Trailer Trash XIII: The Vampire Lovers (1970)

"If you dare... taste the deadly passion of the BLOOD NYMPHS!"

Oh, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I opened up that can of b-movie goodness known as the Hammer Horror catalog. More to come, kiddos. Don't you worry your pretty little heads.

Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin to you, nerds) stars in this film, just like he does in about 90% of Hammer's movies. The plot is pretty standard as can be seen in the trailer - interestingly, this movie was considered brave at the time because of it's portrayal of a lesbian vampire. Oh, how media has come a long way between The Vampire Lovers and The L Word...

And, to business:

At 0:05 - Lady!
At 0:06 - CAT!
At 0:06 - Hand!
At 0:07 - Lady
At 0:08 - CAT!
At 0:10 - Did they get a man to redub this woman's voice?
At 0:20 - Swish! Swish!
At 0:30 - Don't drink and ride a horse.
Ar 0:40 - It doesn't look THAT bad.
At 0:44 - Is George Washington at this party?
At 0:58 - Is she doing it with... Cookie Monster?
At 0:59 - Or maybe bigfoot?
At 1:03 - Oh, it's just a huge cat. Okay. I was worried for a bit.
At 1:18 - For the lowest car insurance rates in town, call The General.
At 1:28 - Way to work that sword, buddy.
At 1:40 -
At 1:50 - What a terrible way to wake up. The worst way, maybe!
At 1:55 - The most dapper one remains!
At 1:56 - This costume was left over from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."


Note the "Caution: Not for the mentally immature" warning on the poster. Sorry, Cake Man, Suckerman... I knew you guys wanted to see this one!

"You mist die. Everbuddy mist die!"

Watching the Detectives: TV cops and private eyes through the years

The Onion AV Club has an excellent article running down the best, worst and most overlooked private detective TV series over the last 50-odd years. The article, which spans about three "pages" of content, is impressive because it not only lists which shows are of quality, but groups them based on structure -- classic private eye shows, shows with a more character-driven slant and shows that are more focused on the portrayal of urban decay and the role of the police and their allies. It serves as a great Cliff's Notes for the history of the genre in televised form, and makes for a quick, informative read. An interesting read for anyone who enjoys crime fiction, on screen or on the page.

Most interesting to me, though, was their list of top series, which capped off the piece. I've excerpted it here:

1. Columbo

It may not be the most thematically deep detective series ever aired, but Columbo has been reliably entertaining for going on 50 years now, offering mysteries based on unexpected minutiae, along with the iconic clash between too-clever snobs and the working-class drudge who always outlasts them.

2. Homicide: Life On The Street

The Wire is the most profound cop show of all time, but Homicide is the most profound mystery-based cop show, dealing with all the bureaucratic rot and existential futility that The Wire did, but through the prism of the detective series building-block: the case.

3. Law & Order

The formula has long been diluted by spin-offs, rip-offs, and repeats, but there's no greater testament to the enduring quality of Law & Order than this: when a channel-surfer lands on an episode of L&O, it's hard not to keep watching all the way through to the final chung-chung.

4. Veronica Mars

Weak ratings and a creatively confused third season killed one of the decade's best series—detective or otherwise—before its time, but the two season-length mysteries Veronica Mars presented before its downfall stand among TV's finest, both in terms of their narrative twists and the way they mapped out the mood of their times.

5. Prime Suspect

The polar opposite of the "cozy" mystery is the hard-boiled one, and TV detective series don't get much harder than this British import, which sees crime as a continuum, with all of its characters—including its heroine—spread out across the line.

A strong list, no doubt. I'd argue that The Wire merits a place, beyond a mention in the Homicide blurb (although, that show is great and worth the investment in its own right). I've got Prime Suspect on my NetFlix queue, so I'm looking forward to that and giving Twin Peaks a solid chance (I've only seen a few episodes here and there). I was a little surprised to see Veronica Mars on here, but I've heard a lot of good things from friends about it, so maybe it's worth a shot. The article also doesn't make mention of The Shield, which struck me as odd.

Still, the article is well worth a read. Thanks to Zombie for the heads up.

Who are your favorite TV detectives? Least favorite?

Tropfest Short Film Festival Tonight in NYC

For anyone looking for something to do in NYC tonight, there's a great short film festival going on down in the financial district. And the good news for all of my fellow starving writers: it's free!

From Tropfest NY's website:

Thousands of film lovers will descend on Battery Park City on Friday night, September 26th, for Tropfest NY, the world's largest short film festival. Free and open to the public, Tropfest NY will take place at World Financial Center Plaza, alongside the Hudson River.

Tropfest NY is not your mother's film festival with a bunch of strangers sitting in the dark. It's a rock-concert style event with live DJs and musical acts warming up the crowd before the marathon of eight "Best of Tropfest" short films begin, followed by eight "Tropfest NY 2008 Competition" shorts.

Sure to be a fun evening if the weather holds out!

This year's chosen theme for the short films is "sunflower" (eh?) - Billy Crudup (!) and Parker Posey (!!) are on this year's judges' panel.

The Cold Bum Test - Judging a Script from Start to Flush

I saw this on Imdb.com on Wednesday. It tickled and disturbed me at the same time.

Hoskins Reads Scripts In Bathroom
23 September 2008 5:00 AM, PDT

Movie legend Bob Hoskins test reads scripts for films - when he is sitting on the toilet. The Mona Lisa star decides whether or not to take a movie role depending on how engrossed he gets leafing through his lines as he answers a call of nature. And the actor has even given his selection process its own cheeky name. He says, "Cold bum test. I take (the script) to the khazi (toilet) in the morning and if I end up with a cold a**e I think 'This has got to be a good script'. If you notice you've got pins and needles, you think: 'This must be a good one.'"

For one, it's kind of upsetting to think that a script you've toiled for years on could be so close to becoming toilet paper if Bob Hoskins doesn't like it. You'd think that maybe he'd have somewhere else he could read scripts - i.e. an office - where he could just as easily be mesmerized by them. (On the other hand, I think that if you've written a script that has gotten into Bob Hoskins' hands, whether he's taking a crap at the same time or not, means you've done something right.)

More than anything, though, Hoskins' test makes me wonder how good of a script both "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties" and "Son of the Mask" were. Perhaps I should read those to educate myself a bit on the finer points of the screenwriting craft.

Go ahead, judge a book by its cover. Please.

This is pretty neat:

As part the first year of Hearts & Minds, Creativity partnered with Penguin Books on a talent contest, asking artists of all types to conceive a cover design for one of the publisher's upcoming titles. Penguin, as you may know, appeared in our Creative Marketers report last year, for bringing an updated art-driven aesthetic to its book covers. Notably, its Graphic Classics have become veritable collectors items, with cover art reimagined by contemporary artists like Frank Miller, Tomer Hanuka, Roz Chast and Art Spiegelman.

Penguin and Sam Taylor, author of The Amnesiac, kindly offered up Taylor's upcoming novel The Island at the End of the World as the foundation of our competition. Designers, illustrators, painters and photographers contributed more than 300 ideas for the cover design of Taylor's new book, and a jury comprised of Penguin editor Alexis Washam, creative director Paul Buckley and Creativity editors selected the 25 finalists presented here.

Click here to view the other 24 finalists. I've posted my favorite up top.

Also, here's an item about the best covers of 2007, from The New York Times.

And just to personalize things a tad, here are a few of my favorite book covers, off the top of my head:















What are some of your favorite book covers? What makes them great? Feel free to include links to the images.

[Via Galleycat]

The Write Stuff?

I'm instantly wary of anything that claims to be any kind of all-purpose guide to, well, anything, but The Guardian newspaper across the pond has a fairly impressive list of articles on various aspects of the craft of writing, all well worth checking out.

The best part is the people writing their respective articles are actual practitioners, as opposed to some guy who's writing a how-to book on creating a novel but has never written a novel.

Definitely worth a read, or multiple.

[Via Bookninja]

New York Film Festival opens Friday

The 46th Annual New York Film Festival opens this Friday. Their slate is full of great stuff, but here are a few I'd really like to see:

WENDY AND LUCY, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt. A young woman loses her dog on a road trip through Oregon. It looks like the plot really is that simple, but the movie has gotten great reviews and I really enjoyed Reichardt's Old Joy.


PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, written and directed by Albert Lewin, 1951. This beautiful Jack Cardiff-shot mystery is being screened with a newly restored Technicolor print. The film will be introduced on October 10th by Martin Scorsese.


WALTZ WITH BASHIR, written and directed by Ari Folman. An "animated documentary" about the Sabra and Shatila Massacre that received amazing acclaim at Cannes and nearly won the Palme d'Or. The animation looks absolutely sick - check out the trailer if you don't trust me.



Check out the NYFF's full slate of films here. Those of our readers who aren't in New York can follow full coverage of the festival at the FilmLinc blog.