Reaction Shots

Dear god almighty. This was dire. A film based on script by Ed Wood, Jr., the great auteur of Plan 9 from Outer Space , Glen or Glenda , and one of my favorites, Jail Bait , that really, really needed his direction. That, friends, is dire. There’s diddly to say about it, except that on the good side, it does have Criswell turning in a performance almost as good as his Plan 9 run. It has Pat Barrington, a well regarded (maybe?) burlesque and topless dancer, doing double duty as the female lead and as one of the dancers in the vignettes. And maybe, a nod should be given in the direction of Fawn Silver as “The Black Ghoul", a knock-off Vampira in a role written for Maila Nurmi, the actual Vampira, but who had schedule conflicts. And no, Silver is not a Black woman. Sounds promising yet? No, please don’t think that’s the case.  Here’s the deal. A couple is driving along the highway in, I don’t know, the Hollywood hills. The woman is apprehensive about her companion’s desire to go to a...

Having just written about Murnau’s seminal masterpiece, and being a huge fan of Herzog’s, I admit to some trepidation in an anticipating Dave Eggers’ version.  Part of what I’d anticipated was that it would lack weight and depth. I think this is true. Eggers’ version is soaked in atmosphere, in remarkable detail, and a distinct eroticism that subsumes some of the larger themes that we encounter in both earlier versions. It is also a much longer than those earlier versions.  I was thoroughly engaged by what Eggers has brought to the screen and he’s fleshed out characters in ways I didn’t completely expect; but I missed the chthonic earthiness Murnau and Herzog. Eggers thrusts us into an intimacy with something that is supposed to be primordial and ancient but it doesn’t quite strike me that way.  The Transylvania of this iteration doesn’t enchant me or awe me as the earlier films. Nor, for all the superb effects, did I feel the sense of foreboding or evil thet I find in t...

David Eggers'   Nosferatu   opens here on Christmas Day. I’ve been, for the most part, avoiding reviews, but I am betting that it will be a fine film regardless of whatever nits others and/or myself pick at. As much as comparisons are said to be odious, any work that takes on such material is inviting them and at the same time, inviting us to return to the original work. Before diving in, I’ve typically confronted films like   Nosferatu   (1922) through a kind of two-dimensional approach. The first is an historical dimension; this is comprised of  prevailing contemporary events/social-societal movements, personnel on the film under discussion, thematic antecedents (found in films and other artworks and movements that were of the moment). The other dimension is almost purely aesthetic; film technique, visual use of metaphor/analogy, incorporation of social/psychological elements current at the time of the film’s creation, and so on. With any work of   N...