Thanks for the recomendation, @GhaleonQ:disqus. I haven't checked that one out. It sounds fascinating, I'll look it up this weekend.

As the review notes, the film is brilliant in that it feels claustrophobic, reading as the formally unnerving flipside to "Russian Ark's" hermetic perfection.
Besides, it offers an interesting take on the Faust mythos. Perhaps the best cinematic adaptation of it I've seen.

And it was directed by Jess Franco, no less. (Plus it's making-off, "Vampyr cuadecuc" by Pere Portabella, is a classic on its own).

You've got it completely right. The script is all over the place and most of the actors either overact (Hopkins) or underact (Keanu).
What is even less plausible than that love story is Lucy's character arc. Ok, she is under Dracula's influence through the last 2 thirds of the movie, but still.

It sure looked they did that in Coppola's Dracula.

Sure, the acting is awful but it's got the best art direction any vampire movie's ever had.

Thanks for the reply, man.
I've been writing reviews professionally since 2004 -mostly albums, mostly in Spanish- and I totally understand your predicament. I wouldn't like to be in the position of grading a movie so pioneering as this one, for you have to find a middle ground between acknowledging that the last 100…

I would've thought this movie deserved at least an A-, even after considering its clunky first third.
I also wonder how would D'Angelo grade the Werner Herzog remake, taking this version's B+ score as a benchmark.

You make a very good point. As a matter of fact, the possibility of liking both The Pistols and Zeppelin at the same time was already palpable in "Appetite for destruction".

There's some truth to that. I've always found weird how some people actually think punk came out of nowhere in 1977 and obliterated classic rock dinosaurs overnight. Even the most visible punk bands that broke in '77, were around already by 1974. So yeah, punk was dead as a thing basically 18 months after people…

The Chinese Communist Party is doing a fine job at that, if you ask me.

Yup. At least a strand of it, very much was.

Not as an artistic/sociological movement, but perhaps as a "successful" product of corporate marketing. Grunge was just a sub-genre of hard rock (born in the unlikely intersection of hardcore, heavy metal and arty 80s bands), which got bloated and promoted as a thing on its own because it happened to sell tons of…

Well, "grunge" is just the name recod label executives gave to a particular style that spun off alternative/indie/college rock. You can actually trace back the lineage to the very beginning of rock'n'roll. Thus, Beck is a proto hipster as much as Richard Hell or John Sinclair were too.

No need for apologies, that movie is sappy and overlong. The music's okay, but I find the documentary very much lacking.

So did I, man. This is art rock's equivalent of that "Up" intro.

I saw "The Icycle thief" a long time ago on TNT and I am still not sure if the plot is as wacky as I recall or if it was a fever dream I had.

Oh, yeah, but this episode doubles as a paean to the transformative power of music.

Good point, @avclub-f2099e4d302ec84b207c3139ef854819:disqus . But you know he used to be crazier, granted he's still far too wild to fit in a late show slot.

It's most evident in the lack of swearing and the fact that there's no longer interview-closing bits like the mouth organ, the big cash price and even awkward pauses have become increasingly rare. Sure, it's still the weirdest late show on TV, but it's getting closer to the conventions of the…