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  Movie Review: 
  DRACULA - DEAD AND LOVING IT
    by Dave Bealer
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    In December 1974 Mel Brooks was at the top of his form. That 
  summer BLAZING SADDLES had become Mel's first smash hit, making him 
  a "name" movie director. Before the year was out YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN 
  followed "SADDLES" into the theaters and the fans went wild . . . 
  again. In one year Mel Brooks released two of the funniest movies 
  of all time, not to mention inventing a whole new class of comedy 
  motion picture, the genre parody, in the process. 
  
    On top of the world in the mid-1970s, Mel Brooks had his pick 
  of major stars willing to do cameos in his films for peanuts. But 
  it eventually became apparent that Mel would never produce another 
  film to match his two 1974 masterpieces. Although Mel's place in 
  cinema history was already secure, others began to eclipse the 
  master at his own genre. 
  
    Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker, the loons responsible for the
  AIRPLANE movies and the POLICE SQUAD/NAKED GUN insanity, took the
  Brooks recipe a step further. This mad trio managed to cram more
  jokes into each minute of celluloid than Brooks had in any given
  scene. While none of their individual jokes were as good as the 
  best Mel Brooks fare, the cumulative effect was astounding.
  
    Mel Brooks continued to direct, producing a series of mediocre 
  to good films, bottoming out with his 1987 turkey, SPACEBALLS. Two
  years ago Brooks was back, with ROBIN HOOD - MEN IN TIGHTS. This
  parody of the "steal from the rich, give to the poor" genre was
  hardly brilliant, and less convincing than the liberal democrats 
  in Congress. "Men in Tights" was, however, the best Mel Brooks 
  film since his 1981 effort, HISTORY OF THE WORLD - PART I.
  
    Christmas weekend 1995 brings us to the latest Mel Brooks
  offering. DRACULA - DEAD AND LOVING IT stars Leslie Nielsen as 
  Count Drebin, Detective Vampire, Transylvania Police Squad . . . 
  or so it seems. The clothes and dental work are fancier, but it 
  still adds up to classic slapstick Drebin. Brooks apparently 
  decided that if he couldn't be as good as the Zuckers, he could 
  at least "borrow" the biggest star in their universe, and have 
  Nielsen recreate the wackiest cop ever to scarf down a doughnut. 
  Nielsen really sinks his teeth into the task of playing Drebin-
  as-Dracula, although even he seems to be getting a bit tired of 
  the repetition. 
  
    Not all the problems with DRACULA stem from the Mel Brooks 
  writing and directing. The supporting cast does a mediocre job 
  overall, which seems to be a common problem with later Brooks 
  films.
  
    Peter MacNichol plays mousey London barrister Thomas Renfield,
  the first victim of Dracula, doomed to be the vampire's idiotic 
  henchman. MacNichol did a great job with this type of character 
  in DRAGONSLAYER, the wimpey assistant who eventually saves the 
  day. His performance here will leave true Mel Brooks fans wishing 
  that Marty Feldman was alive to reprise his I-gor role from YOUNG
  FRANKENSTEIN. (By the by, has it occurred to anyone else that the 
  bad guys would do a lot better in movies if their henchmen weren't 
  all blithering idiots?)
  
    Harvey Korman can be absolutely hilarious, a fact he proved
  time after time as a cast member of the CAROL BURNETT SHOW back 
  in the 1960s. Korman also did excellent work as a member of the 
  classic Mel Brooks repertory company of the 1970s and 80s. In 1995 
  the man looks burned out. Rather than having the good sense to 
  retire, Korman plays Doctor Seward, a psychiatrist with an enema 
  fixation (denizens of the relevant alt.sex.* newsgroups take note).
  
    Lysette Anthony plays Mina Seward, the daughter of the good 
  doctor, and the apple of Dracula's eye. Anthony does a decent job, 
  although her performance doesn't quite come up to the level of her 
  previous work, such as the fake Leslie Giles in WITHOUT A CLUE.
  
    Why Mel Brooks continues to insist on acting in his own 
  films remains a mystery. His last really good performance was in 
  his various roles in HISTORY OF THE WORLD - PART I. The problem is 
  that his performances tend to be inconsistent. They range from 
  sheer genius as the idiotic horney governor and the Yiddish-spouting 
  Sioux chieftain in BLAZING SADDLES to his pathetic turn as the 
  President in SPACEBALLS. Brooks' other big problem (although this 
  can occasionally be an asset in comedy) is that he's the second 
  ugliest actor/director working today. The ugliest actor/director 
  is, of course, Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame.
  
    Despite all this, Brooks does a credible job in the role of 
  Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, ace vampire hunter. Van Helsing's dialogue 
  with Dracula is the source of the best running gag in the film. Van 
  Helsing knows that "location is one of the most important things in 
  life," which may well be the main lesson this flick has to offer.
  
    To sum up -- no, it's not YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but it does 
  beat SPACEBALLS, and probably ROBIN HOOD - MEN IN TIGHTS. (At 
  least Brooks refrained from including his trademark "Wink, wink, 
  we're inside a movie" references in every other scene like he did 
  in the latter work.) This film will appeal primarily to die hard 
  Mel Brooks fans and to followers of the NAKED GUN movies. No, it 
  doesn't have O.J. in it, but it does have plenty of blood.
  
                                {DREAM}
  
  Copyright 1996 Dave Bealer, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer who
  works with CICS, MVS and all manner of nasty acronyms at one of the
  largest heavy metal shops on the East Coast. He shares a waterfront
  townhome in Pasadena, MD. with two cats who annoy him endlessly as 
  he writes and publishes electronically. Dave can be reached via 
  e-mail at: dbealer@dreamforge.com
  ====================================================================
  
  
  =-=-=-=-=-=-
  BOOK REVIEWS:
    by Jack Hillman
  -----------------
    
  SACRED GROUND  
  Mercedes Lackey
  TOR Fantasy, Paperback
  375 pages, $5.99 - Eight Stars
  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  
      (Books are rated on a ten star scale with ten being 
      the highest. Anything in the seven to ten star range is 
      a particularly good suggestion for your reading list.)
  
  
    Jennifer Talldeer was a whiteman's nightmare: a female 
  Native American with a college degree and a Private Investigator's 
  license. That is if the white man was someone trying to hide 
  something. Jennifer was very good at her job: both of them. Because 
  in addition to being a P.I., she was also something unusual in the 
  native American community: a female warrior who practiced warrior 
  medicine.
  
    A lot of her time was spent tracking down stolen Native 
  American artifacts, stolen either by unscrupulous collectors or 
  else by foolish tourists that didn't know what they had found. 
  Sometimes, Jennifer had to return artifacts from burial mounds; 
  artifacts that held power, the power of Indian medicine men and 
  their spirits. The spirit world didn't like to be disturbed, and 
  often gave the possessors of the artifacts nightmares until they 
  either sold the artifacts or gave them to someone like Jennifer 
  for return to the earth.
       
    Jennifer gets a call from one of her insurance contacts, a 
  company she has worked with in the past with great success for 
  both parties. They figure a case currently under investigation is 
  perfect for Jennifer: a shopping mall under construction has 
  unearthed some Native American bones and pottery shards, halting 
  the project until the site can be evaluated. But before that can 
  happen, there is an explosion, killing several Native American
  workers and destroying some heavy equipment. The owner of the site 
  claims there has been no threats of sabotage from any native 
  American group trying to protect the site, but the effects of the 
  explosion seem to point to the use of something more powerful than 
  dynamite, suggesting a planned attack.
    
    Jennifer begins to investigate and finds herself in the middle 
  of a battle between the forces of darkness trying to make an entry 
  into the real world and the forces of light, trying to protect the 
  land and it's people.
    
    Mercedes Lackey, long known for her high fantasy Valdemar series, 
  has once again stepped into a new field of endeavor with a flair. 
  Her female protagonists are people even men read with interest as 
  they fight their way through strange and horrific scenes, trying to 
  preserve the world, or at least their corner of it. Sacred, Ground 
  is the first in a possibly new series, another female private
  investigator drawn by Lackey, and promises to be every bit as good 
  as her other works. Add this to your must read list today.
  
                             Happy reading!
                          
  Copyright 1995 Jack Hillman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  -------------------------------------------------------------------
  John is a freelance writer, who has been published in BLOODREAMS,
  ONCE UPON A WORLD, and GATEWAYS. He writes a bimonthly SF/F column
  published in THE MAGAZINE of SHAREFICTION, and his book reviews
  appear in POPULAR FICTION NEWS. As a contributing editor to ON THE
  RISK, he keeps track of "life." Email: jhillwtr@aol.com
  ==============================={DREAM}=============================
  
