If It's Monday, It Must Be Shameless Filler (Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck Edition)
posted November 23, 2009 5:26 AM
Okay, I know I go off every time they release another of those crappy teen vampire movie Twilight pieces of crap. But for some reason -- and I say this as somebody who not only does not defer to anyone in my admiration for the thespic skills of the genuinly great teen actress Kristen Stewart but who also actually has a very disturbing and inappropriate thing for her -- the whole idea of an abstinence-only vampire flick just sort of sticks in my craw.
Seriously, I didn't mind the first Twilight's utter lack of atmosphere, poetry, body odor or anything like that; on that score, it was no worse than the comparably popular The Lost Boys back in the Reagan years. But I'm sorry -- a vampire movie without sex is just, well, wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
In any case, it must be said -- regardless of how many gazillions the most recent installment raked in over the weekend -- that The Twilight Saga: New Moon in fact sucks. Both by definition AND in comparison to the two great and definitive reivisionist vampire movies that have already been made and which deserve to be seen by nearly everyone in our noble Republic.
Exhibit A, in that regard: Katharine Bigelow's 1987 masterpiece Near Dark, which as I remarked last year is as rich and strange as these things get or are likely to get.
If you haven't seen it, it's about a bunch of mysterious drifters (in the Western movie sense) who are actually 200 year old immortal (if somewhat scruffy) vampires. They drive around the malls and blue collar towns of the mid-West in a broken down panel truck, from time to time stopping only to feast on the patrons of some Patrick Swayze-ish roadhouse before heading on to the next town in a neverending quest for the reddest of necks. It's all wonderfully dark and stylish and (for my money) a metaphor of sorts for the bleak lunar landscape of America during the 80s crack epidemic. I's also got some now familiar faces in its cast -- Adrian Pasdar (currently doing time on Heroes), the wonderful Bill Paxton, and of course the preternaturally sepulchural Lance Henriksen as the vampire clan patriarch. Here's the trailer, for a taste of the deliciously subversive feel the amazing Bigelow brings to the story.
That said, and as good as Near Dark is, for my money if you're going to do a movie about vampires among us, you'll probably never do better than Bad Lieutenant auteur Abel Ferrara's 1995 The Addiction, starring Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, the pre-Sopranos Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco and Michael Imperioli and some of the creepiest black-and-white cinematography in years. The premise: Everybody in the anthropology department at New York University is secretly one of the Undead.
Actually, now that I think of it, that's probably true.
In any case, the film's most disturbing scene -- a faculty party where the vampires dine on their innocent academic guests in astoundingly gruesome and horrific detail -- seems to have vanished from YouTube since the last tine I wrote about the film, but in the meantime, here's a clip that at least gives you an idea of the piece's overall mood.
Fortunately, there's a gorgeously transferred DVD of Near Dark currently in print; you can -- and most assuredly should -- order it here. The Addiction, alas, seems to be out of print at the moment, but if you've got a little extra coin to spend, you can get a used copy here. It's definitely worth it, by the way.
Meanwhile, have I mentioned that The Twilight Saga: New Moon sucks?
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Steve Simels has written about music and movies for Sound and Vision magazine (formerly Stereo Review) since the early 70s. He has also contributed to Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide and the Wall Street Journal. He’s the author of “Gender Chameleons: Androgyny in Rock n Roll” (Arbor House, 1985), and blogs at PowerPop.blogspot.com. His ambition in life is to play the Leslie Howard role in a remake of “Petrified Forest.”
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Jim Gath said:
Yeah, but did any of 'em come close to Eddie Crescimanni's Dracula?!?
November 23, 2009 5:42 AM
tamarelle said:
Old balding men who don't get it suck really. So have fun in your testosterone universe. May your days be filled with male escapist entertainment that is oh so much more worthwhile because it is violent, ugly, or just sanctioned by someone with a scrotum.
November 23, 2009 6:12 AM
Steve Simels said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that there is some kind of computer search engine out there rigged to put up a red flag whenever somebody says something nasty about Twilight. I think the same search engine used to serve a similar function for High School Musical.
In any case, thanks for stopping by, I guess.
November 23, 2009 6:25 AM
kit571 said:
The Twilight Saga New Moon Movie was not ment for the critics. It is strickly for the Fans of the Twilight Saga Books. The critics need to keep their comments to themselves unless they have read the Books.
November 23, 2009 7:10 AM
Gummo said:
Vampires whose great affliction is that they glitter in the sunilght? Oh yeah, that's immortal torture of the soul, all right.
Even with the help of Rifftrax, the first Twilight movie was pretty much impossible to get through. Turning the darkest and most seductive of legends into a typical teen nice-girl-falls-for-the-bad-boy saga just screams pathetic lack of imagination.
Which explains its popularity, I guess.
November 23, 2009 8:03 AM
Gwen De Marco said:
kit571 said:
The Twilight Saga New Moon Movie was not ment for the critics. It is strickly for the Fans of the Twilight Saga Books. The critics need to keep their comments to themselves unless they have read the Books.
Nonsense.
November 23, 2009 9:10 AM
Steve Simels said:
I'll say this -- neither of the Twilight movies is as ridiculous as Interview with a Vampire.
Tom Cruise is many splendid things, but Byronic is not one of them.
:-)
November 23, 2009 9:58 AM
Gummo said:
May your days be filled with male escapist entertainment that is oh so much more worthwhile because it is violent, ugly, or just sanctioned by someone with a scrotum.
So you're saying no one involved with the Twilight movies had a scrotum?
Having suffered thru the first one, I can believe it!
November 23, 2009 1:03 PM
orchid said:
i didnt search for a negitive comment on the movie... i stumbled in to it.... and you have free speech i give you that... but! for the love of all things good in this world... really? more sex in a vampire movie... i gotta hand it to you.... that is really nasty... teaching the world that abstinence is a good thing might actually work... lord only knows the hundreds of girls that get pregnant before they even turn 15... a lot of viewers are teens.. so... im happy there is no sex scenes in these movies... so your editorial i say is crappy.. twilight... ill keep reading and watching...
November 23, 2009 4:01 PM
Steve Simels said:
God, I feel like a pornographer now.
:-)
November 23, 2009 4:39 PM
mfan said:
Critics do the movie a disservice. Based on renting Twilight and listening to the critics, I was going to skip New Moon. But fortunately, a snobby critic upset me, so I decided to support the film. I really liked it, and had a great time.
November 23, 2009 6:44 PM
cthulhu said:
Run away!!
November 23, 2009 6:45 PM
mfan said:
P.S. Thanks, Steve, for giving an honest reason for disliking the film.
November 23, 2009 6:49 PM
Steve Simels said:
mfan:
I appreciate that. Seriously.
November 23, 2009 6:57 PM
dSmith said:
I have a full head of hair and I think Twilight sucks also.
November 23, 2009 8:14 PM
JMY said:
I can appreciate your dislike for the vampire flick. It is a bit tweensy, but I can and do appreciate the abstinence role. Especially in the 4th book when Edward and Bella do have sex, but it is as a married couple. I think there IS too much teen pregnancy going on and if someone can use a story like this to influence young girls and guys to make better decisions, I'm all for it - even if it is in a supernatural, fictional sort of way - I think the moral of the story still comes through. Call me old fashioned, but I think it's great to have such a popular POSITIVE influence on young people these days.
I am a big fan of the Twilight series and enjoyed the film very much.
November 23, 2009 9:18 PM
orchid said:
lol... seeeeeeeee! abstinence isnt bad.. even in movies... so thank you :) ._. i think refraining from that sort of behavior until marriage is the best way to go... to many young girls are pregnant... more then i care to know because its sad actually... but at least he did say why he didnt like it... unlike my brother who just says.... because its gay... so thank you for at least being honest about why you dont like it...
November 23, 2009 11:58 PM