I'm tired of posting about the tree. So... Dracula!

This is the version I have. It has neat special features!

I love this movie. It's so much better than the book in some ways. The novel has its own charm, but I think the juxtaposition of a love story onto the dark tale of Dracula really improves it. In the book, he's just sort of an evil bastard whose only motivation for anything is that, y'know, he's EVIL. In Coppola's version, Dracula has this ancient, abiding love for his lost princess. It makes him actually kind of the hero of the piece. A flawed hero, since he's going around murdering people and being a creepy flying demon thing now and then, but still more sympathetic than boring old Keanu Reeves. Although I suppose you could argue that the real protagonist of the whole business is actually Van Helsing anyway, but whatever.

When we got to the part where Mina's standing on the boat and moaning in her journal about how she fears she's a bad, inconstant woman because she's still obsessed with her mysterious prince and thinks about him instead of the dull-as-rocks dude she's sailing over to marry, both of us yelled, "WELL, WHY ARE YOU MARRYING HIM, THEN?!" We really get into this movie, apparently. I wish I had Lucy's wandering-around-the-maze sleeping gown thing, but not in that terrible orange. A dark blue-black would be pleasant. It's basically a long corset with a whole bunch of billowy, draping fabric that blows in the wind, part of which is a long skirt and part of which is sort of a cape/wrap.

This is some other girl in the Lucy dress.

I just like loads of fabric draped over me, is what I'm getting at. Although actually it's a good thing I don't sleep in this getup, because I'm like 99% sure I'd strangle in the cape part. And then Patrick would wake up next to a corpse, and it'd be really unfortunate. Bollocks to lethal sleeping capes.

This is no way shows the billowy-ness of her outfit. But it's the best I could find.

Why the hell is it orange? Just so it will show up on the camera in the dark? Redheads look weird in orange. Now a dark sea-green or sapphire would've really suited Lucy's hair and skin. Obviously I have opinions on this outfit...

Rrrrrromance! And I love that dress. Why don't we have more sconces?

Gary Oldman does a superb job in this movie. While I love Anthony Hopkins, who plays a marvelous Van Helsing, Oldman really shines. He's got so many different aspects of Dracula to portray, and he does them all well. I've decided that Keanu Reeves' problem is that he's like an android trying to play a human. His acting in this film is like if Data from Star Trek got cast in the role of Jonathan Harker and was trying to play a pissed off, semi-terrified British accountant. So: awkward, vaguely off-putting, and you kind of wish he'd get eaten. Or at least find his emotion chip and cram it back inside his cranial matrix.

I think that's all I have to say about this for right now, but rest assured that what I did say, I said enthusiastically! I'll have to indulge my creepy movie love more as the days turn darker and we get into my favorite time of year, which is middle to late fall. What are y'all doing for Halloween this year?