THE HOST (fans of this genre ★★★★ Non-Fans ★★)

THE MIND GAMES

Australia: 28th March 2013; USA 29th March UK 29th MarchOther Countries:  Release Information 

Stephenie Meyer certainly loves romantic conflict. The author of the best-selling ‘Twilight Saga’ books has done for young female readers and their mothers what Harry Potter did for nine-year olds.  It brought them to read—no mean feat in this technology age where interacting with fantasy worlds with your thumbs is considered far more exciting than with words and imagination.

Whilst reviewers love to critique the quality of the 'Twilight' books and the film adaptations, her fans agree to disagree and continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on her products.

So, it was always a given that her other speculative fiction work, ‘The Host’ would become a film to fill the hole created with the conclusion of the ‘Twilight Saga’.

‘The Host’, directed and adapted by Andrew Niccol, along with a highly respected production team and multi-awarded cast including William Hurt, Frances Fisher, Diane Kruger in supporting roles for the young, relatively unknown leads, is not a film for the discerning film-goer who desires a deep, well-fashioned script with sub-plots that will leave them marvelling at the mastery of the film-makers. 

However, it isn’t made for us cinephiles.  It is for the young—and not so young, if my fellow soccer-mom friends are anything to go by—fans of the novel and this fantasy romance sub-genre.  There are millions of these consumers out there and they are prepared to pay to read these books and watch the films and we shouldn’t dissuade them.   They make the publishing and film industry go round.

Stephenie Meyer said she came upon the idea for the 2008 ‘The Host’ (which spent 26 weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and 36 weeks on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list) whilst driving through the desert between Phoenix and Salt Lake City.   “I came on the idea of two personalities in one body. They are both in love with different people, which creates a great deal of conflict. I like messy relationships. They’re fun to work through.”

In this story, our heroine Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is thrown into conflict when Earth is invaded by an alien race. The invaders do not arrive with laser guns and drones but instead gently place their souls inside their hosts, taking over their bodies.  They are ‘peaceful’ beings and create harmony and balance in the assumed human race.  For the record, because all aliens take over our planet because we “kill each other”, I would like to state I am not one of the violent ones, so surely I should be allowed to keep my body.

When Melanie, one of the last remaining humans, is captured and receives the soul of Wanderer (Wanda), she refuses to relinquish her body to the invader.  So begins a tussle of spirit (and voiceover).  Before her capture Melanie was on the run with her little brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and another survivor Jared Howe (Max Irons).  Jared and Melanie become lovers and it is this love, and her promise to Jamie that she will return to him, that imbues her with the strength to fight Wanda’s control. 

Wanda, though, finds that she cannot inhabit Melanie’s body and not be moved by her strong emotions and memories.  This desire causes them to set out on a dangerous journey to reunite with Melanie’s loved ones. What they find will not be the joyful reunion either imagined.

If you are not a fan of YA books and the fantasy genre, then this film is not for you.   However, there are a lot more like this on the way with three more ‘’Hunger Games’ adaptations, ‘Warm Bodies’, ‘Divergent’, and ‘Pure’ to name a few.  So get used to the idea of star-crossed supernatural romances; there is an invasion coming to a box-office near you and it will be hard to avoid.

Beautiful Creatures ★★★★

LOVE IS MAGICAL

  

 

 

 

Have you noticed there is a lot of supernatural loving going on lately at the cinema? Every trailer before the screening of BEAUTIFUL CREATURES was for a Fantasy-Romance film with either zombies, vampires or aliens.  Of course, it’s the story of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for the modern age.   And why not?  Star-crossed lovers, fighting to be together against all reason and parental approval, makes for a great story.   If it’s good enough for the mythical Gods of Greece, then it is good enough for the electronic-gadgetry-toting youth of today.

This year in book and film, it is going to be hard to avoid this genre, and Beautiful Creatures is a good example (please note Twilight producers) of how to make an entertaining, authentic film which can please fans of supernatural love as well as the non-converted.  The New York Times bestselling book of the same name is the first in the series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

 

Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a high school senior wants nothing more than to escape the Southern town of Gatlin and bid adieu to his Father who has withdrawn from life since the sudden death of his Mother.   For months he has dreamed of a strange, dark-haired girl he has never met.   Arriving suddenly in his class is a new girl, Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), looking a lot like his dream sweetheart.  She is immediately ostracized, as she is the niece of Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), the reclusive owner of Ravenwood Manor who most townsfolk believe is in cahoots with the devil.  Let’s face it, people who live in those big, creepy mansions usually are.

Mrs. Lincoln (Emma Thompson), mother of Ethan’s best friend is adamant that Lena must be banished from the town and spends a good deal of time pointing fingers and rallying the townsfolk against the young girl.

Despite strange happenings that surround Lena, and her spurning of his advances, Ethan ardently pursues her.    Lena reveals that she is a Caster, as is her Uncle, and each Caster has a special power.   On her sixteenth birthday Lena will discover which side she will practice her Casting based on her true inner self. Will she be chosen for the much more charming Light or the evil-doing Dark?  The entire clan, including Lena, fear she will be taken by the Dark which will prove to be very bad for the human race.  There’s also a curse hanging over Lena’s family and she and Ethan face many spells and dangers and even their love may prove fatal.

Beautiful Creatures is a stylish story, a cut above the Twilight Saga’s progressively more outlandish portrayals. There is a wit in the script and Thompson and Irons, who could have lapsed into overdramatics, rein it in enough to lend a sophistication that is usually lacking in these supernatural tales. 

Whilst I am not an urban-fantasy fan, I certainly can appreciate a story well-told.  And as the great man said himself, “a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” This love story smells of success and with four more books ,no doubt the sequels will be gracing our screens in the years to come.   If they’re as good as this, we are definitely on the side of Light.

 

 

Hit & Run ★ ★ ★ ½

Release Dates
 

Australia:  6th September, 2012; USA 22nd August, 2012; UK12th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates

 

SWIFT & FUN

 

          The actors were clearly having a good time. The audience was laughing around me and I had the occasional giggle, so if you are looking for a bit of light fun with attractive leads, you won’t be disappointed with “Hit and Run”.

The film is written, co-produced and co-directed by the lead, Dax Shepard.  He does a great job playing the laid-back Charlie Bronson, hiding away in witness protection living idyllically with his soul mate Annie (Kristen Bell).   These two have a real chemistry on screen and it is not surprising as they are a real life couple.

Shepherd appears to have a penchant for rounding up mates and making films and it was whilst doing press for ‘Brother’s Justice’ (a mockumentary film with many of this same cast) that the idea for ‘Hit and Run’ was launched. “We kept getting asked what we were going to do next, and we just started saying we were going to do a car chase movie,” Shepard recalls. “We had no script or premise – we just knew we loved car chase movies.  And because we had said it, we knew we would have to deliver.”

The film, in fact, had no casting director. “We didn’t cast any strangers,” Co-Director David Palmer explains. “They all got paid SAG scale for a low budget movie – because they all love Dax. There’s a friendship and trust and sweetness about him that just brings everybody together.” Notes Shepard, “This was pro ably the worst work environment that most of these actors have had in years.  It was chaotic, but everyone really had a good time.”

In ‘Hit and Run’, Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard), a get-away driver for a bank robber gang is in witness protection.  He places his life at risk when his girlfriend, Annie (Kristen Bell) is offered an interview for her dream job in LA.  He decides rather than losing her he will drive her to LA despite his case worker Marshall Randy Anderson (Tom Arnold) forbidding him to leave.  There is an ongoing joke involving Randy’s inability to control his gun and his car which works very well throughout the movie.  In fact, Tom Arnold’s Randy is a standout character.

Unfortunately, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) the jealous ex-boyfriend alerts Charlie’s old gang leader, Alex Dmitri (Bradley Cooper) and the rest is a car pursuit that evokes shades of the classic 1977 Burt Reynolds ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ but in our current era’s ribald style humor. There are many well known actors in bit parts; Sean Hayes, Kristin Chenoweth, Beau Bridges, Jason Bateman to name a few.

Whilst ‘Hit and Run’, isn’t going to drive away with any awards, as my companion commented, "its good fun, good laughs and at the end you feel good."  And if I think back to my first viewing of ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, I think I felt much the same way.