Word: rumpelstiltskin
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...first sustained TV exposure and a major boost to their careers. Pryor was a particular favorite. "Our own little Richie Pryor," Griffin would announce as he brought on the gangly, wide-eyed kid from Peoria, who did physical bits and a famous imitation of a children's production of Rumpelstiltskin on Griffin's show, before he developed his more raw and racially provocative style. A few years later Griffin took his nephew to see Pryor on stage for the first time, at a theater in Baltimore. He was shocked to hear "the filthiest routine I'd ever heard...
...chief Michael Eisner). Fairy-tale parodies are safe rebellions, spoofing formulas and feel-good endings while still providing the ride into the sunset that pays the bills. In Happily N'Ever After, a wizard runs a "Department of Fairy-tale-land Security," seeing to it that each story--Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, etc.--hews to the book. His bored apprentice Mambo articulates the strategy of his movie and its peers: "I just wish we could mix it up a little. Make it a little edgier! Then let 'em have their happy ending...
That describes Rupert Everett's character in Shrek the Third: Prince Charming, who forms an anti-ogre posse of all the other fairy-tale losers, including Cinderella's stepsisters, Rumpelstiltskin and the whole sad crowd of fabled flops. Charming is their perfect ringleader; his very name suggests he was supposed to be destined for hero status. "He's a victim of circumstance," Everett notes. "He was brought up spoiled and good-looking in a culture of envy. He's quite naive and he never gets anything right. He just wants to get his happily-ever-after." And he would crush...
...printed as a regular comic series, Castle Waiting creates a vibrant fantasy world not unlike The Lord of the Rings' Middle-earth but with a focus on the lives of women. Gorgeously illustrated in black and white, the book combines Christian and mythological imagery, including a bearded female saint, Rumpelstiltskin and various animal-headed characters. One of several intertwined plots follows a woman as she travels toward the titular castle so that she can safely deliver the baby of her dead lover, who may be an ogre. Fun to read and look at, Castle Waiting will enthrall fantasy readers...
...come not to bury the bad films but to unearth some good ones and sing hallelujah. So all praise to Paolo Sorrentino's The Family Friend, a mordant Italian comedy about a gnarled moneylender and the beautiful young woman he hopes to corrupt and conquer; it's the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale with a toxic twist, and the smartest entertainment at Cannes...