Susan Hated Literature

Dir: Katja von Garnier
Writ: Ehren Kruger, Christopher Landon; original novel by Annette Curtis Klause

• Agnes Bruckner - Vivian
• Hugh Dancy - Aiden
• Olivier Martinez - Gabriel
• Katja Riemann - Astrid
• Bryan Dick - Rafe

From the people who brought us Underworld so I hope you are not expecting the best film in the world here? To be honest this film does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a supernatural horror love story, based on a novel for “young adults”, although from the wikipedia article it seems as though there were quite a few changes made to the book’s plot.

The film revolves around Vivian; who some believe to be the girl from the prophecy, the one who will lead the loup-garoux into a new dawn. Or something like that. Loup-garoux being the term used for these Romanian werewolves. Everyone also believes that the pack leader, Gabriel, will choose Vivian to be his next mate. For some reason the pack rules say he has a new mate every 7 years. Why this is is never explained.

And of course, as is usual in these types of films, the love story is a sort of Romeo and Juliet affair, resulting in death and violence.

In a lot of places the dialogue is cheesy, and the effects aren’t all that great, plus the plot is fairly nonsensical. But the film isn’t terrible. It is merely meh, although I did like the fact that these werewolves become actual wolves, and real wolves were used in the film. And some of the film looked quite good. So a meh-film, made a little better by a tenny little bit of style. But I can’t really recommend it to anyone.

IMDb | Official Site | Stainless Steel Droppings | Slant | Sex and the Single Movie Critic

Tags: 5 Stars, Agnes Brucknew, Annetter Curtis Klause, based on book, Blood and Chocolate, Bryan Cick, Christopher Landon, Ehren Kruger, horror, Hugh Cancy, Katja Riemann, Katja von Garnier, loup-garoux, meh, Olivier Martinez, romance, Romeo and Juliet, sff, stylish, werewolves

Related posts

• The Awakening (0)
• New Moon (2)
• Micah (0)
• Underworld: Evolution (5)
• Twilight (4)

Dir & Writ: Luc Besson

• Jamel Debbouze - André
• Rie Rasmussen - Angel-A

Don’t you just hate when a film you’ve been enjoying falls to pieces in the final third?
Angel-A starts off well. We meet André as he tries to talk his way out of debt, on a few occasions. None of his smooth talking seems to go down very well, so he thinks maybe the American embassy will offer some help. He is an American citizen after all. But no, they don’t, and suicide crosses his mind. Crosses it enough for him to stand on one of Paris’ many bridges and think about jumping.

As he is preparing to leap he notices a woman standing close by, and after a brief exchange of dialogue she jumps. He follows suit, not in an effort to kill himself, but because he wants to save her.

I really enjoyed the first half of this film, it has a nice, slightly comedic tone, and everything looks stunning. Black and white photography really can make everything look great. The plot wasn’t the best, but I enjoyed the interaction between André and Angela. Unfortunately it all goes to pot at the end. Overblown and underwritten. It is nothing but a mess as it tries far too hard to make some philosophical point about love and identity and loving oneself. It fails, instead veering off into melodrama.

That’s not to say I hated, I still enjoyed, but only a little. If I was being all stereotypical I would even say it is a typical French film; black and white, and a lot of talk about nothing.

IMDb | Movie reviews for greedy capitalist bastards | The Focus Clinic | SheWhoMust

Tags: 6 Stars, Angel-A, angels, French, good premise, Jamel Debbouze, Luc Besson, overblown, Rie Rasmussen, romance, sff, stylish, subtitled, underwritten, weak ending

Related posts

• Underworld: Evolution (5)
• The Lake House (9)
• Renaissance (2)
• Chronicles of Riddick (9)
• Broken (17)

Author: Patricia McKillip
ISBN: 1904233074
DDC: 813.54
Winner of the World Fantasy Award

They said later that he rode into the village on a horse the color of buttermilk, but I saw him walk out of the wood

Rois has always been a little fey; wandering the woods barefoot while her sister and father work at home. Her mother died when she was a baby. But from the moment she sees Corbett Lynn she is obsessed, both by him and his past. And the curse that is said to haunt his family. She knows there is some secret there, and she wants to know what it is.

Corbett himself if the subject of much gossip in the village. Years ago his grandfather’s body was found, with his father no where to be seen. The villagers presumed the son had killed the father, and the stories are full of the curse left by the elder Lynn. But each story gives a different version of the curse. Now that a Lynn has returned speculation increases, and Rois is determined to uncover the truth.

I enjoyed this book, more for the language than for any plot line or character. Not that either of those elements are badly portrayed, but they aren’t gripping. Rois, the first person narrator, is interesting in her own way. Never enthralling. And the story of a family curse didn’t really interest me at all. However once the fantasy element comes along and the winter woods come alive the book also comes to life.

In many ways this a fairy-tale. The story of a stranger who wins the heart of a young girl, but is under a spell. But it isn’t that simple, because Rois’s sister Laurel also seems to falling in love with Corbett, despite the efforts of her fiancée Perrin. And Corbett isn’t whom he seems to be, and with winter on its way, the season of his curse, Rois must work hard to understand what is going on.

Tags: 7 Stars, 813.54, faerie, family curse, first person narrator, Patricia A. McKillip, retelling fairy tales, sff, stylish, Winter Rose

Related posts

• War of the Flowers (0)
• The Blue Girl (12)
• Door in the Hedge (0)
• Wormwood (5)
• Travels in the Scriptorium (2)

Dir & Writ: David Twohy
Writ: Jim Wheat & Ken Wheat

• Vin Diesel - Riddick
• Colm Feore - Lord Marshal
• Thandie Newton - Dame Vaako
• Judi Dench - Aereon
• Karl Urban - Vaako
• Alexa Davalos - Kyra

I’m a big fan of Pitch Black, that low budget horror in space. And I used to be a big fan of Vin Diesel’s but recent film-roles have made me all a bit meh. Still, I’m surprised it took me this long to get around to watching this film, but I finally caved and got the dvd last week. And I’m not too disapointed that I waited so long, because to be honest this film is trying so hard to be something that it isn’t.

I’m not sure why they bothered to keep the name of Riddick, marketing I suppose. Because this film is totally unrelated to the original. The universe we are shown in Chronicles is totally unlike that of Pitch Black, and the characters are also pretty unrecognisable, those few who actually survived the first film.

But lets ignore all that and try to treat Chronicles as though it were a standalone film, with no history.

It is a sci-fi film, one of those with the clichéd army of evil. Here in the form of Necromongers, an army who are trying to convert or kill all the planets of the universe in order to reach their promised land, the Under-verse. It tries to get out of the stereotype by having this evil army do battle, not with good, but with a “different sort of evil”. Trouble is it doesn’t really work, because in this film Riddick isn’t really all that evil. Sure he kills people but what action hero doesn’t? And everyone he kills here was actually trying to kill him first. Fair enough I suppose, maybe the ending of PB really did change him.

Overall this is a question of style over substance. Style over story. And style over characters.

And yes, it all looks great. In a “look at all our cool spaceships”. And they try and make this intricate back story about the Necromongers and the Furyans (I don’t really care how it should be spelled), and invents this reason why Riddick is so great at killing. But it just doesn’t work for me. None of the characters have even half the presence of those in PB. I did quite enjoy Karl Urban’s Vaako, but not enough to make up for the rest of the film’s shortcomings.

It is an average enough film. Nothing spectacularly bad about it, but nothing great either. Though I’ve heard that the director’s cut makes it a better film overall. I can’t say, I watched the theatrical cut.

Tags: 6 Stars, Alexa Davalos, average, Chronicles of Riddick, clichéd, Colm Feore, David Twohy, Jim Wheat, Judi Dench, Karl Urban, Ken Wheat, Riddick, sequel, sff, style over substance, stylish, Thandie Newton, Vin Diesel

Related posts

• Underworld: Evolution (5)
• Angel-A (4)
• Winter Rose (4)
• The Lake House (9)
• The Gunslinger (7)

Dir: Christophe Gans
Writ: Roger Avery, Nicolas Boukhrief, Christophe Gans
Starring:

• Radha Mitchell - Rose Da Silva
• Sean Bean - Christopher Da Silva
• Jodelle Ferland - Sharon/Alessa
• Laurie Holden - Cybil Bennett
• Deborah Kara Unger - Dahlia Gillespie
• Kim Coates - Officer Thomas Gucci

The phrase, based on a computer game don’t really inspire much confidence do they? And I’ve never played Silent Hill, but, you know, a creepy film. Sean Bean. Its free. I figured I’ll give it a go, despite the many bad write ups.

And I’m glad I did, because while it was far from perfect it was still an entertaining, albeit slightly long, two hours at the cinema.

Silent Hill tells the story of Sharon Da Silva, a young girl whose constant sleep walking is putting her in danger. So when she mentions the placename Silent Hill on a few occasions her mother, Rose, decides the only thing to do is take her there. Confront the past and see if that will help. Her father, Christopher, doesn’t seem convinced, so Rose heads off without telling him.

Silent Hill was the scene of a massive fire, and one that is still burning underground. It is a ghost town, closed off from the population at large because of its toxic fumes. So when Rose is persued by a motorcycle cop she decides to floor it, and crashes through the barrier heading for Silent Hill. Only to see a figure run across the road in front of her, causing her to crash. And when she awakes her daughter is nowhere to be seen. And pretty soon Silent Hill turns out to be a lot worse than simply an ash-filled town.

Overall there is quite a lot in this film that works really well. The whole style of the town is extremely well done, with the floating ash reducing visibilty yet keeping everything strangely bright. And those few seconds of total darkness, which may work better without illuminated fire exit signs, but these are the burdens cinema goers must bear The sound effects are also fantastic. Sometimes deathly silent, sometimes letting mundane sounds echo loudly, and sometimes just loud.

The actors all do a good job. Radha Mitchell is very believable as the mother searching for her daughter. The young girl playing Sharon does a good job, both as Sharon and as the creepy “dark side.” Sean Bean is fine, though his storyling seems very much an afterthought, and I’ve read that it was added after the rest of the film was finished. And his accent kept getting in the way. He didn’t actually have enough lines for me to get used to it, and it was slightly jarring. But overall all the actors did a good job.

But the storyine itself was a bit flat. Yes atmospheric and creepy in parts, and gorey in others, but the film dragged a little in places, and as a whole it didn’t really work. That may be because of the source material, and there may have been nods to the fans in there. I never played the games so can’t comment on that.

Better than the reviews’d have me believe this is a good solid film, although I was a bit disapointed with the ending, partly due to its similarities to the recent film The Dark.

IMDb | Stainless Steel Droppings | Bitter is a taste | Gno Schitt

Tags: 6 Stars, atmospheric, based on game, Christophe Gans, creppy, Deborah Kara Unger, flat, horror, Jodelle Ferland, Kim Coates, Laurie Holden, Nicolas Boukhrief, plotless, Radha Mitchell, Roger Avery, Sean Bean, Silent Hill, sleep-walking, sound effects, stylish

Related posts

• Wormwood (5)
• Troy (0)
• The Gunslinger (7)
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (5)
• The Dark (1)

• Stephanie Leonidas - Helena
• Gina McKee - Joanne
• Rob Brydon - Helena’s Father/Prime Minister
• Jason Barry - Valentine

I’ll admit to being a Neil Gaiman fan, so I’ve been waiting for this film for quite a while, and although I try not read reviews of films I haven’t seen, I had read a few negative remarks about this film.

However, I am pleased to report that the film lived up to all my expectations.

Helena is a circus girl. Her father and mother run the world’s greatest “small Big top” but all Helena wants is to be a normal girl, to live in the real world. Not to have to deal with punters and put on a show, but to simply live her life. And as with any teenage girl she has arguments with her mother. And during one such argument her mother, Joanne, uses that old cliché “you’ll be the death of me”. Helena instantly responds that she wishes she was.

And it looks like she might get her wish, as that evening in the middle of the circus performance Joanne falls ill and is taken to hospital.

Ten days later she is still there, undergoing tests and about to be operated on, Helena is living with her nan, and the circus is about to break apart due to financial pressure. At this moment Helena finds herself transported to a strange world.

A world where everyone wears a mask, and thinks there is something wrong with her face. A world that is out of balance and where the shadows threaten everything.

At first she believes this is all a dream, but gradually Helena comes to believe that this weird world is as real as her own, and even worse, that there is an imposter in her place back at home, in her real world.

I really enjoyed this film. There is wonderful sense of humour to much of the dialogue, Valentine in particular got quite a few laughs from the audience. But it is the look of the film that really commands attention. That combined with many of the strange, but wonderful, creatures. The monkey birds, for example are captivating, with their “bobbing” and “welcoming”. And the sphinx, wonderfully brought to life on the big screen.

All the actors do a great job, Stephanie Leonidas plays Helena perfectly, from the rebellious teenager aspect of her personality, to the worried daughter, and everything in between. Rob Brydon’s role isn’t the largest, but he still manages to make quite an impact, as the slightly too romantic father. But for me Jason Barry was marvelous. For the most part his character wears a mask, hiding most of his facial feelings, yet the viewer could still empathise with him.

The weakest part of the film is probably the storyline; a fantasy world in need of saving, a sense of not belonging, and of finding one’s place. All of these aren’t exactly the most original, but the way they are put together makes them new and interesting.

IMDb | Neil Gaiman’s Journal | The Art Of Dave McKean | SF Signal | Stainless Steel Droppings |

Tags: 9 Stars, Dave McKean, Gina McKee, Jason Barry, looks pretty, Mirrormask, Neil Gaiman, Rob Brydon, sff, Stephanie Leonidas, stylish

Related posts

• Smoke and Mirrors (10)
• Doesn’t this sound great: (0)
• Arkham Asylum (2)
• Winter Rose (4)
• War of the Worlds (2)

dir.Christophe Gans

* Samuel Le Bihan - Gregoire de Fronsac
* Mark Dacascos - Mani
* Jeremie Renier - Thomas D’Apcher
* Vincent Cassel - J.Francois de Morangias
* Emilie Dequenne - Marianne de Morangias
* Monica Bellucci - Sylvia

I just bought this on dvd after seeing many good reviews of it since its release. Plus, you know werewolf film so figured for 8 quid I wasn’t really wasting any money if it was rubbish.

It wasn’t. It is a great film. Very french in places, but never in a cliched manner.
The film is told in flashback by an noble facing the wrath of the crowd during the French revolution. He tells of the Geraudan Beast who chooses to attack only women and children, who cannot be killed, and who dominates the area.

In the pouring rain we meet our two main heroes, Fronsac; the king’s naturalist, and Mani; an Iroqui who has returned to France with Fronsac. Their first actions are to rescue an old man and his daughter from a beating by a group of men, dressed in women’s clothes.

The main plot, of course, revolves around the Beast. How to find her and kill her, as well as figuring out what she is.
Based on actual events that happened in France in the 1760’s, the film is stylish and great to watch. The fight scenes impressive and the whole film looks fantastic. The creature herself isn’t quite as good as the rest of the film, but she isn’t onscreen enough for that to be a problem.

Perhaps it is a little easy to id the “baddie” from the start, but overall the film is far from predictable. And it is interesting to see the differences between this and how a huge-budget Hollywood film might have been made.

Visually stunning, but also a great film

Official site (us) | IMDb

---

There aren’t a lot of special features on the dvd I got, just an option to watch a dubbed version, a trailer and “The Legend.” This is actually quite an interesting interview with Michel Louis, a naturalist who has written a book on the subject. The film seems to be adapted from his historical account.

It is around twenty minutes long, and interesting, although the editing cuts out some parts that would have made his story more understandable.

Tags: 10 Stars, action, Christophe Gans, Emilie Dequenne, excellent film, France, Jeremie Renier, Mark Dacascos, Monica Bellucci, Samuel Le Bihan, sff, stylish, Vincent Cassel, werewolves

Related posts

• Serenity (0)
• Ladyhawke (0)
• Blood and Chocolate (2)
• Winter Rose (4)
• We3 (0)