Charming (2018) - Movie Review

Our understanding of classic fairy tales has changed substantially over the last two decades. Once the vanguards of the popular contemporary takes of Happily Ever After, studios like Disney and Dreamworks have been taking a long, hard look at the olden tales and applying the thematic scalpel. From Shrek to Frozen to the slew of live-action remakes Disney has been churning out, and will continue to do so for quite a while yet, revisionist fairy tales have provided a lot of food for thought about how much perceptions have changed. Of course, with that trend comes the unavoidable cash-ins, those who see dollar signs in the act of revising and retelling these old stories but never manage to figure out why these revisions are happening. Charming, in all ways possible, fits that mould.

Annie (2014) - Movie Review

I’ve gone into films with low expectations before: The Best Of Me, Tammy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, of everything I’ve gone out to see this year (including a couple that I have yet to see), this is undoubtedly the one I was dreading the most. Whether it was my attachment to the 1982 version, the snippet of the music I got from the trailer or the general impression I got from its attempts to modernise the script, I couldn’t be looking forward to this any less. I will try to put my initial impressions to one side and let it stand or fall on its own.