Vampire Awareness Commentary Part 4
2 Aug
This is the next-to-last crop. If you’re seeing this, WordPress fulfilled its promise to post this on time. Thank you, WordPress, for– functioning, I guess. I apologize for any slowness this week on blog-reading and emails, but we have company just now, and I’m probably detained with a martini somewhere. It’s a hard life.
So here we have an excellent selection of Vampire Awareness month movies for our lovable bloodsucking hosts Gianni and Liam to enjoy: Cronos, Interview with the Vampire, and Shadow of the Vampire. What’s not to love? Well, I’m sure they’ll find something, but I liked them all. Mild spoilers on the first two, but nothing major.
[If you're new to this idiotic exercise and actually want to know what the hell is going on, please see the first for an intro.]
CRONOS – Guillermo del Toro – 1993 (Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook)
Ever get so drunk you woke up licking blood off the bathroom floor? (DO NOT WANT.)
Gianni: Little girls are intensely creepy.
Liam: Yeah. You know what else is creepy? Purple peel-off skin. In the best way possible.
Gianni: I liked the insect angle, but the alchemy one* was brilliant.
Liam: Thumbs up for Del Toro on that one.
Gianni: The movie was a little slow, but rather good over all.
Liam: I would’ve liked it more if the end hadn’t deteriorated into classic bad movie decision making there in the end. “Hey, these guys want to kill me, I think I’ll take my creepy but affectionate granddaughter into their abandoned warehouse with me!”
Gianni: Fortunately she was more capable than he. And now she’ll haunt my dreams for days.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE – Neil Jordan – 1994 (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst)
This would taste like shit. But Lestat gets mad style points for it anyhow.
Liam: Well, Neil Jordan, you succeeded. That was definitely a movie about the saddest vampires I’ve ever seen, as promised.
Gianni: In so many ways.
Liam: It’s cool, though. It’s a good story, Claudia is amazing–
Gianni: Less creepy than the little Cronos girl, anyhow.
Liam: –and Lestat’s hilarious. Plus– fire!
Gianni: It was pretty, but almost painfully tedious. All that mooning and Lestat and Louis didn’t even fuck.
Liam: Her vampires don’t fuck. Well, I think they can, but it doesn’t, er, do them any good.
Gianni: Christ, that’s appalling. I almost feel bad for mocking Louis, now. Poor man.
Liam: Almost.
SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE – E. Elias Merhige – 2000 (John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier)
Eddie Izzard looks too good in makeup NOT to have played a prima donna silent film actor.
Liam: I’m going to find a Nosferatu coat. Unless it means I have to go into Hot Topic. In which case I’ll do without.
Gianni: Anyhow, it would defeat the point of being so pretty; people would see it coming. You’d have to chase them down.
Liam: Hell yeah. –wait, did you mean that to sound like a bad thing?
Gianni: Adorable, Liam. I enjoyed this movie. German cinema is always fascinating, and I don’t know how Willem Dafoe manages to be so over the top but so sympathetic at the same time. Someone should change him and preserve his genius.
Liam: I’d say that about Malkovich’s inherent crazy, too, but he’d probably bite me first.
Gianni: Did you mean that to sound like a bad thing?
They’ll wrap it up next time with 30 Days of Night (which I will be reviewing for the official VAM blog. Yay!), Let the Right One In, and Twilight. There’s still time to join in– check out the VAM Facebook page here.
*Full disclosure: My angle = alchemy. So yeah, they pretty much have to appreciate that. Awesome!
Well you mentioned the old tedium bit in ‘Interview with the Vampire’ – god I hate that film, it’s so bloody tedious, I really don’t like it at all.
Closed my eyes whilst reading about ‘Shadow of the Vampire’, as I haven’t seen it yet – I probably agree though…
Can Liam and Gianna review other films too please… I don’t want them to leave us when Vampire month is through.
I loved Shadow of the Vampire, and back in the 90s I was a mega Anne Rice fan (this comment will self destruct after you’ve read it – I hope).
Shadow looks like fun. (This is what happens when you don’t watch a lot of movies other than cartoons.)
I agree with Cate. I don’t want them to go when Vampire month finishes. There’s so much more out there for them to discover.
Mark, I thought it was cool when I was a kid, but now that I’m a grown-up (er, sorta) I so agree with G up there.
But yeah, I think we’ll agree on “Shadow”. And agree with them. For once, my head people are agreeing with me! Wooo!
Cate, please don’t tempt G to talk more about his opinions. I’ll never get him turned off. (No, seriously, I’m glad it entertains– I knew it’d be more entertaining than my views, but that isn’t saying much.)
I liked her back in the day too. Self-destructing in 5, 4, 3, 2…
Jamie, yeah, I’ll bet! Well I can recommend it, particularly if you liked Nosferatu.
Danielle, oh yes, they do like movies, too. Liam regularly tries to indoctrinate his snotty companion in the ways of sci-fi, too…
Thank you!