Author Archives: stationmaster

Other Great Episodes of Faerie Tale Theatre

Last week, I wrote about the second season of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre when the episodes were most consistently great in my estimation. But that doesn’t mean I don’t consider any episodes from other seasons to be great. In … Continue reading

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My Favorite Season of Faerie Tale Theatre

As some of you may know, probably more of you than knew about Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre was an anthology show that ran from 1982 to 1987. Each episode was a retelling of a classic … Continue reading

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Giving De Vil Her Due Part 2 (Hey, That Rhymed!)

Better the Devil You Know: 102 Dalmatians (2000) Since I specifically mentioned the opening credits sequences for the first two Dalmatians movies, I should note this one has a surreal visual one much like the original animated film. It’s not … Continue reading

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Giving De Vil Her Due Part 1

In my last post, I mentioned that one of my favorite things I’ve written on this blog has been a series about the 2014 movie, Maleficent, despite my having-at best-a very mixed opinion on it. I published it to coincide … Continue reading

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How Into the Woods (2014) is Messy but Worthwhile and Why That’s Weirdly Appropriate

Many eyebrows were raised when it was first announced that Disney would be doing a movie adaptation of the 1987 stage musical Into the Woods. Dark, cynical, adult deconstructions of fairy tales are kind of the opposite of what we … Continue reading

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The Real Problem with Emma (2020)

Back in 2022, I did a blog post about the three movie adaptations of Emma by Jane Austen. I had a middling reaction to the one from 2020. I admired what a good job Eleanor Catton’s screenplay did of compressing … Continue reading

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You’re On the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 3

Show the World What You Can Do: The Peanuts Movie (2015) When the news that Blue Sky Studios would be making a computer animated movie based on the Peanuts characters was announced, it was met with some skepticism. Blue Sky’s … Continue reading

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You’re on the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 2

Free as Running Water, Fresh as Morning Dew: Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977) The first line of this movie’s opening song is “it’s a new day,” and that’s appropriate since the third Peanuts film represents a lot of … Continue reading

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You’re On the Big Screen, Charlie Brown! Part 1

In the past, I’ve lamented on this blog that of all the Peanuts specials, only A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are beloved when there are so many others just as great or greater to … Continue reading

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Adaptations as Introductions vs Adaptations as Commentary

This post is going to be a bit different from my usual. I’m going to be discussing a certain kind of adaptation, which I’ll call “the adaptation as commentary,” its advantages and disadvantages. As examples, I’ll be using two movies … Continue reading

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