Conference bookie::movies

    I also didn't like the movie very much. The photograhpy was excellent,
    the costumes etc. were very impressing.
    
    The unlogical things mentioned in -1 I would explain, that the whole
    story is only a fairy tale.
    
    Andrea

Bonjour ,

RE. 1
1) I don't think he checked anything but Lucy was in a so deseperate state
that any blood would have been helpful ... Mixing blood is a question of
specialists. Lucy only needed blood, any blood. That's all.
    
2) This point was not in the Bram Stoker's novel. Van Helsing's 
charactere is different from the original novel. It's an innovation of the
Coppola's scenario. I don't like it. In the novel, Van Helsing is a very 
respectable professor, and philosoph but not a drunkard. You're right : there
is an ambiguity about Van Helsing personality. But he's absolutely not a
vampyr, he's just on the point to meet the creature he studied and purchased
all his life, and he becomes mad.
    
3) It is the count in an animal form. He just arrived a few hours ago.

4) Coppola is not an english man and the movie was done on studios in
California ... This is not really important.

6) I don't think so.  

7) Agreed. Really good performance of Tom Waits as Renfield.

I liked the movie but I was quite disapointed because I've read the novel
just before. I didn't like the actor's except Tom Waits. A.Hopkins played as
if he was in "Silence of the Lambs II" ... I did not like Keanu Reeves as
J.Harker: he didn't seem to be very affected or very frightened in the 
Transylvanian forest or even in the castle when he was kept prisonner. He
seemed to be here on holidays, just simply surprised ... In fact he should
have been absolutely horrified and traumatized. G.Oldman was not enough 
attractive as a young man and not very frightening as a vampyr.

The movie is very exciting if it's seen as an huge opera on blood, love,
special effects, colours,costumes and music. It it is a bloody fairy tale.

The only movie I saw about Dracula is the "Nosteratu" (F.W MURNAU, 1992) and
it was really frightening and surrealistic. The characters were all renamed
because of copyrigth problems. There were no reference of B.Stoker in the
movie generic. The Bram Stoker's Dracula is a wonderful novel, one of the best
I've ever read, and these two movies are compelementary to reflect the
Dracula's character and atmosphere of the novel.
I'd add that the love story imagined (by Coppola and his scenarist) between 
count Dracula and Mina is a wonderful idea.

- Herve - 

re .2

> 1) I don't think he checked anything but Lucy was in a so deseperate state
> that any blood would have been helpful ... Mixing blood is a question of
> specialists. Lucy only needed blood, any blood. That's all.

Actually mixing blood types is a pretty serious proposition, could be a case
of the cure being worse than the problem.


> The only movie I saw about Dracula is the "Nosteratu" (F.W MURNAU, 1992)

That should be 1926, not 1992, and it's _Nosferatu_. A truely remarkable film.


Yes the film is poorly written, edited, and acted. Your only chance of 
understanding anything that was going on was to be familiar with Stoker's
novel. But the visuals were so terrific that I loved it anyway. It could
have been a much better film but what is there is stunning.


Randy

    As I recall from the novel Lucy had many blood donors and the blood
    type was never checked.
    
    Steve Bo.
    

    Rented this over the weekend.  What a crummy film.  Where'd that red
    armor come from? Or when?  
    
    And the special effects--awful.  All the special effects looked like
    cheesey overlays.  What crap.  
    
    Did any one else notice that whenever Lucy's fangs started to show, so
    did her naked breasts?  Puleeze!!
    
    I don't know about you, but if a coach driver with scales and claws
    indicated that I should take a seat in the coach, I'd'a boken the land
    speed record in the opposite direction!!
    
    Ack!
    
    Carl
    
    two fangs down

I also saw this over the weekend and my husband and I agree with the replies
here.  The first 20 minutes we enjoyed, after that the acting was not that
great but I did like the visuals (costumes, castles, makeup, etc.)
I wanted more interraction with Dracula and Mina.  

.5>    two fangs down
    
    HaHaHa!  (are you suggesting anything about Siskel or Ebert?)
    
    I suspect this movie really bites it on the small screen.  A lot of the
    "spectacle" shots and the score need the sight/sound of a theatre.
    Even there, it wasn't that great a movie but I'm glad I saw it.
    
       John

     Gee, I really liked the movie. Granted it was a bit hard to follow
   in spots, but overall I thought it was quite good. The visuals, sound
   track, and special effects I thought were all first rate. Parts of 
   movie I thought were downright spooky. The part where they are 
   chasing the vampire back to the counts castle while trying to beat
   the setting sun was some great film. Visually quite a stunning film!

     I'm sorry I never made it to the theatres to see this one.

     If you don't try to psychoanalyze every scene, and just let 
   yourself go, the movie will sweep you along. 
    
     Rent it and enjoy!
    
    

    I thought this movie was Excellent.  You people wouldn't know a good
    movie if it bit you in the A$$.  If this is the kind of reviews you
    give movies, then it doesn't really matter what happened to the old
    conference.  This one might as well get erased too.
    
    Ken
    

    
    Re: .9   Ken Swanson
    
    You don't have much room to talk. Your one line review doesn't make me
    want to run out and see it.
    
    I guess you don't know a "good review" unless it agrees with you, or
    unless it bites you on your A$$.
                   
    James

    Funny, I thought these conferences were for EVERYONES opinion, not just
    one persons... Frankly I think that I WOULD know a good movie, and I
    wouldn't need it to bite me in the A$$ to do it. But then again, I can
    only judge a movie by the qualities I like in a movie, not what
    everyone else likes. If you don't like a variety of opinions, why even
    read Notes?
    
    IMHO
    
    Michael
    
    

    
    Now, there's a case of valuing differences. Now, I like the movie, but 
    was not surprised that most people did not.......
    
    
    Marilyn

    Now, now, don't everybody jump on him at once. (For one thing, that
    reply has all the earmarks of a hit and run noter, in which case he'll
    never see the replies - and for another, why should _he_ get all the
    attention?) 
    
    What struck me most forcibly about .9 was that it missed a really prime
    (if you'll pardon the expression) opportunity to make an oblique
    reference to the film ostensibly under discussion ("Bram Stoker's
    Dracula Is Spinning In His Grave"); I mean, while people did get bitten
    in some interesting new places in that film, none of them included the
    specific spot he mentioned...
    
    (A quip is a terrible thing to waste.)
    
    -b

    An interesting rebuttal to Bram Stoker's Dracula (the novel, not the
    movie) was a book by Fred Saberhagen (the sf writer, not the baseball
    player) called "The Dracula Tape". It was an interview with Dracula
    around 1970, in which he gives his side of the story. ONe very
    interesting point is that the Doctor played by ANthony Hopkins gives
    direct blood transfusions to one of the women who is a victim of
    Dracula; but the story is set long before blood typing was known.
    So the transfusions probably did much more damage than Dracula himself
    did.
    
    For myself, I thought the movie was good, especially the effects, and
    reasonably true to the book. Some of the characters' reactions were
    quite exaggerated, though, and done (in my opinion) in an attempt to
    heighten the eroticism of the movie. (Dracula's shaving scene near the
    beginning, the doctor dancing with Mina, etc.)
    			Jim

    yes, but worse than that was the suggestion that all three men gave
    blood.
    
    odd film, all style, little respect . ** out of *****

  To me that doesn't sound like all that much of a big deal. Once you've bought
the part about how someone can drink a vampire's blood, die, come back to life,
grow sharp teeth, and "live" forever, how much of a stretch is it to say that
blood typing works a little different? 

  George

> To me that doesn't sound like all that much of a big deal. Once you've bought
>the part about how someone can drink a vampire's blood, die, come back to life,
>grow sharp teeth, and "live" forever, how much of a stretch is it to say that
>blood typing works a little different? 
    
    It's not a big deal, but it's a subtle difference. A writer of
    speculative fiction has to be careful how he violates the rules. It is
    interesting to say "how would a group of average people react if there
    *were* beings such as vampires?", and makes for a good story as long as
    the *new* rules are observed consistently. It's quite a different thing
    to violate a known rule for the convenience of your story. Saying that
    a person with blood loss can be cured by giving them blood from a
    randomly chosen donor (or three of them) is on a par with, say,
    allowing your hero  (whose car is out of gas) escaping from zombies, to
    fill the tank with water and drive away.
    
    But I'm not criticizing Bram. At the time he wrote it, everyone
    probably figured that blood was blood, and that a person with blood
    loss should be able to recover by getting a transfusion from just about
    anyone. It's just ironic to think what the consequences would probably
    have been, given the medical knowledge that we have today.

    Re .17: Oh, come on. There's a good, what, 10% chance that all four of
    them were type O... [No, don't anybody start computing the odds. Since
    the transfusions didn't kill her, clearly they all *were* compatible
    types, so let's find something else to kvetch about. Something in
    the movie, perhaps, hint, hint? ;-)]
    
    -b

    
    In the period in which Bram Stokers Dracula is set Blood Typing was not
    known they'd began to realise that someone couldn't just get blood from
    any donor.  They'd use close friends and family as donors.
    

    perhaps my point was that the blood transfussion stuff was'nt in the
    book was it ? It's a while since I read it but I thought that whole
    scene was just for the film.
    

    Re .20: Nope, 'twas in the book; indeed, much was made of it at the
    time, what with the donors all being "blood brothers" of a sort. (I
    admit that, as far as plot developments went, much of the film *was*
    quite true to the story, but when it veered away from it the veers were
    big ones.)
    
    [One rather interesting way in which current events have changed the
    perception of vampire movies has to do with the increased knowledge of
    the powers (and risks) of blood transference; I'm sure I've read more
    than one review that took "BS: Dracula" (and other vampire flicks) as
    statements about AIDS. Then again, it may not be much of a change; the
    Victorian view of vampires seemed to be that they (like sex) were
    wildly attractive and very, very dangerous, even if the biggest danger
    was seen as loss of reputation... In any case, while "BS: Dracula" got
    quite heavy-handed about vampires == sex and "those wacky repressed
    Victorians will try *anything*", I think its choice to give Drac a
    different motivation and to put more focus on that really weakened the
    whole thing.]
    
    -b

    
    But in the UK BBC did a dramatisation of the Book and it did have a 
    transfusion in I'm sure 
    
    Ol

RE       <<< Note 52.17 by 36905::BUCHMAN "UNIX refugee in a VMS world" >>>

>    It's [blood type] not a big deal, but it's a subtle difference. A writer of
>    speculative fiction has to be careful how he violates the rules. 

  I'm not sure I agree. Dracula has been a very successful book and has been
made into movies a number of times often being very casual with their rules on
blood. Just about every kid I've ever met has heard of Count Dracula. In fact,
he may have more fans than Michael Jordan. 

  Conversely, this is the 1st I've ever hear of this particular doctor who
complained about the blood typing and I'd bet almost no one else has heard of
him or remembers his name. 

  If everyone had stopped reading Dracula when the report came out, I'd agree
with your main point but considering it's continued success, I don't see any
reason a writer of speculative fiction would feel they had to be careful with
blood types in vampire stories. 

  George 

>  If everyone had stopped reading Dracula when the report came out, I'd agree
> with your main point but considering it's continued success, I don't see any
> reason a writer of speculative fiction would feel they had to be careful with
> blood types in vampire stories. 
    
    Like I said, it's not a blemish on Bram Stoker, because his tale made
    use of scientific facts fairly accurately to the extent that they were
    known at that time. About seventy years earlier, many (most?) medical
    professionals still thought bloodletting was a great way to treat some
    illnesses. If Dracula had been written around that time, he could have
    set up a very successful medical practice.
    
    Frankenstein is still quite a good book, even though medical science no
    longer views "life" as a vital essence or spark that can be added to
    flesh to make it animate.
    
    Back to the movie -- one thing that I think it added to the book was
    the short scene from the late 1400s, showing Count Dracula in his
    mortal phase. I would have enjoyed seeing more of that, or even some
    interim shots to show how he managed to last four hundred years in one
    place without arousing a great deal of suspicion. Like a scene from
    1782 showing a couple Transylvanian merchants talking over their
    morning grog. " Say, did you hear that England lost the colonies?"
    "Yeah, there goes my East India Company stock." "By the way, is that
    Dracula guy still in the castle?" "Yeah, I saw him last night at the
    hardware store." "He must be, what, three hundred fifty by now? How
    does he do it?" "Well, he doesn't smoke." "Yeah, that must be it."
    

    I just finished the novel, and it does have the blood transfusion
    sceen. I have become interested in the REAL Dracula, the 15th century
    prince. He was known as Vlad the impailer. His father Vald III was
    vested with the Order of The Dracul (the Dragon), to protect the
    church against the the muslam turks. One of the legends of Vlad was
    that when Vlad was away fighting the turks. His castle was surrounded
    by what was left of the muslum army, that Vald just defeated. His
    bride fearing that Vlad had been killed flung herself from atop the
    castle wall into the river below. When Vlad found out about the fate of
    his wife, he vowed to walk the earth after death seeking revenge, as
    the orginal undead soul. A few year ago some officals unearthed Vald
    grave. I beleve it's in some church in hungery. They found no remails
     Dave