirror sends her to the dwarfs' house to find Snow White, the princess isn't there, but the dwarfs have just opened a gym that they're happy to sell the Queen a lifetime membership to. When that doesn't return her to Fairest In The Land status, she goes back to the dwarfs again. This happens several times. Snow White is never there and the dwarfs have some new scheme to help the Queen find her value: dance lessons, health food, charm school. At the end it's revealed that the whole thing is a scam with one of the dwarfs working inside the mirror to drum up business and capitalize on the Queen's insecurities.

FFT's "Cinderella" is about appearances and materialism. Cinderella is actually pretty lazy and just wants an easy way to get the lifestyle she craves. (Her sisters are barely in it, but they're hardworking scullery maids, so Cinderella is solely responsible for her attitude.) The fairy godmother shows up to grant Cinderella her wishes, but there's a catch. Cinderella has to sell a huge supply of kitchen utensils by midnight or she'll lose her fabulous prizes. Meanwhile, the prince is going bankrupt and has to pay off his creditors by midnight or he'll lose the castle. When Cinderella shows up to sell the prince some pots and pans, he's fooled by her appearance and thinks she's rich. So while she's trying to get him to buy utensils, he's trying to get her to marry him, both getting increasingly desperate as 12:00 approaches. Both Perrault and the Grimm's versions are about more than marrying a rich prince, but Cinderella certainly uses appearances to obtain her escape from her stepfamily. There's a lot more to her than just looks, but the other characters in the story don't see that. FFT's commentary on appearances is a valid focus.

Finally, "Sleeping Beauty" also gets a materialistic makeover. It rushes through the early part of the story to get to the prince's arrival. We're told that he's supposed to kiss Sleeping Beauty (borrowed from Disney, possibly, since this episode didn't air until the early '60s), but the prince decides at the last moment that an awakened princess is after all just a princes. A sleeping princess is a novelty, so he turns the castle into a tourist attraction. That's darkly fascinating when I consider that the Grimms' version of the story is about pausing the princess' maturation process. In FFT, the prince keeps it paused even longer than it needs to be, simply for financial gain. And it occurs to me that modern Disney sort of does the same thing with the young teenage girls that it turns into stars.

The Fairy Tale Project | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Who's in it?: A bunch of cartoons

What's it about?: An animated, musical adaptation of the fairy tale, "Snow White."

How is it?: Reading the Grimm version before watching Disney's affected my enjoyment of the latter. Disney's is still a great, successful adaptation, but I wasn't as over the moon about it as I usually am. On any other day, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a classic. It's amazing that it's 82-years-old. The animation is still top notch, Snow White is still utterly charming, the dwarfs are still hilarious, and the Queen is still completely terrifying.

As I wrote when talking about the Grimm version, the main character of the fairy tale is the Queen and I understand why she feels threatened. Her story isn't really appropriate as text for a children's film, though. Although it would have been possible to highlight as subtext. But Disney wasn't interested in that and I don't fault the filmmakers. It's just something I was thinking about as I watched this time and it dampened my enjoyment a little.

In other ways, it's a great adaptation. The prince comes out of nowhere in the Grimm version, so Disney makes a good call by introducing him earlier in the story and at least paying song-service to his love for Snow. The dwarfs of course are given names and personalities that are missing in Grimm. And the Queen's attacks on Snow are reduced to one, successful one instead of including the Grimm Queen's two, unsuccessful attempts that Snow stupidly refuses to learn from.

I don't know how I feel about sticking the Sleeping Beauty kiss in as the way to revive Snow White. She's revived by accident in Grimm, so I appreciate the attempt to make the prince more involved, but the Love's First Kiss antidote doesn't make a lot of sense. (Frankly, I'm not sure that it even makes sense in "Sleeping Beauty," but I'll wait until I've read the Grimm version of that before I decide.)

The Queen's death is far less horrifying in Disney than in Grimm, but it's still very powerful due to the sheer talent in the animation, score, and sound design. In all other ways, this is a faithful retelling of the Grimm Brothers' version with some extra singing and dancing thrown in.

Rating: Four out of five secret dungeons.

The Fairy Tale Project | "Snow White" by The Brothers Grimm

Illustration by Carl Offterdinger

My watch-through of various Grimm adaptations isn't at all going to be exhaustive. Even though it's more than I'll be able to talk about on Filthy Horrors, I've only got about a month to watch and read everything I want to. So I'm hitting the high points. I decided to start with "Snow White" because it's so well known and also because the Disney adaptation is the first of the films I'll be watching.

I'm going to get myself a copy of the Grimms' complete works, but right now I'm reading Maria Tatar's Annotated Brothers Grimm. It doesn't have every single thing, but there are a bunch of stories in it and I love Tatar's notes. The character of Snow White has a justifiably bad reputation as a helpless, reactionary character, but Tatar helped me see that Snow isn't actually the main character of her story at all. That would be the Queen. And while she's never sympathetic, her plight is. In every way that women were valued at the time of the story, the Queen is being undermined by Snow. Even motherhood, as I'll get to in a minute.

In the earliest, oral versions of the story, the Queen isn't Snow's step-mother, but her actual, biological mother. And in at least one version, it's Snow's father who specifically wishes for a daughter with snow white skin, ebony black hair, and blood red lips. Because of this, the king feels a special relationship with Snow and the Queen feels threatened about being replaced by the younger, prettier girl. Motherhood is valued by the culture, but the Queen has already fulfilled that role while Snow is just starting to get ready for it. The best is ahead for her, as it were. Tatar points out that when Snow keeps house for the dwarfs, she's taking her first step towards becoming a wife and mother (though not specifically for the dwarfs who are deliberately asexual and non-threatening; Snow is just practicing in their house).

The Grimms weren't satisfied with only documenting the oral stories they collected. They modified them to suit the tastes and values of their own, then-modern culture. And since motherhood was highly valued, evil mothers in the stories usually became less problematic step-mothers. Which is what happened to the Queen. The story is more horrifying if the Queen is Snow's biological mother, but it also makes a lot more sense because it keeps the overall theme of the story intact.

Snow is innocent in all of this. That's part of her allure and a lot of what the Queen hates about her. But society isn't pure. It assigns disproportionate value to youth and beauty, both of which are fading for the Queen while Snow increasingly becomes the center of attention. I understand why the Queen feels threatened, even while I judge her harshly for what she does about it. And it's telling that she instructs her huntsman to bring back Snow's organs once he's murdered the girl, so that the Queen can eat them, ritually consuming Snow's essence so that the Queen can possess her youth and beauty.

With the Queen as the tragic main character, Snow becomes the antagonist and mostly a symbolic one. That's why she doesn't have a lot of agency. I'm curious to see which adaptations, if any, try to fix that. I'm also curious to see which adaptations keep the focus on the Queen. I know some pay more attention to her than others.

The dwarfs and the prince are just obstacles to the Queen's plans, so they're not super fleshed out either. The dwarfs only give Snow temporary shelter and don't have names or even personalities in the Grimms' version. The prince unintentionally rescues Snow at the end by falling in love with her beauty through the glass coffin. He doesn't appear in the story until the very end, so there's no previous relationship. She is literally just a piece of art that he wants in his home. But as he's transporting her from the forest to his palace, the carriage hits a bump, jostles Snow's coffin, and loosens the chunk of poison apple that's caught in her throat and is keeping her comatose. She's released by happenstance as if the universe is conspiring against the Queen. The value of youth and beauty is a powerful force and the story relentlessly rewards it.

Another example of this is how the Queen dies. Once Snow is revived, the Queen's mirror again proclaims that the Queen is no longer the fairest in the land. It doesn't mention Snow by name though, but only that the prince is now married and his bride now holds the title. The Queen has to go check this out and is horrified to learn that Snow is still alive. The couple seem to have anticipated the Queen's visit though, because there are a pair of white-hot iron shoes that the Queen is forced to wear and dance herself to death. It's violently sadistic, but the Queen is no hero and has more or less earned her fate. Rather than withdraw gracefully into old age, she's tried to murder Snow multiple times. Her comeuppance is fascinatingly brutal.

31 Witches | Grimhilde

"Dip the apple in the brew. Let the Sleeping Death seep through. Look! On the skin! The symbol of what lies within. Now, turn red, to tempt Snow White, to make her hunger for a bite." -- The Evil Queen, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Daily Panel | Snow White

From Jaime Hernandez' adaptation in the Fairy Tale Comics anthology.

Top 10 Movies of 2012

10. Pitch Perfect



Movies get bonus points for coming out of nowhere and surprising me, which is exactly what Pitch Perfect did. I like Anna Kendrick and a capella singing just fine, but neither would typically be enough to get me to the theater by themselves. What I do love are movies about contests that We've Just Gotta Win and this one is hilarious (especially - but not only - thanks to Rebel Wilson).

9. The Dark Knight Rises



Not as great as The Dark Knight, but it's a good finale to Christopher Nolan's trilogy. It proved once and for all that Nolan's Batman is not the comic-book Batman, but I'm okay with that. I not only like the way Nolan finishes the series, I wish the comics would wrap up the same way.

The thing I was most excited about for this film though was seeing Catwoman and it didn't disappoint me on that level. Anne Hathaway narrowly edges out Julie Newmar as my favorite Catwoman (only because Newmar's version had a touch of crazy that I don't think the character needs).

8. The Cabin in the Woods



Embraces most of what I love about horror movies while making fun of everything I hate. The ending isn't perfect, but the rest of it sure is.

7. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel



I'm a sucker for elderly British people and stories about second chances. This was right in my wheelhouse on so many levels.

6. Skyfall



I haven't actually talked to anyone who's called Skyfall the best Bond movie ever, but I've heard that such people exist. If I were to meet someone with that point of view, my response would be, "Really?" Because I don't think they're thinking that through very well.

Skyfall is a lot of fun, it's gorgeous, and it works both as the 50th anniversary of the Bond series and as the finale of the trilogy started in Casino Royale. I especially love it from that last perspective. Say what you want about Quantum of Solace's dumb story and boring villain, but one thing that film did right was continue the story of Bond's relationship with his country as personified by M. Skyfall pays that story off in a beautiful way while also reintroducing elements from the pre-Casino Royale films that I didn't realize how much I'd missed. It's also got a great villain and covers its themes in interesting ways. It's a great Bond film.

But the best ever? No way. It owes too much to the early Connery films to seriously consider letting it surpass them. I'm not even sure I like it as much as The Living Daylights or Casino Royale.

5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey



My including The Hobbit this high on the list is all the evidence anyone needs to verify that this Top 10 is my personal one and not an attempt at the 10 Objectively Greatest Movies of the year. If I were being objective about it, I'd agree with the critics who point out that Peter Jackson is indulging his every whim at the expense of telling a tight story. There's a reason that he released a Theatrical Cut of the Lord of the Rings films and then an Extended Edition for DVD. A lot of people simply don't have the patience to sit through scenes that legitimately could have been deleted to improve the pacing.

That said, I'm solidly in the camp of people who will only ever watch the Extended Editions of Lord of the Rings. I love all that extra stuff. I love seeing Middle Earth that fleshed out. I absolutely don't mind seeing Jackson do the same thing with The Hobbit. But I also can't be too harsh on those who do mind it. Jackson risked alienating those folks when he chose not to release a shorter, theatrical version, so it's fair for them to say it didn't work for them.

Even for me, it's not perfect. With Lord of the Rings, I love pretty much every change Jackson made to Tolkien's novels, but I miss the Bilbo that was blustered out his front door and into adventure by Gandalf in the book. Jackson's Bilbo begins his journey too eagerly for my taste. He's too heroic too early. It felt right as I watching it, so maybe I'll re-evaluate after I've seen all three films, but it feels like Jackson needed to speed up Bilbo's character development in order to make him more likable in this installment of the trilogy.

That - and the fact that it is the first installment in a trilogy instead of a complete story - keeps The Hobbit from being higher on my list.

4. Mirror Mirror



I've already written about Mirror Mirror a couple of times, so I'll spare us all another review. I really, really love this movie though.

3. Les Misérables



I knew I was going to have problems with this movie from the first time I saw the trailer and teared up listening to "I Dreamed a Dream." And I was right. Through the whole film, if I wasn't crying over the human misery, I was crying from the joy of hearing those songs again.

I've seen Les Misérables on stage a few times. It's my favorite musical and the reason I think Phantom of the Opera is over-rated. So I'm very familiar with the songs, but I don't own a cast recording and can't listen to them any time I want. I've never cared about hearing the songs outside of the context of the story as presented by actors.

But because I love those songs - and the story - so much, I've longed for a version with actors that I could own and watch whenever I want. In other words, I've been wanting this movie for about twenty years. And it was everything I hoped it would be. (Even Russell Crowe, who isn't an especially strong Javert, but has a perfectly lovely singing voice outside of that.)

The only reason Les Misérables isn't higher on my list is because I can't separate it from my feelings about the stage production. I don't know how I would've felt about it if I wasn't already in love with it from the moment it was announced.

2. The Avengers



Oh, wait... I mean the other Avengers movie about a red-headed spy in a black catsuit.



I seriously reconfigured my Top 3 movies I don't know how many times right up to the point of writing this post. There was a long time this year that I couldn't imagine any movie bumping The Avengers from first place.

A lot of my love for the movie is because it never should have worked. If I've learned anything from a lifetime of movie watching, it's that movies are never as awesome as we hope they'll be. From the moment Samuel L. Jackson appeared at the end of Iron Man, we were all thrilled by the notion of an integrated universe of Marvel superhero films all leading to an all-star Avengers movie. But admit it, you didn't think it would deliver, did you? I certainly didn't. It couldn't possibly live up to the awesomeness of its premise.

Except it did. It totally did.

And, in the process, it gave us the Hulk movie we'd all been waiting for.

1. Looper



Outside of its being really stinking good, the reason Looper is number one on my list is because it's not based on something I already loved. I had to give it bonus points for being a completely original story about characters I'd never heard of before. And what a story.

I dig a good, tightly plotted time-travel story as much as the next person, but what I really love are stories that make me think and re-evaluate my opinions about people. I can't talk about how Looper does that without going into spoilers, but it's so much more than just a fun, scifi movie and deserves to be Number One.

13 Movies I Hated in 2012

Since I'm basically counting down to my Top 10 at the end of the month, here's the bottom of the list, in order from most hated to least.

43. Wrath of the Titans



I wasn't going to see this after learning my lesson with the Clash of the Titans remake, but my son loves Greek mythology and enjoyed Clash, so he was looking forward to it and we went. He's ten and enjoyed it, but it taught me that when Sam Worthington says he's only going to do a sequel because they fixed all the problems with the first one: Do Not Believe Him.

42. Safe House



No surprises in this movie and I so did not care what happened to anyone in it.

41. Dark Shadows



Should've been called Wasted Talent. I love pretty much everyone in this movie, but it was a boring, nonsensical mess.

40. Taken 2



There was one point in Taken 2 where I thought they might have found something interesting to do with these characters. After the events of Taken, I can understand why Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace's characters may have turned a little dysfunctional with Neeson's being overprotective and Grace not really sure whether she appreciates that or not. That would've been a cool dynamic to explore, especially if Grace then had to turn around and save Neeson somehow, but it was dropped in favor of simply remaking the first one.

39. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter



Great premise, but it was a mistake to try to fold in Lincoln's entire life. The adventures of Young Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter would have been enough. Skipping ahead and telling a whole, second story of Old Lincoln was too much. Plus, these vampires really aren't that interesting.

38. Resident Evil: Retribution



I'm a big, big fan of the Resident Evil movies, but this was a horrible entry. It does very little to advance the series' overarching plot, but it's also weak even as a standalone movie. It sets up a mission, explains what the heroes have to do to complete that mission, then shows them doing it. Yawn.

Also, it introduces some smart, badass, new characters, then has them do extremely dumb and weak things just to prolong the drama.

37. American Reunion



This was my first American Pie movie, so I had no nostalgic attachment to it. Mostly I just wanted to see what everyone's been talking about all these years and watch Alyson Hannigan and Seann William Scott in these roles that they became famous for. Unfortunately, it was more gross and creepy than funny.

36. Wanderlust



This was actually funny, but I have a problem with adultery's being introduced to push a plot along without dealing with the emotional fallout from it. I know it's my own hang-up, but I've seen cheating seriously screw up too many of my friends' marriages. There are always repercussions and it feels cheap to me when cheaters are let off the hook too easily. By all means, have some adultery in your movie. Just deal with it honestly when you do.

35. Seven Psychopaths



I wanted a fun, Guy Ritchie-esque crime movie, not a deconstruction of that genre with nothing new or interesting to say about it. There are some fun - even great - performances (Walken!), but even then I felt ripped off by how little Olga Kurylenko is in it.

34. Battleship



I was seriously surprised that this isn't my most hated movie of the year, but there was some genuinely fun, pulpy adventure in between all the cynical, stupid predictability.

33. This Means War



More fun that it deserved to be, mostly because all three stars are so likable. But it's an implausible story, both in how Chris Pine and Tom Hardy use government resources, and in the decision Reese Witherspoon makes at the end.

32. Snow White and the Huntsman



I might would have liked this more except that it was supposed to be the good Snow White movie this year and it sucked in comparison to the utterly lovable Mirror Mirror. Singing dwarves work for The Hobbit, but they're laughable here. Kristen Stewart looks as sleepy and bored as ever and there is NO WORLD in which she's fairer than Charlize Theron.

Still, Theron does a fantastic job and I love the motivations the film gives her character. And Chris Hemsworth is always cool.

31. Total Recall



I'm not a huge fan of the original, so I wasn't opposed to the idea of remaking it, but this version commits a multitude of sins. It tries to update the plot, but leaves gaping holes in the process and doesn't present some key scenes as effectively as the original.

You know what covers a multitude of sins though? Kate Beckinsale kicking ass. Which she totally does all over this movie.

5 things I learned from a second look at Mirror Mirror

In honor of Mirror Mirror's DVD release today (I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it), here are five observations I made after re-watching it.


SPOILERS FOR MIRROR MIRROR BELOW

1. The movie gently subverts fairy tales through the prince. He begins the movie with sort of classic, fairy tale motivations and attitudes: he travels for no other reason than seeking adventure and he's very traditional in his attitude about the dwarves and women. It takes him longer than the other characters to let go of those ideas, but by the end he's fully comfortable with Snow White's being active in her own story. 
2. Though Julia Roberts does a lot of hamming in this movie, she's obviously having a great time doing it and it's hard to dislike her for that.
3. Someone needs to make an action movie starring Martin Klebba. Seriously. Please. And for God's sake don't make the title a pun about his size.
4. Sean Bean is wonderfully humble and awestruck as the king. Most actors would have played him as fully confident and comfortable in retaking his throne at the end of the movie, but not Bean. He's awed by his daughter and her companions and subtly, but visibly embarrassed by his involuntary role in Snow's troubles.
5. I could watch Lily Collins and the cast dance Bollywood style to "I Believe" all day long.

You should look into Mirror Mirror

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought someone paid me off to write a positive review of Mirror Mirror. I get it. I wouldn't trust me either. In fact, I only even went to it as lesser-among-evils choice.

My brother-in-law and I are fortunate (or smart) enough to have married two, extremely cool women and so we have a standing Guys’ Night Out every week where we go to the movies. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. This week: I was this close to calling it off. I actually recommended at one point that we go back and watch a movie at my brother-in-law’s place because there was absolutely nothing in the theaters that didn’t make me want to stab my own eyes out rather than think about seeing it. (I probably could have sat through The Hunger Games again, but it may say something about that movie that I really didn’t want to, as much as I enjoyed it the first two times.)

My problem with Mirror Mirror had to do with two things. First: the marketing is all very focused on Julia Roberts. I don’t have a problem with Julia Roberts in principle, but I do have a problem with her and Nathan Lane hamming up one of my favorite fairy tales for two hours. The trailers had Nathan Lane acting very Nathan Laney while Julia Roberts cracked bad jokes and whined a lot. My brother-in-law, on the other hand, does have a problem with Julia Roberts, so he was even more reluctant than I was.

My second problem with Mirror Mirror was that it was directed by Tarsem Singh (Immortals), a guy who’s shown a few times that he’s much more interested in presenting beautiful images on screen than with telling a story that makes any sense. Fortunately, he had a smart, funny script this time, written by Melisa Wallack (Meet Bill) and Jason Keller (Machine Gun Preacher).

We have another buddy who sometimes joins us for the movie, so when my brother-in-law called him to tell him what we’re seeing, the message he left was that we were going to see the Snow White film. “Not the good one that’s coming out later. The crappy one with Julia Roberts.” We came out of the theater shocked that we’d enjoyed ourselves so much.

I’m not going to lie. Julia Roberts does whine and tell bad jokes in this movie. Nathan Lane does Nathan Lane his way through it. And they are in it quite a bit, but they are not the focus of the film. This is a Snow White movie and it stays a Snow White movie; a funny, gorgeous one that tells the story from a modern, feminist perspective. Not stridently feminist, but humorously. Like when Snow White locks up the Prince and tells him that she’s going to go fight the monster to protect him because letting him do it is out of date. He protests that the traditional way of letting the Prince go save the day is a great idea. “It’s been focus-grouped and it works!” That could be a bad joke if Armie Hammer didn’t deliver it as well as he does and if he and Lily Collins didn’t convince you that this wasn’t actually about feminism, but that each actually cared about and wanted to protect the other. The feminism is incidental and kind of taken for granted. I loved that.

The rest of the film is like that too. The seven dwarfs are awesome, having more in common with Time Bandits than Disney (though you will see winks toward Grumpy and Dopey in a couple of characters). These guys all have great comic timing and when they’re interacting with Snow White, which is quite a lot, it’s a wonderful film. So wonderful that I quite willingly forgave it for Nathan Lane. Julia Roberts – it turned out – didn’t need much forgiveness for. She’s playing exactly the role she needed to play: a vain, selfish ruler who doesn’t get pleasure from harming others because she doesn’t consider other people worth thinking about in the first place.

So we came out of the theater saying, “Wow! I really liked that!” So much so that it actually makes me less excited to see Snow White and the Huntsman, a movie that looks really great in so many ways, but will suffer for not starring Lily Collins and these particular dwarfs.