First off, I enjoyed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I left my historical expectations at home and went to the Cinemark Louis Joliet Mall with a completely open mind — and terrified (as always) that I’d be unable to find a unique angle to this week’s review.
I walked in to the theater with these standard fears, looked left and saw an Abe Lincoln impersonator — complete with top hat — sitting a few rows in front of my usual perch in the back row (I sit there so I can take notes on my mobile device and not disrupt other patrons). I did talk to the lanky man from Illinois, the transcript of which follows after a synopsis.
First of all, at $12.25 (I saw it in 3D), this was the most expensive ticket I’ve purchased since I started reviewing. However, the 3D glasses came in hand over the rest of the weekend, which I spent refurbishing a bathroom — the glasses served as competent goggles for tedious tile removal.
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Our 16th president, working as a lowly grocer in Springfield, becomes aware that the burgeoning U.S. could be compromised by a killer strand of vampires. Honest Abe learns how to battle these beasts, at one point swinging an axe like Ted Williams hammering a homer at Fenway Park.
His ghostbusting exploits continue through his years at the White House, and the vampiric elimination follows Lincoln to the battlefield at Gettysburg, where a couple nasties almost prevent him from delivering a last-minute delivery of silver to the Union troops. The battle there owes a lot to Braveheart, with lines of troops battling stray bullets and felled soldiers.
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The 3D here is great, with director Timur Bekmambetov extending the possibilities of that medium by focusing on doorways, sparks and a breathtaking horse stampede-chase sequence.
Abe and I discussed the movie afterward:
DW: So what did you think?
AL: I thought it was entertaining, a little bit ridiculous ...
DW: What was ridiculous?
AL: Vampires in the USA. We all know that vampires live in Europe.
DW: OK, so it’s a geographical thing ...
AL: Mostly.
DW: What did you think of the action and the 3D?
AL: Actually The 3D was very fun with the effects and the 3D, some fun parts with the action and the fighting.
DW: What was your favorite part?
AL: It may have been the horses ...
DW: That was a good scene, wasn’t it? All right so people have been waiting 150 years, what did you think of the play?
AL: Of the play?
DW: The night you actually went down, unfortunately ...
AL: Well, I didn’t really see enough, I don’t remember, something happened to my head, unfortunately.
Quotable moments
“I have killed six vampires” — Abe to Mary Todd.
Other observations at the moviehouse
Excitement at your feet
The Who finally come to a theater near us on July 24, including the Cinemark Louis Joliet Cinema, for a documentary on Quadrophenia, the 1973 album so epically great that it transcends rock to stand on the podium as one of the 20th century’s three greatest artistic achievements.* It’s brought to us by Fathom Events, the company that's delivered the fine arts fare on the big screen for as long as I’ve been reviewing.
Quadrophenia is rock’s greatest pinnacle — a coming-of age-story set in London, a storyline involving angst, confusion, amphetamines and the loss of trust in a leader, told by the most powerful band at its greatest precipice. It’s a “steamhammer” of a band, as Pete Townshend says, driven by the greatest drummer music has known (Keith Moon, who sings a joyfully Cockney “Bell Boy” on the album, hopefully included here), its angriest singer (Roger Daltrey, who I actually met and who clocked Townshend so hard he sent him to the hospital right before the American “Quadrophenia” tour), the virtuosic multi-instrumentalist bassist Jon Entwistle (“He changed the F***ing instrument!” Townshend said in another recent documentary) , and Townshend, the high-flying master of the six string and the rock genre’s greatest storyteller.
*The other two, and I’ll argue this with any lit prof or art historian (and have):
- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” also coming to a theater near you this winter; themes of isolation and existentialism still ring true today;
- Picasso’s Guernica, epitomizing the horror and insanity of war, also still ringing true today.
Coming Soon
- From my notes: Haunted house + makeout + underwear = The House at the End of the Street, coming this fall.
- More from my notes: Pulp Fiction + Roots = Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.
- Once again, the theater on Friday night was sliced by the unmistakable waft of turkey. Who eats that bird in the middle of summer? Well, someone in Joliet, apparently.
