Much has been written about the human soul, what makes it so special and unique. How some souls can be twisted or damaged or how they could be sold to the Devil. It has been the inspiration for poetry, prose, and much philosophical thought. But the very idea that it is too heavy to carry around and therefore could be stored to lighten the burden…well, that’s unusual.

It’s the very premise of the little film Cold Souls
, which was written and directed by Sophie Barthes. The movie opened to fairly positive reviews last year but was largely overlooked despite the strong cast and intriguing premise. A work of sophisticated science fiction, it’s also a dark comedy in some ways. The film was released this month on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Paul Giamatti portrays an actor named Paul Giamatti, who is struggling with his role in a production of [[[Uncle Vanya]]]. Worried about losing his job and feeling terribly burdened by life, he considers storing his soul after reading an article on this new business.

Imagine his surprise to see his soul is small, the size of a chick pea and bright in color compared the more voluminous and grayer souls on display. At first he feels freed but fairly quickly he also recognizes the emptiness in his life. His performance has gotten no better and now he’s lacking in basic emotion such as empathy.

At much the same time, we discover the logical outgrowth of a business that deals with souls. They can be bought and sold legitimately, but also trafficked illegally as seen with a Russian mule operation led by Nina (Dina Korzun), who has smuggled souls imprinted in her until she arrives in America and delivers them to the same firm, run by Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn).

Paul is unhappy so Flintstein quietly suggests he tries one of the imported souls. What neither realizes is that to make quota, the Russians are indiscriminately relabeling souls so he wants an artist but gets something else. When he finally decides to get his soul back, he learns it has been shipped to Russia, to Sveta (Katheryn Winnick), a model turned actress who just happens to be married to the head of the smuggling operation. On a trip to Russia to retrieve it, all the threads come together.

This is a terrific subject for a story and by keeping the focus largely on Paul, Barthes allows the audience to understand the daily complications of first having no soul then having the wrong soul.  She claims the idea for the film came to her from a dream and there’s an ethereal quality to some of the scenes so she has fully realized her concept.

Giamatti and Korzun are front and center in the story and both give solid, understated performances. Wasted in small roles, given too little to do are Emily Watson as Paul’s wife Claire and Lauren Ambrose as Stephanie, the lab assistant.

The disc comes complete with a short piece on the making of the soul extractor and several deleted scenes, one of which at least gave Watson more to do.

If only there were more movies that explored such engaging ideas without a lot of pyrotechnics, movies that could spark debate and better yet, thought.

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Vampires are everywhere these days. But long before we had Team Edward and the litany of prissy emo vampires that sparkle in the G-D sun… we had real vampires. They were in popular books, TV Shows, comic books, movies made from popular books, adaptations of comic books turned into movies, and even a comic book series adapted from a popular TV show based on characters from a movie! You get the drift. And throughout all of these various sucktastic productions, the tent poles of vampirism always held true (You getting this, Eddy?). Vampires are generally more pale than the Irish, and hate the sun more then old Jews. And furthermore, they have a thirst for blood worse than the republicans. But we kid, Edward. It seems some popular Vampires (like yourself) don’t stick to traditions. Some don’t even suck blood to survive! Don’t believe us? We didn’t either, until we came up with this list:

Count Duckula – Spinning off from the popular Danger Mouse series created in the U.K., came a vampire with who’d rather toast with a tomato than nibble on a neck. In the series, Igor whilst incanting the resurrection spell of his deceased master, was accidentaly provided ketchup in place of the ceremonial blood. Thus Count Duckula was born! Far more concerned with fame, fortune, and feasting on fennel, fava beans and fresh fiddlehead ferns, Count Duckula was known more for his fondness of broccoli sandwiches than being a creature of the night. And hey, even if he decided to switch menus? Fat chance! The poor duck didn’t even have fangs.

Angel & Spike – Joss Whedon took his video store lump of coal, and coaxed it into a diamond of a TV series. He did so first by fleshing out Buffy to be more than just “Pert. Wholesome. Way Lethal”. Better than that though, he introduced a pair of tragic vamps. Smokey-eyed, bleach-blond Spike and always-afflicted sorrow-souled Angel were both introduced into the Buffy show but eventually outgrew their roles there and turned into breakout anti-heros with a new show, and multiple comics. And what of their diet de-jour? Well, Spike (in the fourth season of the series) was implanted with a chip rendering his bloody biting habit incapacitated. And Angel? Well, cursed with a soul, he’s the vampire forced to pay the world back for the sins he committed earlier in life. Sure both these babe-magnets had their anti-hero appeal, but in the end, Angel ended up solving mysteries with some chick with a thing for bones, and Spike was revealed to be a rather poor version of Brainiac.

Blade – We could get into the comic backstory here…  how the brainchild of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan in the early 70’s was Eric Brooks. Brooks’ mother was ravaged by vampire Deacon Frost during his birth, thus granting him a swatch of vampiric powers. Of course, this rambles on, as most comic backstories do… But allow us to switch to the recent movie-marvel-verse version we’re all a bit more familiar with. Similar to his comic counterpart, Blade’s mother was attacked by a vampire prior to his birth, and due to it, was imbued with all the vampires powers, and none of their weaknesses; Save for the worst one around, the lust for human blood. But Wesley Snipe’s Blade is a tragic hero, choosing to exist off a concocted “formula” made by his mentor (Stick, aka the dude who opened for Johnny Cash back in the day…) rather than suck the blood from humans. The pros? Well, Blade looks super cool in his trench-coat as he lays waste to vampires ranging from the prissy Steven Dorff to the steroidal Triple H, all while having that “Gritty Hero with the Heart of Gold™” look abouts him. The cons? Well, three decent movies down, and Blade hasn’t really found his audience in the funny books just yet. Sucks, don’t it?

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