...way out on the corner of fucked up and evil...

Although not strictly vampire-themed and also sadly lacking in the Sexy Priests Who Kill People department, LXG has made it on my playlist purely because I was in the mood for the wonderfully snarky and intolerably gorgeous Dorian Gray, a character who has done much to lessen my desire to kick Stuart Townsend in the nuts for his part in making me sit through QotD. Still, him being snarky to Secret Agent!Tom Sawyer is all kinds of funny. Poor sad Tom Sawyer. Also, seriously, what is up with Roxula's accent? Obviously when he's the Phantom, it's all generic Eastern European, and that's fine, because if 24 has taught me anything, it's that all villians come from Eastern Europe, but the rest of the time it switches from upper-class to working-class English for no obvious reason and it makes me cross with it's fakosity. Because, you know, Mr Hyde, Captain Nemo and Tom Sawyer teaming up to Fight Crime is totally believable, but stupid accents piss me off.

In other news concerning things that rule, Big Wolf on Campus is awesome. Santa's evil younger brother trying to steal Christmas, a superhero that starts fires to get attention and a demon stealing souls at a high school election are exactly what TV should be all about. That, and snide remarks about Tom Cruise and the Star Wars prequels.

I am shocked and appalled by the fact that there is a sequel to Underworld. I'm sorry, but did everyone concerned in that decision have the segment of their brain that detects things that are shit removed? The thing that annoyed me most about Underworld was that, by all rights, I should have found that movie awesome. Vampires versus Werewolves? That is my kind of movie, right there! I mean, sure, anyone with half a brain could tell you that the werewolves would win, vampires being by their very nature too inclined towards sighing and moping and having angst, whereas werewolves have no angst and simply chow down on your tasty innards, but come on! The whole premise was a recipe for tacky gore-filled awesomeness, and in the end, it just sucked big fat donkey cock all over the big screen.

And really, if any schlocky psuedo-horror movie of the last couple of years deserved a sequel, it should have been Van Helsing. I mean, they already removed the worst thing about that film by having the decency to kill off Anna, paving the way for more awesome hijinx and, of course, the inevitable return of Roxula. A shame they wasted the awesomely pretty Velkan, but still, my point is: better than Underworld, you dozy fucks!

Every time I watch Phantom of the Opera, I wonder why I didn't decide to watch it earlier. It's like, one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies I own. That scene after Christine performed "Think of Me" and Raoul goes to see her in her dressing room afterwards, and the Managers are all, "Shall we introduce you, winkwinknudgenudge?" and he gives them the brush-off and then nicks their flowers? Genius! I mean, this guy is clearly pretty rich, but he just can't be arsed to buy his own bouquet, and that makes me love him. It's just so fucking jammy the way he does it, and that little "Thank you" before he shuts the door in their faces. Awesome!

And Erik? Has no follow-through. I'm convinced that's a big part of his problem right there. I mean, he's got Christine down in the Lair, there's candlelight, heaving busoms (hers), swan bed (his), he's singing "Music of the Night" - and I don't care what you say about Gerard Butler's voice, there wasn't a dry seat in the house when I saw it at the cinema - and she's totally ready to go, all he has to do is move in... and he just keeps on singing! No wonder she got bored and fell asleep. I'm not saying that seduction and foreplay aren't important, but too much is just as bad as too little - next time you get a nubile young soprano down in your subterrenean love nest, try to nail her before she goes off with the flower-nabbing, ugly brown leather jacket-wearing rich boy from the apartment upstairs. I'm just sayin'.

Oh, and Meg? Totally in love with Christine. Again, watch Christine performing "Think of Me" and there's this shot of Meg standing in the wings looking all sad and rejected and Madame Giry comes up and squeezes her shoulder, all, "My poor, poor, unrequited-in-love daughter". Poor Meg.

Now I'm in the mood for more campy gothic anti-heroes, so it's off to watch Van Helsing I go.

Previously on Froodle: I was too busy grumbling about that damn spider to mention Corey Feldman was in Big Wolf on Campus last night. Damn, he's all shades of hot. I want to watch the Lost Boys again.

Van Helsing: The London Assignment is wonderful. Gabriel being molested by the Queen is like Lindsey getting his hand cut off: just never stops being funny. Carl in drag, (hereafter refered to as 'Dragimir') whining about the shade of lip rouge and the tightness of his corset, is the stuff of legend.

Like most people who've watched it, I take issue with it only being half an hour long - I know that's all it took to tell the story, but for £10, I feel like we should have gotten another 'episode' or whatever. Still, wasn't my money, so, meh.

The CGI was pretty bad in places, but not on the scale of, say, Treasure Planet, Underworld or the Richard Roxburgh version of Hound of the Baskervilles. Or even the VH movie itself.

Now, time for me to have a bath, then curl up in bed and watch 'Return of the King'. Or more accurately, all ROTK scenes with Merry and/or Pippin in. Which means it'll be about forty minutes long.

Watched the Richard Roxburgh version of Hound of the Baskervilles this evening, despite Jonathan's dire warnings that doing so would cause my head to explode/give me cancer/result in millions of David Blaine clones.

It wasn't that bad, once I got passed the whole 'Dude, that's Dracula...' thing with Roxburgh. The deep shock came near the end of the film, with the sudden realisation that Ian Hart, who plays Watson, is Quirrel from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Which wasn't as disturbing as the Moriarty/Homer Simpson thing, but did have the effect of throwing the entire film off-kilter.

(Incidentally, have decided that if the ACD characters were characters in the Simpsons, Watson would totally be Marge. Unless it's the Nigel Bruce version of Watson, in which case, he'd be Milhouse.)

Also: Richard E. Grant. In another Holmes film. And somehow, not playing Sherlock. How does this keep happening?

The CGI on the Hound was bad. Really bad. Like, worse than Underworld.

Watson was very... unWatsony. In a non-Sherlock Holmes film, I would have adored his character, but here it was just odd. Very odd.

Other than that, mildly entertaining, and yay for homoerotic bathing scenes, which as we all know, the world needs more of - I'm looking at you, Lord of the Rings.

So, Richard Roxburgh.

Dracula in Van Helsing.

Moriarty in LXG.

And also, apparently, Holmes in the BBC version of Hound of the Baskervilles, which Jonathan informed me sucks more penis than an entire churchload of altarboys.

It doesn't help that, every time someone mentions Dracula, I feel compelled to yell 'The Napolean of the Undead!' while making dramatic gestures.

When I was in college, some of us spent three hours creating a chart that proved the centre of the world was Ken Barlow. I feel tempted to do the same with Sherlock Holmes.

That could be the urge to procrastinate kicking in, though.

Damn.

Just got back from seeing Van Hellsing.

Sam West was in it, so it gets ten points from me just for that. Thought David Wenham was a little over-the-top as the uber-dorky science-genius-friar-sidekick bloke, but it did get a few giggles ("I'm a veritable cornucopia of talent" stands out). Dracula's brides were very camp, cheesy horror - they got on my nerves. Kate Beckinsdale was, suprisingly enough, quite bearable in her 'token love-interest' capacity and also looked several degrees of hot that outfit.

The oh-my-brother-is-a-werewolf-boo-hoo-don't-kill-him element was predictable and over-done - frankly, I couldn't wait for the silly bastard to get electrocuted. Dracula himself seemed to go from being cool and understated to hammy and annoying and back again several times in the film, but on balance, I think he tips the scales in the 'cool' section.

Mr. Hyde - meh. I liked the accent, and let's face it, the CGI Hyde was a lot better than the makeup on the LXG version of the character, but it was still kind of lame and unconvincing, not to mention, did we really need to see the builder's crack during that scene? I suggest not.

Igor and Frankenstein's creature were neither here nor there for me - I can pretty much take or leave them, though I did get a laugh out of Igor chasing Sidekickimir with a cattle prod.

The scene with Van Hellsing and Anna in the room full of Dracula's reanimated spawn seemed to be lifted straight out of the 1998 version of Godzilla, and also had elements of Gremlins 2: the New Batch. Not to mention, you'd think Dracula might have stopped to think, 'Hey, releasing thousands and thousands of mini vampire Gremlin thingies into the world is really going to mess with my food supply, maybe I shouldn't do this...', but I guess not.

Despite all that, I still thought it was niftykeen, and will probably go to see it again.

Also, Hugh Jackman was very good - there were some Wolverine-esque moments, but all in all, I was impressed by his performance. I want a doll of him now...