favorite movie #91 - halloween edition: only lovers left alive

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #91 - Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - I love this beautiful movie. I have written about it at length before. Here is a snippet from that earlier article:

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is an extremely romantic film. It has been dubbed his "vampire movie." but it is less a horror film and more a romance that concerns two vampires. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, a (really) old married couple. They live a world away from each other, he in Detroit, and she in Tangier, Morocco, but are inextricably linked. ...

The film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. The world of the film only exists as night, naturally, and Jarmusch (Night on Earth) is an excellent director to highlight the shadows and mysteries of sunless streets, cities at night. Vampires don't need to do housekeeping or even comb their hair, and the set and costume design renders their dusty and cluttered surfaces and persons in loving detail. The film moves slowly and elegantly, much like its protagonists — that is, until chaos, in the form of Eve's younger "sister" Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up. ...

You can read the whole review here.

Happy Halloween!

a book series from hunger

Whitley Strieber wrote The Hunger in 1981. It was his second novel and featured Miriam Blaylock, a glamorous female vampire, her current companion John. A third side to the triangle is a brilliant young doctor, Sarah Roberts, whose research may provide an answer to Miriam's immortality and what it might mean to the human race. The book was memorably made into a sexy, campy feature film by Tony Scott in 1983 with Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon as the trio. What makes The Hunger different from other vampire novels is how Strieber presents a scientific approach to vampirism — the answer to what makes Miriam different might be in her blood, and therefore could possibly be harnessed in the lab somehow. The day-to-day practical aspects of being a vampire — how to select victims, what to do with the bodies after feeding — are presented as a way to plausibly insinuate that vampires have been successfully and glamorously operating in the shadows of our society from time immemorial.

Miriam is a fascinating creature. She views humans as her food source, but she is also obsessed with their talents and inventions — music, poetry, painting, design. She is also extremely lonely. She periodically creates a companion by giving them the "gift" of her own blood through transfusion. Their ability to stay young "forever" alongside her is only temporary, however, as John is finding out. After 200 years or so they begin to age — rapidly. Could Sarah Roberts help Miriam halt this deterioration? And what is up in the attic of her fabulous Sutton Place brownstone?

David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger (1983)

There is nothing wrong with an author revisiting an old theme, as Stephen King has proven with Doctor Sleep. But it is imperative that the author respects the memories of their readers, and at the very least goes back to re-read their original novel as a refresher. Unfortunately this is not the case with Strieber's two follow-ups to The Hunger. Twenty years after the first novel can out Strieber decided to revive Miriam and her world in The Last Vampire, in 2001. Not only did he either fudge or completely forget what happened in the original novel, including stories of Miriam's origin, but he introduced a third character, intrepid vampire hunter and CIA operative Paul Ward, a truly annoying character. Ward's age doesn't seem to compute — visual and anecdotal clues seem to suggest he's in his 40s, but his behavior at other times seems much older, and then, later, during some truly bizarre sexual encounters, much younger. Plus, he doesn't seem to do any detecting at all, but just ends up right where he needs to be most of the time. Science had been thrown out the window this time around. There is no interest on how or what vampires exist or what they might have to teach us, but just kill or be killed. Strieber's second shot at Miriam isn't much better. The brilliant, elegant, and overly cautious vamp (how else did she survive all this centuries?) is no more. She seems to do one stupid thing after another, and in the last third of the novel is presented as a nubile young woman who is running a downtown sex club in New York City who is just hungering for a vampire baby? Yikes.

Things don't get any better in the third, and one can only hope final book in the series, Lilith's Dream, which came out in 2002. Miriam was still alive at the end of The Last Vampire, but Strieber seems to have forgotten that. This book instead follows an uber-ancient vampire, Lilith, who may have ties to the Old Testament. But who knows? And guess who's back — Paul Ward, going off half-cocked across the world in search of this creature.

If you run across any of these books I highly recommend The Hunger. The other two you would be better off skipping.

First published on Cannonball Read 10

only lovers left alive

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is an extremely romantic film. It has been dubbed his "vampire movie." but it is less a horror film and more a romance that concerns two vampires. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, a (really) old married couple. They live a world away from each other, he in Detroit, and she in Tangier, Morocco, but are inextricably linked.

Hungry, in Tangier

Eve, "Tell me now about entanglement. Einstein's spooky action at a distance. Is it related to quantum theory?" 

Adam, "No. I mean, it's not a theory, it's proven." 

Eve, "How's it go again?" 

Adam, "When you separate an entwined particle and you move both parts away from the other, even at opposite ends of the universe, if you alter or affect one, the other will be identically altered or affected." 

Eve, "Spooky. Even at opposite ends of the universe?" 

Adam, "Yeah."

Neither has preyed directly on humans for ages — they explain that most of the human blood supply is tainted, diseased; but one gets the idea that they have removed themselves from such direct contact, preferring to indulge instead in their favorite pastimes — for Adam music, for Eve, literature. Eve gets her pure supply of blood from another vampire, her old friend Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt). And he is that Marlowe, for fans of Elizabethan drama. Adam has an arrangement with a local doctor (Jeffrey Wright) to keep his pantry stocked. When these vampires do take a sip, it is in gorgeous stemware, and the results are blissful, heady, akin to a drug high.

A photo from the couple's third wedding

The film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. The world of the film only exists as night, naturally, and Jarmusch (Night on Earth) is an excellent director to highlight the shadows and mysteries of sunless streets, cities at night. Vampires don't need to do housekeeping or even comb their hair, and the set and costume design renders their dusty and cluttered surfaces and persons in loving detail. The film moves slowly and elegantly, much like its protagonists — that is, until chaos, in the form of Eve's younger "sister" Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up. Ava doesn't exactly subscribe to her older sibling's ideas of the proper way to acquire their sustenance, and she also takes a liking to Adam's quasi- yet unsuspecting Renfield, the dim but likable Ian (Anton Yelchin).

There are so many great details in Only Lovers Left Alive. Adam's love of classic guitars and other instruments, and an ability to construct retro-inspired gadgets, like a view-phone to see Eve when she calls him. The more practical Eve has mastered the iPhone and night flights, in order to get to Detroit and buoy up her lover, who is flirting with ending it all with a wooden-tipped bullet. Jarmusch, with his band Sqürl teaming with Jozef Van Wissem, constructs a moody soundtrack which perfectly captures the essence of Adam and Eve's existence. Also appearing near the end of the film is Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, who enchants the lovers with her song "Hal."

The ever-practical Eve introduces Adam to the blood popsicle

Jarmusch films Adam and Eve like beautiful sculptures. His artistic sensibility carries through the film. Viewers get a glimpse of just how his eye works and his crew and actors help realize his vision in a nice short included on the Blu-ray, "Traveling at Night with Jim Jarmusch," a documentary by Lea Rinaldi, where the director compares the set-up of one actor in a scene to a painting by Mantegna. Besides the beauty, and the at-times unsuspected humor, what really enchants in Only Lovers Left Alive are Swinton and Hiddleston. Their chemistry is palpable and believable, and they manage to invest us in their world and their quest for survival. While everyone else is signing up for a zombie apocalypse, I would be hoping more for Adam and Eve's way, a most stylish and arty way to enjoy eternity.

just when you thought this obsession with vampires was completely played out ...

You had me at Hiddleston. And Swinton. And Jarmusch. And then you threw in the big gun. John Hurt. Only Lovers Left Alive. Let's get a U.S. release date already.

still scary after all these years — 'salem's lot

Article first published as Book Review: 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King on Blogcritics.



The recent paperback release of 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King's second published novel, is a wonderful old-school vampire story, where the vampires aren't sparkly, or romantic, or James Dean cool — they are rampant, foul-smelling, and very, very evil. 'Salem's Lot is also a vampire novel where the vampires aren't exactly secondary, but a symptom of what King poses is going wrong in the world.

The Nosferatu-influenced Kurt Barlow, from the 1979 television miniseries directed by Tobe Hooper, based on King's novel.


The town of Jerusalem's Lot, or 'Salem's Lot, for short, is, by its isolated nature, the perfect breeding-ground for evil. King asks the reader, can a place draw evil, due to its own moral corruption? In an interview with Highway Patrolman magazine, King said, "In a way it is my favorite story, mostly because of what it says about small towns. They are kind of a dying organism ... I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!"

King takes his time sketching out the town's geography, inhabitants, and history, until the reader has as much invested in 'Salem's Lot as protagonist Ben Mears. Ben is a novelist who lived in 'Salem's Lot as a child. He has come back to town to exorcise a childhood memory of a frightening supernatural experience at the local haunted house, the Marsten House. He hopes to turn his bad memories into a best-selling novel.

Ben quickly gets sidetracked when he meets and falls in love with local girl Susan Norton, but also when he starts to notice that something very wrong is going on in the town — and that all roads lead back to the house of his nightmares, the Marsten House. Two young brothers, Ralphie and Danny Glick, have disappeared. It at first seems like there may be a child-murderer in the area. Ben and Susan team up with young Mark Petrie, a schoolboy friend of the Glicks with an encyclopedic knowledge of movie monsters, high school teacher Matt Burke, doctor Jimmy Cody, and local Catholic priest Father Callahan to investigate the growing number of deaths — and disappearing corpses.

King does his usual wonderful job of quick-sketching memorable characters. The eccentric, laid-back, and sometimes cantankerous people who live in the Lot come easily to life. Unfortunately for them, and thanks to the other newcomers to the Lot, the mysterious Mr. Straker and his unseen partner Mr. Barlow, they are also as easily dispatched.

King's take on contemporary (1975) politics, like Watergate and the gas crisis, which he believes have eroded people's values, is an undercurrent throughout the novel. The mysterious and possibly infused-with evil Marsten House, which physically presides over the town, provides another level of corruption. He also explores the exponential possibilities of vampire creation. Their ranks keep growing, and growing and growing ...


'Salem's Lot is a time capsule of sorts. So many of the main characters are working in the dark from one another. King could never have written the novel in the age of cell phones. Clearly a product of the '70s, it is no less a scary read today. 'Salem's Lot packs the same punch, the same apprehension, whether read late at night or in the clear light of day. As scary as it is, there is also something incredibly sad about the novel.

King pulls 'Salem's Lot apart piece by piece. We watch the town disappear. The horror the reader experiences, the inevitability of the story and the characters' fates, is in exact correlation to Ben and his friends' dread at their eventual confrontation with Kurt Barlow.

King spares no one. The elderly, children, animals, and even main characters are all up for grabs where the vampire is concerned. There are thrilling scenes, but the true horror takes place between the lines, with the reader imagining the worst — which usually proves to be true. Before settling down with 'Salem's Lot, you might want to check your windows to see if they are securely locked, and look through your jewel box for a cross or religious medal to keep on hand while you are reading. Just in case.

twilight zone

I just saw the movie Twilight on cable. It's not as bad as critics or haters of runaway successes would have you believe. It's not great, either, but it was very watchable. And almost classic, in some ways. As I watched it, I was waiting for a scene or scenes that I might want to shield my daughter from (who was already tucked into bed), but there really weren't many. There were a few scenes of menace, and she would have found the penultimate fight scene scary, but she could see it in a few years (or tomorrow, with her eyes covered until given the all-clear, as I used to watch monster movies with my dad). Mostly it was pure fairytale. I haven't read the book(s), but have notice and liked the bold cover graphics, the illustrated forbidden fruit referencing remembered childhood fairytales.

What is interesting to me about this "vampire fad" is not the romantic or even sexual aspect of the stories, which, unless you were completely asleep, were always there. It's that vampires are just a device to tell the fairytale story. Twilight's lead vampire, Edward Cullen, is part handsome prince, part sleeping beauty. Bella, the heroine, awakens him from his slumber, and lets love into his life. The fact that they can't consummate their love (he might lose control and vamp out) may be frustrating for moviegoers, but completely in-sync with the chaste kiss that culminates most Cinderella, Snow White, etc. stories. Little girls love to swoon and imagine all things romantic, but are slower to actually want to let things get real. Pretty kid-appropriate, apart from the vampire angle. With a female heroine who drives the paper-thin story, no wonder girls are flocking to this tale. Much like their re-christening of Aladdin "Jasmine," Twilight is another princess story, just not by Disney.

After finding movie vampires attractive since my childhood—Francis Lederer in The Return of Dracula was exotic and sexy (I hadn't seen Bela yet), Frank Langella in my teens made becoming a vampire an option worth considering (and made me read the original novel by Bram Stoker), and Gary Oldman—well, he was creepy and Gary and sexy all at the same time—he made Coppola's over-the-top mix of genius design and embarrassing acting worth watching—a vampire romance seems pretty par for the course. Not to mention my love of all things Angel and the inimitable Spike.

Edward may be a de-fanged vampire, but his blatant channeling of James Dean, the ultimate inscrutable, frustrating, and oh-so-attractive movie male and teen icon is dead-on and absolutely appropriate for this demon without a cause. Dean died tragically young and will always represent teen angst. Edward died at seventeen and has been pent up and frustrated pretty much ever since. He may represent the ultimate teen dreamboat/horny boyfriend. Angel & Spike may have been juvenile at times, but were men for the most part, trying to find their way in the world of good or evil, depending on which show, which season, you were watching. Edward and Bella's romance is not only this generation's vamp couple, but may speak more directly to a teen sensibility. Buffy was set in high school, but was more sophisticated, adult in tone. Buffy didn't have the luxury of living a fairy tale. She was in a monster movie from the get-go. What if Angel had attended Sunnydale High? It would have been a much different story. Edward seems to want to go to school. live in the world. He's even sort of a science geek. He's that weird but attractive guy with the family problems that no one wants to talk to. You know he's trouble, but . . .

For folks who would argue that Edward's fascination with Bella is creepy, stalker-like—are you that disconnected from teen romance? Obsession is the name of the game. What about how Edward's attraction to Bella is directly linked to his thirst for her blood? Hello, pheromones. But he's a blood-drinking monster—killer of little bunnies and Bambis (he and his vamp family consider themselves vegetarians). Well, to reference Some Like it Hot, nobody's perfect. Most fairy tales are creepy. Cinderella was treated as slave labor by her family. Snow White's step-mother was constantly trying to murder her because she was jealous of her beauty. Sleeping Beauty falls in love with the first guy she kisses (even sees.) These are not role models. But they are classic stories that feature girls and women and magic and fantasy. Children need make-believe, and stories where the boy is always the hero are all too common. Some may find Bella's obsession with Edward dangerous and inexplicable. Sort of like love. Can love ever be explained rationally? Should it? Is she losing herself in him, is she making bad choices? Probably. Is it entertaining to watch? Definitely.