cinema history class: exhausted by a dracula movie

It's been a few years now that Ethan and I have been in Keith's cinema history class. In that time, we've seen many movies -- some good and some...not so good. Some -- not all, but some -- of the movies can tend to blend together. But there have been a few that stand out as truly memorable.

This past Thursday's movie, Andy Warhol's Dracula, was part of the second category. By the time the film ended, I was breathless. Exhausted. This ain't your father's Dracula. It was a gothic horror film. There were comedic elements, which was Keith's rationale for including the movie in his session on horror comedies. And a lot of the movie played like a soft-core porn flick. So I can't really say exactly why I found the movie so exhausting. So compelling.

Perhaps it was the atmosphere. The cinematography is lush and vivid, and the direction captures the the moods beautifully. The movie begins with a scene of Dracula elaborately making himself up to look alive. As an aside, I note that this is a new element in the Dracula canon -- the idea that the count, being dead has to use makeup and hair dye to make himself look alive. From there, there's some exposition, and the count is off to Italy in search of virgin victims. There are moments that are fascinating. There are moments that are revolting. There are moments that are frightful. And it all adds up to a thrilling hour and a half.

There are some puzzling elements to the movie. Chief among them are the accents. They contribute greatly to the atmosphere, but they're inconsistent. While Dracula is courting the di Fiore daughters (who, surprise surprise, aren't the virginal angels he's thirsting for), the father speaks with an Italian accent. The mother sounds British. At least one of the daughters sounds French. And the farmhand sounds a Jersey Boy.

And this is as good a time as any to talk about that farmhand. Played by Joe Dallesandro,  he sounds completely out of place. At least all the other accents are European. But there's no effort to rein in Dallesandro's speech. Keith tells us that this was probably a conscious choice on the part of director, Paul Morrissey, for humorous effect. I have to wonder if Dallesandro was in on the joke. It's hard to say for sure. It's hard to imagine that he was oblivious, but he's such a poor actor that such obliviousness is quite possible. While the rest of the acting is quite good (and sometimes excellent), Dallesandro turns his role as the farmhand into a caricature of the pron industry.

I suppose he's well-suited for that role. His body is quite attractive -- especially in the long loving camera shots of his butt during the sex scenes, and he plays it up. Which makes sense given his history. Keith points out that he was the inspiration for a verse in a Lou Reed's classic:

Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City's the place where
They said "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side."
I said "Hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side."

With a little research I also found out that the crotch on the cover of the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers cover. So, Joe knew how to work it.

Finally, to close with a bit of attention to the end of the movie. The climactic scene is horrifying in its violence, and yet it's funny as well. And it exhausted me.

This is a movie that I never would have seen if not for Keith's class. In fact, I might not have heard of it. But I'm truly glad to have seen it, and that's the best of the class.

baseball stoopid stats roundup (2016 edition) #1

Baseball fans know that Barry Bonds holds the record for most home runs in a season (73) and that he holds the record for most home runs in a career (762). But who holds the record for most home runs in a span of 8 consecutive years? Or twelve?

Some years ago I got interested in the question(s) of who holds the records for most home runs in an n-year period (for positive integers n). As a result, it's something that I track every year, updating the tables as necessary after the regular season is over. As it turns out, the list didn't change this year -- it hasn't changed since 2007, which was Barry Bonds' last season. I attribute that fact to the end of the steroid era.

Anyway, the list (as shown in the accompanying chart) contains four players. What's interesting is that three of those players are from the steroid era. The other is Babe Ruth. When Ruth retired, he held the record for every span. In fact, as of 1921 he held the record for every span. That lasted until 1961, when Roger Maris hit 61 home runs to take the 1-year span. Maris, by the way, would stay on the list until 1998, when Mark McGwire eclipsed him with 70. Anyway, after 1961, the list stayed the same until 1973, when Hank Aaron set the record for home runs in a 20-year span (713). The next year, Aaron would grab the records for all spans longer than 20 years. And things were atble after that until 1998 when McGwire entered the list. THere ensued a ten-year span in which Sammy Sosa and Bonds would enter the list. But since 2007, things have stayed the same, which is what we have now.

One other note: I realize (since it was pointed out to me) that proper form would have me link to the file in which I did this analysis. Auditability and all that folderol. Maybe when I get better at using services like DropBox I'll start doing that.

the logic of baseball's postseason

Baseball's regular season is over, which means that it's time for me to look at the StoopidStats that I'm into. I will likely be posting about the 2016 season a few times over the next few days or weeks.

For this first post, I'd like to say that I have finally achieved some level of comfort with the concept of interdivisional play, interleague play and the wild card. These are all concepts that I have, for years, found to be intellectually displeasing.

Let me elaborate.

Let's start with the world series. The basic idea behind the world series was that there were two leagues, each with a champion. Since there was no interaction between the leagues, they instituted a championship series to determine bragging rights. That worked through 1969, when the leagues were split into divisions. Now, before the world series, they had a playoff within each league to determine the league champion. That would have made sense, except that they also had interdivisional play, which destroyed the conceit that you need the playoff to determine a league champion. In the intervening years, the structure has been repeatedly changed -- almost always in ways that reduce what I will call the "logical purity of the postseason structure." The unbalanced schedule. Interleague play. Wild cards.

Wild cards are the worst. It never made sense to me that you can be the major league champion without even winning your division. I took it as a sign in 1994 when, the year the wild card was instituted, the postseason was cancelled for the first time in 90 years. At least now there are two wild cards who have to play an extra one-game playoff. At least that creates a disadvantage to getting in through the back door.

While I'm ranting, please don't bother pointing out that it's all about money. Of course I know that. And still...

Anyway, this year I finally came up with a way of looking at this that doesn't offend my sense of logic. I have finally started viewing the baseball season (including postseason) as one huge game. The object of this huge game is to win the World Series. The rules of the game are such that there are different ways to achieve that goal. You can do it by winning your division. But you can also do it by winning a wild card spot.

I can live with that.

blair twote up a storm at twitchcon

For the second weekend in a row Blair spent her time at a "con" spreading the word about Stack-Up.Org.

Last week it was MineCon, which Sharon had wanted to go to (in her capacity as half of Team Meowsome). This weekend it was TwitchCon. She planned on going to that since she would already be in California.

I can't speak for everything Blair did, but I do know that she twote up a storm. On my Twitter account. As I mentioned once before, you can get a lot accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. So one might naively assume I'm doing all this tweeting for Stack-Up, but it's Blair.

It also helps that she's a woman. People are more likely to go along if a middle-aged woman asks them to hold up a sticker for a picture that will make it to the internet than if a middle-aged man makes the same request.

So, thanks, Blair, for stacking TF up. I love you.

back in the saddle with fearless vampire killers

One of the things I have come to look forward to is Keith's weekly cinema history class. But, going into last Thursday's class, it had been more than a month and a half since I had attended. Between Keith's late summer hiatus, my vacation and a charity event at Andrews Air Force Base, that was just the way the halvah crumbled.

Thursday was the third session of the current sequence on horror comedies. The first two sessions were devoted to The Comedy or Terrors and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. For this session we saw The Fearless Vampire Killers, a Roman Polanski film about two buffoons trying to hunt vampires in the snowy mountains of Transylvania.

There's actually a lot in this movie to like. For starters, the cinematography is beautiful, In some ways it transforms what should be a claustrophobic little film into one with impressive scope. Even with the main characters hanging around in front of blue screens and matte paintings, you can practically feel the openness of the alps. The opening reminded me strongly of Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas. Great use is made of color. For one example, in the grand dance scene, the red of Sara's hair and dress contrast sharply with the muted pastels of the vampires. The music was fitting, though a couple of us thought it sounded more like spaghetti western music. And the denouement is perfect. As Joe pointed out, it was worthy of The Twilight Zone. And, along with the opening, serves as a perfect bookend.

Polanski is oddly boyish, given that he was in his 30s when this was made. And Jack MacGowran is convincing, made up as the old man. This movie also solves a pseudo-mystery from my childhood. Long ago I'd heard reference to a movie scene where a girl holds a crucifix up to a vampire, only to have him respond (in a thick Eastern European Jewish accent) that she's got the wrong vampire. I never knew what film it was in, and had long forgotten the joke. Suffice to say the mystery is solved. That, of course, speaks to another interesting thing about the film. I kept waiting for Tevye to enter. Or, during the scenes at the inn, for them to burst into a chorus of "L'chaim."

And yet I just couldn't warm up this film. The humor element was evident enough to get in the way of the storytelling, by not enough to make this legitimately a comedy. Also, I just couldn't really find myself caring about the characters. I guess it's that they were never really fleshed out. Based on the aftercomments, the rest of the guys felt the same way. But Joe did give it extra bonus points for the ending.