Birthday Suits: Immortal Beloveds

Who needs holidays? Make your own with the birthdays of movie people.

Parker, Oleg and Vlad the Impaler (as interpreted by Gary Oldman)

Today's Birthdays 11/08
1431 Vlad the Impaler would have turned 578 years old today if not for that stake through the heart. To be accurate, his exact birthday is unknown but sometimes he's listed on this date which probably has something to do with...
1847 Bram Stoker who wrote the original Dracula, which gave Vlad the immortality that he had mythically already won as the original nosferatu... vampyr. The cinema loves him harder and deeper than Lucy Harker ever could.
1900 Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind. She didn't have to impale anyone or renounce heaven to achieve immortality. She just had to write one mammoth book. The movie based on her novel is still the highest grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. One of only four films to have ever topped a billion dollars in theatrical:

1. Gone With the Wind (1939)
   
2. Star Wars (1977)
   
3. The Sound of Music (1965)
   
4. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)

Seems odd that 3/4ths of them came after the birth of television, though.

1913 June Havoc forever known as"Baby June" thanks to the enduring fame of Gypsy on stage and screen. June never achieved the pop culture iconicity that her sister Gypsy Rose Lee did though they've both been played by countless actresses since. But she turns 96 today (wow!). Film appearances include: My Sister Eileen, Gentlemen's Agreement and the infamous Village People movie Can't Stop the Music).
<--- 1935 Alain Delon legendary French beauty who played that Talented Mr. Tom Ripley (Plein Soleil) long before Matt Damon did. Other highlights include Rocco and His Brothers and Le Samouraï
1952 Alfre Woodard, how can you be an Oscar nominee and four-time Emmy winner and still be underappreciated? Yet somehow, she is. Damn you, Hollywood!
1960 Oleg Menshikov terrific Russian actor and star of Oscar foreign film nominees like Est-Ouest, Burnt by the Sun and Prisoner of the Mountains.
1960 Michael Nyqvist, Swedish actor of As in Heaven, Tilsammans (wonderful, rent it) fame. He's also in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which just won EFA nominations.
1972 Gretchen Mol of The Notorious Bettie Page promise. Where's the big follow up?
1975 Tara Reid once worked with the Coen Bros and Robert Altman. The cautionary tale that Lindsay Lohan forgot to read.

Finally, a happy joint birthday wish to best friends Craig Chester (turning 44) and Parker Posey (turning 41), survivors of the 90s indie movie scene. Posey you know and love as a hipster icon, diva, Party Girl, actress, sassy vampiress, Lex Luthor's gal, Libby Mae Brown ("Who's on top and who's on bottom now???") and many other terrific screen characters. She's a gift that never stops giving. Chester you should know as one of the original stars of the New Queer Cinema in films like Grief and Swoon. He was one of the very few trailblazing out actors of the 90s. This decade he wrote, directed and starred in Adam & Steve but no films since. Hmmm. And because they are so adorable I'm breaking my photographic "birthday suit" rule to include this photo by Lorenzo di Flaneur of the pair celebrating their birthday together in 2006.

Tuesday Top Ten: Bite Me!

It's Halloween Week! Though a horror movie wuss I be there's one movie monster who I'll always give it up for, the vampire. Herewith: the film & television vampires who I would find most difficult to resist. (I've restricted myself to the past 30 years because there are too many I haven't seen from earlier... like those Hammer Horror films Matt was just talking 'bout). Should these 10 suckers ever come knocking, I shan't be wearing a cross, turtleneck or smelling of garlic.

I've already discussed Seline in Underworld and that hot Mexican in From Dusk til Dawn so I'm skipping them here.

10 Dracula (Gerard Butler) in Dracula 2000 (2000)
There are abundant lists of "best/sexiest vamps" on the net, but most of them go off in directions I can't support [cough Twilight... must everything be about page views? They twinkle. In the sun. Ugh]. But The Daily Beast makes a good point in favor of Gerard Butler: Ceiling Sex.

09 Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe) in The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Anyone remember Donohoe? I had a friend who was obsessed with her in the late 80s. And I like vampires to be as interested in their own cruel beauty and fashion choices as they are into their dietary choices. Plus: Ken Russell makes indescribably weird movies. Or at least he used to.


08 Armand (Antonio Banderas) in Interview with the Vampire (1994)
He really shouldn't be on this list since I hate the way they handle his character in the movie and I hate the wig, too. Mostly I just put him here to get back at all of the idiot strangers sitting in that multiplex with me in Utah, circa 1994. They ruined so many movies when I lived there. The conservative audience was super vocally terrified that Louis and Armand were going to kiss in their big invitation/refusal scene. Stupidly, in complete disregard for the tone of Rice's vampire chronicles, they didn't. The homophobic audience was hugely relieved but Armand was not. That Louis, such a fang tease. Now Armand will have to find solace elsewhere (<-- that link is NSFW but I laughed my ass off when I saw it so I had to share.)

07 The Count (Jerry Nelson) in Sesame Street (1972-present)
Ever since a certain episode of 30Rock last season, I've found it difficult not to envision people as muppets (was anything more hilarious last season than Liz Lemon's muppet walk?)...even myself. Plus felt fangs would tickle more than hurt and I'm not so much into pain.




06 PLACE HOLDER
I think with the reinvigoration of the vampire genre, more competitors for this list will soon emerge. I'm particular fascinated by the idea of Julie Delpy and Tilda Swinton in those competing Countess Bathory movies. Watching either of them bathing in virgin blood would be quite arrestingly cinematic, would it not? Delpy's movie must have been finished ages ago. What's going on there? Why haven't we seen it? It can't be as bad as her last journey into the supernatural.

05 Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost) in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Still one of the most spectacularly creepy vampires the cinema ever dreamt up. Thank you Francis Ford Coppola. She's game for anything with a pulse: demonic wolf men, crying babies, Winona Ryder. In fact, her appetite would make even the oldest vampires blush... and she's barely been turned. She's also on the list because her walk is more mesmerizing than most vampire's magical stare-downs. Bonus points: the actress slept with Jude Law for many years and who needs six degrees of separation when you can narrow that down to one?

04 Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) in True Blood (2008-present)
I'm still pissed they're not letting him play Thor. Casting fail.

03 Spike (James Marsters) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (-1996)
I know a lot of people hate the way Spike took over the best television show of all time towards the end and I kind of did, too. But remember that episode when Buffy and Spike were having so much sex that the house collapsed in on them? So Much Sex. That wasn't the usual suspend-your-disbelief supernatural extraganza episode. That was a documentary about what it's like to have sex with James Marsters. I'm guessing.


02 Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) in The Hunger (1983)
I'm always horrified when she doesn't make best vampire lists in favor of sparkle-in-the-sunlight bloodless mouth breathers like Robert Pattison. Deneuve forever (which is what you get if you hook up with her as David Bowie and Susan Sarandon discovered)!

Also, to the best of my knowledge, Catherine Deneuve is the only actual immortal to have ever played a fictional immortal onscreen. Points for that.

01 Louis (Brad Pitt) in Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Sure, he'd be all tortured about it but it's not like guilt-ridden sex (aka all vampiric activity) is never hot. Plus, you already know how I feel about Brad Pitt and his little death.

Which vampires would you invite in?
Even if you're not into the bloodsuckers, play along in the comment. You need to get in the mood for Halloween.
*

Tom Waits Has Something For the Kids on Easter

It's called "Chocolate Jesus"



Remember when Tom Waits was actually a part time actor and not just a world class musician? Good times... especially the Lily Tomlin coupling in Short Cuts and the bug eating in Dracula.

One of my favorite film books, With Nails: The Film Diaires of Richard E Grant, has a few bits on Waits. Grant, like Waits, was a frequent supporting player in interesting / storied movies of the early 90s and he lived to write about it.

The cast of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula gathers at the Coppola estate for a week long bonding / rehearsal session before filming. Gary Oldman looks sad and tells Grant that his 11 month marriage to Uma Thurman (Grant's co-star from Henry & June) is over -- he wonders if he'll be one of those people who marries a lot. The actor/diarist notices that Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves are "sibling-close" and he's amused by Keanu who has decide to call everyone by their second names "Laura Ryder, Leonard Oldman, Phillip Hopkins". Tom Waits arrives a day later, pulling the focus.

Tom Waits. How can I not introduce him to these pages without falling into the cheesy showbizzy-sleaze-shpeak of a lone motel lounge act compère - hit the snare drum, smash a cymbal, bang a drum and wind up with 'LADIES - AND - GENTLEMEN - THE - IN - HOLE - THE - WALL - BAR - AND - SNAKEPIT - SALOON - PROUD - 'N' - PRIVILEGED - TO - PRESENT - FOR - YOUR - ENTERTAINMENT - AND - YES! - GODDAMMITT!! - EDUCATION - TONITE - THE - ONE - AND - THE - ONLY - MR - LONELINESS - OF - A - LONG - DISTANCE - SONGWRITER - HIMSELF - IN - THE - FLESH - IN - THIS - HERE - LOUNGE - LADIES - 'N' - GENTLEMEN - LET'S - PUT - OUR - HANDS - TOGETHER - AND - GIVE - IT - UP - FOR - (gasping for breath) - MISTAH!!! TOM!!!!!!! WAITS !!!!!!!!!!' Everyone else is in smatterings of designer casuals. Mistah Waits arrives straight off an old record cover in a '64 open-topped Cadillac, with fins, with a funnel of dust trailing down the dirt road. The gravel voice gets out some howdy-doodys and his clothes and hair are crumple-sculpted to him. Doesn't seem to have a straight bone in his bearing and kills me off with his cool by growling out a compliment for Withnail. Out the side of his mouth. Like we might be being spied on by the bailiffs. Him, rolling tobacco and reefer. Winona and I are 'We've got all your recordings, Tom!!' To which he just heh-hehs.

I just noticed that Mistah Waits is in the cast list of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus which I'm more and more excited about. [previously excitement] Danger! Danger! One should never ever get excited about movies that only have release dates scheduled in Romania and the Czech Republic.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus clockwise from top left: Christopher Plummer as "Doctor Parnassus", Heath Ledger (and Johnny Depp and Jude Law and Colin Farrell) as "Tony", Tom Waits as "Mr. Nick" (some sources refer to this character as "The Devil"), your auteur Terry Gilliam, Lily Cole as the Doctor's daughter and Andrew Garfield as "Anton".

Lionsgate is going to be handling the film's UK release but I can't understand why nothing is set for the US? You'd think someone in a suit would remember that for all of Gilliam's recent film completion / box office troubles, it wasn't always this way (think Twelve Monkeys and The Fisher King... though I realize that Hollywood memories don't stretch back that far. Weren't movies silent and in black and white back then?). Plus there's the free publicity of being Heath Ledger's last film and having three A-Listers sub for his incomplete scenes and those Cannes rumors. Can we get this thing on the schedule already? Even if it's no masterpiece it'll surely be worth gawking at.

20:07 (Orientalist Pornography)

Each morning a screenshot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie


Mina Harker: There's more to marriage than carnal pleasure.
[the bound copy falls to the floor]
Lucy Westenra: Oh, Mina! So I see. Much much more!
*

The Vampire Blog-a-Thon

"They Want To Suck Your Blood!" ~ A Vampire Blog-a-Thon
Scroll down for bloody good reads @ 53 other vamping blogs
(click here if you to view blog-a-thon by specific film / subject)

I am a big wuss. It's true. The tiniest thing can frighten me. So I have no idea why I love vampires so much. Nor do I have an earthly clue why I had originally intended to write about Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987)...

For that underseen horror film, Bigelow enlisted the cast of her then-husband James Cameron's Aliens (1986) to play a wandering group of bloodsuckers: Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton are the alien soldier/prey gone western vampire/predator. In Near Dark's most famous sequence they enter a roadhouse and massacre the patrons. It's been a good twelve years since I've seen the film but I've never been able to shake Paxton's demonic "finger lickin' gooood" glee from my memory. Just typing this makes me long for vampires on the more romantic side of the undead fence. Since the most romantic thing about Near Dark is a marriage that shares actors, I'm opting out of a repeat viewing for now. A wuss and a softie.

So when it comes to my preferences in fictional monsters, I'll admit that I'm something of a beauty fascist. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV series of all time, but it has one recurrent motif that makes me die a little inside. Each time vampires in the Whedon-verse reveal themselves, their pretty faces morph into hideous mugs --a little too Klingon / Lost Boys for my taste. If you're going to sink your teeth into my neck, please look pretty while doing so. Don't scrunch up your face.

Since the vampire's "blood is life" myth haunts metaphor rich neighborhoods like Sex and Death, it's no surprise that it's so flexible a fictional genre. It changes with the times. Recent years have downplayed the seductiveness and amped up the savagery of the creatures of the night. When you stop to consider vampiric activity in the Blade and Underworld series or in 80s films like The Lost Boys and Near Dark the violence has become so foregrounded that the erudite romantic vampire is now a dinosaur.

Francis Ford Coppola's divisive batty Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) did try to resurrect the old-school vampire, but I'd say the operatic romance within it is the one thing that most assuredly did not work. In the form of delicious Winona Ryder (just ignore her tone-deaf line readings), this Mina Harker could certainly drive a man to drink...her blood. But in the form of Gary Oldman, this Dracula would have a hard time inspiring recriprocal lust. If you want to ressurect the fanged hypnotic ladies man, he shouldn't have a weak chin. A great actor Oldman may well be. A great romantic leading man he simply is not.

But if we can't have the swooning albeit incongruous romanticism of bloodthirsty killers, can we at least have eroticism? Occasionally we can, yes. The legendary sapphic makeout between Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger (yes, please) and Keanu Reeves's druggy romp with three nubial vamp brides (and how) in Bram Stoker's Dracula are two famous examples. But here are two more cinematic moments worth obsessing on. They're both chilling and sexually charged and, therefore, perfectly vampiric.

Nosferatu (1979)
Is any vampire uglier than Nosferatu? In Werner Herzog's expert adaptation of the silent classic, the disgusting, decayed Nosferatu leaning over the prone form of young and beautiful Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) is a forceful study in contrast. Their lone similarity is their mutually pale skin which, come to think of it, is a perfect statement itself: isn't Lucy already doomed, the moment she concocts her self-sacrifice?

Aside from a moody, well-judged cutaway to bats flying in slow motion, Herzog's camera doesn't ever look away -- for minutes on end -- from the blunt sexuality of Nosferatu's bloodlust. The creature is mesmerized by both the blood and the body. With sickeningly slow care he caresses her with his beastly clawed hands. This excruciating scene maximizes the feeling of violation, playing on the audiences fear of their own sexual vulnerability. Lucy, knowing the sun will soon rise and rid the town of this undead monster, pulls him closer as soon at a crucial moment. His violating lust will be his undoing. Her sexual martyrdom is on the disturbing level of Breaking the Waves.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Is any vampire prettier than Brad Pitt? This film adaptation of Anne Rice's bestseller gets a considerable boost from Pitt's potent auto-eroticism, which hit its peak with this film and Legends of the Fall (the combo of which sent him into the stratosphere). My favorite moment in the whole of the sumptuous but uneven Interview is when Louis (Pitt) is first bitten by Lestat (Tom Cruise).

Once Cruise has buried his face in Pitt's neck, turning the moviegoing audience green with envy, the movie stars lift off into the air. For a blissful moment or two each time I watch this Neil Jordan film, I believe that the director will make a convention-defying choice and leave the camera resting on the glory of Pitt's face in ecstacy, his eyes fluttering. (As it turns out, it's quite orgasmic to be bitten by a vampire. But maybe everything is sexually heightened when you look like Brad Pitt?) Sadly, Jordan succumbs to the mediocrity of traditional back and forth editing, cutting to Tom Cruise's less attractive and now bloody-toothed face. Gross.

But this is the way of all things vampire: the repellent and hypnotic in tandem.

Update: you'd like to view the blog-a-thon by film & subject click here

The Bloodsucking Blogs
Flickhead has capsules on five favored vampire flicks
Gallery of the Absurd imagines Interview with the Antoinette
House of Sternberg posts original short fiction The Starving
Certifiably Creative offers up Theater Des Vampires
No More Marriages on Pittsburgh as the star of Innocent Blood
Eddie on Film views Fright Night as the top 80s vampire flick
Forward to Yesterday gets political w/ Guy Maddin's Dracula
Silly Hats Only on George Romero's Martin
As Little As Possible loves Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Modern Fabulousity pays tribute to Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu
Low Resolution stays up late From Dusk Till Dawn
Stale Popcorn sings a love song for (sexy) vampires
goatdog on the dwindling House of Dracula at Universal
Cinemathematics on vampire imagery in Shadow of a Doubt
Burbanked Blame the screenwriter: blood sucking edition

...And Still More Undead
Richard Gibson goes contemporary: Martin and The Addiction
When I Look Deep... pits Drácula against Dracula
Pfangirl on a "bloody awesome trio" of lady bloodsuckers
QTA loves the ladies. And so do the ladies in Vampyros Lesbos
Cinema Fromage 'yeah baby, Dracula in 70s London'
zoom-in requests a DVD fix of The Addiction
Stinky Lulu loves Ketty Lester in Blacula
Way of Words on women: from victims to vampire slayers
Music is My Boyfriend offers tunes for the blog-a-thon
Pen15 Club "When Hilary Duff attacks"
My New Plaid Pants finds Paxton ‘finger lickin’ good’ in Near Dark
Nicks Flick Picks on Coppola's Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Being Boring on the homo-cautionary Interview…
Culture Snob resurrects and old look at Nosferatu
The Horror Blog 'fesses up to some anti-vampire prejudice

The Vampires Are Everywhere!
Tuwa's Shanty on Martin & Nosferatu
Catherine Cantieri the giant sucking sound of 1992's Dracula
The Boob Tubers asks the eternal question: Spike or Angel?
novaslim says a "vuck you" to Grace Jones in Vamp
European Films on Frostbite, a Swedish horror comedy
popbytes recommends Christopher Lee in Hammer's Dracula series
Glitterati points out the most unbelievably cast vampire…ever
100 Films the monster mashup: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
Peter Nellhaus on Brides of Dracula
Bright Lights After Dark 'Browning and the Slow Club' (Dracula)
Tim Lucas declares his half dozen favorite vampire flicks
Film Vituperatum Ninjas and Vampires --uncanny similarities!
Film of The Year 'That's Why The Lady is a Vamp'
All About My Movies Angelina Jolie IS a Vampire
Critic After Dark two vampire movies from The Philippines
Agence Eureka a vampire gallery
Cinevistaramascope finds Herzog's Nosferatu superior to Murnau's
Auteur Lust obsesses on Persona: 'The Vampire's In Us'
Bitter Cinema a treasure trove of YouTube vampire trailers
Cutting Room remembers his first time...w/ Bram Stokers Dracula
Watts With Words 'Suck Me' on homoerotic vampires
Jurgen Fauth's Muckworld a 60 second tribute to Kinski as Nosferatu

Happy Halloween! Pray for Sunrise

UPDATE: If you liked this blog-a-thon check out the two others the film experience has hosted on Michelle Pfeiffer (April 2006) and Action Heroines (June 2007)

Tags: blogging, dracula, vampire, Nosferatu, vampires, horror, film, movies, blogs, Halloween, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise

Eiko Ishioka

Today marks the birthday of a true visionary, Eiko Ishioka. Though this artist has been enriching the world for 67 years now I first became aware of her work when watching Francis Ford Coppola’s gonzo take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) for which she designed the costumes. In interviews at the time Coppola suggested that his original idea was for the costumes to function almost as set design … as if they alone would carry the entire burden of creating the films eery visually spectacular world. Ishioka deservedly won the Oscar for her breathtaking work.

Disappointingly for screen costume enthusiasts like myself, Ishioka spreads her talents over many fields (album covers, music videos, poster design, theatrical costuming, etc…) so her film efforts are few and far between. Generally her work is seen only a couple of times a decade on our movie screens. But within the next year or so we’ll have two (!!!) movies touched by Ishioka. First up is The Fall a reteaming with Tarsem Singh for whom she costumed The Cell (2000) . The second is a Spanish drama about a feminist mystic, Saint Teresa, starring Paz Vega.


Links to Love:
Eiko directs Björk in "Cocoon"
Eiko Ishioka on The Cell
Eiko and Cirque du Soleil
Eiko books

Halloween Countdown...02

And the runner up is...
02 Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Nothing says "Halloween" more than sunlight aversions and blood-lust. If this were a less cinematic list I'd want to put TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in here or even in the top spot. But we're talking movies --you have to narrow it down somehow. So, in honor of the original bloodsucking Count I've also jettisoned any vampire movies that have torn free from his (or from " first vampire" stories --you can't discount Nosferatu, now can you?) enormous shadow. Of the many --seriously many-- film adaptations or movies inspired by Bram Stoker's epistolary horror novel (1897), Francis Coppola's take on the immortal fanged Count (titled after the novel) is as good as many and better than most. It represents the vampiric in my Halloween list.



Of all vampire films, FW Murnau's silent Nosferatu (1922) is the most important to see if you're taking cinematic historical importance into account. But this list is a personal one. So I chose Coppola's elaborately bizarre, colorful, and passionate 90s treatment of the vampire mythos. The most peculiar thing about this film and my love for it, is that I don't really think that much of it works. A good deal of the problems seems to be in the casting. The most interesting performance (Sadie Frost as Lucy) has the least screen time. Keanu Reeves is wooden as Jonathan Harker, Gary Oldman lacks the onscreen sexual charisma that one would expect from a lead in a romantic horror epic, and strangely, despite it being filmed during what were unarguably her peak years, Winona Ryder also flails about. She never was adept at period (nevermind those two Oscar nominations) but her star turn reads as slightly over-the-top silly rather than passionate when the blood really hits the walls in the second half of the film. Still, despite many misgivings, the film is a spectacle in the best sense. You can't take your eyes off of it. Coppola's passion for le cinéma is evident throughout as he tries every conceivable camera trick in the book. His sort of operatic passion and creative invention is lacking in most every other vampire film. That's a pity because the approach is a perfect fit for this grand guignol literary classic.

This 1992 vampire epic is best seen on the bigscreen where the enormous oddness of its Oscar-winning costumes and makeup and its in-camera visual effects are properly showcased. Bram Stoker's Dracula is large and fascinatingly messy. There's no trace of laziness here--no fingerprints of the undead were involved in this film's making, only fully committed living and breathing artists attempting something awesome. For whatever reason, this particular Coppola film is never booked for repertory houses or even midnight screenings (though it would seem an ideal fit for both) so rent it soon if you've never seen it.