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I watched the 1992 version of Dracula.  Not going to lie, I’m disappointed.

I should have known better.  Vampires have gotten worse year by year since the damn book was written.  I’ve never seen Nosferatu, but it was supposedly fair.  The Bela Legosi version is the classic that ‘created’ the vampire, and since then a few dozen movies, mostly of terrible quality, have solidified the quintessential, archetypal, infinitely cliche vampire.

Anne Rice ran with the idea and made a twisted cross between Bram Stoker, Lovecraft, and cheap fantasy.  Still, she probably created the best vampire beyond Stoker himself.Since then, vampires have apparently become impotent effeminate soap opera wood.  It’s a terrible fate for a creature, a character, that feels like it should have a much more profound life.

It was my fervent hope that Francis Ford Coppola’s version of the Dracula legend would get it right.  Maybe it’s dated, maybe it just didn’t click.  One way another I finished the movie feeling that it was hit everything at a 45 degree angle.  It had so many things right and so many things unforgivably botched.

Easy criticism: Keenu Reeves should never act.  East Response: Gary Oldman should have a part in everything.

Beyond the casting and the now-hokey visuals, my criticism is really with the plot.  It started off brilliantly.  Vlad went to the crusades to defend the church and came home to a dead wife, dead and damned from suicide.  I think there was room to explore the back story more, but the initial scene is probably the best in the whole movie.  Seeing the Vlad storm out of a bloody alter captures the quintessential curse of the vampires.

From there the plot can’t decide what it wants to follow.  It bounces from a burlesque horror in Transylvania, a comedy of manners in England, an adventure film, and a goofy action flick without really concentrating on any one of them.  Why did Dracula go to England?  The reason was to find Mina, his wife reborn.  That is clarified later, but given that’s the main inspiration for all the plot that  follows, it seems that angle needed to be emphasized instead of an obscure (and itself poorly narrated) real estate deal in England, that obviously preceded the film, as concerned by Renfield’s subplot.  Why did he need land in England if he didn’t know about Mina yet?  Who knows?

Renfeld was excellent, both visually and in direction.  They might have said why exactly he became the vampire’s servant, or explained why his struggle only seemed to start in the last thirty minutes, but he emphasized better than any other character (Helsing included) the power of the vampire.

The scenes with Lucy are also powerful.  They suffer from age and a certain lack of subtlety, but the Victorian eroticism is played with nicely.  England was a good mixture of modern and stately, seedy and mysterious.  It is a suitable haunt for the vampire once he arrives, but then he ruins it by jumping through nonsense montages.

What I’m really getting at is that the quintessence of Dracula was never really touched upon.  The first half of the film focused on a rare sense of eroticism that was never explained or explored.  Did Lucy fall for Dracula due to her promiscuity?  Presumably, but if that’s true than you can’t blame it on a dream later.  If her actions are responsible for her date than she must make her choices unhindered and with full cognizance.  The book managed this, but the film botched it.

The second half of the film spends too much time letting Anthony Hopkins chew the screen as Van Helsing.  Van Helsing is an awkward character either way.  He is an expert on Dracula and too many shades a double of Sherlock Holmes.  If Dracula is truly this absolute horror than having Van Helsing as a fearless knight ruins the whole creation.  Van Helsing, at best, can be a knowledgeable book expert who is faced with something far beyond his capability.  That scenario preserves the vampire’s mortal horror and gives the quest an emotional tension that cannot be grasped otherwise.

In reality, the real exploration needs to be of the vampire himself.  Many films have concentrated on vampires who must have flesh, but are equally repulsed by what they have become.  That is one angle, but I prefer the vampire who either wishes to freely grant his gift to those who would have it, a seductive vampire who has no need of force or especial guile.  Alternatively, the damned vampire is adequate, though harder, I would think, to capture.  The damned vampire is one who has come to his fate through crimes that could not be punished through death alone.  This is Satan as a vampire, a creature who suffers for their own pride.  This is the vampire that may be destroyed by love, ala Nosferatu.  The seductive vampire’s destruction is really only satisfactory through starvation.  If his victims can be convinced his gift is not worth having than the vampire has been rendered dust.

That is my mind on the matter.  The imagery was so great and Dracula, the film, tried to hit so many elements, but I found it lacking through and through.  With such a powerful character and such a vibrant story, I genuinely hope this recent fad of androgynous boy-thing vampires goes away.  It is a sad fate for the children of the night. What sweet music they might make…

Christmas Eve: Moon

Day After Christmas: District 9.

District 9 is another science fiction movie that I let fall off the radar. On at least three separate occasions I almost might have seen it. After striking out, I let it fall by the wayside.

It’s a gruesome bit of work, but probably the most intelligent ‘alien’ film to come…ever? It’s certainly a far cry from Independence Day, Men in Black (the first was actually somewhat clever), or the wretched Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds.

District 9 is a ‘documentary film’. It follows Wikus van de Merwe, a low-level beurocrat responsible for moving a prison camp of aliens, called prawns, from one district to another. Twenty years prior the alien invaders landed above Johannesburg, South Africa. They were removed from their floating spacecraft and placed in camps, which have become crime-filled and unruly.

District 9 is as much a criticism of privatization and apartheid as it is an ‘alien’ film. It is an immensely difficult film to watch, but for all the right reasons. Wikus van de Merwe has his life thrown to pieces over the course of a short, but frenziedly two hours. It is bloody and gruesome, but its one of the few films where I think that gore is actually necessary. It makes Wikus’ trials all the more powerful and the conclusion that much more relevant.

Again, I want to avoid giving away too much, but it’s not an invasion film, it’s not gun-porn, it’s not a touchy-feely allegory, or an action film. It is a film with aliens, but it is not a film about aliens. The closest approximation would be a film about humans might treat aliens, or really how we treat anyone, ourselves included.

For being a fairly low budget affair, the imagery is phenomenal. The spaceship…looks like a spaceship. The aliens are slightly, ever so slightly, cartoonish, but only a little bit. The characters beyond Wikus don’t have much screen time and they’re all basically heartless bastards, but anything more complex in the way of villainy would have required a novel, not a film.

It’s a film supposedly awaiting a sequel, but it I’m not sure it’s necessary. It’s poignant and startling, similar to Moon in that regard, and another title on my list of Science Fiction movies that aren’t trash.

When did science fiction movies get to be good? Between a Star Trek movie that might as well have been an action thriller, a wave of shoddy, childish Star Wars films, and the assorted dystopian joke-film (read Matrix 2 and 3), I’ve always felt that Science Fiction and Film were too dangerous to mix. Older movies like Logan’s Run were almost good, but either dated themselves very quickly or were just silly to begin with.

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones (David Bowie’s son), is excellent. It’s not kind of good. It’s really good. Good length (hour and a half), good acting, gorgeous, engaging, thought-provoking. Slowly paced, but never boring. Very subtle at times, never too heavy-handed. It’s probably the best film I’ve seen this year.

Sam Rockwell (I know him as Zaphod from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) plays Sam Bell, a solitary technician on a Helium 3 mining station on the Moon. His three year mission is to maintain the station and then go home to his wife and kid. He’s joined by a robot (voiced by Kevin Spacey I think) who helps out with chores around the station.

The film’s beauty comes from the moon and the station itself. Sleek, futuristic decorations correspond nicely against the sheer, lifelessness of the Lunar surface. The rocks between tossed up by the helium miners is just perfect.

I won’t give the story away but Sam Bell gets twice the screen time of most lead characters. *Wink *Wink. The ending is both happy, sad, and intelligent, perhaps the rarest thing of all, science fiction movie, or otherwise. Sadly, Moon was a limited release, but it’s on DVD now. Pick it up.

I finally got around to watching The Queen. It follows the Royal Family and newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair as they deal with the after math of Princess Diana’s death.

The Queen’s reluctance to engage the media was apparently a rather large story in England. Over here, I don’t recall it being much of a story. It’s an interesting drama though.

The royalty, with a thousand years of precedent and tradition, isn’t often forced to deal with a new phenomenon. The benefit of having royalty is that it puts some institution beyond politics. A president may ‘lie!’ and a Prime Minister may have to defend himself during PMQs, but the Queen is above it all. It’s idealistic and abstract, but I can see why England keeps it.

How then, should royalty respond when one of their former members dies tragically. If Lady Diana had been hated than it would have slipped by quietly, but she was quiet beloved. Her death then becomes an issue of state. The royalty is bound to honor it in some manner simply because the nation grieves as well and they must join.

The acting if phenomenal and they all pretty much look like their counterparts. The scenery is also excellent. Balmoral Castle, the royal vacation estate, is suitably gorgeous for the Royal Family.

All in all, a most fascinating film telling a story that just never drifted my way previously.  Worth picking up or renting!

I don’t think it’s released in the US yet, so I’m not going to review it.  It’s a fun film, but the cut I saw was very long (nearing 3 hours).  I believe the American Name is ‘Pirate Radio’.  Enjoy!

Bad name, but a good movie.  If the name doesn’t ring any bells it’s because it hasn’t been in theatres for 50 something years.  I’m not quite sure how I even came on to it, but it is a good find.

The Big Combo is an old film noir from the mid 50s.  It’s one of those black and white detective films that were all loosely based on the hard-boiled fiction of the 30s and 40s ala Dashiell Hammett.  It’s similar to The Maltese Falcon, but not quite as famous and lacking a certain Mr. Bogart.

It’s a good film though.  The story has some holes in it and the romance is pretty ridiculous, but the imagery is great.  Dark hallways, lots of shadows.  The detective in this case is Police Lt. Leonard Diamond who is trying to break the back of the local Mob syndicate, called The Combination, led by Mr. Brown.  Mr. Brown chews the scenery for an hour and a half, foiling our good detective’s attempts at breaking the mob.  Mr. Brown’s girlfriend, Susan Lowell, however provides a crack in his organization… A side plot has Mr. Brown’s assistant, Joe McClure, a former leader, trying to reclaim control of the Combination.  That, of course, doesn’t end well.

A lot of older films come off poorly.  Either the dialog is stale, the plot too reliant on unrealistic humanity, or the look is just terrible.  Big Combo manages to sidestep that.  The imagery is gorgeous.  Everything is too dark to look fake.  The plot is actually quite brutal.  There’s no helpful neighbor showing up with a solution at the last minute.  As for the dialog,  it’s hard-boiled fiction.  A lot of one-liners, a lot of glares, not much narration.  The whole thing times out around 80 something minutes so it wraps up nice and quickly.

Considering that the theatres are showing off a handful of sequels and bland teen films this week (every week), I was happy to find something a bit more engrossing for my evening entertainment.

The cast of HBO’s Game of Thrones!  Perfect casting by the looks of it, but where are the other Baratheon brothers? And Melisandre?  And Petyr Baelish?

Very exciting!

Favorite Living Author George RR Martin has been announcing the new casting in the HBO series A Game of Thrones.  This week has had some great casting.  Instead of trying to hijack his words, let me just point you to the relevant posts on his blog:

Ian Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont

Tamzin Merchant as  Daenerys Targaryen (Great Great Casting!)

Richard Maddenas Robb Stark

Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner as Ayra and Sansa Stark

Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister

This new folks join Sean Bean as Eddard Stark, Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn Stark, and Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister.

Good Stuff!

I watched Brazil this weekend.  I’m not going to review it, but wow, it’s a weird one.  It was directed by Terry Gillian (of Monty Python fame) so I guess I shouldn’t been surprised, but it’s a strange strange movie, sort of a cross between 1984 and Alice in Wonderland (And it has Robert de Nero as a commando plumber?).  One of these days I need to pick up The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. (also Terry Gillian).

I finally got around to seeing Kingdom of Heaven. (The director’s cut, for those keeping score.)

And, well, what is there to say? It wasn’t awful by any means, although it suffered greatly from the usual Hollywood tropes.

Balain of Ibalin, played by quiet, distinctly not-medieval Orlando Bloom, is a blacksmith in France. His previously unknown father shows up to take him on a crusader adventure to Jersusalem around the era of the 2nd Crusade. At first he declines, but his brother prods him about his dead wife. After throwing the priest into the fire he finds Liam Neeson and begins his hero quest into the bowls of crusader Europe.

Liam Neeson kept the beginning from being too boring and he hass had enough practice being the mentor (Cough, Batman, Cough) that it carried admirably. The whole ‘Ibalin needs forgiveness’ theme got old quick and tends to fall apart as soon as you have a knight hacking people apart, but trying to protect the muslims. Either he’s a crusader killing for glory and heaven or he’s not. Only in Hollywood is the perfect knight a butcher and a race-blind saint.

Jeremy Irons, always a pleasure to watch, didn’t get a lot of face time, but he had the honor of introducing the political and social issues, which they managed to depict more astutely than expected. Baldwin the King of Jerusalem has leprosy, there’s a tenuous peace between the Christians and the Muslims, the knights templars led by Guy of Lusignan (Marton Csokas) and Raynald of Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson) are causing problems. The doubtful and adolescent heir of Princess Sibylla (the ever gorgeous Eva Green), puts the whole kingdom in a precarious state of near chaos.

Enter Orlando Bloom, now as a crusader champion. He takes command of his father’s estate (Liam Neeson), managsto miraculously turn it into a thriving barony complete with small children playing in the newly dug irrigation ditches. Apparently everyone else who lived there for thousands of years forgot how to dig a well.

The ending is held together by the historical politics, which make for a rousing tale of crusader glory, Saladin’s respectful and pious heroics, and the turbulance of the household. Unfortunately, instead of letting the story tell itself, good ol Balin has to make everyone a knight and save Jerusalem. He negotiates a safe end to the crusader kingdom and finds inner peace, but only after slaying twice the population of Antioch in a final siege that stands as an admirable battle scene, but a rather silly note in Ibalin’s story.

The whole things wraps together with Balain going back home to france with Eva Green (apparently, he’s not wanted for murder anymore?) and shrugging off King Richard the Lionhearted who gets a cameo.

Overall I enjoyed the movie. I’m well aware that it is getting on four years old now, but it hadn’t passed by me yet. Seeing Jerusalem in its crusader glory was worth the wait and it is certainly a very pretty movie. They even managed to court the political nuances of the age without dropping too much.

My only complaint is the main character. If they’d stayed true to the time, Ibalin would have been a heroic knight and soldier, and even courteous with the muslim factions, but not nearly as tolerant and ‘modern’ as they made him. His return home would have been as an exhausted crusader warrior, not as a newly absolved lover ready to start a new life. The speeches about finding forgiveness in the holy land fell pretty flat and were entirely unnecessary. The drama of the age and of the personalities was more than enough to tell a good story. Throwing in the usual Hollywood niceties of the hero getting the girl, learning a lesson, and living happily ever after just dumbs down the whole affair.

Still, it’s a good flick. The director’s cut was three hours, so a bit long, but it has an intermission. Worth watching on DVD if you’re bored and want to see the crusaders on film.