sarahedgewrites

Ana de Arnas's performance makes the film very much deserving of watch, if that watch is simply seeing an actor at the height of their craft. If acting was all it took to make a film I could end the review here.

Monotone 4:3 aspect ratio fever dream: the words set the film up to be something cool and edgy that Criterion aficionados can eat up.

Unfortunately, this film parades around Marilyn Monroe's trauma like proudly lit float, never slipping any deeper into the substance of her character. She cries, many times. She breaks down many times. Over and over, cycle after cycle. What's missing from this raw emotional carnage is the woman herself. Marilyn Monroe had a charming sense of humor, was a foodie, and had more books than some school libraries. She was intelligent and had a surprising wit. Her marriage to Arthur Miller, which was billed as a mismatch, was in fact just two intellectuals vibing as we now know.

It's a shame that the most interesting and fundamental parts of who Marilyn Monroe was are lost is this 3-hour tangent down wallow road. In Blonde, she's angry, keeps it in, then unleashes it in a series of breakdowns. It's perplexing to watch when, as much as Marilyn Monroe had been taken advantage of, she was also incredibly strong-willed and bold. It wasn't entirely doom and gloom and she wasn't constantly in the victim role either.

For any fans of the three-dimensional person Marilyn Monroe was, Blonde will be a let down. Blonde will perplex you, bore you, and then make you upset that this piece of filmmaking, disguised as art that wants to be taken more seriously than it deserves, is only another in the line of exploitative features trading truth for distortion.

As a fan of the original Tangled, I was curious where they were going with this series. Happy to say if you're a Tangled fan the series follows the film almost seamlessly.

First there's the TV movie, Tangled: Before Ever After, which I personally didn't care for too much. It was a bit too hammy and moralistic, low on humor and cliché. "Stubborn princess disobeys father. Father doesn't understand stubborn princess." We've seen this story play out so many times.

Now the SERIES on the other hand really gets things going. I would still recommend watching Before Ever After because you get explanations for some major plot elements of the series.

First there's the humor. I think Tangled the Series is really funny. It's anchored by being set in a renaissance / medieval period and it manages to work the period into its humor, which is really great because it reminds me of things like The Princess Bride or Monty Python and the Holy Grail, other films that did well with not taking the setting seriously. That's a huge plus for Tangled.

Then there's the voice cast which is awesome since it's being helmed by the original voices. You never get a sense that you're not seeing Rapunzel or Flynn being the way they are, and the voices really help with that. In fact one of the best things about Tangled is that we get to see more of Flynn and especially Rapunzel. As much the film developed her character, it was still limited by the runtime. The series really fleshes her out and we have a more defined idea of who Rapunzel is. Flynn was always flashy and we get a lot more of Flynn, the arrogant side and the deeper "Eugene" part of him. Although we really should be calling him Eugene since that's what he goes by in the series. There's also a new character who is just fantastic, Cassandra. The banter being Cassandra and Eugene is one of the running jokes that the series plays with really well. As a trio, they work really well together.

It's also nice to see Rapunzel and Eugene "dating" in a sense. Since the film went by so fast, we have more of a chance to see what their relationship is like.

So far I've been really loving this. It's like an expansion pack of the original movie - more insight into the kingdom, more insight into the characters and a bigger setting to play around with.