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Werner Herzog’s remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent classic isn’t interested in telling an accurate version of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, nor a straight remake of Murnau’s shadowy vampire masterpiece. Herzog takes the plot of the 1922 film, the character names from the novel then adds his own plot twists and jumbles them all up. What he produces is a horror film is the classic sense of the term, and leaves us haunted and disturbed.

Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz, DOWNFALL) is set to travel to Transylvania to sell Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski, AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD) a house in Germany. His wife Lucy (DRACULA purists must get over the name flops), played by the gorgeous Isabelle Adjani (ISHTAR), doesn’t want him to go, because she has a foreboding feeling. Harker’s travels to see the Count are long and arduous. When he meets Dracula, he finds himself in the presence of a rat-like man whose ghostly skin is almost as unsettling as his strange behavior. When the vampire sees a picture of Harker’s wife, he signs the deal right away. There is a wonderful dinner awaiting him in Wismar.
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Check Out the Trailer

In 1919, the game of baseball was much different than it is today. John Sayles’ wonderful chronicling of the 1919 Black Sox scandal captures how different it was. Players were stars, but they didn’t get the astronomical salaries of modern players. They didn’t live in a bubble of celebrity, owning homes among their fans. One thing that was the same was the players had a limited window for their careers, so the needed to earn enough to support their families after baseball was over. There were not sportscaster jobs waiting as a back-up. Combine these factors with a notorious greedy owner, and you have the conditions for gamblers to get the players to take a dive.

Sayles, who based the film on Eliot Asinof’s novel, lays out the conditions for why the legendary White Sox players took money to throw the World Series with attention to detail and pathos. The team was being hailed as one of the best ever. The team owner Charles “Commie” Comiskey (Clifton James, SILVER STREAK) never gave them the respect they deserved, nickel and diming them whenever he could. Family man pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn, GOODNIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.) was in line to receive a $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games, so Comiskey benched him for the last two weeks of the season. With cheapskate moves like that, one isn’t surprised by the animosity of players like Arnold “Chick” Gandil (Michael Rooker, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER) when embracing the gamblers’ offer.
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