Christian Slater

REVIEW: Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Vampire Louis (Brad Pitt) tells his life story to reporter Malloy (Christian Slater). A story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

Interview with the Vampire is one of those “classic “films of the genre that I’ve naturally been aware of for years but have never watched it. With a new TV show adaptation being released and it being spooky season I thought it was about time to see what all the fuss is about.

Overall, I did like Interview with the Vampire quite a bit, especially the whole gothic vibes it has going on. Plot-wise it felt kind of lacking at times and that tended to be when Tom Cruise’s Lestat was off screen for extended periods of time.

Lestat is a great character and Cruise looks like he’s having a great time being an almost campy vampire who loves killing and who is often exasperated with Louis, the guy he turned. There’s a scene where Lestat dances with a corpse and it’s just great. Feels kind of weird and out of place but also then again it doesn’t as Lestat is such a larger-than-life character you just kind of roll with it.

Louis is kind of a woe is me, kind of character so it’s a bit of a shame that he is the lead character and focal point for Interview with the Vampire. His sulkiness does make sense as part of him hates what he has become and how he has to kill in order to survive but it’s also made clear that vampires can be killed so if he was really craving death and freedom from this life, he was now stuck in then he could’ve done something about it ages ago.

Kirsten Dunst plays Claudia, a young child who is turned into an immortal vampire, and she gives a really impressive performance. How she appears to be an adult at such a young age is amazing and she outshines Pitt in nearly every scene they’re in together.

So really, the cast and vibes are what made Interview with the Vampire for me. When Lestat is off screen for a while it does start to feel like a bit of a slog as Louis just isn’t as charming or as interesting as the other two vampires that make up their odd little family. Because while Louis is lamenting about being a vampire, Interview with the Vampire is pretty gay and features Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise adopting a little vampire girl. It’s a strange family but it works for the most part – until Lestat and Louis start yelling at each other again.

Interview with the Vampire is kind of a strange film as it mostly tries to be super sombre but then you have Cruise’s Lestat camping up the place. It’s a drama, it’s a romance, it’s horror but it’s also comedy. Amazingly all those things work together for the most part and give you a film that somehow has stood the test of time. 4/5.

REVIEW: Ask Me Anything (2014)

ask-me-anything-posterWhen Katie Kampenfelt (Britt Robertson) decides to take a year off before college her college adviser suggests to her that she could start a blog to give her year off some structure. Her blog becomes her outlet for her adventures in love and sex with boyfriend Rory (Max Carver), college professor Dan (Justin Long) and her boss Paul (Christian Slater).

Ask Me Anything is an interesting drama as not only does it shine a light on a young woman who is pretty confident in her sexuality but it also looks at social media and the blogging platform and how it can make a relatively normal person internet famous. There’s a lot of people commenting on Katie’s life and her choices, she reads every comment both positive and negative and is unashamed of her exploits. She judges her readers just like they judge her.

Katie is a bit of a mess. She is having relationships with three guys almost simultaneously and when there’s guys who just see her as a friend and actually like her she wants nothing to do with them. Katie knows there’s something probably wrong with her and out of all the people in her life she goes to her former boss with a dodgy past Glenn (Martin Sheen) for advice. Sheen and Robertson have great chemistry and while their relationship isn’t the main focus of the film, it is one of the elements that really shines.

Ask Me Anything doesn’t shy away from sex and Katie also smokes, both regular cigarettes and drugs, and is probably on the verge of becoming an alcoholic. That doesn’t mean it has all the answers. Ask Me Anything does have some twists and turns and lives you wanting more answers and more of a tied up, simple ending for Katie. But life isn’t simple and if there’s one thing Ask Me Anything shows is that people keep secrets and you never know everything.

Ask Me Anything is an interesting coming-of-age drama that doesn’t give you all the answers and may leave too many loose ends for some viewers. Still, it is worth watching for Britt Robertson’s brilliant performance and she has great chemistry with any actor she’s paired with. 3/5.

Fun fact: I watched Ask Me Anything after I saw it on Netflix because the director’s name was Allison Burnett and thought I could watch it for the #52FilmsbyWomen challenge. Turns out that Allison Burnett is a man (Allison is a name I never realised could be for both genders) so I felt a bit conned because thinking it had a woman director made me watch Ask Me Anything sooner than I probably would’ve. But as you can see above, I did enjoy Ask Me Anything, I was just a bit annoyed I couldn’t add it to my #52FilmsbyWomen list on Letterboxd.