Beautiful Creatures (2013)

I’m calling it the “Vonnegut Rule.” Anytime a teen drama needs to quickly illustrate its hero is a cool-sensitive outsider, he will be seen reading Vonnegut. Always “Slaughter House Five.” We get that scene moments into “Beautiful Creatures,” another YA adaptation about teens amongst supernatural angst and humanity-ending danger. Our reader is Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich), a high schooler with a DOA mom and MIA dad who falls for the new girl (Alice Englert) in class, because she’s witchy, and has, in fact, invaded Ethan’s dreams for months: Violent memories not his own. I know nothing of the books. But writer/director Richard LaGravenese’s movie peaks midway with a family dining room table fight that literally sends table and room spinning as one silent cousin sits, eating. (Why can’t the film be about him?) The remainder is blasé and anticlimactic, with part of the cast –- Emma Thompson -– camping it up “Batman” TV style, and the rest –- Ehrenreich and Englert –- crying over doomed love, all of them wrestling Southern accents that come and go, often in a single scene. Read some Vonnegut instead, eh? C

The Secret Village (2013)

Two low-budget films: “Monsters” –- made by “Godzilla” director Gareth Edwards -– and “Blair Witch Project”— the found-footage creep-out that launched a genre. Tightly edited. Tense scenes made sharp with glimpses of the unearthly. Finales that leave emotions raw. Similarly budgeted horror-thriller “The Secret Village” has … none of that, not an ounce of ballast to carry its Midnight Movie plot. Here, a young journalist (Ali Faulkner) arrives in a New England town to investigate numerous deaths reaching back to the Salem Witch Trials. Townsfolk are hostel: Leave or die. She is stalked. All along, something is off deep inside her. Sounds intriguing? No. Director Swamy Kandan has made a film so direly boring and incomprehensibly edited, I was left admiring home architecture and the bed comforters. Kandan has other film credits. Guessing on his go-to scare tactic, they must all feature chubby old men in robes. F

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Pissing at a massive plot hole in a “reboot” of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale that takes two kiddies who kill a witch inside a candy house, and ages them into black leather, machine-gun-toting adult brother and sister bounty hunters of Medieval Times is … well, futile. But in “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” we are asked to swallow a cauldron of brain sludge reeking of inanity. Mainly: Is it likely two adult siblings  cannot recognize their hometown, and for the villagers not to recognize their own two legendary celebrity offspring named Hansel and Gretel now grownup as two celebrity witch-killing adults named Hansel and Gretel? Um, no. The actors seen unsure. Jeremy Renner (bored mode) and Gemma Arterton (just rollin’ with it) are the titular characters in what may have been at one point a sick LOL incest-heavy live-action “Road Runner” gore-fest spoof, but the studio blinked. At 1 hour 20 minutes, it shows near-fatal edit flaws and can’t dodge a scene where Hansel can’t dodge a boulder that bounces when he hits it. I have no clue what writer/director Tommy Wirkoloa (“Dead Snow”) is aiming for, but this is one sticky mess. C-

Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)

Note: I saw this while ill and on medicine, missing sections, so grain of salt... 

Sam Raimi’s prequel has an impossible task: Stand not after, but before the perfect “Wizard of Oz,” one of the greatest films produced by Hollywood. Dolled up in 3D and the best CGI computers can buy, borrow, and steal, “Oz: the Great and Powerful” has no chance. But it’s not a bad film. There’s a childlike playfulness to it, and stacked beside his very unchildlike “Spring Breakers,” oddly fascinating. James Franco again plays against three women as a con artist who’s been bullshitting himself so long, he believes his own schtick. His Oscar is swept away by a tornado to the land that bears his nickname, and there he meets three sisters and witches (Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, and Rachel Weisz) who believe him to be some kind of prophet. You know from “Wizard” how it all shakes out, and this echoes the same beats -– traveling companions, munchkins, and witch battle. Franco gives a weird, sly take as with “Breakers.” Maybe too sly. Kunis is great and terrible. But wasn’t Judy Garland? Great and powerful? No. The heart of “Oz” beats far too cynical, whereas the 1939 film roared beautifully and proud. But it entertains. B

Dark Shadows (2012)

Are there two men more likely soul mates than actor Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton? Can there be any doubt these guys make their films first for each other, us second. “Dark Shadows” is a prime example: A supernatural off-kilter oddball of cinema, and a mash letter/ homage to a cult hit TV series that Depp and Burton adored 40 years ago. If it only worked, if only the film had an air about it more substantial than the feeling Depp and Burton are really saying, “You need to see this show!” Well, why not the movie? 

The story: Barnabas Collins is the son of a wealthy fishing magnate in 1760s America who spurns his housemaid f-buddy (Eva Green) for his true love Josette (Bella Heathcote) – to eternal punishment, for the angry lady, Angelique, is hell in heels, a witch with an endless temper. She kills Barnabas’ family and his true love, and then makes him a vampire, cursed for eternity, before locking his ass in a coffin for 196 years. Ouch. Rocket to 1972, and a newly released Barnabas finds himself in the timeline of Nixon, Karen Carpenter, and lava lamps. Angelique awaits, rich and powerful, lording over the Collins heirs (led by Michele Pfeiffer, wonderfully sour). 

It’s all ripe for satire, culture jokes and hippie-munching humor, and we get all that, but we don’t get enough of the tragic romance, the eternal desire Barnabus has for his lost love, Josette, and her 1972 reincarnation, Victoria. Yes, there’s a reincarnation. During the climatic “Death Becomes Her”-riffing battle that $100 million budgets can buy, I barely noticed, and the film barely acknowledges, the long absences of the lady who unwittingly started it all. Oh, wait, there she is! At the end! Sigh. 

Depp – once again in chalky white makeup and creepy black wig, his signature Burton look -- is perfect in the lead role of Barnabas, slowly rolling his fangs around every word, gesture and arched eyebrow. He makes his vamp into a gentleman in line with the great dapper vampire Christopher Lee (who has a cameo), but one vexed by Eggo waffles and Steve Miller Band song lyrics. 

A huge part of me wished Burton, Depp, and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (author of “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies”) had gone for a grisly, out-of-control hard R, ala “Sleepy Hollow,” a far darker comedy than this wink-wink lightweight romp can provide in a PG-13. Among the missed opportunities – besides sweet buckets of blood – is a cameo by ’70s shock rocker Alice Cooper, who Barnabas calls “the ugliest woman I never met.” Heh. Even the jokes are lodged in the 1970s. 

End note: I miss the Burton of “Beetlejuice” And “Edward Scissorhands.” Yeah, the special effects were (purposefully) cheap, but, damn, I left fulfilled with cinematic glory. The original show was all about cheapness, apparently, but this film spared no expense. For sets and makeup and special effects. Dime store story, though. Not Dark enough. B-

Season of the Witch (2011)

Film critics threw darts at the Nicolas-Cage-as-a-Crusader flick “Season of the Witch” because it lacked historical accuracy, an odd complaint since they were watching Nicolas Cage play a Crusader. Did they miss the title? Cage, so good in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” is puffy and disinterested as Behman of Bleibruck, a warrior for God who unwittingly massacres women and children, decides that’s wrong, and goes AWOL. Yep, pure Cage Shit Flick. For reasons too tiring to explain, he and his absolutely platonic best pal (Ron Perlman) find themselves playing guard to a woman (Claire Foy) accused not just of being a witch, but of creating the Black Plague. “Will she get a fair trial?” Behman asks. The church leaders nod, “Yep.” And he believes them! From there, it’s werewolves, murder, and Foy making goofy eyes with blue ambient light under her face. The special effects are 1980s bad. Perlman, good actor, looks like he's in hell, boy. Hanged and drowned, this "Witch" isn't coming back. Cage continues his shit streak. C-