where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Friday, January 8ht, 2010
show: 5:05 p.m.
costs: $7.25 Ticket + $3.75 small Diet/Zero ( w/ Barq's & Cherry flavors ) Coke = $11.00
auditorium: 14
seat: 4th row, 7th column
synopsis: Capitalism: A Blood Story
Ten years after a global vampire plague turned most of the human population into vampires, a human blood shortage forces enterprising vampires into capturing and "milking" humans in processing facilities while at the same time trying to perfect a synthetic blood substitute as the exploited remnant of the human population fast approaches extinction and as the prospect of turning into powerful, 'though mindless, winged cannibals ( the subsiders ) draws ever nearer.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) Bat; 2.) Little girl; 3.) Hobo assault; 4.) Subway; 5.) Charles Bromley ( Sam Neill ) and Edward Dalton ( Ethan Hawke ); 6.) The volunteer; 7.) The accident; 8.) At home; 9.) Subwalk; 10.) I find/you farm; 11.) Subsiders; 12.) Second security alert; 13.) Cater to all markets; 14.) Tree; 15.) Frankie Dalton ( Michael Dorman ); 16.) Accidental discovery; 17.) Have a cup; 18.) Villa; 19.) Coffee riot; 20.) Convoy; 21.) Self-experiment; 22.) Welcome back; 23.) Senator's cabin; 24.) Betrayal; 25.) Elvis Cormac's ( William Dafoe ) garage; 26.) Back to Bromley's building; 27.) Repeat business; 28.) Special delivery; 29.) Surrounded; and 30.) Blood orgy!
audience reaction: Not much positive feedback from the mostly teenage group.
recommendation: Although I liked the concept, the movie was not that entertaining to me. This movie might prove to be a downer for you, as well.
spoiler alert! About the only frightening scene in this movie is the one in which a bat appeared for the first time. If vampires cast no reflection in a mirror, how do the females put on their make-up and how do the males shave their faces? In the first scene with Charles and Edward, Edward's left contact lens is off-centered. Why didn't the chase scene involve a helicopter? How come they don't show the winged vampire cannibals flying around? One would think that they've already cloned human blood by then! When Alison Bromley ( Isabel Lucas ) tried to run away from her father, she got struck in the face by a rifle butt but it left no cut, bruise or swollen spot at all. Alison mutated fast, but Edward Dalton--who abstained from having human blood for many days ( Weeks? Months? Lord knows how long )--didn't mutate. If a vampire doesn't need to breathe and doesn't need to have a heartbeat, then the heart and the lungs would atrophy to the point where, even if the experiment were to work, long-time vampires would not survive the procedure! How did Edward and Audrey Bennett ( Claudia Karvan ) get past the Bromley Building's security staff and the security cameras to have access to the elevator with a bound and gagged Charles to drag along?
fyi: Winged humanoid creatures have been witnessed in parts of Asia like the Philippines and Vietnam. A Vietnamese co-worker of mine told me that coconut trees are a favored predatory perch for such creatures so villagers avoid being near such trees at night.
When I was a nine or ten year old boy in Matina, Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, I saw one such creature in a vacant lot adjacent to our apartment building around 8 o'clock in the evening when I and a couple of my neighborhood friends chased after three huge rats that ran down the dirt road and into the lot. This creature flapped its wings furiously as it was stuck in a branch on top of a mango tree which was next to a coconut tree! I yelled, "Aswang!" ( Filipino word for, Vampire ) as I ran towards our apartment as fast as my fat little legs could run. Boy, talk about close encounter! Needless to say, I've had some nightmares of that creature a number of times.
Speaking of Filipino, if you're ever invited to a Filipino home for lunch or dinner and they serve you a "chocolate" meat dish called Dinuguan, you can be sure that there's no chocolate in it because it is actually Pig's Blood Stew--and they love trying to get unsuspecting Muslims and Jews to have a bite of it! I inform you of this as a friendly warning. Although I love eating this dish, I would never pull this kind of a prank on a Muslim, Jew, or Whatever.
word of advice: This world sucks!
tidbits: Before leaving my place to go see this movie, I had a heavy meal of half a Safeway's 5-Dollar Friday Rotisserie Chicken with half a pot of steamed rice and six big cloves of fresh, raw garlic ( pressed into a small bowl with rice vinegar, ketchup and black pepper ). Uhm, uhm, good and yummy! I'd pity the vampire fool who'd pounce on me 'cause nobody eats raw garlic like I do.
To any of you girls out there considering having me as a potential lover ... Love Me, Love My Garlic Breath! That's all I gotta say. Thank you ....
