Today was almost a disaster… I prepared the morning coffee for brewing… measured the precious grounds, poured in the cold water, pressed the button…
And. Nothing. Happened.
Well, it seemed like something was going to happen. I heard the familiar ‘click’ that always occurs as the machine prepares to brew… then suddenly it started the beeping… the set of four beeps that always concludes the entire cycle and signals that, yes, indeed, your cup of ambrosia awaits… Only there was no ambrosia, just a click and four beeps… I doubled checked that I had put water in the back, that it was plugged in correctly, but it was no use… no perkage…
Lucky for me, I have a back-up… A nice cheapy coffeemaker I got at the local drug story the LAST time the previous machine gave out. Old Reliable still hangs in there, brewing up a decent 10 cups in a few minutes, and saving the world from the ogre that would be me without at least one little cup. And when another more flashy coffeepot is purchased, Old Reliable will be cleaned up and returned to his clear protective bag until the next time he has to pop out and save the day.
So I got these two massive fairy tale books… Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen… and I’ve been reading some to the kid at night for bedtime stories… And I’m struck even more by the lack of imagination in Hollywood… There are a ton of cool stories in here that would make amazing movies, animated or not, and yet what do we see coming out? Live-action remakes of animated films and reboots of successful films from our childhood. What. The. Hell. I mean, okay, most of you reading this are “book people”… You read tons of books, and short stories, and graphic novels, so you understand the sheer volume of literature available for anyone with even marginal ability to transfer the written word to a visual medium… Take Disney, for example… They’ve got all these Live-Action adaptations of their own animated films on the slate over the next few years… Meanwhile, has anyone thought of making THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES? I mean, hello! Male lead character, twelve princesses, so huge marketing angle (Collect all 12!) And what about SNOW-WHITE and ROSE-RED? And I’m not just talking about fuzzy warm ones… I mean, wouldn’t RUMPLESTILSKIN make an amazing horror movie? That little dude was creepy with a capital ‘CREEP’… Or maybe, instead of simply adapting them again, why not make the story as it was meant to be? THE LITTLE MERMAID was a brutal fairy tale…
***SPOILER ALERT***
If you haven’t read the original fairy tale, skip to the end…
The little mermaid has her tongue cut out to make her mute, and when she’s turned into a person, every step she takes feels like she’s stepping on swords, every movement pains her because, to make her legs, she’s kind of been torn up the middle… She looks fine, but the entire story she is suffering terribly.
Then… she doesn’t get the guy… He marries someone else, and she dies and turns into sea foam, with the implication at the end that she goes to Heaven because of the suffering she endured for love.
Like I said…brutal…and no Flounder in sight.
*** END SPOILERS ***
And don’t even get me started on HANSEL AND GRETEL… The sheer horror possibilities of that little morsel of a story are mind-boggling.
Eh, Hollywood… poised to implode, as many things are… I guess the key is to be ready, with your ideas and your ability to take the lead, because talent, like life, always finds a way… You have to be ready to adapt and have a back up plan… and an Old Reliable coffeemaker 😉
GABRIELLA MESSINA WRITES 