jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Fox Searchlight somewhat helpfully included a defective DVD of the first movie with their schwag bag for Day Watch (along with small size t-shirts and an astronaut sew-on patch for Sunshine). Skippy or not, Night Watch was difficult to sit through. I expected more of Timur Bekmambetov’s flashy Matrix-in-Moscow stylings, but this first movie of the trilogy is a lot darker and duller than its sequel. Vampires, swirling clouds of crows, ancient battles, youngsters who face fateful choices and other stock fantasy elements meet in a Russian setting, but Night Watch has a first-act feel to: things are set up but nothing generates much heat. Day Watch is a significantly more exciting movie, but I doubt it would have made any more sense if I’d seen them in order.

Nochnoy dozor. Timur Bekmambetov, 2004. *

• Rotten Tomatoes: 57%
• Watch the entire movie:

I haven’t gotten to the making of Nosferatu yet in Kinski’s autobiography, but if I had to guess I’d say that he’ll be bragging about his affair with Adjani, the costume designer, three underage extras and a nun before he gets sick, detained, committed, and into fist fights with Herzog. “Nachts ficken wir und prügeln uns.” Casting Kinski as Max Schreck was a no-brainer; I’m wondering who should play the creature in an updated 2006 version. Sacha Baron Cohen? Here’s my short film, and a clip of Herzog and Kinski during the shoot. A moody and faithful homage.

Nosferatu the Vampyre. Werner Herzog, 1979. ****

The fruits of procrastination: instead of writing, I threw together a sixty second movie in the spirit of the Vampire Blogathon, featuring the protean acting talents of Marcy Dermansky and Klaus Kinski, with music by Tomas Phusion. Happy Halloween.

[tags]video, youtube, marcy, jurgen, nyc, queens, klaus kinski, nosferatu, halloween, vampires, cc[/tags]

I’m not sure what I was thinking–I must have rented this Wesley Snipes/Vampire thing to counteract NYFF-induced art house overload, or perhaps to get a better grip on director Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which is showing at the festival and which I liked a lot. Either way, I suppose filmmaking for 12-year-old boys has come a long way–but it’s still filmmaking for 12-year-old boys.

Blade 2. Guillermo del Toro, 2002. *

For the strong of stomach: read Harry Knowles’ infamous Blade 2 review if you dare.

[tags]film, 1 star, action, vampires, guillermo del toro[/tags]

I’ll happily confess to renting this because I once came across Salma Hayek’s Satanico Pandemonium snake dance on late night TV. Should have left it at that though–the rest is trash. QT and Rodriguez are a bunch of hacks. Hacks with hustle, I give them that. Tarantino’s main mode of operation is still the assertion of authority (he probably thinks of it as the projection of cool.) The essential Tarantino scene, which repeats again and again in all of his movies, is one badass motherfucker telling the rest of the bitches to shut the fuck up, or sit the fuck down, or do whatever the fuck he says. Usually, this requires waving a .45 around, and I’m bored to tears with it. From Dusk till Dawn is a mildly satisfying B-picture, but QT’s presence as actor hurts, the script is worse than idiotic, the sfx look circa 1982, and who wants to see Clooney with tatoos? Marcy also raises a good point when she says that Debra Paget’s snake dance in The Indian Tomb is every bit as sexy. Hmm, I see a trend here: otherwise crap movies that try to get by on snake dances.

You might have heard me moan about editing that damn rock video for the last few weeks. Well, here’s the fruit of our labor: The Diggs - Live at Sin-e. The truth is, Jordan and I had a fine time patching this together, eating Cuban pork stew, and playing San Andreas while we rendered. We’re quite happy with the result, even though our master camera died during the shot. You can watch the whole thing, but I recommend checking out individual songs because the quality’s going to be better. Each song features a different gimmick; my favorites are It’s Just Like You Say, Faith in Strangers, and Trouble Every Day. More about The Diggs.