Your song of the day. (6mb, 256kbps MP3) As it’s bright and sunny here, I decided a nice cute Erasure song was in order. This is the 37B remix of “When Will I See You Again” from their covers album, Other People’s Songs. Embrace your inner queen, boys.

This may be a reaction to last night’s horror movie double bill – Nosferatu followed by Shadow Of The Vampire. The former really is just about the standard by which other creepy movies should be set and there’s some moments where I winced pretty hard. Aaron described it as “Dracula without the sex appeal,” and I must say I agree. Shadow Of The Vampire is not a great movie by any stretch, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Imagine if Murnau had “hired” a real, live vampire (operating under the name of Max Schreck) to play Nosferatu in his production and the subsequent havoc that would ensue. Malkovich and Dafoe chew scenery and the movie stops just shy of becoming “Shadow of the Campire” while still engaging me and making me laugh quite a few times.

My favorite moment is a break in the movie’s tone when you get a chance to see what makes Dafoe’s character tick – one of the crew asks Schreck/Orlock what he thought of Dracula:

Max Schreck: It made me sad.

Albin: Why sad?

Max Schreck: Because Dracula had no servants.

Albin: I think you missed the point of the book, Count Orlock.

Max Schreck” Dracula hasn’t had servants in 400 years and then a man comes to his ancestral home, and he must convince him that he… that he is like the man. He has to feed him, when he himself hasn’t eaten food in centuries. Can he even remember how to buy bread? How to select cheese and wine? And then he remembers the rest of it. How to prepare a meal, how to make a bed. He remembers his first glory, his armies, his retainers, and what he is reduced to. The loneliest part of the book comes… when the man accidentally sees Dracula setting his table.

Dafoe’s delivery is heartbreaking and wistful. I was entranced. He totally deserved the Oscar nod he got for the role and I wished that we’d seen a bit of the restraint shown there in his Green Goblin.