Flickery

So, Tar-jhay had $5 DVDs the other day, and I considered "Blazing Saddles" but ended up buying "Interview With the Vampire". Based on a recent conversation with E: comedy is just no fun to watch alone, mostly, and I've got my Big Bang Theory DVDs when I need that anyway, so I went with the excessive choice. Anyway, I haven’t seen Interview in years, but no self-respecting nerd of my stripe(s) really ought to be without it, so impulse purchase inducement: successful.

It’s not a bad little flick - even enough to give one a dose of long-forgotten goodwill for Tom Cruise. I’m not religious about Rice, so as a thing unto itself, the movie’s good for an hour or two diversion. Brad Pitt’s and Tom’s problems enunciating around their teeth, in some scenes, is still distracting, but Pitt’s attempts to use speech at all in some of his performances kind of is distracting, so there ya go. He is a very hit-or-miss actor, and this one may qualify as a miss apart from the fact that, visually, he is PERFECTLY cast here. And that's actually of key importance, all aspects considered.

What I had forgotten about is how genuinely impressive Kirsten Dunst was in this movie. She’s directed impeccably, of course, but her own presence remains delightfully creepy. There's more than shock value to the memorable moments she amassed in this production, and the shocks she gets to deliver have aged better than the rest of the piece.

As to that - well, it's hard to consume anything Ricean without some awareness of her overwhelming presence. At the time the film was released, of course, she was famously obstreperous about casting Cruise as Lestat, and then all over again famously fulsome in her praise once she'd seen his work. But beyond that is the Rice machine itself. Her writing at that period was wildly marketable, and in some ways it's surprising she hasn't been adapted more than she has. Her commercial works (not that titillating stuff she did under her nom de plume) was going like hotcakes, and she was shuttling between vampires and Taltos monsters and the seemingly endless supply of seductive redheads she was coming up with at an almost alarming pace.

Then she remembered she was Catholic, and there was a to-do about that too.

Where Anne Rice goeth, so goeth flap (and a bit of smoke too). So any outlet from her universe carries with it viewing lens impossible to ignore. Vampire teenagers are the thing today, but the chic Lestat and company created was of a different order. Elitist, self-conscious, self-indulgent to the Nth degree, and to the point of view of many people, utterly ridiculous, the angst-ridden beauties she was churning out were more than books, they were models in a way the new Mormon vampire will never be, for all their hooplah. Yes, girls (and, um, grannies - ew) want to "be" whatzername from Twilight, sure. But Ricean vamp lovers were living a wide spectrum of dreams, and having a high time of it. Corset sales went through the roof in the nineties. These fans weren't kidding, nor merely identifying. They were bidding for actual participation.

Even if only in affordable taffeta.

So Interview, even though I talk above about taking it as its own entity, can't ever be independent of the excitement around the characters, the fashion at the time, the pre-9/11 state of pop culture, the reaction against grunge, the kinds of fantasy that were current and aren't anymore. It's a cinematic mullet, this film, in some ways, and I take it that way too - with some affection, and perhaps the same measure of down-the-nose peering that once, people who were way too "into" this stuff once looked at those with factory-made lacies. Like so many of the subcultures I've witnessed, I was never a real member of this group. But like so many people, too, I did read the books (admitted), I did kind of allow for the excesses, I suspended disbelief and let this Decadent World of these ghoulies engulf me.

All this said, with Dunst at the top of the heap: I think Banderas may actually be my new favorite part of the movie. His wig remains execrably awful - almost inexplicable really - but his own jump-in-the-deep-end commitment (and, yeah, acknowledged personal adorableness; the guy's too endearing, though I didn't know it back then) and resemblance to Peedah are impossible (for me) to fault. Aw.