Film Review: August: Osage County (2013)

It's hard to discuss August: Osage County, John Wells' adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, without focusing largely, if not solely on Meryl Streep's central performance. Though Tracy Letts' play is very much an ensemble work, one which encompasses three generations of a family who are brought together by the disappearance and death of their patriarch (Sam Shepard), Violet, the drug-addled, cancer-riddled harridan whose harsh, narcotised ramblings punctuate the play, is the dominant force of the story. More than that, though, Streep's performance is so indicative of everything that doesn't work about the film version that it's hard to really get across how bad it is without focusing on her. She's not the only thing wrong with Wells' film, but she is the most readily identifiable.

Film Review: Mirror Mirror (2012)

For years now, largely in the wake of the success of the Shrek franchise, Hollywood studios have been trying to find new ways of updating fairytales for modern audiences, offering ironic and vaguely post-modern versions of timeless stories. It's not hard to see the appeal for the studios: pretty much everyone knows the story of Snow White, Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk, the stories are all in the public domain so multiple studios can makes films based on the same source material without having to worry about pesky legal issues, and, unless there is a vocal contingent of Brothers Grimm fanboys and girls out there that I am not aware of, no one is likely to kick up a fuss if film-makers decide to mess with the established formula. After all, the appeal for audiences lies in seeing how an old story can be spun in a new way, much as the original stories were told and re-interpreted countless times over the centuries.