Re: World Dracula Day

On 5/28/2024 2:13 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 5/27/2024 12:22 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:

May 26, in honor of the publication of the original novel.
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What will you watch to celebrate?
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I’ve got the Dan Curtis/Jack Palance version going right now with music
from dark shadows. It’s a pretty good and a pretty faithful adaptation.
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Available on the Peacock, it’s a good copy in 16:9 with the ads front
loaded so it runs uninterrupted.
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Next up, I found the excellent 1977 Louis Jourdon version on the gray.
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Louis Jorudan played Dracula?!?  Why am I only just now hearing about this?
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Asking the DVR to show me movies with Dracula in the title return 120 hits!
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I tried to watch the animated Batman and Dracula, but it was far too poorly
made.
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Same notation for the 1992 Coppola version.
I hadn’t suffered through it since opening night in the theater. I was
laughing at the massive ineptitude and cringing at the parent intentional
stupidity. What a terrible terrible movie at every level.
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I saw this in the theater back in 92 and at the time thought to myself
this is not a good movie.  But I was just a preteen and all the
professional critics seemed to insist the movie was great.  So I figured
what do I know, it must be good.  And over the years I've grown to not
mind watching it.

 I tried and failed. It’s easily deserving of an MST3K or Riff tracks
version. I could watch it with the viewing accomplice where we could point
the screen and hold at  the ineptitude. But there’s no way I could watch it
by myself and suffer in silence.
 

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 From the writing (“he went to face a hoard from which he might never
return!” Wait, what?) To the acting to the laughable costumes (red plastic
kabuki armor? Really?) To Mike Magnola’s idiot, giant penis castles.
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I remember being incensed at them, trying to sell it as a faithful version
and all the movie reviewers who are too stupid to read buying into it. Much
of it is stolen from the Jack Palance version and some from the Louis
Jordan version as well.
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Never saw a Jack Palance version either.

 Worth it, especially if you are a fan of dark shadows. It plays very much
like a remake of house of dark shadows.
 I haven’t seen it in decades, but I recall the Jack Palance version of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to be worth watching as well.
 

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The one thing all these films have in common is that they get the year it
takes place wrong.
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Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein gave me both my black-and-white and
my Bela Lugosi as Dracula fixes.
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DRACULA, 2000
“The first Dracula movie of the 21st-century! The first Dracula movie of
the new millennium!“ Screamed the advertisements!
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Shout Factory just released a new blu-ray with a 2K restoration of the
print.  I haven't picked it up yet, but I plan on getting it in time for
a Dracula movie marathon in the near future.

 Hopefully that’s the source I was watching.  Only one of the reviews on
Amazon is for the shout factory version but it raves about it and says
there’s lots of bonus stuff as well. Supposedly this is a 4K transfer, but
it only seems to be available at 1080.
 

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It's only on blu-ray.  But Shout just loves to release blu-rays with new scans then a year or two after I buy it suddenly come out with a new 4K disc.  I have been burned by them so many times!  At this point I'm reluctant to buy blu-rays from them and just wait for the 4K disc.  That being said, I have the old blu-ray and I know the picture quality on that is garbage.  So if I want to watch it again, and I do, I'm probably going to break down and get their new blu-ray.

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Idiots.
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I like this movie. And it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it in the correct
aspect ratio all the way through! They usually run just the titles
widescreen and then zoom in for the movie itself.
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And, Jennifer Esposito at her very hottest!
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The were an incredible number of mashup offered to me (Bonnie and Clyde
meet Dracula?) But none of them were free.
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According to my great aunt either Clyde or I think members of Clyde's
gang are distant relatives.  I saw a picture of him dressed like a
gangster straight out of a Hollywood movie.  I really should read up on
them at some point.

 No better place to start
 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117379/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
 The reviews savage it, but the sex and nudity rating is “severe“ so it’s
got that going for it
 IMDb says it’s free on the Tubi
 

For some reason I was thinking this was an old movie from the 60s or 70s.  Tubi?  Ugh.