- One thing I forgot to add to yesterday's list of anticipated reads is "Season 2" of Warren Ellis' newuniversal will be coming out very soon as well.  Just in time to help with the sting of THE 4400 getting cancelled...

- I hope these fine neighbors of mine do not attract the wrong sort of company with their Craigslist ad. For those not familiar, the game involves sacks of corn being tossed at an inclined plane with a hole centered near the top.  Scoring is similar to horseshoes.  A decidely un-raunchy summertime game common in the South.  Shame on me for spinning their ad that way.  :P  Shame shame.

- Mario Kart Wii comes out this weekend! 

- Recently watched the 1931 Dracula again, turning on the new Philip Glass score about halfway through.  Hadn't seen it since Saturday afternoon TV as a young'un.  Love the score, and was interested to realize how much of my own emotional cues while watching movies are predicated by the music.  I think I am going to look for the score for ipod or on disc somewhere because it struck me as being very good background music for writing; it had a strong sense of mood and motion, without being too distracting. Some of the best scoring occuring during the battle of wills scene between Drac and Van Helsing.  Some other thoughts follow:

       -To a large extent the scenes were constructed like a play, with plenty of walking on and off the set. (Duh, as it said on the opening credits, it was based on a play!)

       -So much was left out that my adult mind would have sworn was included.  Never once do you see Drac's teeth--in fact, he goes through odd facial contortions at times to keep you from ever seeing them.  Ditto bitemarks.  Every act of biting is accomplished, without fail, behind a blacked out screen or a cape or off screen. 

       -If Hollywood ever wanted to refilm this loyally, the character of Renfield would have to be played by Jim Carrey pretending to be Brendan Fraser.  Or vice versa.

       -The bats were hokey, but obviously the best they could do then. The rats and bugs coming and going from coffins were filmed in a way that even creeped this jaded 2008 dweller out a little.  BUT THEN THEY HAD TO SHOW THE ARMADILLOS.  I have no freaking idea what possessed them to add armadillos to this decrepit mountain castle scene, but there they are, in all their odd glory.

       -The words, when shown on screen were left there for a very long time.  Particularly an extended newspaper clipping scene.  I imagine this was because literacy wasn't what it is now, and they allowed plenty of time for slow readers to read it, as well as for someone to read it to their neighbors who had never taken up with book-learnin'.

       -Another noticeable sign of the times was the open air operating room.  Brain surgery was going on in what was functionally the equivalent of a garage with two-deep seating along the walls.  

       -At one point Drac says, very dramatically:  "There are far worse things awaiting man...than death."  Which struck me as a very Lovecraftian thing to say.

I checked this out from the base library, not realizing that it also contained the Spanish version of the original, filmed by night on the same sets, and Son of Dracula, Dracula's Daughter and House of Dracula.  Enough to make a film fest all by itself--if I hadn't also checked out the The Wolf Man and Frankenstein DVDs.  And each of them also contain several movies of their respective Universal Monster... Kind of a neat collection, though I doubt I'll watch much more than the classics, ie before they descended into pure campiness.  Anyone out there have recommendations about which I cannot miss, and which I most certainly should avoid?