Contrary to the curiously vicious ravings of bloggers and critics who should know better, "Blood and Chocolate" is a perfectly suitable title for the latest teenage werewolf fantasy from the producers of the popular "Underworld" saga.Based on Annette Curtis Klause’s book of the same name, the movie borrows the phrase from Herman Hesse’s "Steppenwolf." It is a metaphor — and a simple one at that — for the internal forces that torment young Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), an otherwise normal girl who struggles to suppress her lupine taste for human flesh.
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San Francisco Ballet’s 74th season began Wednesday in the War Memorial Opera House with an evening of excellence, delivering even some of the promised "gala." One meaning of the word is a "really big show," and — rather strangely — that arrived only at the very end of the program, with the grand finale of George Balanchine’s "Symphony in C."
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Falling snow coincides with a woman’s melancholy; a seemingly routine bit of sunbathing sparks a sandy nightmare; a jet traversing the sky sharply spells transition. "Climates," Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s deceptively low-key drama about temperamental shifts of both the meteorological and the human kind, may not have much adrenaline in its bloodstream or bang in its impact, but, as its protagonists unravel under changeable skies, it’s art-house poetry.
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With its harsh orphanage setting and a social backdrop that rivals the surrounding weather conditions for black-cloudiness, "The Italian" would have fared stronger had it remained a realistic drama instead of the fairy tale it becomes as its pint-size hero escapes his oppressive confines and searches pluckily for his absent mother. But thanks to some early grittiness, a resonant subject and a winning tyke, this Russian drama is, overall, satisfying — a dramatically involving view of a child’s survival workings.
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An on-the-set auto crash sent Nicole Kidman to the hospital in the wee hours of Thursday morning. The Oscar-winning actress was filming a suspenseful scene of "The Invasion" with co-star Jackson Bond, 10, in downtown Los Angeles, when her stunt car veered off course and hit a pole. Nicole was one of seven people rushed to Cedars Sinai Medical Center to be checked out. She was released two hours later; the others were also let go without any serious injuries.
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Can a movie read minds in the audience? "Catch and Release" does. The last line — "What took you so long?" — echoed the question preying on my mind for most of its 124 minutes before that perspicacious punch line. Although not a complete failure, "Catch and Release" manages to turn a promising premise into an inchoate, meandering marathon ostinato of "what’s taking you so long?!"
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Writer-director Joe Carnahan may owe a debt of inspiration to Quentin Tarantino and, to a lesser extent, British knockoff Guy Ritchie, but give him his due: He has a flair for stylized violence, and there are more than a few scenes in his latest, "Smokin’ Aces," that achieve a sort of manic brilliance.
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Oscar-winning director Jessica Yu grew up in the Bay Area — Los Altos Hills, to be exact — but her love of filmmaking and storytelling led her to the Oscar red carpet. She won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien," a look at the Berkeley writer and poet who lived for decades paralyzed by polio, confined to an iron lung.
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Composer and music producer Quincy Jones has been honored with more awards than he can count, among them seven Oscar nominations, 79 Grammy nominations — more than any other artist — and 27 Grammy Awards. He’s also received a dozen honorary degrees. But he says the "Mentor of the Year" award presented to him by Harvard University’s School of Public Health on Wednesday as part of National Mentoring Month is "unique and especially gratifying."
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Surely you didn’t expect Anna Nicole Smith to be calmly cooperative in the paternity suit over her daughter, Dannielynn. The model lashed out at photographer ex Larry Birkhead, telling him she’ll submit the baby to testing "in your dreams," according to TMZ.com.
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