Tag Archive for 'Romantic Drama'

How to Watch: “Water for Elephants”

Published on April 27, 2011 in Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Step 1: Step in. The Water is a little too tepid but at least the Elephant steals the show.

Step 2: Remember the book is usually better. Based on the bestselling novel by Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants is a romantic tale set in the 1930s Depression about the demise of a traveling circus. It centers on the dashing young veterinarian student Jacob (Robert Pattinson), who has his whole life ahead of him until a tragedy sends him on a journey of self discovery. He jumps onboard a train one evening and unexpectedly joins the Benzini Bros. Circus as the in-house vet, ingratiating himself with the cast of colorful characters, including the circus’ ringmaster August (Christophe Waltz) and his lovely wife, and star of the show, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon). Not surprising, Jacob falls for Marlena the minute he sees her calming down her team of beautiful horses – and Marlena is a little smitten, too. But then there’s the whole matter of August, who we quickly realize has big-time anger and jealousy issues, with a cruelty-to-animals streak as an added bonus.

Step 3: Read “tepid” in graph 1. Athough I haven’t read the book, I imagine the seemingly forbidden love blossoming between Jacob and Marlena plays well on the page. Unfortunately, it’s not translated onscreen. Sparks are definitely not flying between Pattinson and Witherspoon, and while they are pretty to watch, they’ve each had much better chemistry with other movie partners. Waltz is charming, intimidating and downright scary once again, but after seeing him win an Oscar for basically playing the same heavy in Inglourious Basterds, it might be time for the Austrian actor to spread his wings and show American audiences he can do so much more.

Step 4: When all else fails, buy an elephant. No, the real star of Water for Elephants is Rosie, a 53-year-old female elephant who joins the Benzini Bros. as a last-ditch effort to boost the show’s profile. Played by a movie veteran elephant named Tai, the gentle giant certainly has more charisma with its star players than they do with each other. Witherspoon trained with Tai for three months before filming started and you can see the natural affinity the two have for one another. The same goes for Pattinson, who Tai unmercifully flirts with on — and apparently off — screen (and why shouldn’t she?) The film could have benefited from more elephant scenes.

Step 5: It’s got the look. Water for Elephants looks fantastic, I’ll give it that. Director Francis Lawrence, who helmed such visual treats as Constantine and I Am Legend, creates a vibrant, brutal world of a 1931 circus, especially on the train, with all the performers and workers and animals jammed together. Bygone traveling circuses are something to be marveled, with their rich history. It’s the unpredictability and danger and wonderment of it all, and Lawrence taps into that succinctly. It’s just a shame the romantic elements couldn’t have been more powerful and meaningful, instead of dragging down the film. I was totally ready to swoon over Pattinson and Witherspoon. Oh well.

How to Watch: “Red Riding Hood”

Published on March 14, 2011 in Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Step 1: How do you take a short fairy tale warning kids not to talk to strangers and stretch it into a feature film? In Red Riding Hood‘s case, not very successfully.

Step 2: Start with a red cloak. All the classic elements are in there: the girl, the red cloak, the woods, the grandmother – and of course, the wolf. Yet this time the wolf is a werewolf who terrorizes a small medieval village, nestled deep in the woods, and the girl, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is considerably older. In fact, she’s a beautiful young lady who is in love with a woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) but has been promised to the town’s richest eligible bachelor, Henry (Max Irons), by her mother (Virginia Madsen), who wants a better life for her. Val’s dad (Billy Burke) is a woodcutter, too, and an alcoholic, so the mom has her reasons, obviously. Valerie and Peter aren’t too happy about it and plan to run off – when tragedy strikes [cue ominous music].

Step 3: Veer off the path. You see, the town has an uneasy truce with this werewolf, offering small animals to the beast when the moon is full so he won’t kill anyone in the town. But when Valerie’s sister is found slashed apart, all bets are seemingly off – as are Valerie and Peter’s plans. The local minister (Lucas Haas) decides its time to bring in the big guns and calls for Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a known werewolf hunter. When Solomon arrives, he informs the town that this wolf takes human form during its off times – and that it most likely lives among them as they speak. Gasp!

Step 4: Get lost in the woods. Then the story becomes a sort of whodunit, mixed with the love triangle between Val, Peter and Henry. Up to a certain point, you have to stick it out because you want to find out who is the big, bad wolf, but Red Riding Hood does drag on. It’s not really the actors fault; they are just not given much to do. I mean, you couldn’t get a better Red Riding Hood than Seyfried, whose naturally big, expressive eyes do the trick in most of her scenes. The boys Fernandez and Irons (who is the son of British actors Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack) are eye candy as well, newcomers to the big screen who should find some luck there. But for the older actors, there are many wasted opportunities. Oldman seems bored, playing Solomon as a cross between Van Helsing and Vincent Price, while Julie Christie makes brief appearances as the kooky, new-agey Grandmother, handing out words of wisdom, and then fading away.

Step 5: Better to make it rated R. Although Red Riding Hood could have benefited with an R-rating, you can’t fault the look of the film, either. Those props go to director Catherine Hardwicke, who has learned a few things since directing  Twilight – but maybe not quite enough. While the script is ultimately the film’s downfall, Hardwicke also has a problem with pacing. She taps into her young lovers’ yearnings, but some scenes go on and on, especially the weird celebratory scene in which the whole town is dancing drunkenly in the streets after they think they killed the wolf. Like I said, if the film had an R rating was able to escalate the sex and violence, this could be an entirely different review. But I guess, in order to keep the younger audiences, Little Red Riding Hood can’t really be, er, devoured.

How to Watch: “Beastly”

Published on March 14, 2011 in Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Step 1: Don’t mess with a classic. Beastly should be considered a romantic flick by the tweener set but fails as a modern-day take on the classic Beauty and the Beast tale.

Step 2: Stick to the facts. As the story goes, there’s a vain prince who thinks of no one else but himself, so a witch curses him, turning him into a beast and giving him one year to find a girl to love him, not for his looks but for what’s inside. In Beastly, the prince is a modern-day high school stud named Kyle (Alex Pettyfer), who basically rules the roost by proclaiming his hotness and preaching that attractive people are the only ones who can win. He doesn’t come by this philosophy unnaturally since his news anchor, distant father (Peter Krause) has been telling him that since he was a little tyke. And when Kyle ticks off the wrong person — Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), the emo chick at school who’s really a witch — she hexes Kyle, gives him some serious facial scars and tattoos and sends him on his way to find love from the inside.

Step 3: Suspend your disbelief. Here comes the part that’s really hard to believe. After her drug-dealing father puts her in danger, Kyle manages to work out a deal to protect Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), a girl he briefly met before he became hideous boy. At first, all Lindy knows is she’s being forced to live with a weird guy named Hunter, his Jamaican housekeeper (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and the blind tutor (Neil Patrick Harris). But Kyle sees a possible chance at redemption — and love — with Lindy, and soon she warms up to Kyle, teaching him how to be a good person without the good looks.

Step 4: Don’t stereotype. Pettyfer, who is also starring in I Am Number Four, doesn’t have much depth as the tortured Kyle, but he performs as best he can, while Hudgens mostly gets to stand around and look beautiful. Hamilton is sort of eye-rolling stereotypical as the wise Jamaican, as is Krause as the ultra-vain dad, which is too bad since the Parenthood actor can be so good. Olsen as the witch was a fascinating choice, and she plays it to the hilt, getting to wear all kinds of crazy wigs and fabulous costumes. Kudos to her for pulling it off. And thank god for Harris, who steals every scene he is in and adds all the right kinds of comedy in a movie he really has absolutely no business being in.

Step 5: Remember, beauty is on the inside. I do admit Pettyfer and Hudgens are pretty eye candy, and if I were 11-years-old (as is my daughter, who saw the movie with me), I might get swept up into the romance of it all. The story doesn’t really have to make sense in order for you to be an adolescent swooning at the young leads. So for that reason, Beastly follows the Twilight pattern and succeeds in drawing in that same audience. I also remember the TV series Beauty and the Beast, which was also terribly romantic but didn’t make a whole lot of sense either in its modern-day milieu. Yeah, without a castle, singing teapots, clocks and candlesticks, it just isn’t the same, is it?

How to Watch: “Dear John”

Published on February 5, 2010 in Movies and Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: .

Step 1: Stop chasing the magic and romance of The Notebook, please. Readers may want to bury themselves into one Nicholas Sparks romantic novel after another, but the movie adaptation pinnacle has been reached. Every other Sparks’ movie pales in comparison to The Notebook, including Dear John, which can’t elevate itself from the same, repetitive cycle.

Step 2: Be thankful for one saving grace, though – Channing Tatum. At least from this woman’s perspective, he is all THAT and a bag of chips. Good lord, he could make falling in love with a pineapple sexy if he wanted to. Of course, in this scenario, he gets to share his incredibly charismatic, soft-spoken demeanor and soulful eyes with Big Love‘s Amanda Seyfried, who handles the affection with aplomb. Set once again in the Carolinas, South this time, these two meet cute one summer afternoon at the beach, when Tatum’s John fishes Seyfried’s Savannah’s fallen purse out of the ocean. Then for the next two wonderful weeks, they court, kiss and fall passionately in love. But to create the TENSION, the romance has to be put on hold when John returns to active duty as a soldier in Special Forces, and Savannah goes back to college. They promise to write a bunch of letters to one another, however, which makes for compelling drama. Not really. Seriously, are written letters that much more romantic? Sparks seems to think so.

Step 3: Arise complications, arise. First of all, Sept. 11 happens, which keeps John in the service longer than he wanted – and the distance starts to tear the young lovers apart. The quintessential “Dear John” letter eventually comes from Savannah, and while John accepts it at first and pours his heart and soul into serving his country for several years, circumstances bring him back to South Carolina to confront his emotions – and Savannah – and find out what went wrong. Oddly, there is a twist – something you don’t expect, but it’s also something you find rather hard to believe. Still, you’d like to see these two crazy kids work it out.

Step 4: Fail to engage. Director Lasse Hallstrom usually has a good handle on this kind of material, with films such as Chocolat, Cider House Rules, and my personal favorite, My Life as a Dog. Yet somehow he’s missed the mark with Dear John, rarely grabbing the audience’s imagination and keeping us a bit at arm’s length to the romance of it all. The young leads make up for a lot of it simply by being so pretty and adorable together, as does the lush South Carolina coastline, but when neither the location or the actors are on screen, the movie drags. The only other bright spot is the always wonderful Richard Jenkins as John’s single father, a man whose own social and communicative skills are severely stunted (there’s a reason, but I won’t give it away) yet who has tried to raise and love his son the best way he can. I know we’ve got one more Nicholas Sparks adaptation in the near horizon – The Last Song, starring Miley Cyrus – but I’m not holding out much hope for that one either.

Level of difficulty in watching Dear John: In watching John, aka Channing Tatum – incredibly easy. The movie overall? Not so much. I wanted very much to sigh and get all dreamy over Dear John, but ultimately, I couldn’t get past Sparks’ customary paint-by-number formula.

How to Sigh Over Channing Tatum

Published on October 21, 2009 in Movies and Trailers. 0 Comments Tags: .

After all this talk about scary movies, a good old-fashioned romantic movie based on a Nicholas Sparks’ book and starring Channing Tatum (that’s Mr. Hottie to you!) might just be what I’ll need down the road. This trailer to the new film Dear John, due out next February, already has me feelin’ it:

Ah, there’s nothing like young love …

How to Watch: “The Time Traveler’s Wife”

Published on August 16, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

time-travelers-wife-movie-stillsStep 1: Don’t expect The Notebook.

Step 2: And try not to fall in love with someone who spontaneously time travels cause it’s gonna suck BIG time. Claire (Rachel McAdams) finds this out the hard way when she falls for Henry (Eric Bana), a handsome man who happens to involuntarily jump around in time. Actually, Claire has known Henry since she was 6-years-old, when older Henry would show up periodically in the meadow behind her house, and has loved him from the beginning. It sucks for him, too, since he loses everything when he “travels,” showing up in the next time zone, alone, no money and in the nude. They eventually get married anyway and try to have a life together. In fact on their wedding day, twenty-something Henry disappears right before the ceremony, but forty-something Henry shows up to take his place. Yeah, this movie really bends the mind, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite succeed in winning the heart.

Step 3: Could blame this on lack of chemistry. While McAdams and Bana are both talented, beautiful people, they aren’t really able to spark much onscreen – not like, say McAdams and Gosling in The Notebook. I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone expects from The Time Traveler’s Wife – I know I did — but the two leads can’t quite pull it off. There are definitely moments when McAdams and Bana connect, but it’s really the characters brought to life that prohibit the romance. I mean, Henry is always half removed from the action, literally and figuratively, which makes it difficult for the usually effervescent Claire to, well, warm up to him – and for the audience to warm up to them as a couple.

Step 4: Could also blame the translation from book to screen. Thing is, Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling novel IS romantic and grand, written as diary entries from both Claire and Henry. Reading it, you can easily imagine the lovers on the page, adoring each other all along the way as they battle their predicament. But that magic created only by reading a book is somewhat lost onscreen in this instance, despite the well-intention efforts of writer Bruce Joel Rubin (of Ghost fame).

Level of difficult in watching The Time Traveler’s Wife: Moderately easy. It’s just unfortunately one of those cases in which the romance should have just stayed on the page.

How to Marry a “Time Traveler”

Published on June 15, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , .

What a bummer. You find your one true love only to have him involuntarily travel through time, without a moment’s notice.  I think I’d have to re-evaluate the relationship. Here’s the trailer to the upcoming romantic drama The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the bestselling novel:

We know The Notebook‘s Rachel McAdams is great at the romantic dramas — and Eric Bana is just plain great, so this could be a good, soppy movie we girls (and maybe some guys, too) can sob our eyes out over. You know what’s another really good romantic movie that makes me cry? Sense and Sensibility. My lord, I tear up every single time I watch it. That last scene when Hugh Grant’s Edward comes riding up and confesses he never married the little weasel Lucy Steele. And that his heart is and always will be Emma Thompson’s  … well, pardon me, need to get a tissue. Here, watch for yourself: