DESIGNS HIDALGO AMY LEVINE DESIGNS

ULLA DARNI

LANCASTER MOSER

Arts Life

At The Movies

Escape To Fangs

Ann Arbor native David Goyer pens the script and
directs latest in "Blade" film series.

BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

other while attending the University
of Michigan.
Goyer graduated from Ann Arbor's
lade returns as the rough,
Huron High School and became a
tough vampire hunter in the
bar mitzvah at Reform Temple Beth
action-packed third and final Emeth in Ann Arbor, where he
film in the Blade film series, while
taught Hebrew school kindergarten
he continues to prance through the
until his late teens.
pages of the action-hero Marvel
After his parents divorced — his
comic books — all thanks to David
mother, Linda, is Jewish and his
S. Goyer, a Jewish Michigander who
father is gentile — the family
turned to writing as "pure
(including brother Jeff) embraced
escapism."
Judaism more than ever.
The "escape" apparently has been
Short and slender and admittedly
successful because Goyer's in the
uninterested in sports, Goyer began
midst of a lucrative career as a writer writing short stories in high school
of comic books and screenplays,
to "escape reality," and he became
especially vampire stories.
quite good at it, winning some
Goyer wrote all three of the Blade
national writing awards. He struck
movies, which included Blade and
deals with some of his teachers, who
Blade II, and directed the latest,
allowed him to turn in short stories
Blade: Trinity, opening in area the-
for extra credit in exchange for for-
aters Wednesday, Dec. 8. Produced
going
0 certain homework and class
by New Line Cinema, it stars Wesley projects.
Snipes as the day-walking vampire
"But when it came time to attend
hunter, who has fought against the
college, I'd had enough of U-M and
vampires in the cover of night, with
the maize and blue, and I just had to
the rest of the world unaware of the
get away to a different part of the
ongoing
vvar.
country," Goyer reflected in his suite
0
b
In the crosshairs of the FBI, he is
at Birmingham's Townsend Hotel.
now forced out into the daylight to
He earned a film degree at the
join up with a clan of human vam-
University of Southern California,
pire hunters he never knew existed
then found himself in Los Angeles,
— the Nightstalkers. Along the way,
at age 22, without a job.
he follows a trail of blood to an
"Most of my relatives were horri-
ancient creature that is hunting him
fied that I was knocking around the
— the original vampire, Dracula.
West Coast and spending what little
The film has everything for a
money the family had, with no real-
bloodthirsty audience: excellent spe-
istic goals," he said. The lone
cial effects, harrowing stunts with
exception was my mother, who
chase scenes, loud music and even
always encouraged and supported
vampire dogs. In the most classic
me.
vampire scene, Dracula ironically
His mother was right. Within a
wanders into a vampire-themed store month, Goyer had sold a script for a
in New York and appropriately sucks Claude Van Damme action film —
the blood out of the female propri-
and his professional writing career
etor's neck.
was under way. He's written 35
Complementing the action is some screenplays, and his work on the
Blade films led to writing the Blade
clever, snappy dialogue by Goyer,
whose humor almost turns a few of
stories for Marvel Comics, which
the characters into standup comics.
also features the Hulk and
Goyer, 38 and single, came to
Spiderman.
town recently to talk about the
He also formerly wrote for Justice
movie, and the visit was a home-
Society Comics, which included
coming of sorts. He was born in
many classic action heroes. "The
Ann Arbor where his parents —
comic books are a haven for Jewish
from Ohio and Illinois — met each
writers," Goyer observed. "Most of

B

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