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Feb. 2nd, 2007 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_omovie seen: Blood and Chocolate.
I need to establish certain facts up front: I *loved* Underworld. I even enjoyed Underworld 2.
So I saw a trailer for Blood & Chocolate, and it looked like a lighter, pinker version of Underworld (say, if Buffy were a werewolf), and I decided then and there that I wanted to see it. I wasn't even deterred by the name (which made me think of laundry instructions and Elvis Costello, but in fact is a quote from Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf").
RoboMark didn't share my enthusiasm (the name sounded awfully pseudo-intellectual, and it didn't have those black pleather BDSM outfits that Underworld had) and I had pretty much given up on seeing it in the theater -- until I discovered it was directed by Katja von Garnier, a German indie director who did a movie called Bandits (four female convicts form a band, escape, and travel around Germany just ahead of the pursuing cops) that happens to be one of his favorite movies.
So, anyhow, we both liked B&C, though as expected I liked it a little more. Some of the things I liked about it:
1) All the characters were smart -- instead of yelling at the screen for them to run or stay out of the basement or whatever, I found myself marvelling at their ingenuity.
2) The movie conspicuously avoids the Christian symbolism that underlies most horror films. Crosses, for example, have no effect on werewolves, and one of them says *grace* before chowing down on regular human. ("Bless oh Lord this food to our use, and us to Thy service" -- I kid you not.)
3) Lots of werewolf movies spend a lot of time impressing us with the physical transformation, they bust out all the Rick Baker effects, and von Garnier doesn't even bother, doesn't waste our time with the slowly distorting joints and hair popping out all over. The loup-garoux jump, they think about being a wolf, and they become a wolf. It makes the traditional movie transformation seem crude and messy, and it's magical by comparison. (Probably cheaper too, but I respect a director who can convince me a pragmatic choice is artistically superior.)
If you have ANY interest in seeing this movie on the big screen, I wouldn't waste any time -- we went to the one-and-only showing at Potomac Yards today, and we were the only people in the theater.
I need to establish certain facts up front: I *loved* Underworld. I even enjoyed Underworld 2.
So I saw a trailer for Blood & Chocolate, and it looked like a lighter, pinker version of Underworld (say, if Buffy were a werewolf), and I decided then and there that I wanted to see it. I wasn't even deterred by the name (which made me think of laundry instructions and Elvis Costello, but in fact is a quote from Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf").
RoboMark didn't share my enthusiasm (the name sounded awfully pseudo-intellectual, and it didn't have those black pleather BDSM outfits that Underworld had) and I had pretty much given up on seeing it in the theater -- until I discovered it was directed by Katja von Garnier, a German indie director who did a movie called Bandits (four female convicts form a band, escape, and travel around Germany just ahead of the pursuing cops) that happens to be one of his favorite movies.
So, anyhow, we both liked B&C, though as expected I liked it a little more. Some of the things I liked about it:
1) All the characters were smart -- instead of yelling at the screen for them to run or stay out of the basement or whatever, I found myself marvelling at their ingenuity.
2) The movie conspicuously avoids the Christian symbolism that underlies most horror films. Crosses, for example, have no effect on werewolves, and one of them says *grace* before chowing down on regular human. ("Bless oh Lord this food to our use, and us to Thy service" -- I kid you not.)
3) Lots of werewolf movies spend a lot of time impressing us with the physical transformation, they bust out all the Rick Baker effects, and von Garnier doesn't even bother, doesn't waste our time with the slowly distorting joints and hair popping out all over. The loup-garoux jump, they think about being a wolf, and they become a wolf. It makes the traditional movie transformation seem crude and messy, and it's magical by comparison. (Probably cheaper too, but I respect a director who can convince me a pragmatic choice is artistically superior.)
If you have ANY interest in seeing this movie on the big screen, I wouldn't waste any time -- we went to the one-and-only showing at Potomac Yards today, and we were the only people in the theater.