Gabriel InAstra – Movie Critic Interviews
We’re doing our Critical Juncture feature a little earlier than usual, and we might even bring you another one before the week is out. The response has been very positive, and it seems that movie critics (both amateur and pro) like to talk about themselves as much as they like to discuss movies.
This week’s subject is Gabriel InAstra, a critic of books and movies which are geared to the darker side of things (such as True Blood, Vampire Hunter D, and The Dresden Files). His blog is known as The Dirge of Gabriel, and you can pay him a visit by clicking on the provided link. If you like horror and dark fantasy, I would highly recommend it.
Now here’s the interview:
Only Good Movies: What’s the first movie that you remember seeing?
Gabriel InAstra: Popeye with Robin Williams (in the cinema in 1980)
OGM: What’s the most recent movie you’ve seen?
GI: Driven to Kill aka Raslan with Steven Seagal
OGM: Is there a particular film which you feel is criminally underrated?
GI: The Ninth Gate directed by Roman Polanski
OGM: Which director do you feel has turned out the best overall body of work?
GI: Christopher Nolan
OGM: From an artistic standpoint, which film do you think is most important?
GI: Batman Begins – because it brought gritty realism back to cinema, and other films franchises such as James Bond, and future “re-envisionings” such as The Crow and Blade are using this template.
OGM: All artsy considerations aside, which movie is your personal favorite?
GI: Vampire Journals from the Subspecies series by Ted Nicolaou. I even travelled to Romania in 2004 for a Dracula tour and hunted down most of the filming locations. These are the best examples of the Vampire genre made into film made by non-hollywood film makers.
Other notable mentions are The Company of Wolves, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and Dellamorte Dellamore.
OGM: In your opinion, which film is entirely overrated?
GI: Suspiria by Dario Argento
OGM: Have you ever walked out of the theatre during a film? If so, what movie was playing?
GI: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)
OGM: In your mind, what’s the ultimate goal of a movie critic?
GI: To give a fair subjective review of any movie that is either inside or outside their genre tastes.
OGM: Time to look into the future. Do you predict any major changes for the movie industry over the next 25 years?
GI: CGI actors and sets. All films will be released on DVD with multiple alternate scenes so that you almost will never watch the same movie twice if you choose to. There could also be a chance that Cinema Multiplexes become non-existent and we will watch movie releases directly from home.
OGM: Here’s another chance to predict the future. Name a relatively unknown actor or actress who’ll be a huge star within five years.
GI: Alison Lohman from Drag Me to Hell
OGM: Besides yourself, who’s your favorite movie critic to read?
GI: Andy Boylan of “Taliesin Meets the Vampires”.
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