Tag Archives: Rachel Zegler

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Princess Problem Solver

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Snow White

by George Wolf

Death, taxes…Disney live action remakes?

We may not be there quite yet, but the train keeps rolling with Snow White, an update that’s consistently appealing enough to rise above an unsteady opening and one unfortunate choice.

Much of that winning appeal comes from a terrific Rachel Zegler, who commands the title role with confidence and zest. Pairing Zegler with a well-cast Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, the film dives into their royal power struggle and finds a nice sweet spot between honoring a classic and nudging it toward new sensibilities.

That new attitude starts right from the “Once Upon a Time” prologue, where we get a new inspiration for the name Show White, and a quick look inside a wholesome upbringing that focused on the common good.

Her stepmother’s attitude toward power is especially timely, and the Magic Mirror (in great voice thanks to Patrick Page) is quick to point out that beauty can be more than what’s seen in a simple reflection.

Once Snow White is grown, with her royal father out of sight and her wicked stepmother on the throne, Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2) and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Chloe, The Girl on the Train) give us a princess who is still in peril, but is not content to wait around for a handsome prince to save her and her kingdom.

In fact, there’s no handsome prince in sight. Oh, sure, she’s attracted to the rouge-ish peasant Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), but this Snow White’s not about to stay home with the dwarfs while he does all the heroic adventuring.

We’ll get to those dwarfs in a minute.

Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul provide original tunes, and while the style they brought to The Greatest Showman, Spirited, and Dear Evan Hansen will be instantly familiar, the songs here showcase the talent, bolster the narrative, and add a little new Disney magic.

Zegler soars on “Waiting on a Wish,” and Gadot – in her best turn since Wonder Woman – seems positively giddy to vamp it up on “All Is Fair,” the Evil Queen’s defiant ode to evildoing. Burnap and Zegler both have fun with “Princess Problems,” a tongue-in-cheek framing of privilege and stereotypes, but their audience of dwarfs only calls more attention the film’s nagging question.

This is a live action remake, correct? So why are the dwarfs not played by live actors? The CGI results seem to point to an attempt at making them look as much like the original cartoon characters as possible, which is curious at best. Much of the film is committed to a new vision, how did this tired one get through?

The CGI animals I get – they’re cute – but man these dwarfs become such an albatross it’s even more impressive that Snow White manages to charm despite them, and the few too many opening minutes spent on exposition.

But it does, and Disney’s live action scorecard earns one in the ‘plus’ column.

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Party Over Oops, Out of Time

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Y2K

by George Wolf

Who can forget those crazy few years when people like my Mom were buying books called “Time Bomb 2000,” and then it struck midnight on 12/31/99 and…nothing much happened.

With Y2K, director and co-writer Kyle Mooney reimagines that New Year’s Eve as a night when plenty happens. The double zero year wreaks technological havoc that’s even worse than the doomsayers warned, and a bunch of teenage New York partygoers have to fight for their lives while reminding us about everything 90s.

Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) are lifelong BFFs (“the Sticky Boys!”) but pretty low on the high school status bar. Eli pines for the pop-u-lar Laura (Rachel Zegler), and figures the big NYE party that they’re not really invited to might be his best chance to steal a midnight smooch.

So the Sticky Boys crash. But what the F? The start of a new millenium instantly turns everyday tech into killing machines, and bodies start piling up with a succession of comical blood-splatter.

Mooney co-wrote the underrated Brigsby Bear in 2017, but Y2K marks his first directing effort. He also joins the cast as a relentlessly upbeat hippie stoner, adding to the film’s array of characters who are sufficiently amusing inside some usual high schooler stereotypes.

And as the kids head out across Brooklyn looking for a safe haven, Mooney plays with zombie outbreak tropes while Fred Durst has some fun sending up his own image. There are laughs to be had before things get overly silly, but Mooney finds his groove by serving up plenty of nostalgic callbacks that will hit 90s kids in the feels and give the older viewers some knowing smiles and head nods.

I mean, remember how long it used to take just to burn one freaking compact disc?

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Forever In Your Favor

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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

by Hope Madden

If I’m honest, I didn’t need another Hunger Games. While I recognize that the history of the games, the political upheaval that pushed society toward this level of privileged inhumanity, was certainly rife with possibility. But I couldn’t muster any interest, certainly not 2 ½ hours worth.

That’s saying something, because two of my all-time favorite actors – Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage – co-star. And Davis plays a mad scientist of sorts, which is inarguably intriguing. And Dinklage plays the actual creator of the hunger games themselves, so both villains? OK, I’m not made of stone. I’m in.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – while too long and cumbersome for a single film – delivers a scathing and pointed reflection of modern society with more precision and bite than any of its predecessors.

Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) would one day rule the Hunger Games and all of Panem (played in the previous four films by Donald Sutherland), but today, he’s just trying to finish prep school and win the coveted Plinth scholarship to the university. But this year, there’s a catch. To win the scholarship, you need to mentor a tribute. They don’t have to win, they just have to make enough of an impression to draw viewers.

Again taken from a dystopian YA novel by Suzanne Collins, the latest Hunger Games holds a mirror up to society and sees power and privilege – and the lust to keep them – as cataclysmic to humanity. Collins is not wrong. And she’s not in a forgiving mood, bless her.

Davis and Dinklage are characteristically wonderful, Davis a particular delight in a weirdly sinister role while Dinklage offers a mournful, broken soul for the film.

Blythe’s arc is long and tough, and he convinces with a very human turn that’s all the more chilling for its understatement. Rachel Zegler plays the tribute in question, Lucy Gray, stealing scenes with a rebellious fire and f- you attitude. Jason Schwartzman is weatherman/amateur magician and Hunger Games host Lucky Flickerman, injecting the film with humor that’s equal parts flashy and cynical.

Francis Lawrence returns to direct, after helming all but the 2012 original. While his previous efforts balanced flash with action, the latest installment loses footing as it travels from one grim reality to another. But when a protagonist’s future is not in question, it can be tough to generate real empathy, interest or tension. Lawrence, thanks to a game cast and a go-for-blood script, manages to do it.

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New York City Serenade

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West Side Story

by George Wolf

This week on Twitter, director Edgar Wright reminded anyone doubting Steven Spielberg’s way around a musical number to revisit “Anything Goes” from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Okay, point taken, but West Side Story? That’s a big step up.

It is, and he makes it in stride.

Right from the opening minutes, Spielberg’s camera seamlessly ebbs and flows along with the street-roaming Sharks and Jets. Their threats of violence are more palpable this time, as Riff (Mike Faist, an award-worthy standout) and his New York boys want to settle their turf war with Bernardo (David Alvarez) and the Puerto Ricans once and for all.

At the dance that night, the first meeting between tragic lovers Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler, a newcomer with an amazing voice who beat out thousands in open auditions) now happens under the gym bleachers, the first in a series of subtle and not-so-subtle updates that Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, Munich, Angels in America) employ to deepen the narrative impact.

“Dear Officer Krupke” seems more organic in the station house, “America” (led by an irresistible Ariana DeBose as Anita) is given more room to move across the west side city streets, while a department store full of mannequins depicting white suburban dreams proves an ironically joyful setting for Maria and her co-workers’ buoyant reading of “I Feel Pretty.”

And from one musical set-piece to the next, Spielberg’s touch is smoothy precise, starting wide to capture the breadth of Justin Peck’s homage to Jerome Robbins’s iconic choreography, zooming in for intimacy, and then above the dancers and rumblers for gorgeous aerials set with pristine light and shadow. Stellar efforts from cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and production designer Adam Stockhausen turn the everyday drab of hanging laundry and fabric remnants into an elegant playground for Spielberg’s camera eye.

In short, it looks freaking fantastic.

It sounds pretty great, too, even beyond the genius of Bernstein’s melodies and Sondheim’s lyrics. Because Spielberg couples his appropriate and welcome diversity of cast with a complete lack of subtitles, rightly putting the opposing cultures on equal narrative footing, and bringing more depth to the cries of “speak English!”

And as the gang fight turns deadly, all of the stakes are embraced more tightly. The offhand bigotry of Lt. Schrank (Corey Stoll, terrific as always) is more casually cruel, the identity conflict of Anybodys (Iris Menas) feels more defined, while Anita’s fateful visit to Doc’s store – now run by Valentina (expect another Oscar nod for the incredible Rita Moreno) – plainly calls it like it always was.

Then, as his (almost) parting shot, Spielberg unveils his grandest revision, a move nearly as bold and risky as the one Richard Attenborough face-planted with in 1985’s A Chorus Line.

By altering the context of one of the most emotional songs, Attenborough showed he didn’t know, or didn’t care, about what the show was trying to say. Spielberg, though, gently adds a perspective that makes Tony and Maria’s quest soar with a renewed, more universal vitality.

Just like most everything else in this West Side Story.