Beautiful Creatures

I read half of the Beautiful Creatures series last year and really enjoyed it.  My friend Keenan would disagree as she's been having trouble even getting through the first book.  Anywhoodle, I was excited when I read that they had cast some heavy hitters like Emma Thompson, Viola Davis and Jeremy Irons in movie adaptation.  I was fine with the two relative unknowns that were cast for the two main roles of Lena and Ethan.  I was less happy with the casting of one other character, Ridley, but I'll get to that.  I was truly angsty about this adaptation when I saw the trailer and sadly, the movie didn't prove me wrong.

So overall the movie was fine.  I really, truly tried not to sit there the whole time comparing it to the book but then that's just impossible.  The story is this: a girl, Lena, with powers moves to a small-minded, small town in S.C. and becomes outcast, undesirable #1.  The good news is there's a cute, smart, boy, Ethan, with (early)Ginsberg glasses that's hot for outcast witch girls.  Lena is about to turn 16 and when she does, she and her powers will be claimed for either the light or the dark (supposedly based on her true nature). There's a lot more to it but I think the movie didn't really do a great job of getting it all across.  Instead they picked the main plot and stuck with the basics.  But then I guess that's what they have to do when adapting a book for the big screen.

There were problems.  One problem was the accent used by a few characters.  Actually the aforementioned heavy hitters did just fine (it's been proven time and again that the Brits have no trouble with a southern accent).  The kids?  Well actually the girl who played Lena, Alice Englert, did fine but then she's from New Zealand.  The actor who had the most trouble was the guy who played Ethan, Alden Ehrenreich...an American.  His accent was soooo thick and comical that it was distracting.  Plus he tended to get a bit high-pitched and screechy at times, which didn't help.  The actor himself is utterly adorable (he's 23 so it's legal for me to swoon) and pretty much embodied who I thought Ethan was so that's good. 

What did I like? Um, well, uh, mostly the movie worked on the whole but when it's broken up into parts then I get a bit stabby about it.  Some of the choices made by director Richard LaGravenese were a little head-scratchy but most of those were because I wanted it to be truer to the book (like keeping it filmed in SC instead of New Orleans-but I'm sure it was a tax thing).  My biggest issue was the casting of the aforementioned Ridley:

Ridley is supposed to be more teen Lolita than a vampy, slutty 20-something.  Emmy Rossum is a fine actress and was ok in the film but I can't figure out why they went in such a different direction with only one character.  Everyone else looked pretty much the same as the characters were written.  Sometimes I'd really love to know exactly how decisions were made and the motivations behind them but I won't so I'll have to learn to live with that disappointment.

Anywhoodle, see the movie, don't see the movie.  I just don't care.  It's making no money so it's not like there's hope for the sequels to make it to the big screen.  So I'll just keep my fingers crossed that the Hollywood powers-that-be don't hold it against Ehrenreich.  I'd love to see him screech his way through some more movies.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

I knew Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was going to be bad.  I kind of wanted it to be bad.  I love bad movies.  My expectations going into the movie were pretty low.  Good news!  They were (very slightly) exceeded.  It could have been worse.  It could have been Conan the Barbarian.  IT COULD HAVE BEEN VAN HELSING!  (side note: I absolutely hated Van Helsing).  Anywhoodle, I'm disappointed that the idea here is a good one (Hansel and Gretel grow up to be witch hunters) but the execution was severely lacking.

There are some complaints I'd like to share and they aren't even about the lack of story or plot or decent dialogue.   I was going to complain about some of the historical inaccuracies like a crank-operated defibrillator, and the use of a Gatling gun but then they just seem so obvious.  Oh and then there's the time that Gretel refers to the local villagers as hillbillies.  That was fun.  But I think my real disappointment was with the action.  It was fast, edited strangely, and I missed a lot of it due to lame camera work.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was a terrible film too but at least the got they action right.

What worked?  Well, in some weird way, I think Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton were just fine as our witch-killing heroes.  Of course I'm biased in that I really like both actors.  And they're professionals.  They seemed to be having fun with some really terrible material so good for them.

The other thing that was cool that they didn't spend enough time with was the witches.  There's a whole gathering of witches and each of them looked very different and very cool.  They could have spent some time with these ladies by introducing them and their powers to us.  The movie claims that witches can't physically hide the effects of working with dark magic.  Each witch had some different stuff going on and I wanted to know if it had something to do with their gifts or the type of magic they practiced.  At a running time of 88 minutes (also a blessing), they could have added in some more story with the witches. 

Hotel Transylvania - How did I not know Sandler was involved?

First you notice Adam Sandler's voice as Count Dracula.  Then you recognize the voices of Andy Samberg, David Spade, and Kevin James.  That's when realize you just paid money to sit through an Adam Sandler production.  

Hotel Transylvania wasn't terrible but it wasn't ParaNorman either.  ParaNorman was deep, had a message and was kind of scary.  Hotel Transylvania was light, had a bit of a message and was not at all scary.  I think I actually did laugh or at least crack a smile a couple of times during the movie.  My main problem was that I couldn't get past what I thought was a big problem in the story.  Yes, I'm about to quibbling over the story in an Adam Sandler movie. 

The deal is this: Monsters feel all persecuted from humans for being all monster-y.  They need a place to get away and be themselves so Count Dracula provides them with a shangri-la of sorts.  Meanwhile, Drac gets on his soap box every chance he gets with his message that  humans are awful, terrible, torch-weilding, pitchfork-carrying meanies.  His hatred of humans is in reaction to the death of his wife and also serves as a way for him to keep a watchful eye over his beloved daughter, Mavis.  Of course Mavis wants to get out and see the world but Drac wants to keep her safely tucked away in his human-free hotel.  Enter the bumbling human, Johnny.  He stumbles into the hotel and Drac has to get him out of there without alerting any of his guests.  Too bad he falls for Drac's daughter and doesn't want to leave.  If Mavis finds out that not all humans are bad she might actually leave Drac behind. 

So my big problem with the story has to do with the "monsters" being so anti-human.  Three of said "monsters" are actually human or part-time humans.  The invisible man is human. Wolfman should be a part-time human but stays wolfie throughout the flick. Lastly we have Quasimodo who is definitely human.  The latter is the one who finds out about the Johnny being in the hotel and decides to try and cook him (being French of course he's the hotel chef).  So maybe we could argue that if the world sees you as a monster then you lose your humanity and buy into your monster mentality?  I dunno.  It's a kids' movie so there's no reason to get into deep discussions about what makes someone a monster.  However it would be nice to have a little accuracy.  Or is that just me?

Trailer Park with a touch of Adaptation Angst

42 - This could be very, very good

Gambit - Let me get this straight...Alan Rickman, Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci in a Coen Brothers' movie?

I think I've died and gone to heaven.  If only it weren't Cameron Diaz.  

Great Expectations - An adaptation but not the one I'm angsty about.

Beautiful Creatures - Here's where my angst about an adaptation comes into play.  I love the YA series, the Caster Chronicles by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.  So you can imagine my excitement when I found out they were making a movie of the first book, Beautiful Creatures. I was terribly disappointed by one of the casting choices, 26-year old Emmy Rossum as a teenager.  Then I found out they weren't actually going to film it in South Carolina, where the books are set. However, I liked many of the other choices in casting:  Viola Davis, Jeremy Irons, and Emma Thompson so I was willing to give it a shot. 

This morning I spotted the trailer and actually squeaked in excitement.  Then I watched it. Meh.  The look of it is very cool.  The accents are a bit thick but I'm probably nitpicking.  I do like the two leads so that's good but I'm still really miffed about Rossum.  Whatever. Here it is:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Instead of dwelling on my disappointment with
Beautiful Creatures, I decided to cheer myself up with the second Hobbit trailer.

I feel no angst about this adaptation AT ALL.

Please to enjoy:

Also there are some alternate endings to the above trailer: