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The Vulture's Eye (2004): "You godless cocksuckers!" This makes two ill-conceived Dracula knockoffs made for a shoestring budget on live-action video that I've seen in the past year. I tried to make it through The Vulture's Eye once, failed, and then steeled myself and tried again. It's ridiculous, but it's an improvement in some ways on Die Hard Dracula. It's still awful, though, so I should probably concentrate on that aspect of the prodcuction. The basic plot of Dracula gets airlifted to modern-day Purcellville, Virginia (right in Loudoun County up near the Shenandoah--one of my favorite professors was from that neck of the woods), with most of the characters retaining their names, except for Jonathan Harker, who's now Quincy Morris; Transylvania, which is now Sierra Leone; and Dracula, who's now "Count Klaus Vogel." Mina's still British, for some reason, and Van Helsing dresses like Colonel Sanders and slobbers all over dinner tables. Renfield's married, presentable, and doesn't like people talking shit about the Pope (or, as he calls him, "His Holiness"). Why? you ask. It's okay; I don't really care, either. Count Vogel insinuates himself into the lives of what appear to be the faded Tidewater gentry (particularly in a hilariously overripe dinner party scene), unless his prey can unite to stop him, etc. etc. The dialogue is wretched (see above), there's a terribly weird treatment of Catholics and Catholicism, and an avalanche of pointless slo-mo "artsy" shots (although some of the editing towards the end does get rather decent, and the countryside's awful purty). The acting isn't quite as bad as I'd feared but still highly variable. The guy who plays Jack is an especial hoot in this regard. Speaking like he's presenting an ESL video in one scene while talking about Van Helsing, he has little trouble getting terribly animated later at the dinner party when he's supposed to be drunk, a sea-change in his vivacity that led me to believe he'd actually been drinking. The best part of the movie is probably Brooke Paller--sort of a zaftig Melisa Gilbert--as Lucy Westenra, who comes close at times to being truly affecting (maybe it was the fact that she was the only remotely interesting character). One area--the only area--in which I think The Vulture's Eye is actually laudable is the whole body image thing; good for them to cast an actress who isn't thin as a rail in the "sexy" part. There's one genuinely funny joke. There are also some really nasty mixes of sex and gore, with breasts covered in blood and similar shots. They don't belong to the actresses, though--I stuck through the end credits and was privileged to learn that they were in all likelihood the property of "The Butt-a-lator" (I've forgotten her name; wouldn't you?) and "Sister Helen Margarette." I never thought it would be necessary to advertise anything "as "better than Die Hard Dracula," but it looks like that day has finally come. Huzza.
The movie on the other side of the disk (it's one of those), Vampire Stakes, has a scene where someone says "let's go kick some vampire butt." Why don't people try? Why don't they fucking try???
Wild Caribbean Black Bean Chili
4 cups dried black beans
Pick over and rinse; combine beans in large pot with water to cover by two inches. Bring to boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer , partially covered, until almost tender, about 1 hour.
1/4 cup vegetable oil, 4 medium onions, finely diced
Heat oil in same large pot over medium heat (having removed beans) until hot. Add onions and cook, stirring occassionally, until just starting to urn brown (8-10 mins.).
1/4 cup minced garlic, 1-2 tbsp minced habanero peppers or 6-8 minced jalapeno peppers
Cook, stirring, for 1 min.
1/4 cup chili powder, 1/4 cup cumin, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp pepper, 3 tsp orange zest, 1 1/2 cups orange juice, 2 tsp grated lime zest, 3/4 cup fresh lime juice, 28 oz. crushed tomatoes, 6 cups water
Add, stir together well, and bring to simmer. Stir in reserved black beans, return to simmer, and cover, reducing the heat to low. Cook, partially covered, add more water as needed, until beans are al dente (1 1/2-2 hrs.). Suggested garnishes: sour cream and cilantro.
I had some friends over this weekend to watch movies for the first time ever (and I've been living there over three years), so I was terribly excited. Too excited, as it turned out, to remember to eat, but not too excited to screw up the recipe. I thought it turned out pretty good. I had to make a few adjustments--I couldn't find any habaneros (apparently the hottest chili known) but didn't want to use jalapenos (too boring) and so compromised with serranos, using about 4 of those. Instead of crushed tomatoes, I chopped up some fresh ones and pureed them, and I decided to add 1 tbsp of cilantro to the whole thing.
I also made some catfish jambalaya, which turned out more like catfish risotto but was still delicious. Though briefly tempted to watch The Vulture's Eye (other people, not me), we instead watched this, which, as always, was awesome.
Updated: 22 January 2008 2:26 PM EST
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