h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I didn't have to endure this

Th only good thing I have to say about the whole saga is that at least my daughter read the books, at the time she wasn't much of a reader and struggled to get through an entire book but these she gobbled up and as result she got over that hurdle of a book being daunting

so frankly, I didn't care what, er rubbish, she was reading just that she was!

She only went to the films to over the werewolf guy

I read one of the books and I enjoyed it. It turns out I have a taste for this kind of trashy fiction. I probably always have had given the amount of Anne McAfrey on my shelves.

The movie looked awful. I saw the "running over the snow" sequence and I thought "Huh?". The whole point of being super fast is not to run within yourself and be quick, it is to push yourself to the limit and be much, much quicker than the other group. The images showed a complete failure of immagination that isn't in the books.

I admit I have never read a whole book, just flicked through bits and sometimes helped out with a chapter or two

I like trashy crime books myself

I have read quite a bit about the role models, but hey Hiccup was raised on Buffy, admitedly a slayer, but she did have relationships with vampires, I thought that would stand her in good stead

Should also say it didn't me concern really.

What we did have was a number of good natured debates that went along the lines of my (Buffy) vampires are better than your (twilight) vampires

Neither of which I could honestly describe as proper (i.e. horror) vampires.

Have since been lent a DVD of the original movie, which is much better.

Not *good*, but better...

true,but I couldn't raise her on horror

Everybody just go back and watch Frank Langella in 'Dracula'.

Now THAT was a vampire movie you could enjoy.

Oh, come on, if we're talking classic vampires you have to have Christopher Lee as your starting point (Lugosi unwatchably slow and campy for a modern audience, I'm afraid).

Though Near Dark is also an extremely good movie.

Nah. Lee's a great actor, but he's not my Dracula.

And Lugosi was a good actor in his day. Amazing for his linguistic abilities. I believe he went from Hungarian theatre to Austrian, then to the US.

Of course, I don't really like horror movies, so my opinion doesn't count. Langella's version has no fangs. And you get the intense pleasure of watching him kill Laurence Olivier...watching Shakespeare films, I often fantasised about killing Olivier...

It's hard to believe that there are vampires more boring than Anne Rice's. Bourgeois vampires --how tedious. Where is the magic in that? Perhaps because the author of that series was LDS, but what is the point of extraordinary individuals if they are like every Tom, Dick and Harry you've ever known. Sure bad boys have glamour but not if they're typical. Sorry for the rant, but vampires are not into PR.

http://www.h2g2.com/entry/A61995540

(It suddenly came to mind - I note the picture is of Louis Jourdan from the BBC version...)

I don't know about the Langella Dracula, I mean, the whole thing's set in Yorkshire, which is one problem, and at the end Dracula kills Van Helsing, which is surely another.

I spent my teenage years watching the Lee Draculas on TV. I know he's better (much better) in other films, but I can't imagine anyone else playing that part so well. He wouldn't do the last Hammer Dracula so they drafted in a lookalike, but the magic just isn't there somehow...

Thought Lugosi was okay in Son of Frankenstein, but on the whole his technique is just so stagey... (Lugosi made a film for Hammer too, though not as Dracula. Not a lot of people know that. )

That's why there's vanilla and chocolate.

I can't watch a 'Frankenstein' movie. Except for Branagh's, because Branagh, like me, actually read the novel. Lab coats are not us - and that cameo of Friedrich Schiller...wow...

Since at least part of 'Dracula', as a novel, took place in Yorkshire, and the Langella film was based on the revival of the 'official' play version by Hamilton Deane, I hardly have a problem with that. I think it's sly and funny. (All that and Sylvester McCoy.)

But, as I said, I don't like 'horror movies'. I'm with Stephen King in finding Kubrick's version of 'The Shining' awful. I'm so glad King persisted, and they did a straight miniseries with Rebecca de Mornay. I'll bet the people in the original Colorado hotel were glad, too - although I believe they screen the Kubrick version on a daily basis there.

I love your story, by the way.

Pole dancers...reminds me of a video I saw of a recent 'Miss Transylvania' contest. (That has nothing to do with 'Dracula'. The contest was held in Cluj, I think.) They can't keep 'em down on the farm these days, and boy...

The presence of McCoy in the Langella movie is of some significance, but I couldn't think of a way of shoehorning it in. (Seeing as he's just done a movie where he plays Christopher Lee's brother - sort of - this begs the question of who has appeared on-screen alongside the most Draculas? My mouth is watering at the potential for geeky research...)

I have to say I can see the obvious appeal of the Frankenstein story, but find most of the film versions rather unsatisfactory for various reasons - the Universal ones are horribly dated, the first Hammer one is a bit chintzy, the others are making up new stories of varying quality - Peter Cushing is nearly always good value - come to think of it I like the last Hammer Frankenstein a lot (http://aw1x.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/mayhem-at-the-lunatic-asylum/)...

Probably the best version I've seen (and I must confess to never having caught Branagh's version, so I'm off to Lovefilm it as soon as I finish this) is the TV miniseries with Leonard Whiting and Michael Sarrazin, which does a good job of ticking all the boxes, even if it's a martyr to all-star-cast-itis...

Weird. I got a 404 on that link.

Speaking of 'all-star' Frankensteins, I wish I could have seen the play version with Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. Weren't they taking turns playing the monster? An interesting conceit.

You'll like Branagh's version, though not as a horror movie - it's too painterly for Hammer fans. On the other hand, Robert De Niro as the monster has an odd appeal. Oh, and John Cleese's brain...

I remember seeing it in the cinema and cracking up when Branagh brandished a cleaver. I just knew the sound effect involved a head - of cabbage...

The Branagh version is heaven for people who had to sit through 15 courses on German Romanticism, and read all of Goethe's works in the original. It pays you back for knowing about Wackenroder and Tieck...

If you want some good old-time stuff, try www.archive.org. Look up Boris Karloff - he's on some early TV - and Michael Rennie.

Rennie did a good version of 'Jekyll and Hyde' for an early TV drama series, I recall. Quite good.

Got the same thing, which is weird. Rather than just repeating this conversation a few times, should you actually be interested in the review, just follow the link, ignore the 404, go to the 'film reviews' tab at the top and head for 'Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell'.

Yeah, Danny Boyle's version had everybody sighing, what with the Sherlock thing - which is slightly ironic given what Miller's up to these days! They showed the filmed version at the arthouse where it promptly sold out a lot (part of me admits the creature/creator doubling is a thematically valid idea, but most just thinks 'what a great way of potentially doubling your ticket sales').

You know, I'm increasingly realising I like Hammer movies for the style as much as the content - most modern horrors leave me cold (hence the notable absence of Paranormal whatsis and Exorcisms and whatever from the column). Hmmm! If you liked the cleaver/cabbage intersection keep an eye open for Berberian Sound Studio, which is a movie specifically about horror film makers being cruel to vegetables (scroll on to the B section of the blog index... )

I checked out archive.org after your last recommendation, which is why, while most of the world was watching Danny Boyle's Olympic opening - funny how it all connects - I was watching Gamera the Invincible over the internet.

It's a terrible thing to admit, but my favourite version of Jekyll and Hyde may be the one with Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick. The shame, the shame...

I'll have to look for that 'cruelty to vegetables' thing. Sounds right up my alley...

I would like to share this with you:
http://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/random/wp-content/twilight.jpg

Quite, but I would be equally happy with Buffy, Peter Cushing, Jack Davenport, Darren McGavin, etc turning up.

Buffy and the Scoobies would kick their anatomies...