Five Hundred New Fairytales from Germany

The amazing collection of 500 fairytales gathered by folklorist and historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth has been locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. Jacob Grimm referred to von  Schönwerth as the only person in the world who could possibly replace him or his brother. Now that's high praise. You can read more about this incredible treasure-trove of obscure, once-lost fairytales at The Guardian. They also have a sample fairytale from the collection available for their readers: The Turnip Princess. Good stuff.

Red Riding Hood

Hammer is back and they're doing Fairy Tales just the way that only Hammer could do things--and it looks amazing--despite the fact that it's directed by the same director that did that pile of filmographical scheiss  er um movie, Twilight, gak, barf, vomit, which really wasn't my cup of tea.  Gary Oldman looks good as a werewolf hunter, and the sets look incredible...who knows, someone besides Oldman might even be able to actually act in this thing.  A guy can hope. 

With any luck, maybe they'll remake The Reptile.  That was a fairly original movie, with an interesting monster that wasn't straight off the shelf.  It'd be cool to see what they could do with it now...but then again, they did come up with a weird slot game promotion based on the 1971 vampire movie Twins of Evil, part of the notorious Karnstein Trilogy (Which some people think ought to be a quadrology including Vampire Circus, or even a quintology if you add-in Captain Kronos) which was based in turn upon J. Sheriden Le Fanu's Classic Carmilla..so I don't know what to think...but I'll probably have to see this movie.