Mirror Mirror is about as postmodern as a postmodern version of a fairytale gets these days – “It’s been focus-grouped!,” the prince protests, as the princess defies tradition and sets out to save him. So why is it so very white? It’s especially jarring when Indian director Tarsem Singh ends the movie with a Bollywood-inspired dance number – it’s a Technicolor celebration of cultural diversity by a cast that doesn’t seem to have any, save a dwarf or two who barely stand out from their pack.
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Here at Movieline readers have to work for their hard-earned prizes, but today we have a haiku contest that should also engage your inner child and tap into the most whimsical, fantastical depths of your imagination: Write an original haiku inspired by this weekend's colorful and witty Snow White retelling Mirror Mirror -- a movie featuring heroines in swan dresses and people wearing boats as hats! -- and you could win dinner and a movie for four! UPDATED: See the winning entry below!
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There’s plenty of spectacle in movies these days; it’s delight that’s in short supply, and Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror offers plenty of it, shimmering like a school of minnows in a reflective pond. The picture is gorgeous to look at: There are fairytale castles topped with minarets of fluted gold, interior marble archways that look as if they might have been carved by Alfonse Mucha, ball gowns that take their inspiration from the rock-star effrontery of peacock feathers. But the story is a delight, too, a modernized -- but not too modernized -- retelling of the Brothers’ Grimm Snow White peopled with actors who polish the material to a bright glow rather than a high gloss. Mirror Mirror has a great deal of energy and wit and color, so much that it sometimes threatens to go right over the top. Somehow, though, it always stops short of being just too much -- it’s never too taken by its own reflection.
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He's painted cinematic landscapes of psychosexual kink (The Cell), childhood fantasy (The Fall), and ancient Greek 3-D abs (Immortals), but in this week's Mirror Mirror director Tarsem takes a turn into uncharted territory: The family-friendly fairytale. Turning his attentions to the story of Snow White, Tarsem creates another visually rich fantasyland of imagination -- and gives the fabled princess a post-modern streak to boot -- with the help of the late Oscar-winning costume designer and longtime collaborator Eiko Ishioka (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark), who passed away in January at the age of 73. In an exclusive chat, Tarsem takes Movieline through his work with Ishioka and the whimsical, inventive, and utterly imaginative designs of Mirror Mirror that comprise their final collaboration on film.
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Let's see, what day is it? Jan. 31? Oh, then it must be time for everyone to fulminate over the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, specifically its lack of diversity among the featured cover stars. It's a seasonal ritual almost as inviolable as Groundhog Day, with equally severe implications of who made the cover (and where). To wit, a lot of white chicks. Cue six more weeks of winter! At least in the grocery checkout aisle, anyway.
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Sam Raimi's Evil Dead reboot, which begins filming in New Zealand this spring, has found a new star to fill the shoes of original Ash Bruce Campbell, so to speak: 22-year-old British-born actress Lily Collins, who'll next be seen playing Snow White to Julia Roberts' evil queen in Tarsem's fairytale adaptation Mirror Mirror. Let that sink in, Evil Deadites... deep breaths... now hit the jump for more details.
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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest Evil Queen of them all? Is it Julia Roberts, who will star opposite Lily Collins's Snow White in Tarsem Singh's untitled fairy tale adaptation? Or is it Charlize Theron, who will play the wicked queen opposite Kristen Stewart's armored Disney princess in Snow White and the Huntsman? Take a look at the side-by-side comparison below before deciding for yourself.
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If you were one of the curious few who caught Twilight star Taylor Lautner's abysmally-reviewed action star debut, Abduction, then you know how insanely, wonderfully ridiculous it is. Like, Razzie shoo-in, I-can't-believe-I'm-seeing-this-shit awfulsome good times. It's a film with dialogue so inane, Lautner actually asks, "Are you my mother??" And he's serious. I had such a good time "WTF"-ing at Abduction, I compiled all of my screening notes within for your perusal. Needless to say, major spoiler alert!
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Look, people (that means you too, Twilight Moms): Taylor Lautner is all grown up now, legal and everything at 19 years of age. He's got his first non-Twilight starring role coming up in John Singleton's Abduction, which is also his first young adult bid for action supremacy. So even though he's arguably the most legitimately nice young actor of his generation -- seriously, this kid's poised like a pro -- he's growing up on-screen faster than teen mom Bella Swan. And you know what that means? Steamy love scenes!
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Who can blame Taylor Lautner for capitalizing on his hard-earned Twilight fandom (those abs don't crunch themselves) by launching a teen-friendly action hero career? Marvel as the erstwhile Jacob Black enters Bourne territory, complete with romance, parkour, and existential identity confusion, in the first trailer for Lionsgate's teen action pic Abduction, directed by John Singleton.
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