By Terence Johnson
Managing Editor
There are movies that manage to touch upon current issues and then there are films that speak to you, as an audience member, and your life experiences. Luckily, for me, Dear White People managed to be both of those films, and extremely successful at that. While Justin Simien does encounter some minor stumbles, in his capable hands Dear White People is a perfect film for today’s generation.
The plot for Dear White People is pretty simple. Samantha White (a revelatory Tessa Thompson), a media arts major and host of the popular show “Dear White People”, is fed up with the state of the all-black residence hall Parker/Armstrong and decides to run for Head of House against the golden boy son of the Dean of Students, and her former flame, Troy (Brandon P. Bell). She wins just as a reality TV show comes onto...
Managing Editor
There are movies that manage to touch upon current issues and then there are films that speak to you, as an audience member, and your life experiences. Luckily, for me, Dear White People managed to be both of those films, and extremely successful at that. While Justin Simien does encounter some minor stumbles, in his capable hands Dear White People is a perfect film for today’s generation.
The plot for Dear White People is pretty simple. Samantha White (a revelatory Tessa Thompson), a media arts major and host of the popular show “Dear White People”, is fed up with the state of the all-black residence hall Parker/Armstrong and decides to run for Head of House against the golden boy son of the Dean of Students, and her former flame, Troy (Brandon P. Bell). She wins just as a reality TV show comes onto...
- 1/19/2014
- by Terence Johnson
- Scott Feinberg
The legend of Countess Erszebet or Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary, the 17th century "Blood Countess", has it that she slew 650 young girls to bathe in their blood in a misguided rejuvenation program. Then, as her family walled her up inside her castle to prevent further misadventures, she vowed to return to life. And return she has -- in movies.
She starred in the 1971 French horror film, "Les Levres rouges" (Daughters of Darkness), portrayed by the lovely Delphine Seyrig, then re-appeared in August in the overwrought lesbian-vampire movie "Eternal". Her latest reincarnation in "Stay Alive" well befits modern sensibilities because she is the diaphanous villain in a video game. In the movie, gamers who accept the challenge of the underground game find themselves dying, one by one, each killed in the exact manner as their characters in the game.
"Stay Alive" is a passable horror-thriller for the young crowd, assuming a movie can lure them away from PlayStations. Because the Walt Disney Co. chose to release the film without a press screening or much marketing, the studio evidently doesn't think this movie can. While the movie should encounter a solid reception in home video, "Stay Alive" is imaginative enough at the conceptual level to have achieved with some promotion perhaps average or even above-average theatrical grosses.
The characters are rote creations, however, your typical foolish youths so familiar to scare movies. Yet the mix of 3-D game action with the atmospheric reality of New Orleans and Louisiana locations that startlingly replicate the game's physical design is a neat trick. The deaths themselves are routine by horror-film standards, while the gore never ventures beyond PG-13 territory.
The protagonist is Hutch (Jon Foster), whose buddy (Milo Ventimiglia) dies after beta testing a video game titled "Stay Alive". So naturally, Hutch and his friends have to play it. These include Abigail (Samaire Armstrong), a photographer who just happens to turn up at the buddy's funeral; tech guru Swink (Frankie Muniz); goth girl October (Sophia Bush); her hard-core gaming brother, Phineus (Jimmio Simpson); and via the Internet, Hutch's game-obsessed boss, Miller (Adam Goldberg).
So it's in-the-dungeon-with-14-inch-knives until the movie reduces its cast to three and then two characters. They have no choice, you see, because once "Stay Alive" begins, the game plays by itself.
Debuting director William Brent Bell, who wrote the script with producer Matthew Peterman, keeps the pace brisk and the pot bubbling. Cinematographer Alejandro Martinez, designer Bruton Jones and visual effects supervisor Kent Seki create just the right ambiance with 3-D action that looks like The Real Thing and real locations that look weirdly like 3-D action.
You do wonder, though, where Elizabeth Bathory will next appear.
STAY ALIVE
Buena Vista Pictures
Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment and Endgame Entertainment present a Wonderland Sound and Vision production
Credits:
Director: William Brent Bell
Screenwriters: William Brent Bell, Matthew Peterman
Producers: McG, Peter Schlessel, James Stern, Matthew Peterman
Executive producers: Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Glickman, Douglas E. Hansen, Becki Cross Trujillo, Adam Del Deo
Director of photography: Alejandro Martinez
Production designer: Bruton Jones
Music: John Frizzell
Costumes: Caroline Eselin-Schaefer
Editor: Harvey Rosenstock
Cast:
Hutch: Jon Foster
Abigail: Samaire Armstrong
Swink: Frankie Muniz
Phineus: Jimmi Simpson
Detective Thiboudeaux: Wendell Pierce
Loomis Crowley: Milo Ventimiglia
October: Sophia Bush
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 91 minutes...
She starred in the 1971 French horror film, "Les Levres rouges" (Daughters of Darkness), portrayed by the lovely Delphine Seyrig, then re-appeared in August in the overwrought lesbian-vampire movie "Eternal". Her latest reincarnation in "Stay Alive" well befits modern sensibilities because she is the diaphanous villain in a video game. In the movie, gamers who accept the challenge of the underground game find themselves dying, one by one, each killed in the exact manner as their characters in the game.
"Stay Alive" is a passable horror-thriller for the young crowd, assuming a movie can lure them away from PlayStations. Because the Walt Disney Co. chose to release the film without a press screening or much marketing, the studio evidently doesn't think this movie can. While the movie should encounter a solid reception in home video, "Stay Alive" is imaginative enough at the conceptual level to have achieved with some promotion perhaps average or even above-average theatrical grosses.
The characters are rote creations, however, your typical foolish youths so familiar to scare movies. Yet the mix of 3-D game action with the atmospheric reality of New Orleans and Louisiana locations that startlingly replicate the game's physical design is a neat trick. The deaths themselves are routine by horror-film standards, while the gore never ventures beyond PG-13 territory.
The protagonist is Hutch (Jon Foster), whose buddy (Milo Ventimiglia) dies after beta testing a video game titled "Stay Alive". So naturally, Hutch and his friends have to play it. These include Abigail (Samaire Armstrong), a photographer who just happens to turn up at the buddy's funeral; tech guru Swink (Frankie Muniz); goth girl October (Sophia Bush); her hard-core gaming brother, Phineus (Jimmio Simpson); and via the Internet, Hutch's game-obsessed boss, Miller (Adam Goldberg).
So it's in-the-dungeon-with-14-inch-knives until the movie reduces its cast to three and then two characters. They have no choice, you see, because once "Stay Alive" begins, the game plays by itself.
Debuting director William Brent Bell, who wrote the script with producer Matthew Peterman, keeps the pace brisk and the pot bubbling. Cinematographer Alejandro Martinez, designer Bruton Jones and visual effects supervisor Kent Seki create just the right ambiance with 3-D action that looks like The Real Thing and real locations that look weirdly like 3-D action.
You do wonder, though, where Elizabeth Bathory will next appear.
STAY ALIVE
Buena Vista Pictures
Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment and Endgame Entertainment present a Wonderland Sound and Vision production
Credits:
Director: William Brent Bell
Screenwriters: William Brent Bell, Matthew Peterman
Producers: McG, Peter Schlessel, James Stern, Matthew Peterman
Executive producers: Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Glickman, Douglas E. Hansen, Becki Cross Trujillo, Adam Del Deo
Director of photography: Alejandro Martinez
Production designer: Bruton Jones
Music: John Frizzell
Costumes: Caroline Eselin-Schaefer
Editor: Harvey Rosenstock
Cast:
Hutch: Jon Foster
Abigail: Samaire Armstrong
Swink: Frankie Muniz
Phineus: Jimmi Simpson
Detective Thiboudeaux: Wendell Pierce
Loomis Crowley: Milo Ventimiglia
October: Sophia Bush
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 91 minutes...
- 3/27/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Screened
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Kate Beckinsale has finally found a role she can really sink her teeth into -- that of a leather-clad, butt-kicking vampire warrior whose aristocratic blood-sucking race is under attack by the vicious lycans.
Conducting herself with a no-nonsense combination of toughness and grace that would give a certain tomb raider a run for her money, Beckinsale delivers even if "Underworld" doesn't quite manage to follow through on its initial promise.
While problematic pacing and bits of unintended silliness ultimately rob the British-German-Hungarian-U.S. co-production of its intriguing potential, it should still be regarded as fresh blood to the "Buffy" crowd, who'll likely generate enough boxoffice to ensure that Beckinsale returns to fight the good fight.
Unlike so many other entries in its genre, "Underworld" started out as neither a video game nor a comic book, but rather as a conversation between director Len Wiseman and friend Kevin Grevioux that led to a story of Shakespearean proportions that recast the Montagues and Capulets as werewolves and vampires.
Engaged in a centuries-old struggle, the future of both the sophisticated vampires and the feral lycans is about to be threatened by a nefarious scheme that would see the creation of a new interbred species that would combine the strengths of both underworld races.
Selene (Beckinsale), a top-ranking member of the Death Dealers, an elite vampire warrior class committed to hunting the lycans into extinction, stumbles onto that ulterior motive after she uncovers a lycan plot to kidnap a human doctor (Scott Speedman).
But her efforts to intervene are being thwarted by Kraven (Shane Brolly), the arrogant vampire leader who's rather jealous of the increasing attention she's paying to the mortal, as well as by ruthless lycan leader Lucian (Michael Sheen).
It turns out that the unwitting doctor has a connection to both clans, but let's leave it at that.
Director Wiseman, who started out in the art department on such films as "Men in Black" and "Independence Day", lends the picture an unmistakable "Matrix"-like sense of style, while Danny McBride's script shares a similar mythological construction, minus most of the psychobabble that overloaded "The Matrix Reloaded".
But despite the added filmed-in-Budapest atmosphere created by Tony Pierce-Roberts' dense cinematography, Bruton Jones' stylized production design and creature designs by Patrick Tatopoulos that favor prosthetics over CGI excess, "Underworld" keeps getting held back by an uncertain pace and a too-tight-lipped tone that elicits a few inadvertent snickers.
Hopefully they'll get it right for the sequel.
Underworld
Screen Gems
Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment present a Lakeshore Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Len Wiseman
Screenwriter: Danny McBride
Story: Kevin Grevioux, Len Wiseman, Danny McBride
Producers: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Richard Wright
Executive producers: Skip Williamson, Henry Winterstein, Terry A. McKay, James McQuaide, Robert Bernacchi
Director of photography: Tony Pierce-Roberts
Production designer: Bruton Jones
Editor: Martin Hunter
Costume designer: Wendy Partridge
Music: Paul Haslinger
Cast:
Selene: Kate Beckinsale
Michael Corvin: Scott Speedman
Viktor: Bill Nighy
Lucian: Michael Sheen
Kraven: Shane Brolly
Singe: Erwin Leder
Kahn: Robbie Gee
Erika: Sophia Myles
Raze: Kevin Grevioux
Running time -- 121 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Kate Beckinsale has finally found a role she can really sink her teeth into -- that of a leather-clad, butt-kicking vampire warrior whose aristocratic blood-sucking race is under attack by the vicious lycans.
Conducting herself with a no-nonsense combination of toughness and grace that would give a certain tomb raider a run for her money, Beckinsale delivers even if "Underworld" doesn't quite manage to follow through on its initial promise.
While problematic pacing and bits of unintended silliness ultimately rob the British-German-Hungarian-U.S. co-production of its intriguing potential, it should still be regarded as fresh blood to the "Buffy" crowd, who'll likely generate enough boxoffice to ensure that Beckinsale returns to fight the good fight.
Unlike so many other entries in its genre, "Underworld" started out as neither a video game nor a comic book, but rather as a conversation between director Len Wiseman and friend Kevin Grevioux that led to a story of Shakespearean proportions that recast the Montagues and Capulets as werewolves and vampires.
Engaged in a centuries-old struggle, the future of both the sophisticated vampires and the feral lycans is about to be threatened by a nefarious scheme that would see the creation of a new interbred species that would combine the strengths of both underworld races.
Selene (Beckinsale), a top-ranking member of the Death Dealers, an elite vampire warrior class committed to hunting the lycans into extinction, stumbles onto that ulterior motive after she uncovers a lycan plot to kidnap a human doctor (Scott Speedman).
But her efforts to intervene are being thwarted by Kraven (Shane Brolly), the arrogant vampire leader who's rather jealous of the increasing attention she's paying to the mortal, as well as by ruthless lycan leader Lucian (Michael Sheen).
It turns out that the unwitting doctor has a connection to both clans, but let's leave it at that.
Director Wiseman, who started out in the art department on such films as "Men in Black" and "Independence Day", lends the picture an unmistakable "Matrix"-like sense of style, while Danny McBride's script shares a similar mythological construction, minus most of the psychobabble that overloaded "The Matrix Reloaded".
But despite the added filmed-in-Budapest atmosphere created by Tony Pierce-Roberts' dense cinematography, Bruton Jones' stylized production design and creature designs by Patrick Tatopoulos that favor prosthetics over CGI excess, "Underworld" keeps getting held back by an uncertain pace and a too-tight-lipped tone that elicits a few inadvertent snickers.
Hopefully they'll get it right for the sequel.
Underworld
Screen Gems
Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment present a Lakeshore Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Len Wiseman
Screenwriter: Danny McBride
Story: Kevin Grevioux, Len Wiseman, Danny McBride
Producers: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Richard Wright
Executive producers: Skip Williamson, Henry Winterstein, Terry A. McKay, James McQuaide, Robert Bernacchi
Director of photography: Tony Pierce-Roberts
Production designer: Bruton Jones
Editor: Martin Hunter
Costume designer: Wendy Partridge
Music: Paul Haslinger
Cast:
Selene: Kate Beckinsale
Michael Corvin: Scott Speedman
Viktor: Bill Nighy
Lucian: Michael Sheen
Kraven: Shane Brolly
Singe: Erwin Leder
Kahn: Robbie Gee
Erika: Sophia Myles
Raze: Kevin Grevioux
Running time -- 121 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/29/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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