Movie Talk Posts
aliena - wrote on 2013-02-18 02:10
Just saw it, better acting and better dialogue than "Twilight"...but that's a low bar of achievement.
LeeAnn M. - wrote on 2013-02-11 00:26
I find this film interesting because of the role reversal of Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons. Sure, Thompson's voice is shrill, but she's playing the part. She's not supposed to sound like an angel. It's not normal for Irons to play a character from the good side. I'll see it just for those two.
Unknown - wrote on 2013-02-10 22:13
Not sure if I'll even rent this one, despite some early favorable critic reviews. I just couldn't help but laugh at the acting in the trailer. Seemed too over-the-top, as opposed to the serious tone that it was trying to portray the film with.
Chris Kavan - wrote on 2013-02-10 13:33
They've been getting better at making YA literature more appealing (I actually thought The Hunger Games was pretty good) - I have to say that between this film and The Host, I have higher hopes for The Host (if only because Saoirse Ronan has impressed me in the past).That being said, Beautiful Creatures (and also the upcoming Mortal Instruments film) is more the kind of movie I might catch as a rental rather than watch in the theaters but at least they've got to the point where I would want to watch them (unlike Twilight - which I have absolutely no interest in after slogging through the first film).
Lauren - wrote on 2013-02-08 16:44
The books weren't bad. They get compared to Twilight a lot, but I think the main difference (besides the role reversal of the main characters) is that town of Gatlin is really a character all in itself. You may not like the place or the people, but they have a personality and a presence. It's not just background noise. The location is important to the story and character development. It just feels that the movie makers have never lived in the South and have no idea what it means to do so. The South is like living history, good and bad.In regards to Tiffany Boone as Savannah Snow and combining Ama into Lilian:
Lets get this out of the way: I am not racist in the least and I think
she's a lovely girl and probably a decent actress, but it makes
absolutely no sense for her to be playing this part in the "Beautiful
Creatures" movie. These books and this movie are set in a very southern,
mostly white, town with small minded townspeople. She's playing the
part of Savannah Snow: a DAR debutante, of a long line of DAR debutantes, who's family was
one of the founding families of this town. The DAR is an all white,
extremely exclusive, southern sorority of women who spend all their time
tracing family origins to the American Revolution. Her friends are the
daughters of her mother's friends the way her mother's friends were the
daughters of her grandmother's friends, and so on and so on. When it
comes down to these townspeople, the point is that things stay the same
in this town. People keep there mentality the same as much as they can
down the generations. So no matter how wrong or ugly it is, there is no
way on earth this character could ever be someone of color. The same way
the "Ama" character could never be white. I don't agree with
this mentality, but there's a point to it in these books. They're
watering it down and mainstreaming it. It feels like they chose a black
actress just to say, "Hey! These books might have bigoted, small minded
townspeople, but this is Hollywood, and we don't want any of that! So
lets remove any element that might not go over well with the public
[Even though this is a hugely popular book series and the public already
knows what this fictional town is like]... Someone get me a pretty
token black girl for this part here... yes that will work AND pull in
the black teens. Oh no, we can't show any truly southern Creole women,
it would make the African American community look bad [completely
disregarding the traditions and great history of those women because its
not pc]. Lets combine that character with our super smart professor
librarian... yeah, that looks better and is cheaper! Now we've never
lived or even been to the South other than to shoot movies, but this
seems spot on!" --_--Other Points:Yes, it was incredibly lazy not to give the lead actress green contacts, dye her hair black and curl it properly. Why did they make Link/Thomas Mann's character a hipster? Were they really desperate to be "hip" even though a the youth this town wouldn't have anything close to a hippy/hipster? Thomas Mann would have made an excellent punk kid.I refuse to judge the cast until I see the movie. No matter the script, I expect to see good acting. The best actors can make the most of a crappy script/set/etc. I'll post a full review after I see it. Happy opening night Beautiful Creatures ;)
