BRIGHT STAR

They say to fully appreciate beauty you have to experience the grotesque. Director Jane Campion, the only woman to ever win the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, gives us a heavy dose of both.

“Bright Star” is based on the relationship between Romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, played respectively by Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish. It is set in 1818, two years before Keats’ death.

Keats lives with fellow poet Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) who watches over him like a Rottweiler. Brown eventually rents out half of his home to the Brawne family. The flirtation between Keats and Fanny is apparent before she, her widowed mother and her siblings move in.

Fanny comes across as uneducated but, like most of Campion’s female leads, she is confident and incredibly witty, almost to a fault. She designs clothes and hats, sews them herself and acknowledges she has a skill that can earn her a living.

First love is strong – and for 18-year-old Fanny, who is undoubtedly the center of the film, it is unforgiving. Keats is without the means to marry Fanny, but in one of the most touching scenes, Fanny reminds her mother that she taught her to love regardless of wealth.

Just as Keats and Fanny are unofficially engaged and Keats’ second book of poetry is printed, Keats gets tuberculosis. His friends and doctor decide he will not survive another winter in England. They raise the money to send Keats to Italy for the winter, leaving him and Fanny with only a few precious months together before the leaves change color.

The landscapes are gorgeous; they seem straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Greig Fraser is an incredibly promising cinematographer and Campion, billed as both the writer and director, turns out another love story that spurs tears and laughter. Cornish played the complex Fanny, the anti-Jane Austen heroine, with convincing passion and innocence, but it is Paul Schneider who delivers the film’s best performance as the jealous and brash Charles Brown. Whishaw doesn’t shine in his role. Keats was known to be passionate and depressed; Mr. Whishaw plays a very flat character. Even when enraged, he is utterly unconvincing.

VERDICT: This movie will leave you in tears, but it’s also a stunning love story. In that sense, it’s very much like a Keats poem.

- Paige Parker

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

Everybody’s heard that bump in their attic that leaves them shaking in their sheets. But after this flick, it won’t take much of anything to make you want to flash the lights on just to make sure.

“Paranormal Activity” is the new, Paramount Pictures-backed horror flick that has had the Internet in a tizzy for months. The basic story: Cute, 20-something couple, Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston), have just moved into a new home and are experiencing some mildly freaky nighttime incidents. Micah buys a high-definition camera to try and document their troubles, which really pisses off their ghoulish roommate.

The film is shot in the tradition of “The Blair Witch Project,” but this crew has wisely learned from the shaky, nausea-inducing style of the former. The actual footage, for the most part, is shot from a tripod, so vomiting from the camera movement will be the least of your worries.

Put plainly, this movie was very scary – and this is coming from a guy who generally thinks horror movies are dumb. With this film, though, it hits on a couple things that really intensify the “freaked out in bed at night” factor.

Most of the movie occurs in the couple’s bedroom at night while they’re sleeping, so viewers can’t really say, “Hey, you guys are dumb for being there, you deserve it.”

And since the “monster” is not something the characters can run from or defend themselves against, viewers can’t really laugh at the characters. The filmmakers chose several tools they utilized well: the feelings of vulnerability, discomfort and terror all inside the one place that should be sacred (one’s home) are powerful and unsettling.

The film’s footage is supposedly found after the couple’s experience, and the filmmakers stick to that all the way to the end with the complete lack of credits. The film ends with a brief disclaimer, then blackness. Also, there is no soundtrack other than ghostly, footless stomping and the couple’s screams.

There is no hiding from the fear behind silly CGI monsters or signals from the music that you can unclench your eyes; it’s all just there before you. Even the actors used their real names and have starred in exactly zero pictures before this one. It wouldn’t be nearly as effective if Shia LaBeouf were there to remind you that “Transformers 8″ is out next month.

This project didn’t invent all of these cool ways to make a great horror movie, but it used them better then any other film. Even the promotional campaign utilized the “Blair Witch” method of grassroots, word-of-mouth advertising, except “Paranormal Activity” took advantage of the Internet. It opened in 200 theaters and spread around the country by allowing viewers to vote for it online.

Sadly, “Paranormal Activity 2″ has already been announced, and that has ruined the wonderful mystery that makes this film so interesting and horrifying.

VERDICT: “Paranormal Activity” will get your heart beating quickly every time you turn out the lights for at least a few days. A must-see for every horror-loving sadist.

- Chris Miller