Good movies, books, music...

Greetings to all.

I would like to make a special topic here, to share with you some of my artistic taste, and would also like to get some in return. Good movies, on the dark, occult, vampiric, unknown, fantastic world. It just needs to make us have -that- feeling. I'm not including here technical books on the occult.

Some movies I liked very much:

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) - These movies are stupendous, sometimes better than the books, because they impose you to the world in that way, and it accompanies you with Howard Shore's music. The best. Music makes mediocre movies the best movies. It could have been made in a very different way, but it was made -this- way. It has a very deep Asetian feeling, and there are ways to find parallels with the Asetian History and Tradition, as I think we've discussed before.

Harry Potter's (5 movies at the moment) - These movies are also nice, uncomparable to LOTR but still very good. Kind of childish in some ways, but they feed us with such fantasy for the magickal arts... In this case, I think the books are better (the last one not that good).

Interview with the Vampire - This is a great movie, powered by Anne Rice's imagination. Brad Pitt does a nice job incarnating that character. Yet Lestat could have a bit more feeling. Sometimes Anne Rice's books bore me, yet this movie doesn't. The way he actually discovers the Night after changing... Is magickal. I don't like the male homossexual scent given, actually in most Anne Rice's books.

Queen of the Damned - A must see. Akasha is nice, yet the movie doesn't transmit the best Ancient Egyptian feeling. Doesn't feel very Asetian. For me, the best part is the end, when we see the result of the girl after turning into a vampire.

Bram Stoker's Dracula - The movie is particularly good, and it gives a better sense of reincarnational love than the the book, in my opinion. It is really good, with Anthony Hopkins doing a great work. The book is good, but I don't love the way the concept of vampire is shown, I don't really like the folklore.

Underworld (only the first one) - I love this movie. Kate Beckinsale as Selene, has such beauty and feeling... She is great. Viktor's character is also very nice. Of course I don't like the result of the union of Lycans with Vampires. It's an ugly concept, in my opinion. It's like a catdog. Ridiculous. The second movie is not good at all. I like evolution, and actually I'm directed towards Evolution, but not this Underworld Evolution. It evolved in the wrong way. We could have seen Kate Beckinsale's body in a different context. Kate Beckinsale also does Van Helsing, although she doesn't look like the same person. Totally changed, really well-done.

The Phantom of the Opera - Great story, the best music. I really love it in every way. Gerard Butler is a very nice new Hollywood's achievement, we can see it in 300. The character of Raoul is quite a bit lame. The Phantom is really powerful, with the right feeling and craziness, and Christine's (Emmy Rossum) voice is way sweeter than Sarah Brightman's (who was an Andrew Lloyd Webber's passion).

Tim Burton's, with Danny Elfman's music, which is very important.
Corpse Bride
Nightmare before Christmas
Edward Scissorhands

The Piano - Music by Michael Nyman. Great movie.

The Crow (Brandon Lee's version) - There are a lot of Crows, some of them good, but the best is this 1994's version. "Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever." The way he comes back to avenge his soul-mate is beautiful.

Donnie Darko - Also a good movie to disturb our minds. It's a must-see.

Twilight - There is a new vampirism best-seller called Twilight which is quite nice, actually. Kind of girly, but still nice. The movie came out not long ago. Not bad, it's worth watching.

I probably missed something.

Books:

The Lord of the Rings, and most of Tolkien's books - For the reasons I mentioned before. Remember using Howard Shore's music to read. It's worth buying the soundtrack, although I haven't.

Harry Potter (as I mentioned before).

The Vampire Chronicles, by Anne Rice - It bores me a bit, sometimes, but it's really good. Her imagination is very picky, and I wonder if she had any info on vampires. Her attitude now is ridiculous, being totally ashamed of her previously written books. Now she is very christian and God-embraceful.

Bram Stoker's Dracula - A must read.

Fernando Pessoa's works - A portuguese poet, who recreated free-masonry in Portugal, someone who had connections with Aleister Crowley, actually helping him simulate his suicide in Boca do Inferno (Mouth of Hell), which is a place in Portugal where the tide turns and rises in a very fast way, being known for killing a lot of fishermen and a place for suicidal acts. He is also known to have been in contact with the OTP and OP, but about his relationship with the Aset Ka there are only rumours.

Edgar Allan Poe's complete work - He is a master of poetry and rythmic wording. The Raven, Alone and The Pit and the Pendulum are scarce examples... His complete work is a must-read, undoubtedly.

H.P. Lovecraft's works - He has some good work, some poetry also... The Call of Cthulhu is something to read, even to understand all the new-age RPG-driven cults around the Cthulhu's mythos.

Twilight's books (by Stephenie Meyer) - As I said before, it is like teenager-adult directed. It's a bit Harry Potterish in style, very easy to read, but kind of nice.

The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) - He is indeed very Hermetic and Christian, but I still like this one. Not a great book, but still a good book.

At the moment I'm reading:
El Coleccionista de Sonidos (O Coleccionador de Sons [pt] - The Sound Collector [en]) by Fernando Trías de Bes - Originally written in Spanish, I don't know if there is an English version, but I'm liking this book very much. It's about a curse, about someone that masters the art of Sound and Music since birth.

Some of the music I like very much:

Dead Can Dance, Pink Floyd, Michael Nyman, Loreena McKennitt, Apocalyptica, Danny Elfman, Epica, Howard Shore (LOTR), Enya, Andrew Lloyd Webber (as in Cats and Phantom), Nobuo Uematsu, Anathema, Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Ayreon, Stream of Passion, Yuki Kajiura, Within Temptation, Nightwish, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Bellydance Superstars (some of the tracks), Lama Gyurme. Of course there is much more.

Lots of bands, musicians and composers I mentioned are very well-known. I hope I gave you something new. I'd like to get something new from all of you. I would like to widen my Middle Eastern music knowledge, with good spiritual feeling. Share with us. Anything else artistical you'd like to share, please do.

I hope you liked this post.

Best regards,
Karnath.

Karnath,

Thank you for the post, it's certainly a good idea to start off this list of recommendations that we can all benefit from.

Let me add some other "vampire films" which are less mainstream and, in my opinion, extremely insightful:

- "The Addiction", by Abel Ferrara.

The film's lead, a philosophy student (and one of my favourite actresses, Lili Taylor) is bitten by a vampire woman in a dark alley on a rainy New York night. From then on, the film becomes a powerful metaphor for the fight for power, the ever present instinct of sadism and manipulation, etc.

- "The Hunger", by Tony Scott. One of my favourite of all times.

David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve star as a couple of elegant, classy and ancient vampires (she turned him during some Egyptian Dynasty). Let me point out that the music and most of the photography in this film is absolutely breathtaking.


On a lighter, more teenage-intended tone, is "The Lost Boys" by Joel Schumacher. A couple of brothers move to some small town in Arizona which happens to be ridden with vampires. It's a great and entertaining film.

Karnath, you forgot Azam Ali

He did forget Azam Ali =P

Hmm...the rest of the music you mentioned is deep in meaning as well, but I must add that the bands Kamelot, Pyramaze, Xandria, Symphony X, and Iced Earth are also deep in meaning with their music, vocal melodies, and lyrics.

The Nightworld series by L.J.Smith. They are fantastic! I've read the Twilight books and that saga has nothing on the Nightworld series. As more movies I love your taste. But have you ever read Anne Rice's book Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned. As most books are they are twice as good as their movies. Claudia Gray's Evernight was a pretty interesting read. Anyways there are tons more book that I love but see if you like those ones first.