i understand that this year there will be no dealers room.

that, and the skimpy guest list, and the out of the way location(and the insane behavior of the outer fringes of this fanbase regarding the film)have pretty much killed my enthusiasm for this year's fest...i mean "event".

perception and receptivity are tricky things...

for instance it seems like people who long ago decided to dislike this, and have not for a day stopped complaining about it, have somehow managed to find themselves in the company of people who similarly dislike it. all the comments they hear about it are conveniently negative. nobody likes it.

yet those who have been more open to it's various possibilities are hearing more varied opinions. i've spoken to many people who think it looks stupid. but a similar number who are excited for it. one person i spoke to yesterday at work saw the trailer and said it looked like "the best thing burton has ever done".

one hears and sees what one wants.

i was in attendance.

it was quite a well attended if slightly odd affair.

as with the POMPRESS material in general KLS indulged in her usual factual inaccuracies. among last night's more notable gaffes was her "remembrance" of her 1966 audition for the series alongside grayson hall, marie wallace and kate jackson. none of whom were present of course and would not join the series until many months and even years later.

stranger still was that rather than speak of her own experiences off the cuff she gave a prepared speech of sorts where she quoted herself pretty directly from 'my dark shadows memories'. some passages verbatim. the text of much of the new book itself is largely lifted from that source as well.

then there was the usual confusion of who she played when(last night kitty hampshire was apparently an eighteenth century character)and when and how she stepped in for the clothes dummy draped in tatty cloth and assumed the mantle as josette.

with each new published "recollection" she gets a new opportunity to iron out factual inaccuracies...yet she doesn't. the people sitting in the audience of course knew more than she did and there was sort of a collective eye roll when she went off on some imagined turn of events.

still she spoke highly of her experience onset of the new film and assured guests that there was much more to it than the campy humor seen in the trailers(we'll see ourselves soon enough). i did not 'win' one of the posters she raffled off but someone who did was nice enough to give me theirs. it's HUGE. it's the cast photo with depp in the center and the rest grouped around.

what's sort of odd is that "horror" fans and "horror" magazines are lamenting the lack of "horror".

but really DS isn't and never was a true "horror". it was first and formost a soap opera with some gothic and horror elements. but it was never, ever truly "scary".

it's strange how weirdly hyperspecific some of the track names are...

[spoiler]one of the spoilers we've known for months. ever since HBC slipped that her character gets killed. there was some grousing at the time that perhaps she also played aunt natalie but i guess this settles it. in the t.v. show we know why barnabas wanted to kill julia but here i wonder why. in terms of roger i guess "departs" can mean alot of things so there's not much finality to it.

there are shots in the trailer that inadvertently give things away of one knows what to look for. the group shot outside a burning collinwood is missing a few key figures. i guess we know why roger and julia are absent if these track titles are to be believed...but vicki is also missing. this isn't really a "spoiler" because it's just a guess, and it very much pains me to speculate, but i feel that vicki meets an unfortunate "josette-like" fate. i'm not sure why but i do. the thing here is that this is a stand alone movie as opposed to a daily show. there's no need to maintain a regular cast to carry on the story from day to day. there's really nothing to prevent many or even all of the characters from being killed off.[/spoiler]

i don't know how "official" these track titles are but i can't get over the "vicky" spelling. i've always preferred "vicki". the "i" as opposed to the "y" or "ie" variations suited the character to me. i'll never change it.

the articles make some interesting and valid points...

but as they say "it is what it is". for whatever reasons this is what we've got.

i hope to enjoy it on it's own terms and that's it.

if i could guess i think the joke here is that poor old mrs.j is so out of it she doesn't realize she's dealing with a coffin.

it's pretty well established that here liz "knows". willie and julia of course always have.

but i'll bet the "secret" is being kept from the children. and vicki. and maybe roger too.