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Stoker
InGood, Movie Reviews

Stoker

October 31, 2013By

Stoker

Stoker
2013
Written by Wentworth Miller
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Stoker
Park Chan-wook’s Stoker is an amazing film that is only a few steps shy of perfection. But it is those final steps that make up the bulk of my complaints, forever sealing Stoker away from classics territory. The story of a teenage girl’s journey to womanhood just as a mysterious uncle enters her life plays on much of the angst we all experience as youth. It also plays on a lot of Hitchcock tropes, right up to having the mysterious uncle that the niece finds the murderous truth about be named Charlie. Holy Shadow of a Doubt, Batman!

My biggest beef seems like a slight thing, but Stoker involves what is essentially the sexual awakening of the India Stoker character, but both the writer and director are men. This isn’t a huge thing by itself, but it reveals itself in a million tiny tiny things that just add up to put Stoker a bit off from masterpiece status in my eyes. Mia Wasikowska obviously had some input on her character and how she acted, but everything is based on the templates laid down by Park and Miller. Perhaps I’ll soften a bit on this after a few years, Stoker being very worthy of revisits.
Stoker
Park Chan-wook’s films have gained him a cult following throughout the world: Joint Security Area, Thirst, I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, and The Vengeance Trilogy. Stoker is his English-language film debut, one of three cult Korean directors who had English language films debuts in 2013 – Kim Jee-won with The Last Stand and Bong Joon-ho with Snowpiercer are the others. Park Chan-wook took the great tradition of Korean film transitions with him. The scene where the hair turns into the field of grass is one of the best shots ever in film. Park succeeds in providing excellent tension building thanks to some masterful editing, and continues to ratchet up the drama as the story gets more disturbing. Screenwriter Wentworth Miller was largely known for acting until this point, starring in the Prison Break series on Fox. His script for Stoker wound up on the Black List, which lead to its eventual development. It all results in a terrific thriller.

The narration by India Stoker is done as a whisper, giving a more intimate feel, and the aura of us hearing a family secret. Secrets weave the web of the world of Stoker, the Stoker family having their own skeletons in the closet
Stoker

InMovie News

Is YA novel film Beautiful Creatures the new Twilight?

September 20, 2012By

Beautiful Creatures certainly wants to be Twilight and Harry Potter and True Blood combined.

Let’s see,

  • We got a girl who moves to a new city and meets a boy
  • We got the rural South (South Carolina instead of Louisiana)
  • We got magical powers and spells and crap
  • We got goofy characters and high profile actors playing these supporting roles.
  • We got based on a popular Young Adult book series
  • We got dumb terms like Parselmouth (example: Palimpsest – One who reads time)
  • We got…THIS:
Beautiful Creatures Twilight

Oh, Edwar– I mean, Ethan!

No, I do believe this is a totally original property!

For those of you who need convincing of the originality, here is some more information:

The small town of Gatlin, South Carolina will never bee the same when newcomer Lena Duchannes arrives to live with her recluse uncle and enrolls in the local high school. There, she catches the eye of local guy Ethan Wate, who is having reoccurring dreams of a girl who smells like lemon. Oddly enough, Lena Duchannes smells like lemon. When life gives you lemons, you gotta lemonade that girl, but before that can happen they have to get through all this stuff about Lena being a Caster (aka someone who can do magic) and at age 16 will undergo the Claiming, which will make her choose light or dark. This family takes their Thanksgiving turkey dividing seriously! Also there are a bunch of weirdo magic relatives of hers and a bunch of small town anti-witch people. And probably some smooching. No word on if a shirtless character that transforms into an animal falls in love with a baby, but this is only the first book in the Caster Chronicles series. Don’t get your hopes too far up!

Featured players in Beautiful Creatures include Alice Englert as Lena Duchannes, Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan Wate, Jeremy Irons as Uncle Macon Ravenwood, Viola Davis as Amma, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lincoln and Sarafine, Thomas Mann as Link, and Emmy Rossum as Ridley Duchaness. Richard LaGravenese directs. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl wrote the original novels. Expect February 13th to be a day that lives in infamy.