Into the Woods (2014)

  I heard this described as "no-one's favorite Sondheim."  That is awesome.  Still, I suppose it was inevitable considering the number of fairy tale movies making a resurgence.

A baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) discover that the witch next door (Meryl Streep) has cursed them with childlessness because of a slight the baker's father had done her years ago.  She agrees to remove the curse if the couple can procure five items before the full moon.  They venture into the woods to search and run into various other stories happening at the same time.  A little girl in a red cloak (Lila Crawford) learns about stranger danger, courtesy of a big bad (and terribly dressed) wolf (Johnny Depp).  A young boy (Daniel Huttlestone) takes his beloved cow to market to be sold only to wind up with a handful of beans.   A girl (Anna Kendrick) may have met the man of her dreams (Chris Pine), if she could just stop running away every time she sees him.  And another girl (Mackenzie Mauzy) grows her hair in a tower and dreams of a prince of her own (Billy Magnusson).

This movie is 47 hours* long.  At least with a play you get an intermission.  Without the break, the movie feels discordant, like someone electrocuted a copy of the Brothers Grimm and created a Frankenstein's monster out of the stories inside.  Some of the performances are excellent --Emily Blunt is a particular stand out, as well as the duet between the two princes-- but they're overshadowed by how long you have to wait to get to them.  I love Johnny Depp, I do, but he is awful in this.  Even as camp, it's bad.  But then you have the marvelous Christine Baranski as the evil stepmother with daughters Lucy Punch and Tammy Blanchard.  They are bitchy and hilarious.

I also think a PG rating was a bad call.  Trust me, nobody under the age of 13 is going to enjoy this movie.  Hell, most people under the age of 30 probably won't like it.  When I first saw the play, many years ago, I turned it off after about half an hour and I love musicals.  It has some great light-hearted moments but mostly it's about taking responsibility for the choices you make and learning to live like an adult.  That's hard to make entertaining.

As a side anecdote, this was one of the worst theater-going experiences I have ever had.  I had gone with my mother on Christmas Day in the small town I grew up in.  The theater was packed and the two women behind us talked non-stop.  Seriously, from the time the previews began until the credits rolled, these two old biddies chattered like blue jays.  About nothing.  About what was happening on screen.  About their theories on what was happening next.  My mother is next to me, laughing her ass off because of how inane and stupid these two women are and I'm about to blow a gasket.  I hate telling people to be quiet in a theater.  I don't feel like I should have to, that etiquette is pretty established, and now it seems like you risk death every time you ask someone to put away their cell phone.  With that in mind, I turned around TWICE to tell the deaf old bats to pipe down.  The first time, they did nothing.  The second time, I appealed to their handler? caretaker? unlucky bastard next to them? and asked him to please shut them up.  He told the woman to stop kicking my chair.  At that point, I just gave up.  My mother then tells me, after the movie is over and I can scream my rage to the stars instead of disturbing those around me, that one of those two hags had her BARE FEET resting on the back of my chair.

People.  Please.  For the love of all that you believe holy, stop treating the theater like it's your living room.  We go out to movies because we want a good experience and find ourselves surrounded by people with the same intention.  Can we not recognize that everyone in this hushed, darkened space has been summoned there with the same amount of joy we feel when we buy a ticket?  There's a reason the theater is not broken into individual screens.  It is a communal experience.  Please stop acting like you are the only fucking person that matters.  If you don't want to watch a movie with other people, stay home and watch it there.

*Ok, fine, the actual runtime is 125 minutes, but it feels like 47 hours.