Photo credit: John Bramley

Since there are already disparaging online reactions regarding the hair color of the actresses in the film version of the paranormal romance Beautiful Creatures (Little, Brown, 2009), eyebrows are bound to be raised over many of the other changes in this tale of dark desires under the elms.

Readers should expect that extraneous characters or subplots will face the chopping block, especially when the source material—the first in the four-book “Caster Chronicles”—is more than 500 pages long. But in terms of the story, a lot has been transformed here, with the blessing of authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The numerous nips and tucks are a departure from the recent efforts by filmmakers to ingratiate loyal readers, sometimes following a book too literally (like a few of the “Harry Potter” films) or faithfully going by a lean-and-mean road map (The Hunger Games). The result here is a draw.

Photo credit: John Bramley

The series, although very popular, doesn’t have the broader readership of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” saga or Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games Trilogy,” which hooked a larger, more adult readership. This film really needs the solid support of its fan base, the narrower young adult demo, if it wants to launch a franchise.

Director/adaptor Richard LaGravenese’s retelling remains true to the spirits (no pun intends) here and there of this first book, especially in capturing the Southern setting of faded Greek Revival mansions, drooping Spanish moss, Bible thumpers, and where everyone is “surgah.” Gatlin, South Carolina, is a town with no Starbucks (if only, some may wish), 12 churches, and one library (which gets a big wet kiss in the film; the local branch is praised as “holy,” a bastion of ideas). Popular guy-next-door Ethan Wate plans to get the heck out of his hick hamlet as soon as he graduates high school. In the meantime, Ethan armchair travels through the books of Kurt Vonnegut, Henry Miller, and Jack Kerouac.

Photo credit: John Bramley

For months, he has dreamed of a dark-haired girl in a flowing dress wandering on a Civil War battlefield—but he’s killed by a bolt of lightning before he embraces her. Lo and behold, her doppelganger arrives as the new student in his English class: Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), the niece of the wealthy recluse Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons). Rumor has it he’s a devil worshipper.

Fully aware of all the whispering behind her back, she’s aloof at Ethan’s courtin’ attempts, not believing he really wants to know her, but he stands up for her against the hostile cliques, and eventually makes her smile. However, she really doesn’t fit in—she’s a Caster (technically not a witch) with supernatural powers, and on her 16^th birthday, she will endure the Claiming, when her true nature will emerge, either for the light or (gulp) dark, and murky forces are at work to turn her to the dark side, by using Ethan as a heartthrob pawn.

Some of the book’s, ahem, magic is lost: Ethan also has powers to overcome curses, and the teen lovers are telepathic, reading each other’s thoughts whether they are near or far. On screen, Ethan’s purely mortal. The various special abilities of Lena’s family are not very well explained, leading to a few confusing moments.

In one of the book’s best (though not very original) subplots, Lena and Ethan have to reign in their hormones. Otherwise when they kiss, an electric charge zaps the boy. If they go all the way, the kid will fry—nature’s chastity belt. And the script thwarts suspense by revealing early on what mischief Emma Thompson’s Christian crusader is really up to—though by showing her character’s dementedly demonic side early on, Thompson has more opportunities to chow down on the scenery, leaving Jeremy Irons in the dust. Packed with a lot of plot and action, the series would have been a sure thing as a TV series for the YA friendly CW network, like a teen Walking Dead or True Blood.

If the film survives the poxes and put-downs from fans, it will be due, in no small part, to the breezy charms of actor Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan. He has the looks of mid-1950s Tony Curtis and a goofy affability. Ethan likes a good laugh, but the easy-going Ehrenreich never winks to the camera. Leave that to Thompson, who seems as though she could break out in a giggle fit at any moment.

Photo credit: John Bramley

The biggest departure is that the baddies upstage the cursed couple. The bad girls have all the fun—and the best wardrobe, compared to Lena’s baggy long-sleeve blouses. Their glee is infectious, and that’s especially true for Lena’s wayward and vampy cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum), a Southern belle Siren, who can make others think and do anything, especially inexperienced teenage boys. She first appears speeding through the countryside in her red BMW convertible, with her hennaed hair slicked back and Ray Bans on. She later morphs into Rita Hayworth from Gilda. She’s not only Old Hollywood ultra-glam, she makes evil joyous.

Directed by Richard LaGravenese
Rated PG-13
123 min.

Sir McKellen as Gandalf. Photo credit: Warner Brothers Pictures.

A decade ago, Peter Jackson spent more than nine hours tackling  the dense novels of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) trilogy. The director takes the same expansive and epic approach to Tolkien’s intimate and episodic prequel, The Hobbit (1937), splitting his adaptation into three films.

The overgenerous running time is somewhat to the film’s advantage, but there are warning signs that Jackson might be stretching the tale to its limit.

Jackson follows the axiom, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” using a similar color palette and much of the production design from his hugely popular LOTR series. With cascading waterfalls and a red sky at sunset, Rivendell, the land of the elves, still looks as if it has sprung from a Maxfield Parrish painting. In addition, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey shoehorns in characters from the later books, as if the director has made one long, contiguous film, though out of sequence.

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. Photo credit: Warner Brothers Pictures.

Told in a flashback, the movie covers roughly the first third of the book, opening as Bilbo writes down his memoirs (“My dear Frodo, I may not have told you all…”). Rest assured, this long, verbose narration finally gives way to Tolkien’s story when a younger Bilbo, a homebody hobbit, is chosen by the wandering wizard Gandalf to join 13 burly, belching dwarfs on a mission to recover their kingdom and to end the reign of the usurping dragon Smaug.

For their mission, they need someone small and nimble, like Bilbo, to get into the mountain and follow the hidden passage to the dragon, who can’t detect the scent of hobbits. Besides Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Ian Holm and Elijah Wood reprise their roles as the older Bilbo and Frodo. Cate Blanchett makes a guest appearance as Galadriel, speaking very slowly, as if making a proclamation every time she speaks. That’s one thing the book is not: declamatory or self-important.

Too often in the LOTR films, the exposition and the action scenes were tightly jammed together, with almost more plot than each installment could contain. Characters would pop in and out before the next fight scene, and the story had to barrel along.

Those films served as a framework for Tolkien’s convoluted story lines, leaving it to readers, armed with foreknowledge, to fill in the blanks—and leaving the uninitiated feeling confused. This time around, Jackson takes his time mapping out the lay of the land, with more of a balance between interactions and keeping the journey apace. A newcomer can easily navigate his way around this Middle-earth.

It may be true that “All good stories deserve embellishment,” according to Jackson’s Gandalf, but at times this retelling feels a bit padded, like an elaborate setup for the second film installment. The battle of the stone giants, which takes up a paragraph in the book, is a full-blown, thunderous special effects extravaganza—one of three elongated battle scenes, which delay an otherwise propulsive story line.

Gollum (brought to life again by Andy Serkis) doesn’t slither onscreen until the two-hour mark, and Bilbo’s other adversary, the gold-coveting Smaug, is glimpsed, barely and never seen in full. And by the end, Bilbo still hasn’t learned about the dark power of the ring, which he finds by accident. By contrast,  Richard Wagner’s 18-hour plus “Ring of the Nibelungen,” introduces the dangers of its golden ring in its first scene.

The Goblin King, voiced by Barry Humphries. Photo credit: Warner Brothers Pictures.

As in LOTR, the on-location New Zealand scenery competes with and frequently upstages the digital effects. That said, the special effects team have whipped up many inspired creations, notably the reptilian-like Goblin King (voice by Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna). His pustules and sagging goiter may appear even more ghastly in 3D.

These highlights more than compensate for some of the spotty and jarring visual effects. The faces of the giant goblins, the orcs, have a plastic sheen and Botoxed-like smoothness. The fur of the menacing, giant wolves—which look like they could have wandered in from the “Twilight” series—has a static texture, and the flying movements of giant eagles lack fluidity in a standard 24 frame-per-second 2D print of the film. (The alternative version, in High Frame Rate 3D, runs at 48 frames a second.)

The filmmakers have literally brought Tolkien’s world to life—the novel provided the blueprints for Bilbo’s home, Bag-End, from its long tunnel shape to its green door. Yet one of the book’s most appealing qualities remains elusive: Tolkien’s congenial, conversational prose, with its strong sense of humor and wordplay. The film’s script, however, downplays the comedic potential inherent in like the fastidious and flummoxed hobbit at sixes and sevens. (Bilbo is more like a diminutive Felix Unger than Wagner’s fearless Siegfried.) As the mild-mannered hobbit, Martin Freeman is a quiet, self-effacing observer, an innocent and understated everyman (or hobbit). This reluctant adventurer may possess the powerful ring, but the schizophrenic and charismatic Gollum, who, whether trying to devour Bilbo or scheming to steal the golden object, wipes him off the screen.

Directed by Peter Jackson
Rated PG-13 (lots of threats of being eaten)
149 mins

Technology isn’t supposed to turn us into idiots—it’s supposed to make us smarter. And yet, these days the phrase “technology addiction” is cropping up all over the place. A University of Maryland 2011 study found that the majority of the 1,000 students who were interviewed admitted that they were unable to abstain from using technology for an entire day. The students I work with seem to have developed nervous tics, constantly flipping out their cell phones to check on texts, messages, or the time.

Rather than bemoaning our fate as teachers battling this new disease, we need to embrace it. If you can’t keep your students from checking their cell phones 50 times each class period, make your students’ devices work to your purpose. A smorgasbord of tools are available to help you do just that. Use Poll Everywhere to quiz your students. You create the questions and your students text their responses using laptops, tablets, or mobile phones. Display the website with your Smartboard or projector and watch the responses roll in, changing the graph on the screen as each student responds. Students can also text comments and questions. This is a free application for up to 40 responders. PollDaddy is a similar tool that provides live web polling and can be embedded in web pages and blogs. Socrative is another polling tool that also runs on laptops, tablets, and smartphones and allows you to take a quick poll of your students through true-or-false, multiple-choice, or short-answer questions.  Socrative also includes exit tickets, a quick way to gage students’ understanding of the day’s lesson; quizzes that are graded for you; and the game Space Race, in which teams of students answer questions as fast as they can to move their rocket across the screen to victory.

Create a class Twitter account and encourage (or require) kids to tweet notes, comments, and questions on various topics that they’re studying. Use Twtpoll,a tool that allows you to launch polls directly from your Twitter account. The class account can serve as a note-taking tool. Assign a different student each day to be the class tweeter and encourage all your students to tweet their comments and questions during class and later when they’re doing homework and need help.

Right before class starts, send out a group text with Remind101 that explains the day’s objective. Remind101 is also a great tool for keeping in touch with students after school hours. Need to extend a deadline?  Text them. Want to remind kids to bring in certain supplies? Text them.

Technology can be an addictive hindrance to education, or it can enhance and expand the ways we communicate with and engage our students. Mobile devices are here to stay. Make them work for you.

Photo credit: Rhythm & Hues

The wide appeal of the 3D film adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi (Harcourt, 2002), opening on Wednesday, November 21, is never in doubt from its opening moments on. Giraffes glide through a misty, pastel- colored garden; sloths hang from tree limbs; deer dart through foliage; and a hummingbird flutters off and back on screen.

Director Ang Lee puts on quite a show, taking full advantage of technology to make Martel’s allegorical/metaphorical fable as tactile a viewing experience as possible. Look out for the tiger’s claws. They come right at you.

Life of Pi was published for an adult audience, but appealed to teen readers as well. Both book and film open with the grown-up protagonist, Pi (Irrfan Khan), now living in Montreal, recounting his life’s story to a French-Canadian writer (presumably a stand-in for Martel). The film frequently flashes back to Pi’s idyllic childhood in the former French Indian colony Pondicherry, where he was born and raised in the zoo garden where his father worked as a zookeeper.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Pi’s first name is actually Piscine Molitor, named after his uncle’s favorite swimming pool, a fabled art-deco structure in Paris. But because the English pronunciation of “Piscine” sounds more like the bodily function, the preadolescent boy (played by Ayush Tandon) shortened his name, putting an end to his classmates’ teasing .

As in the book, the older Pi sets out to prove the existence of God—a tall order. By the age of 12, the inquisitive Pi was already a follower of Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.

The bulk of the book and film’s action takes place at sea after a shipwreck, when Pi, now a skinny vegetarian teenager (played by Suraj Sharma), squares off with a hulking and hungry Bengal tiger, the only other occupant of a lifeboat adrift in the Pacific Ocean. To avoid becoming the 550-pound animal’s next meal, Pi has to convince the Tiger, named Richard Parker, that’s he’s the only super alpha male on the boat.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Whether Pi successfully converts anyone I’ll leave to others to decide. The book certainly grips the reader through a humorous, densely detailed, first-person conversation, in which Martel’s diverting digressions enrich the novel’s narrative—the reader learns how to tell the difference between a two-toed sloth and its three-toed counterpart, for example, or the various ways adorable zoo animals can kill humans.

The film, on the other hand, will make you firmly believe in the power of movies. Almost all of the hundreds of animals parading on screen are computer-generated, and it’s difficult to tell the flesh and blood from the pixelated. (Fans of Animal Planet, brace yourself for meerkats, thousands of them.) In fact, the at-sea scenes were shot indoors on a soundstage in Taiwan.

Although the film does more than skim the surface of the book’s themes by necessity, it distills them into an easy-to-digest narration. It’s quite remarkable how much of the prose-heavy text has been translated onto the screen. But for the meat and potatoes—or maybe I should say gobi aloo—of Martel’s themes, the book offers a fuller menu, though the movie immerses the viewer with its own high-tech visual palette.

In other words: from the book, you’ll remember Mantel’s elegant storytelling and from the film, the flying fish that practically land in your lap.

Directed By Ang Lee
125 min.
Rated PG (animals attack/marking of territory)

Photo by Andrew Cooper/Summit Entertainment

A Kickboxing, Bloodthirsty Bella Guards her Newborn as Fans Drink Up the Final “Twilight” Movie

Immortality becomes Bella. After moping and mewing throughout the first four film adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” paranormal romance series (Little, Brown), the heroine takes charge in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn‒Part 2.

Kristen Stewart comes to life—so to speak—in this film, whether she is on the hunt for fresh animal blood or taking down a man twice her size. The actress invigorates the series with her performance as one of the undead.

Now that Bella has turned into a vampire—a transformation completed at the conclusion of Breaking Dawn‒Part 1—she fends for herself. She is no longer as reliant on Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and his large family to protect her from werewolves, avenging vampires, and other threats.

Bella may not be Katniss Everdeen, but she’s no slouch, either. She’s a team player and a force to be reckoned with. The physicality in the fight scenes reveals a loosened-up Stewart, a change for the better. Now, Bella appears more at home arm wrestling, kickboxing, or defending her loved ones than she does staring longingly at Edward. This new boost of confidence assuages one of the chief complaints of both the “Twilight” books and movies: that she has been too passive, too willing to transform herself in order to get a guy—in this case a 110-year-old vampire.

Photo by Andrew Cooper/Summit Entertainment

The film begins two days after Bella has given birth to a half-mortal, half-vampire baby, Renesmee (yes, the name’s a mouthful). While adjusting to motherhood, Bella takes her own baby steps getting used to her recent incarnation as a “newborn”—a greenhorn vampire. We see her new instincts in action as she embarks on her first hunt, attacks a mountain lion, and tries to control her thirst for blood as she gets used to her inhuman strength.

The greatest danger Bella and her brethren face is the draconian (some might say fascist) Volturi, the policing body of vampires who fiercely guard vampires’ anonymity in order to keep humans ignorant of their existence.

They have heard a rumor that Renesmee is an “immortal,” a chaos-creating, unrestrained child blood sucker. Renesmee, however, is no such thing; she’s just an obedient daughter who grows by leaps and bounds by the week. Trying to protect her, Edward’s coven seeks out allies around the world—Egypt, Russia, Ireland—to avouch that his daughter with Bella poses no threat, and to ward off an otherwise certain death sentence for Renesmee and her entire clan.

Luckily for viewers, Volturi has no luck. The film climaxes with a bloodthirsty battle more violent than the norm for the series, let alone the book, with heads flying off left and right. But this mayhem won’t discourage fans from cheering (or gasping, in the case of one particular fatality).

In fact, the long fight sequence will win over those who felt the movie’s storyline was too sappy or saggy—for instance, when the pace slows down mid-film before the final showdown, which takes place high up in a snowy wilderness. Director Bill Condon cuts from one confrontation to another in a battle that involves more than two dozen characters.  Even though almost everyone is chicly dressed in black, it’s always clear who’s who, and the pace stays brisk without shifting into overdrive.  The concluding chapter in the film quintet captures the excitement of Eclipse, the third, and best, “Twilight” adaptation up until now, which also foregoes dialogue for action.

Photo by Andrew Cooper/Summit Entertainment

The decision to accentuate action over character pays off since the dialogue is still wooden and the acting veers further into campy terrain than in the previous installments. As the head of Volturi, Michael Sheen gleefully hams it up, combining Mike Meyer’s Dr. Evil from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery with some of Dudley Moore’s braying lunacy in Arthur. In addition, two Slavic vampires speak with such thick Eastern European accents that even Bela Lugosi would advise them to tone it down.

But no one goes to these movies for the acting. The series has its own internal crucifix to ward off detractors: fans who bring the backstory and vision from Meyer’s books to these films that only suggest Bella’s internal dialogue, which drives the books’ narrative. As a reward to these followers, the finale concludes with a roll call of all the characters from the earlier films—for just one more glimpse in the darkness, before the lights come back up.

Directed by Bill Condon
115 min.
Rated PG-13 (bed sheets are crumpled; heads roll everywhere)

Jacob Wysocki as Troy (All photos: Arc Entertainment)

K.L. Going’s engrossing novel Fat Kid Rules the World (Putnam, 2003) takes a modest and gritty route to the big screen. The directorial debut of actor Matthew Lillard (Scream and The Descendants) opened Friday in only a handful of theaters around the country. Granted, the story of a friendship between an obese loner, Troy, and a homeless, hustling junkie/busker was probably never destined to play in thousands of theaters on an opening weekend. But following on the heels of another smart YA adaptation, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this movie also deserves to find its audience.

Like Going’s award-winning book, the film is frank and doesn’t sugarcoat the source material. Both begin with a death wish: Troy fantasizes about killing himself by getting flattened by a city bus. But the next time we see him standing on a city street, he’s not in a dream sequence as he steps off the curb and into traffic. Before he becomes road kill, he’s tackled and thrown to the ground by a stranger, Marcus (changed from Curt in the novel), who immediately demands $20 for saving Troy’s life (all he has is $13; Marcus takes an IOU).

Marcus needs a place to crash, or at least to take a shower (he wears the same striped and torn sweater throughout), and he talks his way into the apartment where Troy lives with his widowed father and younger brother. Marcus covers his tracks by charming the pants off anyone, including Troy’s father, who’s suspicious of the reeking stranger. He knows no one can stay angry at him for too long, no matter how flaky or how obviously he lies.

Matt O’Leary as Marcus

In short order, Marcus bulldozes Troy into becoming the drummer of his band, though Troy knows nothing about drumming, let along punk. When Troy tries to back out, Marcus reassures him: the key to drumming is “to hit hard.” The duo make an odd pair, and not just because of their contrasting backgrounds and physical differences: Troy is a good student (except in gym and metal workshop), but the 18-year-old Marcus has long since been expelled. Troy doesn’t argue when his dad warns him to keep his eyes open around Marcus. However, he finally has a friend, though one who constantly asks for money or favors. As the wily Marcus, Matt O’Leary, steers clear from the stereotypical tics of an on-screen addled addict. He has charm to spare, not unlike Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, except he’s on speed.

The action takes place in Seattle rather than New York City, and the change of venue, with its vibrant music scene, works. The soundtrack certainly has street cred, featuring bands such as the well-known X and the more in-the-know, like Whiskey Tango and the F****** Eagles. (Fittingly for a film that transcends archetypes, there’s no plaid in sight.) Whereas Wallflower is sweet; Fat Kid Rules the World is irreverent. One beams, the other snarls.

The film also presents a moving and clear-eyed father/son relationship that at times upstages the push-and-pull Troy/Marcus bond. Troy’s dad (Billy Campbell), an ex-marine, runs his household like a drill sergeant, and though he guards his feelings, he offers smart and observant advice. In his brisk and tight-lipped manner, he reaches out to son.

With the occasional f-bomb and brief nudity, the appropriately R-rated tone might hinder the movie from reaching younger viewers in theaters, but in this day and age of digital downloads and streaming, this no-nonsense film should have no trouble finding its intended audience. It may even point viewers to see more of the work of lead actor Jacob Wysocki from the cable series Huge and the much darker and quirkier indie Terri, about another teenage outsider. And who knows? Fat Kid may spawn its own cult, like the bands Marcus obsessively follows.

Directed by Matthew Lillard
Rated R (beware of the projectile vomit)
99 min.

Logan Lerman as Charlie (John Bramley)

The ’80s come roaring back in Stephen Chbosky’s sensitive adaptation of his coming-of-age novel, The Perks of a Wall Flower (1999, MTV Books). Though the book and film take place in 1991, there’s a distinct pre-hip hop, early MTV vibe, thanks to the soundtrack, dominated by the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners and the Smiths, the band responsible for the best break-up songs, according to the film. The retro feel isn’t accidental. Even without the music, baby boomers and Gen Xers will fondly recall any number of director John Hughes’s character-driven ensemble dramadies, such as The Breakfast Club.

Narrator Charlie (a quietly appealing Logan Lerman) describes himself as the “weird kid who spent time in the hospital,” following a bout with depression after his best friend’s suicide. Completely without friends, he’s already counting the days until he graduates from his suburban Pittsburgh high school—1,385 to be exact. Like anywhere, the cafeteria represents the social pecking order, and no one wants the reticent Charlie at their table—not even his older sister who only hangs out with fellow seniors. His luck changes when he takes charge and sits next to a class clown at a football game, the openly gay Patrick (a tad over-the-top Ezra Miller), and finally finds a friend. He’s then initiated into the world of hip and brainy outsiders, who call themselves the “island of misfit toys,” which includes Patrick’s stepsister Sam (Emma Watson). However, hormones get in the way of their friendship when Charlie falls for her, though she’s dating a college boy, and, still feeling emotionally raw, Charlie’s just a breakdown away from more treatment.

Emma Watson as Sam (Summit Entertainment)

Part of the film’s appeal lies is its timelessness. It could’ve taken place anytime in the last 30 years as long as some theater somewhere still has a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or there are eccentric teens that feel like they don’t quite fit in with the popular crowd. The dialogue occasionally drops pop culture references, but the wardrobe and hairstyles aren’t too specific—there’s no big hair, shoulder pads, or acid wash anywhere.

For the most part, the debut director stays out of his cast’s way and manages to showcase his young actors, whose camaraderie is effortless. The tone’s edgy and frank enough for a PG-13 rating without downplaying the book’s harder, sexual edge—it’s not more candid than, say, Glee. Chbosky transfers huge chucks of dialogue from page to screen almost verbatim so that his characters, though familiar, become multidimensional and transcend stereotypes and the hot-button issues, such as homophobia and physical abuse.

Taking on a character like Sam is a smart career choice for Watson, who has loosened up considerably since her days as Hermione in the Harry Potter series, where she often appeared bored. Here, any physical awkwardness on her part works for her character, a brainy senior and former bad girl. Watson’s a different sort of movie star, in the mold of another British fashion plate, Twiggy (though not as androgynous), plus her American accent is spot-on. This would be an attention-getting role if she wasn’t already a household name.

Adapted and Directed by Stephen Chbosky
Rated PG-13
103 min.