Mary, a teenage girl growing up in Rome-occupied Nazareth, is betrothed to Joseph, a modest but kind carpenter. An angel tells her she will bear a child from God and after negotiating the anger and confusion of her family and Joseph at how this could be, she then finds that she, Joseph and the boy growing inside her must make the 100-mile journey to Bethlehem, as a result of a census ordered by Caesar. Meanwhile, Herod is troubled by prophesies regarding a king who will rise up against him and three astrologers from Persia are stirred by an aligning of stars and planets, promising the arrival of something, or someone, very special.

*****

Although The Nativity Story received a far from rousing reception on its original release, it cannot be denied that it has an important place in any Christmas Video Vault. After all, this is where it all started, this is why we celebrate this time of the year. But is the film itself any good? In a word, yes.

Although the film is very low-key in its approach (no sky-filling choirs of angels, no rousing set-pieces), this is entirely fitting and the film is stronger for it. Though the events now resonate with eternity spanning significance, at the time Mary was simply an unexpectedly pregnant teenage girl, riding to a census in Bethlehem on the back of a donkey. There is a welcome and involving sense of time and place to the scenes in and around Nazareth and the characters, so well known to us whatever our beliefs about Jesus himself, feel fleshed out and real. The casting is excellent across the board, with talented unknowns and a few bigger names littered across the principals (Ciaran Hinds as Herod, Whale Rider’s Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary, Alexander Siddig as Gabriel) and Catherine Hardwicke’s direction is attentive and considered.

Although everyone knows what is going to happen – no room at the inn, shepherds in the fields, wise men travelling from afar, the flight to Egypt – and correspondingly some dramatic tension is lost as Herod hatches his plan to wipe out the possible challenge to his throne, the story is beautifully presented and carefully and lovingly performed. As Jesus comes into the world and light shines down from heaven through a gap in the wall of the stone-hewn stable, the film becomes affecting and moving as the humility, simplicity and fragility of Jesus is presented front and centre.

This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially if you don’t believe that Jesus is “the reason for the season”, but there is much to enjoy here regardless, especially stand-out performances by Castle-Hughes as Mary and Oscar Isaac (Sucker Punch, Robin Hood, Drive) as Joseph. Try to track it down and remind yourself of why Christmas is celebrated.

All through the marketing campaign for this film I kept my mind open and hopes relatively high. Catherine Hardwicke scolded those who noted the film’s apparent similarities to Twilight, something the trailers and posters played very heavily on, and yet I knew this was a sure fire way of getting people into the cinemas in order, I hoped, to spin us an entertaining yarn based on the enduring fairy tale.

Guess what happened?

It’s Twilight in a red cape with all the subtlety of a wolf bite to the arse, and the emotional complexity of a pantomime dame slipping on a banana skin. I hate reviewing very bad films, and genuinely try to find something positive but the only good note I had was that it looks great, pleasingly side-stepping the Burtonesque shorthand which passes for ‘dark fairy tale’ at the moment. The village and its surrounding landscape gives the right sense of heightened reality with the requisite feeling of isolation. However the film soon falls apart as Hardwicke populates it with a swag bag of clichés and paper thing characters; when Julie Christie and Gary Oldman cannot elevate a film you have problems.

It’s a shame too. Amanda Seyfried, when given more to do than choose between boys, is capable of bringing something complex and seductive to the screen. While Atom Egoyan’s Chloe did often step into a strange self-parodic parallel reality during its running time there were moments when the sexual politics of Seyfried’s titular character were given depth and weight. Not so here, with Wealthy Handsome Mr. Nice going up against   Swarthy Handsome (but Poor) Buck for her affections and those pesky Twilight comparisons are back in force . Couple this arid game of attraction with a lame Whodunnit element and you’ve missed the chance to bring a rendition of the fairy tale, with a far greater and complex exploration of female sexuality (which isn’t hard to imagine).

If the true story of how this film came to the screen ever gets told I wonder if Catherine Hardwicke’s original take differed greatly from what we ended up with. In this interview with our own Ben Mortimer she talks of her extensive research opposing the business of making a film and I wonder if her original intentions were stymied by a studio plumbing new depths of audience underestimation on the promise of another Tween friendly hit.

So, less Company of Wolves, more Company of Idiots. It’s an hour and forty minutes of Tell, Not Show with plot points marked out in huge audience friendly exposition. “Your Mother has what she wants…” Swarthy Handsome  Buck says to Amanda Seyfried, discussing her arranged nuptials to another, “Money,” he continues just in case we were left in any doubt of the black and white nature of the relationships on offer here. Some of the dialogue, no actually – most of the dialogue would have been laughed out of the South Chuffley Brownies’ annual revue for being too childish. Even Gary Oldman, who could belt out endless stanzas of McGonagall and imbue them with feeling and sincerity, is awash in the hysterical inanity of it all. His warrior preacher had, on paper, a decent stab at actual depth of character with a horrific incident in his past turning him onto his current werewolf-hunting path. Sad it is in the extreme then that he is forced to unveil himself like a pantomime villain drunk on theatrics and the burn of the spotlight.

I have no problem with a simple adaptation of the story, indeed the fact that it has been passed down through generations is precisely because it is so simple – with its instructive and instinctive cautionary tale a mainstay of childhood literature, but to make a dull affair is a waste. It’s so damn bloodless.

*~~~~ (1/5)

There is an alternative edit with a few ‘steamy’ scenes added in, and I watched this without having seen the film in its original form. It still wasn’t sexy. There’s also a ‘hidden’ extra in which Hardwicke appears to be auditioning an actor – I won’t spoil it save to say that if you’ve bought this Blu-ray then you deserve the punchline this little skit affords you.

All is very much busy on the remake front with news from Deadline that director Mimi Leder has chosen her next big budget project – a new adaptation of famed World War One novel, All Quiet on the Western Front.

The story (which was turned into a 1930 Oscar-winning film, and remade again as a TV movie in 1979) focuses on a group of German soldiers’ extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and their subsequent feelings of disconnection from society upon returning home after the battles.

Up until she was recently ousted by Catherine Hardwicke with Twilight, Leder was Hollywood’s biggest money-making female director (a title gained via her 1998 meteor disaster epic, Deep Impact). She’s been away from the big screen for a few years now, working in the TV industry (where she first made her name) and she recently directed the season finale of Luck, the forthcoming Michael Mann-produced HBO series that stars Dustin Hoffman.

Catherine Hardwicke, the director previously responsible for adapting Twilight and the Red Riding Hood fairytale for cinema audiences, appears to have taken a hiatus from supernatural teen romances; with the news that she is to adapt Martha O’Connor’s 2006 “The Bitch Posse” demonstrating a greater grounding in reality.

The novel, which follows a trio of high school friends into adulthood, jumping as it does between two different timelines, chronicles the breakdown of friendship that leaves one character in a mental institution, another a promiscuous writer and the third navigating a loveless marriage.

With a script by Tristine Skyler, and entering production under Miranda Bailey and Matthew Leutwyler’s Ambush Entertainment (Super) banner, The Bitch Posse certainly boasts enough angst to keep the Lords of Dogtown director busy.

Deadline had this one first.

Red Riding Hood is coming out at the end of this week, and HeyUGuys recently caught up with the film’s star, Amanda Seyfried to talk about her experience making the film.  During the course of the interview she spoke about the script, her casting, working with Catherine Hardwicke, and how strange it was for her and Gary Oldman to be fighting make believe wolves.

She also mentioned that her favourite directors are David Lynch and Darren Aronofsky, but unfortunately our recording became somewhat garbled in that part (we blame witchcraft), so we can’t give you a full quote, but we wanted to share it with you because it’s such an awesome fact.

On the script

The script was really solid. The whodunit was exciting, because I don’t know anybody who guessed who the wolf was when they read the script. The crew wasn’t able to read past page 80, because we needed to keep it under wraps. And I think we did a good job of doing that, people saw the movie and they had no idea.

It was really well written, I thought. How else are you going to take a small story and put it on the screen in 2011? You have to add romance. You don’t have to, but we were making it for a younger audience, and I believe romance is key. I was really, and truly inspired by love and romance when I was a teen, still am; I love watching love stories.

On  Catherine

She’s crazy. I don’t think we’d have got through the movie if she wasn’t.

She’s a child, she doesn’t lose energy. She never drinks caffeine, she doesn’t eat sugar, it’s just a natural energy she has. It’s very special. It’s tough to make a movie, I don’t know how she does it, but she knew what she wanted, and she’s very confident about that.

On her casting

I knew Catherine wanted me to play Red Riding Hood, which was really flattering. I met with her and she showed me all her ideas on paper, paintings, a short trailer that she had made, music; paintings  her sisters had painted of animals, and paintings of Red Riding Hood in the forest with her cape over her head, and drawings and paintings of what the houses were going to look like, and what the medieval buildings were going to look like, and her idea for what the wolf was. She did a lot of it herself, she’s very talented.

I was completely drawn in. I knew I needed to do it; it’s an iconic character that lives in our psyche, no matter where you’re from. Red Riding Hood, and all of these other fairy tales are part of us. To transform it however, there’s a million ways you could have made Red Riding Hood, this is just one. It’s special in its own way, and I’m proud of it. It was really fun.

On the shoot

Nobody really felt we were given enough days for this movie. The budget was smaller than we would have liked because we needed those extra days. We were kind of rushing by every day, but we got it.

On how she Gary Oldman, fighting a pretend wolf and making a period film

I think Gary and I had the hardest task, because we had to fight and imagine there was this wolf there, and there wasn’t, so it was lots of yelling. I know he felt ridiculous at times, and so did I. So did everybody at a point, because there was so much going on all the time: horses and stunt people and flying and fake snow. He was just a really good energy to have around you.

We had a great cast, and the day Gary Oldman left it was a sad, sad day. We got on, and we pulled through , and it was very exciting because we were on a medieval set. It’s the first period movie I’ve ever done, it was so cool; getting in that costume every day really does change things a little.

There is, I am sure, an audience for Red Riding Hood. My best guess is that it is made up of the same hormonal teenage girls, and depressed, middle aged women who are responsible for the Twilight franchise taking nearly two billion dollars at the box office. If you recognise yourself in this description, you won’t be disappointed. By anything. Ever.

Like Twilight the film contains identikit, charisma-less, clothes horses mouthing their way through awful dialogue, and failing to create anything resembling sexual tension, so book your tickets now. And while you’re at it, probably best to pre-order the DVD, and make some ‘team Henry’ T-shirts as well.

More to the point, if you fit this description, you probably won’t want to read this review. I’m going to say some pretty nasty things about the film, and I’m going to spoil the ‘surprise twist’, so look away now.

That means spoilers if you carry on so only read on if you dare!

Still with me?

Good.

Red Riding Hood is rubbish. It’s badly written, it’s stupid, and it’s lazy, lowest common denominator filmmaking at its worst, on a par with anything Michael Bay has churned out recently. Still, it’s not actually bad. If it were, it would almost be excusable. It would certainly provide some camp enjoyment. Instead it’s simply, unrelentingly bland. The cinematic equivalent of eating a bowl of Corn Flakes, in a room with magnolia walls while listening to James Blunt*. An utter waste of time, money and effort.

We could have had an exceptional film, or at least an entertaining one. The high concept is intriguing enough: the story of a girl on the verge of womanhood, who confronts a beast from within her community, while also confronting her own sexual desires. This idea, which we were actually sold in the trailers, could well have been a modern take on The Company of Wolves.

Instead we got chaste sexual fantasies for people who never have sex, played out by robots with hair that’s been gelled to within an inch of its life.

Actually, I’m being entirely unfair to the cast. While none of them are going to win an Oscar for their performances, they do the best they possibly can with the material at hand. Gary Oldman in particular tries desperately to make the film enjoyable, as does Michael Hogan, who is essentially playing Battlestar Galactica’s Col. Tigh, but is at least having some fun while he does so.

There are elements of the film that are vaguely interesting: The mystery surrounding the identity of the werewolf; the isolated community, beset by monsters; the troubled adolescent girl, at war with those around her. Yet not one of these manages to hook the audience. It’s true none of these are new ideas, and each has been done better by other films, Company of Wolves, Ravenous and Ginger Snaps spring to mind,  but they really shouldn’t have fallen as flat as they did.

The one remotely original idea was that the Oldman’s character, a hunter of werewolves brought in to save the village, is actually a much greater threat than the wolf itself. Indeed, this alone could have been the basis of an engaging, intelligent film. Unfortunately, with any sort of edge the movie may have had dulled, and with an emphasis on the ‘love’ triangle between the film’s leads, this is relegated to a sub-plot that never quite works.

And it’s far from the only idea that doesn’t work. One plot strand involves the paternity of Valerie’s sister. As it turns out, her mother is the village bicycle, and she is revealed to be the accidentally incestuous, half-sister of Max Iron’s Henry. We also have several contenders for village idiot, who aren’t so much characters as walking, dribbling plot devices, and Valerie’s mother, who insists that Valerie marries the son of the wealthiest man in the village**, having inexplicably not married his father twenty years before hand.

It may well be that somewhere on a cutting room floor are the other strands of these plots, that make them fit together, and allow them to make sense. It’s probably not the case, but you never know.

And then there’s the ‘twist’ ending.

The wolf is her father.

To comprehend how stupid this is, you would have to see the film. As a rough guide though, it is vaguely analogous to me showing you a line up of possible murder suspects, and then revealing to you that it was committed by the pot plant in the corner. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Consequently, when it comes to light, we get ten minutes of ridiculous exposition trying to justify the development, rather than a neat recap of cleverly laid plot threads one would expect from a big reveal.

There’s more to say about the film. About how cheap it feels, about Hardwicke’s hit-and-miss direction. About the member of Gary Oldman’s retinue who should be significant because he’s the only one who wears a helmet throughout, but turns out to be utterly irrelevant. About the message this sends to teenage girls about what they should expect out of life. About the ropey CGI wolf. About everything, but it doesn’t deserve it.

Don’t see this movie.

*~~~~ (1/5) – and that’s for the soundtrack.

*Actually, that’s unfair. I’ve implied that the soundtrack is middle of the road, easy listening music. It isn’t. Instead it’s actually very good, featuring a score that is clearly inspired by the Ravenous soundtrack, and a number of pumping electro-pop tunes by Fever Ray, aka ‘that girl from The Knife’.

**Don’t get too excited. It seems that the only thing that sets him apart as more wealthy than anyone else is the ability to make crap jewellery and to be played by a man who was once on Stargate: SG1

To celebrate the release of Red Riding Hood in cinemas on April 15, we are offering one lucky reader the chance to win a Red Riding Hood cape and goody bag.  Four runners up will also receive a goody bag!

Synopsis: Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a beautiful young woman torn between two men. She is in love with a brooding outsider Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have arranged for her to marry the wealthy Henry (Max Irons). Unwilling to lose each other, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they learn that Valerie’s older sister has been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village. For years, the people have maintained an uneasy truce with the beast, offering the creature a monthly animal sacrifice. But under a blood red moon, the wolf has upped the stakes by taking a human life. Hungry for revenge, the people call on famed werewolf hunter, Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), to help them kill the wolf. But Solomon’s arrival brings unintended consequences as he warns that the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them. As the death toll rises with each moon, Valerie begins to suspect that the werewolf could be someone she loves. Panic grips the town as Valerie discovers that she has a unique connection to the beast-one that inexorably draws them together, making her both suspect…and bait.

To be in with a chance of winning this great prize, all you need to do is answer the following question using the form below:

Red Riding Hood was shot at this location, which also happens to be where co-star Michael Shanks was born. Name the location.

1. Vancouver
2. New York
3. San Francisco

For more information on Red Riding Hood please visit the official website here www.redridinghoodmovie.co.uk

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 15th April 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

© 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment All Rights Reserved

In cinemas April 15

It’s hard to know exactly where Catherine Hardwicke is pitching her telling of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. The spectre of Twilight hovers over the trailers and posters and is an easy target, but if you’re selling your ‘twisted’ fairy tale to an audience it makes sense to play on the similarities. I still hold out the slightest hope that there’s something more here.

W Magazine stepped on the Vancouver set a while ago to talk all things Grimm and while there they took a few pictures, one of which gives hungry Hoodies a look at Julie Christie as the Grandmother and her enormous house.

Hardwicke explains herself and her story,

[T]he embattled Red (aka Valerie) is caught up in a love triangle with her betrothed, Henry (Max Irons, Jeremy’s son), the scion of a wealthy family, and her purported soulmate, the brooding drifter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez).

The big bad wolf has also been updated, taking the form of a werewolf that lurks in the woods by moonlight and walks undetected about town by day. However, the film’s central drama, says Hardwicke, is Valerie’s coming-of-age—a topic with which the director is intimately familiar, having helmed the first Twilight movie and 2003’s haunting Thirteen.

“If you do the right thing all the time, you won’t learn,” she says. “That’s why characters in fairy tales do the wrong thing. Really, the moral is, Don’t listen to your parents.”

Here are the two pics, there is another over at the site, but it’s just Amanda Seyfried and Shiloh Fernandez having a nosh*,

*Nosh is British for ‘eating’.

This is the one you Red Riding Hood marketing completists have been waiting for – Russia’s own poster for the Catherine Hardwicke film. We are so good to you.

Amanda Seyfried leads the Hardwicke film and stars alongside with Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks and Luke Haas – personally I’m only in it for Goldman (which is what my sleep deprived brain turned Gary Oldman’s name into – I’ve decided not to correct it in the hope that it catches on).

I’m sure that if you cared to, you could read something very insightful into each country’s specific variant poster for the film, something about the role of folklore in each society and how fear, innocence and the allure of such is conveyed and represented, then used to sell tickets to a movie most people are saying is Twilight with a cape. Or not. It’s up to you.

Here’s Russia’s version all the way from Shockya, tomorrow it’s Bulgaria’s turn*.

*Probably, hopefully not.

Getting in ahead of the numerous fairy tale inspired films coming our way is Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, and if the previous clips, trailers and assorted imagery haven’t convinced you then why not take some time with these new offerings?

Amanda Seyfried looks more than a little unhinged in this new Spanish poster, though it’s hard to deny she can walk the line between innocence and brain pounding crazy very well, Atom Egoyan’s Chloe forces itself upon me as an example of this.

Personally I’m looking forward to this one despite the tired, yet entirely justified given what we’ve seen so far, comparisons to Twilight.

Here’s all a handy link to all the Red Riding Hood goodies released so far, then the new poster, then the TV spots. Bet you can’t believe your luck.

To get all sourcey for a moment, the poster came from IMPA and the clips from Bloody Disgusting.

Warner Bros. Pictures, have released a brand new Red Riding Hood trailer, a re-imagining of the folk tale Little Red Riding Hood.

Red Riding Hood is directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) and stars Amanda Seyfried, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks, Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez.

Valerie (Seyfried) is a beautiful young woman torn between two men. She is in love with a brooding outsider, Peter (Fernandez), but her parents have arranged for her to marry the wealthy Henry (Irons). Unwilling to lose each other, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they learn that Valerie’s older sister has been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village. For years, the people have maintained an uneasy truce with the beast, offering the creature a monthly animal sacrifice. But under a blood red moon, the wolf has upped the stakes by taking a human life. Hungry for revenge, the people call on famed werewolf hunter, Father Solomon (Oldman), to help them kill the wolf. But Solomon’s arrival brings unintended consequences as he warns that the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them. As the death toll rises with each moon…

The film will be released in the UK on April 15.

Another poster has been unveiled for Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood.

A recent trailer played up the romantic elements and while the Twilight connection of Hardwicke are being promoted to sell the film I’m hoping there’s more to this film then meets the eye.

According to this new poster Red Riding Hood is a breathtaking vision of the fairy tale and stars Amanda Seyfried, Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks and Luke Haas.

Look below for the poster, give it a click if the mood takes you,

Coming Soon told this tale first.

More images spill forth from Catherine Hardwicke’s telling of Red Riding Hood, and our heroine, played by Amanda Seyfried, is both front and centre.

A few weeks ago we enjoyed the first trailer for the film and while these new images don’t offer much more of an insight we do know that there’s some kissing near a fire and a man drinking a lot in the background of one scene.

Along with Seyfried the film stars Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks and Luke Haas and why they don’t tease us with images of Oldman clad in his purple robes I don’t know. Maybe they’re saving that for the next trailer?

Here are the pictures, each clickable.

ShockYa did indeed with these pics.

These pictures from Catherine Hardwicke’s retelling of the enduring tale of Red Riding Hood aren’t new, but neither are they scanned from the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, so you can enjoy them in a decent resolution now.

The trailer and poster were released recently and there is something striking about the vivid red of the titular garment against the snow, and as the writer of last year’s nicely dubious horror Orphan is behind this adaptation I’m hoping that we’ll see something a little deeper than those who decried the trailer expect.

Bloody-Disgusting got their paws and watermarks on these images and despite the reaction to the aforementioned trailer I’m looking forward to checking this one out when it hits on the 15th of April. Seriously – who wouldn’t want to see Gary Oldman looking like this?

Here are the two pics in the shiniest of resolutions so get clicking hi-res fans,

And no mention of the ‘T’ word either.

Barely a few days after we had our first glimpse of Amanda Seyfried in the title role of Catherine Hardwicke’s take on the story of Red Riding Hood we are graced with the presence of the first trailer and poster to emerge.

It’s not exactly what I expected, although Gary Oldman looks the spirit of dapper and Amanda Seyfried does wide eyed well. There’s a decent looking film here, I just wonder how far the shadow of Twilight falls.

The supporting cast includes Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks and Luke Haas and the film is due out next March.

See it below or in HD at Apple, but check it out in as high a resolution as you can.

Here’s the poster.

In their latest issue, Entertainment Weekly have scored the first two official stills from Dark Castle Entertainment’s Red Riding Hood.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight), from a script by David Johnson (Orphan), Red Riding Hood stars Amanda Seyfried, Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Michael Shanks and Luke Haas.

Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl (Seyfried) falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family’s displeasure.

Warner Bros. will release Red Riding Hood on March 11, 2011.

Check out the first two stills below, courtesy of Shocktillyoudrop:

Dakota Fanning recently made us all feel old when she took on a role in The Runaways, and her turn in the various Twilight films clearly impressed Summit so much that she is in talks with the studio to star in a supernatural drama

Variety have this as a synopsis,

Story revolves around a musician, who’d be played by Fanning, and her boyfriend, a rising star in the indie rock world. Already faced with a choice between her art and her relationship, she is forced to make a harder choice between life and death after being involved in a fatal car accident.

Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia, whose 2009 film À Deriva played well at Cannes last year, took the reins from original Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke who has a date in the woods with Red Riding Hood, and will be directing the Shauna Cross script, adapted from Gayle Forman’s novel.

Speaking to ScreenCrave Whip It screenwriter Cross had this to say of the project,

I’m adapting a book that’s called “If I Stay”…and we’re just about to get it cast. It’s a pretty special little project. It’s kind of… there’s a anedge to it, and it’s funny, but it’s heartbreaking and it’s a little Lovely Bones-esq.

There’s definitely a lot of humor in there but it’s definitely more dramatic than I’ve been before. It’s been an amazing experience, it’s an incredible story.

Then offered her take on the story,

It sounds kind of odd but basically it’s about a young women who gets in a terrible car accident with her family and it follows the 24 hours of her, outside of her body in a coma, that she sort of looks out at her life and sees the fall out that happens to everyone in the car accident and she basically has a choice of whether to live or die given the tragedy.

The thing is — and it sounds so intense and crazy — but the real story and what’s all inbetween is the most crazy and incredible — her parents are these punk rock bad-asses that she’s in the car with and it’s kind of a really fun, offbeat family in the middle of this insanity.

Sounds good right? Yes, I’m ignoring the bit about it being like The Lovely Bones.

Having directed Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown and then the first installment of the Twilight franchise, Catherine Hardwicke then signed on for an adaptation of Red Riding Hood.

We reported here that Amanda Seyfried was to play Red Riding Hood herself and now Accidental Sexiness have put up a whole bunch of on-set stills, showing the principal cast in all of its costumed glory.

Hardwicke will work from a script by David Johnson (who wrote last year’s Orphan) which leaves the story in its medieval setting, but now revolves around a village being terrorised by a werewolf, with Red Riding Hood falling for an orphaned woodcutter.

We have shots below of some of the main players, including Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Lukas Haas and Virginia Madsen. Julie Christie and Michael Shanks round out the principal cast. You can follow the link above to see the rest of the extensive set of snaps. The film might be called Little Red Riding Hood, Red Riding Hood or The Girl With The Riding Hood. We’ll let you know. Thanks to Screen Rant for the heads up on this.

With New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight saga, on its way to our cinema screens (you may have seen that HeyUGuys has gone a little Twilight-crazy over the last few weeks…) HUG writer Kelly Alyse has taken a look at the first movie Twilight to see why we’ve become so obsessed by the story of this unusual couple.

For a start they are the essence of cool. When you watch Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in an interview, they’re very laid back and calm. But their relationship in the film is anything but. Director Catherine Hardwicke needed to cast the perfect couple, and you’re intrigued by them from the very first instant you see them.

On first setting eyes on Edward Bella asks the question “˜Who’s he?’, from that  moment we also want to know the answer. Hardwicke uses a close-up of Bella’s face, as the music becomes a lot more intense when Edward walks into the room. The tension builds as there is a mid-shot of Edward’s pale yet perfect body, then there is a tracking shot of Edward’s face to see every reaction possible. We’re not given a moment to rest and there is a gently released close-up on each of their faces. It’s a good job they’re pretty with all these close-ups…

The couple are also placed in a lot of dimly lit situations, which are normally quite romantic; as in the restaurant or on the stand filled with fairy lights at the prom. It creates an idealistic view that every girl wants ““ to be wined and dined by a mysterious, romantic man (well, vampire…). There is a particular scene which is completely captivating, the famous first kiss scene in Bella’s bedroom. The camera remains static on a close-up two shot of both their faces. They gradually begin to get closer, and without any music to distract you from the situation you’re only focused around the action about to take place. When their lips finally meet it is passionate and exciting. But suddenly we’re taken away from it by Edward flying backwards. It basically just leaves you wanting more.

The banter between the two is great. “˜Your mood swings are kinda giving me whiplash’ or “˜so the lion fell in love with the lamb’ are just two of the great quotes this film has created. And with the passionate tone apparently continuing through the second installment, we’re bound to be quoting this film for another year until we’re given Eclipse, the penultimate movie in the series.