Jeremy's Reviews Blog

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Congrats to Armin Van Buuren

He finally placed first in DJMag's top 100 DJ poll. After years of making the top ten, and I think coming 2nd three or four times.

Besides being a hell of a DJ, he's always had a fairly consistent style (unlike a lot of DJs which just play whatever is popular at the moment), he pretty much pioneered dance DJs having a radio show (with his A State of Trance) - now almost every DJ has one, he just seems like a really nice guy, on his show, he's always cheerful. I would listen to his show when driving to the hospital to visit my mother, and it always made me feel a lot better.

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Castle of Blood (Movie)

This is one of those movies that I have no idea how got into my Netflix queue, I must have put it in there for some reason, but can't remember just why.

It's a 1964 B&W Italian Horror movie. Which is scary in of itself, actually. It's not that Italians made bad movies in the 60s, it's just they tended to feature really really awful English dubbing. And let's face, while Italian women aren't ugly by any means, in the 60s, they used way, way way too much makeup. But if you can get past that, you are rewarded with a fairly gripping movie. It's not horror in today's sense of the word, more supernatural suspense.

It starts off with a journalist arguing with Edgar Allan Poe about the truth of the supernatural. With the journalist, the protagonist, being a skeptic. Also present happens to be the owner of a haunted castle, Baron Blackwood or something like that. So of course, he makes a bet with the skeptical journalist, daring him to spend a night in the castle.

So the journalist does. He goes to the castle, and at first, thinks it deserted, save for a black cat. But then he meets a woman, the Baron's sister. They quickly fall in love. After, uh, expressing their love, the journalist meets the rest of the castle inhabitants. Which aren't quite as friendly.

The plot is perhaps a bit predictable. And perhaps not real believable. But all in all, it works well while watching it.

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