blood and chocolate Tagged Articles at Cinematical

OK, so you made it through last week (with nothing more than The Hitcher) without your weekly review roundup, but I'm back from Sundance and just itchin' to get through this newest batch of ... January ... releases. Ugh, I can't even feign excitement with movies this lame. But wait ... is one of 'em actually good? Let's sift through those pros and cons.

Blood and Chocolate (2 positive / 21 negative reviews at RottenTomatoes.com)

Pro: "There's something refreshingly low-tech about (this) werewolf romance." -- John Larsen, LarsenOnFilm.com

Con: "The dialogue ranges from cliches to lines that are so impossibly ridiculous that it must be intentional." -- Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

Pro: "Better than it has any right to be." -- Josh Tyler, CinemaBlend.com

Con: "A neutered Underworld without the vampires, action, and heavy CGI." -- Staci Layne Wilson, Horror.com

Bonus! "At least it's not yet another remake filled with the same old tricks." -- Jeffrey M. Anderson, Cinematical

Catch and Release (17 positive / 60 negative at RT.com)

Pro: "A romantic dramedy that gets it exactly right, gives us people who live and breathe and are as absolutely convincingly real as people you know." -- MaryAnn Johanson, The Flick Filosopher

Con: "The story is essentially ridiculous, and the directing debut of Erin Brockovich screenwriter Susannah Grant is a crashing failure." -- Bill Muller, The Arizona Republic

Pro: "You laugh and you cry, as the cliche goes. You get involved." -- Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun

Con: "The dull script is mostly to blame. We just never get a sense of who these people are." -- Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail

Bonus! "The best thing Catch and Release has going for it is a dialogue-heavy script that Grant obviously labored over." -- Jette Kernion, Cinematical

Epic Movie (Did not screen for press: 0 positive / 8 negative at RT.com)

Pro: NONE!

Con: "Almost nothing sticks. There's barely a laugh in this thing." -- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Pro: NADA!

Con: "A miserably scattershot, heavy-wheezing, comedically-challenged waste of time." -- Brian Orndorf, eFilmCritic.com

Bonus! "If all a movie can give you is a small handful of stray and listless chuckles, well, I don't really think that's a movie worthy of your eight dollars." -- Scott Weinberg, Cinematical

Katja von Garnier's Blood and Chocolate is a werewolf movie for people who like teen romances, and a teen romance for people who like werewolf movies. It's no great shakes in either direction, but the crossover attempt is mildly interesting. At least it's not yet another remake filled with the same old tricks. Instead, the film opens with plenty of picturesque shots of Bucharest, Romania, with trees, buildings, fountains, sculptures, and especially the lithe form of Vivian Gandillon (Agnes Bruckner), jogging. If there was any doubt that she's a werewolf, we get an immediate shot of a dog whimpering and backing away under her gaze -- not to mention that her brand of jogging includes bounding off the sides of buildings.

Vivian lives, vaguely dissatisfied, in a community of werewolves that keeps mostly to itself. The pack's leader, Gabriel (Oliver Martinez) worries that an attack could lead bands of marauding humans into their lair, massacring the lot of them. Occasionally, Gabriel waylays a drug dealer or some other scum of society and lets his furry brethren loose on a merry chase. Some of the wolfmen, such as Vivian's cousin Rafe (Bryan Dick), complain that life is too boring, but Vivian has other worries. Every seven years Gabriel takes a new bride, discarding the old ones, and Vivan dreads that she could be next. Worse, she fears that there's nothing she can do about it.

The lengths at which people stretch the words of Shakespeare never cease to amaze me. Unlike other icons of literature, The Bard's writing has become a poo-poo platter starting point for creativity. I've seen it all – from Taming of the Shrew set in the Wild West to Macbeth at a fast food stand. Some of them have worked, and others have not. Beyond all of these, the Montague and Capulets seem to be everyone's favourite Shakespeare team. But lately, the famous warring households are being stretched to new levels.

Adaptation the first: Last year, Martha Fischer reported that things weren't over for Gnomeo and Juliet, an animated adaptation dealing with garden gnomes. There doesn't seem to be much news on the project, but it seems it still has two lead voices, Kate Winslet as Juliet, and prolific voice actor Greg Ellis.

Adaptation the second: Romeo and Juliet in werewolf love. Last year we shared that Agnes Bruckner and Olivier Martinez had joined Blood and Chocolate, a werewolf love story. Now, according to JoBlo and Fangoria, this story is a re-jig of the star-crossed lovers, although in this case, they're moon-crossed. Juliet, aka Vivian, is part of a long line of werewolves, and she inconveniently falls for a human. It's not enough to be a part of competing families. These days, you can't both be human. Fangoria is hosting some images from the film, which is looking a little cheesy with its glowing beasts.

So, we've got werewolves and garden gnomes now acting out Shakespeare's famous characters. What would he say if he were here today?