My thanks to my friend R...... for sending me the DVD .
Now vengeance really has a name. A fantastic Frank Castle/Punisher.
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Showing posts with label Posters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Posters. Show all posts
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Sunday, 18 May 2008
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE - THE FILM
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 film, based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film was directed by Neil Jordan, and stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Kirsten Dunst.Plot
In present time, San Francisco reporter Daniel (Christian Slater), is sitting in a room with a man named Louis (Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire. Daniel is unconvinced until Louis turns on the light and instantly appears in front of him, moving extremely fast. Daniel agrees to interview Louis, who recalls his previous life and his turn to darkness.
It is 1791, and Louis is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and child not caring if he lives or dies. The vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) attacks him but also offers him a chance to be reborn. Louis decides to take him up on the offer and Lestat proceeds to transform him into a vampire. Lestat begins showing Louis how to live the life of a vampire: sleeping in coffins by day and preying on unsuspecting mortals by night. Louis is not comfortable bringing harm to humans however, and opts for draining the blood of animals instead. Louis continues to defy every attempt that Lestat makes to turn Louis to the vampire lifestyle, having retained his conscience. A fed up Louis finally succumbs and bites his maid and then kills her. He burns down his estate and he and Lestat flee, now homeless.
While wandering the streets of New Orleans, the two continue to terrorize the public with Louis still trying to refuse Lestat's ways. Again Louis gives in to his blood lust and bites a young girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Lestat arrives at the scene and congratulates him but Louis takes off, disgusted by his actions. However, Lestat later takes him to the girl, who has become ill from the blood loss. With a promise to make her better Lestat transforms her too, as part of his plan to make her his and Louis's daughter to prevent Louis from leaving. Louis reluctantly accepts her but his scorn for Lestat grows.
Claudia, under Lestat, soon turns into a merciless killer, draining everyone around her of their blood, while all the time developing a strong bond with Louis as father and daughter. Thirty years pass and Claudia is left wondering why she is stuck in the body of an eternal child. Lestat explains that she can never grow up due to the effects of the transformation, which she resents him for. She asks Louis how she came to be and Louis takes her to the place where he bit her 30 years before. Outraged, Claudia expresses her hate for him too and walks away, leaving Louis by himself in tears. However, Claudia forgives him for the deed, citing him as "my love, my maker", showing their close bond. She wishes that they leave New Orleans but Louis knows Lestat would never allow them to leave. With that in mind, Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking blood from two dead children. Weakened, she slashes his throat and she and Louis dump his body in a swamp but he later returns, having drained the energy from crocodiles and other swamp life to survive. He attacks the two but Louis sets him on fire and flees to Paris with Claudia, leaving Lestat for dead.
In Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but he is still bothered by the question of how vampires and such an evil came to be. While walking the streets, he is met by a vampire called Armand (Antonio Banderas), who tells him that there are other vampires in Paris and tells him he knows the answers he has been searching for. With that in mind, Louis takes Claudia to see the vampires' show at the Theater. Armand later takes him to their lair and offers him a place by his side while telling him Claudia must leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved daughter and turns to leave. Armand warns him that the vampires know about Lestat's murder and that it is forbidden for vampires to kill another vampire. Louis leaves.
Brad Pitt as LouisBack at his residence he finds that Claudia has brought home a woman, intent on making the woman, named Madeline, her mother, realizing that Louis may leave her to join Armand. Claudia demands that he transform Madeline but Louis is reluctant to do so. He gives her what she wants and tells her they are finally even, having breathed his last breath of mortality still within him by turning Madeline into a vampire. Soon after the Parisian vampires abduct all three of them, imprisoning Louis in a metal coffin meant for all eternity and exposing Claudia and Madeline to sunlight, destroying them. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and is horrified and grief-stricken to find that the vampires have killed her and Madeline. He later takes revenge upon them all, save for Armand, and burns them alive in their own theater as they sleep. Armand arrives in time to help him escape and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand did nothing to prevent the vampires from murdering Claudia, and leaves him for good.
Decades pass with Louis exploring the world by himself, alone. He later finds Lestat, still alive but forever traumatized. He asks Louis to rejoin him, like old times, but Louis rejects him and leaves. At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Daniel, the interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see what is truly like to be like him, but Louis grasps him in a fit of rage and vanishes. Daniel hurriedly runs out of the hotel room into his parked car and drives away, feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette player. Just then, Lestat attacks him and takes control of the car. He then offers Daniel "the choice [he] never had."
Cast
Tom Cruise ... Lestat de Lioncourt
Brad Pitt ... Louis de Pointe du Lac
Kirsten Dunst ... Claudia
Stephen Rea ... Santiago
Antonio Banderas ... Armand
Christian Slater ... Daniel Malloy
Virginia McCollam ... Whore on Waterfront
John McConnell... Gambler
Mike Seelig ... Pimp
Bellina Logan ... Tavern Girl
Thandie Newton ... Yvette the Creole slave
Indra Ové ... New Orleans Whore
Helen McCrory... Whore #2
Lyla Hay Owen ... Widow St. Clair
Lee E. Scharfstein ... Widow's Lover (as Lee Emery)
Domiziana Giordano ... Madeleine
F:Louis is grief-stricken over the death of his wife and child.
B:Louis is depressed and blames himself for the death of his brother.
F:After Lestat 'sires' Louis, they sleep in separate coffins.
B:In the novel, Louis and Lestat initially share a coffin.
F:Lestat never appears in Paris after Louis sets him on fire in New Orleans.
B:After Claudia and Madeleine are destroyed, Louis encounters Lestat at the Théâtre des Vampires, where he has testified to Armand that Claudia had tried to kill him.
F:Claudia cuts off her hair in a fit of rage in order to try and change her appearance. It grows back immediately afterwards.
B:Lestat's mother does this in "The Vampire Lestat" after Lestat changes her into a vampire in order to save her from death.
F:When Lestat drinks from the twin boys Claudia has given him as a "gift" (both have been drugged with laudanum, Claudia says she used "brandywine"), he is severely weakened as drinking "dead blood" has negative effects on vampires.
B:It is not the dead blood that weakens Lestat, it is the fact that Claudia has drugged them with absinthe and laudanum.
F:At the end of the film, Daniel the interviewer is attacked in his car by Lestat, who implies that he'll turn him into a vampire.
B:Daniel leaves Louis intending to seek out Lestat in New Orleans. He is turned into a vampire by Armand in The Queen of the Damned.
F:It is implied that Claudia and Louis travel to various countries without finding any other vampires.
B:Louis and Claudia find a race of mindless vampires in Transylvania.
F:After the burning of the Théâtre des Vampires, Louis rejects Armand and travels the world alone.
B:After the burning of the Théâtre des Vampires, Louis and Armand travel the world together, until parting ways in New Orleans.
F:There is no mention whatsoever of any of Lestat's family.
B:Lestat's father is still alive, yet blind and near death.
F:Lestat viciously kills the prostitutes in the hotel room, which in turn upsets Louis, making him wander the streets of New Orleans in a depressed daze, until he comes upon Claudia and feeds on her.
B:Lestat kills the prostitutes in the hotel after Louis feeds on Claudia. Claudia is in an orphan hospital, on the verge of dying from her wounds when this scene takes place.
F:Claudia appears to be around 11 years of age when she's turned into a vampire.
B:Claudia is said to be no older than 5 years old when she's turned into a vampire.
F:The Vampires cry regular tears and do not sweat.
B:The Vampires in the books weep tears of blood and their sweat is also tinged with blood.
F:After Louis burns down his manor, he and Lestat seek refuge in a "filthy cemetery".
B:After Louis burns down Pointe Du Lac Manor, he seeks the help of a beautiful plantation master by the name of Babette. He convinces her to give him and Lestat shelter from the sun. The next night, she attempts to kill Louis, thinking he's from the Devil himself.
Casting
British actor, Julian Sands was considered to play the role of Lestat by Rice herself, but because Sands was not a known name, being only famed for his performance in A Room with a View, he was rejected and the role was given to Tom Cruise. This was initially criticized by Anne Rice, who said that Cruise was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler" and the casting was "so bizarre, it's almost impossible to imagine how it's going to work." Nevertheless, she was satisfied with Cruise's performance after seeing the completed film, saying that "from the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me" and "That Tom did make Lestat work was something I could not see in a crystal ball," yet Cruise's casting remains controversial[citation needed].
River Phoenix originally was cast for the role of the interviewer before he died.[1] The film was dedicated to him.
Soundtrack
Interview with the Vampire soundtrack by Elliot Goldenthal was nominee for the Academy Award, but it lost the Oscar to The Lion King (soundtrack by Hans Zimmer)
Trivia
In the Spider-Man novelization, Harry tells Mary Jane that he is reading Interview with the Vampire. Mary Jane replies that she saw the movie and the little kid in it creeped her out. Kirsten Dunst plays Claudia in Interview with the Vampire and Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man.
References
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles at the Internet Movie Database
Interview with the Vampire at Rotten Tomatoes
Complete list of actors who were considered for roles
THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS
The Fearless Vampire Killers (Original titled Dance of the Vampires) is a 1967 movie directed by Roman Polanski and written by Gérard Brach. It has been produced as a musical, named Dance of the Vampires.Plot
This film takes us into the heart of Transylvania where Professor Abronsius and his apprentice Alfred are on the hunt for vampires. Abronsius is old and withering and barely able to survive the cold ride through the wintry forests. Alfred is bumbling and introverted. The hunters come to a small Eastern European town seemingly at the end of a long search for signs of vampires. The two stay at a local inn, full of angst-ridden townspeople who perform strange rituals to fend off an unseen evil.
Whilst staying at the inn, Alfred develops a fondness for Sarah, the daughter of the tavern keeper Yoine Shagal. After witnessing Sarah being kidnapped by the vampire, Count von Krolock, the two follow his snow trail, leading them to Krolock's ominous castle in the snow-blanketed hills nearby. They break in to the castle, but are trapped by the Count's lecherous hunchback servant, Koukol. Upon being taken to see the count, he affects an air of aristocratic dignity whilst he cleverly questions Abronsius about his interest in bats and why he has come to the castle. They also encounter the Count's son, the foppish (and homosexual) Herbert. Meanwhile, Shagal himself has been vampirized and sets on his plan to turn Magda, his beautiful maidservant, into his vampire bride.
Despite misgivings, they accept the Count's invitation to stay in his ramshackle gothic castle, where Alfred spends the night fitfully. The next morning, Abronsius plans to find the castle crypt and kill the Count, seemingly forgetting about the fate of Sarah. The crypt is guarded by the hunchback, so after some wandering they climb in through a roof window. However, Abronsius gets stuck in the window and it is up to Alfred to kill the Count, which he feels unable to do. He has to go back outside to free Abronsius, on the way coming upon Sarah having a bath in her room. She seems oblivious to her danger when he pleads for her to come away with him.
Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in The Fearless Vampire Killers.After freeing Abronsius, who is half frozen, they re-enter the castle. Alfred again seeks Sarah but meets Herbert instead, who first attempts to seduce him and then, after Alfred realizes that Herbert's reflection does not show in the mirror, reveals his vampire nature and attempts to bite him. The two flee from Herbert through a dark stairway to safety, only to be trapped behind a locked door. They also realise night is falling. As they watch horrified, the gravestones below open up and they see that there are many vampires at the castle. The Count appears, mocking them and tells them their fate is sealed. He leaves them to attend a dance, where Sarah will be presented as the next vampire victim.
However, the hunters escape by boiling water under a cannon and blowing off the door, and come to the dance in disguise, where they grab Sarah and flee. Escaping by horse carriage, they are now unaware that it is too late for Sarah, who bites Alfred, thus allowing vampires to be released into the world.
Cast
Jack MacGowran as Professor Abronsius
Roman Polanski as Alfred, Abronsius's assistant
Ferdy Mayne as Count von Krolock
Iain Quarrier as Herbert von Krolock
Terry Downes as Koukol, Krolock's servant
Alfie Bass as Yoine Shagal, the innkeeper
Jessie Robins as Rebecca Shagal
Sharon Tate as Sarah Shagal
Fiona Lewis as Magda, Shagal's maid
Production
Coming straight on the heels of Polanski's international success with Repulsion, the film was mounted on a lavish scale - color cinematography, huge sets in England, location filming in the Alps, elaborate costumes and choreography suitable for a period epic. Previously accustomed only to extremely low budgets, Polanski chose some of the finest English cinema craft artists to work on the film: cameraman Douglas Slocombe, production designer Wilfrid Shingleton. Polanski engaged noted choreographer Tutte Lemkow, who played the titular musician in Fiddler on the Roof, for the film's climactic danse macabre minuet.
During filming the director decided to switch formats to anamorphic while filming on location. Flat scenes already filmed were optically converted to match.
In his autobiography, Roman Polanski discusses some of the difficulties in filming The Fearless Vampire Killers: "Our first month's outdoor filming became a series of ingenious improvisations, mainly because the last-minute switch from one location (Austria) to another (Ortisei, an Italian ski resort in the Dolomites) had left us so little time to revise our shooting schedules. The fact that we were filming in Italy entailed the employment of a certain number of Italian technicians, and that, in turn, bred some international friction. Gene Gutowski (the film's European producer) rightly suspected that the Italians were robbing us blind."
Despite numerous production headaches, Polanski is said to have enjoyed making the film. His cinematographer, Douglas Slocombe, was quoted by Ivan Butler in his book, The Cinema of Roman Polanski, as saying, "I think he (Roman) put more of himself into Dance of the Vampires than into another film. It brought to light the fairy-tale interest that he has. One was conscious all along when making the picture of a Central European background to the story. Very few of the crew could see anything in it - they thought it old-fashioned nonsense. But I could see this background....I have a French background myself, and could sense the Central European atmosphere that surrounds it. The figure of Alfred is very much like Roman himself - a slight figure, young and a little defenseless - a touch of Kafka. It is very much a personal statement of his own humour. He used to chuckle all the way through."
When the film was first released in the United States, MGM wanted to market it as a farce by saddling it with a longer title - The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck. The director was less than pleased. Not only did Martin Ransohoff, the American executive producer, change the original title from the more eloquent Dance of the Vampires, he also chopped out 16 minutes of footage, redubbed some of the actors' voices, and tacked on a pre-credit slapstick cartoon sequence as well as a scene of the famous MGM lion transforming into a grinning, fanged vampire.
Though it was critically panned on its initial release, The Fearless Vampire Killers has garnered latter-day praise for its vivid atmosphere and audacious balance of broad comedy with Hammer Films-style horror. The eventual murder of Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family gang has lent an additional notoriety to the production.
This film was the source material for the wildly popular European stage musical Tanz der Vampire. It is peppered with numerous references to King Richard III of England, who even appears in the ball scene.
Style and Themes
The Fearless Vampire Killers was Polanski's first feature to be photographed in color and using a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The film's striking visual style, with its snow-covered, fairy-tale landscapes, recalls the work of Russian fantasy filmmakers Aleksandr Ptushko and Alexander Row. Similarly, the richly textured, moonlit-winter-blue color schemes of the village and the snowy valleys evoke the magical, kaleidoscopic paintings of the great Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall, after whom the innkeeper in the film is named.
The Transylvanian village in the film appears to be a kind of Jewish shtetl. The terror that the tall blond vampires inflict upon the local Jewish peasant community there can be interpreted as a faint analogy for the pogroms carried out by the Cossacks against the Jews in Tsarist Russia[citation needed] — or even a metaphor for the German occupation of Poland during World War II and the Holocaust.[citation needed] If the latter interpretation is accepted, The Fearless Vampire Killers may have been inspired (in part) by Polanski's own traumatic childhood experience in Krakow. The film certainly seems to evoke the sense of a perfectly innocent and joyous childhood experience that is suddenly threatened and despoiled by malign outsiders.
The film is also notable in that it features Polanski's love of winter sports, particularly skiing. In this respect, The Fearless Vampire Killers recalls Polanski's earlier short film, Ssaki.
Soundtrack
External links
BLOOD FOR DRACULA - ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA
Blood for Dracula (also known as Andy Warhol's Dracula) is a 1974 film directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol and Andrew Braunsberg. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry, Stefania Casini, and Arno Juerging. Roman Polanski and Vittorio de Sica appear in cameo roles.The film was shot on locations in Italy and was partly improvised as the filming of Flesh for Frankenstein by the same team had been quicker and less costly than expected.
Plot synopsis
A sickly and dying Count Dracula must drink virgin blood to survive travels from Transylvania to Italy. With a shortage of virgins in Romania and thinking he will be more likely to find a virgin in a Catholic country, Dracula befriends Marchese di Fiori (played by de Sica), an impecunious Italian landowner with a lavish estate falling into decline, who wants to marry off his daughters to a wealthy aristocrat.
Of di Fiori's four daughters, two regularly enjoy the sexual services of Mario, the estate handyman (played by Dallesandro), a bemuscled Marxist with a hammer and sickle painted on his bedroom wall. The youngest and eldest are virgins, but the latter is thought too plain to be offered for marriage, and the youngest is only age fourteen. Dracula obtains assurances that all the daughters are virgins and drinks the blood of the two who are considered marriageable. However, both are non-virgins and their tainted blood make Dracula ill. Mario realises the danger to the youngest daughter in time and ostensibly rapes her for her own protection. But in the meantime Dracula has drunk the blood of the eldest daughter, turning her into a vampire. After more carnage, the peasant Mario commands the estate.
Themes
External links
Friday, 16 May 2008
THE RULING CLASS
The Ruling Class is a 1972 film adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman (played by Peter O'Toole) who inherits a peerage. The co-stars include Alastair Sim as his uncle, an addled (but not insane) bishop, William Mervyn as Sir Charles, Coral Browne as his wife, Harry Andrews as the 13th Earl of Gurney, Carolyn Seymour as Grace, James Villiers as his dim-witted, foppish cousin and Arthur Lowe as Tucker the butler. It was produced by Jules Buck and directed by Peter Medak. Peter O'Toole described the movie as "a comedy with tragic relief".[1]
Synopsis
Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney, at first he thinks he is God and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and sleeping upright on a cross. When faced with unpalatable facts (such as his identity as the 14th Earl), Jack puts them in his "galvanized pressure cooker" and they disappear. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles, marries him to his own mistress, Grace, in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails when Grace actually falls in love with Gurney.
Gurney gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife (Coral Browne), who hates her husband and befriends Gurney just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Gurney's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder, to persuade him to cure Gurney quickly.
Herder attempts to cure him through intensive psychotherapy, but this is to no avail, as Gurney so thoroughly believes that he is the 'God of Love' that, ironically, he dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as the rambling of lunatics. The night his wife goes into labour with their child, Herder makes one last effort at therapy; he introduces Gurney to a patient who also believes himself to be Christ, or, as the patient puts it, "The Electric Messiah" (Nigel Green), who subjects an unwitting Gurney to electroshock therapy. The plan is to use the electroshock to (literally) jolt Gurney out of his delusions, showing him that the two men could not both be God, and so he must be operating under hallucinations. The plan works, and, as Grace delivers a healthy baby boy, Gurney returns to his senses and reclaims his true identity proclaiming "I'm Jack, I'm Jack".
Sir Charles, still intent on stealing the lordship, sends for a court psychiatrist to evaluate Gurney, confident that his nephew would be sent to an asylum for life. He is once again thwarted, however, when the psychiatrist discovers that Gurney was a fellow Old Etonian, bonds with him, and declares him sane.
Gurney soon relapses into mental illness, however, this time believing himself to be Jack the Ripper. Now a violent psychopath with a puritanical hatred of women, Gurney murders Sir Charles' wife in a fit of enraged revulsion when the aging woman tries to seduce him. He frames the Communist family butler, Tucker, for the murder, and assumes his place in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favour of capital and corporal punishment. Ironically, the speech is wildly applauded, and the lords have no idea that it is the ranting of a madman, in contrast to society's reaction when Gurney believed he was Christ. That night, he murders Grace for expressing her love for him.
The story's ending is ambiguous; it is left open to interpretation whether Gurney gets caught, or escapes detection to kill again.
Production, release and reaction
It was the official British entry at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972, but divided critics. The New York Times described it as "fantastic fun" and Variety called it "brilliantly caustic", but the Los Angeles Times called it "snail-slow, shrill and gesticulating" and Newsweek said it was a "sledgehammer satire". Despite mixed critical reaction to the film, O'Toole's performance was universally praised and garnered numerous pretigious awards and prizes, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Reportedly, when United Artists, its North American distributor, told producer Jules Buck that it would be cutting the film extensively for US release, Buck punched the company's London representative and bought the film back. Avco Embassy then bought distribution rights and cut its 154-minute running time by six minutes.[2]
In 1974, following an earlier-than-normal TV screening of the film on BBC TV, which broke a gentlemen's agreement allowing a 'window' of theatrical distribution before any TV screening, the UK's Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association (the theatrical distributors' association) recommended its members black all future movies produced by Jules Buck.[3]
An unsuccessful stage version of the movie opened in Philadelphia in 1997 with some plot changes, for example Jesus was changed to the Dalai Lama.[4]
Awards and nominations
1972: National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, USA - Won NBR Award (Best Actor) - Peter O'Toole
1972: Cannes Film Festival, France - Nominated for the Palme d'Or
1973: Academy Awards, USA - Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) - Peter O'Toole
1973: Golden Globe Awards, USA - Nominated for the Golden Globe for Best English Language Foreign Film
1972: Cannes Film Festival, France - Nominated for the Palme d'Or
1973: Academy Awards, USA - Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) - Peter O'Toole
1973: Golden Globe Awards, USA - Nominated for the Golden Globe for Best English Language Foreign Film
References
2-^ The Independent on Sunday (London), 23rd July 2001. Retrieved on 2007-09-23.
3-^ British Film Institute 'Key Events' list for 1974. Retrieved on 2007-09-23.
4-^ Variety review. Retrieved on 2007-09-23.
External links
A film clip in which the O'Toole character claims that he is Jesus Christ and presents a "miracle" can be viewed here.
Criterion Collection essay by Ian Christie
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruling_Class"
Thursday, 15 May 2008
THE PRINCESS BRIDE - MOVIE POSTER
That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you."
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