TheRetroCritic

Vvatch this review of The VVitch and stay tuned for another horror review tomorrow!

Two years before Disney attempted remaking their own version of the classic fairy tale, there was a live-action Beauty And The Beast movie made in France. Since this is a French fairy-tale, this movie had the potential to show the Mouse House how it's done and tell the definitive story. That said, improving on Jean Cocteau's classic while attracting the Disney audience was always going to be tough but with Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel as Belle and The Beast along with inventive director Christophe Gans leading the way, there was a good chance we would get something at least worth seeing. Indeed, this take on the timeless tale is the most visually impressive out there: the art direction, production design and cinematography are beautiful throughout and even the CGI is pretty effective. This is, in short, a fantastic-looking movie and it's certainly worth a look for that alone. A good amount of time is spent introducing us to Belle's family, showing how their money

As the doors of legendary animation empire Studio Ghibli slowly close (though hopefully only for a short time), much to everyone's chagrin, here is yet another example of just how good and important these guys are to the medium. The Tale Of Princess Kaguya may sound like just another surreal folktale on paper but one look at the stunning watercolour/charcoal-style animation used here by visual maestro Isao Takahata ( Pom Poko , My Neighbors The Yamadas ) and you'll find yourself instantly mesmerised by this tale of a baby born out of a bamboo tree. While Hayao Miyazaki was and is a genius at bringing to the screen all-around great-looking, often epic stories, Takahata's forte seems to be to bring an off-beat artistry to the animation and tell predominantly emotional, melodramatic, affecting stories. Case and point: Grave Of The Fireflies . And, to a certain extent, this movie which shows us a young woman's entire life flash by her put-upon parents' eyes as the

Another year, another blockbuster live-action fairy-tale movie. With Disney kicking things off with Alice In Wonderland some years ago, we've since seen two Snow White movies go by and Oz: The Great and Powerful . Mixed reviews-aside, the films made big bucks so a Sleeping Beauty  live-action movie was a no-brainer for Disney. The casting of Angelina Jolie as the famously sinister Maleficent felt right and the trailers looked promisingly dark and moody. Focusing on a villain for once, this seemed to be taking a different, interesting path with the genre and the familiar story. Sort of how Wicked took The Wizard Of Oz and did its own thing. We follow the Sleeping Beauty story through Maleficent's character arc and what should have been the epic birth of one of Disney's most iconic, frightening villains somehow becomes... Not that. Nowhere near that, in fact. Did you know that Maleficent had wings and a boyfriend and was totally cool despite... being called &q

With the box-office proving repeatedly that 3D fantasy films do very well financially these days, it's no surprise that, following the successes of both Alice In Wonderland and Oz: The Great And Powerful , yet another contender would come along and attempt to do just as well. Which brings us to: Jack The Giant Slayer . Directed by Bryan Singer, the film merges Jack And The Beanstalk with Jack The Giant Killer to tell a story in as traditional a way as possible without having to resort to that recently in vogue steampunky Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters -style Hammer horror vibe. The film actually opens on our two main characters as kids in their respective beds, one is poor, one is a princess, being told fairy-tales involving giants and a world in between Heaven and Earth. Then the film stumbles around for a while feeling like a mix between a flat episode of Blackadder and an ugly, live-action retelling of Disney's Aladdin . Seriously: this movie's Aladdin.

What can I say about Edward Scissorhands ? Here's a movie I've probably seen every year since its release: like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Batman Returns , it's pretty much become a Christmas tradition. Already a fan of Tim Burton's back catalogue, this is the film which sealed the deal: Burton had my childhood by the balls and he would never let go without a fight. Since, I grew up and although some of the director's films I've grown to simply like (or feel relatively indifferent towards) rather than blindly worship, Edward Scissorhands is one of those which still feels genuinely special. I mean, modern fairytales of the sort are made pretty much every year these days and, with certain exceptions ( Pan's Labyrinth , Where The Wild Things Are ), actually good ones are incredibly rare. For every Edward Scissorhands there's 10 Gooby s. But what makes Burton's film work particularly well? The marriage of gothic Frankenstein -style B mov