Meet the Vampire Lestat

by Cláudio Alves

The best show currently on TV is coming for a third season. Though its renewal was only announced at the end of last month, shooting for the next chapter in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire seems well underway. At least, that's what one can surmise from the just-released teaser, where Sam Reid dons the Vampire Lestat's rock persona and sits down for a filmed interview. Moving from the literary-minded recordings of the first two seasons, the show is moving into the realm of concert tour mockumentary. One hopes that the updated format maintains the queer Gothic romance sensibilities that have earned it a small army of devoted fans. But of course, judging from the online reaction, the showrunners have nothing to worry about. The fandom is over the moon...

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NYFF: '71, Your Opening Weekend Nightmare

The New York Film Festival begins tonight. Here's Nathaniel on the Irish thriller '71 starring this year's breakout actor Jack O'Connell (see also: Starred Up, and Unbroken)

Rookie soldier Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell) is already breathing heavy when '71 begins. He and his fellow soldiers are deep in military drills, managing obstacle courses, target practice and running hard miles. Introductions are brief and rote as they meet their commanding officers, only one of whom drops the protocol for a little personality. Lt. Armitage (Sam Reid) attempts to win the new recruits over by admitting that's he's green in his position, too. This isn't comforting to everyone. Just as soon as we've begun the new soldiers get their orders and learn that they're not flying out but staying put in Ireland.

You aren't leaving this country." 

For some that sentence will be literal, and a fatalistic omen. But which country are we talking about? Whose country? Belfast in 1971, where the story takes place, was deep into "The Troubles," a bloody and decades long conflict over the identity of Ireland itself. [more...]

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