| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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- An excellent vampire show.
- An excellent trailer.
- An excellent Twitter thread.
- An excellent movie poster.
- The worst thing ever.
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You Should Watch Interview With the Vampire |
In my world, it is a rule more sacred than a religious commandment that if anyone uses the phrase "Spooky Season" either to me or in my vicinity, they are excommunicated from my life and immediately reported to the police for their violent crime. I'm not one to pleasure-shame. (Liking Hocus Pocus is not a personality.) Enjoy what you enjoy and make no apologies! (Your ranking of all the Nightmare on Elm Street movies is not interesting.) Good for you! (I'm sorry, you spent how much on a Halloween costume?) |
OK, the hypocrisy is unfair. I am not proud of it. I do desperately want to encourage people to follow their bliss…but when that bliss leads them to the Target seasonal aisle to buy haunted house decorations in late August—you know who you are—I am tested. It is my desire to be inclusive and celebrate anyone who has found community through shared passions. But come near me with anything pumpkin spice-flavored and be ready for it to be thrown in your face like one of those slushies on Glee. This extreme displeasure is especially unfortunate for someone who covers entertainment and, at this time of year, must steady himself for a deluge of his least favorite type of content. It's only gotten worse in recent years, as streaming services have seized on "Spooky Season" (part of my soul just died writing that phrase again) as a branding opportunity. The onslaught of horror films and supernatural TV shows is exhausting. To be on theme: I would call it a nightmare. So imagine my surprise to discover that one such new series, clearly timed to capitalize on Halloween interest, is among my favorite TV shows of the year so far. Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire is so, so good. This is entirely unexpected, as TV adaptations of existing IP have largely become tedious and uninspired. That the 1994 movie version with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise was garbage, aside from them being hot, certainly didn't inspire confidence. The notion that there could be anything new, interesting, or modern to say about vampires—especially the Anne Rice characters that have been so thoroughly mined—is a creative gambit on par with asking for a miracle. And yet, here we are. AMC's Interview With the Vampire is lush and operatic. It is gross and disturbing, opening the dam for the sanguine river of blood to flow the way that a show like this should: so that it is as gorgeous as it is upsetting. There are provocative ideas about race and power dynamics filtered through the identity politics of bloodsuckers that, remarkably, work. A modern-day setting against a global pandemic should be irritating. Instead, it's riveting. Then there's the thing that, in hindsight, makes it obvious that this show would win me over: They made it so gay. |
If you're an Anne Rice purist (it should come as no surprise that I am not), there are immediate changes you'll notice and may have strong opinions about. A reporter, Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), is conducting the titular interview. In this case, it's a re-interview; the first conversation was 50 years before, but was so filled with dishonesty and chaos that Molloy refers to it as a "fever dream told to an idiot." This is his second chance to get an actual confession—the truth—from his subject. That subject is Louis de Pointe du Lac, a vampire now living in the Emirates, who is recounting his time in New Orleans in 1910, where, as a mortal, he first met and made an unbreakable connection with Lestat de Lioncourt, the seductive French interloper who sinks his fangs into Louis. In the film, Louis was played by Pitt and Lestat by Cruise. Here, Jacob Anderson, best known as Game of Thrones' Grey Worm, is Louis, which means that Louis is Black. That adds nuance to Louis' identity crisis in turn-of-the-century New Orleans: an upstanding Black man in a white-dominated, still racist South, who is already tortured by his sexual confusion and desire for unattainable upward mobility. It also complicates the power dynamic with Lestat (Sam Reid, who is white, doing the perfect vampiric dance between eerily enigmatic and irresistibly magnetic). As Lestat entrances Louis, transforms him, and brings him into his world, questions are raised about how much of their connection is fated and how much agency Louis, given his race and the social norms at the time, really had. Then there's that most important—and most welcome—difference between this series and the film: Louis and Lestat fuck. Anne Rice fans have *opinions* about the sexual dynamic between Pitt's Louis and Cruise's Lestat in the film. Was it erotic enough? Was it progressively queer-coded? Was it not queer at all? Was it offensively heterosexual? Here, on the other hand, there's nothing up for interpretation. This is a romantic relationship, and these vampires are doing it. |
That both is and isn't the most consequential thing about this series. It lends context to Louis' willingness to develop such an intense bond with Lestat so quickly. "For the first time in my life, I feel seen," he says. That there's an explicit carnal connection between them amplifies the intensity of the other extremes of their lifestyle: the hunting, the killing, the drinking of the blood. It also makes you better understand why things between them become so complicated as the series goes on. In her piece on the series for Indiewire, Kristen Lopez wrote, "The relationship in the series is one of sex and, at times, love. But it's also filled with trauma, manipulation, and other toxic elements." Well if that's not the most accurate description of a gay relationship, I don't know what is. Because of the sweeping scope of the series and the way it luxuriates in the gruesomeness, violence, and unsettling nature of vampiric life, it should apply that same swirl of seemingly conflicting tones to the sex: elegiac, yet feral; swooning, yet gruff; grounded, yet fantastical. This Interview is also clever with its humor. It's almost as if the series is winking at our decades-long relationship to these characters. Louis and Lestat's queerness is taken seriously, but at the same time—and given how long so many fans waited for the sexuality to be so explicit—it has a sense of humor about the overtness of the gay sensuality, too. The desire to be "drained," for example, certainly carries a new connotation in this series. When Lestat converts Louis and brings him to his coffin for the first time, he cheekily tells him, "You can be on top." And what greater subtext could there be to being in the closet than being in the coffin? This Interview With the Vampire is as scary and as creepy as you "Halloween people" want it to be, as progressive as it needs to be, and as hottttttt as I want it to be. All that, plus it features the line of dialogue from Lestat that might explain life better than anything I have ever heard or read: "Every human thought boils down to three things: I want food; I want sex; I want to go home." |
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The Greatest Television in History |
I have roughly a million thoughts about this season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But none of those matter anymore, now that everything I hated about and was frustrated by this season contributed to the greatest three minutes of content I have seen this year: the reunion trailer. (Watch it here.) You may not watch RHOBH. You may scoff at the Real Housewives and everyone who loves them. It doesn't matter. This three-minute trailer is excellence. It is fireworks. It is cinema. The trailer is one shocking moment after next, to the point where it's almost overwhelming. It's like Lucy at the chocolate factory with the conveyor belt of bonbons, but it's gasp-inducing revelations instead. You almost can't keep up. |
In tribute to this masterpiece, here is every time I gasped while watching the RHOBH reunion trailer. When the time stamp says 9:47 pm. ("They missed happy hour" gasp) When Kyle says she wants to leave before the toast. ("Turning down a free drink?!" gasp) When Andy asks "Doug" if Kyle can leave. ("Who is Doug and is he single" gasp) The first time they show Lisa Rinna. ("They hired a Khloé Kardashian impersonator" gasp) When Kathy Hilton mentions Lisa Vanderpump. ("Ghost of Christmas Past" gasp) When Erika alleges that Dorit's husband once asked her if she was a porn star. ("They finally rendered Dorit speechless" gasp) When Sutton's cat sweater is brought up. ("It's called fashion" gasp) When Rinna says "put me on pause!" ("But actually do it" gasp) The half of a second when Worst Housewife of All-Time Diana Jenkins is shown. ("Lick my lips and gasp" gasp) When Garcelle rolls her eyes after Erika says she's going to get her $1.3 million earrings back. ("Erika really is a monster" gasp) Crystal's face after Kyle reads her over the usage of the word "violated." ("Merriam Webster" gasp) When Dorit learns that horses are used to make glue. ("The more you know" gasp) When Kathy says Rinna is making such a big deal about her meltdown because her contract is up. ("But now we said it" gasp) When Kathy says that Rinna is "the biggest bully in Hollywood and everyone knows it." ("Kathy got a debate coach!" gasp) |
I have spent the last week talking about Bros. The romantic comedy—the first major studio theatrical release with out gay men as the leads—epically underperformed at the box office, to an extent that didn't make sense given its positive reviews, word of mouth, tracking, and historic nature. Then again, maybe it did make sense. Who wants to watch gays in movies unless they're dying or played by straight people, am I right? I have talked through every element of it, with my colleagues, with people on Twitter, with my friends, with my barber… I still don't have a firm answer on why the movie didn't get the box office response it deserved. Was it because Billy Eichner isn't a big enough star? (Yes, but also no…Eichner is no less of a star than Kumail Nanjiani, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jason Segel, or Amy Schumer were when Judd Apatow produced comedy vehicles around them. But there is one factor that separates him from that roster…) |
So was it because of homophobia? (That's easy to say, but it also wouldn't necessarily be wrong to say. And it extends to the LGBT community, too, which, at least online, took a baffling glee in chronicling the movie's flop.) Was it a marketing failure? (Anecdotally, yes, which is also confusing. It's hard to believe that anyone who heard about the landmark nature of the movie and was annoyed rather than thrilled about it didn't also hear all the trumpeting of how well-reviewed and funny it was.) In any case, I'm tired of talking about it and still don't have a coherent thesis, mostly because of how incoherent the onslaught of Twitter opinion has been. So I am sharing this thread by Guy Branum, who stars in the film. He explains why it is so frustrating that people were apparently put off by how aggressively star and co-writer Billy Eichner implored the LGBT community to support the movie. The first few tweets are below, but I encourage you to read the whole thread here. |
We are so close to experiencing the cultural event of our lifetimes: Lindsay Lohan's first Netflix holiday movie. To protect myself against disappointment, I refused to believe it was real. But we now have a trailer for Falling for Christmas, which hits Netflix on Nov. 10. (Side note: That is far too early for Christmas movies. Have some respect for Thanksgiving.) There's a poster, too. This poster should be studied. It is the movie poster. I've never seen one more perfect. |
Two people are on the poster, but only Lohan is named. No notes. Men do not need credit. They've had enough. Because of all of the different fonts used, not a single word is legible besides "CHRISTMAS." All we need to know. Perfect strategy. Lohan and Nameless Man appear to be as tall as a house-sized Christmas tree. Falling for Christmas is a sci-fi fantasy film, who knew? And then there are the sleeves. Lohan's red jumpsuit sleeves are now iconic. They are history. There is Marilyn Monroe's Some Like It Hot white dress, Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's black gown, and Judy Garland's The Wizard of Oz blue gingham jumper. Now there is also Lindsay Lohan's Falling for Christmas bell sleeves. |
We Can't Have Nice Things |
It was "Mexican Week" on The Great British Baking Show this week. It was about as dignified and respectful as you'd expect. |
Remember when this show made news because of how refreshingly classy it was? |
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- Derry Girls: I don't think I've understood a word of dialogue on this show, but I've loved it so much. (Now on Netflix)
- Tár : Cate Blanchett is God. (Now in theaters)
- Let the Right One In: If you're going to watch creepy content this month, at least make sure it's good. (Sun. on Showtime)
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| Hellraiser: A terrible remake of a horror classic. Real original. (Now on Hulu) Amsterdam: Sometimes, Hollywood's most famous and talented people gather together and make absolute garbage. (Now in theaters)
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