INTO THE WOODS

This is a Broadway musical adapted into a movie, so there were lots of singing and dancing other than the rather exaggerated acting.

This collection of fairy tales brought together a number of characters and told some of the familiar stories that all happened in the enchanted woods in a different way from what we know of.

Meryl Streep played the Witch for the first time in her movie career, James Corden and Emily Blunt were the Baker and his wife, Anna Kendrick was Cinderella, Chris Pine was Prince Charming, Johnny Depp was the Wolf, Lilla Crawford was Little Red Riding Hood and Daniel Huttlestone was Jack and MacKenzie Mauzy was Rapunzel.

Personally, I didn't enjoy this movie at all and found all the singing grating and non-catchy or -memorable although some of the humour was entertaining.  

Meryl Streep as the Witch

the Baker and his wife, who had a brief dalliance with Prince Charming

the Cinderella who professed to enjoy house cleaning

the Prince who was raised to be Charming not sincere

the same old Wolf

the Little Red Riding Hood

Jack and his beanstalks

Rapunzel

THE MAZE RUNNER

I caught this sci-fi movie last week and was sure glad I knew next to nothing about the movie before catching it because I was really impressed by it. I didn't know the storyline and didn't know who were acting in it but after the movie, I was excited enough to go online to find out more about it.

Starring a pool of mostly teen actors Dylan O'Brien, of "Teen Wolf" TV series fame, Aml Ameen, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki-hong Lee, Will Poulter, Blake Cooper, Kaya Scodelario who was the only female, I hope this movie becomes a sleeper hit. The only actors I knew of are Dylan, who I really liked as a secondary character with his good acting and humour in the "Teen Wolf" series, and Will Poulter, who I seemed to recall playing the bad boy in movies such as "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

As with many recent movies, this is one of the movies of a trilogy. Written by James Dashner and published in 2009, this movie tells the storyline of a boy who woke up in a elevator cage from underground, with no prior memories of how he got there and what happened to him prior to the event, in an unknown place surrounded by a moving maze. He was one of many boys, known as Gladers, who woke up in similar circumstances monthly over a period of years with all necessities such as food sent up to them by their unknown captors with each captiive boy. The boys remained at the base camp because they couldn't find a way out of the maze, which changed configuration every night and which housed mysterious creatures known as grievers. Unlike all the boys before him who fell into their comfort zone following an established order and hierarchy of leaders and followers who run the place, Dylan as Thomas questioned their complacency, willingness and resignation in staying on in the unknown place held by unknown captors and created a series of events that rocked the community of boys who were divided by his actions. Suddenly, there was a change in the captors plans who eventually sent up a female, who only recalled Thomas' name and with a message that she was going to be the last one.

This set forth a chain of events which caused the grievers to be unleashed and attacked the community in broad daylight and prompted the group to be split. Thomas' unyielding determination and curiosity drove him to seek out a way to escape the maze and with his leadership and new found friends and supporters such as Alby, Newt, Minho, Chuck etc, finally made their way out of the maze only to find themselves to be guinea pigs of an experiment of a group known as WICKED (World in Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department) from a dying world who tried to find a cure for a deadly Flare virus, and thrust into an unknown future to be revealed in parts two "The Scorch Trials" and the finale "The Death Cure".

i am so looking forward to the sequels.

the boys looking at the maze which shifted in daylight

Thomas, Minho and Chuck

Brenda and Thomas

Minho and Thomas running away from the changing maze

Minho and Thomas running back to camp

the three books of the trilogy

WHEN A WOLF FALLS IN LOVE WITH A SHEEP

I watched this movie about 2 weeks back but only decided to post about it now. Starring Ko Cheng-Tung of the "You are the Apple of My Eye" and Chien Man-Shu, it is a coming of age movie about a jilted boy who meets a jaded girl.

Well, it is one of those Ko Cheng-Tung vehicles that tried to pursue the success of the movie starring him. Unfortunately, this movie fared poorly compared to the more relatable former with the added advantage of a fantastic title song. In my opinion, I think the characters tried too hard to act cute to try to pull in the crowd but the audience didn't buy it. Just look at Ko's tilted head in the poster and his numerous dreamy looks if you know what I mean. Yes, I admit there is some originality in parts of the movie but overall, it failed to lift up the storyline or acting.

One of the things I like about this movie though were the several drawings of the sheep, wolf and the captions that came with it.