After last week’s hijacking of the column in favor of hanging out with some old friends I knew this week I could have no excuse for not writing a review on Vampyr. Sure the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival opened this week but that wouldn’t get in my way. Yes, the multiplexes actually had a small handful of potentially decent movies for me to watch but that couldn’t possibly get in my way. And sure, I had a screening of the uncut version of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly that I simply had to go to and Manda Bala burning up my Netflix queue but those were mere distractions while I prepared myself for Vampyr. Awesome distractions to be sure but they shouldn’t do anything more then slow me down. Then Ben Folds had to go and muck up my whole plans.

You see my girlfriend bought tickets to go see Ben Folds in concert this past Saturday night but somewhere along the way both of us, along with a friend of ours, somehow mistook the concert venue of St. Peter, Minnesota for St. Paul, Minnesota. We didn’t really think much of it at first, but once we MapQuested it we saw the error of our ways. See St. Peter, Minnesota was over an hour south of the Twin Cities. Needless to say this had a rather large effect on our plans.

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Will I finally watch Vampyr? Yes, yes I will. This time I promise too. I will even write an actual review of the film rather then simply tell some boring story about my “glory days” that no one wants to read when they could be reading a kick ass review of an artistic vampire movie from the 30’s.

So since I have no trailer for next week, this week I am posting the music video for Nerf Herder’s released single for their new album Nerf Herder IV. Who is Nerf Herder? Only the awesomest band ever! You might know them for their only radio hit “Van Halen” from back in the day. Or you might know them as the writers of the theme song for the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They are coming out with their first album in 6 years at the end of this month and I am absurdly excited. You may not care, but I do, so you should.

I had the perfect setting for my screening of Vampyr, then life had to go and ruin it. See, the girlfriend was going to visit her parents in Brainerd this weekend. Since I don’t have weekends off I can’t afford to go see her family as often as she does, so it means that essentially once a month I get a Bachelor’s Weekend. (Ed. Note – Bachelor’s Weekend! Whoo!) In an effort to allay her fears that I will get drunk and bring home Puerto Rican hitchhikers to have carnal relations with I will typically pick up some extra hours on Bachelor’s Weekend (Ed. Note – Bachelor’s Weekend! Whoo!) to limit my free time and maximize my productivity.

One of the shifts I picked up was working crowd control Saturday at The Uptown theater for their midnight showing of The Disco Dolls in Hot Skin; a 1976 X-rated pornographic film starring John Holmes shot in 3-D. For whatever reason, 3-D 70’s porn are pretty popular screenings here in the Twin Cities. Those in attendance that are above the legal viewing age tend to be rowdy and drunk, and even worse, traveling in packs. But the primary reason I was brought in was to throw out anyone under age who was trying to sneak in the theater.

Now most people think that the best thing about working at a movie theater is the free movies. Some might choose the free popcorn and soda. Others are impressed with the celebrity meetings or the readily available swag. Now these are all great perks that help off-set the menial salary and the too often insanely anal retentive client base, but I am here to tell you the greatest perk in working at a movie theater is kicking out teenagers.

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When people think Carl Theodor Dreyer they think, “Who?” Which inevitably leads me to trying to mention The Passion of Joan of Arc to help them recall the name. A film which, let’s face it, the majority of people have never watched. So this week I dig up the Dutch filmmaker’s first “talkie”. Thankfully it’s about vampires, so it has way more appeal then any legitimate historical figure could ever hope to garner. And since their doesn’t seem to be a trailer for the film any where on the Internerd, I’ve decided that I will simply use Massive Attack’s video for Angel, which is set entirely to scenes from the film Vampyr, to act as the preview.