Cinderella? More like Seen-it-derella!

This weekend, we welcome the latest in a long series of Cinderella movies: Disney's Cinderella, a live-action adaptation of the 1950 Disney film of the same name. Like most film adaptations of this classic tale, this newest Cinderella boasts an impressive cast and a substantial budget. Also, like most adaptations, it exists for no reason.

The tale of Cinderella has been told and retold countless times through generations, passing through oral tradition and written word for centuries. The story shifts and changes depending on who is telling it (and what message they want to impart), with the Brothers Grimm favoring a three three-day ball, a magical tree, and feet mutilation and Perrault favoring a glass slipper and fairy godmother. The core of the story is about a young girl being misunderstood, abused, and unwanted despite her many attempts to be anything but, and the prince who finally sees her for who she really is. It's a pretty simple tale, which makes it easy to adapt. Need to make it a morality play about the joys of being dutiful and subservient? Cinderella's got you covered. Want it to be a story about making your own decisions and self-empowerment? Cinderella's your gal. 

So many movies have been made with Cinderella at the center, but which adaptation is the best?  Let's take a look. For this incredibly scientific study, I'll be focusing on Disney's Cinderella (1950), Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997), Ever After (1998), A Cinderella Story (2004), Ella Enchanted (2004), and Sondheim's Into the Woods (2014), because they're the ones I like. Sorry, CinderFella.

87th Annual Academy Awards: A Photo Recap

 This was The Oscars:

Oh, also, Birdman won Best Picture. yay.

My Family Reviews 'Into the Woods'

The holidays mean many things to me: present opening, family outings (and innings) that are mandatory and often welcome, hot chocolate drinking that makes me sick for hours after the last sip has been sipped, and forcefully making my family watch movies with me and then reviewing them. This year, the first of the movies we watched together was the delightful Into the Woods, and the family members present were me, my parents, my sister, and my brother-in-law. Here is our review.

Into the Woods, the film version of the Stephen Sondheim musical, tells the story of The Baker and The Baker's Wife, who find out that their fertility issues (there are buns in their

It's Time To Get Excited About the 'Into the Woods' Movie

Into the Woods is being made into a movie, and I'm very excited, and I'm sure I'll talk at length about it in the months ahead. But for now:

My Family Reviews 'Star Trek Into Darkness'

Where they're going, they don't need roads. Because they're in space.

I love watching movies, there's no doubt, but I REALLY love talking about movies. So, when I was staying with my sister and brother-in-law over the holiday weekend, and I happened to find out that we had all seen Star Trek Into Darkness, I was obviously going to talk about it. And write down the conversation, to enjoy the talk at a later date. Just as a bit of background information, my sister is not normally a fan of action movies. She's screamed more than once at more than one Harry Potter movie, and not just the later, scarier ones. She screamed while watching Chamber of Secrets.

Warning: Some of the conversation is a little spoiler-y, so I blotted out everything that might give too much away. You can scroll over the red portions if you want to have some elements of the film spoiled.

Tableau: So, what did you think of the movie?

Sister: It never lets up. It is intense all the time. It felt like it was so constant that you