Meet Ella

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Digging through the local DVDs revealed Ella Enchanted, which on watching turned out to be one of those cheerfully anachronistic medieval costume-land stories of which The Princess Bride and The Tenth Kingdom are well-known exemplars (Cary Elwes, who single-handedly made the film of The Princess Bride work, appears here as the villain), but its closer relatives are A Knight's Tale and Shrek. It's not as good as Shrek -- nothing is -- but was very enjoyable anyway. Loved little bits like the hand-cranked wooden escalator, the IV Seasons Hotel, and Medieval Teen magazine. Anne Hathaway, who looks like a young Julia Roberts except that she's both pretty and funny, stars as a politically-conscious Cinderella. Based on a YA novel by Gail Carson Levine which has something of the same flavor. Won endorsement all around the room, including from the visiting seventh-grade teacher (alias a niece) who cheerfully laid aside her stack of student papers to watch the film. A teacher's work is never done, and recommending this film to kids of just that age may be good teacher's work.