BBD Comments:
Well, well, well...
It is well established that Nubs is our most consistent SELECTOR. I have been cheerleading him ever since he proved his love for Movienight with the sentimental choice of ‘Stand By Me.’ But wouldn’t you know, one week after he unfairly eviscerated my Pick ‘Manhunter,’ and the day after he lied to my face about having given and taken away his SELECTOR spot from our dear friend Tim Haskell, Nubs rolls out with his worst Pick since ‘Vision Quest.’
And I am not planning on pulling my punches.
Stay the fuck away from Tangerine Dream, Nubs. They are the kiss of death for your Picks. You try squeezing ‘Miracle Mile’ in some Wednesday night and I’ll get you booted off the team faster than you can say “Tony Romo chokes when it matters!”
Clearly a bad Pick, ‘Near Dark’ is not a completely terrible film. But Nubs knew that going in. He just figured it was gonna be me, Slim and Tim so it didn’t really matter if it was worth a Wednesday night set-up to sit through the eighties version of ‘Twilight.’
I have to say I am straight up disgusted that you made it clear you thought you had a Pick good enough for me and Slim to enjoy, but not up to the standards of the rest of the Crew! What the hell is that? Wiener shows up and then you worry if your Pick is Movienight worthy? Go back and read the By-Laws, fella. Let’s not forget Wednesdays are about camaraderie, and - tongue in cheek or not - I felt abused by your apparent outlook. If you are gonna make a Pick, make it worthy for Movienight. Period. And oh yeah, in the future, try to avoid diminishing those Members of the Crew who are there every single week.
It’s not the size of the audience that makes this ritual special, it is the ritual itself. And if it weren’t for you, me and Slim’s weekly dedication we’d have very little ritual left (I’d include Netti, except he never comes to your Selections).
With that venting behind me, I gotta tell you if it weren’t for ‘VQ’ this would be your worst Pick of all time. When I was fourteen years old I thought that the whole transfusion angle in this film was the coolest thing to ever happen to vampires. Seeing it on Wednesday I realize it is simply an unearned and tension killing Deus ex Machina. ‘Near Dark’ is a lugubrious ‘chick flick’ of a vampire film. There are fewer scares in this film than ‘Night of the Demon,’ and at least that had a stuffed leopard. This is the first time in your career as a SELECTOR when you broke new ground in a totally uninspired way. Shoulda saved this one for Indoors...
You been dishing the insults fast and furious of late, and with your Selection History I suppose I can understand the sanctimony. But the time to turn it down a notch has come. As far as I’m concerned your status as our Best SELECTOR is now in question. In four Wednesdays we will see if you can hang on to the football so your kicker can put it through the uprights, or if you’re gonna choke when it matters.
Happy Birthday.
Onwards...
Brandon Comments:
Although the 1980s were very unkind to cinema, there were some true gems that came from that Reaganomics/Pac-Man/Knight Rider period – and I think MovieNight has screened all six or seven of them. The 1960s had some great epic films; the 1970s revealed the darker side of cinema, with tits and bush finally being shown on celluloid, as well as great special effects and daring political and romantic content; the 1990s (my favorite period of cinema) introduced the world to independent films, character films, actor-turned-director films, really good big-budget films, and high-end documentaries. But the 1980s, man, not much came from that but the handful of films we’ve shown and some terrific sequels to ‘Alien.’
Now that we’re on the 1980s rant, we’ll dive a little deeper into Nubs’ ‘Near Dark.’ When ‘Near Dark’ came out in 1987, I, along with everyone I knew at a private Catholic high school in Burbank, had seen the film and raved about its grotesque freedom, its sexy “vampire chick” lead actress, and Lance Henrickson. You see, Lance was a young, teenage horror-fanatic boy’s idol because he was in ‘Aliens,’ ‘Pumpkin Head’ and many other awesome horror films from the period. He was the shit, man! He was the Chuck Norris of the horror genre. At that time in my life, ‘Near Dark’ had everything a valley kid could imagine.
But flash-forward 22 years later to our screening of ‘Near Dark’ at MovieNight: Jesus Christ, really? It’s been 22 years? Is that right?
Okay, flash-forward 22 years later to our screening of ‘Near Dark’ at MovieNight: we’re all older, cinema has grown incredibly since then, special effects can now make a 44-year-old Brad Pitt into a 3-foot-5 old man without any seams or flaws, film budgets have multiplied 20-fold. And yet ‘Near Dark’ still holds up as a gruesome, explosive, highly entertaining piece of cinema. Sure, the film had those token moments of any cheesy 1980s film, like the “big diesel truck that skids out and then somehow explodes for no reason” scene, the “make a choice between a life of sex, fun and freedom or hang with your family because it’s the right thing to do” scene, and, of course, the obligatory “good guy will always win in the end if he makes the right, wholesome decision” moment. And I’m not entirely sure how a one-pint blood transfusion can reverse the effects of a man turning into a vampire, let alone another one-pint blood transfusion of that same man-turned-vampire-turned-back-to-man actually reversing the effects of a woman who has been a vampire for several years already. Wouldn’t his blood still have some traces of vampire blood in it, and wouldn’t that make it a little more difficult to return the female vampire back to her normal state of being human again? Wouldn’t it? See, this is how we dissected films back in the 1980s, by using learned logic from other films. Like knowing that the only real way to kill a zombie is by shooting it in the brain.
Regardless, ‘Near Dark’ isn’t the best film around, but it’s a gem. That bar scene alone, with Bill Paxton slicing the neck and face of the bartender by using his razor-sharp boot spurs, is enough to warrant its screening for the boys.
Nubs, nice one. I fear I may be one of your only supporters in giving ‘Near Dark’ a thumbs-up, but since I personally invented MovieNight several years ago, my vote is the only vote that you should really listen to. Now, can we get the fuck out of the 1980s please?
SELECTOR Comments:
I’m really proud of the turnout of cool guys last night and how well my Pick performed. Everybody agreed it was a great overlooked gem of a movie and the perfect entertainment for our assembly of cool dudes. Ok, I’m just hoping visitors to web site will skim the first couple of lines and assume the best about this Wednesday. There is no need to read or write further but just in case I’ll offer explanation to why this may have been more of a dud than a dunk.
I knew ‘Near Dark’ was not to be my finest hour. However, I was hoping for a small, forgiving audience of maybe Slim, Tooda, and I only who might be more impressed about the connections to our jam session of random Picks, that they might let this under-achieving film slide. Well, Murphy’s Law of Movienight then gives you one of the largest audiences in months of unforgiving film-buffs and a newcomer, Tim, who was licking his chops with his Pick in hand. Actually, everybody was very respectful of this little film’s chance of immortality, and I appreciate it. That is, all except Pat who shows up late and judges audibly, what a dick.
So when doing research to scramble for a last-minute pick, I used as my guidelines Tooda’s motivation that led him to our last Pick, ‘Manhunter.’ He claimed it was the crappy 80’s soundtrack from Tangerine Dream in Slim’s ‘Three O’Clock High’ that was a catalyst. When I searched Tangerine Dream it led me to ‘Near Dark,’ which not only honors the Night with bites as in ‘Manhunter’ but also features cowboys and rural America connecting Netti’s opening lick, ‘Go West.’
Well let this be a lesson that all the right connections does not a slam-dunk make. As is too often the case with the Vampire sub-genre, our chick director was too attracted to the over-acted love story and making the Vampires look cool so she forgot the essentials of a horror movie; gore and scares. The scares and kills are so far and few between that it was tedious to sit through. It also makes another common Vampire flick mistake and repeatedly utilizes moments where unsuspecting victims try to harm the undead with bullets, which we know are ineffective and therefore ineffective to the audience by the 10th time they show it. This movie definitely has a unique approach to the classic vampire genre but is too boring to hold up for 20 years. I hear there’s a remake in the works. Maybe it will fix these problems.
It is never a good feeling to have your Pick be impotent when you want it to impress. Though it may not have seemed as short as its 93 minutes might indicate, I appreciated the extra time to hang out with all of us fellas. Next time I’ll bring a better main attraction.
_94_Minutes_files/shapeimage_4_link_0.png)