Ask Baba Yaga: She Won't Date Me

Laurence Baldetti

This week someone asks Baba Yaga to bewitch the object of their desire for them... (I'm glad that person doesn't love me...)

This week's question and answer (via poet and oracle Taisia Kitaiskaia* of The Hairpin):

(Originally posted at The Hairpin HERE)

All the responses are pretty great but here are my top picks:

• Hahah, Baba Yaga just said 'I hate your faces'. Rough translation. (adorable-eggplant)
• "bored spirits of the kitchen"
  Do they have anything to do with why I haven't been as excited about cooking lately?
  (stonefruit)
• I wouldn't worry about all that "potatoes" mumbo-jumbo, LW, most women absolutely love it when you ask fictional witches to "make them less crazy" right in front of them! You two will for sure grow old together. (Judith Slutler)
• And yeah, Baba nailed this one. Dude, you need to go elsewhere. (PistolPackinMama)
• "suck the rot from each others toes" D: (iceberg)

Sprouted eyes. Toe rot. I think that says a whole lot about the relationship (and what Baba thinks of it) right there... (BTW "root cellar" - LOL! Bawdy Baba.)

What do you think of Baba Yaga's advice?

Want to ask Baba Yaga a question of your own?

You can!

There's now an email address where you can send your questions

directly to Baba Yaga herself.

AskBabaYaga AT gmail DOT com

To encourage Baba Yaga to continue imparting her no-bones-about-it wisdom (ok, there may be some gristle in there... bones too), I suggest we not to leave her box empty... 

Thank you Baba Yaga (& Taisia).

* Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. Born in Russia and raised in America, she's had her poems and translations published in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others.

CBS Orders (Wizard of) Oz MD (Yes. As in "Medical Drama". Seriously.)

"My Way Home" Scrubs episode tribute to The Wizard of Oz

Wut??
Ya.

(You give me news like this, you can't expect eloquence.)

According to CBS: Doctors + Drama + Dorothy & Co. = Must-See-TV

Let me put this another way: CBS have just announced they're developing a new medical drama based on Baum's The Wizard of Oz, titled Dorothy.

(Note: If you currently google the word "apocalypse", this is the story that appears.)

Do you remember Return to Oz? It was darker. It was more true to Baum's books. It had Dorothy getting a weekly dose of elctro-shock-therapy treatment.

(Actually, it was pretty great. [The movie, not the shock-treatment.] I loved it even as a kid but it was NOT at all like the movie and most definitely not MGM!*)

Now it looks like CBS is sending the (possibly-more-grown-up) Kansas heroine off on another journey, except this one might have green gowns instead of a green city: Dorothy is off to see the wiz, er,  doctor... (slow truck-in with soft focus over suspenseful music...)

From Deadline late last week:

The producers who brought Sherlock Holmes to New York forCBS, are doing the same with some other classic literary characters. CBS has put in development Dorothy, a drama project from Elementary executive producers Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman. The project, fromCBS TV Studios where Timberman/Beverly Prods. is based, is described as a medical soap based in New York City inspired by the characters and themes from The Wizard of Oz. 

I have to admit I'm rather aligned with Collider on this one:

I’m morbidly curious to see just how Beverly and Timberman plan to make this work.  Scrubs did an excellent Wizard of Oz homage in the Zach Braff-directed episode “My Way Home,” but it seems like the adaptation works better within the comedy genre.  How clear will the parallels to the source material be?  Does the lion character have big, wavy hair?  Will our protagonist always wear red shoes?  Do Dorothy and Scarecrow have an on-again off-again relationship?  It sounds so terrible in theory that I just have see what this looks like.

O.o

All I can think of is all the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" jokes, with heavy doses of "if I only had a brain".

Honestly, I can see potential for a modern psychiatric treatment/Dorothy-in-therapy series of stories but medical soap? Scalpels, electrocardiograms and breakdowns in the scrub room?

You know what? "It's so crazy, it just might work!"

Oh. And "apocalypse". That comes to mind too...

PS And before you wonder what next - they already did Alice In WonderLawland.

One was a briefly run courtroom series in Canada.

The other was titled Ally McBeal.

Well played Toto, well played...

*It didn't seem like Disney at the time either but that's another story...

Special Presentation: Danishka Esterhazy's "The Red Hood"

While I try to point you toward a fairy tale film on Sundays on the FB & Twitter supplemental news feeds, today's short film is extra special and getting a full post.

I mentioned in a recent post about the new neorealist Hansel and Gretel film, H&G, that I would be showcasing more of Danishka Esterhazy's amazing work with fairy tales in film very soon.

Today I'm pleased to present The Red Hood.

I just LOVE this film! Ms. Esterhazy has kindly given me special permission to share it with you here on Once Upon A Blog, and I feel privileged to do. The whole short film is here but in only 9 (ish) minutes, we have a really stunning and memorable updating of a very familiar tale.

Ms. Esterhazy describes it as: "Set in the Canadian prairies during the Great Depression, The Red Hood is a dark re-telling of the classic fable Little Red Riding Hood, and a work of lyrical realism that deconstructs the tale’s underlying gender moral."

Take a look:
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D23 Report (Aug 9 & 10): Maleficent First Look & Branagh's Cinderella sizzle reel

I had a feeling it would be a Maleficent week...

It turns out, D23 attendees were treated to a great first look at the live-action panel on Friday and Saturday, along with an appearance and interview with Ms. Jolie (minus the horns).

From iO9:

The first ever footage of Maleficent screened at D23, which Peter Sciretta of Slashfilm described quite highly (Edit FTNH: see pic of tweet inserted below). Then the lady of the hour, Angelina Jolie, appeared to a standing ovation and talked about how bad-ass Maleficent's horns are. GOOD. 

More importantly, the official Maleficent synopsis was released, which reveals a bit as to why this awesome villain decided to go green and ruin princess Aurora's life:

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Bret McKenzie Developing Labyrinth-esque Comedy-Musical Fairy Tale

Bret McKenzie (left) with Flight Of the Conchords partner Jemaine Clement (right)

I stumbled across this little nugget of news yesterday...

Recipe for a Comedy-Musical Fairy Tale 
by Bret McKenzie (aka half of Flight of the Conchords, aka Austenland & LOTR actor, aka Academy Award winning songwriter)

Take:
- one part Labyrinth
- one part Princess Bride
- one part Muppets
Fold into one film.
Add:
- singing dragons
- singing monsters
- live people
(Caution: do not let monsters & dragons eat people without prior clearance)
Mix with liberal doses of Flight of the Conchords style wit
Add lashings of James Bobin's** writerly-expertise
Blend well.
Set to simmer in pre-production for many months.
-- Proceed with secret baking process (signed NDA*** required to view) --
[Note: Make Jim Henson proud.]
Do NOT set aside to cool.
Share immediately with friends.
Consume with enthusiasm.

** James Bobin was co-writer and director on The Muppets.
*** NDA - non-discloure agreement
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Advertising: The Scoop on "Stories You Can Taste"

This is pretty cool! You watch an ad filled with fairy tales (all made out of ice-cream) and when you see a tale (or ice-cream combo) you like, you click on the "golden spoon" that appears and you're taken to a different video that not only gives you a little recipe but tells you a fairy tale at the same time!

And, as you guessed, its' all very sweet. :)

What I always find really interesting is seeing what constitutes "popular fairy tales" by whichever company (and country) is using tales for their product. While most tales chosen won't surprise there are a few different ones and one in particular may take a couple of views before you get it. (This less-well-known one is my son's favorite of them all.)

Another excellent thing is they've managed to both tell you a fairy tale AND give you a recipe all in under 2 minutes (per tale). To have such clear storytelling that has to do double duty as instructions? Nicely done. And it's always interesting to see in what way it's distilled, what, if any, usual tale motifs are excluded and what version of "happily ever after" they chose.

There are 15 tales in the ice cream adventure. See if you can identify them all...

[Note: the embedded video below isn't the interactive one. I'll give you that link in a minute because once you're there you'll likely get caught up exploring. :) ]

It took 4 food stylists shooting over 4 days - and much creation and re-creation! - to do each tale. There's 35 minutes worth of video to explore! You can read a little about the thoughts behind this creative advertising and the creation of the content over at CampaignAsia HERE. 

And now for the super fun part: click HERE to go to the interactive site. When the ad runs and you see a golden spoon appear over a character, click on it and you'll be taken to a new video (don't worry, it won't lose your place), which gives you a recipe and tells you the ice cream version of the fairy tale all at once. It's beautifully done and so simple kids can follow along with the "cooking" too.

I'll give you one example of a recipe-tale so you can preview the cute:

Now go play and tell fantastic stories! :)

Fairy Whispers Us An Update On "Maleficent"

                       

Fan made posters for Maleficent.

Please note the release date has been changed to July 2, 2014

Bringing you a few teeny fairy whispers on Maleficent today but first let's round up what we know so far:

It's been very quite on the Maleficent front with everyone remaining pretty tight-lipped about the movie. All we really know so far is that it's well into the effects stage and post production (with Pinewood Studios at one stage making a statement of the Maleficent workload being "huge" and that in the future "I think we're going to need a bigger boat, er, studio.."). We know Angelina Jolie got into her Maleficent role via some "serious pranking" on set while filming the Sleeping Beauty-flipped film and we also know that one of Ms. Jolie's children, Vivienne, is set to make her acting debut as the young Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning plays the older version).

Elle Fanning herself admits to being a complete Angelina Jolie fan, with nothing but praise for her on and off set. About Maleficent herself, Fanning said:
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"The Fairest Of Them All" by Carolyn Turgeon

It's out! The Fairest Of Them All has been released!

It's a truly awesome twist on familiar fairy tales and is, in particular, a very unexpected-but-makes-perfect-sense dovetailing of the Rapunzel & Snow White stories...
What if Rapunzel, of the gorgeous lustrous locks, the incomparable beauty, ends up being the evil stepmother in the story of Snow White? (check the backstory HERE - fascinating stuff!)

I unfortunately missed release day with everything I have going on BUT, to show you how much I support this book and believe it a must-add to your fairy tale collection I'm going to do a little something different:
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"Into The Woods" Has Full Cast, Started Rehearsal Aaaand Some Controversy... (Yes. Already.)

First order of business:

Disney's "Into The Woods" movie now has a full (and 100% confirmed) cast!


All the cast are as per the (GIANT) graphic I made HERE, with the addition of young Sophia Grace Brownlee as Little Red Riding Hood.
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Tori Amos' "The Light Princess" Starts Rehearsals (+ Film Making Comp To Win Tickets!)

Do you remember a little post from a few years ago, mentioning Tori Amos was composing lyrics and a score for George MacDonald's fairy tale The Light Princess*? Well the show is finally complete, started rehearsals a couple of days ago and is due to open in the National Theater, London, this September 25th (2013). And yes: You can now buy tickets!

All the official information and ticket links are HERE.

Press release:

Once, in opposing kingdoms lived a princess and a prince who had lost their mothers. Althea, unable to cry, became light with grief and floated, and so was locked away. Digby became so heavy-hearted that he could never smile, and so was trained as a warrior. 

One day, he declares war. Althea is forced out of hiding and down to ground but, in defiance of her father, she escapes, only to encounter the solemn prince on contested land. Beside a lake the warring heirs begin a passionate and illicit affair. But for Althea to find real love, she must first confront the world’s darkness and face her own deepest fears. 

The Light Princess brings together iconic singer-songwriter Tori Amos with playwright Samuel Adamson and directorMarianne Elliott (Curious Incident) in this spectacular coming-of-age story. A dark fairytale about grief, rebellion and the power of love. 

I’m done, Father,Keep your crown,I swear you’ll never bring me down!I am not queen material!

The cast went into rehearsals on Monday (August 5th, 2013) and are tweeting their experiences! Check the latest tweets HERE (no account required). Sounds like they're having a ball and like it will be a great show too.

We now also have some details about the show and how Ms. Amos adapted the fairy tale for a modern audience.
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