Nosferatu, the original Twilight movie.

I know what you're thinking.  Many believe that Dracula is the original Twilight movie, and while the novel Bram Stoker's Dracula was indeed written a full 25 years before Nosferatu took silent cinema by storm, the iconic Dracula film by Tod Browning was released 9 years after Nosferatu.  Making Edward Cullen's cinematic progenitor one: Nosferatu.
The 1922 F.W. Murnau masterpiece borrows quite liberally from the Dracula story, some might say it's nearly an exact copy.  It has the requisite beautiful innocent girl, Ellen, her naive intrepid fiance, Thomas, who travels from the fictitious city of Wisborg to Transylvania to assist the mysterious Count Orlock in purchasing real estate...very near to Thomas's own home.  Count Orlock is not the sleek mysterious vampire made famous in Dracula, nor is he a tortured young soul that glitters in the sunlight like popular vampires of today.  Count Orlock in an odd tall man with large batlike ears and long gnarled fingers, but his appearance doesn't keep him from traveling to Wisborg and wreaking his own strange havoc on those close to Thomas.  The ending is a definite deviation from the Dracula source material, so fans will have a surprise in store.
While silent films may not appeal to everyone, Nosferatu is undeniably a classic and the images are accompanied by a delightful score composed by Hans Erdmann.  It runs a very palatable 1 hour and 19 minutes, and the best part is that it is available for download through Overdrive's eVideo collection!

 

"The Way Back"...is walking.

This Saturday night's viewing was the 2010 film "The Way Back". With a running time of 133 minutes, this is a film that you need to settle in for, but the epic scenery and true story make it well worth it. Based on the book, "The Long Walk," this film tells the story of a group of culturally diverse prisoners held in a Siberian gulag in World War II and the harrowing escape and journey to freedom more than 4000 miles away. I have always heard it said that you gravitate towards what scares you, and reading all of Tom Rob Smith certainly didn't make Siberian gulags into summer camp, and this movie doesn't either.

One of the production companies responsible for "The Way Back" is National Geographic Entertainment, and it shows in nearly every frame, as the scenery is nearly it own character. The film marries a National Geographic landscape special with a historic documentary and adds great acting and compelling plot.
Jim Sturgess, one of the highlights of "Across the Universe", is every inch the starving prisoner and supposed Polish spy, he gives the film a solid lead. With Ed Harris (Apollo 13) as the wise American prisoner, and Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) as the girl on the run who joins the gang of escapees, the cast brings the story to life in some of the most sweeping cinematography.
"The Long Walk" is available in CDbook and hardcover.