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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

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It was one of the most challenging shots in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sitting before Roman Coppola’s second unit camera was a 50/50 mirror, the kind that was once commonplace in any illusionist’s magic shop, but which hadn’t seen the inside of a Hollywood studio in decades. On the other end of the glass lay Winona Ryder in bed, ostensibly asleep but soon to be bedeviled by a monstrous vampire.

Yet co-star Gary Oldman wasn’t on hand that day. Instead, at about a 90-degree angle away from Ryder’s boudoir, stood a duplicate set of the same size and shape, but buried in black velvet Duvetyne. And in that blackness, smoke created by dry ice was oozing its way around the velvet. When lit by green lights and reflected in the mirror, a sentient emerald mist suddenly appeared in the same room as Ryder. Dracula manifested out of thin air.

“That was a good one, if I may brag a little, in that it was a backwards photography [shot] with a 50/50 mirror,” Roman says in 2020. It’s been nearly three decades since that day on set at the legendary Culver Studios, and Roman Coppola is a bit older and far more seasoned, yet when he looks back at what he and his team achieved on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he can’t help but marvel. After all, you could now run a video taken by your iPhone in reverse with the swipe of a finger. But there they were in 1991, “puppeteering” dry ice fog in reverse, so it would appear to be sneaking below a mattress when reflected off a mirror and captured at a 45-degree angle in a camera that was running its film backwards.

In truth it’s more or less the same effect John Henry Pepper invented in 1862 to conjure a ghost on stage. Literal smoke and mirrors in the digital age.

When Bram Stoker’s Dracula opened in November 1992, it astonished the industry and silenced many of Francis Ford Coppola’s sharpest critics. Snarked about in the press beforehand as “Bonfire of the Vampires”—a reference to Brian De Palma’s misbegotten Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)—the whispers were that director Coppola had created a lurid and weird vampire movie based on one of the most oversaturated characters in fiction. Well, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was certainly lurid and weird, but in the best possible way.

Originally conceived as a Victorian man’s repressed anxieties about lust and passion being given demonic shape, Coppola’s vision for Dracula was entirely divorced from the pop culture image of Bela Lugosi in a cape. While the movie was marketed as the director of The Godfather going back to the 1897 source novel that no one had ever faithfully adapted (which turned out to be only partially true), the movie’s true appeal lies in its decadent imagery. It’s a marriage of lavish costumes, freaky makeup, and half-forgotten magician’s effects. And the last bit was given new life by Francis’ son, Roman, who became the film’s visual effects director.

Somehow it all came together, with performers such as Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Waits, and Ryder going so big that their cries threatened to burst through the soundstage walls. The hypnotic union thrilled audiences, who made Bram Stoker’s Dracula a surprise holiday blockbuster, and was ultimately celebrated by the industry, which awarded the movie three Oscars, including one for Eiko Ishioka’s dazzling costumes and Greg Cannon’s makeup. The irony is that, in its way, it was the industry’s skepticism toward Francis Ford Coppola that made the movie’s unusual vision possible.

“For some reason I always thought it was unfair I had the reputation of being a director who spent a lot of money, which is not really the case,” Francis said in a recent interview with film critic F.X. Feeney. “The only movie that I really spent a lot of money on, and went way over budget, was Apocalypse Now.”

Be that as it may, when Ryder first piqued Coppola’s interest about making a Dracula movie, which as it turned out was a favorite novel from his youth, he knew the studio would never agree to Coppola’s first inclination: As with going to the jungles of the Philippines on Apocalypse Now or Sicily in The Godfather, Coppola initially imagined shooting Dracula in Transylvania and inside actual crumbling castles.

“I knew the studio would be a little leery of getting this director with three names to do this Dracula picture, and possibly go off to Romania, and it’d be a Heaven’s Gate scenario, or Apocalypse Now scenario, so I played into that. I said, ‘You know, we could go and make the film in Romania, we could go to the real Castle Dracula… or I could make it all in the studio… In fact, I’ll make the entire picture right in a soundstage, a group of soundstages right under your noses. They just loved it, they ate it up.”

That was how Francis pitched himself into the movie, but how he made it worthwhile stemmed from two separate ideas bleeding into one otherworldly vision: First that the laws of physics would never apply when you were in the presence of a vampire; and second, if he was going to attempt to authentically return to the Victorian world of Stoker’s 1897 novel, he also would return to the early world of cinema where the laws of physics were never even considered.

“The period of the turn of the century was the birth of movies,” Francis said. “And movies, as you know, largely came about because of magicians who started to use the cinema to make illusions…. That’s when I became excited about the idea of [having] this story 100 percent shot in soundstages and not only using illusions and magic, and effects, but using effects as they were done at the turn of the century, which was in-camera.”

Thus entered Roman Coppola. Only 26 when Bram Stoker’s Dracula went before cameras, Roman wasn’t necessarily his father’s first choice to lead the visual effects. While Francis’ accounts have varied over the years as to whether his first head of special effects quit or was fired, the one consistency in Francis’ telling is that modern effects experts were exasperated by the idea of using almost no optical printers or new digital effects, and instead focusing on in-camera tricks. “Absurd” was the word Francis heard. But as it so happened, his son already had a passion for magic and the old ways, absurd though they may be.

“I was involved [on the movie] already,” Roman says. “I was going to be second unit [director], and we wanted the effects and second unit all to be one group effort, and do that stuff live. And when I started to take certain leadership and do storyboards, and supervise certain preparation, it was just clear that I was able to direct these efforts in a way that was more in my dad’s wishes, which is to really genuinely, deeply embrace the idea of total adhesion to ‘how would they have done it back in the day?’”

In retrospect Roman taking over leadership on the effects in Bram Stoker’s Dracula—to the point where he’s given the title card of “Visual Effects and Second Unit Director” in the end credits—seems natural. Ever since his uncle David Shire introduced him to theatrical magic as a young child, Roman has had a lifelong fascination with the tricks of illusion and sleight of hand. He still recalls boyhood days spent at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Magic store and San Francisco’s House of Magic, learning the trade of visual trickery, such as John Pepper’s “Pepper’s Ghost,” and staying up to watch Paul Michael Glaser in the 1976 TV movie The Great Houdini. In San Francisco, he saw Tony Slydini on stage.

“After 12 and 13, I stopped being so active,” Roman says. “But later, as a younger person in my 20s, I started to get back into it and get a lot of books, and collect certain apparatuses. It’s just something I found a real love for.”

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It also perfectly positioned him to spearhead Dracula’s visual effects. And one of the first things Roman and his team did was curate a film reel, or “visual library,” of all the points of reference from classic cinema they could use as inspiration.

“The movies that were much more points of reference are a touch later, but still drawing on the same principles,” Roman says when we mention early cinema pioneers, including Georges Méliès. “Jean Cocteau was a particular influence, Beauty and the Beast [1946], Orpheus [1950], and Blood of a Poet [1930]. So those are all movies that we drew a lot of inspiration from.”

Indeed, during the scene where Keanu Reeves’ Jonathan Harker explores Castle Dracula, a single carved arm in the wall is holding a candelabra in homage to Beauty and the Beast. Meanwhile Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) inspired the nightmarish imagery of Harker’s carriage ride through a desolate mountain range, with the ominous passing tree branches actually being grips whacking the carriage as it was rocked in place.

Other films in the reel might include F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) or Carl Th. Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932), but Roman cites the biggest influences as being actual books on magic he turned to for research. Some were as old as Stoker’s novel itself. Erik Barnouw’s The Magician and the Cinema (1981) was a major touchstone on the movie; Sam Sharpe, author of Neo Magic (1932) and Conjurers’ Optical Secrets (1985) was another; and then crucially there was Magic: Stage Illusions, Special Effects and Trick Photography, which was written by Albert A. Hopkins in 1897.

Explains Roman, “Those books were the bibles of the research, and those have all sorts of references.” For instance, recall the grandiose prologue of the film. With baroque glee the movie begins not in 1897 but 1462. That is the year the real-life Vlad the Impaler repelled the Ottoman Empire and protected Christendom by slaughtering thousands of Turks. The sequence was Francis’ invention, and one he called his “Origin of Batman” scene on the set. But rather than actually film a battle scene, or even actual daylight, the warring portion of the sequence is completely captured via unnatural silhouette, with shadow puppets before a blood-red sky standing in for actual humans as they are impaled on a forest of pikes.

Says Roman, “If you get the book of Hopkins’ Magic, you will see other things like shadowgraphy, which is using shadow puppets. There was a guy named Caran d’Ache, who I think became famous because he’s the namesake of the Swiss colored pencil company. But he was the originator, or at least excelled in, shadowgraphy. And when you see the opening of Dracula, all those shadow puppets, that was inspired by an example from that book.”

This focus on the classical principles of stagecraft and magic, reverse photography and compositing images with a forced perspective, is the secret of Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s lingering appeal. As Roman points out, there were no effects they feared wouldn’t work. If they could achieve how things were done then, they’d appear inexplicable in the dawning age of digital effects.

“There’s a lot of steps and a lot of process that can be painstaking, but I don’t think we did anything that was pushing a boundary,” he says. “I think everything was an accepted principle that we knew, ‘Well, this is going to work if we do it right.’ There was nothing groundbreaking. We adhered to all the old tricks.”

There could certainly be setbacks, Roman recalls during Dracula’s voyage to London on the doomed Demeter that they exposed the same negative to five passes of filming. This is to say they attempted to combine five separately filmed images as the camera swung on the set by rewinding the film before each new pass. But because the frame line was incorrect on one of the passes, the whole multi-step take was ruined.

But the effects they did achieve all have a potency that register as alien to our modern eye. Some can be as simple as running the film backward in the camera, giving a macabre, unnatural sense of movement as Sadie Frost’s newly turned vampire Lucy climbs into her coffin after being accosted with a crucifix. In reality, she was filmed simply climbing out of it. Others might be slightly more complex, such as a black matte box being used over multiple passes.

For instance, when rats appear to run upside down on a girder above Jonathan Harker in the castle, two passes were used. In the first, the camera was upside down with the black matte covering the top of the lens as rats ran across a piece of set; then the camera was turned upright, the film rewound, and the other half of the lens was exposed while the original portion was covered as Reeves was burned into the negative.

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Among my personal favorites is the extreme perspective of Ryder’s 1462 Princess Elisabeta flinging herself from a castle parapet into a river, which Roman reveals “was basically a puppet with a forced perspective, and a little river below, [with] some tricks to make the scale look correct.”

Another was the much more complex series of techniques used during the vignette of Jonathan Harker traveling by train into Transylvania. In the finished film, Reeves sits in a shadowy train compartment with stark mountains out the window. Soon they fade away into darkness as Oldman’s predatory eyes appear on the horizon. Outside the train, Harker’s journal entry about the day’s travel is visible in the frame, running the length of the train track and just below the crossing transport.

“That was done by Gene Warren Jr. at Fantasy II [Film Effects], and that was multi-pass, multiple exposures,” Roman says. Among them was a rear projection created over two passes on the same piece of film. The first was comprised of multiple layers of the mountain range background moving at different speeds from right to left, while the camera moved left to right. In the second pass, the lights were turned out and Oldman’s eyes, as filmed by Roman, were projected as the only source of light onto the same background. All of this was then rear projected behind Reeves in a separate shot while he sat in his carriage. Conversely, in one of his close-ups, a map of 19th century Transylvania appears on his face via front projection.

And as for the journal in the same frame as the train? According to visual effects camera operator Christopher Lee Warren in “In Camera: The Naive Effects of Dracula,” they built a 20-foot wide replica of Harker’s journal entry so it could stand 10 feet in each direction between the camera and a miniature train, all to get the right type of sunset shadow being cast across its pages.

As just one in a string of intricate effects and set-pieces achieved by Roman and his team, the effects’ cumulative impact is immeasurable. In its way, Bram Stoker’s Dracula works on the level Francis wanted: He was able to bring it closer to Stoker’s world and plot, if not necessarily Stoker’s themes. As Francis more openly admits in recent years, when Ryder first approached him with a draft of James V. Hart’s script for Dracula, it was about a gushing love story between the dashing Count and Mina Murray Harker.

Ironically, that may be the element of the film that lingers most on subsequent pop culture depictions of Dracula. But it was Francis’ insistence on the script being rewritten, and rewritten again, to incorporate all of Stoker’s narrative beats, side characters, and supernatural wickedness, as well as the sense of a British society in upheaval. It was the dawn of a new century, the twilight of an old monarch, and an age for scientific discovery and technology, be it in the realm of blood transfusion… or moviemaking.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is at its best when it drinks deeply from its dreamlike environment and atmosphere, capturing the base dread in Victorian culture of suddenly being confronted by what it deemed irrational or lascivious. And those elements mingle to gory delight when the aspects Coppola cared about most took center stage.

“The focus [was] on the actors, the costumes, and this unusual way of doing live-action and multiple take effects done in-camera,” Francis said. And when it’s Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, and the rest of the ensemble standing around Sadie Frost in an extravagant 19th century wedding dress while being filmed in reverse, its sense of tone and style is overwhelming.

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On his end, Roman met that goal, and underlined the movie’s macabre madness, with ideas as primal and orgasmic as firing waves of blood out of air cannons during the scene where Dracula kills Lucy—“That was just a total last minute thing of like… ‘Hey don’t we have a bunch of blood bullets? Let’s put it in those air cannons and see what happens”—and it also paid off in old-fashioned Hollywood bravura, like the climax where Harker and the other vampire hunters chase Dracula down the Borgo Pass.

As second unit director, Roman shot much of that finale—as well as about 20 percent of the finished film—on the same soundstages where Merian C. Cooper filmed King Kong (1933) and David O. Selznick burned Atlanta in Gone with the Wind (1939). And a few years before Jurassic Park changed movie effects forever, Roman and his father were in that space, filming Reeves, Hopkins, and the rest approaching on horseback an enormous looming castle… which was created by Michael Pangrazio and Craig Barron by painting it on matted glass.

“That is remarkable that that would still be done in our time,” Roman reflects. “It’s hard to imagine that will ever happen again, latent image matte painting. It’s a great way to do something, but you need to have the skill to do it… and that’s just sort of a dying art.”

Not that Roman doesn’t still indulge the old ways. Many of his modern collaborators adore miniatures, for example. “I work with Wes Anderson often, and he likes to use miniatures, and he does it pretty liberally,” Roman says. “So I think there’s always a place for that.”

But composite shots? One where you put a sky or castle in the same shot with a miniature and live-action over multiple passes?

“It’s not possible to imagine someone wishing to do that on an optical printer, because for one, they don’t really exist [anymore],” Roman says. “Number two, it degrades the image, and there’s a lot of reason not to.”

Like the in-camera effects that fascinated two generations of Coppolas, even the optical printing techniques they were largely forgoing in 1992 have become obsolete in the age of computer generated imagery. Even the backwards-looking Bram Stoker’s Dracula has a single CG effect, with Roman conceding the transformation at the end of the movie, where demonic Dracula turns back into Prince Vlad in death, was done with CGI. But as Roman says, it was used judiciously at the conclusion as “a real punctuation mark.”

And perhaps Bram Stoker’s Dracula is itself a punctuation mark. A last hurrah for antiquated styles of moviemaking that were long gone, or about to be, and a chance to open a magician’s bag of tricks to fool the eye into believing, as Francis says, “the earth doesn’t rotate at exactly the right speed” in the presence of a vampire. It’s why the movie has aged like fine wine (if you drink the stuff), and likely will continue to do so while many other effects-driven movies are practically timestamped by their imagery.

“It was unique to a time and place,” Roman says. “I’m sure other movies, other horror movies in particular, over time will represent a time and a place, but this seems to be the one that represents that time and place.”

That time, and perhaps that of a century earlier.

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hatant · 5 years

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🌼 5 people I’d like to get to know better :3

I was tagged by the lovely @sunnyolives-blog

• one • name and/or alias : Anthony is my name, and I normally go by Ant - if I'm ever full named it usually means that person doesn't know me well enough to shorten my name, or I'm in trouble.

There's maybe one or two people I allow to call me Tony or Tone, but it's a very short list 😂

Aliases...well I'm one of those unfortunate souls who seems to accumulate nicknames. A recent addition is Wedges which, I'd be very happy to see die a quiet, inglorious death and quickly.

• two • zodiac: Aquarius! And that's about the extent of my knowledge there. Oh under the Chinese zodiac I'm a metal horse so, that's pretty metal 🤘🏼

• three • hobbies: Aha urm OK let's see...photography (which I've been very lax with recently), blacksmithing, archery (which I've recently got back into again after what feels like a long time), axe throwing and reading. Oh and cooking.

I don't bake all that much but I'm trying to get into it more!

• four • fave song(s) atm: A very solid contender right now is Corey Taylor's cover of 'Rainbow in the Dark'. I have been listening to Professor Green and Tori Kelly's 'Lullaby' quite a lot recent. Oh oh oh aaaand 'El Tango de Roxanne' from the Broadway version of Moulin Rouge. That's an absolute banger.

• five • fave colour: Ooh purple (which is part of the reason I'm a Ravens fan, black and purple...you can't find a better colour scheme). Green. And blue and red in they order.

• six • meaning behind your URL: Aha urm OK, story time. Basically, it boils down to the fact that my name is Anthony, and I used to wear hats all the time (like, all the time) and thus, was referred to as Hat Ant.

Years and years ago, I was part of a London-wide Holocaust Memorial scheme, where we attended workshops hosted by Holocaust survivors (it was pretty heavy) and we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau as well.

The idea was to have two students from every school in London go, and relay information and history from the workshops and the trip to the rest of the school via talks, workshops and assemblies. So we went, and met a whole bunch of people and swapped numbers and all that, and this girl called me Hat Ant and the name sort of stuck. So in the midst of that very real, very sobering experience one of my nicknames was born.

Thanks lovely 😊 😊 😊 @thejesterrace @setterewolf @thestoryis-butthereasonislonger @little-vixxenn @kjangsta @lizlizlovely you're up! (if you want).

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newagesispage · 7 years

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AUGUST 2017

*****Bill Murray and the rest of the Murray brothers are opening a Caddyshack themed restaurant in the Plaza hotel in Rosemont, Il. They opened a similar eatery in Florida in 2001.** Bill Murray also got the ESPY for Chicago cubs best moment. Michelle Obama honored Eunice Kennedy Shriver at the ESPY’s for the Special Olympics.

***** Tarantino is doing the next Manson movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*****Dec. 2017: Psych the movie. YES!

*****Some republicans are working on introducing a bill that would force future Presidents to release their tax returns.

*****Alice Cooper discovered he had a Warhol, “little electric chair”, 40 years after the fact. The find was rolled up in a tube in a storage locker.

*****It is so funny how Kelly Ripa looks so happy and bright when Anderson Cooper is on but not so much when that boar Seacrest is next to her.

*****Days alert: Sami will be back in the fall and look for her and Nicole to clash. We will see more of Xander but Dario is headed out of our lives. Chad and Gabby are over and look for Chad and Abigail to reunite if she survives. Is Ben Weston back in town or just in Abby’s mind? Did she see him the night of Deimos’ murder? Could she be the killer and could Chad be protecting her as she has been protecting him?

*****Another victim of John Wayne Gacy was recently identified as Jimmy Haakenson, a Minnesota runaway.

*****The Rockford Peaches are being celebrated . July 27 brought hundreds of girls and women to Beyer stadium in Rockford to play. Some of the 40’s and 50’s peaches were in the movie “A League of Their own” ,that sparked a resurgence in interest. Also in the works just across the street is The International Women’s Baseball Center.

***** Did you ever notice how often Kroger products are used on television? I am forever seeing their store brand in scenes across many networks in many scenes. I think it is because they have a very generic look.

*****It sounds like the Richard Pryor story will come to the screen. It should be exciting with Tracy Morgan as Redd Foxx and Oprah as Pryor’s Grandmother.

*****CBS and the BBC are joining forces in the tradition of Edward R. Morrow who used to report from the BBC.

*****Two topless women jumped on stage in Germany to protest Woody Allen as he played clarinet. The women read a letter Dylan Farrow once wrote to her father that alleged sexual abuse. Security guards took them away amid boo’s from the audience. Allen called the incident “stupid.”

*****Steve Martin and the Steep canyon rangers have a new album, ‘The long awaited album.’

*****Bill Brady is the newest state senator in Illinois. Is there finally an end to the budget crisis in the state? Several states have these issues but Illinois has been at the bottom of the heap, rated junk. Now that a few republicans have crossed the line to come to an agreement, can they start to pay all the bills they owe?**Chris Christie has helped to lead New Jersey to the bottom as well. They closed parks and beaches due to financial constraints. He used a beach that had been closed to the rest of the state for his 4th of July celebrating. He basically told the people that if they were Mayor, they could use the mayoral house to do it themselves but they aren’t. The only good it seemed to do was the fallout helped him reach a decision about the budget so things could reopen.

*****Jawara Mcintosh, son of Peter Tosh, is in a coma after being beaten in a New Jersey jail.

*****OMG: Does everyone know that the NRA lobbied to be sure that there is no central electronic database for gun records? When police are requesting registration on a gun after an incident, the centers 50 employees must search thru microfilm or boxes of paperwork. How do they sneak this stuff in without alarms being raised? We must pay attention!! Let’s change this for the cats at the ATF tracing center.

*****Germany has legalized same sex marriage.

*****VP Pence tells us: “Under President Trump, American security will be as dominant in the heavens as we are here on earth.”

*****Hobby lobby owners are putting together a Bible museum. They were caught smuggling black market antiquities out of ISIS territory. They claim stupidity but were warned before they even started this venture. Luckily, the artifacts were intercepted by the government and returned.

*****Hooray for Ronan Farrow and others who are working hard on the voter ID mess. Conservative politicians need to quit targeting minorities and the poor and just let us all vote. Let’s just keep things fair, is that too much to ask?

*****I am intrigued by the ads for the new show Guest Book on TBS.** People of Earth is back!!

*****The Government ethics director, Walter Shaub resigned. He claims there were many conflicts of interest and the White house fought him every step of the way. He has seen nothing like it in any republican or democrat administration.

*****HBO’s tour de Pharmacy was funny and had so many famous faces. The faux doc included references from Arby’s to a small misshapen penis and was narrated by Jon Hamm. The cast includes Mike Tyson, Will Forte, Orlando Bloom, Kevin Bacon, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Freddie Highmore and Julia Ormand. I was a bit uncomfortable at the Lance Armstrong stuff. He was worth a chuckle at first but it got old. I admit that he is not my favorite person. I guess you gotta take the $ where you can.

*****The History channel ran a doc about Amelia Earhart. The claim was that there was a pic that may be Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan after she disappeared. This leads one to believe that they were taken prisoner by the Japanese. A history blogger disagrees , saying that the photo is from a book published 2 years before they were lost in 1937.

*****The impeachment marches seemed to get zero coverage. There were a few small mentions a couple of days later but for the most part they were ignored. I am so glad I was there. The people are speaking. The media needs to stop bending over backwards not to poke the bear and let us speak! I am glad the media is making us aware of all the lies going on in the White house. It would be refreshing to get away from the talking heads once in a while and take it to the grass roots resistance growing. Hasn’t this been part of the problem all along? Isn’t this what everyone bitched about right after the election?

*****Volvo will go totally electric or hybrid starting 2019.

***** The Emmy noms have been announced with some surprises. The biggest travesty is no nod for Michael Mckean for Better Call Saul. Some nominations were well deserved though. Lead actress drama should go to Keri Russell but Elisabeth Moss and Viola Davis are awesome as well. Some of my other faves were Bob Odenkirk and Matthew Rhys for actor in a drama. Big little lies brought 2 lead actress picks for Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon but Feud has to win for either Jessica Lange or Susan Sarandon or both. Feud is loaded with noms for costumes, director, music, hair, and supporting actor for Stanley Tucci, Alfred Molina, Judy Davis and Jackie Hoffman. Rupaul is the only thing going in the reality category. In comedy there is Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as well Julia Louis Dreyfuss and a lot more for Veep and Atlanta. Jeffrey Tambor, Zack Galifinakis and Donald Glover are my tops for comedy acting. The best in drama are Better Call Saul, Stranger Things , The Americans and The Handmaids tale. Variety is a tough category with Full Frontal, Kimmel, the Late Show, the late late show, Last week tonight and Real Time. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks and Dolly’s Christmas movie are both up for a vote. Voice animation has Kevin Kline, Kristen Schaal and Nancy Cartwright. Animated shows include Archer, Bob’s Burgers and the Simpson’s. Bill Nye saves the world, Drunk History , SNL and Portlandia are up for production design. American Horror Story: Roanoke only got a couple for hairstyling, sound editing and prostetic makeup. Supporting acting comedy is hard to pick with Louie Anderson, Tony Hale and Alec Baldwin for the men and Vanessa Bayer, Leslie Jones, Kate Mckinnon, Judith Light, Kathryn Hahn and Anna Chlumsky for the women. What? Another travesty, o love for Keenan Thompson? Guest actor include Carrie Fisher, Melissa McCarthy, Wanda Sykes, Tom Hanks, Dave Chappelle and Matthew Rhys.I am all the way with Alison Wright for guest acting in drama. The host category has Snoop and Martha, Alec Baldwin , Rupaul and W. Kamau Bell. Variety specials and sketch shows are filled with genius like Louis C.K., Sarah Silverman, Colbert’s election night and Documentary now! In the documentary category there is The Beatles :8 days a week from Ron Howard. Informational specials Inside the actors studio, Leah Remini: scientology and star talk: Neil deGrasse Tyson are nominated. Good luck to all!

*****Ken Burns is bringing us The Vietnam war in September which took 10 years to make.

*****Kid Rock has announced a senate run.

*****Jimmy Carter is out of the hospital after he suffered from dehydration. He was working on a house in Canada for habitat for humanity.

*****Word is that the ratings for the new Kelly and Ryan show are not too good, the same with Megyn Kelly’s new NBC show.

*****Sturgis is back on August 4 in South Dakota.

*****HBO is bringing us a doc on Steven Spielberg that is narrated by the man himself. Susan Lacy is director and producer of the project.

*****If you haven’t seen the funny or die with Al Franken and David Letterman, you must check it out. Look up years of living dangerously: Boiling the frog.

*****Fox likes to pretend that scary clown is more of a leader than he really is. They kept running a scroll across the bottom as the G-20 was going on that ‘Trump presses Putin on meddling.’ Did he really? We will never really know and if he did, it was just for show because he is adamant that he just wants to move on. Putin tells us that Trump accepted his version of events. This is really no surprise since scary clown attacked his own intelligence community on foreign soil and said that he was honored to meet Putin. The man is SO Putin’s bitch.**After Trump tweeted that he and the Russian President had talked of a joint impenetrable cyber security unit, he got much backlash. John McCain and Kyle Griffin both stated that Putin should be good at that since he is the one doing the hacking. The President talked a lot about faith in his speech in Poland. As he gets older does he think more about these things as age can make you do or does he shield himself with it? **Ivanka sat in for her Father at some of the summit. It did not seem that the other leaders were too big on seeing him anyway. I don’t think Trump has the confidence to talk with the big timers anyway. He seems to be more of a one on one guy which was what he was doing.**Of course we then learn that there was a second private meeting and who knows what that was about.**On June 25th the House backed a new package of sanctions against Moscow, North Korea and Iran. The bill prohibits scary clown from waiving penalties.** Russia has already retaliated by seizing American diplomatic properties and ordering the U.S. embassy to reduce staff.

*****Don Jr. has now been caught in multiple lies about the Russian lawyer they met with on trying to find dirt on Hillary. How many times will this family and their team lie to us?? There were more people there than they originally told us including a lobbyist that was ex counter intelligence. They claim that candidate Trump had no idea of the situation. Do they think we will believe that? We are in fact now hearing that he orchestrated his son’s response. Is Trump that stupid or does he just play an idiot on tv? Will he sacrifice his own son? Why is it that Manafort and Kushner are never far away from the trouble? The team tries to act like this Russian mess is something anyone would do. They are so far removed from honor and decency that they do not seem to know any better. They have no idea how real people operate.** We have soldiers on the Russian border that are protecting people from Russia and these yahoos think it is perfectly fine to work with them to fuck up our democracy.** BTW, The President can’t pardon someone on state or foreign charges but he can pardon on federal charges . Could all of the liars get away it? ** How long will the “we are stupid and know what we do” excuse work for these Trump voters? Who can still support a family that just keeps lining their own pockets with their clout? ** The Don Jr. legal fees are being paid in part by the 2020 Trump campaign funds. The President wants the RNC to pay the rest. ** Kushner has now been speaking casually with the feds. He came out to make a small speech after the first day that told us how innocent he was. Scary clown and his fam seem to love the country waiting for their every move.

*****Saw this on a site and wanted to share:

Parable of the talents by, Octavia E. Butler

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought

To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.

To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

*****Teen birth rates have declined 9%, the lowest ever.** About 3 ,000 women from other states come to Illinois each year for abortions.

*****Jodie Whittaker will be the first female Dr. Who as she becomes the 13th Doc.

*****I hear that the packet received when someone takes the oath to become an American citizen still has a letter from Obama. I guess the new administration hasn’t had time to think about welcoming new Americans.

*****The hit show, Insecure is back for another season.

*****PBS has a new season of Finding your Roots. They have already revealed that Larry David finds out that Bernie Sanders is his distant cousin.

*****Employees in a Ford plant in Ohio found a mil in weed from cars that were assembled in Mexico.

*****A show on the History channel is trying to answer the questions that have come up in recent years about H.H. Holmes being Jack the Ripper. The grandson of America’s first serial killer is leading the charge and he seems a bit disappointed whenever they hit a wall. I guess if you already know that your Grandfather was a killer, what’s a few more? The program drags everything out as these History channel shows tend to do as they repeat themselves over and over. Sometimes when they get some info, I wonder why they only follow part of it. For instance, they tested the DNA which MIGHT have belonged to a victim. The DNA did not match the grandson but did they put their findings in a database to see if there is some familial match elsewhere? They could possibly find out this way if the scarf was indeed at the crime or if the DNA belonged to later handlers of the scarf.

*****Joel Clement, former director of the office of policy analysis and the U.S. interior has been moved to the advisory office of natural resources revenue. He is one of fifty who this administration moved on June 15. He is a scientist who helps endangered Alaskan communities. Joel speaks out publically about climate change and believes this is an open and deliberate effort to silence scientists and eliminate employees that disagree with them. He is now officially a whistle blower.** It seems to me that having Trump as President is like having a really shitty Father. The family just has to go out and find their own way and we must keep trying to get him out. Until then, the Governors, the Mayors and the rest of us have to figure out our own ways to save the planet and help others in spite of him. We must counteract all the damage he is causing. Think of the children that will be scarred with all this chaos by these ‘children’ that are trying to run the country.

*****So, again there have been alleged shady police doings. Every time a cop plants evidence or does not turn on a bodycam we lose faith. Law enforcement has such a hard job and we want to believe they will be there for us. They are supposed to be taking care of us and I am sure most officers are people we can look up to but these bad seeds must be made to pay.

*****It is so strange that John McCain is fighting for his life as we are tackling this whole health care mess. He has great health care and we all wish him well. Do he and his Republican cohorts want us to have the same? Why don’t we all deserve the same chance? A perfect example is right in front of them and they should all pay attention. I think most of them believe in God. Could this have been sent as an example? The ACA has worked wonders, let’s fix what isn’t working and quit obsessing over repeal and replace. Many Democratic senators are trying to get to infrastructure and other bills. It is unbelievable that we pay these people and give them awesome insurance while they have been obsessed with this health care subject and losers in it for all these years. Who keeps voting them in??** Before they all get their long August vacations , our lawmakers voted to begin debate for repeal and replace. In the end all their votes failed and McCain cast the decisive ‘no.!’ We must not forget to thank Collins and Murkowski who were in there all the way. If it somehow hurts their manhood to call something that may be a good thing, ’Obamacare,’ then call it the ACA. History will give Obama credit even if they don’t want to and I don’t think he will care what it is called now as long as it helps people.** Word is coming out that Republicans used tax payer funds to denigrate Obama’s health care bill.

*****People of Earth is back from Conaco on TBS.

*****The podcast ‘You must remember this” is concentrating on Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda this season and their similar lives. It is a fascinating look at the beautiful and talented actresses.

*****Norm Macdonald’s podcast recently featured a great interview with Letterman.

*****The Borg/McEnroe movie starring Shia LaBeouf will open the Toronto film fest.

*****The new obsession for Trump is the incompetence of Jeff Sessions.

*****Do you ever think about the fate of the many extras/actors that we’ve seen a thousand times in the opening credits of famous shows? How about the nurses running in M*A*S*H or the people on the streets of Chicago on The Bob Newhart show? We see them again and again from the singing and dancing on The Drew Carey show to the photos on Law and Order. We do not know these people but they are a part of our life? Hats off to them!

*****American Horror Story : CULT will premiere on Sept. 5. Season 7 will add Billy Eichner, Billie Lourd and Lena Dunham along with regulars Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson, Mare Winningham and Frances Conroy. Twisty the clown is back in a story inspired by the 2016 election. The first teaser was fab and a bit Pink Floyd: the Wallish and is set in Michigan.

*****Kevin Spacey will play Gore Vidal.

*****People have been talking a lot about the recent viral videos of a woman killing her sister and the boys who let a man drown while making fun of him. These things have been around forever with “entertainment” like Faces of Death and snuff films. Things have become more main stream with social media but one can’t help but think of the final Seinfeld episode. The prosecution of the Seinfeld four when they laughed at the fat man getting robbed was like seeing the future.

*****A lot of military personnel are claiming there is a lot of extra training going on. Is something big being planned as we argue about the other stuff in front of us? ** Scary clown tweeted to us all about how transgender military personnel have no business being there. He talked with his Generals but he did not say they agreed with him. He complained of the “tremendous” medical costs but studies show that 5 times as much is spent on Viagra.

*****OJ Simpson was moved to a more secure part of the prison after he learned he would be set free later this year. Rumors are spreading that he will tour with his former victim that spoke at his hearing.

*****Sean Spicer resigned after Anthony Scaramucci (who some call a cartoon Guido) was named communications director. Ivanka and Trump met with ‘the Mucc’ for an hour and a half and then Trump called him many time before this all came down. Sara Huckabee Sanders is the new press secretary. A friend said that if Melissa McCarthy took on Spicer on SNL then it makes sense that a man should do Sara. BTW, what was with Scaramucci giving Sara hair and makeup advice? WTF? Word is that Preibus fought it all the way but he is kissing ass all over the place now. The whole affair got us our first on air briefing in 22 days. I can’t help but wonder how Spicer feels to be a lil’ blip of a joke in history. **Scaramucci deleted many old tweets he had praising Hillary and supporting stronger gun laws as well as putting down Trump and climate deniers. He is also kissing his new Messiahs bottom all over the place. The new guy acts just like his boss with an expletive filled interview that puts down everyone around him. I don’t feel a bit sorry for Priebus or Sessions, they knew what they were in for. These tactics make the loyal evangelicals look like the mob. They will sell their soul and put up with this crap to get rid of the transgender soldiers and Planned Parenthood. Trump seems to like an opportunist and is probably happy to have a new hate buddy.** This month in the circular firing squad, part of Trump’s legal team , Mark Corallo was out then Sr. asst. press secretary Michael Short was out, then Reince Preibus was out . General john Kelly is the new White House chief of staff after Preibus served the shortest term I history. Kelly was first offered the position in May.** As I post this, we have learned that Scaramucci is out.

*****Some Scary clown supporters are crowing about low gas prices and low unemployment numbers but who do they think set all that in motion. Some would argue that Presidents don’t often have much to do with gas prices. But I wish they would say what we all know , that Obama was the one who sorted out the last Republican fallout. ** And right wing pundits.. Could I ask you to please stop calling the middle of the country ‘Trump country?’ We are smarter and more diverse than you think.** BTW, heard a great line this week which is essentially the meaning of the word bully. “Trump acts like a weak man thinks a strong man should act.” I thought that hit the nail on the head.

*****They say Trump is looking into the pardon process and exactly what his limits might be in other areas as President. The conclusions of Ken Starr’s office about Presidential prosecution say, “It is proper, constitutional and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting President for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to the President’s official duties. In this country no one is above the law.” Noting the constitution’s speech or debate clause: “If the framers of our constitution wanted to create a special immunity for the President they would have written the relevant clause.”

*****Dhani Harrison will release a solo album on Oct. 6.

*****Mick Jagger turned 74 with the release of 2 new songs, Gotta get a grip and England lost. He needed to get out his own anxieties about the new world we are all living in.** Publisher John Blake claims he has an 80’s memoir written by Mick but that he is not allowed to publish it.

*****Sarah Silverman is bringing ‘I love you America’ to Hulu on Oct. 12.

*****Scary Clown 45 promised to bomb the shit out of ISIS. He has been doing a lot of air attacks which are not much talked about. In these attacks almost as many civilian deaths have occurred as in all of Obama’s time in office.** We are only 5% of the world population, quit acting like we own the fuckin’ universe!

*****American white supremacists are funding Europe’s white nationalists to try to take over border control themselves. A ship was chartered called the C-star by a group calling themselves Generation Identity. The group claims they want to deliver Muslim immigrants from the Mediterranean back to the Middle East. Beginning in France, the group has spread to Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany. They say they want to defend Europe and Davis Duke has tweeted out a link to their fund raising page. They are using maritime law as an excuse to come to the “aid” of the immigrant boats.

*****How creepy was this whole Boy Scout jamboree speech? It does not get more wrong than that.

*****NBC Sports has signed Dale Jr. as a commentator.

*****Paris Jackson and Macauley Culkin got matching tattoos the other day.

*****2018 will bring us new comics of Nightmare before Christmas.

*****R.I.P Loren James, John Blackwell Jr., Nelsan Ellis, Sheila Michaels, Theresa Poehlman, Fresh Kid Ice, Maryam Mirzak Hani, Neil Welch, George Romero, Martin Landau, Chester Bennington, Liu Xiaobo, Irina Ratushinskaya , Michael Johnson, Leonard Landy, June Foray, Barbara Sinatra, Stubbs the cat (Mayor of Talkeetna, Ala.), Jeanne Moreau, Sam Shepard and John Heard.

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manaboutworldmag · 7 years

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Basque Country Foodie Road Trip

A Basque country foodie road trip is not the first think people think of when planning a trip to Spain. This autonomous region in the north of Spain contains a dramatic scenery of rugged coastlines, interior mountains and rolling vineyards, with strong culinary and cultural traditions existing alongside avant-garde art and architecture, all of which is well-worth a visit.

But let’s get right to heart of the matter: the food. We’ve sampled tapas, or pintxos as they are called here, in many parts of Spain, but nothing compares to what you find in Basque Country. The attention to eating well is part of the culture, from the simplest of snack bars to the more formal restaurants. It is said that the revolution in Spanish cuisine witnessed over the past few decades originated here and then spread to the rest of the country and beyond.

So if you don’t like great food and wine, then the essence of Basque Country will escape you. If you do, then dive in with us! Story and photos by Paul Bachant.

Day 1 – Bilbao to Vitoria-Gasteiz

After landing in Bilbao, we immediately noticed that we were in what is called the “Green Belt” of Spain. As the car whisked us to Vitoria-Gasteiz, the regional capital just one hour away, we were welcomed by the lushness of the green, forested hills. And while the rest of Spain was baking, we enjoyed the mild temperatures and a refreshing breeze.

Our first lunch in Vitoria-Gasteiz was at the intimate Taberna Tximiso where we were treated to an exquisite assembly of pintxos, each one more toothsome than the last, washed down with a crisp, local white wine. The owner explained each one with passion and even treated us to an off-menu item. The bill? A mere 23 euros for two. The evening meal consisted of a sampling of the many pintxo bars lining the streets of the medieval quarter, where the strolling and chatting and eating and drinking crowds contributed to a festive atmosphere.

Day 2 – Vitoria-Gasteiz

We spent the second day casually exploring the medieval quarter alternatively known as the “Casco Viejo” or the “Almendra”, almond in Spanish and a reference to the shape of the streets that radiate from the center. The tour of the Santa Maria Cathedral is a must-do while here. The church has been under restoration for many years since nearly collapsing and the tour takes you on a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the work being done.

Dinner was at El Portalon: the food here is more traditional and relatively pricey, but the setting of this 15th century inn is mesmerizing and well worth a visit.

Day 3 – Vitoria-Gasteiz To Rioja Alava

After a quick breakfast, we hopped into the car and hit the road to our next stop in the Rioja Alava wine region. As we climbed the mountain range that separates the region from the rest of Basque country the forest grew thicker and the clouds heavier. But just after going through the Herrera Pass things changed dramatically. The clouds and fog dispersed and before us was a landscape more typical of Spain: rolling hills the color of honey punctuated by green bursts of scrub trees. It took about an hour to arrive at our destination, the small village of Villabuena de Alava. There is not much to see or do here; the purpose of our visit was a stay at the Hotel Viura. The hotel is tucked into the hillside at the bottom of the village and is a strikingly modern juxtaposition to the surroundings. It is one of many examples in the area of contemporary architecture, most notably seen in the hotels and wineries, some designed by internationally renowned “starchitects” (more on that later).

For lunch, we headed to the mountain top village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra (a lengthy name in dramatic Spanish flair) just over the border in Rioja proper and only 10 minutes away. Casa Toni is on an unassuming street at the end of the village, not a place where you would expect to find some of the most inventive cooking of the region. Soon after ordering we were presented with an amuse bouche of goat cheese and truffle between thin pastry crust, accompanied by beet sorbet presented in a lipstick tube. Amusing and delicious. And delicious and original were the appetizer – sardines with mackerel roe, garlic ice cream and olive oil – and the main dish, shredded pigeon with mushrooms, thyme and hazelnut vinegar.

More Spain on ManAboutWorld

Madrid’s Top 5 Neighborhoods

Basque Country Foodie Road Trip

Barcelona round up

Spain round up

Click “read more” to continue with your yummy Basque road trip!

Day 4 – Rioja Alava

This was a day focused on wine. The first stop was the world-renowned Marques de Riscal winery. The wines produced here are excellent, but the centerpiece is the Frank Gehry-designed hotel that sits atop the complex and its immaculately kept grounds. The wine tour was interesting and informative and the tasting at the end included some of the estate’s best wines. Next up was lunch in the quaint hilltop village of Laguardia where the streets are lined with wine-focused shops and cozy tabernas. After lunch it was on to Ysios, another distinguished winery, this one designed by Santiago Calatrava. Closer to our base we visited the Baigorri winery, a strikingly modern glass box overlooking the vineyards, and the more down-to-earth Luis Canas. The level of quality and price of the wines in the region combine for a great value. So if you find one you like, most wineries will ship within Europe and to the U.S., but consuming locally is also a good thing. And we made the most of it!

Days 5 & 6 – San Sebastian

Reluctantly leaving the contemporary luxury of the Hotel Viura, we headed north to seaside city of San Sebastian. We arrived in a light rain, but that did not dampen our enthusiasm for the gastronomic pleasures we were anticipating. And we were not disappointed.

Lunch at Kokotxa could not have been a better start. The tasting menu of six courses was a series of unexpectedly delectable combinations of flavors and textures, such as soft-shelled crab with kimchi and tapioca or squid ravioli in sea broth. Be sure to book well in advance.

In the evening it was time for our crawl through the pintxo bars of the old town or “Parte Vieja”. This is not your average dining experience. In fact, it’s a challenge, but be assured it is well worth it. Our advice is the three Ps: patience, persistence and a bit of pushiness. First you will have to squeeze your way through the eager masses just to get to the bar. Once there, the best bet is to ask your fellow diners how to order or just get the attention of the bartenders, who if you’re lucky, will speak English. Keep an eye out for the plates you see circulating and if you see something you like, ask what it is. The pintxo bars may seem chaotic, but after observing for a while you see that they function like a well-oiled machine. Your reward for this work is not only some of the most delicious food you will ever eat, but also an inclusive cultural experience. There are so many fantastic places it’s difficult to pick a favorite, but La Cuchara de San Telmo and Bar Zeruko were standouts.

How to work off all of those calories? San Sebastian is a picturesque and walkable city. Take a stroll along the promenade of La Concha Beach or hike up Mont Urgull for stunning panoramas of the city and the surrounding countryside. You can even rent a surf board and catch some waves at Zurriola Beach.

Days 7 & 8 – Bilbao

Having had our fill of pintxos and other gastronomic delights (well, honestly, we could have stayed for more), it was time to move on to our last stop, Bilbao. A quick one hour drive and we were in the city famed for the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Bilbao museum, opened in 1997 and the driver of a subsequent economic revival. While the museum is a must-see during your visit, the city revealed many other pleasures to us over the next couple of days, such as the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Casco Viejo with its narrow streets, the revitalized riverfront pathways and the lush Doña Casilda de Iturrizar Park. Another gem we discovered was the Azkuna Centroa, a cultural center created from a former wine warehouse, with interiors designed by Phillipe Starck.

But let’s get back to that museum – after almost twenty years, the Guggenheim is still in an immaculate state. The undulating titanium and stone walls of the exterior are stunning in their own right. The interiors, however, is where the true genius of the design displays itself. The main atrium evokes a cathedral with its soaring spaces and shafts of light coming from different directions. We wandered around the well-proportioned galleries spread over three floors (a comprehensive Louise Bourgeois exhibit is on at the moment) and went to the ground floor to discover our favorite installation: Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time, a set of eight, huge metal sculptures that will mesmerize you with their iron skin, their changing colors, their size and their labyrinthine display.

Bilbao has many respectable pintxo bars, but they are less frenetic than those of San Sebastian. The food scene has developed in lock-step with the economic revival and there are several world-renowned restaurants in the city and its outskirts. For our favorites we go high and low: Extanobe, overlooking the city from its perch above the Palacio Euskalduna, is an exquisite dining experience and the historic Café Iruna, with its Moroccan-inspired interiors, is a must-stop for the lunch menu.

This was our last stop of what was a fantastic, and tasty, voyage. Not only will we remember the food and wine of the Basque country, but also the vibrant culture and welcoming people. All the more reasons to return soon!

More Spain on ManAboutWorld

Madrid’s Top 5 Neighborhoods

Basque Country Foodie Road Trip

Barcelona round up

Spain round up

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manaboutworldmag · 7 years

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Basque Country Foodie Road Trip

So if you don’t like great food and wine, then the essence of Basque Country will escape you. If you do, then dive in with us! Story and photos by Paul Bachant.

Day 1 – Bilbao to Vitoria-Gasteiz

Day 2 – Vitoria-Gasteiz

Dinner was at El Portalon: the food here is more traditional and relatively pricey, but the setting of this 15th century inn is mesmerizing and well worth a visit.

Day 3 – Vitoria-Gasteiz To Rioja Alava

Day 4 – Rioja Alava

Days 5 & 6 – San Sebastian

Days 7 & 8 – Bilbao

SUBSCRIBE TO MANABOUTWORLD!

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