Well happy late Merry Christmas to everyone! The past few days have been relatively nice and relaxing, which has been an excellent diversion from the norm as of late. One of my family's Christmas traditions that I partake in yearly aside from watching Ernest Saves Christmas is when we go to the theater on Christmas day to watch a film. This year we watched Into the Woods, which I was very excited about. After watching Sweeney Todd I decided to familiarize myself with Stephen Sondheim's other work, and thus I listened to Into the Woods although I didn't really care for it at first that much until I watched a performance of it on Netflix. After that I was sold, and as soon as I heard that they were making a film adaptation, I was looking forward to it very much so, even though Disney was behind it, which I thought was odd considering some of the dark subject matter at times, but I suppose it really does fit overall considering the fairy tale aspect. So needless to say, I enjoyed the film, and thought that it actually works perfectly more for the screen than the stage due to the fanciful nature of the story. Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife was beyond perfect; she had an excellent singing voice, great acting of course, and fantastic chemistry with everyone she interacted with, especially with the Baker, James Corden, who delivered an equally great performance, although his voice wasn't quite as polished. Both were funny, excellent levels of drama, and were believable as their characters. Meryl Streep as the witch needs so description as how well she did; utter perfection as usual. Anna Kendrick as Cinderella was in my opinion perfect (although my sister disagreed); excellent singing, great acting with the character, it was lovely. Those cast members who played other roles such as Jack, Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf (Johnny Depp), the Two Princes (Billy Magnussen and Chris Pine) Jack's Mother, Cinderella's stepmother, and Rapunzel all did an excellent job both singing and acting...although Chris Pine could have used more voice lessons, but it wasn't painful at least. The adaptation was fairly accurate and well done. Only some chorus pieces were left out and some story angles, but nothing major. Cinematography was stunning, the Wardrobe design by Colleen Atwood was of course equally stunning, Stephen Sondheim of course was a master composer and those who adapted it did quite well. Rob Marshall as the Director (Chicago) seems to be a master with musicals thus far, hopefully he continues the trend if he does anymore (here's hoping he does Wicked). I would encourage everyone to see the original Broadway performance starring Bernadette Peters (it's on Netflix I believe); they did a fantastic job paying an homage to the Broadway show throughout the film. It was a very enjoyable film, one I will definitely own and see many times, and I would encourage everyone to see it as well. Very humorous, interesting, exciting, and filled with some very interesting ideas and philosophies. Oh, and in other news; don't mock and ridicule a powerful man in charge of a powerful government with the largest standing army in the world unless you're prepared to face and ride the consequences through the end. End of story. Have an excellent weekend everyone!Into the Woods clip
Anna Kendrick as Cinderella
"Agony" from the Broadway performance
