"JFK, Vampire Hunter"
"Benjamin Franklin, Vampire Hunter"
"Woodrow Wilson, Vampire Hunter"
"Andrew Jackson, Vampire Hunter"
"Harry Truman, Vampire Hunter"...
AND THE ULTIMATE ONE....
BARACK OBAMA: TAXULA
Posted on 06/21/2012 1:41:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The title, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," guarantees about 15 good minutes. Just on the strength and novelty of the gimmick - combining the real details of Lincoln's life with a secret antivampire history - the movie was bound to command a certain absurd appeal. The trick was in getting audiences past those 15 minutes, and that's what the movie does.
Based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is a money-making stunt that its author - who also wrote the screenplay - wisely decided to treat with seriousness, or at least an attitude of seriousness.
Instead of getting smirky and campy and blowing out the joke in the first few scenes, Grahame-Smith and director Timur Bekmambetov straight-face it. They ask themselves, well, what would it be like if the main struggle of Lincoln's life were with vampires intent on taking over the new world? And they answer the question as realistically and soberly as they can within this loony framework.
A greater Lincoln
Further, they invest emotionally in the conceit of the story and in Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) as a man. Imagine: He didn't just save the union and free the slaves. Here was a man dedicated to the proposition that all vampires must be destroyed. That makes for an even greater Lincoln, one yet more worthy of reverential treatment.
Along the way, Grahame-Smith comes up with a metaphor that is appropriately descriptive of slavery and flattering to the Union. In this telling, the Old Confederacy was a hotbed of vampirism. Perhaps this should not come as a big surprise, given that the slaveholders were sucking the life out of their slaves.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It has been wisely said that while the Constitution was designed to handle an enormous range of issues, it was not designed to handle a civil war.
That is, of course, why the Founders allowed for suspension of civil liberties in cases of insurrection or invasion. It is notable that this is permitted by simple majority vote of Congress. The courts cannot overrule it.
I have never quite understood those who claim that no emergency justifies suspension of liberties. If liberties are suspended and the body politic survives, then there is at least the possibility of reviving them.
If the body politic is permanently destroyed, so are the liberties it was designed to protect.
This is well shown by the original Roman institution of the dictatorship. In extreme existential emergency the Senate appointed a dictator to exercise all functions of the state for a limited period. When this period was over he reverted to ordinary status.
But the Romans were wise enough to see that limited short-term loss of liberty is better than its permanent loss.
The USA has of course never been in this type of crisis, though the Civil War is the closest we've come. When compared to any other great civil war, ours had fewer atrocities and suspension of liberties. That's the logical comparison, not to time of peace.
I guess no one told you, but zombies are democrats, not republicans like Lincoln. The zombie reference comes from a joke that Bob Hope made about democrats.
very well said!
Bwahahahahaha
They, like zombies, are a socially acceptable surrogate and code name for a certain class, in the case of vampires the class is politicians, predatory banksters, union bosses etc.
(s) how day they make a republican president into a super hero (/s)
good book
good story
good clips
will pay my money to see it.
I should have stated the courts may have a role in determining whether a state of insurrection or invasion sufficient to justify such a suspension of liberties does indeed exist.
After the Civil War the Supremes ruled that martial law could not be used in areas where the civil courts were functioning, overturning several convictions by military tribunals during the war.
Russia was probably the reason why France and Britain did not intervene on the South’s side during the American Civil War, Alexander III was a liberal tsar who emancipated the serfs in Russia and he was smarting for revenge over the Crimean defeat a few years before, he was extremely pro-American and authorised the sale of Alaska a few years later...
Nah. I'm waiting for the sequels:
"George Washington, Vampire Hunter"
"JFK, Vampire Hunter"
"Benjamin Franklin, Vampire Hunter"
"Woodrow Wilson, Vampire Hunter"
"Andrew Jackson, Vampire Hunter"
"Harry Truman, Vampire Hunter"...
Then they should be making more movies about our Congresscritters.
“on the strength and novelty of the gimmick”
This gimmick is by no means new.
“That’s why John Wilkes Booth had to shoot him in the head.”
LOL
For women it's a two-fer. There's the excitement about the bad boy plus the fascination with the aristocratic lover.
Don't know what guys get out of it. I guess the girls just drag them along. Sooner or later the women complain that the men aren't as romantic and attentive as their favorite vampire so the couples break up.
“the States divided might have been ripe for the picking by a foreign power like Russia, France or Britain. We might now again be British colonists, but for Lincoln.”
You don’t hear that one all too often. Usually it’s more about how the North and South would’ve fought eachother over the West, though it’s never been explained to me why a fight sooner was better than later. Anyway, they were busy enough at the time. They prefered countries less able to fight back.
Remember Lincoln’s speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum, and remember we were still buffeted by the two oceans and cradled by the vastness of our continent. Us being one country instead of two was never alone the reason Europe stopped trying to conquer us after 1812 or so. Because they could’ve done it nonetheless, bygum. The major reason they didn’t in 1812, I should think, is due to us being but a sideshow in the war on Napoleon.
The North and South could take on comers seperately or together. Why couldn’t we have been allies, if not fellow countrymen, after the break? We had no trouble licking the Mother Country’s boots for two world wars, nor making them lick our boots afterwards. And that was after the humiliating for them War for Independence.
“They prefered countries less able to fight back.”
That is, until went crazy and attacked eachother.
I think that's the director. It's not that he's a Marxist or a Communist by conviction.
He's Russian or Kazakh, and that's what he grew up with. As I read it he was joking about the heroes of the two cultures.
“The zombie reference comes from a joke that Bob Hope made about democrats”
Um, we can’t call Republicans zombies because Bob Hope made a joke billions of years ago? As if there have been no “zombie reference”s since then.
Oh.... thank you. I misunderstood what he was saying..in the article.
RE: “That’s why John Wilkes Booth had to shoot him in the head.”
FOR THOSE WHO DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED... STOP READING NOW.
FOR THOSE WHO WON’T WATCH... HERE IS THE REST OF THE STORY ACCORDING TO THE BOOK...
_____________________________________
The Civil war ends with the South’s defeat. Lincoln receives reports that the vampires in the South are fleeing to Asia and South America in the wake of the slave system’s collapse.
Happy for the first time in many years, he attends a play at Ford’s Theater, only to be assassinated by the actor and vampire John Wilkes Booth.
Booth expects the vampires to rally around President Lincoln’s death, but instead finds himself shunned and hiding in a Virginia barn as Union troops arrive to arrest him. Henry (Lincoln’s Vampire Hunting mentor) arrives and confronts Booth inside the burning barn; it is implied that Henry is the one who kills Booth.
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