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DavidBirke
Reviews
The Thirst (2006)
I thought it was surprisingly well made...
It's a total "Near Dark" rip-off and some of the elements suffer in comparison to the original and tonally it's kind of scatter-shot, uncontrolled, but very fun and interesting in its own way. One interesting thing is how it takes the drug-addiction metaphor angle-- familiar from "Near Dark" and Abel Ferarra's "The Addiction"-- and runs with it in a really enjoyable, over-the-top way.
It's also very well directed though you can see here and there where the speed and pressure of low budget production led to a few key scenes not being as executed as well as possible. But that's really kind of a quibble.
I recommend it.
The Last Sect (2006)
It was a major, major disappointment.
In order to make a completely unsatisfying, one hundred percent boring dud of a movie out of the premise of an innocent girl being lured into a cult of lesbian vampires, you have to willfully, perversely (and not in a good way) put in extra effort to sabotage yourself.
The film actually has surprisingly good production values, cinematography, etc but it just goes to show how sometimes those things can be a detriment. It's like the makers started shooting without a script hoping the lame, cliché MTVesque little flourishes would make the end product resemble a real movie.
I have no problem with bad movies. I have enjoyed many truly terrible movies. The only thing that really infuriates me enough to slam a film maker is when I sense they let a desire to seem tasteful or stylish take precedence over delivering the goods. Or worse were just completely unimaginative and uninspired and hope a veneer of superficial, depressingly Canadian, bland professionalism will cover up the fact that there is no there there. If ya know what I mean.
It's just-- Jesus, it was about lesbian vampires for chrissake's and it's endless banal dialogue about... yikes, forget it. God.
Blade: The Series: Pilot (2006)
It was truly, sincerely awesome
The "female Blade or whatever" was terrific. The TV show delivered sexy vamp femme fatale action. Which was sorely lacking in all three of the theatrical movies.
Everybody talks about the Traci Lords "bloodbath" sequence in the opening of the first movie. That was the best thing in the entire series of movies. And it was, like, two minutes long. And never followed up on. This series looks like it's shaping up to explore the blood-eroticism stuff in a very cool way. With the inimitable Jill Wagner filling the role very nicely.
They're picking their spots on this show. They know what good stuff they can deliver on basic cable and they're delivering the goods.
I thought it was actually pretty intelligently written and directed too.