“Beautiful Creatures”: A left-secular answer to “Twilight”?

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:45:00 +0000

I greatly enjoyed the camped-up teen angst of “Beautiful Creatures,” but I also suspect it might be analogous to those children’s books that are not so secretly meant for grown-ups. (My kids, for example, find the irony of the Lemony Snicket books impenetrable, and the adventures overly dark.) Adapted by writer-director Richard LaGravenese from a young-adult bestseller by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, “Beautiful Creatures” plays like a funnier, edgier, Southern-gothic knockoff of the “Twilight” universe, with a distinct liberal-secular sensibility and without the virginal sexuality, po-faced seriousness or undertones of Christianity.

Precisely those factors – along with the fact that the movie’s real stars are Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson, in scenery-chewing supporting roles – may well reduce its appeal to teenage girls, who presumably crave the ultra-earnest romantic intensity of the Twi-verse. I’d love to be proven wrong on that forecast, but for now I’ll just insist that “Beautiful Creatures” is surprisingly fun, and deserves much more of a look from adult viewers than it’s likely to get. LaGravenese, a Hollywood veteran with a wobbly but intriguing résumé that goes clear back to his Oscar-nominated screenplay for “The Fisher King” in 1991, has wrestled considerable humor, emotion and atmosphere from this pulpy and derivative material.

Viola Davis on why her role in “Beautiful Creatures” changed from a maid to a librarian

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Viola Davis, nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her role as a maid in the civil rights era-set movie "The Help," will most likely never play a maid again. She recently told CNN, "I'm tired of that," explaining, "Me and Octavia [Spencer], Aunjanue Ellis, Roslyn Ruff – we all played maids in 'The Help' and it was fabulous. It's a fabulous story because we were personalized and all of those things, but I think that people need to see an African-American in the 21st century integrated in the life of this town and family who's not in servitude."

Except that in "Beautiful Creatures," the book that Davis' next movie is based upon, her character Amma is, again, a maid. She told the Hollywood Reporter that "[Director] Richard LaGravenese forbade us from reading the book. He said, "Do not touch the book." (Naturally, Davis then got the book). "I read half of it and then I put it down because Amma is a maid, and I just said, 'OK, there’s nothing I can learn from this.' "

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“Beautiful Creatures”: A left-secular answer to “Twilight”?

Viola Davis on why her role in “Beautiful Creatures” changed from a maid to a librarian