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October 10, 2007

I have crossed oceans of time to find you...

RandomBoobage.JPG

Agent Bedhead considers Bram Stoker's Dracula via Francis Ford Coppola; "random boob shots" feature.

With all of this lofty grandeur, one would think that fine acting would necessarily run throughout the film itself, but apparently, Coppola was so busy managing all the visual hoo-ha and inserting random boob shots that he forgot to pay attention to the performances. This omission is perhaps best illustrated during the precredit sequence when (not-yet-Dracula) Vlad The Impaler (Gary Oldman) returns from battle and drops to his knees next to his very dead wife, Elizabeta (Winona Ryder), who visibly flinches. Oh wait, that can’t possibly be correct — lemme check ; nope, no Oscars were given to any of the actors or actresses in the film.

Say what you like about Keanu Reeves' acting or for that matter, Winona Ryder's. Say, for example, they suck. Gary Oldman still gets one of my favourite lines of all time; one I have had cause to quote in appropriate circumstances, I am happy to report.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 10, 2007 08:07 AM

Comments

I must admit, the Coppola version of Dracula is a guilty favorite. But the acting is... uneven. What's more irritating, though, are the liberties Coppola took with the plot. Throwing in Mina looking at Victorian porn, changing the character of Dracula to a lovelorn vampire (which doesn't mesh very well with the evil vampire parts), throwing in a scene with Dr. Seward shooting up... on the other hand, Tom Waites was a surprise with his excellent tour-de-force as Renfield. I can't stand his "singing" but he's a great actor. And Anthony Hopkins' scenery chewing as Van Helsing is amusing, and the actress who played Lucy (can't remember who she was, too lazy to look it up) made her really sexy. And of course there is Oldman. Winona Ryder comes off as rather stiff, though not as wooden as Keanu Reeves. And the visuals are gorgeous.

There was another adaptation of Dracula that was on tv some time last year. It may have been a BBC adaptation -- anyway, I tried to watch it but I had to turn it off; if I had disliked the plot changes in Coppola's version, I absolutely hated the ones in this version. For example, they changed the character of Lucy's fiancé into villain who brought Dracula to England so he could become a vampire (and also be "cured" of the syphilis that an early scene showed had turned his father into a raving maniac who had to be chained to a bed). (I can't find anything about this version on the internet, in a five-second search anyway; maybe I imagined the whole thing? I think it was actually on public television down here.)

Posted by: Andrea Harris [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2007 09:38 AM

Oh wait -- here it is!

It sucked.

Posted by: Andrea Harris [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2007 09:39 AM

Seconded. Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra was the bomb.

Coppola's flick never really hirt paydirt for me. I thought it reeked of some clumsy Hollywood angling to tap the booming goth zeitgeist. The casting director picked actors who would look pretty in their darkling gear, but went wide of the mark in characterisation. Great cinematography but very, very divergent plot versus the source material. Stoker's Dracula is more of an evil-for-the-hell-of-it kinda guy, while Coppola's rendition is all about love and loss and looking cool.

That and being familiar with the various conflicting stories of Vlad III Drăculea kind of spoiled it. The actual dude was reputedly such a cast-iron sonofabitch that even while imprisoned in Hungary, he used to impale small animals on tiny spears. That's a little closer to evil-for-the-hell-of-it than Coppola ever got.

Posted by: Chris Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2007 11:50 AM

Mmmmmmm, boobs....

Wait. There were MALE actors in that movie?

Oh. Must've been disracted -- I didn't notice.

Posted by: Sean McCormick [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2007 09:45 PM

Say, for example, they suck.

Hee.

Posted by: agent bedhead [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 11, 2007 10:35 AM

I sat through the whole of the horrendous 2006 Dracula for the sole purpose of Sophia Myles worship. She gave great vamp in Underworld and I have high hopes for Moonlight. Dracula was worth it, just.* But what a piece of crap it was otherwise.

* As is a Google image search for Sophia Myles. David Tennant is a prat, btw.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 11, 2007 07:37 PM