OK...we got sold out of The Avengers on opening night, but we did manage to get into The Raven. What an odd movie. Being from Baltimore and loving Poe, I have been to the nooks of this city that still look as they did when he walked the streets, but none of them look like this movie. Filmed in Serbia and Hungary, it's not surprising that the flick looks quite European. The 1849 streets of Baltimore were full of brick and wooden row houses and the streets were paved with some hybrid of mud, brick or horsesh*t. Oh, well, so much for authenticity. I guess it's as much about Poe as Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter will be about Honest Abe. In any event, Edgar gets drafted by a detective to help hunt down a serial killer whose victims are killed like people in Poe stories. It's mainly a who-dun-it. The nice cinimatography is offset by the weirdly anachronistic plot. 1840's police with revolvers, late 19th century buildings...at least nobody had a cell phone. For the record --
Poe never did any police work.
He was married to his 13 year old cousin, not dating the daughter of a rich guy.
He didn't die as portrayed in the movie.
He did not have head or facial hair like John Cuzak.
There, I've said it. Don't expect too much and you might be entertained for a while, probably more than by The Avengers. Poe will live on much longer than this movie but it's as much about Poe as the Ravens football team are about poetry. His old and new graves in a great atmospheric cemetery in downtown Baltimore follow.
