Fairy Tale Movies Sent "Into the Woods"

A little treat of a trailer for a bonus fun post today, made by someone who clearly loves fairy tales, animated movies and "Into The Woods". While there are a ton of fan made "trailers" mixing up the soundtrack from ads with images from Disney and other films, and I honestly wasn't expecting much, this one is a stand out and worth your time.

It might make you think of those Disney (& more) stories a little differently too...

Enjoy!

Happily Ever After Is Not All That It Seems... (A Handy Infographic)

Just sent to me today as part of a promotion for a book any fairy tale student (or regular reader) should have, is this great infographic, created by the Norton Critical Editions team. We see a lot of infographics floating around these days but one of the best things about this one is I know the team will have done their research properly to create it, so you can trust this summary and use it confidently for reference.

I love the artwork too - very nice, yet easy to quickly reference all the information. Look at that neat list of referenced fairy tales at the bottom to. It's a very neat resource to have on hand. (Can we get a poster please?)

Here's a link to the Norton Critical Edition of The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tartar, if you don't already have a copy, or need another to give to a friend.

In case it's not already clear, this book is highly recommended for any fairy tale study library, from the casual student to those more inclined to serious scholarship.

Here's the summary:

Fairy tales shape our cultures and enrich our imaginations; their narrative stability and cultural durability are incontestable. 

This Norton Critical Edition collects forty-four fairy tales, from the fifth century to the present. The Classic Fairy Tales focuses on six tale types: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Bluebeard," and "Hansel and Gretel," and presents multicultural variants and sophisticated literary rescriptings. Also reprinted are tales by Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde. 

"Criticism" gathers twelve essays that interpret aspects of fairy tales, including their social origins, historical evolution, psychological drama, gender issues, and national identities. 

A Selected Bibliography is included.

Disney's Newest Maleficent is Kristin Chenoweth

Honestly, it feels a little like Disney are attempting to cover all bases left open after Maleficent with this Descendants movie.

We've been told that Maleficent "honors the classic" and that it has "all the iconic scenes you want to see" and that begs the question of whether or not Maleficent dies, just like she does in the classic (which is crazy-iconic!) and how that cuts Disney off from the possibilities of sequels once this film busts all the blocks at the box office (you know what I mean).

So, sounding suspiciously much like the far-better-than-I would-ever-have-believed-possible show and doll line, Ever After High, Disney's Descendants has its own Maleficent, complete with bratty teen offspring attempting to redeem herself (something which the classic Maleficent never got the chance to wrangle, that being motherhood, and no, the goons don't count).

And she's Kristin Chenoweth.

OK then...

I guess Glinda will walk a mile in Elphaba's shoes after all. Sort of.

It looks like they've taken a leaf out of the Once Upon A Time book for this Maleficent. She even looks a lot like the OUAT Maleficent (played by Kristin Bauer van Straten, who, it's hard to believe, played the eyebrow-raising vampire Pam in True Blood). But perhaps they'll take a note of Ms. van Straten's transformation into a fluffy villain we couldn't quite be afraid of, and send Chenoweth in the Pam-in-True-Blood vein instead (ha!).

I don't know. This seems like for all the gravitas the Maleficent film is being touted to have, regarding themes and classic scenes, Descendants is going to do its best to undo all that and make everyone just misunderstood and worthy of second (or twenty-second) chances. That way they can take the franchise in any direction. :/ I love that it would appear they're taking risks with the movie. I don't love that this sounds like something churned out from the Disney sequel-studio.

But hey, maybe I'll be wrong about it. (Right now, though, that animated office evil-queen comedy sounds far more promising to me.)

Here's the latest synopsis & cast/character details:

In a present day idyllic kingdom, the benevolent teenaged son of the King and Queen (Beast and Belle from Disney’s iconic Beauty and the Beast) is poised to take the throne. His first proclamation: offer a chance at redemption to the trouble-making offspring of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen and Jafar who have been imprisoned on a forbidden island with all the other villains, sidekicks, evil step-mothers and step-sisters. These villainous descendants (Carlos, Mal, Evvie and Jay, respectively) are allowed into the kingdom to attend prep school alongside the offspring of iconic Disney heroes including Fairy Godmother, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Mulan. However, the evil teens face a dilemma. Should they follow in their nefarious parents’ footsteps and help all the villains regain power or embrace their innate goodness and save the kingdom?

(I'm going to go with "save the kingdom". I'll bet you a pretzel.)

Chenoweth’s Maleficent will be butting heads with her daughter Mal, played by budding Disney star Dove Cameron. Also among the cast are Booboo Stewart (X-Men: Days of Future Past) as Jafar’s son Jay; Cameron Boyce (Grown Ups 2) as Cruella De Vil’s son Carlos; Sofia Carson as the Evil Queen’s daughter Evvie; and Mitchell Hope as Belle and the Beast’s son Ben. 

Quote source: HERE 

Pensuasion Takes on Fairy Tales for the A to Z Blogging Challenge (Which Means More Daily Fairy Tale Fodder For Us!)

S.L. Hennessy, writer of the informative, encouraging and entertaining writing blog Pensuasion is writing about fairy tales every day for 26 days. It's a daily blogging challenge she's taken on, in which the blogger chooses their own theme to post on and, lucky for us, she chose fairy tales. I really enjoy her writing. She obviously enjoys the tales and researches and writes enough to inform without overwhelming but also enough to give her unique perspective on the tales for those of us already in the know. It's been a lovely daily check-in point and she's very kindly given me permission to repost a preview/teaser of her writing every day remaining during the challenge. Thank you Ms. Hennessy (and yay for us)!

So first, let me catch you up, since I didn't find her until day 'H' and it's now day 'K'... I'm posting her ABC's with a screen cap 'teaser' so you can get a taste. Each ABC title links to her original post for that letter/entry so you can keep reading.

A is for AUTHORS.

(A for Hans Christian Andersen, B for Brothers Grimm and C for Charles Perrault...)

B is for BEAUTY and the BEAST.

C is for CINDERELLA.

D is for DISNEY.

E is for ENCHANTED.

F is for FABLES.

G is for GRIMM.

H is for HANSEL and GRETEL.

I is for ICE MAIDEN.

J is for JACK and the GIANTS.

and today (actually yesterday, Saturday)...

K is for KINGDOMS.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing where she goes with her fairy tale alphabet. Click on the mini-bio below to find out more about this writer and check out her blog.

And now I feel like I should make an A-Z fairy tale list of my own...

'Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge' Premieres on Syfy March 25 (Squee!)

Labyrinth, The Storyteller and Dark Crystal fans rejoice: coming to your (US) TVs at the end of this month (March 25th) is a new contest reality show, seeking out and challenging the best aspiring fantasy creature-makers out there! Introducing Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. (Woo hoo!)

While Face Off can be a lot of fun, and I find the creation process fascinating (from pulling together pieces of legend to make a new story, to using unconventional inspiration and materials) I get a little tired of the horror creatures. That 'otherness' that I love in fantasy and in fairy tales is often missing but now we get a show that's likely to be a little closer to our hearts.

Basically, these guys (above) will do their best to pay tribute to one of my all time heroes, Jim Henson and his creature creations, aka this adorable rabble below:

I adore this photo. It has been in an inspiration scrapbook of mine since I was a kid.

Not only will this be a little like Project Runway (with muppets) but the challenge will go beyond design as well. These guys are going to have to manipulate their creations and bring these creatures to life - and to make you feel something when they do.

Ten aspiring creature creators competing to out-imagine one another in a series of challenges where they build everything from mechanical characters to whimsical beasts, bringing high-end creature designs to life. The contestants compete for a prize worth up to $100,000 including the opportunity for the job of a lifetime - a contract working at the world-renowned Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™.

That sounds... huge. I don't know what the time frame for an average challenge is but !!! Take a look at my favorite promo for this show to date:

OMG so cute. (My son wants to adopt the last one...)

And if they need ideas I'd have to say: please create a kelpie. In water. That transforms.

Or Baba Yaga's hut, complete with working legs, flaming skull fence and toothy, hungry door.

Or Ent wives. It's about time someone found them, don't you think?

Or a firebird. That's on fire...

Also: MORE STORYTELLER PLEASE!  (Here's a little visual trot down nostalgia lane to inspire you.)

Ah good times. The Storyteller tales are still some of the best fairy tale presentations to ever to grace our TVs and I still recommend them highly to anyone wondering about fairy tales.

(If you need me, I'll be programming the DVR and staking out the Creature Shop here in LA...)

Shaun Tan's Trouble Illustrating Fairy Tales (& the Resulting, Wonderful Sculptures)

German edition with The Frog King sculpture on the cover

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this special German edition of Philip Pullman's recent retelling of Grimm's tales that people are so excited about. Although different countries have received different covers, the German edition is the only one that's "illustrated" (ie has images beyond the front cover).

Heidi, over at the SurLaLune Blog, has a great write up on this, along with a best collection of images for the edition anywhere. Rather than repeat everything she has put together I found the artist's difficulty in approaching the fairy tales interesting, as I've never heard of an illustrator saying they didn't feel there was anything they could create to add to the tale, so am concentrating on that.

I did - after lots of hunting - manage to find some additional images, as well as another fairy tale sculpture from an exhibition the artist's work was included in this past year. I'm not including what they're from though, mainly because s few of them could be from a couple and I don't want to misrepresent the work, but you're welcome to guess. I do love seeing images of rarely illustrated tales though!

Australian artist, Shaun Tan (The Lost Thing, The Arrival) was approached about doing illustrations but it appears he found it a rather confounding assignment - at least to start. He persisted, however, and rather than producing a set of illustrations, Mr. Tan turned to sculpture for the first time in many years. The results are both whimsical and primal and immediately connect with children (as I found to my surprise).

Here's a little from Shaun Tan about how he ended up working in three dimensions:

I was particularly interested in the scholarly notes at the end of each tale, offering background, critique and even a few suggested improvements from a writer's point of view; I was also interested in Philip's introduction which praises the concise, 'cardboard character' narrative of Grimm's fairty tales and points out they do not necessarily benefit much from illustration. A good problem for a visual artist! And one I'm inclined to agree with: I'd long ago researched fairy tales as a possible illustration project, but soon gave it up as the tales had such an abstracted quality about them, I couldn't think of a suitable 'way in' as an artist who favours representational imagery. While I love such illustrations as those byArthur Rackham, I've always felt they conflict with my own less literal experience a reader. And in many cases, the tales are just too strange or irrational for conventional 'scenes'. 

So I was a little reluctant at first, but soon began to think of ways I could avoid painiting or drawing altogether. As a child, I was actually more obsessed with sculpture than painting and drawing, working with clay, papier mache and soapstone, and was reminded of this when browsing through my collection of books on folk art and particularly Inuit scultpure and Pre-Columbian figurines from Mexico. Many of these small, hand-sized sculptures are strongly narrative and dreamlike, and offered a 'way in' to thinking about Grimm's stories as part of an old creative tradition. The works I ended up creating hopefully convey the spirit of each tale without actually illustrating them, like anonymous artifacts in a museum open to all kinds of interpretation.

You can buy the German edition (only available in German text sorry) HERE and other country-specific Amazon sites. There is an ebook available for download via HERE (you'll need to figure out a way to pay in Euros though).

Red Riding Hood by Shaun Tan (from an exhibition in 2013 - not sure if a version of this is included)

Book Release: "Aunt Marie's Book of (Grimm) Lore"

It's on the dark side, no doubt about it, but Aunt Marie's Book of Lore is something dark fairy tale fans have been wanting to get their hands on ever since the series premiered. It was just released today (November 12th), and Amazon is having a decent "new listing" sale on them right now at almost 40% off the list price.

It's likely it will be a short print run and quickly become a collector's item (for people who like those sorts of things), but the main thing for fairy tale folk here is the mix of "olde worlde" illustrated legends and folklore regarding different creatures - and not just that but the tales they were involved in too. Some of this is extrapolated from actual fairy tale and folklore, other creatures have been inserted into tales to give them a "creature twist". Either way, it's pretty fascinating stuff and overlaps with myth and legend a lot too.

You probably won't want to keep it on a shelf accessible to young kids but it will be a great addition to your dark tales volumes and legends of all things that go bump in the night.

Here's the blurb:

THE REAL BOOK OF MONSTERS, WEAPONS, AND POTIONS AS SEEN IN THE SHOW!

As his Aunt Marie was dying, Portland homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt discovered he was descended from a long line of Grimms. As well as inheriting the “gift” of Grimm abilities from his aunt of being able to see the creatures’ true forms, she also handed him a collection of useful notes and artifacts, which his family had accumulated down the centuries. Among them was the Book of Lore. A collection of observations about Wesen species, this book records specific Grimm encounters with them, from Volcanalis on the slopes of Vesuvius, Italy, in 79 A.D. to Hexenbiester and Klaustreich in Portland, USA, in 2012. With details of how to identify, fight and – for the more dangerous and powerful – kill them, the information contained here may well mean the difference between life and death for Grimms and Kehrseite-Schlich-Kennen alike. 

This in-universe book explores the monsters, weapons, and potions in "Grimm" with detailed pictures and descriptions. The book is Aunt Marie's recording of the supernatural creatures she and her fellow Grimms have to defeat. 

Inspired by the darker side of the classic Grimm Brothers' fairy tales...

The illustrations look authentic to those shown in the show and vary in style from medieval manuscript pages to roughs notes and drawings. My only wish is that they'd not have photos from the show on the front cover. And that it was a hardcover with battle-scarred and aged pages...We want the "real" book!

But in lieu of that, this should make a nice substitute.

*Source & image previews via Dread Central, additional via SpoilerTV