■ Byzantium
Byzantium is a neatly drawn, elegantly filmed contemporary Gothic story with long, twisted roots. Director Neil Jordan had dramatized the undead before (Interview with a Vampire). Here, the story centers around mother-daughter vampires on the run (for centuries) from the Brotherhood, a particularly sinister band of male chauvinists. Along with the usual meditation on life and afterlife, Byzantium examines male-female power relations in a fantastic context.
■ Resolution
Michael is a smug young professional determined to redeem his old friend Chris from crank addiction. But tough love and cold turkey in the rural squalor of a desert Indian reservation turns toward the uncanny in this remarkable horror film by newcomers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. Channeling Dennis Hopper, Chris gets the best lines, but the real action builds in increasingly odd, inexplicable occurrences pointing to archetypal mysteries of the human experience.
■ “Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan: Deadliest Critters”
Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings) plays the gnarly hiker in this BBC wildlife series with its own twist (or stinger?). Edited in ADD fashion, Monaghan jumps to remote places in search of dangerous animals—venomous snakes, poisonous spiders, leaping lizards, rambunctious reptiles—and the cameras get up close and personal to the beasties. Many of these creatures are exceptionally rare—and we should be glad for not having many opportunities to meet them!
TAGS: Byzantium, Neil Jordan, Interview with a Vampire, Resolution, Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan: Deadliest Critters, Dominic Monaghan, David Luhrssen
