nterview with the Vampire

Great movie. It's been a great one to watch for me since it first came out.

What is there to say that hasn't already been said? It is perhaps one of Brad's best roles, and Tom Cruise, say what you will, but he can really knock out a performance. Excellent excellent movie with superb one liners. It's almost appropriate for kids under 15, with the exception of one scene involving a young girl in Louisiana who drinks too much and touches herself inappropriately. Other than that - I think it is okay to watch with teens - I just really don't like the sexual parts in early in the movie.

The first film adaptation of Anne Rice's flagship novel never fails to impress me. Although there are a number of discrepancies from the book the movie has enough gravitas on its own to maintain staying power as an impressive storyline in its own right. The surprise performance of Tom Cruise in his portrayal of the vampire Lestat defied the expectations of both Ms. Rice and movie goers alike and is a rare instance of the actor maintaining the poise he demonstrated in "Born on the Fourth of July" as having the potential to be a legendary icon were he to maintain this level of commitment to all of his roles. This movie undoubtedly owes much of its success to Cruise who not only brings Lestat to life from the pages but also adds an air of the character's mischievous nature bordering on evil due to his full acceptance of vampiricism. There have been mixed critiques of Pitt's role, many of which allude to a belief he demonstrated the same level of apathy that led to the awkward and often considered disastrous performance in "Meet Joe Black." I disagree and tend to think this was his first truly distinguished role before "Legends of the Fall" because he faithfully captured Louis's somber and morose reluctance to embrace the necessity of nightstalking to maintain his existence once transformed. Some may consider Kirsten Dunst's performance somewhat over the top but it is a gifted casting of a promising prodigy child star. The scenery and costumes are excellent given that this movie predates CGI and its cheapening effects for bombast. The storyline is pretty easy to follow although Pitt's narration seems a bit mellow and forced during the abrupt transitions during decades. The portion focusing on a Parisian vampire troupe in Paris has a bit of a non sequitur sentiment that lacks a smooth segue, but it provides a necessary explanation of the greater existential questions of vampirism. Antonio Banderas has a very independent role as Armand that resembles the characters in Rice's series in no form or fashion but is captivating regardless, although his role as an explanatory elder lacks satisfactory completion to substantively provide the audience with more than a predictable mythos for nosferatu in general. The scenery for Spanish Colonial New Orleans is also much more engrossing than nineteenth century Paris but it isn't much of an issue for the themes in each chapter. The only real drawback of the film is that it loses most of its momentum halfway through and becomes somewhat of a lumbering philosophical account involving navel gazing and devolves into a vampire massacre with primal notions of undead justice that could be misconstrued as an attempt to liven the overly analytical storyline. This film has its share of violence, onscreen blood, and some rather explicit nudity in a few places, and much of the obscure film noir mood may be somewhat depressing for general audiences who aren't attracted to historical periods or fantasy genres involving supernatural beings. But its fairly realistic in terms of suspension of belief for "what if vampires really existed?" and does not devolve into the comic book extravagance typical of other films such as the "Dusk til Dawn" series that mirror the choreographed antics of Hong Kong martial arts action films. Mostly this movie should appeal to contemplative cerebral luminaries that like to ask questions about the meaning of things and can maintain focus on a plot that takes some time to let its audience follow it to a conclusion.

A classic ❤️

Loved this movie and it was a great quality

What if there's ONLY one thing that we suffer from, and this one thing is responsible for all the sickness and vulnerability and dysfunction that afflict humankind? What if this one thing is also the reason we fail to grasp the wisdom we've inherited from our ancestors? Who feeds on the living? The dead do. Who brings the nightmare to life? The sleeping do. Who sees beauty in the soulless lie in the mirror? The blind do. Who sucks the blood out of an enlightened future? Narcissistic vampires. Who is more ignorant, the communicator, or the listener who fails to grasp the wisdom of what's been revealed? What if our ancestors invented the "Vampire" as a metaphor to describe "narcissism", or in other words, the romantic aspects of "ignorance"? And now our modern age makes glamorous romantic movies that mock us to sleep with the very subject of our ancestors' warning. Did you come here only to be entertained? Like a naïve actor in a fatal charade, you are lured to the stage by a promise. Strip you bare, expose your naked gullibility, and suck your blood before an audience who paid a fee to witness your demise and applaud and cheer at the bliss of their own blind irony. Are you not entertained? You are beautiful; the rose-warm glow of your lips and the sparkle of your eye are rivaled only by the sensual shape of your style. You are a natural splendor, and it's obvious that you've learned how to earn the admiration of the popular and influential. You are rare and exquisite and entirely different from the ordinary; you deserve only the finest of what life has to offer. You are perfect, and I am cupidity, here to seduce your vanity, now lend me your neck and I promise to make you perfect forever. I will tell you what to wear, whom to love, and which mask to smear upon your face. I will do your thinking for you, and, in exchange, I'll give you a world of guiltless pleasure and confident laughter and privileged indulgence. You will feed on innocence and corrupt all that is good, thus you will grow to fear the true light of day, but you will also grow cunning and deceptive, and the ugly truth of you will thus be hidden forever by the delicious tricks that shadows play in the dark …now ...lend me your neck. We are the creatures of our own understanding. Kill the light and the dark outside is invited in. If the natural purpose of magic is to reveal what only magic knows, is it not then the trick of magic to hide itself in exactly what is unknown? In the beginning there was the WORD. There’s a natural magic in the words we use, like when we describe ourselves as “mature, responsible, honest, conscious, beautiful”, our conscience is alerted and expects us to ACT accordingly, but our conscience doesn't sheepishly adopt society's definitions, and when we don’t ACT in accord with the WORDS, our biological system nags at us in an effort to realign us with truth. If we go on ignoring the appeals of the conscience, ignorance festers in our system and drains our true nature like a karmic vampire. To kill the light of the truth inside is to invite the darkness in. If the natural purpose of ignorance is to help us feel confident in our environment, is it not then a function of ignorance in our modern age to reflect only a cheap plastic consumable in the mirror? A love of confidence is a lesson of irony unlearned. Intuition flows eternal from the fountain of our innocence; innocence is literally consumed by our confidence ...Irony fills the cup equally for friend or foe. With your head on straight your neck is thoroughly protected. The WORDS that ignorance uses are “free choice”, the WORDS of reality are “ironic slave”. Ignorance is the default of our for-profit social system and your "free will" was sucked out of you in the age of your innocence. The REAL choice is to listen to your conscience; it won’t regurgitate the sheepish words of fleeting trends or glamorous movies, and nor will it charge you a fee for the wisdom it reveals ...you are born with a conscience and it knows by instinct the true nature of freedom, and it knows the enlightened purpose of love. Are you not truly empowered? If our words are not our own, we cast the dying spell of stagnant facts. The harmonious song that nature sings is the living truth of magic in the present moment …and I am no more a teacher than is the spirit of an innocent child who cries out to the nurturing instinct of your true nature. Did you know we humans were once free enough in our minds to contemplate the dangers of ignorance and create insightful metaphors to inform an enlightened society? Did you know that not so long ago we loved one another as a general condition of our social character, and it was possible to walk out your door secure in the knowledge that you'd be treated by others in a way that exactly mirrored the love that you respected upon yourself? Richen, don't cheapen. Ennoble, don't enable the delinquency of your own species. (DUH) Best a luck out there!

One of my all time faves

I hadn't seen this movies since it came out in the theatres but wanted to watch it again. I had trouble finding it, but once I had it I was not disappointed in it.