Movies you loved but I hated

I've seen over the course of the last few years, lists for topics like this before from other people.  Movies that were considered classics or must sees, that people just didn't care for. 
I thought I would give my list today.   Why today you might be asking?  No reason other then it's been a long day already and it fits the mood I'm in right now.

1. The Sound of Music.    HATED IT!  We had to watch it in school a million years ago (1987 to be exact in 7th grade and again in 1990 in 10th grade English)   I slept through half of it the first time around and the second time I was made sit through it, I honestly feel like time stood still, in a horrible painful way.

2. Wizard of Oz.  HATED IT!  It's way too goody-goody for me.  I understand that the movie was done at the time of the great depression and WWII, but still it's too sugary sweet.  They only give any so called depth to the lead character. And really, she is about as deep as an empty glass of water

3. Doctor Zhivago.  I never finished watching it.  Another one that we were forced to watch in 7th grade, and I went to the toilet and never came back to class that day. 

4. Gone with the Wind.   HATED IT!  I just don't get it? Why is it considered one of the greatest films ever?  Why? 

5. The Exorcist.  This is one of those movies I could take it or leave it.  I think it's good on some levels, but crap on others.  I understand that it has single handedly created a genre all its own, and that for the time it was done it was the most risque thing, but other then that I just don't see why people love it so much?  

6. E.T.   It was too commercial. Would that movie fly now if it came out or would it flop?  I can't say, but I can say I found it sort of creepy when it had originally come out 30 years ago.  The aliens gave me nightmares for months.

7. St.Elmo's Fire.  HATED IT! It was too busy but at the same time went nowhere.  The only good thing about that film was the theme song and Rob Lowe becoming the star he became. 

8. Raiders of the Lost Ark.  HATED IT!  I sat through it once. When I was about eleven years old. One of my cousins had just gotten it for x-mas on VHS back when it was all still a new idea, and we all watched it as a family during dinner.  That's another one of those films that I just don't see what makes it suppose to be classic? 

9. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  HATED IT!  Hated the remake too, and normally I love anything with Johnny Depp.   I just found the whole story to be ...sick. As in a disturbing way. The little imp guys were freaky, the situations the kids ended up in were creepy, and the whole idea of a man luring children to his futuristic world by candy always unnerved me. 

10. The original Planet of the Apes movies.  All of them.  I think it was the masks. I like the idea of the films,  just found them to be boring in the end.  Maybe it was Charlton Heston, I've never been a fan of his.   See now, I loved the remake with James Franco.

Okay, and I could go on like this all day, but that's enough for one post. 
till later

Quote of the Day March 28th

I haven't done one of these in a long while, and thought it would be a good day to throw one at the wall.

Elinor- "Maryann, you must change or you'll catch a cold"

Mariann- "What do I care for a cold when there is such a man"

Elinor- "You will care very much when your nose swells up"

Mariann-"You are right Elinor, help me up."

From the Emma Thompson version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility right after Willoughby has found her in the rain.

Movie Club Week 13

It's middle of the week and time for another chat about vampire movies.  I've been tossing back and forth in my mind, um-ing and huh-ing over which should be this week's pick, and decided to go with Stay Alive. 

We open with a shot of a video game, and then see the guy playing the game. We learn he's a game tester, and even this unreleased horror game has his nerves shook. He phones his best friend trying to claim down, then walks into his roommates' room, catching them having sex, before commenting that he found their characters in the video game killed.  They reply that they haven't played in hours and that there must be a glitch in the game as they did not die in the game. He then goes to the kitchen, and we are shown similarities to the scene he just played in the game. Heading back to the roommates, to find them brutally murdered, and He then dies in the exact way his character in the video game did.
We then see his best friend Hutch at his funeral, and is given a bag of his things by his family members, just before a strange woman walks up to Hutch and takes his photo. She informs him that she knew one of the roommates. Hutch invites her over to play a group video game with some of his friends as a tribute to their dead friend.
The group gather for the all night video marathon, with Hutch's boss joining them from the office online. They learn it's a vampire horror game, based on the story of Countess Bathroy, and that it's a voice activated game. Each member of the group has to read out loud a poem to activate their character.
His boss is the first to die in the game and as he is getting ready to leave the office, he starts to hear someone running through the floor. He gets spooked when a door he's just locked, unlocks by itself and a mirror breaks. Before he has a chance to scream, he's stabbed by someone that is never seen.
When the rest of the group find out about the murder the next day, they start to investigate, once Hutch realizes that so far all four of their friends were killed after playing the game, just like their character in the video game. At first they tell the police they think it's a copycat killer who is stalking and tracking people who play the game. But when another of the group is run over by a horse and carriage in the middle of the day on a road, while his character in the video game is on pause, they start to look to the supernatural. 
One of the police detectives starts to play the game, but his character is killed within minutes. Thinking nothing of it, he starts to ask about the game at a local video store. As he leaves the parking lot, he is murdered alone in his truck the same way the character in the game was.
Soon, Hutch is the prime suspect and the whole gang start to go on the run.  Another member is killed, as Hutch decides to visit the game's designer. From there he learns that the designer based everything in the game on a book he read about Elizabeth Bathory, and tells him to visit the author of the book.  Hutch does and soon learns that what the group did was unknowingly preform a seance when they read the poem at the beginning of the game, casting a spell to awaken the spirit of Bathroy. The remaining three of the group then head back to the house of the designer for answers, only to realize they are on the burial ground of Bathroy, who was imprisoned in the wall of the house. They have to find her body and use coffin nails to connect her astral self with her corpse then burn her. They find the video game designer dead, and realize she killed him. 
The three manage to destroy the vampire.   But they forgot about the game itself. We see the same video store owner opening a fresh shipment of the game and put it into the machine, and hear the poem being read by the group over the store's pa system.


I love this movie.  It's different, but still manages to bring in so many elements of folklore. The fact that roses and rose bushes (because of the thorns) are considered a weapon in many folklore, to battle vampires is rarely thought of, but this film uses it to it's advantage.
Also, the idea that vampirism was considered simply the act of astral projection, has fallen by the wayside in so many stories.  Here, it is a main concern.
The subtleties of using similar images between the game and the "real" is done to perfection, making you need to rewind at times to make sure you caught the clues in the movie. Just little hints of something out of the corner of your eye, or an overlay of sound.

I also love the idea that video games are a form of vampirism in themselves. When you get into a game, you loose so much time to it, so much of your energy.  The fact too that the film is filled with the sound of a game controller vibrating whenever something is about to happen, sort of hints that nothing is what it seems.

till later

Top 5 Fav Birthday Scenes

I decided to do my 5 top favourite birthday scenes from movies, cause well...you know.

1. Happy Birthday To Me.   It has one of the most ruthless party scenes at the end of this film. How would you like to come home to find your half sister had dug up your friends and family members, just before cutting the cake?

2. Twilight Saga 2 New Moon.  Bella gets a paper cut and Jasper destroys the living room, including the piano, when he attacks her at the smell of the blood.  That was one gift the girl who runs with vampires didn't want.

3. London Kills Me.  There is a scene in this film where the lead character is standing around in the alley after having been beat up, and just starts screaming and crying that it's his birthday.  It gets me every time, like a total wimp and I just cry. You can't help but feel for the character.

4. Alice in Wonderland.  The tea party.  Okay, so it's an un-birthday, but it's got the coolest song. Who doesn't like a bit of butter in their watch and a fresh cup?

5. Bridget Jones's Diary.  The dinner party she throws for her
friends where she turns the soup blue because of a piece of string, and then Daniel shows up starting a fight with Mark. It spills out into the street, and into the restaurant across the street, into someone else's birthday party.

Movie Club Week 12

And we're back.  Week 12 of the vampire movie club, late as it is.  I'm going to make it short tonight, but I wanted to talk about  Dracula Rising.  It's one of the cult classics in the vampire genre that happens to be by Roger Corman.


A young woman holds an art gallery fund raiser, and manages to grab the attention of a stranger. He spends the night dancing with her, commenting on her paintings which she admits were drawn from dreams. We find out his name is Vlad, and that he's only passing through.  Before the end of the evening, she lets him know that she does restoration work on old paintings as a day job.
That night, she has a nightmare that everyone at the event had been bitten by a vampire. The next few days at work, she can't think straight and the only thing her and her best friend talk about is Vlad.  Then she's offered a job in Romania, working at an old castle restoring a painting from the 1400's.
Taking the job, she is introduced to Alec, who happens to be connected to Vlad.
Through a series of strange visions, it's revealed that the paintings she's been drawing are not from nightmares but past life memories.  She had been alive in the 1400's, there in Romania living during a plague.  She had fallen in love with Vlad, who in the 1400's was a monk, as was Alec.  The relationship that she had with Vlad during the middle ages, got her burned at the stake for being a witch.
We then learn that Vlad is the son of Dracula. He goes to his father and offers up himself in order to live, so that he can reunite with her after she's been reincarnated. On his first night as a vampire, he gets revenge on Alec by turning him as well.
The two vampires then battle back in modern times over the soul of the woman, with Alec taking them all to an alternate reality.  Vlad defeats Alec, then commits suicide. This we are to assume, frees all three of their souls.


This is not the greatest movie ever produced, but it's one of the most beautiful. Shot in Romania, it's use of the location is perfect, not too mention it's one of the first films to shoot there. (I think Subspecies was the first)
The bulk of the film is done in flashback story telling, with little time given to the modern half. This also came out after the major budget Bram Stoker's Dracula, so it does have a few moments that feel like it borrowed from the love story.
I referred to this movie on the vampire blog, as being like the Star Wars of Dracula films because of the sub-story between Vlad and his father.  There are just too many similarities to the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader plot.
I think Doug Wert, who plays Alec is the show stealer. I could have watched an entire film just of his character.

till later

Friday March 22nd 2013

Okay, we've hit a weekend, and it's time for the weekly round up from the vampire blog's vampire challenge.  And yeah, I realize I didn't get around to it last week so here we go...

Sunday (march 10th) was Day 44 and I talked about an episode of Kindred The Embraced

Wednesday (march 13th) was Day 45 and I did an episode of Dracula the Series

Saturday (march 16th) was Day 46, and I covered another Dracula the Series episode

Tuesday (march 19th) was Day 47 and I talked about the Roger Corman movie Dracula Rising

Friday (today march 22nd) is Day 48 and I talked about episode 9 of Dracula the Series


till later

Thursday March 21st

It's been over a week, and I've not posted.  This is just a quick note to say, I'm not dead... though it feels like it sometimes.  I realize once again, I'm a few days behind on stuff. 
Yeah, I should have gotten the Weekly Vampire Movie Club post up 2 days ago. Week 12 is coming, just not tonight.  (should have it up tomorrow when I have a few hours)
At this point, I am trying to balance all the projects I've got on the burner. All the stuff that was on hold from my knee injury last year, has to be dealt with now.
Yeah, life is kicking my arse hard.

till later