Wednesday: Movies about Writing (Copy)

I’m rounding out my Poe blogs with a writing related piece of media not about Poe or even featuring a living version of him, but where he is a central character.

If you grew up with me, went to school with me, or met me, you probably know that I’m a huge Addams Family fan. I’ve seen the original series multiple times (but confess to only sitting through the 1970s Halloween special once).

Yes, I have seen most Addams Family incarnations and don’t ask me what I thought about those recent animated films unless you want to see my hair burst into flames. I put off watching Wednesday because 1) I loved Adult Wednesday Addams on Youtube written by and starring Melissa Hunter and how could anyone do it better than that (they can’t), 2) Tim Burton keeps breaking my heart, and 3) I was waiting for my boyfriend because he wanted to watch it too. Still, this is not my giving my opinion of the show. This is me talking about depictions of writers and writing in films and TV. (In case you do want my opinion just message me in the comments).

In this Netflix series, Wednesday is an aspiring author of mystery novels featuring a teenage sleuth in a difficult relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, Wednesday is thrust into a mystery at her new school while feeling like she’s living in her mother’s shadow. Yes. Her therapists points out that her real life connections are pretty obvious.

Poe comes into this as the school’s most famous pupil. The yearly house competition teams are named after his stories and the secret society is hidden behind his statue. However, the poem that helps one to figure out the password did not feel like a work of Poe’s. Just saying.

I did enjoy her sitting with perfect posture on her antique typewriter and using her novel as an excuse to be glad when her roommate was angry with her. She keeps her typed pages in a file box with her initials on it which I confess to being jealous of. However, I am really trying to remember what it was like to be in high school, forced into a social life, hunting for murders, AND having time to write! Oh. To be young.

Reason for all this Poe. . .

This weekend is Phoenix Fan Fusion - a busy time of crazed self-proclaim geeks braving the Arizona heat in costume to celebrate all of their favorite things.

Therefore, it is only fitting to announce my latest geeky novel!

Set in the famed seaside town featured in Bram Stoker’s novel, Lee is a teenager caught between the vampire hunters of Whitby and the creatures themselves who seek a better fate.

Now you are probably wondering what do vampires, Whitby, and the problems of teens have to do with Edgar Allan Poe? You’ll just have to read the book to find out.

Orders will be announced on this website soon. E-mail us or leave a comment for more information.

Wednesday: Movies about Writing

I’m rounding out my Poe blogs with a writing related piece of media not about Poe or even featuring a living version of him, but where he is a central character.

If you grew up with me, went to school with me, or met me, you probably know that I’m a huge Addams Family fan. I’ve seen the original series multiple times (but confess to only sitting through the 1970s Halloween special once).

Yes, I have seen most Addams Family incarnations and don’t ask me what I thought about those recent animated films unless you want to see my hair burst into flames. I put off watching Wednesday because 1) I loved Adult Wednesday Addams on Youtube written by and starring Melissa Hunter and how could anyone do it better than that (they can’t), 2) Tim Burton keeps breaking my heart, and 3) I was waiting for my boyfriend because he wanted to watch it too. Still, this is not my giving my opinion of the show. This is me talking about depictions of writers and writing in films and TV. (In case you do want my opinion just message me in the comments).

In this Netflix series, Wednesday is an aspiring author of mystery novels featuring a teenage sleuth in a difficult relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, Wednesday is thrust into a mystery at her new school while feeling like she’s living in her mother’s shadow. Yes. Her therapists points out that her real life connections are pretty obvious.

Poe comes into this as the school’s most famous pupil. The yearly house competition teams are named after his stories and the secret society is hidden behind his statue. However, the poem that helps one to figure out the password did not feel like a work of Poe’s. Just saying.

I did enjoy her sitting with perfect posture on her antique typewriter and using her novel as an excuse to be glad when her roommate was angry with her. She keeps her typed pages in a file box with her initials on it which I confess to being jealous of. However, I am really trying to remember what it was like to be in high school, forced into a social life, hunting for murders, AND having time to write! Oh. To be young.

The Pale Blue Eye

My childhood love of Christian Bale endures with this murder mystery. Bale plays detective Augustus Landor brought to West Point where he meets a young Edgar Allan Poe (played by Harry Melling of Harry Potter fame - also the grandson of the third Doctor Who Patrick Troughton). Naturally, I read the book this was based upon first which was fantastic. Poe was written exactly how I would have imagined him as a young man struggling to find himself.

I won’t give away the mystery and, as expected, the film is no where near as suspenseful as the book. The fictional story stars with Augustus Landor being called out of retirement to use his powers of detection on an unusual death at the nearby military academy, West Point. A cadet was found hanging from a tree, his heart having been skillfully cut out of his chest. Landor almost instantly attracts the attention of an older cadet by the name of (you guessed it) Edgar Allan Poe. The film does not got into much about how Poe ended up at West Point, but they stay true to how he was depicted in the book - a mix of arrogance and awkwardness.

Poe is already a writer at this point, having published a few poems and building criticism to other books (he makes a sour face when he sees Fenimore Cooper on Landor’s shelf). As the mystery continues, Poe is a realistic young man and artist. He is boastful, yet self-conscious. Talented, yet wasteful of his talent. Fanciful and romantic, yet when faced with grim truths is willing to find a way to deal. He and Landor bond over words, morals, and alcohol.

The woman targeted for Poe’s affection is the sister of one of his classmates, Lea (Lucy Boynton). Her parents (Toby Jones and Gillian Anderson) welcome both Landor and Poe into their home in the midst of the horrors. Poe’s relationship with Lea is more of a flirtation based on two young people who have faced death in their lifetimes. This makes sense to me. I feel like Poe probably was one of those young men who reminded people often that his birth mother and foster mother passed away.

Above all else, this film reminds you that he is a person obsessed with words and it is that obsession with words which unravels the end of the mystery.

I wanted to know what some Poe experts thought of this movie. No one has e-mailed me back yet. Perhaps they didn’t like it as much as I did.

The Raven: Movies about Writing

Ug. This thing. I’ve avoided it for so long. Damn it, John Cusack. You used to be cool. Luke Evans better sing randomly in this to make it worth it. Let’s get this over with.

For some reason I give more historical forgiveness to a film written in the 1970s then to a movie written just over a decade ago. Maybe it’s purely because we live in a time where academic research is easy to collect and there are so many movies that don’t even try. This murder mystery pretty much took it’s research from the same sources as that silent movie I watched in one of the earliest of these blogs. They really lean into a lot of old Poe theories, not into more modern biographies. The fake newspapers even use the words “serial killer”. No one could be bothered to even check when the phrase came into existence? Cause their about one hundred and 20 years too early. Then again, the production didn’t even bother to look up whether lead is magnetic so I digress.

Cusack plays Poe as a pretentious and loud drunkard, putting up violent fits in the local pub when denied brandy. He’s all hot air, but no Baltimore accent to make his rants seem semi-charming. Alice Eve is the love interest, a very made-up and very modern woman in looks and behavior who Poe is courting named Emily. Luke Evans plays a standard detective called Fields and yet is the saving grace of this movie.

The plot is the same as the first episode of Castle; a serial killer is dispatching his victims in ways inspired by Poe’s stories. Bodies up chimneys. Pendulums slicing men in half (real-life fellow writer Griswold dies way before his time this way in the movie). And the old standard - burying people alive. Fields wants Poe to assist him in tracking down the madman only to bring Poe’s girlfriend right into the killer’s path. Blah. Blah. Blah. Let’s talk about writing.

The killer insists the Poe the write the details of his crimes or he will not reveal what he’s done with Emily. Of course, this helps break a writer’s block Poe had been suffering. Isn’t that nice of the maniac? The killer proclaims himself a fellow artist and Poe responds , “You’re mad”. Oh come on, Poe. All modern writers know to clear our browser history out of fear of being arrested for what we research for a story. “We’re all mad here.”

Certain important aspects of being a writer of that century are included such as Poe reciting at ladies clubs and fighting with newspapers who underpay him. At one point Poe’s editor states that he criticizes all other writers. Cut to me, blinking at the screen and muttering, “But - But that was one of his jobs. People paid him to be a critic. I - I don’t understand.”

The Raven is pretty dismal! I want to see what Sylvester Stallone would have done with Robert Downey Jr. in the role as Poe, but I don’t think we’ll ever know. Oh, you didn’t know about that. Turns out Stallone is a Poephile who wrote his own biopic, but this movie got picked up by a studio instead. I’m not saying is would have been better than this . . . no, actually. That’s what I’m saying.

Descendant: Movies about Writing

What the hell did I find?

First off: Warning - a dog dies in this film.

First, let’s discuss the opening. A man is stabbing out a woman heart in a generic “old timey” bedroom when Edgar Allan Poe runs in just as the man lifts up the still beating organ and declares he’s killed Virginia to get revenge for the House of Usher.

Cut to Ann Hedgerow (Katherine Heigel), a grieving sculptress who recently lost her mother, and Ethan Poe (Jeremy London), a tortured author haunted by their shared ancestors. Ann is the great-great-great granddaughter of the woman murdered at the beginning of the film, another Poe cousin named Emily Hedgerow (not real person to my knowledge). The pair of stars have no chemistry on screen and yet start going out.

Ann comes from a messed up family. Her brother assaulted her and still lusts for her. Her two best friends are John, a struggling deputy investigating a serial killer, and Lisa, a real estate agent (enough said there). Oh and Ann sleeps in the bed where the woman at the beginning was murdered . . . which is apparently an open family secret. I did appreciate that about half of Ann’s clothes hung in my high school closet.

Ethan is obsessive and trying to use Ann as a cure for writer’s block, something the ghost of Poe tries to shame him for. He plays up his “torture” to a point that’s annoying. He engages in drugs, alcohol, and call girls to pass the time. He’s tired of living off the Poe name and dramatically bursts into pretentious rants at the drop of a pen. And for some reason, Ann considers having kids with this dude.

Spoilers ahead!

Ethan is a bit of a creeper in my opinion with cringe-worthy comments. My personal cringe was when Ann says she’s twenty-four and still feels like a child. He responds with, “But not a virgin.” What! What the hell, dude! You just met her! His only really human moment when he didn’t bug the crap out of me is a scene where he yells at at Ann for interrupting him when he’s writing. Then he apologizes and it’s sincere. Of course, his very next moment has him fighting with Poe’s ghost over the ideal of Lenore.

Then it turns out - the creepy guy is a creep! Ethan’s name isn’t Poe, but Usher! His mom, a literary agent, set him up with the fake identity in order to find the last members of the Poe family. He kills or maims most of the key characters, digs up Ann’s mom, and then ties Ann to a bed in order to re-enact the murder from the beginning of the movie. Then John and Lisa come to the rescue and Ann shoots Ethan while shouting, “Nevermore.” Not. Even. Joking. She effing said, “Nevermore” like it was supposed to be a Die Hard-esque Yippe ki ay!

The ending of the movie made no sense at all. Ethan’s mom was still making money off of his books. Ann has dreams about Ethan being buried alive. And the final scene was of her pregnant smiling at a shadowy figure. I have decide this movie is not worth further analysis other than to look at how they depicted Poe.

Poe’s ghost always slurs a bit and his eyes glisten like he’s constantly on the verge of tears. He spends most the film taunting Ethan He’s just a sad and desperate spirit, not much of real person. He gets some moments of anger and redemption, but he mostly just there to be Ethan’s imaginary antagonist.

I will give this screenwriter credit for one thing -they made Ethan writing sound very borrowed from Poe, taking whole phrases and working them into his so-called masterpiece.

The Death of Poe: Movies about Writing

I’ll keep this one brief. I found an independent film from 2006 by Mark Redfield (an actor, director, and artist) about the mystery surrounding Poe’s death. It’s part documentary, part speculation, but gives a lot of recognition to key figures in Poe’s like his rival Rufus Griswold, his mother-in-law Maria Clemm, and his early girlfriend/fiancee Sarah Elmira Royster.

I won’t give every detail or give away much of the plot. What I will say it the film chronicles the last days of Poe in Baltimore, showing how his mind was addled and how forgetful he was becoming. He’s haunted by conversation with his foster father and Virginia, all while attempting to find investors for an American literary magazine. This is rather frustrating to watch because he keeps telling people how much he already saved up and that it’s with him.

The impressive research is clear, including a part that tries to avoid Poe’s views on slavery. It gives all the anguish and embarrassment of being mildly famous without money.

This movie is most certainly using the theories that Poe was not at fault in his own death showing that he is abstaining from alcohol. It made me curious about the doctor who cared for Poe at the end. He mentions in the movie that he hates thinking of himself as the man who failed to save Edgar Allan Poe.

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe: Movies about Writing

Last one from the 70s and this one is another bit of cheating.

Imagine Poe lived to be a famous man in his 60s with a beard and chance to go on the stage to recite several of his works. That’s essentially what this 1970 television special did with Vincent Price acting out four different tales alone with sets and costumes. Technically, Price is playing four different characters, not Poe, however it feels like something Poe would’ve done if he’d had the money. He admired Charles Dickens who did something similar with his public appearances. Plus, Poe’s birth mother was an actress. You can’t tell me he didn’t think about taking the stage. Additionally, Price makes you really listen to the words and admire the writing of the man long dead as he recites word for word.

The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe: Movies about Writing

Let’s stay in the 70s for another installment. The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe is a 1974 trip. A terrible, terrible trip that would make you swear off all substances forever, even aspirin.

Robert Walker Jr. plays a lackluster Poe who starts the film getting sympathy from Lenore (Mary Grover) about his job as a literary critic. They frolic to take his mind off his agony (Lenore is NOT wearing a corset or bra under her costume and jumped around too much for this movie to ever be taken seriously), however, Lenore collapses. Poe cries out with a bland and rather calm, “Help” and the opening credits are accompanied by a bad 70s rock ballad.

Lenore is declared dead and almost buried alive only to cry out in a last second. She pops out of the casket like a cheap Halloween scare with stark white hair (a.k.a. a ghastly wig even scarier than her performance). Somehow they got Tom Drake (Meet Me in St. Louis) to play Poe’s doctor friend and Cesar Romero (from lots of stuff - look him up) to play the doctor at Lenore’s mental hospital. I did like seeing Carol Ohmart from House on Haunted Hill as Romero’s wife and an adult Marcia Mae Jones from Shirley Temple movies as Sarah, a nurse with practically no lines.

The hospital even more anachronistic than Lenore’s free-range boobs. It’s “humane” facility full of activities to keep the mind busy and a loving, clean environment. Psh. I could go into a history of asylums and how such ideas did exist, but rarely and not in the ways portrayed in the movie. Maybe if I ever do a Ted Talk I’ll just ramble about this topic for fifteen minutes, but believe me when I say - nope. Not happening in Poe’s time and his part of the world. Also, who’s paying for this place? Where’s Lenore’s family?

Fear not those of you bored and wondering why this movie was even made? Here comes the terror. The mild, saw it coming in the first thirty minutes terror. The hospital is not all it seems. The doctor has locked away his brother-in-law in the basement and performs illegal medical experiments on the patients. Dun Dun DUUUUUUNNNN! This revelation is followed up by about seven minutes of Poe being tortured with snakes and knives while his friend wanders through the same shot several times calming saying, “Edgar?”

I won’t give the rest away. I will warn that there’s a torture chamber, madman who makes the same sounds as a dog having rabbit chasing dreams, and a twist . . . I think that’s what it was supposed to be anyway.

Despite Poe fitting in some drinking and long-winded musings, he doesn’t write much in this film other than to chronicle the tragedy of Lenore, a woman who serves as no other character than to be the object of his depression. Even the description he gives of Lenore is flat and more of a fantasy than a woman.

Gas-s-s-s: Movies about Writing

Roger Corman, you beautiful bastard! Only he would produce this 1970 dark comedy about a hippies in an apocalypse. You read every word of that sentence correctly and if you questioned any of you, you need to watch more Roger Corman films.

This movie is just too crazy for me not to go into details so please enjoy these spoiler ahead.

The film opens with crudely animated military personnel declaring their new biological weapon then cuts to a live action chase between a hippie carrying a crossbow and a cop. The hippie, Coel (not a typo), is a bit of a Bugs Bunny character changing into priest robes instantly and throwing off everyone with one-liners like “for your penance [for police brutality] you will teach bicycle safety at the Black Panther Convention in Mobile, Alabama”. Coel meets Cilla, a mistress/assistant of a famous scientist named Dr. Murder who has created a gas that kills anyone over the 25 by speeding up the aging process. The government unleashed the gas on accident and the world is left to be run by people who aren’t even old enough to rent a car. Two factions rise up, the pot-smoking hippies and the academic preppies. And that’s just in the first ten minutes. The alternate title of the movie is Gas! - or- It-Became-Necessary-to-Destroy-the-World-in-Order-to-Save-It so I think you can guess where this is going. Everyone (both factions) decide to just party while everything goes to hell and young fascists take over.

Despite many set-backs, Cilla and Coel stay pretty chipper as they travel the country meeting odd characters and looki- Holy crap! Is that Ben Vereen! Apparently, this was his second film role as Carlos the paranoid revolutionary whose very pregnant and very spacey girlfriend Marissa is a music fanatic - Oh hey! Marissa is Cindy Williams (Shirley from Laverne and Shirley). Also popping up are Bud Cort (from Harold and Maude and M.A.S.H.), Talia Coppola aka Shire (ADRIAN! from Rocky and The Godfather), and Raye Birk (that balding character actor from all the Naked Gun films). Anyway, the six people are in search of a non-violent commune in the New Mexico desert to settle down in.

Everything is sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll until the group discovers a town terrorized by football players in dune buggies. Primary colored dune buggies - think along the lines of Power Rangers zords. The football players are really rather triggering as they enslave, torture, and assault others while using sports jargon. This is followed by a prepubescent doctor, a very insistent flasher, a group of clueless rapists, lost Texas Ranger, a community of patriotic bikers in golf carts, and a group of Native Americans demanding that while people take Columbus Day back. Oh and God gets involved in the story too.

Why is this movie in this blog? Because the magnificent entity the group keeps meeting on the road none other than Edgar Allan Poe . . . on a motorcycle . . . with a modernly dressed “Lenore” on the back. He warns the group of doom and gloom, using his own stories as analogies for bewaring mankind’s “wickedness”. Oh, and he has a fake raven pinned to his shoulder. Why? Why not! Do not question the Corman!

Tale of a Vampire: Movies about Writing

At the time of writing this blog, Julian Sands went up a mountain in California and never came down. I’m hoping by the time this posts, they’ll have found his remains to give his loved ones closure.

And with that, I present Tale of a Vampire, in which Sands even with all of his magnificent angst cannot save a rather stupid film. Yeah. I’m going to give some opinions on this one and major SPOILER ALERT ahead.

Alex (Sands) is an Anne Rice reject who spends all of his time in a research library. Anne (Suzanna Hamilton from 1984) is the newest employee who looks identical to Alex’s lost love, Virginia. The two instantly have a thing for each other, but Alex is pretty much the most awkward romantic vampire ever so they’re relationship seems doomed from the start. I mean, beyond the whole she’s human and he wants to eat her thing.

Meanwhile, a mysterious man in a hat named Edgar shows up (Kenneth Cranham) and harasses Alex until she finally confronts Alex about his vampirism. Alex confesses quickly, stating that the love of his life, Virginia Clemm, who he met as child (gross) and turned into a vampire upon her deathbed, is still out in the world somewhere being held prisoner by Edgar, her former husband. At the same time, Alex also admits that he’s got the hots for Anne.

To sum up, Edgar kidnaps Anne, explains to Alex that he trapped Virginia in a lead coffin at the bottom of an ocean after he had her turn him into a vampire, and the two battle. Alex kills Edgar (or at least maims him pretty bad, the movie wasn’t clear on the vampire rules in this one). However, Anne is already dead and it’s too late for Alex to turn her. He lays his head on her chest and cries while the poem Annabel Lee is recited by a disembodied Edgar. The end.

No really. That was it. Alex cries over Anne being dead and doesn’t seem to have any intention of trying to find Virginia at the bottom of the sea. I mean, he’s immortal. He could see how far down he could go before pressure destroyed him. Either way, I’m really not sure what the point of this story was. Just to show that it sucks to be a vampire in love? He didn’t even get any.

Also, the Poe angle was odd. This movie is suggesting that when Virginia Clemm was a child, she befriended a grown vampire man, went through puberty with this guy as her “special friend”. She married Edgar, begged Alex to turn her when she was dying, ran off with Alex into a nondescript country setting, turned Edgar for some strange reason, and ended up in a fate worse than death. Oh, and Poe became a psychotic monster who killed for the fun of it (you know instead of just killing for sustenance) and decided to torture his rival with Virginia’s body parts which he’s just been carrying around with him for a century. Yep. This was not a great film. Even all of Sands tormented cries could not save it. I’m not even going to try to analyze this one.

Monkeybone: Movies about Writing

Oh Monkeybone. One of those films you don’t remember exists and then suddenly someone will mention it out of the blue and you’re like “that was a thing”. I did not pay money in theaters for this one, BUT I did watch it on HBO because I was in high school, had a huge crush on Brendan Fraser, and was excited that someone let Henry Selick (of Nightmare Before Christmas) direct a movie again. Also, I recall the trailer had music by The Offspring. Teenage me could not resist The Offspring.

I’m going to keep this one short so I don’t have to hear a lot of trolls hating on the Fraser or this film. This isn’t a critique. It’s just be pointing out how the movie portrays writing and our old friend Edgar Allan Poe (played by Edgar Allan Poe VI - the same actor from that episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch).

I’m not going to sum up the entire plot, but I will tell you that besides Edgar Allan Poe being present, the story is about a Stu (Fraser). Stu is a cartoonist trapped in a version of his own creation while in a coma. At the same time, his popular character, Monkeybone, has taken control of his body and given it a gross soul patch. The world Stu’s mind exists in also deals in how nightmares and trauma spark creativity, something he learned from his girlfriend played by Bridget Fonda (where has Bridget Fonda been lately? Did she retire or what?)

Stu ends up in a prison cell with “nightmare makers” Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Stephen King (played by himself) and Poe. That’s right. Known killers and few writers. I’m not sure what this film is trying to say exactly, but I would like to add that if I die suddenly, could someone please clear my browser history. King is called a nasty name for a wuss by Poe when he asks for a nightlight.

The other part of this has to do with success as an artist, taking the “selling out” with the positives, and accepting that even some of the worst characters we create are a part of us.

The Man with a Cloak: Movies about Writing (Copy)

Wait - a movie about Poe involving Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, and Leslie Caron! Where has this been my whole childhood?! Well, no wonder because this was difficult to find online which is whey I accidentally posted it once without actually having watched it.

The story begins with a man calling himself Dupin (Joseph Cotten) acting mysterious and broody while drinking in a tavern. I love Poe’s mystery stories so this made me happy right away. Enter the young maiden, Madeline Minot (Leslie Caron) looking for her boyfriend’s grandfather to beg him for money towards saving the French republic. Turns out Grandpa Thevenet (Louis Calhern) is a drunken cad who lives with three servants trying to kill him for his money. The fabulous Barbara Stanwyck plays housekeeper Lorna Bounty, the leader of the group who see this young woman as a threat to their inheritance. She is awkwardly dubbed for a random singing performance, but other than that Stanwyck plays a woman both sympathetic and conniving.

Despite grandpa being a curmudgeon who holds onto the days of Napoleon, he’s not an idiot and suspects what the staff is up to. His own life does not seem to concern him, but he instantly takes a liking to Madeline and warns her of what the small household might try to do. Madeline asks Dupin to help her save the old man’s life by proving that the staff are trying to kill him. Despite the grandfather’s faults, Madeline honestly wants to save his life both because she is fond of the awful fellow and because she knows her boyfriend would want her to.

Lorna is immediately attracted to Dupin (shaw! he’s Joseph Cotten) when he comes to the house looking for Madeline. He also randomly reads from a book of poetry he finds in the house. What poem you may ask? Should I tell you? Nevermore.

Grandpa does have a pet raven named after a famous French poet Villon, played by Jimmy the Crow, a famous animal actor with 28 IMDB credits. He has a part to play in the mystery and one of the twists to the ending.

Dupin always has a drink in his hand and acts philosophical about various topics like time, money, and other things getting his way. Still, he is blunt and admires Madeline not out of sheer appreciation of her beauty, but of her ideals. He has a good line which describes her as “courageous as she is foolish. This comes from a faith in life, Thevenet, something you and I both lack. A dream which is not for sale and never can be locked away”.

Spoiler alert: Dupin turns out to be Edgar Allan Poe himself, waiting in town while writing Annabel Lee and owing money to everyone.

Twixt: Movies about Writing

I feel like Francis Ford Coppola is such a crap-shoot of a director. There’s chances you’ll get THE GODFATHER, one of the best pieces of cinema of all time, and chances you’ll get. . . whatever Twixt was. I feel like he was trying to be David Lynch, but put too much story in for that.

The awkward opening of the film really spoke to me. Val Kilmer (as horror writer Hall Baltimore) comes to a small town for an event only to find there’s no bookstore. All this is narrated by Tom Waits because . . . why not, I guess. The author sits just inside the hardware store with a “$19.99 Sale” sign pointing at his head as he tries to peddle his wares to people who won’t make eye contact. I feel ya, poorly named author Hall Baltimore, I feel ya. Also, super jealous of the portable writing desk and chair which fold down into a briefcase sized carrier.

The local sheriff (Bruce Dern) turns out to be a fan and wants Baltimore to collaborate with him on a book about a series of murders currently plaguing the town. While trying to avoid the morbid sheriff, Baltimore discovers that Edgar Allan Poe (played by Ben Chaplin) once stayed at the run-down hotel, so he pours out alcohol in dedication to the horror writer who came before. (Also, do you get it? The main character is named Baltimore and he’s in a town famous for Poe staying there one night. Huh. Huh).

Baltimore experiences strange dreams while in the town of a strange girl (Elle Fanning), child abuse, murder, and a lot of gray light filters. Within these dreams, Poe appears to guide Baltimore to safety. The girl’s name is Virginia which I’m sure is another Poe reference. Poe in this is depicted as a wise mentor who knows he’s famous (wise not so sure, but I’m pretty sure Poe acted a tad conceited) and he offered Baltimore writing advice. I confess, I kinda liked this part with the pontificating author talking about “The Raven” like it was a deeper philosophical problem than just a poem.

Poe uses his own love for the wife he lost, Virginia Clemm, to explain the obsession of beauty mixed with death (while Baltimore is watching someone being walled up alive). I really struggled to see what Poe’s words had to do with the Virginia of the film being abused and somehow existing in two different times as well as to Baltimore’s grief over his own daughter’s death. Then you get to the end and you shout at the screen, “Really?!”

I found it really strange that Joanne Whalley (actress and Kilmer’s ex-wife) had a cameo. Yes, I found that stranger than the movie itself because I was too busy counting plot holes. The part where Kilmer is talking to himself as he writes didn’t really feel authentic. It felt like an author riffing in front of a mirror before having to host a celebrity roast. I don’t blame Kilmer for this. I’m choosing to be annoyed with Francis Ford Coppola. This was clearly just a re-enactment of himself trying to write this over-complicated script.

Poe Rant

The other day I was a taking a tiptoe through the addictive tulips known as social media and I saw a meme like this:

I instantly knew this was not Poe. By looking through the comments I found a mix of people stating their love for Poe without realizing that he never said this and people who revealed the true author - a contemporary poet named Sade Andria Zabala.

How must this poet feel knowing that this quote is credited to an man long dead? And why do people keep sharing it? Comments state that it is incorrect and people know the true author yet the meme sits there, forever in the void known as the internet. WHY? JUST WHY?

Rant over.

The Raven (1935): Movies about Writing

Have I mentioned before my adoration of Boris Karloff? What? That creeps you out? Psh. Fine. Still gonna talk about him.

The 1930s were a big decade for horror especially for Universal Studios. They slapped together many films that featured their star monsters like Karloff and Bela Lugosi. This one is one of the better ones where Lugosi plays Dr. Vollin, a celebrated neurosurgeon called upon to save a judge’s adult daughter after a car accident. Jean, the daughter, survives and Dr. Vollin become friends with her and her fiancee Jerry. All of his care and attention is a thin mask of his true intentions - an obsession with Jean. Meanwhile, Vollin is begged for help from a murderer and bank robber, Bateman (Karloff), who wants a new face and a second chance without violence.

What no one is taking into account is that Vollin is a Poe fanatic - attempting to fill a home collection with all sorts of artifacts. He fills his basement with the torture devices from Poe’s most notable horror tales. This is not a man who wants to help Bateman and give up a woman he wants. Vollin partially destroys Bateman’s face, stating that he will only fix it if the criminal will do his evil bidding (this is a really cool scene where Karloff shoots a series of mirrors while Lugosi laughs).

The doctor tells the story of Poe through the fiction not the true man. To him, Poe was an genius driven mad by a love he could never have - the love of Lenore. And this lost love tortured the author until he wrote about torture. Boy. This doctor gives Poe more credit than I would.

Poe is never actually in the movie, but he is central to the plot and there is an actor playing him in a dance sequence. The actor recites the raven as Jean dances in flowing veils. The scene is meant to capture the grief and more notably the obsessive behavior of both Poe and Dr. Villon. The dance is called “the Spirit of Poe”.

I’m not going to give away the ending, but I’ll just tell you that there’s a pit, there’s a pendulum, and a lot more crazy laughing. And the doctor declares that he is getting revenge on behalf of Poe!

Dickens of London (Nightmare): Movies about Writing

I cheated. I did not want to watch this entire program right now . . . because it is thirteen episodes of low quality BBC programing . . . so I only watched the Poe episode. I’ll try to go back and watch the whole show someday, maybe. If I have thirteen hours to spare.

Here we go. Episode eleven of the 1970s British mini-series opens with jaunty nineteenth century music and the word “Nightmare” in a lovely cursive. Yes, I’m really feeling the nightmare now. Good job, production team. Dickens is telling the story of his first trip to the United States (he famously hated the U.S. and the episode really leans into the idea that his wife being ill on the trip effected his mood). A hysterical Catherine Dickens declares she’s sick of her husband’s crusade to create international copyright laws and (this one is gross) that he should stop pointing out that American slavery steals more money from the English than from “the Black man”. Really, Charlie? Really. I knew Poe was a racist raced around Antebellum Southern values (I never said I thought he was good many, just a good writer), but you Dickens! You’re my progressive writer hero. At least I still have Louisa May Alcott. No one tell me anything bad about her!

Anyway, he uses mesmerism on Catherine in order to put her to sleep and to the lobby of their hotel where a short story writer and critic awaits an audience. Why look at that! It’s Edgar Allan Poe! Being played by a man who looks too old to play him (I’m starting to notice that’s really a common problem movies). Poe declares how grand Dickens work on copyright has been and then fanboys a great deal over Barnaby Rudge (for those of you who don’t know, Barnaby Rudge is the book with a pet raven named Grip as one of the key characters, based on Dickens’s own pet). Poe for his part tries to abstain from drink, but Dickens insists. I like this idea of Poe trying to keep his cool in front of his hero, but he caves super quick to a single glass of wine.

Next scene has the pair of famous writers stumbling in the streets playing some kind of game that sort of reminded me of when my childhood friends and I would play Charlie’s Angels (this game consisted of running from building corner to building corner with our hands up in a gun position). Still, the party is over when Dickens witnesses a moment of Poe melancholy when the slightly older man craves approval of his poetry.

Poe invites Dickens to witness a mesmerism experiment which is just the short story “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” played out. A previously uncomfortable and giddy Poe turns into a devious monster more fascinated with the torture of Valdemar’s soul than how you would imagine the author to be in reality. There’s maniacal laughter and everything. I’m . . . I’m really not sure what I was supposed to take away from this? Suggestions?

Time Squad (Every Poe has a Silver Lining): Movies about Writing

Remember Time Squad? No? That’s okay I barely remember it myself. I know it came out when I was in high school and I was more interested in Powerpuff Girls, Daria, and the Justice League cartoon (did you ever watch the Justice League cartoon? It was soooo gooooodddd). Tangent over.

Anyway, this was a short lived series about three time cops, Otto Osworth (Pamela Adlon), Buck Tuddrussel (Rob Paulsen), and the robot Larry 3000 (Mark Hamill) who are supposed to fix mistakes in the timeline. They are summoned back to 1845 and visit Edgar Allan Poe (Paul Greenberg) who has become a lavender suited fancy man with a collection of stuffed animals and a garden full of tacky statues. The team is appalled when they hear this Poe’s verse about a bear returning his fanny pack (hehe fanny).

The Time Squad takes Poe to a series of depressing places in hopes of bringing him back to his dark and sinister works. Instead, the happy-go-lucky man passes out party hats, dresses as a clown, and takes advice from greeting cards one assumes he wrote himself. Side note: Best joke comes when he changes into his clown costume behind the curtain of an invalid man.

Spoiler alert: The mission is finally accomplished when Poe’s baking skills are criticized. He goes postal, becomes a depressed shell of a man, and the Time Squad finds their victory hollow. Although this whole concept makes for a darkly funny cartoon, when you think about it, it’s truly awful. They broke a man trying to get his metal health in order. I don’t . . . I don’t have a joke for that.

The Tell-Tale Heart: Movies about Writing

“To those who are squeamish or react nervously to shock, we suggest that when you hear this sound . . . [heart beating] close your eyes and do not look at the screen again until it stops.”

Oh 1960, you magnificent bastard of horrible film making. Start your film with a warning. That will surely improve it. This is another low budget British horror (classic Doctor Who was my childhood babysitter so sometimes I forget to realize just how terrible the production value on some of these films really is) loosely based on Poe’s short story, but also briefly reflecting on the man himself.

The film opens with Edgar having a nightmare that causes him to lash out and scream. A housekeeper and a man named Carl come in, give him some drug he sticks up his nose (yep- snuff will cure it), and leave him alone to hang his head mournfully over a desk. There is a weird cut to Edgar then going to a bar, being tempted by a saucy wench, and going home to look at tastefully naughty photos. Apparently, he wrestles with some issues of a carnal nature, but before he can do anything that could make God cry, Edgar becomes infatuated with a beautiful woman who moves into the neighborhood. This leads to obsession, a lot of pervy spying, non-consensual hugging, a love triangle, scandalous displays of public affection, a cameo by Rue Morgue, a murder most fowl, and the usual beating of the hideous heart expected from this title.

SPOILER ALERT:

You might be wondering, is Edgar our beloved writer? Yes and no. At the beginning of the film, the housekeeper calls him Mr. Poe. Despite the subtitles on my TV continually calling him Poe, the rest of the characters call him Mr. Marsh and he awkwardly introduces himself to the woman as Marsh. Why is this? Bad editing? Well, yes this film is not well edited, but in this case the name change was intentional.

You see, it wall a dream! Carl comes in a second time, wakes up Poe in a house that is far too nice to belong to that struggling writer, and the real Edgar sees the same woman his dream self was obsessed with. Oh no! That was a sarcastic oh no, by the way.

Torture Garden: Movies about Writing

It’s Poe birthday!

Only Britain would rip off it’s own stuff. In this case, a production company, one of many, is copying Hammer Horror complete with a role for Peter Cushing. However, this film goes the Italian route of horror anthology so of the four stories I’m only going to focus on the one about Poe. By the way, just so I don’t ruin my own reputation as a bad horror film aficionado, I want to make it clear that I sit through the entire film. There’s killer kitty and it’s super cute.

The entire framing story is a group of people at a carnival are drawn into see their fate by Burgess Meredeth dressed like a Faustian gentleman devil. Each person witnesses possible terrors that could take place within their own lives, each one pushed too hard by a desire.

Jack Palance (who I always first think of as the crime boss from Tim Burton’s Batman - uh oh, my age is showing) sees a vision of himself being allowed to view one of the greatest Poe collections in the world belonging to Peter Cushing’s character. The scene where they passed around a first volume of poetry made me uncomfortable. Put on gloves! The oils in your hands are ruining them! Right, right. These are prop books. Not real first editions. I’m fine.

HOLY CRAP! Then they are smoking pipes and waving candlesticks over hundred year old manuscripts! These are the worst collectors of academia I’ve ever seen! Sorry. Sorry. I’m fine.

Some things I really liked in this segment were how the pair of fanatics gush over how Poe was a great writer of “fantasy”. They discuss his obsession with death, but still don’t call him a horror writer. Technically, Poe’s poems and most of his other stories besides the most famous ones are more in the realm of low fantasy or detective stories. The two men also point out that he played the flute (which I didn’t know, but according to several sources I found such as the Poe Society of Baltimore is totally true).

SPOILER ALERT:

Cushing, so impressed with Palance’s knowledge and shared obsession, agrees to show him the most valued part of his family’s Poe collection, items his father and grandfather gathered for decades. When Palance accuses Cushing of fabricating some of the original manuscripts since they are written on modern paper, Cushing finally reveals that his grandfather didn’t just collect Poe’s stuff, he collect the man himself. Turns out, he brought poor Poe back to life and the family kept him locked up in a basement surrounded by decor from a Spirit Halloween store. This Poe (played by B actor Hedger Wallace) is spooky, cryptic, and covered in dust. I find this simply rude. If you bring a guy back from the dead, at least clear the cobwebs off him every once in a while.