By Sheri Linden. Photo: Associated Press. Source: latimes.com

Julia Roberts shines as the jealous Queen and director Tarsem Singh injects some toughness into Snow White, played by Lily Collins.

Encased in a coffin, waiting to be brought back to life: That’s how Snow White spends a good portion of the folk story that bears her name. There’s no such downtime for the princess in the snappy retelling “Mirror Mirror,” a fractured fairy tale that occupies the divide between Disney and Grimm.

A booster shot of testosterone lends kinetic kick to director Tarsem Singh’s visually inventive interpretation, without shortchanging the requisite froufrou or sugarcoating the story’s dark Oedipal heart. The mash-up can be choppy, but the fable zings along on the sharp comic timing of the cast, led by a royally wicked Julia Roberts.

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By Peter Caranicas. Photo: Jan Thijs. Source: variety.com

The producers of Relativity Media’s “Immortals,” which opened to a better-than-expected $32 million this past weekend, always intended for the film to be released in 3D. Once production got underway with Tarsem directing it was clear that with the exception of a small amount of footage the film would be shot on 2D and later be converted to the stereo medium.

Cinematographer Brendan Galvin – who’s also shooting Tarsem’s Snow White film “Mirror Mirror” – entrusted much of that task to a fellow d.p., David Stump, who has the credit of senior stereographer on the film. Galvin and Stump both talked to Variety’s Inside Production’s Peter Caranicas about the thinking that went into the shooting and conversion of the swords-and-sandals actioner.

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