By Hope Madden

The coolest vampire – and among the first – ever to grace the big screen gets a makeover this weekend, courtesy of composer Andrew Alden, and you can check it out at the Gateway Film Center (1551 N. High St.). At 2pm and 8pm Friday, March 29, Alden and his band The Andrew Alden Ensemble will perform a live accompaniment to F. W. Murnau’s magnificent silent film Nosferatu (1922).

An adaptation of Dracula, Nosferatu follows a vampire count as he sets his sights on a fair maid, relocating from his far off castle to a bustling European city and leaving blood drained corpses in his wake.

The film remains a horror mainstay for two reasons. Murnau’s immaculate direction was so far ahead of its time, wasting no shots and creating an atmosphere unseen at the time, that his film still feels relevant and fresh today. More importantly, he cast the bald, ratlike Max Schreck as the count, and in his bony hands, the creepiest vampire of all time came to be.

Andrew Alden agrees, and the 23-year-old composer felt inspired to use the story and Murnau’s undiluted vision to create a new musical accompaniment.

“I’m a huge fan of Nosferatu,” he says. “I watched it as a teenager, in the middle of the night watching terror classic movies. I was frightened and I thought it was wonderful. It’s just a great vampire movie, not like any vampire movie of today. “

Years later, studying music at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, an idea began to take root.

“I always loved movies, and I remember a light bulb going off,” he says. “I thought, why don’t I make my musical language take the form of the stories of these movies? I’ll take my music and, instead of using a story I come up with, I’ll use the story of the movie itself.”

Looking for a film in the public domain, Alden began his experiment with George Romero’s 1968 zombie classic Night of the Living Dead. Composing a new score to match the film took him about two months.

“I find I’m getting faster,” Alden says. “Nosferatu was particularly easy because it seems as though F. W. Murnau really thought everything out. Not too many shots seem like filler. Everything is driving the plot forward. The music was really easy to write.”

His contemporary chamber music ensemble, consisting of violin, viola, electric guitar, drums, piano, synthesizer and assorted other percussion, tours the country with five films Alden has scored. Along with Nosferatu and Night of the Living Dead, his band accompanies Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Lost World (1925), and Battleship Potemkin (1925).

“Even though we do five movies, I think the favorite is Nosferatu,” he says. “because the movie’s so great.”

Tickets for the Friday matinee run $10 in advance or $15 at the door, while the 8pm screening are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.

Originally published by Columbus Underground

By Hope Madden

Wildly original filmmaker Quentin Dupieux’s newest “no reason” film Wrong opens in Columbus this weekend. The director’s feature debut, Rubber, depicted a car tire on a murderous rampage.

I’ll pause and let that settle in for a second.

Dupieux’s laid back, loony style finds a slightly more accessible form in his latest effort. Wrong is a languidly paced, surreal comedy that follows mustachioed Dolph Springer (Columbus native Jack Plotnick) as he searches for his missing dog, Paul.

It seems straightforward enough, but rest assured, you have no idea where this is going. Importantly, Dupieux seems to.

“Quentin strikes a really interesting tone in this movie,” says Plotnick, who took a few minutes this week to speak with Columbus Underground about his new film.

The two had worked together previously on Rubber, which led to the second collaboration.

“He wrote the role in Wrong for me,” he says. “It was such a gift, and I was so touched and moved and excited.”

“He didn’t want me to feel that I needed to do the schtick I often do in some sitcom or Disney kids’ show. He wanted me to keep it very real,” he says. “And the funny thing is that the absurdity is so much clearer when people are treating it as though it’s really happening.”

While Wrong is certainly bizarre, Plotnick sees a lot of differences in the two films. “There are no exploding heads,” he laughs. “But there is a machine that can read the memory of a dog turd. It’s definitely off the wall, but in very thoughtful, absurdist way.”

Plotnick credits Dupieux’s craftsmanship as the reason his films are so strangely powerful. The filmmaker writes, directs, edits, often scores and photographs his own films.

“He’s his own DP (director of photography), and he’s a fantastic artist with a camera,” says Plotnick. “What I love about Quentin is that he loves breaking the rules of cinema, and this movie really does that. It’s liberating and refreshing, and I’m glad that audiences are catching onto it.”

The actor has been busy since Wrong wrapped, filming another indie, shooting another spot of his recurring role on The Mentalist, and even writing and directing his own movie.

“The big thing in my life is that I’ve directed my first feature film,” he says of Space Station ‘76. “It’s a SciFi dramedy that takes place in the future as we had imagined it in the 1970s, and it stars – this is the amazing thing –  Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Matt Bomer and Jerry O’Connell. And I could not be happier with how it came out.”

Space Station ’76 will premier next year at the Sundance Film Festival. In the meantime, you can catch Plotnick in his quest to find his dog this weekend at the Gateway Film Center. And while Plotnick won’t be able to get back to Columbus himself this weekend to see the movie, he’ll be represented.

“My sister’s actually bringing like 20 people there for opening night.”

Originally published on Columbus Underground