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 Beautiful Creatures (DVD)
Description: Genre: Crime & Thriller / Theatrical Release: 2002 / Director: Bill Eagles / Actors: Susan Lynch, Iain Glen ... / DVD ... more  Beautiful Creatures (DVD) ... released 10 April, 2003 at Universal Pictures Video / Features of the DVD: PAL / Firmly in the spirit of the late 90s wave of British crime films, Beautiful Creatures stars Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch as two young Glasgow women united against their brutally abusive boyfriends. With a corpse in the bathroom, a golf bag with a secret and seedy detective on their trail Dorothy (Lynch) and Petula (Weisz) hatch an ill-conceived fake kidnapping as their passport from an impossible situation. The film is an entertaining 84 minutes, but though there are several suspense scenes and some queasily amusing black comedy the TV style direction and generic plot fail to deliver any originality. First time feature director Bill Eagles concentrates on winning strong performances from an excellent cast and referencing The Wizard of Oz (1939) (Dorothy has a dog called Pluto, rather than Toto), Wild at Heart (2000) (watch Pluto and those fingers). Added to these are references to Thelma and Louise (1991), Shallow Grave (1994), Butterfly Kiss (1995), Bound (1996), and the film its title echoes, Heavenly Creatures (1994). Considering the graphic violence against women this would have been a stronger, more honest film had it taken itself seriously. As it is, the fashionable yet often inappropriate humour prevents Beautiful Creatures making any serious point about women's reaction to male violence, the finale degenerating into routine feel-good exploitation. On the DVD: This is a bare-bones release with brief on-screen production notes, cast and crew credits, a page about Universal's DVD email newsletter and a static menu. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound locks most of the audio to the centre speaker, though there's plenty of dog-barking all around the room. The anamorphically enhanced 1.77-1 transfer clearly cuts off part of the original image at both sides of the screen and is often, especially in the many night scenes, far grainier than one would expect from a feature film released in the year 2000. --Gary S DalkinNewest Review: ... from hell”, a petty crook with a heroin habit and a pen ... more ...
chant for using his fists (and anything else he can get hold of) on all and sundry, and most of all on the long suffering Dorothy. She manages to shake him off, and decides that enough is enough, and returns to their flat to retrieve her hidden stash of money, and a bus ticket for London. She collects their pet dog “Pluto”, who for some strange reason the mad Tony has dyed partly pink, and sets off to catch her bus. Instead she runs into another “domestic” situation...more |
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Beautiful Creatures (DVD): Drugs, domestic violence, blackmail, bestiality, and murder. (1298 words)
by kenjohn - written on 23.02.02 (Very useful, 97 readings)
Rating:
~ ~ Do you ever reach the point when you are visiting your local video shop when you have already watched practically everything that’s worth watching, and find yourself scouring the shelves for practically anything that will provide you with a couple of hours pleasant diversion? I know I do, and this is just the situation I found myself in at the start of the week. Titles were picked up, looked at, and almost as instantly discarded as just so much garbage. And then my eye fell on this DVD called “Beautiful Creatures” (2000). Or should I say my eye fell on the two very attractive young ladies on the front cover. (don’t worry, ...
beautiful creatures is ugly (387 words)
by utero - written on 24.01.01 (Very useful, 29 readings)
Rating:
Before christmas I had the chance to see this film at a pre-screening. It seems that they were taking the film around the UK to drum up some publicity by showing the film and have the director in attendance for an audience Q & A. The film is the first from DNA films which has been given hefty funding from the lottery to make british films. It's just too bad that they didn't spend that money on a decent script in the first place. The director Bill Eagles is a nice enough guy (I've met him) whose previous work is in TV drama such as Peak Practice. However with this film he is unsure with what to do with the film. It tries to be a thriller and ...
Beautiful Creatures (DVD): Very funny, very dark. (173 words)
by palladea - written on 16.01.01 (Useful, 25 readings)
Rating:
This movie is a black comedy from a new director. The best way I can describe it is as a cross between Shallow Grave and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Susan Lynch and Rachel Weisz are both very good in their roles as two women who accidentally kill one of their boyfriends and then scheme to benefit from the death. There is loads of violence (I wouldn't watch this film if you're squeamish), but none of it is gratuitous. It's very funny, there's loads of plot twists, and although the heroines aren't exactly innocent, you'll find yourself rooting for them anyway. The one thing I would say about the film is that a few parts are pretty ...
