A trio of vampire movies

Since the second installment of the "Twilight" series is set to open in theaters soon (I haven't read the books, nor did I see the first film), I looked back and found three reviews of vampire movies to post. The first is a Mel Brooks spoof of the genre, though focused mostly on the classic "Dracula," and it doesn't work too well. The next is an Eddie Murphy romp. And the third -- the one worth a look, if you can find it, is an atmospheric, interesting exercise.

“Dracula” needs more life

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
Mel Brooks’ new comedy “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” is one of those good news/bad news movies. While it may be better than “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Spaceballs,” it doesn’t come close to “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” or “High Anxiety.”
Brooks’ tenure in Hollywood has been meteoric: It burned white hot, then plummeted.

“Dracula: Dead and Loving It” marks a partial return to old form for the once-master spoofer. He lampoons not only the movies that have been adaptations -- loose, and otherwise -- of the classic horror novel “Dracula,” but also the novel itself. In his own offbeat way, he remains as close or closer to the source material than many previous adaptations, including Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and Tod Browning’s 1931 version of “Dracula” starring Bela Lugosi.

Leslie Nielsen (“The Naked Gun”) stars as Count Dracula, and Peter MacNichol plays his mad slave, Renfield. Together, they travel from Transylvania to London, where the count sets about gnawing on the necks of a pair of local women. Out to stop him are the uptight Harker (Steven Weber) and famed vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (Brooks).
The film is about equal parts funny and stupid. The best scene begins with this exchange between Harker and Van Helsing, upon entering the crypt where a vampire sleeps:

“She’s dead,” observes Harker.

“No,” counters Van Helsing.

“She’s alive?”

“She’s nosferatu.”

“She’s Italian?”

Jeffrey Boam interview, June 1995

This is not a complete transcript of the interview. My vague recollection was that I was facing a pretty tight deadline, and so I skimmed through the recording and only transcribed the notes I thought I might use in the interview story. That said, the nuggets here are pretty interesting, given the way things played out:

* On “Lethal Weapon IV”: Jeffrey got no credit whatsoever. It turned out to be another bad “Lethal Weapon” experience with Warner Bros. and Richard Donner. Before the interview, he sent me a copy of the screenplay. At the time, I suspected he was eager to talk about it because he felt like it might be slipping away and going to another writer, and so he was trying to salvage it. His script, if I’m remembering correctly, involved the Los Angeles Lakers on a jet and a terrorist attack.

* He also mentions “The Phantom,” which he alluded to in our earlier interview. That movie bombed.

* On the fourth “Indiana Jones” movie, he didn’t get a credit, either. But what little he says about it sounds like George Lucas had the story pretty well set even back in the mid-1990s.

Don Porter: THE RIGHT-WING TERRORISM THING SEEMS PRETTY DEAD-ON.

Jeffrey Boam: “It seemed kind of far-fetched when I wrote it. [The Oklahoma City bombing] kind of spooked me a little bit, actually.”

The Jeffrey Boam interview, 1992

In the late 1980s and early '90s, I guested a couple of times a week on KALL-AM radio in Salt Lake City with DJ Peter Boam, who went by the on-air handle of "Peter B." He's a great guy, and we had a lot of fun talking movies and showbiz. It was during the waning days of so-called "full-service" radio, when listeners got music, news and talk all rolled into one.

Peter's brother was the late Jeffrey Boam, who unfortunately passed away in January 2000. Jeffrey was a tremendously successful screenwriter who penned scripts for movies including "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Lethal Weapon 2," "Lethal Weapon 3," "Innerspace," "The Dead Zone," "Funny Farm," "The Lost Boys" and "Straight Time." (He also was a writer-producer on one of my favorite, but sadly short-lived, TV series, "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.")

I first met Jeffrey in 1989 or 1990. While the family was vacationing at Disneyland, I took a few hours in the middle of the day and drove up to the Warner Bros. lot -- where Jeffrey was under contract -- and interviewed him in his offices there.

"Se7en" (1995)

Cast, crew can take pride in “Se7en”

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

There is a serial killer on the loose. He’s imaginative, devoted and, as one of the homicide detectives working the case gravely intones, “He’s patient.”

As bizarre and abnormal as these serial murders are, this killer has made them even more of a novelty, basing each on one of the so-called “Seven Deadly Sins”: gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and wrath.

That’s the premise of “Se7en,” a well-made but grisly, disturbing thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as the cops assigned to crack the case before the killer can dispatch all seven of his intended victims.

Peter Bogdanovich interview, 1993

“The Thing Called Love” is one of a thousand curious marketing stories in the history of the film business. It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who had a string of big hits and critical favorites in the 1970s – “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” and then again in the ’80s hit with “Mask.” (Bogdanovich is also known as a film historian who conducted extensive interviews – and had friendships – with legendary directors like Orson Welles and John Ford. And as the lover of the tragic Dorothy Stratten.) In August 1993, there was a press screening for “The Thing Called Love,” a showbiz-insider movie about wanna-be country music singer-songwriters pursuing their dreams in Nashville. The music genre was exploding in popularity around the country at the time. It starred the long-established River Phoenix, who would sadly be dead of a drug overdose in a couple of months, and up-and-comers Samantha Mathis (“Broken Arrow”), Dermot Mulroney (“My Best Friend’s Wedding”) and Sandra Bullock. All the Salt Lake-area critics assumed the film would be opening wide. I was a bit surprised when I was offered a phone interview with Bogdanovich – granted, he hadn’t had a hit in a while, but still … Anyway, he called and I’ve pasted in the transcript from the interview below. The Standard-Examiner, Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News published interview stories the day the film opened in local theaters. But it turned out the film was being test-marketed in Utah only – it didn’t open wide until a month or so later, if memory serves. The studio had decided to test-market it in a region friendly to country-western music to see how it would play. I don’t think it made much money here, and it bombed nationally later on, even with the curiosity surrounding the tragedy of River Phoenix’s O.D. (Incidentally, Phoenix overdosed in Los Angeles during a break from filming a movie, “Dark Blood,” in Utah – a movie that was never finished or released.) Here now is the interview with Peter Bogdanovich, who was a lot of fun to speak with.

Don Porter: I SAW THE FILM LAST WEEK AND THIS SEEMS TO BE ONE OF THOSE RIGHT-FILM-AT-THE-RIGHT-TIME SORTS OF MOVIES.

Peter Bogdanovich: “Boy, I hope so, Don.”

SEEMS MAYBE IT'S SORT OF RIDING THE WAVE OF COUNTRY MUSIC POPULARITY. HOW MUCH DID THAT PLAY IN YOUR DECISION TO BECOME INVOLVED WITH THE FILM?

“I like country music; I always have. I mean, always – ever since 1970, when I went to Nashville -- when I was preparing ‘Last Picture Show’ I went to Nashville to meet with some country-western singers to get to know more about country music because I wanted to use it in the movie. And I sort of fell in love with it then, and have used it in five or six pictures since then.

“Clerks” (1994)

I definitely ventured against the critical grain on this one. And Kevin Smith has gone on to a successful, entertainingly iconoclastic career.
$28,000 film just ain’t that funny
By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff
The ultimate expression of prevailing slacker chic, “Clerks” arrives in Utah theaters today, trailing awards -- from Sundance and Cannes -- and critical praise in its wake. But just why it’s been so flattered with tony prizes and positive reviews is a puzzlement.

Yes, “Clerks” is witty. And, to be sure, it’s quite an achievement for a micro-budget of less than $28,000. (For comparison, the average Hollywood studio movie costs upwards of $30 million, excluding prints and advertising.)

But if you strip away the irresistible background story of a pair of resourceful first-time filmmakers who scratched together the funds to make their movie by maxing out credit cards and filming in a convenience store where one of them was employed, you’re left with an ultra-low budget oddity that’s more profane, sexist and vulgar than it is intelligent or entertaining.

"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989)

By DONALD PORTER
Standard·Examiner staff

Hey, dudes and babes, listen up. There's this, like, new movie called "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." And, whoa, it's not bad. Actually, it's most excellent as teen films go.

The movie is about these two dudes named Bill and Ted, from San Dimas, Calif. And they're, like, awesomely righteous. They have a cool band called the Wyld Stallyns, and they hope to, like, lure Eddie Van Halen away from his group to play guitar for them, ya know? And they really need him, too, because neither Ted nor Bill know how to play their instruments.

So, anyway, Ted's dad is this bogus authority figure who works as a cop on the San Dimas police force. And since Ted is failing history, his dad has threatened to send him to, like, a military academy.

No way!