While it may be true that I can be a bit of a cultural/intellectual snob (what do you mean, you’ve never read any Algren? How can anyone not have seen Dead Man?), but i’m not ashamed to admit that i am completely psyched to see Troy. And it’s not about Homer. Sure, I own a copy of the Iliad. Sure, I think it’s a damned good read. But I’m not going to pretend that’s the draw here. I just can’t think of a better way to spend a couple of hours than staring at hot, half-naked boys in skirts with good cinematography. Well, ok, I can think of a few better ways. But not many. I’ve got to say I’m happy, though, that the infamously difficult-to-please David Denby had (mostly) only good things to say about it, and the Times didn’t come up with anything particularly bad, either.
On the other hand, I don’t know if I can bring myself to shell out $9 to see Van Helsing. Despite my deep and abiding love for vampire flicks of virtually all conceivable kinds, I have in recent years realized that there are such things as vamp flicks so bad they’re not even funny. And this really looks like one of them. Maybe that’s because it’s strayed outside the vampire genre proper and expanded to werewolves and frankensteins and suchlike things. Lord knows Underworld was awful, and that was the last vamp/werewolf one-two punch I can think of. But Buffy did the crossover/multi-monster thing too, and at least for a while there it was still really, really good. No, I think my problem with a lot of the newer stuff is that it’s just got no sense of humor. I mean, the best line in Near Dark is still and will always be the best line in a vamp movie, ever: “Hey, remember when we set that fire in Chicago? [uproarious laughter]”
They just don’t make ’em like they used to, I guess. Maybe I’ll have to have a good old fashioned vamp film festival to console myself.