In today's edition of Things That Elicit Mixed Emotions, I present Thomas Czarnecki's photoseries "From Enchantment to Down". The haunting images depict Disney princesses meeting tragic ends. Ariel is beached on the shore, Sleeping Beauty lies abandoned on the floor of what appears to be a drug den, and Pocahontas is slung over a hunter's shoulder in his room of taxidermic trophies. I hope Czarnecki is making a statement about ... Read More

  This past weekend I was lucky to catch the last show of the world premiere stage adaptation of Newsies, at the Papermill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ.  The stage show was the cult movie, with all the loveable characters, dance moves, and all of my favorite songs, but also with notable differences.  There were changes to the details of the story, some new songs, and some lyric changes.  My favorite change from the movie ... Read More

After the box-office failure of Disney's The Princess and the Frog, rumor was that Disney decided that fairy tales were a thing of the past; according to the LA Times, targeting only the little-girl market just wasn't enough. The studio's latest offering, Tangled, combines a take on a classic fairy-tale princess story with more modern elements, like CGI and wacky wise-cracking sidekicks, in order to attract a broader audience. And the movie ... Read More

I’m completely obsessed with female villains. In fact, when The White Witch (Tilda Swinton) slapped the little boy in the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, I actually started laughing and clapping in the theater. But my obsession all started with the original bad ass bitches of Disney. Let’s face it--they were so much more interesting than those stupid, singing princesses. They were also wayyy more dark and sinister than many of ... Read More