Blood and Chocolate (DVD), Captivity

Blood and Chocolate - First let's talk about what is good in this movie (because that is a much, much, much shorter list): Hugh Dancy. He's got charm to spare. He does his absolute best to work with the crappy dialouge has was given. The good news is that thanks to his great performance in Evening and the fact that he's gaining recognition, he'll never have to make a crappy movie like this again. Now, the bad, or, everything else. This movie is just plain awful. The editing and storytelling was chaotic at best. The script was poor and the acting (by stars Agnus Bruckner and Olivier Martinez) was terrible. The characters are all stereotypes of stereotypes of stereotypes. Even without the bad acting and writing, the movie itself is just plain boring. But worst of all, the way the film was shot looks like a TV movie of the week and not a feature film. The story of a romance between a werewolf and a human has been done to death in countless better films. This movie is very much like Underworld but even less interesting (if that is even possible). It's not much of a werewolf movie and isn't even remotely close to a horror film. There was no development... nothing! Of course, compared to the next movie I'm going to talk about, it's a masterpiece.

Grade: D-

Captivity - If Captivity were to win an award, the award would be called the "How Not To Make a Movie Award" or, perhaps, "Worst Acting, Screenplay, Directing and Most Mistakes EVER Award." When I found out this was from "After Dark," I immediately became worried. After all, they are responsible for Horrorfest which was the biggest disappointment in the horror genre in recent years. Elisha Cuthbert plays a model who is suddenly abducted from a club and thrown into a dungeon sort of room in the basement of a house in Jersey. She is supposedly tortured but the tortures are definitely not frightening. I mean, these people obviously watched Saw and Hostel, you think they could have at least ripped them off a little more and came up with something scarier. These supposed tortures border on comical when she's stuck in an hourglass type situation with sand falling on her. Sure the idea is cool but I could think of a million ways I'd rather torture the people who made this movie. But, hey, for being held captive for four days, the girl sure does get a lot of wardrobe changes so life can't really be all that bad, right? There is absolutely no character development at all. Actually Cuthbert's character (whose name I really don't care about) is sort of a brainless blonde bimbo type and there's really no reason at all to like her. She's stupid too. Her preferred way to try to escape from a car is to pound on the windows instead of trying the door handle. I cared more about her character's dog who may or may not have been shot then I did about her. Every "twist" these people cooked up was apparent at least an hour before it actually happened. Everything about this movie is just so contrived and fake. And there are so many mistakes in this movie that I wouldn't even begin to be able to count them all. Now, the acting. I know that Elisha Cuthbert is no Meryl Streep. But, she was fine enough in The Girl Next Door (which is pretty much the only movie I even know she was in). Honestly, I have no idea why she gets jobs now that I've seen this movie. She's absolutely awful. Horrible. Terrible. So bad I can't even think of a word that is bad enough to describe how bad she was. The guy isn't a good actor either (I have no idea what his name is and I don't care because I'm pretty sure he's not going to be someone we'll ever see on screen again) but at least he looked like he was having a little bit of fun with his role. This is, almost definitely, the single worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Worse than Ocean's 12, you ask? 100% yes. (And you know how much I HATE Ocean's 12). If I could give this something lower than an F, I most certainly would. Can I give it a negative grade? A negative F?

Grade: F (to infinity)

Evening, Catch and Release (DVD)

Evening - There's one problem that most movies with flashback plots suffer from: one portion of the film is usually far more interesting than the other. Evening suffers from that same problem. Evening tells the story of a woman named Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) on her deathbed in present time. She is being tended to by her constantly fighting daughters Nina (Toni Collette) and Connie (Natasha Richardson). Connie has it all: the husband, the kids, the big fancy house. Nina is trying to get her life together. Every few years she finds herself with a new job and a new man. The two sisters struggle to rebuild their relationship while they watch their mother die. While on her death bed, Ann starts going on and on about people her daughters never met or heard of. She also starts remembering a certain weekend in her life where she learned a lot about friendship and love. The flashbacks are the more interesting story line here. It follows Young Ann (Claire Danes) who attends the fancy wedding of her best friend Lila (Mamie Gummer... Meryl Streep's daughter). While at the wedding, she finds herself in a sort of love triangle with her best friends little brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy) and the good-looking doctor Harris (Patrick Wilson) who also happens to be the love of Lila's life... although she's marrying someone else. Glenn Close shows up as Lila's uppity mother and Meryl Streep makes an appearance near the end as the elder Lila (how appropriate!). The performances, of course, are wonderful. How could they not be with a cast like this? Still, for all of these amazing women, guess who gives the best performance in the entire film? Hugh Dancy! He's a revelation. Where did this guy come from and how can he play a drunk with such charm and vulnerability? If I had any weight at all with Oscar voters, I would start putting it all behind Dancy right now. I really hope they remember him come December. The film itself is a little uneven. It goes from being utterly interesting to a tad boring. Of course, Toni Collette keeps things interesting in the present tense storyline. The flashbacks are the superior part of the film. Yet, eventhough it's a tad uneven, the writing and performances and script are strong enough to not mind all that much. Plus, the movie is an emotional ride. It's a chick flick of the greatest kind. It may not be the best movie of the year... or the summer for that matter... but's definitely worth your time.
Grade: B


Catch and Release - I had a friend warn me to stay away from this movie because it was surely one of the worst movies of the year. Maybe it's because my expectations were so utterly low (I was expecting something as bad as Evan Almighty here) but I didn't think the movie was really all that bad. I mean, it could have been worse. It could have suffered from not starring two charismatic and charming actors: Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant. Sure, the script was absolutely far fetched but aren't most romantic comedies far fetched? Anyway, the story line follows Grey (Garner) whose fiancee dies just before her wedding. Instead of a reception, she has to go through a funeral instead. Soon after, she realizes she can't pay her rent without him so she moves in with his friends (one of whom is Kevin Smith... playing Kevin Smith... this is either a good or bad thing depending on how much you like Kevin Smith). Soon, she finds herself reluctantly falling in love with her dead fiancee's best friend (Olyphant) eventhough she hated him in the beginning. Juliette Lewis turns up as a woman the dead fiancee slept with and she has a violent son who may or may not be his illigitmate child. The scripts not perfect, the dialogue is lacking, it's not as funny as it thinks it is and all of the romantic comedy cliches are there. Still, it's not a terrible movie. There are times when it's entertaining and it's actually enjoyable enough to not bore you to tears.
Grade: C-