The Twilighting of romantic fantasy continues apace. A few weeks ago in Warm Bodies, director Jonathan Levine managed to take the human-teen/inhuman-teen (zombie, in this case) romance and grace it with humor and genuine emotion; in the upcoming The Host, Andrew Niccol tackles Twilight mistress Stephanie Meyer's take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, ideally avoiding the anticipated liberation of the genre from anything that would make it scary or effective. But for this week, it's Beautiful Creatures, the tale of a young man (Alden Ehrenreich) dreaming of greater things who may find it in the courtship of a soulful "caster," or witch (Alice Englert), if only she can free herself from a curse that may doom her to a life of evil. The writer and director here is Richard LaGravenese, raising the question: Can the man who was an Oscar nominee for The Fisher King and has garnered praise for his screenplays for A Little Princess and Beloved, among others, bring a similar intelligence to a teen-oriented romance? BeABetterBookTalker.com's Andrea Lipinski joins Cinefantastique Online's Steve Biodrowski and me to find out.
Then Steve gives his verdict on the CG-animated science-fiction comedy Escape From Planet Earth; plus, listener mail, and what's coming to theaters next week.
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