Review - Cinderella

Traditionalists can be forgiven for continually scoffing at Walt Disney Pictures for their current habit of repurposing their most beloved animated classics into money-sponging live-action productions. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland have already fallen victim to the artistically dubious Mirror Mirror, Maleficent and Tim Burton's unspeakable 2010 eyesore, with plans afoot for everything from Beauty and the Beast to Dumbo to Winnie the Pooh.
This year's episode of 'remake musical chairs' is none other than Cinderella.

Purists' initial reaction may be to cringe and look away, but with the right tone in the right directorial hands (in this case, the aptly theatrical Kenneth Branagh), who's to say that these relics can't be improved, even if only mildly?

While Walt's 1950 hit about the woebegone dreamer with the glass slippers may be remembered as a classic, it's sometimes misremembered as 'good' classic.
Truth is, it simply does not hold up to modern scrutiny, proving to be more Tom & Jerry cartoon than cinematic achievement, and only peripherally about its titular maiden. If any of Disney's dusty animated properties was due for a refurbishing,
it was this one.

Review - Captain America: The First Avenger

I want YOU to go see Captain America! The final pillar upon which Marvel will rest next summer's Avengers movie is terrific fun, putting a bright Cap (pun intended) on the Superhero Summer That Kept On Giving.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) may have the right heroic attitude Uncle Sam looks for in a soldier, but his scrawny 90-pound frame – a brilliantly achieved illusion that disguises Evans' truly beefy musculature for nearly the entire first act – disqualifies him at every attempt to enlist. German expatriate Dr. Abraham Erskine (the wonderfully warm Stanley Tucci) immediately recognizes the virtue of Rogers' dedication, and makes him the prime candidate for an experimental formula that should transform this playground punching bag into an ass-kicking Adonis. It works! But no sooner does Rogers' new bodywork emerge from the chamber than the last sample of the serum is stolen by an agent of Hydra, a Nazi R. & D. department headed by the maniacal Johann Schmidt, aka: Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), the original test subject of Erskine's imperfected formula that left him grotesquely disfigured and all the more determined to personally attain Godlike power.