INTO THE WOODS (2014) – My rating: 7.5/10

For one, I love these new fairy tale fantasies. Into the Woods is well done. Into the Woods sort of reminds me of “Once Upon a Time”, which I watch on TV. There are a couple of similarities however, Into the Woods is big budget and brought to you by Disney.  Need I say more.  There’s not even too much more I can say about Meryl Streep except that she is a phenomenal actress.  Into the Woods is a delightful musical fantasy that takes Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), Little Red Riding hood (Lilla Crawford) and Jack and the Beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone),  and merges them together to make a new fairytale, with a twist.  It all starts with the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) that live in a house that was cursed many years ago.  The witch (Meryl Streep) will reverse the curse if the baker and his wife bring her 4 items that they must retrieve from the woods.  From this point, everyone is engaged with doing their part to get the job done.  Many lessons are learned and many penalties are paid.  If you see Into the Woods, you’ll love Meryl Streep as well as the rest of the cast.  Tracey Ullman played Jack’s mom and Johnny Depp played the wolf.  Christine Baronski played Cinderella’s step mom and was also great.  Everyone seems so much younger than I thought they should be — good make-up.  I found this movie to be entertaining with a good message.  The singing was fantastic.  Worth seeing!

[Into the Woods is nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Costume Design and Production Design]

 

ONCE UPON A TIME – My rating: 8.5/10

You can do anything with a little imagination.  Already well established fairy tales and other children’s stories are embellished to make this, not so childish series, appealing to old and young alike.  Since the beginning of Once Upon a Time, Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Rumpelstiltskin, Pinocchio, Jimmy the Cricket, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood and his Merry Band of Men, The wizard of Oz, Hansel and Gretel and many more were all explored before taking on a life of its own.  Recurring characters like Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) , Red Riding Hood/Ruby (Meghan Ory ), Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), Captain Hook/Hook (Colin O’Donoghue ), Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas), Emma Swan/the savior (Jennifer Morrison), Henry (Jared Gilmore), The Evil Queen/Regina (Lana Parillia) and others are interwoven into a complex story of good vs evil in an unknown and unseen town called Storybrook.  This series is in it’s 3rd season and still going strong.  There are 3 worlds in this story: the present (New York), The past (the enchanted forest) and Storybrook, a place where there was no magic.  All that has changed as well as the story and the characters.

Once Upon A Time is quite interesting and has continued to wow it’s audience.  Emma and Neil had a son he didn’t know about when she was very young.  Having no sound means to raise a child, she gave him up for adoption.  Enters Regina who adopts and raises the child, known as Henry.  Henry discovers a book of fairy tales given to him by his teacher, Mary Margaret who is really Snow White as well as Henry’s grandmother.  Henry suspects they are all characters from his book, with no memory of their true past, so he sets out to find “the savior” who is also his biological mom, Emma who lives in New York.

Confused? Catch this exciting series in full on Netflix.  Once Upon A Time airs on ABC.