Blood and ChocolateYou'll howl  January 31,
2007 11:42:49 AM
BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE: A preposterous sleight of hand
|
Shape shifters or werewolves have always required crafty cinematic sleight of hand. The Wolf Man and An American Werewolf in London were wonders in their times, but in a CGI-FX-fueled universe — with Underworld as the standard — this giddy confection is an adolescent girl parading around in her mother’s make-up. To become the beast is something of an Olympic event, where a lycanthrope will leap through the air, effortlessly twisting and contorting like a high diver, till she achieves an æthereal glow, and when she touches down, she’s a wolf. Silly, yes, but so is much of Katja von Garnier’s film (based on Annette Curtis Klause’s book), in which a nubile young lycan (Agnes Bruckner) falls for an American expatriate (Hugh Dancy) in Bucharest. Bruckner’s Vivian conveys the pull of allegiance between love and “the pack” with a dour scowl. Then there’s von Garnier’s overdose of blurry B-quality slo-mo. The result is preposterous and so inadvertently cheesy, it’ll make you howl.
|
 |
  
|
- Terry Murray gave away $11 million of state money. Will anyone call her on it?
- How one woman lost her boyfriend to blood elves and orcs
- Oral is the new second base, the “mostly” girls keep on kissing girls, and the Bro Job has arrived (but is still not ready for its close-up)
- Praise and (mostly) blame for Boston’s Fourth Estate
- Sorting through the ruins of Oasis
- Can a jolt from a nine-volt battery make you smarter? Happier? Medical researchers revive a discarded technology and set the stage for the ‘brain pod’
- Terry Murray gave away $11 million of state money. Will anyone call her on it?
- 27 things that drive us crazy about the city we love
- As the ProJo turns
- And rock your face off
- Amid the latest cutbacks, dejection reigns at the Globe
- Paolo Nutini soars across the pond
|
-
A kick to Diane Keaton's shin
-
No remorse
-
Running on fumes
-
Around the world
-
West Side Story with a new dance
-
Action more tired than tense
-
A devastating and uplifting documentary
-
Coulda-been enchantment
-
Still dirty
|
- Epic documentary on the life of Ralph Nader
- Name-dropping, self-analysis, revelatory strangers...
- Imagine Oklahoma! done as an tuneless pastoral spook show
- Pretensions do not pay off
- A kick to Diane Keaton's shin
- Factory Girl isn’t the bio-pic Edie deserves
- No remorse
- Peacocks, prognostication, potatoes
- Do I have to wear a nurse's outfit?
- A semi-precious gem
|
|
|
|