Wednesday 22 May
 
 

Dexter: The Seventh Season

There's no way to discuss the seventh and penultimate season of Showtime's hit Dexter without acknowledging how the previous year ended. Therefore, if you haven't finished the sixth season, stop reading now. You've got work to do.
05/21/2013 | Comments 0

Nightfall

As Simon Lam gets older, he gets better. The veteran actor has appeared in such in seminal HK action films of the 1990s as Once Upon a Time in China (opposite Jet Li) and Bullet in the Head (directed by John Woo); in the aughts, he graced audience and critical favorites Election and Ip Man.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Horror · Red Riding Hood
Horror

Red Riding Hood


The freakazoid love child of Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer

Doug Bentin March 16th, 2011  

You’ll have no one to blame but yourself if you become stupid because of “Red Riding Hood.”

Your brain will function as it would if you’d been the guest of honor at the Zombie Family picnic last weekend.

In this version — make that “perversion” — of the old fairy tale, Red’s name is actually Valerie (Amanda Seyfried, “Letters to Juliet”), which I’m sure was common in medieval Germany. Her village on the edge of the Black Forest has been plagued by a werewolf for three generations, and no one has been bright enough to check on the whereabouts of the villagers on full-moon nights.

But more urgent than the fact that her sister has just become wolfie chow, Valerie has been promised in marriage to Henry (Max Irons, “Dorian Gray”) while she is really in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez, “Cadillac Records”), much to the annoyance of her father, Cesaire (Billy Burke, “Drive Angry”).

I’ve never seen Gary Oldman more bored.

That’s right: This is a paranormal romance, the freakazoid love child of Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer. The picture is directed by Catherine Hardwicke, she who was fired after misdirecting the first “Twilight.” The hunky leads have that Robert Pattinson thing going, while old pros Gary Oldman and Julie Christie tag along to provide the ham, sliced extra thick, especially Christie as Grandmother. I’ve never seen Oldman more bored during a movie. Hey, Gary, me, too.

Believe me: This one’s not badfunny as much as it is bad-irritating.

Or just bad.

 
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
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